CC 9: Tenacity ~ Seventeen

“It's a pleasure doing business with you.” Joe shook the hand of the mustachioed Dwarf who was interested in creating a scented soap company based off the tallow she would render from the Penguins, as well as somehow being able to produce crystallized lye from burning hair from the Hoardlings. Apparently her business partner would use the excess tallow for candles or food preservation, so realistically it was going to be a two-for-one special.

While that was great, Joe’s focus was on what he could acquire as an investor. Since this company was going to be creating actual goods, and he didn’t really need much of anything, his bargain was for two percent of the final products instead of materials.

“Please come visit us soon! The Joy of Pleasant Scents looks forward to delighting our guests in the near future, and are very excited to have our items featured in your constructions in the future.” Joe could only admire the business savvy and Charisma that this Dwarf exuded. If she weren’t going to open her own shop, he would try and hire her on as a salesperson on his behalf. As it stood, he could only nod and graciously accept her thanks. There was no reason to explain to her that he would never personally use the scented soap or candles for himself.

Smelling good never hurt anyone, but his goal was to have small gifts and such to offer to guests and friends in the future. As for Joe, his protective magic was so effective that not even a trace of the smell would be able to linger in the air around him. Sure, he enjoyed nice smelling things as much as the next person. But experience had taught him that as soon as he let his guard down, someone would get a bloodhound or other mythological analog to hunt him down—or perhaps figure out how to use the skin cells he shed for a nefarious spell.

As he left the new workshop behind, Joe looked around at all the progress he had managed to force. The area was filling out nicely, and even though he didn’t have actual access to the Town Hall at the moment to see the area development metrics, he was keeping a running tally in his head. If he had to guess, at this point the chart in the Town Hall would look something like:

Building slots remaining:

1,000/1,000 Trash slots remain.

500/500 Damaged slots remain.

35/50 Common slots remain.

12/25 Uncommon slots remain.

0/10 Rare slots remain.

The nice thing was that he didn’t even need to keep an actual list if he didn’t want to, as his class experience for Rituarchitect went up by a set amount for each building that he made. That was indication enough for him to be able to remember everything. Between the Common, Uncommon, and Rare buildings, Joe had already pulled in two thousand, two hundred and fifty experience, pushing him over the edge into Rituarchitect level eleven.

For a few minutes after gaining the new level, he’d waited and hoped that the system would give him some small accolade, perhaps an item that would be useful to him. Then he remembered that he’d earned a massive reward at level ten—the Ritual of the Traveling Civilization at the Grandmaster rank—so he shouldn’t expect to be given anything more until he reached… perhaps level fifteen?

Still, that called into question for him the last time he had actually earned a level in the Rituarchitect class. After thinking about it for a moment, he shook his head and chuckled. “I got to level ten all the way back on Midgard… that was two worlds away! This class really needs some love, and luckily I have a whole empty world to fill up. Time to find the next sucker—whoops, I mean the next person who needs a building, who I can generously help.”

He’d already secured supply chains for all kinds of luxury goods; everything from embroidered satchels, to completed weapons and armor, to base materials gathered from monster waves. Joe's eyes alighted on a group of Dwarves that each had a pickaxe, shovel, and various other tools with them. With a smile on his face, he walked toward the group of miners that had no mineshaft, prepared to start offering his usual deal.

“Joe!” The human turned toward the familiar voice, nodding in acknowledgment as he realized that the Dwarven Council had sent a familiar face to do their dirty work this time. “You've got to know that you can't just outright own the whole Village and expect that there won't be some pushback.”

“Major Cleave! So good to see you as well.” Joe started the conversation with a bit of tightness in his voice, annoyed that she’d skipped basic pleasantries. Then he reassessed his feelings, recognizing that she had always been efficient to the point of abrupt. “Can I ask what you’re talking about?”

The Dwarf grunted as she came to a stop in front of him, “The council saw what you were doing, called a vote, and created the first law for the village. Do you know what the first law in any new settlement usually is? Almost always it's something to do with not stealing, or protections for the people; something to that effect. Not here. No, they needed to waste the limited number of laws that they can make by starting with ‘no individual can own more than five percent of the total buildings in this Village’. They told me to come get you and bring you in as a favor, so that you can choose which of the buildings you’re going to be giving over to the council directly.”

“What a nice favor!” Joe shrugged helplessly as he waved around. “Unfortunately, I can't help you with that. I only own one of the buildings in town, my workshop. If I do the math… I only own one out of the thirty-two buildings here… that's nowhere near five percent! Man, what a strict law to put into place, and affect no one at all when they can only make a few total laws. Bummer, there. Sorry to say, I can't help you out.”

“I just saw you make that shop, what do you mean that you don't own it?” Cleave pointed accusingly at the shop where two Dwarves were painting ‘The Joy of Pleasant Scents’ above the door with smiles on their faces. The greataxe-wielding Dwarf furrowed her brow as she realized what they were doing. “I see. You’re subverting this law already, and you didn't even know it was being made.”

“How could I subvert a law that didn't exist?” Joe's professional smile was fading rapidly, and he let it go in favor of watching the Dwarf with a stony stare. “It does seem like a strange law for a people that revere Oligarchs. I can't say that I disagree with that proposition, as I believe allowing people to run their own businesses and make their own way in life is the path toward prosperity. In fact, I truly hope that it's incredibly difficult to change that law or get rid of it.”

“It’s nearly impossible. Unless the Town Hall is destroyed.” Cleave informed him, a considering look on her face as she let her eyes rove the human up and down. “Something about you has changed. I can't say I don't like it. You seem overall calmer and happier. Good. I’ll go and inform the council how badly they messed up just now. For your information, I did put forward an opinion on the matter before the vote, stating that it seemed they were targeting a single person with this law. I’m pleased that you had the forethought to disrupt their plans.”

“Aww, is someone liking the company of humans?” Joe shook his head as a conspiratorial smile appeared on his face. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

At first, the Dwarf didn’t answer him, merely nodding and starting to walk away. She slowed to a halt, and spoke over her shoulder without looking directly at him. “Our time together showed me that I was misguided on many things, and I’m sad to know that time has drawn to an end. Not only am I impressed by you, and in a lesser way humans in general, but I no longer hold an innate disgust for bald, clean shaven people. You’ve shown me that sometimes what matters is the beard you grow on the inside.”

Joe didn't have anything to say to that, and decided to chalk the strange complement up to cultural differences as his once-teammate walked away. With a lighter heart, he moved over to his original target: the group of miners that was now having a fierce argument. “Good day, fine Dudes and Dudettes! You seem to be having an issue, and I was wondering if I could offer my services?”

At first, only scorn-filled glances were sent his way, but then one of the Dwarves grabbed the apparent leader by the shoulder and whispered something sharply into his ear while gesturing at Joe. The human waited patiently, pretending that he couldn’t hear exactly what was being said, just like every other member of the group that had third-threshold Perception. “That's the human that was a Major General! You know, the one that got us to the Bifrost! He’s a magic bro, maybe he can actually help!”

The Ritualist was glad that his reputation was starting to proceed him again, this time in a positive manner. Even with as strange as it felt to him that so many Dwarves had no idea who he was, he understood perfectly. For one, he’d lost his title which would give them an inherent knowledge of who he was. For another, there was no reasonable way to expect that every person in a group of nearly a hundred thousand people would recognize him on sight. That would be sheer narcissism, and Joe couldn't think of anyone that was humbler than he was.

A short back and forth followed, as the chief miner grumbled at his subordinate, only for that Dwarf to point at the sky, then at all of the buildings that had been popping up in the area. Finally, he threw his hands into the air and stomped over to the human, jumping directly into their issue. “We need a mine if we're going to last here for any length of time. Metal tools are what makes civilizations thrive, and all of us have the ability to find ore deposits. There's a Minor tier one metal vein over here, but every time we start digging toward it, we get a nasty warning.”

The Dwarf that had been whispering on Joe's behalf filled in the information. “The warning tells us that if we dig more than ten feet underground, Beast Waves in the future will include burrowing monsters! Also, large monsters moving through the area have a chance to cause mineshaft collapses. Since every monster is a large monster here, we don't know if it's worth the risk.”

“We need metal to survive!” The chief miner seemed to have made up his mind at this point, and gestured for the others to start working. “We’ll just let the council know that they need to plan for underground incursions in the future. That’s their problem, not ours.”

By this point, Joe was slack-jawed as he watched the Dwarves get ready to put the entire Village at risk just so they could get some work done. “You guys can't be serious about this, right? We're going to just have to figure out a different way for you to mine metals. Seriously, a couple of Penguins got in and destroyed the Town Hall once, and the current defenses in place are barely enough to hold off the lowest prey for the real monsters. If you add burrowing monsters to what we need to defend against, this place is going to be destroyed by the next wave!”

“Well, what do you suggest we do, Mr. fancy pants mage?” The Dwarf snarled at him. “Start learning a new career three hundred years in?”

“No, but we’ve been here less than a week.” That earned him a few strange looks, and Joe paused as he considered how much time he’d been spending on his own recently. It was entirely possible that he had lost a few days somewhere in there. “Just give it a little bit of time? Or maybe we need to set up a mine outside of the city walls? Will that still cause underground monster attacks?”

There was a bit of hesitation at that, and Joe realized what was going on. “I see. None of you have checked if building a mine outside of the city is possible, as that would be too dangerous. Is that about right?”

“We specifically chose not to stay in the Legion, and to pursue our craft.” The Dwarf blustered, refusing to back down on behalf of his subordinates. “We can't be expected to expose ourselves to the elements and every random creature that wants a taste of us.”

That was met with nodding and a few outspoken agreements. Slightly annoyed, Joe tried a different tack than he’d been pursuing until this moment. “You won't put yourself at risk, but you're willing to put the entire… okay. Just… give me a couple of days to look into a better solution than this. You do understand that opening the mine here will put the whole Village at risk, and you’re a subset of that group, right?”

Quieting down, the group talked amongst themselves for a few moments, before their spokesman turned and shrugged at Joe. “I'll give you one hundred and twenty hours to come up with a better solution, or we’re breaking ground.”

Quest gained: Don’t dig your own grave. The Dwarven Mining Guild is getting antsy, wanting to hunt for higher rank metals and materials. Their excitement about digging into the depths of Jotunheim could be the undoing of not just them, but the Village they are attempting to build the mineshaft in. Find an alternate solution within 120 hours. Reward: Access to various-ranked metals. Failure: The Village will be attacked by burrowing monsters during all future Beast Waves, even if the mine is closed.

“Why that time limit? Can't you just say five days?” Joe was reeling from the information the quest had given him. The Dwarves were ready to start this very moment, even with the knowledge that they would truly cause issues for their people.

“Made that mistake once already.” The Dwarf scoffed as he pointed at the false sky, which was showing darkness at the moment. “Turns out that five days here’s what we think of as five months. Nothing like not getting your request fulfilled for nearly half a year.”

“Got it.” Joe shook his head and walked away, fairly certain they wouldn't start digging as soon as his back was turned. His next stop was the Town Hall, to share this news and get some outside help finding a solution.