Chapter 24: Districts

Dom and Andrew were back in their dorm room, they had returned from the duels an hour earlier and had quick showers, before sitting down and chatting more about the game and the day. They had just finished eating their evening meal with Kai and had been discussing the duels from earlier.

"Alice is a monster." Kai commented. "As is Elizabeth."

"And Flo, and Claire." Andrew added.

"And Edward." Dom replied. "We are surrounded by monsters."

"Ok, enough of discussing the monsters in the campus." Kai said, "I'm going getting myself set up and fight some monsters in the game!"

"Happy hunting." Dom said to Kai, as Kai left towards his room. He gave a thumbs up to them as he entered room and closed the door behind him.

"I think it's my turn then." Andrew commented, before standing up. "I best get this quest finished and try and find out some more world map information. I may also try and befriend some NPC's for some travel companions."

"That's a great idea." Dom replied, "I have a few quests of my own I need to complete!"

"You'll have to tell me more tomorrow, what level lordship did you get?" Andrew asked, "I heard Kai say his brother got a C and the family had to invest in the game to get that."

Dom thought for a very quick second on his reply, he wanted to be honest with his friend, but he also wanted to keep some surprises to himself. If Andrew had asked him earlier, he probably would have said an A or a B. Now though he new how lucky he was to get an S when Kai's family had to struggle to get just a C.

"I got a D." Dom lied, "I hope Kai doesn't take it bad when he finds out!"

"That is ridiculous!" Andrew exclaimed, "I've done some more reading, families have paid upwards of a million for a C class, you must have rolled a really lucky start to get a D, which must be worth the high hundred thousands! Even then there was a limited number."

"I did!" Dom replied, "I also had to complete the tutorial mission with an almost a perfect score, thankfully I did."

"Good luck with getting the Town set up." Andrew replied as he stood up, "Let me know if you need anything. A D class town will give us a strong starting place, I'm sure if we invest our time in the right places we can bring that higher!"

With that, they both entered their rooms.

Dom entered his room and grabbed his headset, before placing the headset on his head and lay himself on his bed. He was quickly immersed in the game as it turned on, entering the blank room that was the starting menu. Dom looked down and saw that he was wearing his toga and armour again, he also noticed he wasn't alone.

"Welcome back Lazarus" Game Support said to him.

"Thank you Game support!" Dom replied as the red headed woman walked towards of him with a welcoming smile.

"Are you ready to play?" She asked kindly.

"Yes please!" He replied excitedly.

Suddenly the white faded out and he appeared in the comfy bed of the Town Centre. He was lay on top of the furs that covered it and he had a quick look around the room to see that it was obviously very recently cleaned.

"I'm back!" He exclaimed to himself, ready to see what had happened in his absence.

The first thing that greeted him was the smell of fresh bread, which had obviously just been made in the kitchen area of the Town Hall downstairs, the smell had wafted up to him and it was glorious.

He checked that he had everything ready, his clothes were on, his armour placed, weapons on his belt. Before heading down the stairs.

He was greeted by one of the Bakers placing some loafs on the table, who upon seeing Dom was in shock and dropped some.

"Welcome back my Lord." She stammered, not realising he was in the Town Centre.

"Did you make this?" He asked kindly. "It smells wonderful!"

"I did, my siblings are in the kitchen making more, I intend to take some out to the Villagers who are working shortly." She replied.

"Well, don't let me stop you!" He replied, before tearing a small chunk from one and taking a bite. "Wow, these are delicious!"

She blushed, before heading back to the kitchen to grab some more.

Dom walked down the hallway to see a new person he hadn't seen before looking after the Tiger Cubs.

"Hello there, I'm the Town Lord Lazarus." Dom introduced himself. The man turned and smiled at him. He had long black hair, a long beard and a pointy moustache.

"Hello Lord, I am Cassius. My family joined the Village yesterday, we are merchants, but there isn't much need for our skills currently. My sons are helping with the building. Previously I had transported some exotic animals including lions. Even though they were different to these magnificent cubs, I feel that I could help here."

"Thank you Cassius!" Dom replied, "That is a big help! How long until they are more self sufficient?"

"I would say another 5 or 6 weeks before we can let them have more freedom, but they will be young cubs for atleast another 5 months. Then we have the challenging time as they push boundaries, I can help then but we would need a tamer. It's a shame none of my merchant band have also joined, we had some good slaves who were great with the animals." Cassius commented.

Dom soon left the Town Hall, to see what the sun hadn't been risen long in the Town. Villagers were just starting their daily tasks and Lucius was stood greeting a small crowd.

"Good morning Lord." Lucius shouted with a smile, causing the crowd of newcomers to look at him with respect. "This is the Lord who had big ambitions for our humble abode. Please work hard to see his wishes come to pass. For now, please head to the zones that I have advised and speak with your fellow Village members."

Lucius dispersed the crowd before heading over to Dom.

"You weren't too long," Lucius commented. "We have gained an additional 45 Villagers since you left, 23 yesterday and 22 this morning. I'm sure you met Cassius who is with the Cubs. We also received a family of rice farmers, a blacksmithing family and a variety of other trades."

"That's a lot of people, how are we keeping up with the housing?" Dom queried.

"Surprisingly well." Lucius replied, "Between Lars and his brigade cutting down the tree and preparing the wood, to Wang Shu and his team building the houses, we are in a really good position. We are obviously having new villagers arrive, but with 5 houses minimum to build a day and more people arriving who can help, we are ahead of target."

"That's fantastic news!" Dom commented, "How are we doing on the military front?"

"We now have 20 Hoplite, Tomyris and Alexander have been putting them through strict training. Gan Ning has continued to monitor the village and we are in a good place for our plans. Subutai will catch you up in it in due time." Lucius replied.

"Is there anything else to report?" Dom asked.

"There is, I have been putting some Town planning in to place. Let's head to the Map Room that has now been built and we can discuss this further." Lucius replied, before grabbing Duncan's attention who was nearby. "Duncan, please can you go inform Mr Subutai that the Lord has returned and we will await him in the Map Room."

"I'll do it now." Duncan replied with a slight bow, before heading off in the direction of the Hero Hall.

"Duncan and Paul have been doing a good job with guarding, mainly near the forest, whilst the Hoplite have been training. We have also been able to grab some of the newcomers to help, it's just a shame we are low on weapons. We now have a blacksmith in the village, but no where for him to do his craft and no materials for him to use." Lucius continued as they headed in to the Town Hall.

They soon headed down the centre of the hall towards the back where Dom's chair was. They turned left, opposite to the location of the stairs to see a wooden door in front of them. Lucius smiled as he pushed it open, allowing for Dom to step in.

The room was around twelve metres long and 8 metres wide. The room was currently spacious, inside the room was a long table, around three metres by three metres. It was composed of different segments that could be moved, or added to. On the segments currently showing was an elaborately carved map, showing lots of detail of the nearby terrain. In the centre of the map, on the most central segment that was one metre by one metre, were a few small buildings.

Lucius pulled a segment out and directed Dom to the central segment.

"As you will see, this central segment is Riverside. You will note that the large building there is the Town Centre where we are now." Lucius started. "To this side, you will note that they are the houses, this shall be the initial housing district going forwards."

"Initial housing district?" Dom asked.

"Correct, as the Village grows, housing that is close to the Town Centre will be key property, and further housing needs to be stationed further away. However, we are not quite at that stage just yet." Lucius replied.

"Will there be other districts?" Dom asked, looking at the way the Village was set out on the map.

"Yes, there will be five districts." Lucius replied, "In this initial stage, which we will call stage one. The first district is the Housing district, which is currently located between the Town Centre and the River, this we will now push behind towards the mountains. On the other side of the Town Centre going behind towards the mountains will be the Manufacturing district, here we will have the lumber camp and any manufacturing buildings going forwards. We hope there will be some good materials in the mountains where mining can also be completed."

"So that is the housing and manufacturing districts. What are the others?" Dom asked.

"Then we have the Military district. This is based between the forest and the open plains. Containing the Heroes Hall and Warriors Hall. We will eventually need barracks and additional housing as the Warriors Hall will only sleep so many. However for now it should be ok. Here we can build and place any further military buildings that we will hopefully get." Lucius continued, "Post that, we have the Farming district, which is primarily going to be our crops. We have already started to sow seeds with what rudimentary tools we have, ideally we need some Ox or horses soon to speed this up. The Kagawa family are also drawing up plans to dig some channels from the river to create rice paddy fields, I don't have much knowledge on this technique but it sounds impressive."

"I take it you have placed the miliary district between the farming and manufacturing on purpose?" Dom queried.

"Correct, we have the river for defence on one side, and the military on the other. If we are to be attacked, it will be from one of the other three sides and the military are in the best place to react quickly." Lucius replied. "Finally we have the merchant district. Currently we don't have a need for it, but it's next to the river, allowing us to use that as our main channel for trade in the future. We may want to battle and conquer, but trade is also key to get us resources we can't ourselves."

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