Chapter 47: Building Acquired

  Town Notification System.

  A Town-Central Building has been constructed within Town limits. New options available.

  Sigil Lake’s first building has been raised. All buildings provide certain bonuses depending on the materials used, location, style, or any other factors.

  Unnamed building has been raised. The building is designed for Hospitality/Crafting/Brewing/Trading/Management/Faith. No bonuses available, please choose primary and secondary specialisations.

  Town Management System.

  Resources | Inhabitants | Trade | Upgrades | Buildings (!) | Management (!)

  Theo eyed the information passed on to him from the system, knowing Wen and Willam must be seeing the same things. They had plenty to discuss, and seeing Grace’s rise to her prominent position in town as well, she’d have to join. First, the matter of the specialisations of the building—of which there could be two, based on the system message. Which should they choose? What sort of bonuses would each choice provide? Theo had his own ideas, but his limited knowledge continued to be a splinter in his finger. He didn’t want to decide by himself, but being informed hurt no one.

  Next on the agenda would be to look through the new options and people to invite to their town. Buildings would start popping up every few days without a bigger project such as the Barge going on, be they houses or workplaces. Theo expected an influx of people would arrive in short order, though he’d at least have a say in who and why.

  Then, the next step in the town’s development would have to be decided. The town-central building was a milestone, nothing more. For a prosperous city to one day stand where they stood now, an endless cascade of similar or grander milestones would challenge them, Theo was certain of it. Preparing for them with due diligence and deciding the order they would tackle them would be key. He eyed his friends standing a short distance away. Wen and Willam’s eyes glazed over while the builders looked at their work with prideful eyes. Then the fiery-spirited hostess, part of the founder’s council, spoke up.

  “We get to choose?”

  The builders turned to face her with questioning expressions slapped on their faces, almost disbelieving.

  “Theo! Willam—Oh, there you are. Come, quick! Emergency council meetin’, now!” She’d not noticed the tall farmer standing right beside her. Theo nodded, unsurprised, and headed over to them.

  “We really get to choose the specialisations?” Willam then asked, eyeing the builders themselves.

  “Really? They should be decided randomly when more than one option is available. The plans said five would be available, so there should be one primary and secondary specialisation,” Hank…argued?

  “There are six, yes,” Wen said. “But we get to choose among them, both the primary and secondary.”

  Hank turned to Theo. With an initial shrug in response to the disbelieving stare, Theo felt he had conveyed his own cluelessness in a decent enough manner. The farmer himself then worded the unasked question:

  “Can we choose because of this System, or because of Arcana’s deed, do you think?”

  Wen’s eyes narrowed, pointed at nothing as she furrowed her brows. “Arcana could also be the culprit. I didn’t think of that. Anyway, it matters little in the end, does it? We still don’t know what bonuses each would provide for a building such as this, so we’re choosing at random either way, aren’t we?”

  “Of course not,” Theo said. “The bonuses must be tied to the specialisations, right? So, what bonuses are usually provided?”

  Hank’s brow mimicked Wen’s as his hand touched his cheek and chin in thought. Bella interjected.

  “Usually a Town-Central Building is purely management-specialised and rarely is there a need for a tavern or rooms for rent, much less the more specialised brewing rooms we designed together with Wen. None of us has ever been part of the government utilising the buildings either, so we wouldn’t know which bonuses the building provides them or the surrounding area.”

  Hank agreed with a nod. “Things like this are often just the council, governor, mayor or otherwise, and the owners of the establishment that knows about. Most times, the bonus is for the building itself, and knowledge about it can be detrimental for the business taking place within. Almost all town-central buildings are built solely for its governmental body to reside or work from, as Bella said, so even if it was usually general knowledge, this building is…unique.” He said the last word with a prideful smile on his face as he looked up at the Barge’s walls, seeing Arcana’s giant head looming over them. His arms reached around Bella’s waist, pulling her into himself with gentle care.

  In the end, even the builders didn’t seem to know what their building was even capable of, so to speak. At Theo’s questioning, Hank also informed him that the first building a construction plan created would have its bonuses randomised—usually, that is—but after that, those same bonuses would apply to the same plans, even similar ones. There would have to be a big redesign for a similar building to provide other bonuses than the ones this building would get. Unless that had changed in Sigil Lake as well.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Everyone, including the other villagers, wanted to look inside, so they paused the meeting for a moment. The shade of blue that had lingered for an entire week was gone, but in its place was magnificent woodwork, expertly and meticulously built. Upon entering the building’s front doors, a lobby—its floors a warm tan, like the outside, but somehow a shade or two deeper—greeted them. A counter stood welcoming them ahead, its giant countertop looking like one seamless piece of the thickest tree Theo had laid his eyes on—and not seen around Sigil Lake—which also curved around the corner of a back wall and continued as a bar top in the dining area placed around the same corner.

  A winding staircase was to the counter’s left, heading upstairs to where the rooms filled the entire second floor—twelve rooms in all. It was enough for every villager living in Sigil Lake, but each room had two beds. There were no mattresses, no luxury at all, really, except that of privacy, which they had all lacked for over a week now. A row of houses, ghostly blue in their planned state, littered the hillside to the west already, between the lake and the forest, which would be built in time and would form the residential district. More plans were being designed, but which to focus on first was up to the council.

  The rooms could wait, and the large party of eager villagers first headed into the tavern area, following the lobby’s counter. The shade of the floor, almost like lacquered wood, was the same, but the walls in the dining area were almost white in their paleness, reminding Theo of plaster more than wood. Veins and marks of the trees of which they were made still revealed themselves, though, but Theo had seen nothing like it before.

  Whilst most stopped to familiarise themselves with the tavern, the builders and the council, sans Grace, headed through a set of doors leading into a kitchen. This was where Hank said his first words after entering his most recent building.

  “Without stone or metalwork, all we could do was build shelves. A proper kitchen should have a skeleton of steel and stone floors, so spills don’t seep into it. As you might expect, without either, there are also no proper cooking apparatuses. In time, we can alter the room to add these things in, and it won’t take long, but we had to finish it with what we had for the plan to work as intended.”

  He sounded almost apologetic. It wasn’t his fault that Sigil Lake had nothing but wood as a resource. Theo shared a smile and a nod with him, but Wen spoke up before he could.

  “Are you kidding? You’ve done more than excellent work here! It is no fault of yours that we don’t have basic resources.”

  “We’ll get right on fixing that,” Theo then promised, gaining the approving nod of Wen.

  With that said, the group headed back out after taking a brief look at the empty pantry and the shelves void of ingredients and spices. Before this kitchen, or rather the tavern, was up and running, it would be nothing but a coin pit. Even then, without guests or paying customers, it wouldn’t be profitable. The villagers weren’t even getting paid for their work, so how would they pay for proper meals? Founding a town with nothing was quite a challenge.

  Theo noticed a hatch behind the staircase as the tour group headed back to the lobby, the other villagers heading upstairs whilst Theo, the council, and the builders headed through a door to the left of the stairs.

  “What’s down there?” he asked, pointing to the hatch.

  Bella chuckled. “Nothing. Not yet. Wen wants a cellar, but we’ve no stone for walls, so it’s put on hold for now. Like your well last week,” she teased.

  Theo grew red in the face at the mention of it. That blasted well. He’d only realised after magicking a person-sized hole in the ground; he wasn’t making a well at all. The others teased him about it even now. Theo had overcomplicated things, but it had come from a place of care and nurture. Sure, a box of water might be well enough, but Theo had come from a modern world—whenever he pictured mediaeval life, wells popped up in his mind as if that was the only way to get water.

  The group continued with wide smiles on their faces after seeing Theo’s reaction and soon found themselves in the business-related portion of the building. Another counter faced them, and behind it a winding corridor featured more doors, giving access to a council chamber, treasury, meeting rooms and the like. Most of the rooms were pretty same-y, but an ordered town hall was a functioning town hall.

  A wide book, open at its centre page, lay on the table in the council chamber, catching Grace’s attention. She dashed to it and placed her hand on it. An apparition somewhat like that of the construction plans laid out around town appeared, blue and eerie. It showed no structure like those did, however. What this projection showed was a rather familiar menu; the Town Management System, except with a bit more finesse behind it. Theo’s system was nothing but text, after all—this seemed to accept touch as Grace pushed her hand onto a blinking box with the word ‘Management’ in its centre, causing the menu to shift.

  “Is this how a town is normally managed?” Theo asked.

  “Aye, this book is connected to the world and all other towns. We can hire, set up trades, taxes and the like—if we didn’t have the system you provide,” Wen said.

  “Looks similar.”

  “There doesn’t seem to be anything new,” Grace said. “But it would be good to know we’re all looking at the same thing.”

  Theo agreed.

  They continued, leaving the book be. The winding hall soon led to another threshold, where the brewing and crafting specialisations stemmed from. There was no counter, for there would be no guests, only workers practicing their crafts. Mainly Wen, Theo assumed, as she was the only one around with a fitting profession. Finer woodwork was possible at the lumberyard, but the tools would serve better in a crafting hall. A wall enclosed half of the area along the exterior wall of the building, where vents led outside. Brewing often caused uncomfortable smells, which is why that half of the crafting area had a wall. It also required precise temperature control, which was easier to manage in an enclosed environment.

  The group continued yet again, ever walking the building’s bending halls. They returned to the tavern, coming full circle. More doors led toward the centre of the building, namely the outside, so they went there next. The sunlight was still bright outside, but it didn’t reach them upon exiting the building due to the lean-to roofs providing shade for the tables and chairs placed at rest upon them. The outdoor eating area was beautiful despite its lack of neat arrangements or decorations, with one obvious exception. They looked around, finding a centre of a deep green circle of grass encircling the shadow of the goddess looming over them.