Chapter 3: Chapter 3: Laying Down Claims

I slept restlessly in a sleeping bag provided to me by Emmerich. The fabric it was made from was coarse and uncomfortable, but it beat sleeping on the ground when the night was so cold. The next morning at the crack of dawn, Emmerich woke me and dragged me to a small meeting with several other members of the caravan. They regarded me with suspicion, as they were right to, they didn’t know anything of me aside from what Emmerich had told them.

“A lot of folks were interested in that idea of yours, but there are some others who…”

“Did you really take this guy’s word for it Emmerich?” one of the men asked, cutting off his explanation. He had a long, scraggly beard and a bald spot atop his head.

Emmerich sighed and rubbed his hands together, “Call it the whim of an old man, Jeremiah. For some reason I have a good feeling about him.”

“I need more assurances than just good feelings, Emmerich. At the very least, we’ll need to prospect this area to make sure we have everything we need. Clean water, fertile ground, and materials to build with.”

I tapped the side of my head impatiently, “I can assure you that there is all that and more.”

“A youngster like you hasn’t worked a day in his life, how can you be so confident?”

I held my tongue. There was no need to out my own secret so easily to a complete stranger, “I’ve been here for a while now, I’ve explored the area thoroughly.” Using my magic eye of course, but they didn’t need to know that, “However, if it will abate your concerns – you can do as you please. But first, allow me to specify where you should begin, surely doing that will prove my competence to you. If not, you can call me the idiot that I rightly am.”

Jerimiah seemed reluctant to even give me that much, but Emmerich patted me on the shoulder, “A good idea. How about you show us this clean water you were speaking of?”

I’d memorized the baring of the river versus where we were from when I scanned the area. The water there was mostly clean, with a little filtration it would be perfectly drinkable. I also saw a large aquifer under the ground that would make wells and more advanced forms of extraction easy. Those technological marvels were beyond me. All I knew was what the eye showed me, I would have to rely on other people to do some of the thinking later.

I pointed through the treeline and towards the river, “Are you aware of the river that runs through the woods there?”

Jerimiah, who seemed to hold some position of authority over the others, nodded, “Yes. That will do for a small number of travellers like us.”

“There’s also water under our feet. We could tap it using a well.”

“A safe assumption and nothing more,” he insisted still.

“Not to mention the hills here are rich in natural resources. The sea waters are filled with fish we could catch. And there is plentiful wildlife to hunt on the land. There’s a reason the Kingdom was keeping an eye on this place. They probably had it marked down for future settlement.”

My reasoning was sound, and Jerimiah finally seemed to get the picture that I was painting. If this place, untouched for years, wasn’t good enough - what was? I had never built a village before, the extent of my knowledge came from years of playing PC games, but the logic was much the same. Every human needed three things to live, water, food, and a shelter. We could build our own shelter with the manpower present, or even take temporary refuge in some of the covered wagons. Water was close by, and food would be delivered by bow and by plow. Jerimiah bit his lip as he thought over what I’d said.

“I’m not trying to intrude. I have no right to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do,” I said, “But I have a good feeling about this place. It could be something special.” Jerimiah turned to the assembled men and women, who spoke amongst themselves about the logistics of setting up shop here. Emmerich removed his hand from my shoulder and nodded.

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“You’re a charmer Shane. Not many people can get Jerimiah to wilt like that.”

“He hasn’t made a decision just yet,” I replied.

That decision wasn’t going to be made on the spot. The conversation between the convoy leaders continued for nearly an hour while we waited. The huddle eventually broke away and Jerimiah rendered his judgement, “Alright, young boy – we’ll give this place a shot. We’ll study it, make sure it has everything we need, and then we’ll consider your proposal.”

I didn’t have much riding on this to be honest. But it did feel like a small victory for the time being. Emmerich and I wandered back to his cart, the greying elder seemed to have a spring in his step, “This takes me back!” he smiled, “Back to the good old days of taming the wilds.” I took a seat on a fallen tree and considered what I was going to do next. Sticking around (hopefully with Emmerich’s permission) seemed to be the best option for the time being.

I needed to feel things out and ask a few questions, “Are you a Laddite?”

Emmerich turned on his heel to face me, “Why do you ask?”

“News doesn’t travel this far. But I heard about some of the troubles that were happening before I left.”

Emmerich nodded, “I’m not such a devotee myself, but many of the people travelling in our party are. Expelled from townships and cities by zealous noblemen. A terrible turn of events, if you ask me – good honest folks minding their own business, attacked and robbed blind! The whole world’s gone mad.”

And I was supposed to be the one to change that? I didn’t see any holy crusades in my future.

“There’ll always be people who try to start trouble.”

“True, but it becomes a problem when it’s people who have all the power! Then every stupid impulse that runs through their deadened minds can be put into action. My old village was emptied almost overnight. Soldiers coming and harassing Laddites, vandalizing their homes and stealing their property.”

“And then?”

“Well, with all the people gone, there wasn’t much of a village left. I couldn’t make a living as a woodcutter in a village with no customers, so the few that were left packed up their things too. Ghost villages like that are cropping up all over the Kingdoms.” I was familiar with some economic phenomena that were similar to that, a wide-scale recession of the local economy. And when that happens people try to move to where the work is. “Anyway, why do you ask?”

“Just curious.”

“Be careful who you ask! Some people are still rightly upset about it, and those teeth of yours are too nice to lose in a cock fight.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

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