Chapter 147: Why This But Not That – Chapter 147

Once the door is closed Ace can no longer hear the Butcher’s demands and so with a smile he heads over to the well-placed right in front of town hall. It is a quaint little construction looking like a classic wishing well except for the fact the two poles holding up the roof are made of two big bones. A quick look in shows there actually is water at the bottom and not some System shenanigans. Though that does bring up the question of if the thing has unlimited water or actually plugs into the water table in some way.

“Not like the system is just going to tell me.” Though as Ace turns away something makes him stop. A slight niggle in his mind that as the person in charge of the town he might just have such knowledge somewhere. “[System, tell me about this well.]”

{System Well

Provides drinking water for up to 100 beings a day before relying on locally available groundwater.}

Ace sighs, “Well, that’s a bit non-specific. Does that mean 100 buckets of water or if we brought in an elephant could we pull out enough for it for the day? Oh well, [system, tell me about the road.]”

Ace waits a moment but nothing pops up. “[System, tell me about the butchers. Tell me about the Dock. Tell me about Soul Lamps Unlimited, Tell me about the dungeon containment thing.]”

{Soul Lamps Unlimited

Soul Plates good till the fifth floor available}

Ace frowns, “What decides if the system gives me information or not? It isn’t based on if a feature has someone to explain them because the soul lamp shop showed up. I’d be tempted to say it just showed the things where the system was actively providing a service because that would match except the butchery has that dungeon thing. Unless that is just something the guy can do.”

“That would actually make some sense and explain why we got him. People capable of pulling stuff out of a dungeon like that can’t be too common so there is probably a very limited number of available shopkeepers for it. That and the way he talked sounds like this isn’t the only shop the system currently has him watching. Meh, I’m sure I can ask one of the other people manning the shops. If anything, the Jinn should know.”

Ace shrugs and since he has checked out the well enters the so called gruel dispensary. Though even from the outside he can tell it is meant to be able to handle a lot of people. There are two doors on the front but both are marked entrance only with signs telling people to line up and such.

Inside makes the design even clearer. Directly across the place at the back are exit doors matching the entrance so people can quickly shuffle through and in the center is a sort of kitchen area with lunchroom style counters stopping people from entering. In the kitchen area is a giant cauldron of literal gruel. Some sort of grain bubbles away, thin enough to drink. Though that isn’t all there is. A couple of smaller cauldrons around the big one bubble away with various other things such as citrus fruit and meat.

Though the real show stopper is the being manning the place. A small fairy wearing what appears to be a straw hat and chewing a tiny piece of some sort of grass. The fairy lifts the brim of the hat and raises an eyebrow, “You don’t seem starving. I guess the shop isn’t going to be bum rushed then?”

Ace shrugs, “We have a dungeon that is dropping a variety of food stuff.”

The fairy nods, “Figures. Now I don’t advise switching out the shop. Least not right quick, you hear? While I can’t provide all the food needed for a being, I cover the essentials. No one getting pirate’s curse when that pot of citrus bubbles deep. That and I can provide for any sapient even if it means pulling out some more. Interesting options. Makes it easier if’n strange ones visit. Though with that I would be depending on system sources so limits abound.”

Ace sighs, “I didn’t even know I had the option to switch out shops. Not that I plan on doing that at the moment, anyway. Though I should probably get everyone to come through here to make sure the basics are being met. That is assuming you can tell if someone needs something? It would be a useful thing to have on hand.”

The fairy laughs, “You know something? Very few people ever ask if I can do that. When I first started working for this system, I just did it because I could, but no one appreciated it. So as time went on and I passed the natural lifespan most would get I changed how I did things. Even when providing such services, places would switch me out after a few months or whatever food crisis they had gotten themselves into passed.”

“Now I just sit back and hand out gruel. Still everything a person needs but I keep it to myself. Since you asked though, well now, I guess I can provide such a service. Right off the bat though I must say you’re doing mighty fine. Not that I mentioned the citrus without reason. You aren’t without but a bit more in your diet wouldn’t do you wrong either. Want me to scoop you up a bowl?”

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Ace shrugs, “Sure, sounds like a plan. We’ve been a bit busy getting the town hall set up and everything before others decide to shop up and take over. We only have a few people at the moment but that could change soon enough. A bunch of people left right before a bunch of monsters attacked and going by what I know of the person leading them they should be back within the next week. Someone on the walls spotted what might be a scout from them and with her paranoia that about lines up.”

The fairy nods, “A monster attack in a new world would be a good reason to skedaddle. Though going by your words I’m going to guess this little shop will be quite busy when they get back.” While talking, the fairy flies over to a stack of strange transparent bowls and grabs one.

Ace frowns, “What is up with that bowl? It doesn’t really look like anything I’ve seen before.”

The fairy smiles as he uses a metal scoop twice as long as he is tall to fill the bowl two thirds of the way up. “The system isn’t going to give out free material a bowl at a time. These bowls aren’t made of anything, held together purely by system nonsense. They aren’t strong and once you finish with it the bowl will vanish.”

The fairy pauses as he scoops up some of the citrus gruel and a tiny bit of what looks like nuts. “Oh, and there is a reason it’s gruel and not porridge. If you want a spoon, bring a spoon. Otherwise you can drink it down like everyone else. Now I’m sure you have all the questions but I doubt this is the last stop you have. Maybe some other time.” And after a quick stir, hands the bowl of gruel over to Ace.

Gruel in hand, Ace says his goodbyes and heads over to the smithy. From the outside, Ace can see a number of products hung up on the wall. Then once he is inside, he can see a couple of humans working at making nails next to an active forge. One of them looks up and asks, “You here to buy or figure out what’s up?”

Seeing they aren’t the chatty type Ace gets down to business. “Figure out what’s up. Just set up the town and the dungeon provides copper and tin ore on the third floor. Also, there are more than enough random pre-system metal things sitting around. Can you do anything with that stuff?”

The guy who looked up laughs, “You’re better off destroying the pre-system metals. While it’s not directly one to one, your world is now hooked up to the various elemental sub-planes. When you destroy something, things will try to balance out. Dungeons of course skew things but if you destroy a pre-system iron knife, then somewhere in the world a bit of iron ore will form. Also, the system will try to keep such things balanced so you might as well gain some value out of the old stuff before it starts to vanish.”

Ace frowns, “What about alloys and such? We didn’t exactly have magic, so much of the world’s stuff is precise combinations of stuff.”

The guy shrugs, “All of that isn’t necessarily moot now. Mixing things like you used to will still work to an extent. The only problem is even if undetectable, magically infused things will have a leaning one way or another. So an alloy that worked without magic might work now, you just have to make sure everything is elementally aligned correctly. Making a super light yet strong alloy isn’t going to work if one of the metals picked up an attachment to being heavy.”

“Plus, there are magical ores now. Did your world get into atomics? Ah, I can see by your face they did. Well magical ores superficially appear to other types of ore except they replace one of the building blocks of an atom with a magical equivalent. So no, you can’t just turn iron into a true magical metal just by infusing it. However, destroying iron does give you a chance that a magical equivalent develops somewhere in your world.”

“Anyway, that is getting a bit outside of the bounds of my job here so let’s pivot. I’ve not sold myself to the system so neither me nor anyone else working here is likely to stick around long. The system tells me that the best way to explain it to you is to call it an internship. I just finished up learning under my master and so to gain a bit of experience before getting a real job I signed up with the system to be shunted around to a few of these system smitheries.”

“If you have any other basic production shops from the system, the same is likely to be true. To get a permanent worker you either need to spend a lot of cash or advance the shop which will also cost a lot. On the upside though, while we aren’t allowed to take long-term projects we do stick around until we finish up whatever we are assigned. Oh, and while people can use the shop to work, that costs a lot more money than just getting us to do the work and we aren’t allowed to provide any actual guidance beyond the occasional tip.”

Ace finishes up his bowl of gruel he had been sipping on and sighs. “Well, that is interesting. I guess I will hit up the leather workshop next. I don’t necessarily see my core group of people using your services too much but others will. We’ve got a nearby town that will at least get you to smelt the ore for them to make it easier.”

The guy nods, “Don’t worry about us not having work. The system will provide us with things to make during our downtime and switches us out more often if not being used.”

Ace waves goodbye and heads over to the leather shop. Inside is similar to the smithery, with one side taken up by goods for sale and the other devoted to the craft. This time though there is only one person in the shop. Still it is the same song and dance. They are just a temporary worker that will be switched out for another soon enough. The good news is that they also sell the chemicals to tan hides which unlike with the smith is cheaper than having the worker tan it for you. Useful since while Garry Johnson had known how to do so, such supplies were scarce and until now they didn’t have a good way to deal with the hides dropped in the dungeon.