Town Builder - Chapter 17

Chapter 17

The human air mage would be here in two days. Excellent!

The human shipwright would be here in three days, good. Once we had a ship trading would be much easier. But did I need sailors for the river?

The ETA for the gnome cook was six days. This was going to be tricky. She was a grand master cook and I needed something to keep her here. My thought was I would give her 50% ownership in the inn and hopefully access to the expansive and varied garden behind my house would be enough. I was fairly confident the inn could be completed in time except we were still short on some lumber for furniture and finishing touches on the building. Another problem that needed solving. Guess my scorpion expeditions needed to be put on hold for now.

The giantkin archer was also six days away. When he arrived I would feel much better about our defenses. I was assuming he would be at least level 40 since he had at least three master level skills. Maybe between him and Galena we could start harvesting the lumber in the forest on the other side of the river?

The elementalkin alchemist was due in ten days. That was unfortunately a long wait but maybe it was good. It would give me time to build an alchemy shop. I would sketch out a nice shop with a residence above on the second level tonight. And hopefully the alchemist could make use of the scorpion tails I had collected.

My enchanter was 13 days away. The female sun elf was the most important recruit. If she could work with Sanso and make the translocation stone it would make my life a lot easier. I would need to make sure she had an excellent house ready to try to persuade her to stay. I reread the sun elf race description in the wiki and sun elves were the nobles of the elven race. I hoped our backwater town appealed to her. I decided I would build her a small tower adjacent to the plot of land I was planning on for the library.

I returned my attention back to the auction. I went to the town store to get six gold coins so I could place my bids. After retrieving the coins I went home and settled in at my drafting table and opened the auction interface.

Damn, already 232 bids! Other players were getting active out there! There were 47,945 NPCs available though so no shortage yet.

I thought for a bit and perhaps I was overreaching a bit. Once my new NPCs came I would have to pay them and I didn’t really have a stable income. Maybe this time I should focus more on trade skills to build income? Maybe one more soldier and the rest trade skills? OK one soldier, three trade skills and one farmer. I would save one slot in case something came up and I was also hoping the Inn would raise the quality of the village, giving me more slots.

First the soldier. I already had two high level ranged warriors but I also had a ton of horses. I wanted someone with riding, armor and a melee weapon. Basically, a knight. I selected the skill sorter and then temperament. Only seven options. Well, seven options that had those three skills as their top three. I couldn’t view any skills they might have beyond their ‘top 3’. Let’s see, one undead, one kobold, one goblin, two humans, one elf and one dwarf. I discounted the first three due to race. Not because I was worried if they would fit into the town but more so if they had to travel here they probably wouldn’t reach Malcum safely. Then I deselected the dwarf as I just couldn’t see I dwarf riding one of massive mounts, how would he even get in the saddle? That left the two humans and the elf. Hmmm, the humans had the same last name and were the same age, 28. Possibly twins? They both had the same skills obviously but one had Armor: Heavy as his primary and Blade: Medium as his secondary. The other had it reversed. One also had a family of four. I decided to bid on both, so much for plans of one warrior.

I steeled myself away from combat NPCs to crafting. The bids for combat NPCs was fierce and I already had my first two. I stopped after two filter attempts and seeing the brewer skill. Well, I had an inn. I needed ale, right?. There were only four experts and only one with the temperament I was seeking. He was a beastman: bull, basically a minotaur. There was a dwarf expert with an unpleasant temperament, choleric. I spent a few minutes trying to imagine both in my village before deciding on the beastman. I guess my subconscious didn’t want an irritable dwarf around. The minotaur did have 5 family so at least he wouldn’t be lonely.

My next crafting skill was woodcraft. My time was starting to be consumed by governing, building and fighting. I wanted someone to build furniture and do the repairs around town and help with building. I had a long list to select from with the proper temperament so I started to sort by secondary skills. I found a beast: wolf with expert rank in the secondary skill of fishing and his tertiary skill was novice lumberjack. Perfect! He also had 2 family members.

OK I needed one more selection for now. I should probably get a farmer. I searched for a bit based on family size and race until settling on a halfling female with a massive family of 21! Her other two skills were also expert level, animal husbandry and butcher.

I spent another hour searching and sorting but resisted using my final bid. I turned to setting my priorities. I wrote out a list:

Top priority was the inn and I needed lumber for this…next was the air mage arriving in two days. The air mage was human so I thought a simple three-story tower on the river bank. I drafted the 20’ round tower in the morning. Then I went about building it myself. As I was casting a global alert came up.

Game Mechanics Update: A player can only memorize one spell per their magic + intellect stats divided by 10. This is base stats and buff and item enhancements have no effect. Also there is a now a leveling system for spells. At each tiered rank you can choose an improvement to a spell you know. You can now also now unlearn spells. When you unlearn a spell the knowledge and all advancement in the spell will be lost. It takes 30 in game days for the spell slot to become available for a new spell. See your spell interface for more details. Also combat abilities can know also be leveled up. There is no limit to the number of combat abilities a player can learn.

I immediately opened my interface and checked my stats.

I was wearing all my gear except my bear hide cloak. The parentheses showed what amount of each stat I was gaining from items and buffs. So, I had 147 magic plus intellect. This meant I could learn 14 spells. I currently only knew eight spells. I thought about the message and the change to spells. The developers probably did this for one of two reasons. The first being that spells leveling up was a planned mechanic and they needed to balance caster power. My second thought was maybe there were fighter oriented players out there learning a whole bunch of spells. It would also make dividing loot in a group much easier. Why would a fighter waste two levels of stat points to level up magic or intelligence just to learn a new spell? I liked the balance this introduced. Next I looked at my spells.

Well it looked like all my efforts to date were lost. All my spells were level one. I selected Stone Bullet and looked at the new interface.

YOU HAVE 1 SPELL IMPROVEMENT POINT

Well, this just got a whole lot more interesting. The plus 16 was from my 80% bonus for having earth magic at level 40. I cast the spell and checked my advancement. A 5% increase, so 20 casts out of combat to raise the spell to level 2. I went searching for a target and found a squirrel and cast the spell again at the unfortunate victim. Hit and kill. I checked again 16% advancement, so 11% for attacking the squirrel. I had Opheela mount up Titan and went to the plains. I found a plains cat and started casting.

Casting has failed, you cannot cast this spell while mounted

Casting has failed, you cannot cast this spell while mounted

What the fuck?

Ah, the developers must have corrected my scorpion cheat. I would need to invest 5 points into the spell to be cast while riding. I dismounted and cast again. Titan in the meantime attacked the insolent lion and killed it in short order. I checked advancement again, 25%, so this time I gained 14% for attacking a level 6 creature. Just as I thought. The more dangerous the creature the quicker the advancement, just like skills.

On foot I travelled the plains and leveled the spell up to level 5, giving me 4 points to invest. Then I began to think how unfortunate mages were. At low level they would be spending time leveling up these low tier spells only to unlock a better spell at a higher tier which could be leveled up. I selected the 5-minute light option. My thought was it could be useful in a dungeon or as a signal at night by firing it into the air. Then I spent 3 points on magic reduction cost. Reducing the cost from 25 to 22. I spent the next five hours leveling up hail of stones to level 7. All 5 points went into movement, allowing me to cast while moving on foot at max speed and also on any mount! Ha, take that developers, my cheat would be intact!

I returned to the stables and turned care of Titan over to my elven horse masters. Patting him on the neck, letting him know he did a good job today. There was not much light left but I went over to the inn and worked into the night. Around midnight I went home and to the drafting board. Jaesmin had a meat pie warm and ready for me with some cider. I folded up the library plans. Almost done with those, just a few more days. The air mage tower would take me two days of magic to cast. I checked the summon stone spell.

YOU HAVE 1 SPELL IMPROVEMENT POINT

I selected the magic reduction for my first point. The color visual effect sounded cool. Making black stone with silver veins would be an awesome visual. But priorities, max out the magic reduction cost first to speed building.

Good. When the sun came up I would be able to finish the air mage tower. In the meantime I drafted a simple stone house for the shipwright. I left a note that Jaesmin was to build it near the docks. The alchemy shop was next. I decided on stone. A full basement for storage, a large open ground floor plan on the first floor, the second floor would be the lab area, and the third floor would be living quarters, and finally the roof would have an area for a garden. The building was 40 feet by 25 feet. I hoped it would be attractive enough for our incoming alchemist.

The sun was just coming up and I heard Jaesmin coming down the stairs. She was a young and attractive woman. Why shouldn’t I pursue an intimate relationship? Maybe tonight I would make an attempt. I pulled my gear on and went to finish the air mage’s tower. It only took seven hours to finish the tower and I leveled my summon stone twice, both times using the points to reduce magic cost for the spell. Also of note my skill in carving allowed me more freedom in summon stone, letting me make decent stairs as well! I tried a medium size statue and it was not too good but did resemble a larger Simba. I had the wood elementals carry it to the garden behind my house. I took in a deep breath and went to work.

Chapter 17 The human air mage would be here in two days. Excellent! The human shipwright would be here in three days, good. Once we had a ship trading would be much easier. But did I need sailors for the river? The ETA for the gnome cook was six days. This was going to be tricky. She was a grand master cook and I needed something to keep her here. My thought was I would give her 50% ownership in the inn and hopefully access to the expansive and varied garden behind my house would be enough. I was fairly confident the inn could be completed in time except we were still short on some lumber for furniture and finishing touches on the building. Another problem that needed solving. Guess my scorpion expeditions needed to be put on hold for now. The giantkin archer was also six days away. When he arrived I would feel much better about our defenses. I was assuming he would be at least level 40 since he had at least three master level skills. Maybe between him and Galena we could start harvesting the lumber in the forest on the other side of the river? The elementalkin alchemist was due in ten days. That was unfortunately a long wait but maybe it was good. It would give me time to build an alchemy shop. I would sketch out a nice shop with a residence above on the second level tonight. And hopefully the alchemist could make use of the scorpion tails I had collected. My enchanter was 13 days away. The female sun elf was the most important recruit. If she could work with Sanso and make the translocation stone it would make my life a lot easier. I would need to make sure she had an excellent house ready to try to persuade her to stay. I reread the sun elf race description in the wiki and sun elves were the nobles of the elven race. I hoped our backwater town appealed to her. I decided I would build her a small tower adjacent to the plot of land I was planning on for the library. I returned my attention back to the auction. I went to the town store to get six gold coins so I could place my bids. After retrieving the coins I went home and settled in at my drafting table and opened the auction interface. Damn, already 232 bids! Other players were getting active out there! There were 47,945 NPCs available though so no shortage yet. I thought for a bit and perhaps I was overreaching a bit. Once my new NPCs came I would have to pay them and I didn't really have a stable income. Maybe this time I should focus more on trade skills to build income? Maybe one more soldier and the rest trade skills? OK one soldier, three trade skills and one farmer. I would save one slot in case something came up and I was also hoping the Inn would raise the quality of the village, giving me more slots. First the soldier. I already had two high level ranged warriors but I also had a ton of horses. I wanted someone with riding, armor and a melee weapon. Basically, a knight. I selected the skill sorter and then temperament. Only seven options. Well, seven options that had those three skills as their top three. I couldn't view any skills they might have beyond their top 3'. Let's see, one undead, one kobold, one goblin, two humans, one elf and one dwarf. I discounted the first three due to race. Not because I was worried if they would fit into the town but more so if they had to travel here they probably wouldn't reach Malcum safely. Then I deselected the dwarf as I just couldn't see I dwarf riding one of massive mounts, how would he even get in the saddle? That left the two humans and the elf. Hmmm, the humans had the same last name and were the same age, 28. Possibly twins? They both had the same skills obviously but one had Armor: Heavy as his primary and Blade: Medium as his secondary. The other had it reversed. One also had a family of four. I decided to bid on both, so much for plans of one warrior. I steeled myself away from combat NPCs to crafting. The bids for combat NPCs was fierce and I already had my first two. I stopped after two filter attempts and seeing the brewer skill. Well, I had an inn. I needed ale, right?. There were only four experts and only one with the temperament I was seeking. He was a beastman: bull, basically a minotaur. There was a dwarf expert with an unpleasant temperament, choleric. I spent a few minutes trying to imagine both in my village before deciding on the beastman. I guess my subconscious didn't want an irritable dwarf around. The minotaur did have 5 family so at least he wouldn't be lonely. My next crafting skill was woodcraft. My time was starting to be consumed by governing, building and fighting. I wanted someone to build furniture and do the repairs around town and help with building. I had a long list to select from with the proper temperament so I started to sort by secondary skills. I found a beast: wolf with expert rank in the secondary skill of fishing and his tertiary skill was novice lumberjack. Perfect! He also had 2 family members. OK I needed one more selection for now. I should probably get a farmer. I searched for a bit based on family size and race until settling on a halfling female with a massive family of 21! Her other two skills were also expert level, animal husbandry and butcher. I spent another hour searching and sorting but resisted using my final bid. I turned to setting my priorities. I wrote out a list: Finish the Inn Build a house for the air mage Build a house for the shipwright Design and build an alchemy shop Build a house for the giantkin next to Galana's Design and build an enchanter's tower Train up Jaesmin Top priority was the inn and I needed lumber for thisnext was the air mage arriving in two days. The air mage was human so I thought a simple three-story tower on the river bank. I drafted the 20' round tower in the morning. Then I went about building it myself. As I was casting a global alert came up. Game Mechanics Update: A player can only memorize one spell per their magic + intellect stats divided by 10. This is base stats and buff and item enhancements have no effect. Also there is a now a leveling system for spells. At each tiered rank you can choose an improvement to a spell you know. You can now also now unlearn spells. When you unlearn a spell the knowledge and all advancement in the spell will be lost. It takes 30 in game days for the spell slot to become available for a new spell. See your spell interface for more details. Also combat abilities can know also be leveled up. There is no limit to the number of combat abilities a player can learn. I immediately opened my interface and checked my stats. Strength 39 9 Constitution 52 15 Stamina 44 11 Agility 42 11 Speed 6 4 Intellect 39 Magic 118 10 Channeling 36 15 Charisma 27 5 Luck 14 Hit Points 1365 Stamina 950 Magic 2198 I was wearing all my gear except my bear hide cloak. The parentheses showed what amount of each stat I was gaining from items and buffs. So, I had 147 magic plus intellect. This meant I could learn 14 spells. I currently only knew eight spells. I thought about the message and the change to spells. The developers probably did this for one of two reasons. The first being that spells leveling up was a planned mechanic and they needed to balance caster power. My second thought was maybe there were fighter oriented players out there learning a whole bunch of spells. It would also make dividing loot in a group much easier. Why would a fighter waste two levels of stat points to level up magic or intelligence just to learn a new spell? I liked the balance this introduced. Next I looked at my spells. Spells Tier Level Sphere CT Magic Cost Meld Wood 1 1 Nature: Plant 10 secs 25 Stone Bullet 1 1 Earth: Stone 1 sec 25 Summon Earth 1 1 Earth 5 min 27+ Summon Stone 5 1 Earth: Stone 1 min 200 Summon Boulder 5 1 Earth: Stone 1 min 200 Hail of Stones 5 1 Earth: Stone 5 secs 50 Vine Growth 3 1 Nature 3 secs 25 Summon Wood Elemental 5 1 Nature: Plant 10 min 500 Well it looked like all my efforts to date were lost. All my spells were level one. I selected Stone Bullet and looked at the new interface. Stone Bullet Sphere Earth: Stone Verbal, Somatic Level 1 0% advancement to next level Level Bonus +1% Damage per level Magic Cost 25 Range 120 Yards Casting Time 1 second Damage 20.2 + 16 Effect This spell creates a golf ball size projectile that is hurled at your target. Hitting the target relies on your marksmanship skill. YOU HAVE 1 SPELL IMPROVEMENT POINT 1st Point 2nd Point 3rd Point 4th Point 5th+ plus points Casting Time Reduction +1% +2% +3% +4% +5% max 50% Damage Bonus +2% +3% +5% +5% +5% no max Range Bonus +5 yards +10 yards +15 yards +20 yards +25 yards 500 yard max Accuracy Bonus +1% +2% +3% +4% +5% max 50% Magic Cost Reduction 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% max 50% Quicker Advancement +5% +10% +15% +20% +25% no max Eliminate Sematic Component o NA NA NA NA Eliminate Verbal Component o NA NA NA NA Cast While Moving 25% speed 50% speed 75% speed 100% speed while riding Visual Effect Rock has dim light spell on it for 5 minutes Visual Effect Change color of rock, choose one Visual Effect Change shape, choose square, pyramid or egg Well, this just got a whole lot more interesting. The plus 16 was from my 80% bonus for having earth magic at level 40. I cast the spell and checked my advancement. A 5% increase, so 20 casts out of combat to raise the spell to level 2. I went searching for a target and found a squirrel and cast the spell again at the unfortunate victim. Hit and kill. I checked again 16% advancement, so 11% for attacking the squirrel. I had Opheela mount up Titan and went to the plains. I found a plains cat and started casting. Casting has failed, you cannot cast this spell while mounted Casting has failed, you cannot cast this spell while mounted What the fuck? Ah, the developers must have corrected my scorpion cheat. I would need to invest 5 points into the spell to be cast while riding. I dismounted and cast again. Titan in the meantime attacked the insolent lion and killed it in short order. I checked advancement again, 25%, so this time I gained 14% for attacking a level 6 creature. Just as I thought. The more dangerous the creature the quicker the advancement, just like skills. On foot I travelled the plains and leveled the spell up to level 5, giving me 4 points to invest. Then I began to think how unfortunate mages were. At low level they would be spending time leveling up these low tier spells only to unlock a better spell at a higher tier which could be leveled up. I selected the 5-minute light option. My thought was it could be useful in a dungeon or as a signal at night by firing it into the air. Then I spent 3 points on magic reduction cost. Reducing the cost from 25 to 22. I spent the next five hours leveling up hail of stones to level 7. All 5 points went into movement, allowing me to cast while moving on foot at max speed and also on any mount! Ha, take that developers, my cheat would be intact! I returned to the stables and turned care of Titan over to my elven horse masters. Patting him on the neck, letting him know he did a good job today. There was not much light left but I went over to the inn and worked into the night. Around midnight I went home and to the drafting board. Jaesmin had a meat pie warm and ready for me with some cider. I folded up the library plans. Almost done with those, just a few more days. The air mage tower would take me two days of magic to cast. I checked the summon stone spell. Summon Stone Sphere Earth: Stone Verbal, Somatic, Material: Stone Dust Level 1 0% advancement to next level Level Bonus +1% + 80% Volume Magic Cost 200 Casting Time 60 seconds Range 5 yards Damage NA Effect This spell creates a stone with a volume 1 cubic yard. The stone can be made into simple shapes by visualization. YOU HAVE 1 SPELL IMPROVEMENT POINT 1st Point 2nd Point 3rd Point 4th Point 5th+ plus points Casting Time Reduction +1% +2% +3% +4% +5% max 50% Volume Bonus +2% +3% +5% +5% +5% no max Range Bonus +5 yards +5 yards +5 yards +5 yards +5 yards 100 yard max Shaping Bonus +1% +2% +3% +4% +5% max 50% Magic Cost Reduction 5% 5% 5% 5% 5% max 50% Quicker Advancement +5% +10% +15% +20% +25% no max Eliminate Sematic Component o NA NA NA NA Eliminate Verbal Component o NA NA NA NA Eliminate Material Component o NA NA NA NA Cast While Moving 25% speed 50% speed 75% speed 100% speed while riding Visual Effect Rock has veins of color in it, choose color Visual Effect Change color of summoned rock, choose one I selected the magic reduction for my first point. The color visual effect sounded cool. Making black stone with silver veins would be an awesome visual. But priorities, max out the magic reduction cost first to speed building. Good. When the sun came up I would be able to finish the air mage tower. In the meantime I drafted a simple stone house for the shipwright. I left a note that Jaesmin was to build it near the docks. The alchemy shop was next. I decided on stone. A full basement for storage, a large open ground floor plan on the first floor, the second floor would be the lab area, and the third floor would be living quarters, and finally the roof would have an area for a garden. The building was 40 feet by 25 feet. I hoped it would be attractive enough for our incoming alchemist. The sun was just coming up and I heard Jaesmin coming down the stairs. She was a young and attractive woman. Why shouldn't I pursue an intimate relationship? Maybe tonight I would make an attempt. I pulled my gear on and went to finish the air mage's tower. It only took seven hours to finish the tower and I leveled my summon stone twice, both times using the points to reduce magic cost for the spell. Also of note my skill in carving allowed me more freedom in summon stone, letting me make decent stairs as well! I tried a medium size statue and it was not too good but did resemble a larger Simba. I had the wood elementals carry it to the garden behind my house. I took in a deep breath and went to work.