The blueprints I’d received from The System rewards turned out to be blank. In place of detailed plans for constructing anything specific, it offered a list of different types of buildings I could choose from. All I needed to do was make my selection, the building would appear in the location of my choice, and then I could customize it from there. Would have been nice to have right out of the gate, instead of making me sleep on the ground, but whatever, I thought. I figured I should probably just shut up and be grateful. It had been maybe a week since I’d arrived in this world, and I had already upgraded from sleeping on the ground to sharing a bed with an absolute knockout who also just so happened to be the second strongest being I’d ever encountered. The first strongest, obviously, was Seredh, but I didn’t foresee us taking naps together, any time soon.
The blueprint gave the following options: Pub, Salon, Headquarters, and Factory. All of these options were things I’d been discussing with Urz. Ever since Juniper had mentioned that there were lots of Eidolon in the Plains and how boring their afterlives had been up to that point, an idea had been floating around somewhere in the back of my mind. It solidified when she introduced me to Moira, the former apothecary. It occurred to me that I could potentially help the Eidolon out by giving them back some semblance of what their lives used to be, prior to their deaths.
I had a pretty workable plan, if everything worked out the way I’d dreamt it up in my mind. This new building would be the first step in making that plan a reality. I didn’t have to agonize over which option to choose for too long, as I felt the choice was obvious. I chose the Headquarters. I needed a base of operations from which all other steps could flow. A central hub that would be at the center of my new little enterprise. The location I’d pick was obvious – the very center of my safezone.
To be honest, the entire selection to completed build pipeline wasn’t all that exciting. I selected the option, placed a marker where I wanted the headquarters to be, and it just popped into existence. There were no sound effects, no fanfare, not even an achievement or system notification. There was only a large, three-story building where before there hadn’t been. I shot a message to both Urz and Juniper, letting them know the first step was complete. The second and third steps were up to them. In the meantime, I had some leveling to do. But first, one last task that I suspected would help me in my training.
I sat down with my back against the building I’d just created and pulled the Burrow Tyrant Pelt out of my inventory. Thankfully, the thing was already prepared and ready to use. I was a little worried The System would make me learn the art of tannery before the pelt would be of any use to me, but it appeared that even The System had some sense of propriety. I pulled out my Infiltration Kit and sifted through the tools it held. There were several lock picking devices, and I knew that there was one small tool in there that would likely work as a makeshift needle. Once I found it, I got to work on the pelt.
I used the Blade of Seredh to cut a pattern from the hide. It was a bit of a learning curve to use the dagger. I found that it cut the hide only as much as I wanted it to cut the hide. If I just tried to run the blade along the pelt with no real intent, I might as well have been rubbing the thing with the flat side of a spoon. But if I actively willed the blade to cut it sliced through as though the fabric wasn’t even there. I smiled, feeling as though I was finally making a little progress in understanding the weapon. Once I’d finished both of the patterns I had in mind, I put the blade back into my inventory and started to sew. I was almost finished when a gruff voice startled me, causing me to poke myself with the sharp, needle-like tool.
“What are you doing?”
I looked up, my finger between my lips as I sucked the small pooling blood from its tip. Shrek was standing there, a brutish war axe at his hip. I pulled my finger out of my mouth, immediately. Under no circumstances was I letting him see me nurse such a small wound. Especially given what my answer to his question was about to be.
“Sewing.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Of course you are.”
I put the finishing touches on the first pattern and held it up to the light. It was a small, open-topped pouch with a shoulder strap attached to both ends as well as an extra strap attached to the bottom. Honestly, it wasn’t too bad. It was clearly made by someone who had never sewn anything in his life, but it felt fairly sturdy and I suspected it would hold a fair amount of weight without much problem. I stood up and draped the shoulder strap over my right side, then reached down and tied the bottom strap around my torso.
“Want me to pick a few flowers for you to sew into the side of that thing?” Vrk’shryk asked, with a huff.
I just looked at him as I pulled my gun out of Inventory. He tensed, slightly, but relaxed again as I slid the gun into the pouch which now hung snug against the ribs on the left side of my body. I bounced around a little to test the fit and whether the gun would stay in place as I moved around. So far, it seemed stable enough – I did make a mental note to add one more strap to the top, however, just in case I needed to lash the gun into place inside its pouch.
Huh, I thought. So you can gain more abilities than just the ones The System assigned when you select your class. That’s…good to know. I suspected Shrek wasn’t in the mood to let me finish what I was doing, so I put the other pattern in my inventory for the time being.
“What do you want, Shrek?”
“Why aren’t you at the training grounds?”
I gestured to the large building behind me and then to the gun holster at my side.
“I had a couple of things to do, first, clearly.”
His eyes went from my weapon to the building, then met mine again. He tossed something at me.
“Here. Mother said to give you these.”
I could handle the snark. I could withstand the backhanded compliments. But how in the hell did The System know about my underwear purchases back on Earth? It gave me the same feeling as when you’d spoken to someone about liking toast and all of a sudden you had toaster and butter knife ads all over your social media feed. It was unsettling. I didn’t like it. I did, however, like my new pants.
“Put them on,” Shrek said. “We have training to do.”
The training grounds were technically set up inside the outpost, though in practice it was really an adjunct extension of the main body of the facility. The outpost was a large facility, laid out in a semi-circular design. The mountain line behind the outpost provided a natural wall that would effectively limit the number of directions from which any attackers might approach. The river in front of the outpost made that approach unwieldy and awkward, so the only two directions the base could be attacked from were the north and south. Naturally, that was where the heaviest defenses were, but it was also where they placed features which were less sensitive to incoming attacks. The training ground, for instance, took up the majority of the southern perimeter of the campus. The domicile section had been placed toward the center-rear, and the northern border was mostly just a large administrative building. It was an impressive setup, and even just standing in the open space of the training grounds, you couldn’t help but be a bit in awe of it.
I held the Blade of Seredh up, mimicking the form Shrek had shown me. He stood across from me, a nonchalant grip on the stick he’d plucked from an oak tree during our walk from my headquarters to the outpost. I stabbed forward and immediately felt the sting of his stick whipping the side of my face. He didn’t parry. Didn’t dodge. He barely even moved. He just flicked his wrist and whacked me in the face with no more effort than Sister Janice put into smacking my knuckles with her ruler back in fifth grade. I winced and fell back into position.
“You are bad at this,” he said.
“You don’t say,” I retorted, rubbing at the side of my face.
“Attack again.”
“What’s the point?”
“Repetition is the engine of progress. If you suck at something, which you DO, then you have to repeat failure until you fail in a different, better way.”
“So just keep trying to stab you while you continue to bash me in the face with that stick?”
“Yes.”
“And that will make me better at fighting?”
“Maybe,” he shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not a fortune teller.”
And so we continued the entire day and into the night. I kept stabbing, and he kept hitting me with that stick until eventually my face was a swollen, bloody mess. His stick wasn’t faring much better. Shrek himself, however, was living the high life. He was all smiles as he tossed the stick aside.
“That’s enough for today, I think. You know, when the Matriarch assigned me to train you, I was furious…but I think I’m really starting to enjoy it. I’ll have to thank her.”
I very much wanted to yell “I’ll thank her for you,” as he walked away, but I’d had enough of a beating for one day. Plus, Juniper appeared beside me, interrupting any chance I would have had to be my usual overly-mouthy self.
“You’re doing this wrong, you know.”
“Doing what wrong?” I asked, grumpily.
“Everything,” she shrugged. “Well, everything that has to do with fighting, anyway.”
“And you would know this how, exactly?”
I slumped down to the ground and sat before taking my boots off and dumping the sand and pebbles from inside them. Juniper squatted next to me.
“I’ve been watching these guys train since they showed up on the Plains. It would be weird if I hadn’t picked something up by now.”
“Ok, smarty pants. Name one thing I’m doing wrong.”
“First of all, I don’t wear pants,” she replied. “Secondly, you keep lunging completely off-balance. I think Vrk’shryk noticed but didn’t tell you because he was enjoying hitting you, too much.”
“Yeah, that does sound like something he would do.”
“I…can show you, if you want. A bunch of other stuff, too. If we went all night I bet you could surprise Vrk’shryk tomorrow. You might even land a hit!”
I sat there for a few moments before pushing myself to my feet and dusting myself off. Jasmine had headed back to the city for Council business, so I didn’t have anywhere else to be, at the moment. Might as well keep going and try to actually learn something useful.
“Sure,” I said. “Just do me a favor?”
“What’s that?”
“If you’re going to hit me, do it somewhere other than the face.”
Then, we trained. The entire night. I had to admit, Juniper really did seem to know a lot about the orc style of combat. It was surprising that she was able to learn so much from just watching the warriors here train for a couple of days. By the time the sun rose, I felt much more capable with my blade. Obviously, I wouldn’t say I was proficient with it, yet…but I had a feeling that I wouldn’t embarrass myself so badly the next time I trained with Shrek.