Shovels In Spades

"That was so weird," Daz said to himself in a quiet voice since the Richie twins had fallen asleep, cuddled up with each other on the opposite side of the room to him.

He sat and thought over the dream, the Gravedigger, Cecil, the God of Shovels and the message from the system. "I have no idea what just happened. Urg, am I just a plaything to these 'Gods'?" Daz mumbled in a slightly upset tone before he stood up and decided to leave the cabin. "I need some fresh air," he solemnly stated.

After that, Daz calmly went up to the wall above the portcullis where Rimmy was with a long, white candle in his hand, something that was previously in the charity box.

Once there, he sat on the edge of the wall and took his enchanting book out of his inventory and laid it out on one of the raised blocks that made the walls look very medieval in structure.

Due to Fort Skip being on top of a rather large hill, Daz could quite easily see the entire city of Waterford. Most, if not all of the buildings and the skyscrapers, were destroyed, or at the least, partially so. "I wonder if I could eventually make this entire city mine? Ruling over a city... that sounds like a nice long-term plan," Daz said to himself with a small smile.

Rimmy, who heard Daz's musings, shook his head slightly.

"I know that surviving matters the most, buddy. But so far, the attacks have just been a horde of monsters. I thought this whole apocalypse was supposed to be an 'adaptability' test. Maybe things change after this 'ten-day cycle' that I keep hearing about," Daz replied with a shrug as he lit a match and used it on his candle, illuminating the immediate surroundings.

The glow was dim, but it was good enough for Daz to start reading his book and get some elementary knowledge on the topic of Enchanting.

For the next few hours, Daz sat there reading as he conversed with his Jewelled friend. Thankfully, no one had approached the base in the middle of the night, either due to fear, or due to the inability to see the towering walls and ballistae that stood atop the empty hill. Daz was happy enough with this since he had yet to prove himself as a worthy leader to the forty-eight new citizens, which would only be even more difficult if there were more people to look after and manage.

Although he wanted to become a grand Lord, Daz knew that steps had to be taken. One foot at a time, because, if he ever happened to bite off more than he could chew, chances were, he'd choke.

"So, chapter one is all about this 'supposedly' simplest rune in existence, 'Minor Enhance'? Crazy how six hundred pages are dedicated just to this one rune, huh, Rimmy?" Daz asked while he stretched a little.

Rimmy nodded his head and the dim light from the mostly melted candle reflected off of his body.

"I know. There really is a lot for me to do. I can read more about enchanting later, I'm still far from learning how to do it properly. First I need to train a little bit with Hamson in the training area, then I need to deal with the Wasp Queen's body and assign some sort of role to every person. Though I think Lyle should be able to handle the last one," Daz stated before he stored the Enchanting book for dummies in his inventory and left the wall after saying farewell to Rimmy.

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Once he'd reached the training area, Daz noticed that quite a few of his Citizens were actually awake despite it being roughly four o'clock in the morning. 'Are they anxious? Well, I can't really blame them,' he thought as he entered the small ring with the wooden dummies in it.

He took Hamson out of his inventory and assumed a simple stance in front of one of the wooden men. Although Hamson had gained a small skull on it, just below the handle, after consuming Matt, Daz couldn't see any actual changes to it even after using Higher Identification, so Daz just assumed that it either needed to consume more people, or perhaps something else had to happen for it to change.

Thankfully, Daz was far more skilled at using a shovel offensively than he was at crafting, so before long, he had gained two skills due to the special effects of the training ground.