CC 9: Tenacity ~ Sixteen

“I figured out light for them for free, but what should I do for water?” Joe didn't want to actually set everything up for the community without some form of clearly stated and agreed upon payment, but he figured he could get started on the work before they finally broke down and absolutely needed it. Then he could have an answer instantly, and Joe didn't mind looking extremely competent.

Using a variety of spells, he could always maintain homeostasis for himself. As an example, his aura allowed Joe to remain well-hydrated and in perfect health. That meant that figuring out this issue on behalf of the people around him was more akin to a riddle he was determined to decipher. Thanks to his previous experience, it was less challenging to source water than it was to tackle issues of air quality or heating such a colossal unprotected expanse.

Granted, he could easily solve the issue of living areas by constructing residential structures such as apartment complexes, but without a clear quest and reward offered, he wasn’t going to undertake such a monumental task using his own resources. In fact, Joe wasn't entirely certain if homes and the like were going to be a main focus at all, thanks to the temporary housing that he’d managed to get in place in under a day. “You know… that's a good point. What if we built only structures that were useful for research, item creation, storage and the like? Would we be able to advance up the technology tree faster?”

Again, it was an interesting thought experiment, but it was unlikely that he’d be able to convince tens of thousands of people to live in literal bubbles for upwards of a year. He snorted and let a rueful chuckle escape his upturned lips, “Then again… I'm not in charge. I don't need to convince anyone.”

Just like that, Joe decided that he was going to fill every single building slot with useful facilities. When they reached the level of a city, he was certain there’d be plenty of slots available for the use of housing: he could likely even make enormous skyscrapers that could contain the entirety of the remaining Dwarven race in a single building. Blinking away the daydream, Joe returned to the issue of water.

It was a profoundly simple issue. Water was all around them. This was a world of ice, and a simple step outside would put him in the snow. But any water that was collected needed to be maintained at a temperature that allowed it to remain a liquid.

That meant any water collection needed to include a source of heat and if they wanted to pipe that water to individual buildings or cisterns. Even then, not only would the collection points need to be heated, but the pipes would as well. With no visible source of wood, the only easily accessible flammable material was Penguin blubber. Joe was certain that using that resource for that purpose would drastically reduce the air quality in the Village, meaning they’d just be trading one problem for another.

“The solution is absolutely going to be mana and magic.” Joe had been going down his checklist piece by piece, and this was where all paths led. “If we don't want to just hire a massive workforce of people dedicated to pumping their mana regen into rituals or enchantments, I'm going to need to start converting cores into Mana Batteries. Then the next step is… figure out how many of the monsters drop a core. If it's a whole bunch of them, we can make a self-sustaining civilization and economy entirely off of the monsters that are trying to destroy us.”

He tapped on his paper a few times, slowly nodding in acceptance of his own thoughts. “Yes… I like that. It's elegant. The monsters don’t want us to have a city. The only way we can possibly have one is by harvesting the monsters that are trying to stop us. I guess the only question is, does that make us symbiotic with this planet, or parasitic? Follow up question: why do I care?”

Joe's remaining checklist was fairly straightforward at this point. Once he got confirmation that there was an abundance of cores thanks to the Beast Waves, he’d invest in creating an exceedingly stabilized Ritual of Enchantment for the production of Mana Batteries. Using those as a base for his construction and rituals, he’d be able to remove the bottleneck of gathering people and having volunteers work with him.

With his path determined, Joe pushed himself to his feet and darted out the door. Running toward the large mound of slowly-freezing corpses in the distance, he thought about how he was going to phrase all of his questions and propositions. After much thought, he settled instead on a crude strategy. Joe resolutely steeled himself for the possibility that, if he failed to obtain what he needed from the Dwarves due to their obstinance, he’d start working to stockpile an exorbitant amount of resources.

Then, he would go and build a city in one fell swoop… after turning the surrounding countryside into an absolute death trap of rituals. It might take a long time to build a city on his own, but Joe had faith that he could do it.

Approaching the Dwarf that was in charge of cataloging everything in the pile, Joe made sure to keep his posture firm and unyielding. “I need a report on what sort of resources we can acquire from each of the monsters. What their body parts are good for, what the rate of core drops is.”

“Ah, Mr. Joe. Major General Havoc told me to be expecting you.” The bearded Dwarf who had recently offered to warm the bald human up handed over a sheet of paper and started going over it line by line. “As you can see here, the Penguins are excellent for fuel, as well as meat. The feathers that they provide will have a range of uses, from the design of clothing to ward off the chill, to fletchings for ballista bolts—too large for regular arrows—though we have some industrious Dwarves hard at work creating oversized feather blankets.”

Moving down, he pointed at the section detailing the Hoardlings, “These nasty beasts have a few tricks up their sleeves: even after death they exude cold. If we weren’t on this frozen planet, I’d say that we’d use chunks of their body to refrigerate foods and drinks. Their bodies are lightly toxic, and samples have been provided to the Alchemy Hall for further study. As far as we can tell, their leather will be useful for armors; once again we hope to see a benefit against the cold by using them.”

Joe opened his mouth to speak, but the Dwarf pushed on without giving him a chance. “To answer your last question, we see an Uncommon core from the Penguins in one out of every five bodies or so, one out of four of the same for the Hoardlings. We didn’t get a core from the first Elite Penguin, but our information states that you managed to extract a Rare core from the second. Can you confirm that for me?”

Having worked himself up into a fervor, Joe felt slightly put off by the fact that each of his questions was answered in a clear and succinct manner. “Oh. Yes, I did get a Rare off that, but I also used a spell that guarantees a core being formed if the target is killed within a few seconds of its casting.”

“I see. Thank you, that helps with the knowledge of its worth. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give us much information on its drop rate.” The Dwarf marked something down on his own sheets of paper, looking up and studying Joe a moment later. “There was approximately a twenty percent increase in each wave of monsters. Four hundred for the first, a little over seven hundred on the fifth wave. That included an elite Penguin, bringing us to approximately two thousand eight hundred monsters for the entirety of the assault. We weathered two full assaults, which means we're expecting approximately fourteen hundred Uncommon cores after we're able to fully process each of these.”

Joe stood there for a moment, mind whirling as he took in all of this information and tried to find the best way to use it. “Thank you, that was… very helpful. Is there any chance I could request a large amount of these for my own uses? The cores especially would be great for my work.”

“Yours and everyone else's.” The Dwarf told him dryly. “Not to mention the thousands of non-combatants that want to find a way to purchase the cores for experience in lieu of risking their own neck. I will also note, the group that chased you away from your kill have been reprimanded, and the body is en route to your workshop as we speak. We guarantee that any of your kills will remain your property from this point forward. Is there anything else I could help you with at the moment?”

Joe could tell that Havoc must’ve been hard at work since their meeting, and he felt a wave of relief that the not-so-subtle shoving of him to the side might have been firmly halted. “For now… that will be all. Thank you for the information, and let me know if there's anything I can do for the people around here.”

“Are you… perhaps looking for things to do?” The blandness of the Dwarf’s tone was what truly caught Joe's attention, and he turned around with a gleam in his eye.

“To think I was just about to walk away! Do you, perhaps, have a quest for me?” Joe chuckled as a slight smile appeared on the stoney face of the Dwarf he was speaking with.

“Well… I don't have any official authorization to make this request…” the Dwarf started evasively, making Joe's smile go wider. He knew that if they were making a deal under the table, he could get paid in the same way, and charge a premium for it. “You may have noticed the enormous pile of over five thousand bodies behind me. You may also notice that they're out in the open, promoting disease, unease, and spoilage. In this cold, I wouldn't usually consider that last concern as a possibility, but since they're so resistant to the cold, I've already noticed signs of decomposition on some of the earliest-gathered of them.”

“Would you perhaps be interested in having a warehouse devoted to the storage of the creatures we'll be getting all of our resources from for the foreseeable future?” Joe pretended to think long and hard about what he would ask for, but he’d already decided on his path. The Ritualist mumbled to himself as he placed a salesman’s smile on his lips, “I see it’s already time to enact ‘Nibbled to Death by Ducks’.”

“Sorry, missed that last part?” The Dwarf leaned forward, hoping for clarification, but Joe merely waved him off while keeping a broad smile on his face. “Erm, yeah. Without proper storage, all of this is going to be trash in no time flat. We don't have a hollow mountain to dump all our waste and failed projects into anymore, and I don't think most people have realized that yet.”

“I can make that happen.” Even as he was speaking, Joe whipped out his notepad and made a note to create several large-scale rituals for ‘Little Sister’s Cleaning Service’. That would be a constant source of low-rarity aspects in the near future. “Storage, that is, not a mountain. In fact, I can make it happen right now. But I want one percent.”

“Say that again, I can’t have heard you correctly.” The Dwarf rubbed at his ears as though Joe had just said something extremely offensive. “You want me to pay you in a percentage? Have you never met a Dwarf? Our entire society is based on creating and following Oligarchs! I'm not about to be swindled like this.”

“Don't be too hasty!” Joe's wide smile had never wavered. “You didn't hear the rest of the offer.”

He paused, letting the silence entice his negotiation partner, who finally cracked. “Well? Spit it out, human!”

“I'm not going to charge you for the building, but I'll directly transfer ownership of it to you. Not to the council, not to a group… you.” Joe only paused for a second this time, knowing better than to let an idea marinate when it was supposed to be flash fried. “Instead of paying me for an Uncommon warehouse, all I ask is that one percent of what gets stored there gets tossed out a little bit… early. Instead of just sitting on the materials until they rot because no one can use them fast enough, only ten out of a thousand of the corpses that need to be processed get sent my way. Anything given to me as payment for another job does not count against this number, of course. We’ll keep the details just between us?”

“Of course.” The Dwarf was rubbing at his beard thoughtfully. “I suppose no one’s going to look into one… percent… urgh. At least, not too hard… agreed.”

“Just make it an official quest, and I’ll start building right away.” Joe loved seeing the wince the Dwarf didn’t even try to hide. Much like a magical contract, a quest meant that the percentage would be seen as his quest reward, and the system would enforce the payment—and lash out directly against the Dwarf if the deal wasn’t followed to the letter.

The Dwarf agreed, with the caveat that the warehouse had to be ready to use in under an hour. Joe accepted, much to the relief of the Dwarf, who apparently had no faith that Joe would be able to perform the miracle of getting an audience with the Dwarven Council and acquiring permission to build.

But Joe didn't mind skipping that step. Fifteen minutes later, feathery bodies were being transported into a brand new warehouse, and an excited—if slightly crestfallen—Dwarf was shaking Joe's hand.

As the human walked away, he kept an eye on his surroundings, hoping he’d find yet another need that he could handle. “Hmm… those craftsmen look really cold, working out in the open like this. Let’s see if any of them are interested in leatherworking in a toasty workshop instead of around a fire that keeps going out.”