Predicting the rain doesn’t count. Building arks does. - Warren Buffet

  There was a loud trumpeting sound. A box appeared in Hanks vision, overriding his preference for this not to happen automatically. Obviously some things were beyond his authority.

  “Moderate? Slight? What does that mean?” Hank forgot his questions as another box appeared.

  It was a straightforward decision, Hank thought. He wanted to get rid of at least one of the warnings from the previous window. So without hesitation he said “yes”. As the window closed, another immediately replaced it.

  Almost immediately another window appeared over the top of the first.

  “Fantastic!” Hank grumped “A fifteen-minute walk wipes out all my bonuses. Why does everything have penalties?” The universe didn’t answer, but another window appeared.

  “Could this game be any more cryptic? What does that mean?” Hank mumbled allowed but he didn’t get much further in his thoughts. Another window appeared over the previously opened windows. His vision was getting cluttered.

  “Fine. Yep. Got it. Everything has changed. Goody. Let’s move on.” The prompt closing of all windows demonstrated the sufficiency of Hank’s response for the powers that be. But that wasn’t the end of the bombardment. A new window appeared indicating Hank hadn’t finished.

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  “What’s with the snark?” Hank grumbled realising he hadn’t received that part of the quest until before he completed it. But rather than dwell on that problem a new question sprang to ming. Why were there no rewards? Before he could dwell on it, another box popped up.

  Once again the choices seemed obvious. “Yes, to both.”

  Hank waved away the window, finally back to an unobstructed view. A single blinking icon of three tents, one large and two small, had replaced the old icon for Hank’s mine. Hank assumed that it was the settlement menu. Deciding he should study his settlement, he selected the icon. Four new icons appeared in his vision arranged in a circular fashion. He couldn’t explain how but he knew the one with a tent was for accommodation, the one similar to his old mine icon was for production, a star represented enhancements and some weird squiggle represented reserves. “What are reserves?” he questioned out loud.

  A note floated beneath the icons, which Hank tried to ignore. It said something about tier zero settlements having limited interaction and recommended upgrades to change the situation. He shook his head as he mumbled to himself. “Nothing is easy is it?” He paused. “Everything is about upgrades. I’d better work out what this new menu is all about first.” He opened accommodation first.

  A small table confronted Hank. He momentarily looked through it before realising he didn’t understand the contents. Before getting stuck into the detail, he decided he needed to know more about tents. A stray thought brought another window into view.

  "Dam it." Hank grumbled. "Why does everything have to be in five hundred different languages? What's wrong with straight up common. Why do we have all this drama. It's a game for goodness sake. Just translate everything in to common already."

  It was one of those moments that the AI decided would be great for dishing out reality checks. "So arrogant, assuming that all things bow to your culture and language. Just a quick reminder. This game is not just entertainment. There's a purpose. Making your life easy is not the purpose."

  "Huh." Hank hadn't been expecting a response from the AI. Before he could get his head around the AI chiming in, Jamie commented. "What's a game? I hope you don't think strolling all the way out here was just a game?"

  "Huh." Hank's mind froze for a second trying to deal with two completely different conversations. Replying to Jame, who he had forgotten was standing right beside him when he planted his sign, he finally managed. "What? No. Right so I am just struggling with my screens. Turns out that planting the sign completed a bunch of quests for me and sorted out the town thing but half of everything is in different languages."

  "Yep, pretty common actually." Jamie replied. "We wanderers have been making coin off that little problem for centuries. No idea why that happens. Just that some things stay native to a specific language no matter what."

  "Doesn't make it any less annoying." Hank said as he violently waved away the offending large text box in frustration, only really paying attention to about 50% of what it said. Only to be immediately confronted with another table.

  Hank read through the window in a rush and was just on the point of closing it when he realised that the whole business was actually quite complex. He hadn’t expected that tents would be so involved.

  Curiosity piqued he was about to dive further into village menus, when he was interrupted by Jamie. “Guess you had better address the troops. We all got the message that Hankston, awful name by the way, has been founded by you.”

  With reluctance Hank responded. “Fine I’ll round up the usual suspects.” In his mind he resolved on a slightly different list. Just four, Ninyette, Jamie, Sabine and himself. He should have spoken with Gruffly, as leader of the Wee people, but found it increasingly difficult to have a civil conversation with the diminutive man. He just didn’t believe they wouldn’t ever see eye to eye.

  Hank smirked to himself. Eye to eye, hah. That was a laugh. “Right if you don’t mind we’ll all meet in your tent. Do you want to fetch Ninyette. It’s doubtful I could explain what’s going on anyway. I’ll get the rest.” With a last glance at the decidedly average sign Hank headed off to find Sabine.