Ben read the text describing the Energy Enhanced Evolution Chamber add-on.

  Add on comes with two features: advanced management system and external user capabilities (one city portal node included, more can be added).

  They would have to see what the management system did. But the external user capabilities were intriguing. What might it mean?

  It wasn’t clear, but it seemed to indicate that people from other cities—or at least one city to begin with—would be able to use the chamber with the help of a portal.

  In the spirit of helping humanity everywhere, that was certainly worth considering, but the cost of 5,000 SCs seemed very steep, and Ben wasn’t sure he could justify that investment right now.

  He discarded it for now and decided to discuss it with the Council at one of their next meetings.

  It was time to do some office work and prepare for the ceremony to honor their dead, including Retelling, later that day.

  ***

  It was midday, and Ben was exhausted. The ceremony the previous day had been good, he felt like it had brought the community further together, but also draining. Ben had been shocked when he saw his mother for the first time after her tiering up process, she looked as he remembered her from his youth.

  In the morning, they had conducted a mission to evacuate 79 people from a village in Greenland. One of the larger evacuations they had done so far. It had gone smoothly, as the village had been at serious risk of running out of food, given the lack of deliveries from elsewhere. Quite a few people had experience with hunting and had already expressed their desire to join the Protectors. They would have to go through the selection and training processes, but it boded well.

  One thing that made Ben very happy, on reflection, was how well the people from all over the world worked together and formed a community. Whether people were from Patagonia, the Himalayas, Alaska, or elsewhere, they pulled in the same direction. In the end, they were all just people.

  Howard, their local sociologist and integration manager, had reminded him that they needed a ‘listening session,’ and he would follow through, but maybe there was an opportunity to combine it with the introduction of their new economy.

  That was also the topic of his next meeting. Adam was expected to come back the next day, but he had spent some time thinking about the topic since their last session, and he wanted to provide some input to Madeleine before she and Adam presented their final recommendations.

  “Thanks for seeing me, Madeleine. I just had a couple of points I wanted to leave you with. I am sure you have already thought of everything, but just to be sure…

  “First, I like the auction idea, but there is a risk that you get into some self-perpetuating loop where those who win the first auctions make so much money that they can dominate subsequent auctions, so that is something we need to build in.”

  Madeleine nodded. “Sure. We have already planned for some safety measures such as performance clauses, but we can also add something to the process where winners of auctions will need to outbid others by an ever-increasing margin. Or we could, of course, just ban them, but the first mechanism has the advantage of also being market-based.”

  “I will leave that to you; it was just something I thought about. Second, the start-up phase for many of the businesses is likely going to be difficult, after all, how can you build a business that needs cores, such as the herb garden, if you don’t have any money. You said that essentially everything belongs to me right now, so I would like to establish the Protector Fund where people can get Credits or Cores for a small share of the business. We can then later reinvest the profits from that into more businesses and so on.”

  “That is a very good idea. We will take that into account when modeling the economy.”

  “Lastly, we currently fund a large part of the additional infrastructure we build from converting Credits to Settlement Credits. We need to make sure that that can continue. So when setting prices and taxes, please assume that at least 70% of our income from cores is available for investment into growth and does not get eaten up by the ongoing costs of operations.”

  Madeleine swallowed at that point, and you could see her thoughts racing, trying to assess the implications of those boundaries. She nodded slowly.

  “We will make it work somehow.”

  “Excellent, many thanks. I am sure this will be great.”

  ***

  Ben sat in the afternoon sun in one corner of the training field.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  There had been so many different sources of inspiration from the Draknik incursion that he needed to take some time to structure his thinking. He wouldn’t be able to get to the bottom of them at this point but at least reflect on the different aspects while they were fresh.

  The Mind attack that the Drakniks had launched was one such thing. He was again grateful for [Palisade of the Mind] and that he had kept the Witch of the Dead dungeon for his people to build resistances. The question was whether there was more?

  He had been too busy to start out on the second Mind Triune perk, but he was quite confident that he would find a way to increase his Mind attribute to 20. Should he use that opportunity to find a Direction that would fortify his Mind further, or was there maybe an option to also go aggressive?

  Maybe purely theoretical right now, but he wanted to ponder how that attack had felt.

  Next he spent quite some time reflecting on his leadership style and ability to drive morale—in the Protectorate but also with the fighters they had met on the volcano.

  He had no illusions that he had done a great job, but he was reasonably happy with his approach of trying to lead by example. He thought he had even done a decent job at not trying to do everything on his own.

  Within the Protectorate there were lots of people who had an almost unhealthy level of respect for him. He needed to make sure that that did not get too extreme.

  Anyway, there were ways to improve, and he had perks in that space that could use an evolution. Something to work on, now that [Frenzy] was gone.

  He would discuss his insights on his fighting style in detail with Barry—there was lots to build on. Fighting against Tier 2 opponents for the first time had been enlightening, and he felt it had been one puzzle piece that had prevented him from making more progress in that space.

  As he opened his eyes he noticed that the eagle had settled down not far from him. He had been using constant attacks from Dire Wolves and others on the settlement as a form of open banquet. But in fairness, he had also helped fight some of the Energy-born creatures and had not eaten more than one Energy core per day. Even though that was probably already more than Adam would approve of.

  “I think you need a name. I can’t keep calling you ‘eagle.’ What do you think?”

  The large bird briefly flicked its wings, then settled down again.

  “Hmm, I think you need a proud name. A mighty name!”

  He came up with various options, but most were bad puns related to him being a Golden Eagle. Then he remembered the Mens Sana in Corpore Sano poem that the professor had recited for him so many weeks ago.

  The shining example the poem highlighted was Hercules. A true hero of myth.

  “How about Hercules?”

  The eagle screeched, likely because Ben kept interrupting his afternoon nap. Ben felt it fit anyway.

  “Good, Hercules it is.” He got up. “Let’s go home.”

  ***

  It was late at night and Ben stood on the palisade looking towards the large group of people—many kids among them—making their way across the clearing towards the gate.

  Adam had finally returned to the settlement.

  He stepped down to greet them and gave Adam a brief hug as they met.

  “Last time you didn’t come home at all and this time you brought a lot of people with you, can’t you find a middle ground?” he said in mock outrage.

  Adam laughed. “It is good to come home, I can tell you that. We made a deal with Simonston, and this is one of the outcomes. But let’s get those people settled and we can catch up tomorrow morning.”

  Just a few hours later the council sat together in Ben’s office.

  “So, tell us about the deal you made,” Ben was eager to understand the details.

  “It is a three-part deal. The first is simple: if we have surplus food, we will deliver it to them without any cost. One thing for us to note, given that our population has grown quite significantly—now over 700—we might want to consider an additional greenhouse. It would also be great to have buildings better suited for children’s homes and also a school. The expenses add up, and I have seen you bought a House of Healing, which also cost some SCs. I am sure it will prove very beneficial, but it means we currently are not as flush with money as we once were.”

  Allison shook her head. “We might not have as much money right now, but one positive aspect of the recent events is that we have a lot of people that have gained quite a lot in strength, which means we can have more teams running the dungeons and therefore harvest more cores.”

  Ben weighed in. “It is true that we have spent a lot on apartments and some other things, but compared to the past we are still rich. I think your risk aversion is getting the best of you. Last time I checked we still had tens of thousands of Credits banked.”

  Adam continued. “That is… probably true. Anyway, the second part is a trade agreement. They are willing to buy any number of weapons and armor we can make available. I have structured this—transparently—so that initially prices will be quite high and we, as the Protectorate, will make the trade. Later, individual crafters or traders can undercut us at whatever price they want. I thought that made sense given that we currently have a shortage of goods, but they have very few people who can do anything with the cores yet. They are also slowly getting crafters, but they are much, much less advanced than ours.

  “Lastly, people. They have more people in need than they can take care of, and we need to grow—so it works out. We will take forty orphans and similar folks; we get a caretaker for every five of them. Given that we already have orphans I negotiated a few more this time, we also get twenty people suited for the Protectors from a background-, willingness-, and values-perspective, and their families. So, in total I brought 107 people, which includes two lost people who we met along the way.”

  “Wow, that was quite the update. And how often will we take on new people?” Ben asked.

  “That is, of course, up to us, but currently it is monthly. Once we grow, we can accelerate it, and if there are emergencies we can, of course, also pause it.”

  “Good. I also have news. As a reward for the incursion I got a new building. It is called the Energy Enhanced Evolution Chamber. We will know more details once we have built it, but the key benefit is that it allows people on Tier 2 to create and evolve rare perks at the cost of Energy cores.”

  Barry rocked up out of his chair. “What? That solves one of our biggest issues!”

  “You can’t just drop bombs like that on us, son—our old hearts might give out,” Allison was having fun with looking more like Ben’s older sister than his mother.

  Ben grinned. “Yes, it is pretty cool. There is also an add-on that can be bought, but it is outrageously expensive. Anyway, should we go and build it?”