SS - Chapter 21 - Location Scouting

I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to do a timeskip, just not sure how much more buildup I should do. Probably two or three more chapters, check in with some side characters, we'll see. Sorry I didn't get a chappy done yesterday, will probably do 1 chappy of Imaginary a week, 3 of SS going forward since there's still interest in the other story. We'll see how I feel next week.

“That’s a lot of maids,” Camille muttered as we made our way through the land reclamation area. 

We had spent most of the previous day going over the various prospective townsites, trying to find a place where we could establish a camp for all the new people that were due to arrive. Unfortunately most of these locations had been surveyed with the knowledge that we’d have less then a hundred people, and that hard living might be required before they were fit for long term habitation. Most of these places would have required a serious effort just to clear enough land to pitch tents for several hundred people, too much in the limited time we had.

In the end we identified two locations. Both were open plains with plenty of space with easy access to either a stream or river. They’d been rejected because we’d discovered the soil quality in those areas was fairly bad, and it would have taken a lot of time and effort to make productive farms. They would, however, make ideal places for people to pitch tents while we worked on long term options.

Camille, Selena and I were on our way to check out the nearest location, which was equidistant from both the village and the Citadel. Our previous surveys had already established that there was a decent reservoir in the area, so we could easily dig some wells, but I still wanted to check out the area myself. A quick visual inspection before we started performing any work.

On our way out of town we had to pass through the wasteland that surrounded the town, and that’s where we discovered exactly how fast the constructs could be produced. The little maids were busy hacking at roots, digging around the stumps with their halberds, and pulling out the rotted remains. Despite not having the right tools, they appeared to be managing fairly well.

“There have to be close to a hundred of them,” Selena muttered. “How is that possible? How fast do they reproduce?”

“Well, I enabled replication early yesterday, and according to the system three maids count as a single construct,” I said, doing some quick math in my head, “so it looks like a new squad is generated every half hour or so.”

“That fast?” Camille exclaimed. “We’ll be swimming in maids soon!”

“It is fast, but history has shown it’s not fast enough for a country to replenish their construct forces after a catastrophic battle. Keep in mind all those maids only count as about thirty units, it’s probably going to take weeks to get up to the cap,” I said.

“What is the cap?” Selena asked.

“I… don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve seen the Iskel army, when it had been gathered for a military campaign, but I’ve never really checked. I’d guess around a thousand.”

“That’s still a lot of hands, especially when there’s only a couple hundred people in the entire kingdom,” Selena said. “If they can help with other odd jobs it would really help us get things up and running a lot faster.”

“We’ll have to ask our little helper about that later. For now both they, and we, have work to do,” I muttered, turning away from the maids. 

Although I’d never been to the plain before, and we hadn’t established any trails in that area, I knew approximately where it was. The area was wide enough that it was nearly impossible to miss, as long as we didn’t deviate too much on our north-easterly trek. 

The trip was actually fairly easy, there wasn’t much deadfall and underbrush, so it took us less than an hour for us to reach our destination. I’d expected a slow transition from forest to plain, instead the forest just fell away, revealing a massive meadow area.

I could see a number of animals gathered around the small river that flowed along the northern edge of the area. The animals in this area hadn’t been exposed to humans for long, so most of them still weren’t that afraid of us. The number of deer gathered around the water encouraging sign, it meant there would be decent game in the area to help feed the people.

“Shall we wander around a little, check the area?” I asked.

“Are we looking for anything specific?” Camille asked curiously.

“Anything that catches your eye. Predators, edible or poisonous plants, unstable ground… anything that could cause issues, or we could use to our advantage,” I explained. “I want to take a look at the east side. If this turns out to be a decent place to set up, I’d like to put the gate here too. Save everyone a lot of time and effort trying to trudge through the woods.”

“Makes sense,” Selena muttered. “Mind if I follow?” 

“Knock yourself out,” I replied. 

I noticed Camille eyeing Selena suspiciously out of the corner of my eye, but she still ended up walking away, heading towards the far side of the wide plain.

“How are your people holding up?” I asked as Selena and I slowly made our way through the tall grass.

“Fine. There are a couple that are still uncomfortable, or suspicious that your people might harbor some sort of resentment for them, but most of them are just happy to have regular meals and a roof over their heads,” Selena replied.

“And you?” I prompted.

“I… appreciate everything you’ve done for us, but I admit I’m still a little confused on why you allowed us all to stay. It doesn't seem like you get much out of the deal.”

“Well, I won’t lie, it’s partially because I felt bad for you all. Being forced to flee into the wilderness with next to no supplies? Most of you probably wouldn’t have survived another month,” I said. “We had the supplies to support you all, I was just concerned about attracting another Skylian patrol. Now that we have the constructs, that’s not a concern. I’d honestly like to accept everyone, regardless of their circumstances, as long as they don’t make trouble. My mother always taught me that judging someone based upon their bloodline, instead of their skills, was the best way to lose talent.”

“You’re a better person than I am,” Selena muttered. “After everything I’ve been through in the last few weeks, I doubt I could trust someone like that.”

“That’s totally fair. You have your own set of circumstances, and it’s not my place to judge you on them,” I said. 

Selena fell quiet for a minute, apparently considering my words, so I gave her some space. 

The eastern end of the valley was a low point of the area, filled with jagged rocks and surrounded by steep hills. It really only had easy access on the west side, it would make things a little more difficult in the short term, but in the long term…

“What do you think about the valley?” I asked Selena.

She turned, and gave me a strange look. “It’s fine, plenty of space to set up tents. Why?”

“I’m talking about after we get everyone settled, do you think we could use this area for something else? Maybe a foreign market?” 

“I have no idea why you’re asking me about this,” Selena grumbled.

“Because even though we need to concentrate on the short term, we also need to think about the long term. I’m pretty sure once I establish a gate it can’t be moved. If I did build it here, could we reuse this area later? Is it too close to the town and citadel? Too far? We need to think about this sort of thing,” I explained.

Selena didn’t reply immediately, instead she looked me over a couple times, brow furled.

 “Are you always thinking about stuff like that?” she finally asked.

“I have to,” I replied quietly. “If I only think about the short term, it might cause everyone even more problems in the future. I need to constantly consider my options, plan, and reevaluate based upon new information. I’m responsible for everyone, so I need to make sure I’m doing my best.”

“I never thought about it that way,” Selena muttered, turning towards the meadow. “I think it would be fairly easy to level this area off, turn it into an open air market, or shipping yard or something. I don’t know the rules of gates, but if the enemy were to hijack it, it would be fairly easy to fortify this area to prevent someone from just marching through.”

“My thoughts exactly,” I said, stepping over and patting her on the back. “The area is wide enough to hold several hundred tents, wagons and whatever else my mother wants to bring, and there aren’t any exceptionally low points that should collect water in the rain. It should be fine for a staging area. We should still check out the other area, but since it’s another hour out, I doubt we’ll find anything that’ll make it worth the extra distance. We probably have our staging area.”

“Let’s go collect Camille and head out. We’ve still got a lot of things to do,” I said.

Selena just smiled. “Lead the way.”