B9

Bronwyn spent the next few days alternating between exhausted, amazed, and feeling anxiety-ridden. She was exhausted because she worked hard every day from pitch-dark-morning until late in the evening. She was amazed because of how things were taking shape: they’d constructed the wall and several dozen housing units that looked to Bronwyn like the base housing she’d lived in with her dad as a little girl. She was anxiety-ridden because, in the back of her mind, she was aware of the quest the System had given her to clear out the Yeksa cave, and she knew she needed to get going on it.

***Quest: Explore the cavern from which the Yeksa emerged. Contend with the evil that lies within.***

Something about the wording really bothered Bronwyn: the System was labeling something as ‘evil,’ and it didn’t seem to be referring directly to the Yeksa. It was ominous, foreboding; she could think of a dozen more adjectives, but it didn’t change the fact that it worried her, and she’d put off going for three days now.

Just like with the forge, the wall and the houses had taken shape directly out of the ground. Unlike the forge, though, they were made from packed earth or clay bricks. The wall hadn’t required any additional materials - its entire structure was made from the bricks, from the ramparts to the stairs leading up to them. Yes, the wall had ramparts; it was positively huge, ten feet wide, with an open archway leading in each cardinal direction, and it was imposingly high, rising just past forty feet at the crenellations. The packed clay bricks seemed very sturdy, and at such a depth, the wall would take a tremendous amount of punishment before coming down. For now, they didn’t have any sort of gates in the archways, but two people could easily maintain a watch at each one.

The houses had required lumber before the System would allow for their purchase. Luckily, the contribution store sold axes and saws and offered quests to many colonists to cut trees and gather wood into stacks. Once the colonists had collected enough lumber, Bronwyn had made the purchase for the first twenty houses, and they’d risen in the designated area along the southern wall of the colony. They’d stacked lumber in the plots beforehand, and when the buildings rose, clouds of yellow Energy and smoke erupted around the lumber, and as the pyrotechnics cleared, square dwellings built from clay bricks and roofed and shuttered in wood were standing, ready to be lived in. Each home boasted a living area with arched wooden beams, a small kitchen with wooden cabinets and countertops, and three bedrooms. They were not furnished, but budding artisans were helping to remedy that, and people were free to spend contribution points on furnishings purchased from the System.

Since that first housing purchase, they’d constructed two more rows of twenty homes. Doing the math, Bronwyn knew it would take a long time, and they’d probably run out of space before they housed every colonist this way. She’d spoken with Olivia and Arthur about the situation, and they’d agreed that the next purchase would have to be larger apartment-style barracks buildings. They required thousands more System Credits and a lot more lumber, but they each could house five hundred individuals comfortably. There were also larger, more sophisticated housing options, which they would surely strive for down the road, awarding the best houses to the highest contributors on the leaderboard.

As the days had passed, nearly everyone had finished the tutorial and contributed to the pool of System Credits the colony had. Aside from a few sour grapes, everyone felt incentivized to participate because, after the tutorial, there were no free meals. If you wanted something fresh to eat, you had to buy it from the Contribution Store. In addition to that, people wanted to buy weapons, and clothing, and tools, and supplies. Bronwyn wondered at how difficult it would have been to get started without the Colony Stone, but following that thought was a recollection of what Olivia had said: the System was a parasite. It wanted them to live and gather Energy for it. It wanted them to become stronger so that they could generate more Energy. It made sense to Bronwyn, and she no longer thought of the System as benevolent. Still, they’d have to use it until they got their footing. That last thought made Bronwyn think of what an addict might say, and she worried that they’d never break free from the System.

During any downtime she’d had, partially to keep her mind off of her looming quest, she’d taken Olivia’s advice and learned to channel Energy into physical beads. Olivia had been correct: she was able to make an attuned earth Energy bead in just about two hours. Someone without pathways took closer to twelve. Olivia had a “base 1” Core, but it was unique among the colonists - a “Prisma Core.” She’d also developed pathways in her body but had gone through a much different process than Bronwyn. She hadn’t been awarded any nodes, so she had to create her pathways from scratch, following a manual she bought from the Contribution Store. It had taken her a couple of full days of work. Even so, with her specialty Core and new pathways, she couldn’t channel as much direct Energy as Bronwyn; it took her over four hours to make a bead. However, one thing that she had over Bronwyn was that she could choose to make attuned beads for fire, water, air, or earth.

As the third day of building wound down, Bronwyn found herself standing on the hill next to the Colony Stone, looking out over the settlement. The walls were truly impressive; immense earthen bulwarks that encompassed four square miles of grassland. The forge was still the only building near the hilltop, but, off in the distance to the south, she could see the neat rows of housing taking shape in the southwest corner of the walled-in meadow. Tents still dominated the central portion of the field, and Bronwyn could see that dirt paths were forming along major thoroughfares. If there was a rainy season, and with so much plant life nearby, she imagined there must be, they’d have a real mud problem. She sighed, mentally adding roads to her checklist.

“Penny, or Credit for your thoughts?” Olivia had walked up behind her, smiling at her attempt at humor.

“Yeah, I guess we’ll have to explain mythical pennies to our children someday, huh?”

“Children? Getting a bit ahead of yourself, aren’t you?” Olivia teased, arching an eyebrow. However, Bronwyn wasn’t in the mood and didn’t play along.

“Yeah, I suppose. Lord knows if I’ll be alive long enough for kids, let alone breakfast tomorrow.” She realized how grouchy she sounded and tried to soften the words with a bit of a smile.

“Oh my! Come now, it hasn’t been that bad since that first attack. If you go by percentages, we’ve got an outstanding survival rate these last few days. We have the wall now, too.” Olivia gestured to the imposing structure.

“Yeah, but there’s more to this world than what we’ve seen so far. Don’t you remember, during the tutorial, when the System warned us not to ‘grow dependent on tech,’ how it mentioned hostile Energy users, multiple universes, strength through conflict, and a hundred other rather foreboding hints?” Bronwyn kicked one foot along the ground, scuffing her leather boot heel along some rough gravel.

“Hmm, yes. I understand you have a quest that you’ve been putting off, also.” Olivia moved around in front of Bronwyn, so she had to look at her.

“What the hell? Arthur is talking about my quests and whether I’m doing them behind my back? I knew I shouldn’t have mentioned it to him!” Bronwyn’s feigned outrage didn’t fool Olivia.

“Come on. You know Arthur. He’s doing his level best to keep a finger in every pot in the entire colony. What’s the deal with the quest? I can see you’re bothered about it.” Olivia stretched out her arm, reaching for Bronwyn’s wrist.

“Damn, fucking right, I’m bothered. The System has asked me to climb into a deep-ass cave in the middle of the forest and ‘contend with the evil that lies within.’ What the fuck?” Bronwyn hadn’t meant to get so worked up, but she felt the pressure that she’d put on hold for days starting to boil over. She yanked her arm back from Olivia and began to turn.

“Woah, hang on, Bronwyn! I can see why that bothers you. Think about it - the System implies that it has some kind of moral code by calling whatever is in that cave ‘evil.’ It’s also scary as hell sounding. We’ll need to bring a few people with us, don’t you think?”

“What? Fuck no, Olivia! Do you even know how to fight? You’re a scientist!” Bronwyn had turned around, startled out of her intent to storm off by Olivia’s statement.

“Well, not per se, but I have purchased a couple of offensive spells from the Contribution Store. They seemed rather devastating to the shrub I attacked,” Olivia replied, again stepping close to Bronwyn and looking up to her face, forcing eye contact. “You aren’t alone. You don’t need to take on the burden of defending the colony single-handedly. No one signed up for what we’re dealing with, not even you.”

Bronwyn let out an explosive sigh and said, “I don’t want to risk other people’s lives.” Her words were true, she knew that, but she could tell that a sliver of doubt had entered her mind - she wanted help.

“I know you don’t, Bronwyn. You can’t stop people from doing what they feel a duty to do, right? I can’t stop you, and you can’t stop me. And other people want to help. It would be wrong to stop them, right?”

“I guess so,” Bronwyn replied quietly. She felt like tearing up suddenly, and she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because Olivia was being kind to her, or maybe it was because she felt relief at not holding onto the dread of this quest by herself. She blew out a breath and turned to rub the back of her hand at her eyes. Olivia smiled and rested a hand on her shoulder, gently urging her down the hill.

“C’mon, Bron, there are a few people I’d like to introduce you to.” Bronwyn allowed herself to be led around to various campsites, where Olivia introduced her to some people who had expressed an interest in exploring and defending the colony. Bronwyn wasn’t surprised that Olivia knew so many people. She was extremely outgoing and very famous among the colonists. However, she was surprised that so many people were eager to delve into the Yeksa cave with her.

After meeting with a baker’s dozen possible recruits, they settled on three people to bring with them into the cave the next day. The first was a large man named Martin Hoyle, who demonstrated an astonishing ability to smash the ground with a large club, causing a fissure six inches wide to split the earth for several strides. He claimed he could elicit a similar response in anything he struck with his skill which he said was called “Earth Cracker.” Their next recruit was a tall, very dark-skinned woman named Maya Hollister. She had spent the last few days completing gathering quests for the Contribution Store and had used her points to buy a broad-bladed hatchet and a round shield. She was an imposing woman, taller even than Bronwyn, and insisted she knew what to do in a fight. Their final teammate was a thin, bald Bostonian named Emmet O’Brien. They chose him because he claimed to have a skill that allowed him to see in the dark and because he wasn’t dissuaded when Bronwyn described the Yeksa Shaman she’d fought.

The five companions agreed to meet by the western archway at first light. Bronwyn said goodnight to Olivia and then began walking to her tent to sleep. She could have easily claimed one of the houses, but then she’d have to share it with other people, and she didn’t mind sleeping under the stars, especially now that they had a wall and an established guard rotation. She was off for the night, so she intended to get plenty of sleep before heading into the cave the next day. She made a quick detour to visit the latrines that some engineering personnel had constructed. They were mainly just holes in the ground near the eastern wall, over which they’d built crude wooden benches and outhouses. The lumber was green and nailed with rough iron nails that the forge volunteers had made in the last couple of days, so the whole affair was decidedly temporary; Bronwyn mentally moved bathhouses and sewage infrastructure up the checklist of colony upgrades as she finished up and continued to her tent.

For the first time in days, she took off her armor, boots, and gauntlets before crawling into the little nest of wool-like blankets the System had provided during the orientation. She stretched out on her back and listened to the sounds of the colony falling asleep around her: low murmurs and laughter coming from a nearby campfire, the occasional steps of someone walking nearby through the grass, and the strange chirps of cricket-like insects. The omnipresent smell of woodsmoke was becoming somehow comforting to her, and she found her eyelids heavy before she could even begin to worry about what the next day would bring.