“Some of you know about my recent fascination for a 2000-year-old poem. I have discussed with Barry that an excerpt should be the motto for the Academy.” Ben looked at the almost 150 people around him on the plaza. He took a moment to center himself.
They had arrived back at the settlement at noon and after a short break launched the ceremony. Ben dreaded it, but also felt an urgency to show his gratefulness to his dead friend.
“I feel that this poem is fitting to this moment as well.
your prayer should be for a sound mind in a sound body.
Ask for a brave heart that quails not at death,
that counts the closing span of life among nature’s boons;
a heart that can endure whatever toil befalls,
“Simon had a brave heart. He didn’t hesitate to leap to our defense. To the defense of this settlement.
“He was many things beyond brave. He was funny, very funny actually, despite being rather quiet. He always helped without even being asked.
“He had been with us for almost a decade. It is now up to us to ‘endure whatever toil befalls’ and him missing is one of the greatest ‘toils’ that could ever happen to us.”
With a quick access to the Settlement Interface, Ben added Simon’s name to the Wall of Heroes.
Ben opened the floor for others to say a few words, and Barry, Nils, Jamal, and his mother spoke briefly of who Simon was and how he had affected them.
Jamal managed to get a laugh out of Ben and some of the people around them. It was a sad occasion, but Ben felt some relief for having done the ceremony.
Ben then nodded to Adam, who took over.
“We are also here to welcome a number of people who officially want to become members of the Protectorate. Normally, we would have a Retelling in that context, but due to the situation today, we hope for your understanding that we will postpone that for a short time.”
They had all agreed that it wouldn’t feel right to mix the ceremony for Simon with the Retelling, which was supposed to be a light-hearted, positive event.
As people stepped up, Ben was surprised to see not just the researchers from Antarctica step forward to the Protectorate Pillar, but also the initial holdouts from Simonston to become citizens.
Adam updated him, “That was actually Arthur Cackett’s work. After we rebuilt everything and then the defense of the settlement, he managed to convince Jim and his family, as well as his old friend, that this was the place to be going forward.”
Ben was a bit surprised. “That is good of him, but do we actually want people that are not convinced that this is the right place for them?”
“Well, first of all, I think what kept them initially was mostly shock from being exposed to their first fight, and second, you don’t really believe that we can grow this place to thousands of people, maybe even hundreds of thousands, and every single one will be fully committed to the vision, right?”
Ben tilted his head, “I suppose not, but one can always hope…” he said with a wry smile.
As a final act of the public ceremony, Ben placed the dungeon core on the plinth on the east side of the plaza and the well-known blue message appeared:
Tier-1 Dungeon integrated (3 levels)
Current Theme: Lizard evolution
Confirm theme or select new theme
This time Ben had struggled with the decision. If he never saw a Retskul again, it would be too soon. At the same time, he was hesitant to change the theme for a dungeon with three levels without knowing whether he or anybody else would be able to defeat it.
So in the end, risk aversion won over his aversion to Retskuls, and he confirmed the theme.
As he did so, a strong pulse echoed from the Protectorate Pillar, which grew by more than half a meter to now 3.60 meters. At the same time, a new portal and plinth rose out of the ground.
The average time to break for the new dungeon was three days; as usual, the time had been reduced by one day relative to its status in the wild.
With that done, Ben retired to his apartment and quickly fell asleep for a long time.
***
After the morning exercise, on his way to breakfast the next morning, he was waylaid by Sarah and Kevin.
“Hey, you two. How are things?”
“Thank you, we are well,” Sarah answered on behalf of both of them. In fairness to her, Kevin nodded in agreement.
“I am glad to hear it. How can I help you?”
“We were wondering if we could join the tryouts?”
“Tryouts?”
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“For the Protectors!”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, Sarah.”
“Your mom and Barry are planning tryouts for the next class of Protectors. And we wanted to participate.”
“Mhh, so first of all, I will have to check with them, I don’t know what their plans are. Second, I seem to remember a very similar conversation with the two of you. I cannot and will not approve for you to engage in combat-related activities unless your parents convince me otherwise.
“I am incredibly grateful that you are both so keen to help defend us all, but I would be grateful if we wouldn’t have to have this conversation again.”
“But the tryouts are very different from going on a mission! You are not fair!”
“Again, I don’t know anything about the tryouts. Have your parents talk with my mother or Barry and see what they will decide. That’s the best I can do.”
Sarah turned around and stomped away. Kevin looked at him apologetically, shrugged, and ran after her.
Ben chuckled. I wish all my problems were that easy to solve!
***
Julia joined him for breakfast with the twins.
“How are you?”
“I am okay. Getting a good night’s rest helps a lot. If we can have a day without emergencies today, everything should be splendid.”
“Did you have to do a lot of fighting, Ben?” Christina asked.
“Did you see something cool?” Robby chimed in.
Ben chuckled and ignored his sister’s warning stare. “I have seen quite a few interesting things. The coolest thing was a tree!”
“A tree? But there are trees everywhere! How can that be cool?!” Robby was clearly not happy with the answer.
“I think all trees are cool, but this was a special tree. It was called Moon-amber Resin Oak. It has a very dark and smooth bark and it has silver lines all across it. I tell you, very cool!”
“Was it magical?” Christina yelled.
“Very magical! Next time you see Aunt Luz you can ask her about it, ok?”
Both nodded. There weren’t many children their age around, so having something to explore was a good thing for them.
Julia nodded gratefully. They quickly after wrapped up breakfast and Ben headed to the HQ—for a meeting he was looking forward to: deciding on what to build.
***
“Before we come to the main points, Mom, Barry, I was approached regarding ‘tryouts’ for the Protectors. What is the plan there?”
They were sitting in his office, overlooking the plaza.
“In principle, we are happy for everyone to join and we won’t restrict that. However, we believe,” Allison looked at Barry, “that there is an optimal size for the training class. So the tryout is less about whether people can or cannot join, but more the order in which they can join the martial arts classes.”
“Exactly. Even with Tracy and myself together, we don’t think it makes sense to have more than 12–15 people at the same time. Even that is probably at the higher end, given that most are very new to the topic and we need to get them ready to run dungeons without being a danger to themselves or their team,” Barry added.
“Understood, makes a lot of sense. So what is the tryout going to entail?”
Barry shrugged. “We will just go with basic fitness for now. If somebody has martial arts experience, they can demonstrate that and gain bonus points, but fitness and attitude will be the only real requirements for now.”
“Good. The sooner we can have more people ready, the better. With now four dungeons, plus an undefined number of missions from the systems, plus eventually having patrols in the surrounding areas, we will be more than busy. In addition, I think we should skip a trip to Simonston this week, but we probably want to go back in two, so that would also take resources. And to be honest, I wouldn’t be sad if I never have to run the Rat Attack dungeon again,” Ben chuckled.
“Yeah, it is not the most engaging of challenges, once you know what to expect,” Allison laughed. “We will do the tryout tomorrow and hopefully within two weeks we will have people ready for some of our easier challenges.”
“Let’s talk about money!” Ben said with a wink at Adam.
“Indeed. We got our SC stipend today! We are certainly not rich, but we have more than we had yesterday.
“We have 144 citizens, all of course Tier 1, which nets us 720 SCs. For our four dungeons, we got 2000 SCs in total. We already had 250 in the bank, which means we now have 2970 SCs. On top of that, with all the cores you brought back from the dungeon run and what we have left over from the attack, we also have more than 35,000 Credits if we need to convert some into SCs.”
Ben thought about the price they had to pay, in particular for the cores, but then shook his head and focused on the good they could do with the funds they now had.
Adam continued, “One thing we need to keep in mind: to reach level 3 we need 1000 people. Very roughly speaking, that is 100 apartment buildings. If we average that out between the one- and two-bedroom variants, that alone requires us to spend 25,000 SCs over whatever time it will take us to get there.”
“You continue your tradition as a party pooper,” Ben said while boxing Adam on the shoulder. “But you’re right, let’s reserve a thousand for apartments, in case we get missions that come with a large influx of people. That still leaves us with close to 2000 to spend, and I can tell you, we will spend them for fun stuff!”
Adam grimaced, “I hate to continue to be the bearer of bad news, but we also need to continue to invest in basic infrastructure. In that case, garbage disposal. Similarly to the Water Treatment Energy Interface, there is a Waste Energy Interface, which will become necessary once we hit 200 people. It also costs 500 SC.”
Ben shook his fist at Adam, “You’re trying to steal all my fun. What else are you holding back?!”
This time Adam laughed, “Nothing right now. I am sure the systems will have more surprises over time, though.”
“Ok, so let me tell you what I want, then you can tell me what it costs. Another greenhouse, at least one, ideally two normal workshops, one smithy, one alchemy lab, training grounds, and a house of healing. Ideally also an academy main building, but I anticipate that that will break the bank for now.”
Barry chuckled, “It is genuinely not necessary right now. Most of our education right now is more physical, and for everything else, we can use this building for now.”
“I understand, but I still want it. Also, think about the cool features that the library and the greenhouse have. I am sure that the academy buildings will have similar abilities.”
Barry smiled and nodded, probably more to humor Ben than because he felt urgency on the issue.
Adam cleared his throat with a smirk, “Unless your interface shows other buildings than mine, there is no such thing as an academy or university building… I am sure it will come eventually, but not at level 2.”
“Oh, ok. Well to be honest, I didn’t check.”
There was general laughter in the room.
“The house of healing would be a large commitment right now with 1000 SCs. Obviously, I don’t fully understand its capabilities right now, but so far the healing perks your sister and Ashley have seem to be doing the job.”
Ben’s thoughts briefly flickered to Simon, but he quickly controlled himself and had to admit that a house of healing would probably not bring people back from the dead.
“Ok, so how about the rest?”
“The greenhouse is still 300, the normal workshops are 250, the fancier ones are 350, and the training ground is 200. So we could get four workshops in total plus the other two buildings and the waste disposal and end up at 2200 SCs. I think that is doable. It will cut a bit into our apartment fund, but if we really need more capacity on short notice, we can convert some credits. What do you think?” Adam said.
“Sounds good to me,” Allison said, and Barry agreed.
“Let’s do it. No better time than the present!” Ben shouted excitedly.
