The Butcher of Gadobhra

Ozzy woke up as usual with the rooster crowing. It was easy to get up at 6 am when four hours of sleep felt like getting eight. Sunlight was pouring in the eastern window, which was odd as that was Suzette's side of the room. That window was usually blocked off by a heavy black drape. Barmaids worked late hours and slept in. But she was already getting up.

"Look at you, getting up with the dawn. Sure, it won't burn you like a vampire?"

Suzette stared at the sun but continued getting dressed "It does burn, I hate it, nasty bright sun. But I've got three jobs now. I have to get going early from now on. I need to brew, talk to Billy, get working on the accounting for the tavern, and a million other things."

"Those idiots wiped out last night. All of them are dead. And the dungeon is nearly full again. I thought they'd clear out a bunch of bosses and knock it down to a manageable level, but the dungeon is higher than when they went in. Dying inside must do that. And all of them died."

Ozzy thought about that. "Shit, so you need to make sure good, experienced groups go in and don't die. Or at least, not all the time. Clear mobs, and prune the dungeon. Gee, glad I don't have that job. Say, what's for breakfast today before I go off to make the world safe from sedge beasts?"

Suzette was already heading down the stairs. "Same deal as always. You get the eggs and milk; you get a good breakfast. Otherwise, it's groat muffins for you."

Ozzy scratched his chin. He hated shaving with a straight razor. It could wait another day. What he wanted was bacon. It wasn't hard to make bacon if you had the right ingredients and a smokehouse. But he needed pork belly for bacon. Maybe Betty knew where to get some slabs. There were small farms scattered around Sedgewick, surely someone was raising pigs.

Betty, goddess of all things cooking, did indeed know. "You need to get good pork bellies. Not too much fat. You're the butcher, you should know how to cut up a pig. Then we need to cure the pork with salt, vinegar, sugar, and some spices. After that, it needs a good smoking. Hickory would be best."

Granyz knew which farmers were raising pigs on a couple of farms in the area. Maybe he'd walk over in the evening.

Suzette wandered down to the sub-basement, dreading what she would see. Sure enough, there were twenty-five bronzed grave markers set into the stone walls like a memorial. Better than headstones in the middle of the floor. Wouldn't that have been a pain?
She needed to do something down here. At least clean out the old barrels and get it cleaned up and lit better. Just because it was a dungeon didn't mean it had to look like one out here.

The raid had managed to get four loot chests from the smaller bosses. She walked along triggering them by thinking of opening each. In short order, she had a small pile of items and coins.

10 ingots of fine-grade steel
An enchanted loincloth. It looked like a leather belt with two long pieces of red cloth, front and back.
250 copper
An enchanted steel longsword with a copper wire grip and a red gem in the hilt.
A magical bull's horn with a leather strap and gold trip.

Not a bad haul. She stuffed it all into a sack and headed over to the morning meeting. Most people were already up and finishing breakfast. Billy and Layla had just shown up. Layla looked a lot calmer and Billy looked quite satisfied with himself. Maybe they did have a good night?

She smiled and waved to everyone, then took a seat. Billy laid out the job assignments for the day. They had three full crews of workers now. Another ACME 'Worker Liaison' had shown up this morning. Sammy and his crew looked pretty bedraggled.

Billy turned to Jorges. Jorges had become the de facto foreman for most building projects. He was still a blacksmith, but his past experience building roads, bridges, and medieval buildings made him ideal for this. "I want to get started on the new housing. We're set up for 25 workers here, not 75. Stuffing 10 people in a hut isn't going to work."

Jorges paused for a couple of seconds and then unrolled a map of the area, pointing at an area designated for new buildings. "How about this? We're going to need six to eight storage sheds for drying lumber and storing the finished boards and beams. Why don't I get a crew working on those and when finished, we house people in them for now? Not any worse than most of these huts. And I have enough people to get started on the foundation for the new housing."

"Good. That works. How big are you planning for the new buildings?"

Jorges pulled a second roll of parchment out of his back pocket and laid it out on the table. "Here's the plan. Just a small keep for now. I'm basing the plans on some of the traders' outposts we used to put along the Via Appia. A hollow rectangle with plenty of space to get work done. Workshops on the first floor. Sleeping area on the second. Stone curtain wall and wooden upper floors. A bit smaller than a football field. This will give us some security if we get more monsters like that daemon, storage for materials in the basement, a nice area for crafting and cooking, plus a common area in the center. We can get it roughed out and have some folks move in by the end of the week."

Sammy sneered. "A week? You're joking!"

Jorges took some offense to that. He looked over at Sammy's Crew and didn't like what he saw. The people looked dispirited and ready to drop. They had dug into the simple food provided for breakfast, making happy comments. It was just oatmeal with berries, eggs, and bread. But they acted like they were starving. Maybe they were.

"I don't miss deadlines, Mister. My crew will be doing the work until they drop. And we've gotten very fast in the last month. Plus, the workday doesn't stop at 10 hours. We work on the first floor and basement storage during the day. The upper housing area gets done at night. Individuals can work on their own rooms after it's framed out. Nothing like a bit of incentive to speed the project."

Billy chimed in. "You certainly have gotten faster. This crew has really come together. You handle this project your way Jorges. Let's see if a little of the Sedgewick work ethic can rub off on the newcomers. And feel free to go ahead and pick out a half dozen people each from Sammy's and Layla's crews to help you out."

Jorges nodded, then turned to Ozzy. "Can I get some help for a couple of hours this morning?"

Ozzy nodded. He liked Jorges and was glad to help out. "Sure. I need to go kill and butcher 50 cows but I can do that by noon. What do you need to do?"

Jorges smiled. "Well, after we log off the area, it would help get the fields ready if you tear out all the stumps. Jon and Cham can cut the main roots and then you can get underneath and tear them out of the ground."

"Not a problem at all, be a good workout. I'm going to go chop up some sedge beasts. See you at lunch." He stood up and stretched, cracking his back. Sammy looked from his emaciated workers to Ozzy who was now two inches over seven feet tall and had to weigh in at over 350. Where had Billy found these people?!

Ozzy had quite a few plans for the morning. The new smokehouse was going up fast, but he also wanted to try setting up a pit smoker. He couldn't find Rolly anywhere but had Ben and Lyle to help him out. The charred area of the barn was already a couple of feet below the surface from where they had dug the foundation. The three of them dug further, making a circular pit twelve feet across and six feet deep.

In the center, they dug a second pit, about four feet across and four feet deep. They had a lot of leftover charcoal and charred wood. They filled the smaller pit with burnable and lit it on fire. While the fire pit was burning to coals, they put two dozen sedge beast carcasses down in the pit, keeping them away from the center. It was a bit tricky with the smoke and heat pouring out of the center, but Ozzy had brought along his new polearm, which he joking dubbed 'Tongs'. The billhook was great for moving around the big carcasses in the pit.

After an hour the coals were extremely hot. Ozzy tossed a cord of holly wood and hickory logs on top of it. The last step was putting large logs over the top of the pit, and shoveling dirt over all of it leaving only a small vent. A little air would get in, and a little smoke would get out, but this should smoke the sedge beast similar to the burning barn. In theory.

Cut off from most of its oxygen, the fire should burn down, slowly charring the logs and putting out mostly smoke. This would produce a little heat and a lot of smoke. In theory. Ben noticed the air above the vent holes warping the view as if the pit was putting out more and more heat. After ten minutes it was very apparent that a lot bigger fire was building up.

"So, Ozzy, you said this was a way to do some slow smoking?" It wasn't very comfortable within ten feet of the smoker. Lyle was edging away and kept going until he had about 100 feet between himself and the pit.

Flames and white smoke were shooting out of the vent holes. The sound of crackling fat could be heard and the noxious smell of cooking sedge beast was permeating the area. The logs and layer of dirt imploded, showing cooked sedge beasts and a hellish-looking fire in the center that shot up over ten feet above ground level like some Olympic flame.

[The Charnel Pit of the Butcher has been remade! Meat's back on the menu boys!

You have enough fuel and ingredients to make the following:
-Screaming Charcoal. (Missing ingredient: Screaming sentient.)
-Smoke Golem. (Missing ingredient: 2000 mana. May be added slowly over four hours.)
-Tasty Dark Roasted Sedge Beast. Requires 12 hours.
Please select an option.

You have gained the title: Master of the Pit

You have gained the crafting skill: Pit Alchemy.

This is a Primary Skill. Please choose a governing stat from COR or CHA.]

"Shit." said Ozzy, shaking his head. "What the hell did I do to cause this?"

"Well, what did you expect?" Ben was laughing and quite intrigued by the situation. "You burned a meat daemon, walk around with an 8' magical 'Tong', and like to cook a ton of meat all at once in a huge fire. Master of the Pit indeed. I'll tell everyone we can get together for a late snack around midnight."

As the morning meeting broke up, Billy brought out some paperwork and spoke to Suzette. "I've got our contract here for the dungeon management. I think it follows the details you and Vern worked out, but I know you'll want to look it over."

Sammy's eyes got big. "You do have a dungeon? We all figured you were only stalling for time after Layla set you up. Hell, she bragged about doing it ten minutes beforehand!"

Layla was looking daggers at Sammy. Billy said in a bored tone, "And once again I was a couple of steps ahead of Layla, and a few miles ahead of you Sammy. I've got a lot of fires burning that you don't have a clue about. And, unlike you and your team of scarecrows, Layla is contributing to our growing enterprise here in Sedgewick."

Sammy looked awkwardly at Layla. He'd imagined the two of them would team up against Billy, but she was barely acknowledging him. If she and Billy were working together again and not trying to kill each other, it was going to be near impossible to undermine Billy and take over. Billy was even treating some of the contract workers with respect.

Suzette read the three-page contract. It was straightforward and had been registered with the System that oversaw the corporations. Which meant that breaking it pissed off the System. But it had all the details they needed in it, except for one. She quickly wrote, "Crafting materials will be split similar to magical items, but with first going to Suzette, followed by three to ACME and repeating this pattern."

"We forgot something, Billy. Crafting materials can pop out of loot chests and they should all have good value to them. I propose we split them like we do magic items."

Billy initialed the addition. That was a good catch, and she wasn't being difficult about how they did the split. "I take it some came out of a chest?"

"Yep, got some nice steel bars. And some other goodies for you. The first three magic items go to ACME, the next is mine." She put the horn, loincloth, and sword on the table.

Billy looked at them. "These are all magical? How can you tell?"

Suzette decided to play it mostly straight. "I helped Ozzy kill that Daemon by luring it to the barn and earned some Enhancement points, same as a player. It will probably never happen again though, so I looked for things that would make me a better worker. I bought the ability that lets me see if something is magic in case one of the adventurers wanted to swap loot for beer. Coming in very handy now."

Layla muttered in a stage whisper. "So even daemons follow your perky ass around? figures."

Suzette ignored her. "And here's ACME's 20% from the last week which comes to 5 gold, 2 silver, 1 copper. The dungeon loot is 187 coppers, and the cut of the entrance fees is 16 gold 6 silver, and 66 copper. If you want to have the items identified, the alchemist shop will do it for 1 silver per item. I did the first three out of my pocket so you can see what type of stuff we are getting."

Loincloth of Toughness: If the wearer is not using any other armor, this item provides +10 universal mitigation.

Horn of Charming Fish: Use of this item will ensure twice the normal catch by any fisherman using a net or pole. It may also be used to charm mermaids and other sea creatures once a day. Success depends on CHA and other conditions.

Flaming Longsword: This item provides a +5% chance to hit and adds +5 fire damage to each hit. Other effects are possible for those gifted with a Fire Aspect.

Layla perked up. "Bard or Enchanter for the horn. Berserker, Monk, Barbarian for the loincloth. And holy shit, we can make a fortune selling the sword to anyone, especially a Paladin. They love the classic flaming sword."

Billy considered the situation This was a job he needed to be done, and Layla wanted more responsibility and jobs with less manual labor. She had a better handle on all the game stuff. If he gave her authority over selling the dungeon loot, maybe she'd quit going bat-shit crazy. Not that he minded, sometimes that made her fun. But he didn't have time for that.

"Why don't you handle that, Layla? Inventory, coordination with whoever ACME has handling sales, all of it. If ACME doesn't have a way to sell this stuff in any of the cities, get Vern to use those building points for a small shop, and someone to run it. Reports to me and Vern as normal, but this is your project."Billy pushed the items over to Layla but grabbed all the money. The dungeon would solve so many of his problems for so little work on his part, leaving him time to figure out how to get into that city.

Layla looked at Billy, understanding the implied message and deal he was offering. "I'd be delighted to handle that part of the operation, William. I'm sure the little Barmaid and I can work together on this." She smiled at Suzette, and Suzette smiled back, neither of them meaning it.

Billy pretended not to notice. "Anything else you need Suzette. Very Nice job, by the way, handling that Famco crowd of troublemakers."

Suzette got up from the table. "Not right now. But we need to think about the brewery. I can coordinate with Jorges and get it started. I want to have it next to the tavern. Once the frame is up, I'll need to steal 10 workers to run it. I'll get you details of who I need."

Billy nodded. "Sounds good. Pick who you need. Got to keep the people at Bludgeon Brew happy and get the Blud Dark rolling out the door."

Sammy looked at Suzette. "Brewery? Bludgeon Brew? Blud Dark?"

Suzette looked back over her shoulder as she walked away. "Do try to keep up Sammy, we move fast here in Sedgewick. Don't get left behind."