The Empires Rise

With the initial set of buildings placed, I turn towards the soon-to-be manor. "Would everyone be okay with me finishing the manor building first so we can free up Shadow to help reduce the costs of other projects?"

"I don't be seeing a problem with what you be offering, Drake." Zul'Zara is the first one to step forward.

"If we can get the houses for myself and Narus built next, that would be preferred. I don't want to be stuck sleeping outside tonight." Rognar grumbles.

"I agree. The sooner we can get the rest of the buildings built, the sooner I don't have to share one with Vranjaya." Muiress jumps up and says frantically.

"I am not that bad. I can leave you sssome ssspace," Vranjaya starts to say.

"Yes, but you need to be on the other side of the pond!" Muiress vehemently clarifies quickly.

"Are there any other requests?" I ask the group as a whole.

"I know you will get the buildings up as quickly as possible. Just make good use of the tokens. There is no need to waste them on things we could save for in the future." Nelaedeth says.

"Don't we have some level-up tokens that we could use?" Draemish says.

"Yes, we have several level-up tokens. Why? What are you thinking?" I ask.

"Seeing we need to have defenses up for the attack, wouldn't it make sense to use some of the tokens to level up those defenses?" She states.

"We could use those tokens for that." I glance at how many of the level-up tokens we have. "Currently, we can level one building up to level 4 and two more to level 2. That is if I am thinking how these tokens can be used."

"Then I say we level up whatever walls we build on the earthen bulwarks up to level 4, then have the earthen bulwarks level up to 2. After those two, let's see what we can do with defensive towers. I wouldn't mind getting one of them up to level 2." Draemish says with excitement.

"There is no disagreement from me," Shadow says. "But let's make sure we can select a foreman or several so they can get the experience for the building."

"Obviously," Draemish retorts.

I leave them be to have their little spat. I use the resource tokens first on the buildings that need them. The lowest-level tokens are used first. This saved four of each tier 1 resource required to complete the buildings.

After we got the building materials to the blueprints, I selected Oria to work on one of the buildings. This didn't bring down the building cost, but the time till was decreased by 2 minutes and 24 seconds.

Once the building timers started to count down, I grabbed one of the instant completion tokens and used it on the Manor. I received the notification of its completion, and Shadow commented that he received three experience points for the completion of the project.

I selected one of the other buildings and put him in charge of it, and the process continued going through the time reduction tokens in a frenzy.

While working through getting the buildings built, people went about their business. Some went to find those who could offer training, Draemish being the one to provide training for those who were warriors. Laxreal picked up his scholarly persona and started talking about mana and the differences to those still learning the differences, even though he was still new to the world. Finally, and to my surprise, Autumn was helping to train those with the hunter class about being more stealthy.

Others still decide to go into the crafting buildings that have already been made and use them until I have to tear them down and move them over to the new district.

I become more motivated to get everything done with everything going on around me. One of the things that I can tell people are missing are training facilities to practice spells, archery, and swordsmanship.

This is on my list of things I hope to get as a blueprint from the new boxes that I still have yet to open up.

Quickly, the first of the four crafting buildings has been made. With each completed, I move the person in charge so they continue getting more experience. This uses a total of 16 wood time reduction tokens. I cannot help but look forward to using the higher-level tokens as I use them.

Soon after, I started a new round of building construction. First, I got the Earthen Bulwarks and the required materials. When I look at it now, it requires more than 800 stone units to complete what it will make. When I think back to why it said it was half-finished, I notice that it wasn't covering the entire radius of 100 meters around the main settlement.

With that, I changed it to cover the rest of the settlement, giving me the new cost minus what has already been done. I am frustrated at how much it will cost, so I use one of my higher tokens. While it isn't much, having a 20% reduction is still more than I could hope for for such a large project.

With the token added, the cost drops to 687 stone units. Next, I added Oria to the project. Once he has officially been added to the project, I have one more reduction other than for him being a foreman.

- Earth Elemental: Decreases Resource Cost by 10% and decreases Time till completion by 10%

Note: This bonus is due to the project primarily using a majority of earth elemental items. -

This is an exciting use of Oria since if any projects use mostly stone. I can have him run the project, reducing the cost and time. We are getting a 31% reduction in material costs with all the bonuses.

I have Oria start to bring the materials to the new sites and work on those while I get the rest of the crafting buildings set up. Continuing to use the lower-level tokens until they are gone, I use another two wood resource reduction tokens and the rest of the wooden time reduction tokens.

Only four time reduction tokens were left, so I used two iron tokens to complete the last crafting buildings. I assign Shadow as the foreman to each of the buildings.

Looking over at the earthen bulwark that Oria was bringing the materials to, there was finally a timer with 16 hours left until completion. I figured this would also be an excellent time to complete another project. I use one of the wooden instant completion tokens on it.

Suddenly, a two-meter-high earthen bulwark appears around the settlement with a 100-meter radius. From the building menu, I see a flat top that spans for two meters before a steep slope on the other side leads into a small gully. The front of the bulwark towards the attacking side is reinforced with stone slabs, which will also make it slippery when they are wet.

Selecting the Wooden Palisades, I run those around the top of the bulwark. The initial cost of the fortifications is going to be 630 wood units. I again use one of the silver resource reduction tokens. This reduces the cost to 504 wood units. With a heavy sigh, most of the resources I had just received were now gone. I assigned Oria to the fortification project again. With another reduction of 1% to the total, I saved another six units of wood.

Instructing Ritotorous to bring the materials over this time so Oria doesn't have to make the trips, he does so, and the timer shows up shortly after. With 20 hours until the completion of the palisades, I use another instant completion token. After the fortifications are placed on the earthen bulwarks, they stand eight meters in height and have a small walkway two meters across, just enough for two people to pass by each other if they have to get to a different portion of the wall.

I ask Shadow and Oria, "How far are you from leveling up to the next level in your profession?"

"I have received 12 of the 25 points needed to level up." Shadow answers.

"Need five more." That is all that Oria responds with.

"DRAKE!" I hear a shout come, and I cringe.

"Yes?" I see that Draemish is approaching me with a stern gaze.

"Let me ask you something." She says with fury showing on her face.

"Yes?" I look over my shoulder to see Shadow and Oria have wandered off.

"Do you think you have forgotten something?"

"Um, I don't think so. I have all of the crafting buildings up. I have the fortifications up. I was going to start working on the housing situation next."

"You have gotten the fortifications up. They are up so well that I don't think anyone is getting in or out of them." She says while gritting her teeth.

I slowly ask because she isn't complimenting me about how well I did. "So, what is the problem?"

"Well, since you have asked. Can you please look at your fortifications one more time for me?"

"Sure," doing as she asked, I looked at the fortifications again.

The walls cover the entire area, and the bulwarks are well-positioned. The tower is behind the walls and cannot shoot out due to the height difference. "I know!" I exclaim, "I need to add the arrow tower to the fortifications."

"NO." She shouts, then slowly thinking about it. "Yes, but not what I am getting at. Let me pose a different question to you. I want to get out of the settlement and go scout. What would I use to get out of the settlement?"

"Oh, well, of course, you would use the...." At this moment, I finally figured out what she was saying. I look over the walls again and then slap my forehead for being stupid.

I. Forgot. The. Gate.