The Butcher of Gadobhra

Chapter 272: Hamlet Building

Chapter 272: Hamlet Building

Ozzie was enjoying himself. He still wondered why Suzette and Ben had thought it necessary that he be the one to start leading families out to the open land by the unicorn fields. Over the years of working with his friends, he'd learned that you sometimes just went along with things and got the whole story later. If they needed him to get together a crew and start building hamlets, that's what he would do. The sun was high; there was a mild breeze and just a few clouds in the sky. And a day spent out in the fields helping people to homestead would feel good.

The day hadn't started out that way. The families he met up with at Rowan Keep were in rough shape. They were scared and unsure of their future, and the adults showed signs of stress and extreme fatigue. Some had injuries or burns, and they had been worse earlier. The Courier had spent all of his mana healing the worst wounds. Ben and Rolly had given him a brief rundown of the chaos around Northguard that had driven out so many peasant farmers. The situation stunk. At least one corporation was in bed with the Baron of Northguard. Everyone called him PinchPenny, and his family's miserly ways had been legendary for generations. So far, over 500 refugees had shown up at Rowan Keep, and many of them helped to safety Rolly and Ben. The Legion was overwhelmed with feeding and keeping them safe, and they were slowing the construction of the new keep.

In trying to hurt the Baron of Gadobhra, someone had decided to hurt hundreds of people whose only crime was to be on the low end of the social ladder. After spending an hour at the keep and working on setting up the little caravan he'd been leading, he'd had to walk off into the woods. He was becoming angry and didn't want to scare anyone. Part of him wanted to walk to Northguard and start tearing down the walls. It wouldn't help; he knew that. So instead, he sat down, leaned against a rock, and looked at the forest. Ten minutes of deep breathing and watching squirrels chase through the trees had made him feel better. He felt himself slipping back into his role as The Friendly Local Butcher, who didn't do scary things or get angry. He returned to the wagons and checked that everyone was ready to go. Once on the road, he'd been able to start enjoying the day, and by the time they got to where the first hamlet would be, he'd almost forgotten his anger. And he was certain that a time would come when he'd get a chance to vent the rage he pushed down. Suzy hadn't been happy when she found out about the situation.

Suzette had been upset when she'd heard from Rolly and Ben about the refugees. Clearing the construction zone at Rowan Keep was important, but her primary concern had been where the people would go. She'd devised the idea of settling them all near Sedgewick and pitched it to Billy. She pointed out the profits to be made. The game allowed for multiple harvests in a year. With fertilizer and higher-level farmers using magic, some contract workers were harvesting fields every month. If these people could even be half that productive, they'd provide a steady income for ACME of grain, corn, tobacco, and food to feed the contract workers in Sedgewick. He'd taken a few minutes to think it over. She could see more wheels turning in his head.

The Baron had agreed. It solved one problem, and Suzette assured him she could make the new hamlets profitable. She quickly found herself in charge of yet another project. Billy liked profit, and he wasn't about to turn up a chance to put the risk on someone else. He stuck her with the responsibility of turning a profit. The new hamlets and farms were part of Sedgewick, not Gadobhra. Billy would take a cut of the profit, and Suzette was responsible for any losses. As soon as she had agreed to do it, she'd gotten a quest.

Extending a Helping Hand

You've offered to house and feed 500 refugees driven from their homes in the south. Commendable, but it's easy to say and harder to do it!

Requirements:

-Led 500 refugee peasant farmers to the Promised Land. (Or at least the land you are promising them.)

-House 500 refugee peasant farmers.

-Clear 500 acres of farmland.

-Construct five small hamlets with a well, town square, 10+ houses, community storehouse, and roads connecting them to Sedgewick.

Success will be rewarded by building points for Sedgewick and Gadobhra, increased options for Sedgewick, and increased trade. Duke Carl will look more favorably upon Gadobhra.

Failure will incur the wrath of the Baron as he tries to deal with increasing banditry within the Barony and the distrust of Duke Carl.

She had shared the quest with Ben, Ozzy, and Rolly, along with her new tab for building hamlets.

Current Options for Spending Sedgewick Build Points on Hamlets Description Infrastructure Needed / Requirements Build Points Town Gates (Wooden) Wood planks 10 Shabby Wooden Walls (basic walls of wood, planks, wattle, and dung, or thatch) around Hamlet Perimeter Wood, scrap wood, thatching or clay and goat shit. 100 Protective Thorn Barrier around Hamlet Perimeter 30 feet deep area 50 Signal or Lookout Tower wood and land 10 Large Barn wood and land 20 Lighted Town Square with oil lamps (must provide oil) None 100 Store House (Foodstuffs, grain, oil, water, wood, coal.) Room in Town 50 each Artesian Well 1 Shovel 10 Town Square Land, stone 20

After looking them all over and making a written copy of the list, Ben had some ideas. "I like the new options. Some of the workers are asking about moving out of the barracks and building houses. Several couples are in long-term relations. With years left to go on their contracts, they'd like to have their own places to live. This could make it easier. We could expand near Sedgewick or put small hamlets near the quarry or closer to farms and forests."

Suzette was eyeing the large chunk of building points in the Sedgewick account. I'm going to spend points to get things rolling. It's a gamble that the quest will pay back more than I spend, but in the long run, this is what building points are for. They let us do something almost instantly. We could take the time to dig wells and do the basic construction on a town square, but time is something we are short on. Every day the refugees are at the keep is a half a day's construction time lost trying to work around them."

Suzette decided to jumpstart the construction by giving each hamlet a Town Square, Artesian Well, Store House, and Protective Thorn Barrier. That came to a total cost of 400 building points out of Sedgewick's total. As soon as she had done that, she gained an option to upgrade the Thorn Barrier to a Thick, Thorny Berry Vines for 5 points. That raised the total to 425 building points and only a sliver of the points she had in her account.

The next problem was food. Sedgewick fed 200 contract workers each day. Adding 500 refugees wasn't easy. Betty had demanded another set of ovens and three people to help her with baking bread. To everyone's surprise, Runt volunteered, working twelve hours a day and doing the job of two contract workers. Betty rewarded him with as much food as he could eat and baked him special treats. The ex-minion thought it was a great deal. He wasn't working nearly as hard as in the dungeon, where he only got a couple of beetles each day to eat.

Barrels of smoked meat, ground groats, and fresh bread was sent to each storehouse. A load of apples from the dryad orchards provided some fresh produce. The storehouses below Sedgewick were raided for bags of flour, cooking oil, cornmeal, and pickled vegetables. It was enough to get the people through the first two weeks and give the village time to gear up food production.

Over the last year, the amount of food Sedgewick needed to import had dropped as their fields increased and the contract workers with the Farmer class progressed in levels. A level 10 farmer could produce five times what a level 1 farmer could. And that was without specialized Core Skills. Skilled Provider and Abundance were skills that could help nearly everyone. As some farmers started gathering in harvest ten times bigger than expected, Suzette purchased more and more of the magical storerooms with the town's building points. She'd been up to 12 when Ozzy got back. After gaining 12,500 points, she purchased 38 more, turning the underground area from the barracks to the brewery into a vast network of storerooms for grain, vegetables, alcohol, and meat. Delbert became progressively more powerful as he strained his refrigeration abilities to keep some of the rooms cold. Now that stored food was being used to feed the refugees until they could grow their own.

Originally, Ben, Rolly, and Suzette had planned to help with the new Hamlets. The unwelcome arrival of imperial bureaucrats had changed. Immediate plans were made to deal with them, and Ozzy was put in charge of the Hamlet building crew. Partly because of two artifacts he had in his bag and somewhat to keep him from killing annoying tax collectors. The plans they quickly put together involved using Suzette as a stalking horse to draw out their intentions.

The crew of people Ozzy had recruited as builders arrived and got to work. Makken was an old hand at stonework, as most dwarves were. He could shape a rock to fit a gap just by glaring at it and needed no mortar to make a tight chimney and hearth. Wagonloads of stone were delivered to each building site, and the Peppermancer got to work while two stone cutters laid a basic foundation for each house. Wood they had in abundance. Oak beams and logs had been stacked high in this area to season. John and Cham arrived and began cutting the beams for the foundation and frame of each building and the boards needed for the floor and siding. Sedgewick had eight carpenters. They split into two teams of four and started work on two farmhouses as soon as the stonework was done.

The refugees looked on as the two houses were started or helped to move lumber and stone to each building site. They all knew how quickly high-level craftsmen could work, but they had never seen people able to carry so much weight. Piles of lumber, large beams, or stacks of stone bricks were tossed around like bundles of hay.

The first two homes took shape. The chimney and hearth were on the side and near the front of the house where the cooking would be done. A high, peaked roof gave room for a loft covering the main room's back half. Older children slept upstairs, leaving two rooms on the side for parents and a nursery. Along the other side would be a large pantry and storage. The back of the house, with the lower ceiling, looked over where the gardens would be. Plans included a window with nine panes of glass, which would be delivered later. With four carpenters working together, they had the house frame done in an hour, hammering away constantly. Another hour and they finished the floor, siding, and roof. The inside of the house would need a lot of sanding and finishing work. Getting the basics done to provide a place to live was the goal. The first team to finish took a little over two hours, and the other group wasn't far behind.

Ozzy and Woodrat beat them by thirty minutes.

As Dave, Clara, Seth, and Sarah took a beer break to look over their work, they spied Ozzy and Woodrat, starting the frame of their second house at the far end of the hamlet. No nails were used, and their tools weren't a hammer or saw. Ozzy held a massive axe in one hand, using it like a carpenter's hatchet to make the notches needed to fit the wooden beams together. He concentrated as he placed each beam, and smoke poured from his hands into the wood, fusing the two pieces. Captain Woodrat was ten times faster than Ozzy. Taking large pieces of wood, Woodrat cut foot-thick beams with one slice of an enchanted sword. Each piece of timber warped into the shape he needed as he infused each beam or plank with smoke. The four carpenters walked over and stared as the two Captains continued their work.

The workers in Sedgewick were used to people with high strength, and many of the workers were above ten. So, seeing Ozzy lift two logs needed for a ridge beam wasn't unusual. Seeing him fuse them into one shaft using magic smoke was beyond their experience. And watching Woodrat work was another thing entirely. Woodrat was clearly having fun as he added his ideas about what a proper farmhouse should look like, even though Ozzy had needed to explain to him what a farmhouse was before they started. The back of their first house had a bowed wall of windows similar to his Captain's quarters on the Splinter. There were built-in sea chests that doubled as benches and followed the curve of the window. Each room on the side had rounded windows like portholes with heavy shutters. The wood around the completed hearth was dark with infused smoke and fireproofed. Unlike the other partially completed houses, all of the wood was smooth and fitted tightly together. Woodrat only had to wave a hand, and his smoke ran along the surface of a floor or wall, smoothing the splinters and rough areas, leaving the wood smooth and with a slight luster.

Ozzy laughed silently as they watched Woodrat leap around the construction site and show off what a Wood Wright from the Smoke could do. The wood in the conjunction was easy to smooth, and Woodrat had decades of experience and the power of a Captain to back his skills. He deserved to have some fun showing off his hard-earned skills. The houses he and his apprentice built were tight and smooth, with beautiful woodworking inside and a roof that wouldn't leak. The carpenters walked around the completed house, commenting and appreciating the work.

After seeing how skilled Woodrat was, Seth made a suggestion. The carpenters and Ozzy worked on the basics of the next house under the Captain's direction. Woodrat concentrated on fixing any cracks, making each house a solid home to live in, and adding small improvements as he thought of them. By the end of the day, the first hamlet had ten farmhouses ready for families to move into. They lacked furniture, hinges, and glass for the windows. That would be done over the next few days as Rufus poured the needed glass panes. But they were much better than a drafty wagon or the cold ground.

Woodrat found himself to be very popular. Many farmers' wives requested additional shelves, cabinets, and other home upgrades. Never having been called on before to show off his abilities for such an audience, the Wood Wright went all out, improving each home to its owner's needs. Two fathers were asking about apprenticeships for their children. Woodrat listened to them and nodded. But he tried to explain that a ship sailing on the Smoke would prove both difficult and dangerous for an unskilled lad or lass from the conjunction.

Ozzy declared a break for dinner, and afterward, they would do a gopher hunt and start clearing some land. During the meal, Jonathan found out that the wives had held a meeting and decided he would get the job as mayor of their new hamlet. The men congratulated him and were secretly thrilled the job hadn't fallen on them. The new mayor was pushed to ask what precisely a gopher hunt was.

The Butcher opened the large bag he always carried and brought out a hammer and a plow. Jonathan backed away two steps, something telling him not to get near either of the tools. Both had a sinister aura about them. The hammer was a giant mallet with a wooden head over a foot in diameter. The plow was bright and sharp. It looked like an ordinary plow but with a sword instead of a normal plowshare. His eyes were drawn to the edge, where he saw it had carved a grove in the flagstone. Any fool could see that the items were magical.

Ozzy picked up each in turn and explained them. "I won a bet a while back and picked up some odd items. This hammer can drive out gophers and moles from the ground in a big circle around me. It usually kills them as well. And we know lots of ways to cook up gopher, as long as they are big enough. The kids can run around and collect the carcasses. The fun starts if we get a named gopher. They're too small for me to gain points from and can't hurt me. I thought maybe you and some other farmers could whack them with an adze while I keep them under control. A few Core Skill Points go a long way when starting out."

Jonathan was staring at the hammer, and suddenly both very scared and excited. Points were hard to come by. Even when a small named creature invaded the village's lands, the farmers were told to run away and not fight them. Guards from the keep would come and claim the kill and collect the precious points that came from killing even a small boss monster.

Things worked differently here. Much differently. He was being offered a chance at some points and a somewhat safe way to get them. He'd never been in a fight with a monster before, but Ozzy was correct that some of the magical points could mean the difference between a poor harvest and having extra food to sell. The richest farming families he'd heard of had sons and daughters with an Abundance skill or a talent for Earth magic. He was scared but wouldn't pass up a chance like this. "That sounds good to me. I'll get people ready whenever you want to start. But what does the plow do?"

"Oh, it's useful but not nearly as much fun. I can use it to level out some farmland and save you some time. Using it takes a lot of stamina, but it makes a nice field. I'll do twenty acres in three of the hamlets today. The plow can level out the land, break up the ground, and stack all the rocks around the edge in just a few minutes. I just run along behind as fast as I can and guide it. Jon and Cham will convince the stumps to go away while we hunt gophers. By the end of the week, you should have 100 acres of farmland ready for planting."

"One of our town planners, Benjamin, suggested using a system called Long Lots. It was popular in a place called France that he visited one. Each Family will start off with a long field, two hundred feet wide and half a mile long. That gives you about ten acres to farm, starting out. We're going to leave a lot of space between each Hamlet so we can expand the fields later. We should have the hundred acres around each Hamlet cleared by the end of the week and all the houses built."

Jonathan waited for everyone to start laughing at Ozzy's story, but it didn't happen. Eventually, he said 'Thank you.' again and got people ready to hunt gophers.

Hammer of Gopher Thumping (Legendary)

It was created by an unknown smith during the South Farthing Gopher Wars. This enchanted Warhammer will do double damage to gophers and may be ‘thumped’ upon the ground once a minute, which forces any rodent within 100’ of the wielder to appear above ground and take 100 crushing damage.

Vorpal Plowsword +3 (Legendary)

At one time, this legendary sword could slay armies with a swing and brought about a time of great peace in the empire. The hero, Cathbert, retired and vowed to have it forged into a plow. While it still looks like a sword, it is indeed a plow. Thrice per day, it will till the soil, weed, and fertilize the ground. Unfortunately, it drains the stamina needed to do the job the hard way. Each acre turned into cropland this way drains 250 stamina from the user. Cathbert did his whole farm in a day. Other people struggle to get 40 acres done in a month.