Homesteading in a fantasy world

As I gave the go-ahead, the portal was activated, and me and ten others went through and reached Connections portal hub. We would need to wait a bit before the rest of our members could come through.

There's only so many people who can go through a portal at a time, so after we waited for an hour, all 30 of the new members were here with me, and we started to head towards the company compound.

It wasn't unusual for a group as large as ours to walk through the streets. What was unusual was the discipline. Everyone was walking in perfect lines, unlike other groups who walked in clusters. This got us some more head turns than usual.

It took us a bit to finally make it to the company compound, and I did love the sight that I saw. There were some watchtowers built, and there were guards; there were also six guards at the main entrance.

At first, they looked worried, but when a few of them recognized me, their stance quickly changed from guarded to welcoming. After a few quick words, we were let in.

The facilities here could easily support 200 members; we will need to expand sooner than expected. Everything inside was properly maintained, and the people who were training already looked to be quite disciplined.

This was good news. While I have been here every once in a while, most of what's going on here was left to Arabella and the few other company members who joined the company at the start.

There was constant activity happening all around the compound. There were multiple different groups training in different combat styles, and there was a lot of noise coming from the workshop area.

"Winslow, come here," I yelled. One of the trainers immediately straightened his back and looked towards me. It only took him a moment to excuse himself from the people he was training and rushed towards me.

"Sir, how can I help?" he asked when he made it close enough. "These are the new members from UF. Can you take them off my hands? I need to go and speak with Arabella."

"Yes, sir, right away. Oh, I recognize some of you; that makes things easier. Follow me, I will take you to our storage areas so you can unpack. If anyone...?"

I left him to do his job as I entered the main building. There was a lot of noise coming from the bar area. It was nice to see that they were still following my instructions about people having enough free time to also enjoy themselves. It's important not to burn yourself out.

Climbing the stairs, I reached the last floor and headed towards Arabella's office. I knocked on her door, and after a few moments, she finally called me in.

As I opened the door and she looked up, I could see a bit of frustration in her eyes. "Finally, it took you long enough to make it here. You know we should already be in the wilderness." I just smiled and sat down, which seemed to irritate her even more.

"There was so much planning, and then you just send me a message that oh, I’m going to come about a month later. Fortunately, most of the food we prepared will last a long time, and what didn't, we could cook up and serve. You are lucky that you didn’t message me later; otherwise, I would have accepted some of the quests, and then we would have been in real trouble if you didn't show up."

I could see that she was frustrated; I think she has been overworking herself a bit. So, I just let her express herself. I would have stopped her if she started to complain about things that weren’t my fault, but she never did. That took some control. It seems like a leadership position worked well for her. Eventually, she stopped, and I could see her shoulders relax a little bit.

"Your complaints are heard and noted. Like I said in my last report, I brought with me 30 new members. It would probably be a good idea to keep them here. I think extra security would be nice."

She nodded to that, so I continued, "There is, however, one thing that's been on my mind. I hate to ask even more of you, but I can’t think of a better person."

She looked suspiciously at me, probably expecting me to put a lot more work on her. She was kinda right.

"Could you perhaps train me in the use of a bow? We could do it during the wilderness expedition?" It took her a moment to think, and then she looked at me in shock. "Wait, what? Aren't you a melee fighter? Why would you want to learn how to—what?"

"Yes and no, I do have a class that is not just for making bows but for using them. I do decently enough, but I think there’s a lot I could improve on. So, are you up for the challenge?"

She looked at me for quite a long time before she gave me a slow nod. "I would like a bow out of the deal. I do hope that it will not be too long before I reach rank three, and I would need a bow then."

That was an easy thing to accept. We continued to talk for a while as I needed to properly catch up on what had happened during my absence. While I did get the reports that she sent, it was hard to get the true feeling about how things had been going just from that.

The situation was good. There were a few bad apples that got through the hiring process, but to their complete surprise, the contract they signed didn't ensure that they couldn't be kicked out.

In most other guilds, whenever you joined one, you had a pretty good guarantee that you had a place there even if you started abusing the power you had. As long as you didn’t mess with the guild itself, the contracts usually wouldn’t allow them to kick you out.

We, however, didn’t go with the standard form. There was no way I was going to let such vulnerabilities mess up what I was trying to build.

Time started to move fast once again as it took a while to prepare for the expedition. Almost 100 members would be coming with us, and it would probably be a few months before we made it back here. During the preparation, Arabella started to teach me, and oh boy, was there a lot to learn.

Basically, what I had been doing was shooting a bow, not fighting with it. She essentially needed to break my current habits, and then she could finally start teaching me how to fight with a bow.

"Unless you're in formation while fighting with a bow, you should always be in motion. You have the range advantage, and you should always keep it, but this also means your biggest weakness is ranged attacks against you. Never move predictably. It's like you've never actually hunted before."

She continued to give me pieces of wisdom that I soaked in. I would need to teach some of these to Goose. They would apply to him as well. An image flashed in my mind of Goose in the future even bigger but still nimble, and an expert in his own fighting style. He's going to grow up to be a true terror, isn't he?

The expedition started without any fanfare, but the inside of the wagon was truly impressive. It was like a large camp; it had a proper barracks and a few other workshops for everyone to use. The most impressive area/building was the cooking area.

While eating rations would have been acceptable, the constant exertion nearly 100 people would be doing daily meant they would need a lot of food, and it seemed like we were prepared to give them that thanks to the cooking area and the people we recruited who had food-related classes.

I had a feeling that it was going to be a fun expedition. We had some general goals to accomplish. Leveling up our members and gathering some resources were the main ones, but the most important goal was to find a metal vein of some sort that we could mine out.

It would be a game-changer if we found the right type of metal. Not only could we upgrade our gear quite cheaply, but it would also be an excellent nest egg to use for expansion.