Finally making it home, Raven taking his time trying to hide his passage just in case the humans happen to be watching , Raven walks over to the settlement crystal and places his hand on it. “Settlement Ravens Den, Power in crystal 82%, Field of lethargy, Mother of slime” skipping over the rest of the basic info Raven looks for any new info on the tab in hopes of finding the way Malic mentioned of class changing, finding Settlement Population bonus tab within the table Raven opens it, Population one Next level ten population. Current settlement points 0.

  Raven sighs as the list still seems lacking looking at the population numbers he sighs again, living alone for so long is really starting to get to him. Decided now is as good as time as any he activates the crowns ability of calling lesser Kobolds what ever that is to his location, as soon as he does a blue ring of energy blasts out from him in all directions. A few minutes go by and Raven starts to think it was not effective when he hears a ping, then another and another and another after a few minutes he hears ten pings in total, thinking that means the ability has found ten lesser Kobolds Raven starts to tidy up his living space to get ready for company. Kemo enters the tunnel with a squawk dropping a small deer on the ground and looking at Raven expectantly, Raven picks the deer up and begins cleaning it looking over to Kemo saying thanks “thanks little guy” Kemo squawks does a small hop and runs out of the cave again.

  Raven finishes cleaning the deer cooking and smoking the meat, as he sits there cleaning up the left overs putting them off to the side for Kemo and if he doesn’t want them he will give it to the slime. As he sits there cleaning he hears something at the entrance to his room, looking up from his work he sees a Kobold standing there half his size armed with a spear and wearing crude leather draped over itself. Raven greets it “welcome to my home I’m Raven, what's your name?” The smaller Kobold looks at Raven cocks its head to the side and makes a barking growl sound. After that the Lesser Kobold walks into the the cave and seemingly makes itself at home, plopping down it starts working with the hide of the deer Raven just skinned, seeming to flesh it out and clean it. “Oh you know leather working that's good I haven’t a clue what I’m doing with that stuff. By the way there's some clothing in a storage room below feel free to help yourself, it may be a little big on you but I'm sure it beats what you got on now.” The little Kobold doesn’t seem to acknowledge Raven and simply continues on working away on the leather. A few minutes later nine more Lesser Kobolds walk into the room all doing much the same making themselves at home. Raven decides now that they are all here he should show them around, showing them down to the iron sandy mine and the storage room getting them their own clothing, a few seem interested in the pickaxes Raven nods at them and allows them to take a few, four pick up the pickaxes and walk over to the iron and start chipping away.

  Raven goes back up to the crystal placing his hand on it once again he sees “settlement level up, one settlement point earned. Unlocking settlement upgrade screen. Settlement upgrades available for Level one settlement: Increased productivity I ten percent, increased Settlement influence I zone plus one hundred feet, Increased food production I within zone by ten percent. Wondering if food production would include the mushroom growth Raven selects it, with the increased population he is going to need it. Looking around the room the Kobolds seem to be working on small tasks always staying busy, cleaning, making arrow shafts sharpening tools and weapons, and collecting food and storing it in chests and barrels in the storage room, the Kobolds in the mine seem to be making some minor progress mining ore but don’t seem to have a plan on smelting it yet. Looking around the sand it seems they have started making beds in the sand small circler pits in the sand lined with iron ore around the top counting out ten bedding areas within the mine. Looking to the miners Raven asks “could you guys work on a new tunnel I feel we should expand slightly and we could use some stone for projects later.” The lesser Kobolds nod to Raven and all start to mine a new tunnel and path, working together in a cluster looks uncomfortable but it does seem to be effective not once does he see them stagger or almost hit another or tangle their limbs.

  Raven decides he should make his way to the lake and get some food stocked up as having more people to feed is going to be a problem quick, those mushrooms will not last. Getting to the shore and casting out Raven starts fishing in hopes of landing a few big fish, maybe he can catch another ray or something big like that. A few hours in and Raven only manages to catch a few small fish not seeing his luck improving he heads back leaving the fish in the camp for the others to eat and headed back to the forest in hopes of bigger game. Once in the forest he finds the stream with frogs following it deeper into the forest collecting what little of the frogs he finds along the way. An hour goes by and Raven collects ten frogs, he sees a few small rodent critters skittering about but doesn’t have a chance with an arrow to take one, they are simply to fast for him perhaps he should make some traps later he thinks to himself. While following the stream Raven finally finds signs of bigger game, a deer track in the mud crossing the stream and headed deeper into the forest, Raven draws his bow and knocks and arrow following the tracks deeper into the forest.

  About twenty minutes of slow walking and tracking go by and Raven finally hears something moving in the brush ahead, moving slow and peaking over the bushes he finds a small clearing with three fair sized deer grazing in the sun bathed grass. Lining up a shot on the biggest deer Raven looses an arrow striking It in the shoulder with a bleat and a jumping kick in the air the deer all scatter, Raven gives chase on the one struck by the arrow holding back some distance but following it none the less. Following the blood marks on the ground Raven is sure he hit a vital spot as the blood gets thicker and darker as he gets farther along the trail, a few minutes later he comes up to the fallen deer still alive but no longer able to stand, Raven walks up to it deciding now is as good as time as any, looking down at the deer as it looks at him with fear in its eyes “sorry about this” Raven says as he casts his newest combat spell fire bolt aiming at the head pumping five mana into it the bolt flies from his hand striking the deer in the face and blasting the head clean off in a rather wet plop. “Ugh that was gross, well best not waste any time” getting to work Raven starts to clean the deer, as he cuts off slabs of meat he uses his storage skill putting the meat within, hopefully with it in storage he wont draw the attention of another T-Rex as he is lacking another slime, and he doubts that he would get a chance like that again. Having packed up the meat and hide Raven leaves the guts and bones behind as it wont take long for a predator to find it, It wont go to waste.

  Headed back to his cave he drops off the meat on the meat rack and he sees the other Kobolds get to work on it right away slicing it to smaller pieces and smoking it, some enjoying the odd snack as they work eating it raw. Thinking about it he probably could eat the meat raw too he is a lizard man these days, but not wanting to get sick has pushed him to cooking all his meals as of yet. Never know what kind of super parasites there are out here, he's already been infected with one creature he doesn’t want another. Remembering that the crystal absorbs magic items and he had a magic dagger he had yet to identify he looks the old dagger over “Dagger of bleeding, any cut with this item will not heal naturally and will continually bleed. To Stop bleeding medical attention of some kind will be needed, or the use of magic.” Raven thinks to himself “while that's not bad in a fight that really wouldn’t help much, that's more a hit and run kind of weapon and that is not me, I’m more the run and run kind of guy.” Tapping the dagger to the crystal a prompt pops up “would you like the sacrifice the dagger to the crystal to power it? The dagger will provide five percent power.” Raven selects yes and the dagger explodes into blue glowing dusts that enters the crystal. “Crystal power now at 87%” remembering the description of the crown he decides now is a good time to link it to the crystal, touching the crystal with the crown equipped he receives a prompt “you have now linked your crown to your settlement, any Kobold in the area will now feel a natural draw to your area, they are not forced to come to you nor are they required to follow you, you may be king but a king of nothing is nothing. Grow your settlement and your renown and so too shall your number of followers.” Right after closing the message Raven hears another ping much like when he summoned the Lesser Kobolds, but after a few minutes of waiting nothing else seems to happen, with a shrug Raven decides its time to sleep for the day.

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  Waking some time later Raven sits up from his bed to find a figure standing in the hall way to the outside, a adult Kobold by the looks of him he seems to be fairly old and haggard his cloth robe tattered and what can be seen of his skin scarred with deep scares leaning heavily on a staff topped with a purple gemstone. “So your the new king are you? Not much to look at, hardly even fully grown just a pup still. How old are you boy? And where did you find the crown?” Raven shakes his head in disbelief “you can talk? Oh thank god I thought I would be stuck with the non verbal Kobolds, I’m Raven, I am twenty three years old, and I found the crown while doing some exploring in the mountains. Who are you, are you here to join me? Please say your here to join me, I didn’t think I could ever miss other people but I really, really do!”

  The elderly Kobolds eye seems to twitch at Ravens responses “you… “Found” the crown… and where was the previous owner of the crown when you “found” it?” Raven frowns at the tone of the elder and responds to his question “ok… so I did do a little grave robbing while I was in the cave. Not sure if that's a big deal here but I'm just going to put that out in the open so there's no confusion, I found a coffin, I opened said coffin, I looted said coffin, and presto crown sword ring. Found a few other items there and brought them back here. There was a giant metal door there with a bunch of art carved into it that I haven’t explored yet was going to go back and take a look later.” The elder seemingly perking up at the mention of the door “DO NOT OPEN THAT DOOR!” he shouts “that door is closed for a reason do not open it ever! Dark dwarves live on the other side of it, they have not pushed passed the door in a long time and I hope that truce holds even with the last king dead. While they are not evil per say they do not like to share, if they find you have something they want they will come and take it by force.” Raven blanches thinking how he had almost opened the door on a whim “well guess its good I didn’t open it then, however I did find something disturbing when I was there it seemed like the Kobolds of the area were trying to summon something and it either failed or worse worked, everyone in that place was killed. I even found a room with a few Kobolds that seemingly put their soul energy into a crystal, not sure what that is used for but I really did not like the feel of that room.” The elder nods “yes our king was desperate his followers were dying from illness and war, and with the humans coming he felt he had to do something drastic, he was attempting to summon a demon and bind it to this plain and force it to follow his command, I guess it did not work.” Raven nods “so I take it you were working with the last king, are there more of our kind near by would they be willing to join us here?” The elder shakes his head no “sadly I’m the last of our tribe, the disease took everyone who stayed and those who did not went deeper into the mountains in search of a better life with the older dragons. I’ve been wandering for a while now looking at our old outposts in hopes of finding some of our kind but sadly they have all been abandoned long ago, and the few of our kind I find are usually Lesser Kobolds and incapable of speech or complex thought. No more than the work horse of our race really, sad but that's how it is. As for me living here, for now that would suit my needs as I’m far to old to hunt for myself and travel is to hard on my old body, while I wont be of much use to you I can offer some wisdom as the need arises. My name is Keel, I am a mage of sorts but with my age my power has diminished dramatically since my youth. I have some simple healing spells that I can still use, and can cast fire bolt and fire ball but not much else, from time to time I can cast some earth spells as well but as I am not well attuned to earth magic it takes time and a lot of MP for me.”

  Raven being happy to finally have some one to live with and talk with decides he should make the old man comfortable, offering his bed to the old man Raven gets to work making a new one for himself. Using the T-Rex hide and a few other hides laying around Raven makes himself a some what comfortable bed raised off the stone floor. Raven shows Keel around his small home showing him the mine, storage room and slime room. “Oh my a Slime Mother, if it was not contained in this room you would have a nasty foe within your home, avoid hitting it with any magic as it will instantly separate into many smaller slimes, usually a slime when hit will separate into one slime per level but with a mother slime its ten times that, and looking at how large this one is, that would be hundreds of slimes if not a thousand.” Raven shutters at the thought and then it dawns on him “ooooh crap… I took a piece of the mother and threw it into a T-Rexs mouth, the Rex died and a big slime came out of it, I'm guessing the slime leveled up, and it attacked me, I hit it with a water spell and it exploded but I didn’t get any EXP for the kill I'm guessing it separated into a bunch of smaller slimes and ran away? How strong are slimes should I be worried?” Keel thinks about it for a minute “no I think you will be fine, the water likely dissolved some of them, and slimes are dumb creatures simply moving and absorbing anything that comes into their path, usually they end up stuck in caves unable to get out as they fall in holes or slip through cracks, they don’t really need food so they just exists stuck forever.” Raven thanks Keel for the info and continues showing him around, bringing him up to the upper level with the moss crabs and water tunnel.

  Keel looks the room over “its a shame your not a potion maker you could make some mana potions with this stuff, I’m sure the crabs are infused with mana too so I’m sure they could be used for something as well. As for this water tunnel it worries me, this is not a natural formation, see the cracks around the entrance and exit, its almost as if something forced its way through the stone, which to me screams rock worm. They are large creatures that burrow through solid stone, they hollow out areas of stone and weaken the roof of their den so if something were to step on it in the tunnels above it would fall into their den where they would then eat what ever it is. If they are traveling they have been known to cave tunnels in to trap pray waiting for their pray to weaken or let their guard down before attacking. They could be a problem if they decide to come here again, they are strong creatures and heavily armored. The best way to kill them is with magic, Acid works or explosions, they do breath so you could drown them if you can prevent them from burrowing out.” Raven looks at the water tunnel with worry “well lets hope they don’t come back I doubt we could take one with what we have currently. As for the moss should we start collecting it then if we can make potions with it? I could always try my hand at making some I guess.” Keel shakes his head “no, no point they rot fast once removed from their source of power. But I’m sure we will have use for it eventually.” Raven sighs, so much to do and so much he can’t do he really wishes he could find more people to help out.