The Settlement

March 9th, 0001:

More than two weeks have passed since the first house was finished, yet not much had changed about our daily lives as we had entered a rhythm in which we constructed the settlement. With the only difference from the way in which the first house was constructed being me teaching three newcomers plus Carlos how to make the four types of wood joinery used in the house to speedup construction.

As for the speed at which everyone else was able to produce usable wooden pillars or planks, although it had seen some improvement it was only as much as increasing the number of planks obtained from a single log to 3-4 and the number of usable wooden beams per log to 0.5-0.6. Which I suppose made sense considering that they were basically self taught.

As for the actual design of the settlement as a whole it was basically just two parallel 'lines' 4yd long each 9yd apart, with seven houses each. Regarding the space in between at the very top (as far away from the river as possible while still staying within the perimeter set by the houses) there was just a big backyard ramada with four sets of tables that had eight chairs each.

From there moving closer to the river there was a 1yd x 3yd area that had been cleared out completely to serve as a mini soccer field. And finally almost right next to the river there was another big backyard ramada with lots of either somewhat filled up wooden boxes or empty ones, plus this one had two fireplaces about 5 ft in front of it with one serving for cooking while the other one served the purpose of boiling water. As for the rest of the space within the perimeter, it was just open space with some vegetation, but not as much as could be found all around the settlement.

Everyone seemed to be adjusting well to the new settlement and had even started to treat their respective houses as their own property rather than a room they were borrowing, so at the very least I had achieved my goal of giving them a sense of ownership.  Plus subconsciously knowing that there would always be people nearby to help them fight off threats probably gave them some level of closure.

And although it may have looked like our lives had changed entirely, since we didn't even have beds yet although we did sleep in different rooms we still slept on the floor. Plus, our daily lives were still just chopping wood, hunting occasionally, playing soccer, and eating by the fireplace so not much had truly changed.

Regarding the settlement though, now that I had finally managed to basically create a sort of safe haven for nomads. I could finally begin to work on other things as I no longer had to fear for my safety or the safety of everyone else living here anymore. 

At least to a certain extent as although the last time a predator attacked the settlement about three days ago we were able to get everyone to hide in their homes while the danger was taken care of, we realized how unprotected we were. To our surprise, although the leaf doors are able to take one to two hits they don't hold on for much longer than that.

And while I certainly could just make wooden doors it would probably be best to instead focus more on training a group of people to be prepared to kill any threat on sight, because although strong, the wooden walls of our homes had proven to not  be as durable as I had originally assumed. As proven by how a giant green snake left a very big dent on the wall of the building farthest away from the river.

Ever since then I began doing predator attack drills where designated people would be sent to neutralize the threat while the rest stayed in their home until things were over to reduce the possibility of unnecessary casualties. 

As for what I did in my free time, although I could have probably gotten some projects going while the settlement was being constructed, I believed that it would be best to let everyone else get used to their new home.

In the meantime though, since I certainly wasn't going to take action just yet, that only left with the ability to plan for the future. Whenever I did though my thought would almost always return to how the country would be run.

Despite the fact that it was certainly quite early to start thinking about things like this, it was a bridge that would have to be crossed eventually. Although we were only a small settlement now, it would only be a matter of time before we became a town followed by a city and so on and so forth until we achieved the status of a country.

As I tried to even consider candidates though, I began to feel a weird feeling, like I was doing something of which I was not supposed to intervene with. After some consideration though, it became clear that it was just an attempt from my subconscious to sway me away from holding onto as much power as I currently had. And to be fair it was probably correct as it didn't sit right with me either.

Fully knowing that though I seemed to be unable to simply stop myself not so much because I knew that I had to, but because for some reason I wanted to. It felt like a sort of calling, one that told me that I was destined for greatness as long as I held on to it. And to top it all off I could slowly begin to visualize a world in which I was treated as a king who had no worries and lived a life of luxury payed for by the hard work of others, for some reason though the image didn't become any less appealing to me.