Chapter 302: Watch Stations

Once the meeting broke up, Kalli went outside and switched to her flight suit, so she could pick the perfect place to set the new towers.

Certainly not on the other side of the forest, as some had suggested. She wanted to be able to see them from the walls, in case of danger. But they also needed to be close enough that the workers in the fields could run to them in case of that same danger.

So, she picked spots that were on slightly elevated land, the last to flood when the river rose, with two close enough to the shoreline that they could pick off monsters that tried to use the edge of the water to skirt around the city’s defences.

Though, now that she looked at the positioning, three wasn’t going to work. The river messed up the pattern.

So, four towers. One between the river and the ocean, and then three on the other side, evenly spaced and placed on small hills. That would give them all the protection that they needed from invaders, as well as safe spots for the farmers.

Which meant that she needed to decide what she was going to do with the buildings.

An empty concrete bunker with a landing pad on the roof wasn’t really all that awe inspiring. And it might not convince the System that they were worthy of considering it expanded territory. But if she used one of the upgraded buildings she had chosen from the System, then she could make them somewhere very nice.

Yes, they would need to be fortified, that was their basic function.

But they could have refractive crystals in the roof to provide natural light for the interior, solar power, living quarters on the second floor with the first one open.

Actually, she could put the landing pad as a balcony on the side, and top them with a greenhouse. Then, if they got cut off from the city by a storm, they would have food and work. No need to waste days with unfulfilled quests, they could do most of what they needed right in the bunkers.

And then the first floor could be storage, with a cargo truck bay for loading what came out of the greenhouse and the nearby fields.

That would definitely count as part of Marimgar’s footprint.

Kalli took a few minutes to design the building on her tablet before she settled on a round structure, with a domed top. The transparent aluminum dome was expensive, but it was armoured, and let in light.

That would do for a greenhouse.

The first three floors were plascrete, synthetic concrete with alloy reinforced structures. They were a metre thick, enough to stop even the most violent of attacks, and the wide balcony on the third level would give them room to land multiple flights of speeders if they needed.

It would also provide shade for the yard underneath, which was going to be a blessing to those who chose to stay there.

And someone surely would choose to stay there.

There weren’t many rooms, it was basically just a tuber silo and watch tower, but it was enough that they could include a bunk room for workers staying for a few days during an emergency, plus ten small rooms with a central common area for the guards on station.

Then Kalli realized they still needed somewhere for the flight teams to stay.

Whatever. If they wanted to rest at the outstation, they could stay in the bunk rooms. She would just add more of them on the third floor, enough that they could have a full patrol flight with its attached ground team overnight there in style.

And without sleeping in the warehouse or the greenhouse.

Almost every greenhouse in the city currently had at least two hammocks and a rocking chair in it, since they were such great places to take a break. So, there was no reason to think it wouldn’t happen again.

They weren’t intended to be a permanent residence, but with guards on rotation, there would be four people there at all times, two awake and two asleep.

So, those four needed comfortable rooms, and common areas to cook and relax.

The building would get four laser turrets, mostly for the cameras that they could watch from inside, and the balconies would be equipped with tripod mounts to fire Pulse Cannons from.

If the buildings were attacked, and there were people at them, they could definitely put up a serious fight.

At least, that was the goal.

As long as they could hold out until rescue arrived, they had served their purpose. If they could do more than that, or even repel the attackers entirely, it was even better. One extra layer of defence for the city, and four new safe places for those outside the walls to retreat to.

Kalli made a final revision, increasing the height of the first floor, which would be used for storage, and then placed the first building

{2,000 Point Deducted}

{250 Points Deducted}

Not nearly as bad as she had feared.

Armoured buildings, made with the upgrade option, apparently cost about the same as a regular building, and 250 points were enough to fully furnish the living levels, while adding the water circulation and filtration system for the greenhouse.

With the number of people they now had, and the number of daily quests that were turned in, building these four towers really wasn’t going to be too much of a hit to her balance, and Kalli realized that she could likely do a bit more for the city’s infrastructure.

It didn’t need much, things were running much more smoothly than she had expected, but there was always something that could be improved.

Likely in the hive city, though the crime rate had plummeted in the last week.

There were enough shops open now that people could get what they wanted, and most of the city had all the basics. So, they were adapting to life in the city, and hoping that they could reach level 0 as fast as possible.

Which many of them were.

The growth of System users was astonishing, though given the pure number of people in the Hive City, it was still a tiny fraction. But there were over a thousand in the last week, and her data suggested that the number was actually going to increase.

If they were getting two or three thousand new candidates every week, it wouldn’t be long before System users were the majority of the people in the city. Well, not long by a normal time scale anyhow. Who knew how long the System would give them for this trial?