Chapter 118: Domestic Questing
Chapter 118: Domestic Questing
Kalli examined the dismal twenty points that she had left in her System Interface, and then calculated what the keep still needed just to cover the basic defensive structures and equipment.
They needed at least four more laser turrets, a troop transport, in case they found survivors or needed to rescue injured heroes, five more motorcycles at the very minimum, enough shops or amenities to make the area count as a proper town, and some way to keep the heroes’ growth rate, should they happen to run out of Magma Corrupted monsters.
That was the real danger.
She could meet all the metrics for a well defended town. But if the heroes couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain, they were still going to end up in a bad spot at the end of this Trial.
Then, she arranged to update the quests.
Keeping the Firewood collection quest made sense. They still needed more of it for cold night, and if they wanted to expand power usage beyond what her generator and the solar array could provide.
Then, she would add a few new ones, to keep things interesting.
{New Mission Queued For Dawn} [To Make A Town] [Easy Difficulty], spend 4 or more hours providing a service requiring extensive training to the residents of Marimgar.
That would give Gerry and the cooks a free point every day, as well as everyone else who had some sort of skill that they could be providing around town. If they could get enough, they could get that coveted "Town" status from the system at the end of this Trial.
Mostly, it would benefit the commoners, not the heroes, but they needed points too.
Then, she added one more, and queued the existing missions.
{New Mission Queued For Dawn} [Exploration], Difficulty Variable. Bring a record of the topography, flora, fauna and threat levels of a previously unexplored area to the Coordinator for recording.
{Mission Queued For Dawn} [Protect Fort Marimgar] Hard Difficulty. Defeat 5 of the magma corrupted monsters, maximum 10 members.
{Mission Queued For Dawn} [Collect Firewood] Easy Difficulty. Individual Quest. Collect 25 kilograms of plant material suitable for firewood.
That should give everyone something to do for the day, and it would increase the flow of points coming in.
There were a thousand civilians in the town, though only a fraction could accept the quests.
Still, that would definitely improve the number of System Points that she gained.
There really wasn’t a downside to setting quests for everything that she could think of. As long as they were all things that could be reasonably completed. There was a penalty if they weren’t done well, though that was more of a danger for quests which had a risk of death than the quests for collecting firewood or going to work.
However, Kalli was getting the feeling that she was missing something.
These weren’t "Adventurers" or "Resource Gathering Specialists". The system had named them "Heroes" and somehow she couldn’t find a way for them to be heroic in this trial.
There really wasn’t about this trial that appeared to require acts of heroism, unless they found more people to rescue. So, Kalli decided to informally ask the scouting team from the Special Forces to head further north, in case there were still survivors headed their way.
She didn’t have much hope that there would be, not after so many monsters went that way before the eruptions.
But she had to try.
Then, she recalled that they were a proper team of heroes now. Ten people, including Esmeralda. The Necromancer’s undead wouldn’t be able to keep up with the bikes, so they would have to do shorter small team scouting missions, she couldn’t send all ten of them too far, unless the undead could be packed up somehow.
That was fine, they could arrange a long-distance scouting team. Perhaps one full of rogues. Some stealth skills would go a long way.
By the end of the day, she still didn’t have a solution, so she just headed to the gym and turned in for the night. She was also going to need to do something new about the gym quest soon, or change her training routine.
Perhaps there was something in the supplies section?
Kalli checked all through it, and found that there was nothing resembling gym equipment available. However, there were some objects that could be substituted.
For example, there was a [Boulder Trap] that the warriors could use as a medicine ball to toss and do squats with. It was a metre and a half tall and made of stone, weighing over a tonne, but many of the warriors could already toss that much weight around.
However, every level that she went up, there were new items available. So, if she went up a few more, she might be able to unlock the sort of gravity alteration gym equipment her old life had.
At five times standard gravity, even the regular gym equipment of the Academy’s training room would be more than enough.
The next morning, Kalli woke to a calm compound, and had a hot shower before going to breakfast, only to find the dining hall nearly empty.
"I take it everyone headed out early today?" She asked Gerry, as the mage came to check the food in the serving trays.
"Most of them, anyhow. The quests came out at dawn, and there were some good ones in there, including the exploration mission. So, everyone wanted to spread out and see if there was anything that might be salvaged.
It said that they can record details of plants and animals, as well as threats, so anywhere that they go should count. As long as we didn’t have a record of it, anyhow.
The others are also setting up a market between the buildings and the Academy, looking for enough work to complete the quest. They all had regular jobs before, and with computer engineers or dockworkers being the primary trades, they’ve got skilled trades, as long as they can find a purpose for them.
The computer guys are all working together in the labs to make an upgraded app. Four hours a day of collaborative work. It might take them a while to finalize it, but as long as they are working, it should pay them, we hope."