On the horizon, the world was a study in white and grey. A canvas of freshly fallen snow blurred the line between the ground and the sky, broken only by the jagged, snow-drowned peaks that clawed at the heavens. The mountain region was, to put it mildly, a terrible place to live. It was a relentless, unforgiving meat grinder, one that only the most prepared, or the most desperate, could survive in for long without the collective will of a group all pushing toward the same, simple goal: not dying today.
The very fact that Humans had managed to carve out a foothold here, a tiny pocket of warmth and relative safety, was largely attributed to a single person. Me. Jemma O'Brien.
Now, that sounds incredibly arrogant, and it's a thought I immediately try to squash every time it bubbles up from my subconscious. Attributing our survival solely to me would be not only wrong but a dangerously flawed misconception. I was just as clueless as everyone else when the System, with a capital 'S', decided to rip us from Earth and dump us into this new, game-like reality. I was a broke college business student, barely passing my finance classes, who had, in a moment of panic during the character creation screen, picked what was quite possibly the worst starting Vocation imaginable for a survival scenario: Merchant.
Yeah, a Merchant. I still cringe just thinking about it.
My first few days in this world—Norrath, the System called it—were a blur of terror and incompetence. I'd spent days stumbling through a forest, my only companion a constant stream of System alerts telling me how hungry, cold, and pathetic I was. I barely survived my encounters, which mostly involved me screaming and running away from things that looked like they wanted to use my bones as toothpicks. After the running, I spent even more time gathering whatever the System told me wasn't immediately poisonous, all in preparation for a last-ditch journey I wasn't even sure I'd survive.
It took a painfully long time for my business-major brain to pivot from 'how do I make a profit' to 'how do I not become monster chow'. The answer, eventually, was the mountains. They were always there, looming on the horizon, their peaks visible even on the darkest nights. They looked solid, defensible. Safer than the goblin-infested, monster-patrolled forests. It was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had. It was a flat-out miracle that I survived the trek, and an even bigger one that I stumbled upon other humans within a week of starting my climb.
As a Level 1 Merchant, I had exactly two skills. These, I quickly learned, were the starter tools the System gave you to navigate this beautiful, deadly world. I also came to the immediate and disheartening conclusion that my skills were, by a country mile, the most useless of the bunch, at least for staying alive. The Farmers in our fledgling group could literally make plants grow faster and had an innate ability to identify useful herbs. The Rangers? They could instinctively craft crude but effective weapons out of almost anything and, give them a bow, could turn a charging beast into a pincushion from fifty yards out. They were honest-to-god survivalists.
And then there was me. The useless one.
My first skill was [Appraisal].
[Appraisal (Active) - Tier 1]: Allows the user to gain a deep understanding of an item's, object's, or resource's intrinsic and potential market value. Value can be assessed in relation to known currencies or via bartering potential against the user's current inventory.
Back on Earth, this skill would have been a license to print money. Matched with the passive bonuses of the Merchant Vocation—a near-genius aptitude for trading, brokerage, and a fanatical obsession with anything related to economics—I'd have been ruling Wall Street from a corner office in Manhattan. But this wasn't Earth. This was Norrath, and my new companions didn't give a damn about the potential market value of a shiny rock when we were freezing and starving. They needed someone who could contribute to the group's survival. [Appraisal] was about as useful as a screen door on a submarine. I think my first attempt to use it on a monster resulted in the System telling me its pelt was worth three silver pieces, right before it tried to eat my face. Not helpful.
So, that skill was shelved. The only reason I wasn't left behind to become a permanent feature of the mountain landscape was my second skill: [Haggler's Tongue].
[Haggler's Tongue (Active) - Tier 1]: Grants the user the ability to persuade and influence negotiations in their favor. Provides intuitive insights into the social cues and emotional state of conversation partners and grants a degree of conscious control over the user's own body language and tone to project confidence and trustworthiness.
This skill was my golden ticket. This was how I survived. In the weeks that followed, as our group slowly grew, it was my tongue that held us together. When we were on the verge of splintering from hunger and fear, I was the one who could talk everyone down. to knit our fragile community back together. I convinced other scared, lonely survivors to join us, even when all we had to offer was a shared fire, a leaky cave, and the grim reality that we were barely holding on. I sold them on a future I wasn't even sure we had.
That was our reality until the day we unlocked the Settlement System. It was, without a doubt, the single biggest turning point in our collective existence. The moment the System decided we were organized enough, it dinged in our minds like a cosmic cash register.
[Group Cohesion Requirements Met!]
[Minimum Population Threshold Achieved (20)!]
[Secure Location Established!]
[System Prompt: Would you like to form a Settlement?]
That prompt changed everything. It offered us a path from mere survival to actually building something. But it came with a catch. We had to appoint a leader.
The twenty of us gathered in that same drafty cave, the air thick with tension. I honestly hadn't even considered putting myself forward. I was the talker, the logistics nerd, not the leader. I expected them to pick Reece Rogers, our lead Ranger. He was a hunter in his past life, a man who moved with a quiet confidence and knew how to read the land. He was the obvious choice.
So, you can imagine my surprise when he stood up and pointed right at me.
"It should be Jemma," he'd said, his voice calm and steady. Everyone blinked. I think my jaw physically dropped.
He told them that while survival in the mountains demanded short-term thinking—where's the next meal, how do we stay warm tonight—building a future required something more. It required long-term strategy. What do we do once we are safe? How do we expand? How do we eventually reach out to other humans without getting ourselves killed?
"We need a leader who can think five steps ahead," he'd argued. "Someone who sees the whole chessboard. That's not me. I see the next move. Jemma sees the endgame."
And just like that, with his support, the other two Rangers fell in line. The Farmers, who held the least sway but were tired of being hungry, agreed readily. The handful of craftsmen we'd picked up, a Blacksmith and two Masons, shrugged and nodded. I had used [Haggler's Tongue] to get them to join us, and I suppose they figured if I could sell them on this frozen rock, I could probably lead them.
But the moment I accepted, the moment the System pinged with [Jemma O'Brien has been appointed Settlement Leader!], I knew I couldn't do it alone. The first thing I did was establish a council. Reece, the lead Farmer, our Blacksmith—anyone who was a linchpin of our survival. The true value of the Settlement System wasn't in a single leader; it was in the points. Settlement Points. SP. The currency of civilization.
And that's when we discovered the mine.
It turned out our miserable, freezing cave was sitting on top of a massive deposit of iron and copper. The System, it seems, loves it when you exploit resources. Every chunk of ore our Masons hauled out and our Blacksmith processed didn't just give us materials; it gave us a cascade of Settlement Points. We were suddenly, unexpectedly, rich.
[Iron Ore Vein Discovered! +500 SP]
[100 Units of Iron Ore Mined! +100 SP]
[First Iron Ingot Smelted! +25 SP, New Recipe Unlocked: Crude Iron Tools]
We used those points to advance at a breakneck pace. We built a massive, walled-off area using the mountain's own stone. We started constructing actual homes, upgrading our forge, and crafting better weapons and gear. We became a beacon, a small but fiercely effective pocket of humanity in the wilderness.
Of course, it wasn't a utopia. Getting lumber was still a nightmare. Our single Woodworker had to be escorted by all four of our Rangers on perilous, time-consuming trips down the mountain. Our Farmers fought a constant battle against the rocky soil and short growing season. We needed hides for clothing, a consistent source of clean water, we needed… well, we needed everything.
So, I had to make a choice. We were rich in stone, so we would become a settlement of stone. The System, ever practical, seemed to notice my focus. When I kept pouring SP into masonry and quarrying upgrades, new options appeared in the settlement menu. Stone houses, reinforced walls, even underground cisterns. It was slow, back-breaking work, but it was progress.
Which brings me to now. I was standing in the small, carved-out room that served as my office and bedchamber, a glorified closet off the main cave entrance. A map, painstakingly drawn on a piece of cured deer hide, was spread across a stone table. My objectives were clear: advance our settlement to a Tier 2 Civilization and, eventually, make contact with the wider world. We were getting a steady trickle of survivors, lost souls our Rangers found wandering the lower slopes, but reaching Tier 2 required a significant population and infrastructure boom.
More importantly, winter was no longer creeping up; it was here, hammering at our gates with fists of ice and snow. The entire settlement was a hive of frantic preparation. The Rangers were out on a final, risky hunt for meat. The Farmers were tending to their carefully cultivated crops in the geothermally-warmed sections of the lower caves. Our Alchemist was brewing potions to combat the inevitable fevers and frostbite. Our three Masons and single Blacksmith were working nonstop, reinforcing our defenses and forging new tools.
We even had two Explorers, a husband-and-wife team who were meticulously mapping the deeper cave systems. They were convinced we weren't alone down there, that some of the mountain's older, more dangerous residents lived in the dark. So far, they hadn't found anything, but their paranoia was a useful motivator.
I tapped a finger on the map, a small smile playing on my lips despite the pressure. We were a bunch of broke students, grizzled hunters, and dirt-under-the-nails laborers. We were led by a Merchant with a useless Vocation. By all rights, we should have been dead a hundred times over.
I took a sip from the waterskin at my hip, the water inside already slushy despite being insulated. The need for a reliable, unfrozen water source was rapidly climbing my list of 'Problems That Will Kill Us All'. It was already sitting at a comfortable number two, right under 'General Starvation' and just above 'Cave Monster Decides Our Settlement Looks Delicious'. We had the Settlement Points—our mining operations had been a godsend for that—but the System, in its infinite and often infuriating wisdom, had very specific ideas about where one could just manifest a well into existence.
For three straight days, I'd been playing spelunker with Mark and Sarah, our husband-and-wife Explorer team. They were the experts, the ones painstakingly mapping our underground labyrinth, and I was the one with the System interface, trailing behind them like a frustrated manager trying to get a new printer to work.
"How about here?" I'd ask, bringing up the ghostly blue schematic of the [Stone Well (Tier 1)] in my vision. I'd try to place it on the cavern floor. The schematic would flash an angry red.
[Placement Invalid: Unstable Substrate.]
"Nope," I'd sigh. "Ground's too shaky."
Mark, a man whose beard seemed to be in a constant battle for dominance with his face, would grunt and make another mark on his own hide-map. "Figured. The shale in this layer is flaky. Let's try the lower passage."
An hour later, in a different cavern that smelled vaguely of damp socks and regret. "Here?"
[Placement Invalid: No Viable Aquifer Detected within 50 Meters.]
"Seriously?" I muttered, kicking a loose rock. "We're in a cave system deep inside a mountain covered in snow. The whole damn place is a viable aquifer!"
The System did not respond to my logic. It rarely did. Sarah patted my shoulder sympathetically. "It's looking for a specific type of underground reservoir, Leader. One it can tap without collapsing the whole chamber."
Her calm was the only thing keeping me from screaming at the impassive rock walls. Today was day four of the Great Well Hunt, and my patience was thinner than our winter soup. Mark was leading us down a narrow fissure we'd previously ignored, convinced a tremor last week might have opened something new. He had to turn sideways to squeeze through, his pack scraping against the stone.
"I'm telling you, Jemma, I felt a different draft coming from here yesterday," he called back, his voice echoing weirdly. "Colder. Wetter."
"At this point, Mark, I'd settle for just 'wetter'," I grumbled, following him into the tight space.
The fissure opened into a cavern unlike any we'd seen before. It wasn't large, maybe thirty feet across, but the air was thick with the smell of wet stone and clean earth. Water dripped from a hundred tiny stalactites, each droplet landing with a soft plink into a shallow pool in the center of the chamber, creating a sound like a thousand tiny bells. The pool itself was crystal clear, and the floor of the cavern felt solid, like deep, ancient bedrock.
A flicker of hope, something I hadn't felt in days, sparked in my chest. I'd officially named our home Skara Brae, a nerdy nod to the ancient, stone-built village from the history books back on Earth. It felt fitting for our own burgeoning city of stone.
"Okay," I whispered, not wanting to break the cavern's serene spell. "Let's try this again."
I focused my will, and the familiar Settlement Management interface materialized in my vision.
Settlement: Skara Brae (Tier 1)
Leader: Jemma O'Brien
Population: 42
Settlement Points (SP): 2,496
I navigated to the 'Construction' tab, then 'Utilities'. The list was short, but the item I wanted was right at the top, glowing with potential.
[Stone Well (Tier 1)]
Description: A durable, stone-lined well providing a permanent, clean water source for your settlement.
Cost: 500 SP, 200 Stone, 50 wood.
Placement Requirements: Must be built on stable bedrock over a viable freshwater aquifer.
"Come on, baby," I pleaded under my breath. "Don't be shy."
I selected the well, and the ghostly blue outline appeared before me. I mentally grabbed it and moved it toward the center of the cavern, right over the shallow pool. For a heart-stopping second, it glowed red. My shoulders slumped.
"Damn it."
"Try moving it a few feet to the left, Leader," Sarah suggested, pointing. "The ground looks flatter there."
I nudged the schematic. Red. Red. Red. My frustration was boiling over. This was it. This was the spot. It had to be. I slid the image one last time, a desperate, jerky motion, over a patch of unassuming, flat stone right at the edge of the pool.
And it turned a brilliant, beautiful, glorious green.
[Valid Placement Location Found!]
A gasp escaped my lips. Mark let out a whoop that echoed through the chamber like a gunshot. "You did it!"
"Don't celebrate yet," I said, my heart hammering against my ribs. I focused on the glowing green schematic and issued the mental command. Build.
The System responded instantly. 500 SP vanished from my total. A pulse of soft, white light emanated from the spot, and the very air seemed to hum with power. Motes of energy, drawn from our settlement's stockpiles, zipped through the air. The 200 units of stone our Masons had quarried flowed like liquid, rising from the ground and solidifying into a perfect, circular stone wall about three feet high. Then the 50 units of wood appeared, twisting and snapping together in mid-air to form a sturdy roof and a winch mechanism, a rope and bucket already hanging from it, impossibly perfect.
The entire process took less than ten seconds. When the light faded, it was simply… there. A solid, real well, looking like it had been part of the cavern for a thousand years. A moment later, we heard a gurgling sound as fresh, clear water bubbled up from below, filling the basin.
A final, triumphant notification appeared in my vision, and I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding for four days.
[Stone Well Constructed!]