SS - Chapter 2 (rewrite) - Production Quotas

Hello all! As I mentioned yesterday I wanted to make a change to sovereign stones, so you'd get a little bit more of the village building/life, before getting pulled into teh action segment.

I rewrote the end of chapter 1, and wrote a new chapter 2 which I feel not only pads out the village, but has stronger hooks to get Medea and Camille out investigating. I'll try and recycle some of the previous chapter 3, but chapter 2 might be a write off... we'll see.

I like this build-up a lot more than the previous one, it's not a 'hey we fighting' whiplash, and I think it'll help the story develop much smoother. Hope you enjoy, let me know what you think.

-Wombat

Note: Former name for cook: Paige - New name: Millie

--- Change in Chapter 1 ---

Camille was already up to her ankles in the water, splashing water all over her leather armor to clear the last of the dried blood and mud off of it. 

“Took you long enough. Come on, get cleaned, bread is waiting!” she shouted happily as I approached.

“And I’m sure the bread will still be there if we take a couple minutes,” I replied softly, a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth as I gestured at the half harvested wheat field behind her. “In fact, maybe we should head across to the fields, check if they could use any help before we go.”

Camille looked at me in mock horror. “You’d deprive me of bread? I knew everyone called you a villainess, but that’s plain evil!”

I let my smile drop, as I wandered up to the stream and started splashing the clear water on my own filthy armor. Camille flinched at my sudden cold expression.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have said that,” she said.

“It’s fine, you didn’t mean anything by it, it just brings back bad memories,” I muttered quietly. “That’s a time, and a place we left behind. One I’m eager to forget.”

As soon as I finished cleaning I flicked the last of the water off my hands and stepped out of the stream, pausing just long enough to look back at Camille. “Come on, let's get lunch.”

--- Chapter 2 ---

“Wiwi a ub oooo,” Camille cried, mouth stuffed full of bread, as she hung to the skirts of a taller redheaded girl.

“Camille, I know how much you love my cooking, but that doesn’t mean you can completely abandon your manners and cling to me, and talk with your mouth full,” Millie growled, before rapping the oversized wooden spoon she was carrying across the smaller girl’s knuckles. 

Camille yipped in surprise, slipped back, and toppled off the narrow dining room bench. The last thing I saw as she disappeared behind the far side of the table was a single foot kicked way up in the air. A few seconds later, the sounds of bread gobbling continued. 

“She never learns,” Millie sighed as she slowly worked her way towards the massive stone stove built into the far side of the room. “How did she ever become your personal maid back when we were all back in the duchy?”

“She was good at her job. She has passable manners for when we had to deal with people outside the family, a good sense of style, and has decent management skills,” I replied lightly.

“And that was enough to make her your personal maid?” 

“No, it was actually the fact that she has exceptional combat skills, and we grew up together. My mother wanted to make sure I had someone trustworthy next to me at all times, someone that would stand at my back when things went bad,” I explained. “I guess the life of a homeless vagabond just fits her better than a lady in waiting.”

A quiet belch echoed out from the far side of the table, as if to emphasize my point.

After grabbing a pair of roughly carved wooden bowls off the shelf, Millie carefully ladled two bowls of steaming soup out of the cauldron hanging over the fire, before carrying them back to our table.

“Vegetable soup,” she announced as she carefully set the bowls down on the table. “Made fresh today so that some of us have something to dunk the bread in.”

Camille popped her head up, just high enough that I could see her over the table and smiled. Her mouth was still packed full of bread.

“Ugh…” Millie huffed. “Just don’t make a mess. Everyone in the field should be coming in for lunch soon, and I don’t have time to clean up after you.”

“Thank you!” I called as she left, before shooting Camille a dirty look. “I know we’re not limited by the expectation of the nobility anymore, but you could act with a bare minimum of manners you know.”

“I’m sorry, it’s just… bread! And not just bread, but bread with honey! I was so excited I couldn’t help myself,” Camille apologized as she slowly stood up and rejoined me at the table. She slowly pulled the bowl of soup closer, and began to scoop it into her mouth. “Do you have any plans for the rest of the day? I thought hunting the barghast would have taken longer than it did.”

I swept my hair off my face, so it didn’t get into the food, and dunked a hunk of bread into my own soup while I thought. 

“I’d like to visit the workshops, check if they need anything, then maybe go out and survey the area to the north” I said before taking a small bite of the delicious meal. “Even though we have plenty of supplies, we’re still heavily rationing the metal goods. The village might be in trouble if we can’t find an iron vein soon.”

“I don’t know how you can be so sure that there is iron, copper, and silver in the area,” Camille muttered, before shoveling another spoonful of soup into her mouth.

“Because my mother spent years surveying spots outside the kingdom, just for this occasion, and according to her maps this area is rich in resources,” I explained. “Have you ever known my mother to be wrong?”

“No, she’s far too careful for something like that,” Camille admitted.

“Exactly, so it’s got to be around here somewhere,” I declared.

The two of us fell into a comfortable silence as we finished the modest meal. Camille just shoveled the soup into her mouth as fast as possible, then bounced in place on the bench while I finished mine. I didn’t know how the girl managed to avoid burning her mouth, my own meal had been steaming hot.

I finished just as the farmers came in. I’d convinced a dozen experienced farm hands to join my little exodus, which wasn’t as many as would have liked, but was just enough to keep our small settlement running. 

After carefully brushing my hair so it would fall over the right side of my face, and dropping off our bowls back with the rest of the dirty dishes, I quickly greeted everyone before slipping back outside.

The workshops weren’t anything impressive, just a cluster of squat square buildings on the opposite side of the village from the farms. The largest, and most active, of these buildings was the woodworking workshop. Since we didn’t have a ready source of metal, or even stone, most of our furniture and fixtures were created with tight fit joints, to cut down upon the use of nails.

We also had a couple carvers to add some small details to the furniture, and make smaller goods. 

I wasn’t worried about their productivity, they’d exceeded all my expectations over the last few months, but I still poked my head inside to check on things.

The long barn shaped building had a massive section at one end for processing the logs, and then a smaller area near the front for actually assembling the different products. Right at the front of the building was a large table, covered in furniture plans, where two men were quietly discussing something.

“Carver, Micheals, how's everything going today?” I asked loudly to announce my presence.

The two turned simultaneously, wide smiles on their faces. “My lady, it’s a pleasure to see you today.”

Alan Carver was a lanky man, with wild unkempt brown hair, and delicate hands. He was a tinkerer by trade, and was capable of making very delicate, and intricate devices, but he’d volunteered to supervise the woodworking workshop when we first arrived, and had designed all the tight fit furniture we’d been using.

Jacob Micheals was a metal worker, and a massive mountain of a man with a huge bushy grey beard. Unfortunately our lack of raw metals left him light on work, so he liked to volunteer around the village doing other jobs.

“Any issues over the last few days?” Camille chirped as she slid into the room behind me.

“None, production is progressing as expected. Jacob and I were just trying to figure out the best way to create the palisades without dipping into our iron reserves,” Carver explained.

“We may be short on metal right now, but I don’t want to do anything that might compromise the village’s defenses. I want the walls to be as strong as possible,” I told the two men. “There’s iron around here somewhere, and I fully expect to find it before our reserves become a problem.”

“I understand my lady, we’ll do our best to design the most resilient walls possible,” Carver declared. 

“Wonderful. Where’s Ezra, and her crew? Aren’t they usually here helping with the heavy lifting?” I asked.

“Apparently someone stumbled across a decent stone deposit not that far away. They asked for an escort, and went to check it out,” Micheals explained. “From what I could gather, it would only take a couple hours for them to scope out, and they’d be back before it got dark.”

“About time we found a good place,” Camille grumbled. “I understand why it’s taken us months to find the mine, but stone? It’s all over the place!” 

“You know it’s not that easy, most of the stone around here is slate, and just breaks apart if we try and do anything with it,” I sighed. 

“Why does everything have to be more complicated than expected,” she huffed.

I rolled my eyes, and turned back towards the two men. “Thank you for the update gentlemen. If you need anything don’t hesitate to let Siegward know.”

“We will, my lady, thank you,” Carver replied before turning back to the plans he and Micheals were reviewing earlier.

I quickly slipped back out the door, into the small path between the workshops.

“I hope that stone deposit works out, I hate that half of our production facilities have been offline the last few months,” I grumbled.

“It’s not half, the wood working, weaver and tailor, and leatherworking workshops are functional, it’s just the stone and metal working that have been stalled,” Camille reminded me. “And you said you were okay with that!”

“I was! I am! It’s just frustrating that despite knowing this area is rich in natural resources, we can’t seem to find them,” I grumbled.

“Cheer up. We probably found one, it’s only a matter of time until we find the others,” Camille said cheerfully. “Now, how about we head over to the tailors and see how they’re doing before you start doubting yourself…”

A deep, resonating clang echoed through the village, cutting Camille off. The easy smile slipped off her face, leaving behind a look of concern.

“The alarm bell? Why? It wasn’t even rung when the barghast approached,” she shouted over the loud clanging.

“We’re not going to find out standing around here,” I yelled back before sprinting back towards the town square. When we arrived the area was filled with people, most were gathered into small groups, having hushed conversations, and the few former knights were already spread out around the area, ready to respond to any threat.

They weren’t what drew my eye though, because right in the middle of the square was a small heavily injured group of people, covered in blood.

“Oh, this isn’t good,” Camille muttered.