11: Expanding

While I was getting items, Emerald Fairy also had me duplicate a few more things for her, and one of the results was unlocking the dryad option. Apparently the way the dryad works is I have to unlock a tree, and when I make a dryad I need to choose a tree to make for the dryad at the same time. 

Now, I wasn’t actually asked to duplicate a tree. What I was asked to duplicate was a tree seed. Yggdrasil seed, I think it was called? Supposedly really hard to obtain, but the seed itself wasn’t really all that valuable (well, not compared to the millenial moon flower). The tree though… oof, that would be expensive. It probably takes a long time for a seed to become a full grown tree. (A full grown Yggdrasil would cost even more than that flower does!)

The reason I was interested in making a dryad was to help with food. Dryads are supposed to be good with plants, and I didn’t want to be dependant on spending points to make food (I was able to make food pills now which I had placed in each apartment as emergency food, but they really aren’t much fun to eat).

So, I made an Yggdrasil dryad. Or at least I tried to. What I got was a seed for an Yggdrasil Dryad. Apparently I need to plant it and wait for it to grow some. *sigh*

Now I’m realizing: I need to expand my controlled and guarded territory outside the cave. This worries me a bit. At least I have enough points that I can afford to buy expensive illusory forest effect with fairies. It makes it harder for people to navigate within the area, making it easier for fairies to manipulate where they go. Slimes get a terrain type thing that helps them too, but it requires lots of water, and just gives slimes healing, and makes it easier for them to hide. Given how weak the slimes are, that’s not very helpful.

As I started setting up a defensive perimeter around a sizable amount of land outside my cave, I noticed the woman who’d been here before, returning with friends. I had to make the slimes and fairies clear out of the way to avoid notice as I didn’t feel like I was ready yet to test my minion setups. I had plans for how I’d make it possible to peacefully enter while keeping out baddies, but I hadn’t got it setup yet. Plus I didn’t really want people to see the work being done.

12: Meeting

“It was right about here, I think. Yeah, see, illusory wall.” - woman 1

“Can’t believe you found a place like this. Are you sure it’s safe?” - man

“That’s why I’m here. To make sure it is safe, before we bring the others.” - woman 2

A total of three intruders, two women, and one man. One of them is the one who hid here before. 

“Hmmm… fairy magic. Odd. I didn’t think there were any fairies in this area before.” - woman 2

Oh? Impressive, she can tell it’s made by a fairy. Oh, the cowgirl is heading towards them, I forgot about her. Will it be alright?

“Eh? Do we have guests?” - cowgirl

“What? Is this your place?” - woman 1

“I thought you said this place had no one here?” - man 

“At the moment it’s just me, but there’s plenty of rooms. Always good to see more beastkin.” - cowgirl

Wait, what? Beastkin?... uh… I suppose the two women have big animal ears on top of their heads, and the man has big floppy ears that hang down. How did I not notice? Hmmm…

When I look at the cowgirl, I instinctively know she’s a cowgirl. Yet the only actual signs of it, are her hooves instead of feet, and her tail. She’s actually less obviously non-human than the newcomers, yet somehow I failed to notice. 

Looking at the newcomers… I instinctively know their sex and that they are intruders. I have to actively pay attention to figure out they are beastkin. This is weird. I really need to figure out how to change or get rid of the intruder label, since being a dungeon is clearly messing with me.

“How long have you been here?” - woman 1

“As long as I can remember.” - cowgirl

“How far back can you remember?” - woman 2

“Hmmm… about 3 days.” - cowgirl

While I’m bad at keeping track of time, that’s probably how long it’s been since I summoned her.

Well, it looks like everything should be fine. The cowgirl was a good purchase. She’s smart and handling everything without any orders. They are discussing basic rules for living here and it all seems fine. 

… honestly, the woman I saved being a catgirl is like: A super common trope. That or an elf. I really should’ve expected her to not be human, and either running from slavers, or racists or both.

I’m gonna need to expand my apartment complex. This is looking like I’m gonna be taking in refugees from all the human supremacists or something. Is there some kind of big social upheaval going on?

13: More defenses

So, back to building my outer defenses: with the illusion forest area, I can set fairies to direct people in a desired direction. I could just use this to create a kind of invisible wall, but I want to be able to allow people in. So, I’m directing people to an entry area at the center.

For the entry area, I’ll make an obvious gate of sorts that leads inside, have a slime in front of the gate as bait. If someone attacks the slime, they’ll be directed away from the entrance by the fairies whom are there in fairly large numbers to ensure protection of the entrance. Though I call it a gate, it isn’t actually a gate, it’s just an open archway where a gate might normally go. Having an actual gate without a fence or wall would be too weird. 

As a backup, I summon three more cowgirls to keep watch over the gate in shifts. I was originally planning to just summon one, but then realized they need time to sleep, and having them sleep at the gate was a bad plan. When looking carefully at the command list, I noticed there’s scheduling I can do. If no schedule is assigned, they decide for themselves when to work on their assigned task, and when to rest and eat.

The coolest part was learning I could assign group tasks, and let them work out the details themselves. So I just assigned the group of three the task of standing guard behind the gate. However, like the other minions they are set to only retaliate, so if someone simply tries to walk past, they’ll probably allow it.

Though the behavior of the other cowgirl makes me think there might be more to it than that. Unlike the slimes and fairies which both seem to be magical beings with weird rules (neither need sleep for instance, and show very little independance), the cowgirls seem to be fully people, and will act on their own.

The gate itself is pretty far out… well, by my standards. It’s probably not really that far. However, there’s enough room I think that one could fit an entire village between the gate and the cave now, if not for all the trees… it’s a forest out there. In the middle of that distance, I had the dryad I summoned (which appeared as a seed) planted. 

Yggdrasil Dryad planted.
Time until first spout: 1 year

… ew, a 1 year wait time? I guess that’s what I get for trying to use the most expensive dryad option… not that I’d unlocked any other trees yet.

Now that I have a guarded gate, I take away the illusory wall that was hiding the cave. It shouldn’t be needed anymore.

14: City Building

I feel like I’m playing a city simulation game now. Building walkways, housing, stores, etc. More people show up every few days, and I keep expanding the caves into a very obviously artificial underground city. I do wish I had more colors to work with than brown for the buildings and streets.

Thankfully, I don’t have to deal with pollution, power, or waste. The waste disposal units the slimes can make solve all the waste issues, and everything is self-powered. Not burning anything really helps with not making pollution. So, as a city sim, this is probably the easiest I’ve played.

An alert? Oh, my fairy explorer finally found the enemy city. Err, wait, not enemy, it’s just a city nearby. Estimated 3 day travel time for one of the cowgirls. I don’t have any reason to send someone there though.

Another alert? Oooh, some people showing up are being chased.

“Over here!” - cowgirl guard

It seems the equipment I gave the guard is good. The attacker’s arrows harmlessly bounce off her robes, and as they close to melee, her hammer seems to make them fall to the floor in a single hit. Looks like they are dead according to my display. After the fight is over, I decide to assign some slimes to clean-up duty in that area, and they bring the corpses and loot to me to be turned into points.

That wasn’t really how I thought things would go, but I suppose it’s a good outcome. I was really expecting the pursuers to get redirected away like the first time. However, it seemed as if the fairies were instead helping the guard fight, and preventing the enemies from reacting to her attacks until too late.

It kinda feels like I’m not really in as much control over things as I initially thought. The only minions who’s behaviors have been completely predictable are the slimes.

15: Keeping an eye on things

Now that I have so many “intruders” living in my cave, and even have an “intruder” city on the map, I really, really, want to figure out how to change the friend or foe recognition system to be more useful. Most of these people aren’t foes… at least I assume so.

As I browsed my minion options again (I lost count of how many times I’ve done this now) I decided to take another closer look at something I’d largely ignored before: The watcher. It was basically a floating invisible eye. As far as I could tell, it’s only purpose was to act as a scout or to see things. However, it did have special detection skills and claimed to be upgradable after purchase. 

I’d ignored it before because it honestly was kinda ugly looking, and I didn’t think I needed more eyes. Fairies were invisible too and plenty capable as scouts, with many more features and uses. The only combat capability of the eyes, was providing information to other minions. I’d likely have to upgrade them for that to even be useful. Well, I suppose if they can warn of flanking attacks and ambushes, that’s useful.

So, I bought a watcher and looked at the upgrade menu that replaced the normal construction menu. Oooh, intention reading? Power estimation? With both, they can detect hostility and evaluate threat levels. Got both, sent the eye to the town, and… everyone who passes within the eye’s view range gets evaluated and re-classified based on threat level. With a few more and an extra watching the gate, I can finally stop classifying everyone as an intruder. 

Almost everyone is just a civilian. No meaningful threat, and no hostility.

Suddenly I find myself relaxing. Which is strange because I didn’t realize how tense I’d been. I guess all those “intruders” were giving me stress and I didn’t even notice.