B8

Needless to say, the forge’s construction, or rather unearthing, caused quite a stir and drew a large crowd. Bronwyn and Arthur were the first to enter, though they didn’t try to stop the curious onlookers who followed them into the structure to see what was going on. The building was a proper blacksmithing forge, complete with a massive, open furnace along one wall with a chain and pulley-operated bellows system. In front of the furnace were three separate forging stations with large and small anvils, racks of variously sized hammers, and quenching barrels. The back half of the shop was a storeroom, and it was stocked with dozens of bags of coal and several large crates of iron ingots. It seemed the System didn’t deem this reward worthy of any more rare metals than that. Near the forges, and sharing their chimney system, was a big, round kiln-looking thing that Arthur guessed was a smelter; it seemed the System really had provided a full-service forge, or at least enough of one to get the colony started in the right direction.

“Well, do you think you can find some engineers with the background to make head or tail of this stuff?” Bronwyn asked Arthur after they’d looked around for a few minutes.

“I think so. It’s not exactly modern technology, but the principles aren’t foreign to engineers chosen for the Pioneer missions. Not to mention the System seems to like to put information into people’s heads as they learn new things. Have you noticed that?”

“Yeah, I sure have. I learned how to track and read the Energy in footprints by following around those Yeksa yesterday.” Bronwyn was beginning to warm up to Arthur now that he wasn’t trying to pin all their troubles on her.

“Yeksa?”

“Yeah, those little gray men. The System labeled their tracks, so I learned what they’re called.” Bronwyn shrugged.

“Interesting. That could be very useful. Do you think others can learn that skill?” Arthur frowned in thought, scratching at his chin.

“I don’t know why not. Hey, can you take care of things for a while? Speaking of Yeksa, I have a pretty lucrative ‘quest’ to find out where they came from. I guess the encampment I wiped out wasn’t their source.”

“Yes, yes. Of course. Perhaps you should take someone with you?”

“Well, I had planned to go alone. Let me think about it.” Bronwyn reached up to her shoulder to scratch the little furry head of Hops. He’d nestled under her hair, which she hadn’t tied up yet. He nudged into her hand with his head, obviously enjoying the scratch. Arthur saw what she was doing and recoiled slightly. “Relax. It’s just a friendly little squirrel-type animal. Anyway, I don’t think I’ll take anyone right now. It’s just a scouting mission. I’ll be back before night, whether I figure it out or not.

“Very well. We should have a meeting upon your return.”

“Ugh, another meeting, huh? Alright, but you’re doing a good job at convincing me that we need to have an election sooner rather than later.” Arthur just smiled at that, and Bronwyn walked out of the building, noting that the crowd had grown. She waved as a few people called out her name or just said hello, and then she started to jog toward the western treeline.

When she was clear of the grassy meadow and into the first few trees, she ran a bit north until she picked up the trail she’d used to hunt the Yeksa the day before. As she started running along the path following her own prints because the older Yeksa prints had lost their Energy luminosity, she felt Hops leap off her shoulder and into a nearby tree. “Hey! Well, see you later, I guess!” Hops squeaked, and she imagined he was reassuring her that he’d be back soon; she chuckled at that idea.

The rest of the morning and into the afternoon, she retraced her steps to the ruined Yeksa camp and followed various, faint Yeksa tracks through poorly defined paths and game trails in the nearby woods. The camp itself hadn’t changed since she had last been there, other than the smell - it had gotten immeasurably worse as the corpses began to rot, forcing Bronwyn to hold a sleeve over her nose and mouth as she hunted for trails leading out of the area. She noted that many of the corpses were far less complete than she left them, apparently being used as a pantry of sorts by the local wildlife. She pondered piling the bodies and trying to burn them but felt that the camp was far enough away from the meadow that she could let nature take its course.

It wasn’t until the sun was well on its way toward the western horizon that Bronwyn found a clear, heavily traversed trail several miles north and west of the Yeksa camp. The prints were still quite faint, but there were a lot of them, and the underbrush was well-trampled and even cleared away from the path in many areas. She noted an occasional primitive talisman hanging from branches along the trail. They looked like little rodent skulls hung from leather cords and decorated with colorful beads and stones. She detached one and slipped it into her pouch for later study. She felt a slight chill and wondered if she was being superstitious but suddenly regretted taking the little charm. The trees were very dense here, and she occasionally heard rustling sounds, but they sounded like small animals or birds hopping among the leaves, or so she reasoned in order to keep her sanity.

She followed the trail for about twenty minutes, and then she noticed that she was climbing a bit of a rocky slope. Looking ahead, she could see more and larger rocks and outcroppings, and she realized this was some sort of large hillock in the midst of the forest. She began to move more carefully, flitting from tree trunk to tree trunk and not walking in the middle of the path. After a time, she saw that the path curved to the left around a large, jutting spar of rock. She stopped for a while and listened. Mostly, she heard the wind rustling the leaves high up in the boughs of the big trees nearby. She heard birds making song and the far-off tinkling melody of a stream splashing down its stony path. Bronwyn felt surprisingly at ease, and, rather than being nervous about nearby enemies, she reveled in the unadulterated beauty of the forest she was surrounded by. Shaking herself out of her reverie, she carefully crept up to the rocky spar and then peered around the side, holding herself close to the stone. The faintly glowing footprints led around the rock and straight into the hillside, where the dark maw of an apparently natural cave opened into darkness.

***Congratulations! Quest complete: Track the invading Yeksa to their origin and scout the vicinity. Return to the Colony Stone to claim your reward.***

“Well, that wasn’t so hard,” Bronwyn said, moving back around the spar of rock and using a dead branch to carve a large X into the hillside. She briefly contemplated exploring the cave but decided that she should wait for a couple of reasons: one, she wanted to make sure she had the time and supplies for a protracted cave delve, and, two, she wondered if the System would offer her a quest involving the cave. No sense doing things for free if the System was going to foot the bill. She wanted to make sure that if something happened to her, the other colonists would be able to find this cave. Keeping that in mind, she retraced her steps back toward the colony, marking trees with X marks, visible from two directions, the entire way. Even knowing the path and making good time, it was starting to get dark when she finally trotted into the meadow.

Bronwyn kept her head down and didn’t talk to anyone, trying to hurry to the Colony Stone before she got bogged down in another conversation or crisis. Perhaps it was the waning light, or perhaps it was because everyone was busy, but she got to the stone without anyone bothering her. She hustled up the hill and slapped her hand against the stone, ignoring the other two people who were standing nearby, staring into space with their hands also on the flat, cool surface.

The System automatically awarded her the promised contribution points, and she checked the colony menus to see that her contribution points were mirrored as System Credits in the colony bank. She was surprised to see that the colony already had over 6000 System Credits. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one to complete a task that day. She supposed it made sense - if a significant number of the thousands of colonists spent the day forging Energy beads, the numbers would add up quickly. More and more colonists were finishing the tutorial lessons and learning how to channel Energy. True, they were extremely limited until they learned to form a Core and pathways, but Bronwyn knew she wasn’t the only one the System had awarded with a Core stone. If rumors were to be believed, Olivia Bennet had been given some kind of rare multi-element Core.

If all went well, they’d have their walls tomorrow, and then they could start thinking about some housing structures, storage facilities, and maybe a bathhouse. Bronwyn stopped that train of thought before she began to spiral into musings of sewage systems, irrigation, and greenhouses. Enough time to worry about those things as the colony became more secure and people started to fill roles that would lessen the need for executive decisions. She sighed, feeling a weight lifting that she hadn’t realized had been there the whole time. She turned her back to the stone and allowed herself to slide down until she was sitting on the soft grass, leaning back against it. She shut her eyes, relaxing and waiting for the inevitable moment when the three ersatz council members would find her.

She hadn’t intended to doze off, and she probably wasn’t really asleep so much as just barely awake when she heard Olivia’s voice, “Bronwyn. Bronwyn, are you awake?” She had a gentle way of speaking that was easy on the ears, and for a minute, Bronwyn thought she was somewhere else, but then her eyes snapped open, and she remembered herself. She smiled up at Olivia and was happy to see that she was unaccompanied.

“Oh, hey Olivia. I was just resting my eyes while I waited for you guys.”

“Mmhmm, I don’t blame you. You’ve had a wild couple of days. Dr. Kerns filled me in on your little escapade into the forest yesterday morning.”

Bronwyn didn’t quite understand why, but she felt her cheeks start to flush, so she looked down and grunted something noncommittal while she clambered to her feet. “Uh, well, where are the old guys?”

“Oh dear, I hope they don’t hear you labeling them that way!” Olivia laughed, and her green eyes scrunched up, giving truth to the emotion.

Bronwyn laughed in turn, and the relief of the small nap and the laughter did wonders for her mood. She didn’t even frown when Arthur strode up the hill. “Hey, Arthur. How are things?”

“Oh, hello, ladies. I’m glad to see you sharing a moment of levity. Perhaps it's something you could share?” The two young women looked at each other, and Bronwyn raised an eyebrow. Olivia stifled a laugh and looked down, shaking her head.

“No, no. It’s nothing, really…” Olivia started to say, but then Bronwyn stepped in:

“Actually, I was telling Olivia about how we almost have enough System Credits for the wall already. I don’t think most new settlements in the System-controlled worlds start out with 5000 members. We should be able to start accumulating credits pretty quickly as more and more people finish the tutorial.”

“Ahh, that’s great news. Yes, I have located a few of our civil engineers, and they are currently using a plot of cleared soil near the forge to draw a potential layout for upcoming town structures. Most agree that after the wall is constructed, we need to see to immediate survival needs: water, food, shelter.” As Arthur spoke, Kerns nodded along.

“Yes, Arthur, I wanted to bring up shelter. I think, depending on the options available, we should award homes to individuals and groups that earn the most points in the Contribution Store,” Kerns said, clearing his throat.

“What? Surely everyone should be housed!”

“Yes, of course, but we won’t be able to build individual houses for everyone right away. I mean to say, as we can afford them, the priority should be to house the largest contributors. It will incentivize productivity!”

“Actually, that makes sense,” Bronwyn interjected, “I had wondered what the point of a leaderboard was when I noticed it in the store menu.”

“You know, I was never a fan of communism as a form of government, but with the contribution system in place, it’s hard for people to slack off and advance in this society without merit, one of the shortcomings of communist systems in the past,” Arthur mused.

“Woah, easy there, Marx. Just because we have a merit system does not mean we’re going to embrace communism. I foresee something of a hybrid governing style, with some elected council making large community decisions and the contribution system handling day-to-day recompense and incentives,” Olivia interjected.

“Well, I’m not really interested in a debate about governing ideologies right now, but I will say, I don’t think the System makes life easy for slackers.” Bronwyn tried to change the subject, “Anyway, I found the source of the Yeksa. There’s some kind of a cave system a few miles into the forest to the East. I think we should explore it and maybe head off a future invasion. I’d like to spend a couple of days here, first, getting the town secured and establishing a standing guard for the wall once it's up.”

“Yes, actually, I was going to ask you, Bronwyn, have you forged any Energy beads yet?” Olivia asked.

“Uh, no, not yet. I was pretty busy today finding that cave,” Bronwyn said flatly.

“Relax, I’m not casting aspersions. I asked because I noticed those marks on your arms - you’ve developed channels already, haven’t you?” The two men looked at Bronwyn’s arms as Olivia spoke, and Bronwyn folded them across her chest self consciously.

“Yeah, I have. It hurt like hell, too.” She glared at everyone.

“Oh, well, that’s exciting! I can tell you have very wide channels! I bet you can form Energy beads a lot faster than most of us. You should give it a try.” Olivia reached out a hand to lightly trace one of the dark channel marks on Bronwyn’s left arm, and Bronwyn could tell she didn’t mean any offense. She shrugged and nodded at Olivia.

“Alright, I’ll give that a try tomorrow; I’m sure with everyone contributing, we should be able to get things started with the wall.”

“Excuse me?” A new voice spoke up from just a few feet away. Bronwyn looked to her right and saw the woman who had offered to teach her a recipe the night before. “My name is Maria Rios. My friends and I would like to invite you four to our fire for dinner tonight.”