“I have a suggestion,” Allison said.

  “Let’s hear it!” Ben grinned at her.

  “The systems have already issued quite a few missions and we are adding new people to the settlement every day. What we haven’t done yet is issue one of our own missions. But I think there is an opportunity: the surveillance network needs to be placed outside, or at least the markers for it. You could issue a mission with a small reward and I am sure there would be teams fighting for the opportunity to do that.”

  Ben’s initial reaction was to go out there and do the work himself. It was how things had worked so far since Arrival Day. But on second thought it felt like the right thing to do. It was sort of the beginning of a new era in the life of the Protectorate. More people—some of them not even part of the settlement—would take over a lot of tasks that Ben and team had done so far. That would free him up to focus more on the things that only he could do, for example strengthening his Path or running Tier 2 dungeons. It would also require a more thoughtful approach to things; instead of just doing something, he would have to think about who would be best positioned to do it.

  That was not completely alien to him, but something he would need to remain focused on.

  “Very well. How many Credits do we need to award for that?”

  “We could get away with not handing out any, instead just awarding Guild points, but how about a mix where we add 500 Credits. It is not a long or dangerous task as people will stay within our area and there are few attacks expected.”

  Ben nodded. “Sounds good. Let’s do that.”

  “As we are already talking about money, any thoughts on how we should price the access to the dungeons?” Allison asked looking at Adam.

  “Hmm, I haven’t considered it yet. There are a few things that would be helpful to know before we decide. Let’s just buy it so that we can see the features. Okay?”

  Ben nodded and gestured for his mother to do the honors.

  A minute later Allison smiled and confirmed that the deed was done.

  Adam scratched his head as he went through the features. “Alright, the good news, we now have a strength requirement for each dungeon. The spatial node, which we still need to place, comes with a relative strength assessment capability, so we can limit people from running dungeons way beyond their capability. The pricing can be set in various ways, the easiest would be to set a Credit cost per dungeon, but we are facing the problem that likely very few if anybody outside of the Protectorate has access to Credits in meaningful ways.”

  Ben interrupted him, raising his hand. “People could take Credits as rewards from dungeons, though…”

  “True, but would you pick Credits without access to a System Store to use them?”

  Ben flushed slightly at the oversight. “Wiseass,”

  Adam laughed and continued. “So the best way is probably for people to have the ability to also pay in cores at the end of their run.”

  “So either upfront in Credits or at the end in cores? That’s fine. What if they don’t pay?”

  “They can only run another dungeon after paying a fine.”

  Ben shrugged. “Sounds good. Now coming back to the original question. How much?”

  Allison spoke up. “If somebody does a full clear of the Rings of Return, they can get 20 Tier 1 cores plus the individual loot. I would suggest we leave the loot alone and ask for one core per floor. That means someone just going for the first floor gains nothing but experience in fighting in that environment, clearing the second floor nets you one core, but if you go to the third floor you are up 3 cores plus the loot.”

  “Sounds good for that dungeon—and I think it could actually work for all the Tier 1 dungeons. Just one core or 500 Credits per floor. It would be nice if there was a way to have people sell us the resources they collect…” Ben said.

  Adam shook his head. “Unfortunately, not right now. So should we place the node?”

  Everybody nodded and Allison entered the menu in her Guild Master interface. As she did so, the map on the conference table changed to a view of the globe.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  She could zoom into any area, but unfortunately the map didn’t give any insights on how the populations in the area were faring.

  Without hesitation she zoomed into the British Isles and specifically the south of England.

  London grew larger and larger and there she hesitated for a moment, but then focused on one of the large squares in the middle of the city.

  “What is this?” Ben asked, who had never been to London.

  “I think this is Piccadilly Circus, it’s the place with all the gleaming lights and advertisements. At least that is how I remember it… But it’s been 30 years,” Allison said with an emotionally laden voice.

  A few seconds later she confirmed her selection and a golden circle expanded rapidly outward until it covered a large part of southern England.

  “Wow. I think this must be around 100 kilometers in radius! But people will still have to go to the node, right?” Ben exclaimed.

  Allison nodded. “Yes, but everyone in that circle just got a message and has information available in their interface.”

  “This makes some of the other upgrades even more valuable,” Barry said. “This circle includes Oxford and Cambridge. Imagine if we pull people for the Academy from all these places!” The older man got visibly excited.

  Ben clapped his hands. “This is all exciting stuff. Mom, I guess you will manage who can access the dungeons?”

  “Yes, I will reserve slots for our people—and I would be surprised if there would be a huge amount of people coming in right away. People will need time to understand the benefits.”

  “Very well. I am excited to see how this will develop. Now, let’s build the auction house.”

  The team found itself on the plaza soon after and after talking to a few people to move out of the space right beside the inn, Ben executed the build.

  The building had three floors, a huge wooden entrance door and an interesting shape. The back of the auction house fanned out like a sea shell.

  Ben was curious to explore what it entailed and the council members quickly entered the latest major building in the settlement.

  There was a large entrance hall that held several desks that were partitioned off from the others to provide some degree of privacy.

  Elegant plinths and sideboards offered space to display auction items.

  Congratulations on building the auction hall.

  The building will facilitate auctions by for example making bids binding and automating payment processing.

  The building also includes spatial storage that makes sure that goods stored this way will not deteriorate in any form.

  At the back of the entrance hall was a spacious staircase that took them down a floor and opened up into a large theater-like auction hall. The fanned form on the ground floor was the upper end of the rising seating area of the basement.

  On the sides were booths that overlooked the stage and the seating below.

  The higher floors held offices and meeting rooms.

  Overall, it was a very professional environment, as so often with the Protectorate buildings, it was geared towards a large metropolis, not a city of less than 1,500 people.

  Ben was quite happy with the building and had sent a message to Jane to talk with her over dinner.

  Before that he wanted to sit down with Adam, though, so he grabbed his best friend, and they went for a walk in their new park.

  “What’s up?” Ben asked.

  “A lot going on. I am preparing for the trip to Simonston as well.”

  “Vassalization?” Ben asked with some degree of apprehension.

  “Yeah, I think they will jump on it. Would be even easier if you came along, though…” Adam grinned.

  “Not if it can be helped. If there is something that I need to do to bring this over the line I would do it, but I am very sure that you will be better at this than me.”

  “Thank you!”

  “Don’t thank me—I have to thank you for everything that you are doing, man. I think it sometimes gets lost in all the stress and hectic but there is no way that I could be running around in dungeons if you wouldn’t keep this ship on track every single day!”

  Adam smiled. “I am enjoying it—most of the time.”

  “Good. You know that you can always push back against me, right? Nothing has changed. I hope at least?!”

  Adam hesitated for a moment. “What do you mean?”

  “Earlier, your suggestion was to build the Academy expansions first, even though I am not sure you really thought it was a good idea…”

  “Yeah… I don’t know. You are probably right. I know how passionate you are about the Academy…”

  “Is it because I decided on the specialization against all of your recommendations?”

  Adam ran a hand through his hair. “I think it is one of the reasons. It’s also… You know that there are people here who have never seen you and still think you can walk on water? And I am not even talking about the people that HAVE seen you…”

  “What?”

  “Ben, I am not sure that you realize, but we are quite close to people forming a cult around you. Sometimes it is easier to go with the flow than remember that you are the guy that couldn’t properly lace your shoes until well into primary school,” he said with a chuckle.

  Ben was taken aback by what his friend had said. He had noticed that people were staring whenever he left the HQ and he had hoped to make a good impression on people, but it had never been his intention to form a cult. He didn’t really know how to react.

  “Man, I genuinely don’t know what to say. First, I really need you to kick me in the butt or teach me—like you taught me how to lace my shoes,” he held up his hand for a fist bump.

  Adam smiled—and Ben noticed it might have been the first genuine smile that he had seen from his friend in a while and berated himself for not having noticed.

  He had been busy and a lot had been happening but there was no excuse to not notice something like that and he started to wonder what else he had been missing.

  “I’ll kick your butt, I promise,” Adam said as he returned the fist bump.

  “Good! Now, how can we stop this cult from happening?”

  Adam laughed. “Don’t worry about it. Maybe I was overreacting. But I will talk with our local sociologist, Howard, and let you know if there is something that we need to do.”

  “Thank you, Adam. For everything!”