A New Home
I leave the tunnel behind me, walking at a quick pace up the mountain road. I walk for another two hours before seeing a dirt road trailing off up the mountain. I could see a sign near the highway. It said, "Welcome to the Yama Niwa Homestead." A homestead is supposed to be a self-sufficient place. If things are still in good shape, I could make a home there.
I checked the time, and it's 7:30, I figure I should start heading down the path to the homestead and see what I can find. I don't want to be looking for shelter in the woods at night. It was bad enough trying to find a place in town. I start down the road, and it turns into an overgrown path after around twenty feet.
After about an hour of walking, the path widens and turns into an asphalt road. I walk for another ten minutes before I see any buildings. The first building I come upon is a gatehouse of sorts. It has glass windows so it can see things coming and controls for the gate sitting across the road.
The gate is a classic metal bar gate with spiked tops to deter people from climbing over and wheels on the bottom to open and close it. The wall it is attached to is a brick wall, about 6 feet tall with about a foot of spikes on top, similar to the top of the gate.
I walk up to the gate and look around for a manual lock. I find it a few moments later tucked up against the gatehouse. I unlock the gate and relock it behind me as I walk through it. I continue following the road, and a few minutes later, a mansion comes into view. It is three stories tall, spans about ninety feet across. The entryway into the place alone is about ten feet across and twenty feet high.
That is when I realized everything that I have seen since I passed the gate, including the gate, was in nearly perfect condition. The road goes around and loops under an awning as a loading area. The road turns into six parking spaces on the right-hand side. Each parking spot lines up with a garage door to a massive garage. In the middle of it all, was a massive fountain with a statue that was somehow running. It is made of marble and has three tiers. The bottom is around a foot and a half deep with about a foot of water in it.
The second tier looked like flower petals. At the top, I see a pair of ying-yang fish intertwined together with water flowing out of their mouths. Curious about why everything is in such good condition, I venture into the house. In the entryway is a grand staircase going up to the second floor, with a large double door at the top and another set of stairs on either side. There is a large fancy chandelier hanging in the middle of the room, and somehow the lights on it were on.
There are entryways into more parts of the house on either side of the staircase, but it feels like something is drawing me up the stairs. I walk up the first set of stairs and can't take my eyes off the large door. Somehow it feels like I have come across something rare and incredibly valuable. After a moment of hesitating, I open the doors to find myself in a grand hallway. It looks like something you might see in a fantasy novel king's throne room.
There was a massive red carpet going about a hundred feet into the room. Expensive looking paintings and statues lined the walls. About thirty feet in, on either side of the red carpet, started benches, the kind you might find in a church. The benches stopped at the end of the red carpet, and perfectly centered at the end of the carpet was a pitch-black podium. I cautiously walk up to the podium when suddenly another blue box appears."Congratulations on finding the Yama Niwa Homestead. This homestead is a system created structure and may be claimed by a player at any time for no cost. All features of the homestead are automatic, you may open your homestead menu to customize certain features by thinking "homestead" with the intent of opening the menu. Would you like to claim the Yama Niwa Homestead?"
"uhhhh, yes?" I said hesitantly.
"Congratulations, you are now the owner of the Yama Niwa Homestead. Manage and protect your homestead to the best of your ability. Be wary of those who might attempt to take such a treasure out of your hands either by force or coercion."
Then as fast as the prompts popped up, they disappeared. 'well, that was kind of crazy. I suppose I should try to check out this homestead system then. homestead.'
As soon as I finished thinking the word, a menu popped up.
Homestead Main Menu
Operations
Upgrade Homestead
Defenses
Recruitment
'Recruitment' I think, hoping that's all I need to do to select the option. Thankfully it worked, and the menu changed. "Homestead Recruitment: Currently, all jobs are at minimum capacity. You may recruit worker NPCs to do the various tasks around your homestead. When recruited, they will be assigned to the job that best suits them.
You may also recruit fighting NPCs to defend your homestead from the various threats, including but not limited to, monsters, other players, and inside threats. All Homesteads start with 1 average worker and 1 average swordsman. However, as a bonus for being the first citizen of earth to claim a system-generated structure, you have been given a reward of 2 Good Workers, 2 Good Swordsmen, 2 Good Spearmen, and 2 Good Hunters. Claim your bonus via the menu after this information panel."
After I finished reading the information, the menu changed again.
Homestead Recruitment
Recruit Worker
Recruit Weak Worker
Recruit Average Worker
Recruit Good Worker
Recruit Excellent Worker
Recruit Prime Worker
Recruit Defender
Recruit Swordsman
Recruit Spearman
Recruit Hunter
Claim Bonus
'Claim bonus.'
"Congratulations, your bonus workers have been claimed, they will arrive at your homestead in the next four hours."
'Cool those will probably come in handy. Recruit average worker.'
Recruiting an average worker will cost you 100 gold coins. Do you want to continue? Not knowing how many gold coins I have or how much 100 coins are worth, I decline. Unsure of what else to do with the recruitment menu, I pull up the main menu again and select operations this time.
In the operations menu, you may manage the operations of your homestead, including but not limited to production and interaction with other players and NPCs. As a bonus for being the first citizen of earth to claim a system-generated homestead, you have been granted the ability to instantly complete the production of any product one time. This may be used at any time via the construction/production menu.
'It looks like I might get a bonus for every section of the menu.'
Homestead Operations
Claim Bonus
Pause Operations
Sell Products
Increase Production
Isolate Homestead
Advertise Homestead
I should go through all of these options to see what they do. 'I can assume claim bonus will just let me claim the 1 time auto build so lets try pause operations.'
Are you sure you would like to do this? Doing so may cause issues among the homestead.
'no. Sell Products.'
The homestead currently has no products to sell. Would you like to automatically sell products?
'no. Increase production'
Are you sure you would like to increase production? This may cause a decrease in the morale of your workers.
'No. Isolate homestead.'
Are you sure you would like to isolate your homestead? No one will be able to enter the estate without your permission.
'yes, do that. I can already guess what advertising does, so I'm not going to worry about that one.'
Time to check out the defense menu. 'defenses.' "In the Defense menu, you may view and organize your current forces, as well as view and upgrade your defensive structures. As a bonus for being the first citizen of earth, you receive one bonus defensive structure upgrade for free. Use the "Claim Bonus" button in the Homestead Defence Menu to redeem your bonus.
Homestead Defence menu
Current Defences
Defensive structures
Claim Bonus
'current defences.'
Your current defensive forces include: 1 average swordsman, 2 good swordsmen (en route, eta 2 hours), 2 good spearmen (en route, eta 2 hours), 2 good hunters (en route, eta 2 hours)
'Defensive structures'
Your current defensive structures include Small Wall, Small Guardhouse, Small gate.
'I could use some info on the small wall.'
In response to my thought a small text box appeared
Small wall is a 6-foot wall that circles the entire homestead. Each section of the wall is 6 feet wide and has a resistance of 10,000 and a health of 1,000,000. The wall regens at a rate of 100,000 per hour 24 hours after the most recent damage. The wall increases defensive armies stats by 10% for defensive fights at the homestead.
'so all I have to do is think about it and want the info? Small Guardhouse'
Small guardhouse is a small defensive post next to the small gate. It controls the small gate but provides no bonuses.
'interesting. Small gate.'
Small gate is a small, weak gate blocking entry into your homestead. The gate has a resistance of 1000, and its current health is 200,000. When damaged, small gate regenerates at a rate of 10,000 health per hour 24 hours after the most recent damage.
Now that I know what I have, it's time to look at the bonus I got.
'Claim bonus.'
Your claim bonus allows you to upgrade one of your defensive structures. Which would you like to upgrade?
I look at the current bonuses of each structure and decide that upgrading the gate would be the best option. In comparison to the wall, the gate is rather weak, and it would be smart to strengthen it.
'I choose the gate.'
Are you sure you would like to upgrade your small gate?
'yes.'
Gate upgrade in progress, for the next 3 hours, your gate will be inoperable. After the construction is complete, you will have a Strong gate. The stats of the strong gate are as follows: 1,000,000 HP, 15,000 resistance135,000 HP regen per hour. 5% stat bonus for defending armies at your homestead.
'I suppose I'll have to go check out the new gate when it's done.'
After finishing up in the defensive menu, I decide its time to check out the homestead upgrade menu.
In the Homestead Upgrade Menu, you may upgrade different parts of your homestead, including but not limited to, amenities in the manor, production capabilities, and storage capabilities. For being the first citizen of earth to claim a system-generated structure, you receive the ability to upgrade or add one structure to your homestead for free. This bonus may be claimed via the Claim Bonus button on the following menu.
Homestead upgrade menu
Crops
Storage
Shelter
Livestock
Power
Manor rooms
Special
Claim Bonus
Obviously, the first thing I do is to select the claim bonus button.
Which structure would you like to construct or upgrade?I wasn't sure what to build or upgrade because I hadn't looked at anything yet. I canceled the action and decided to look at special buildings first.
Special structures
Signal blocker
The signal blocker jams the signals of certain frequencies and types. Only jams enemy signals.
Summoning Circle
The summoning circle is used by a summoner to summon their contracted familiar.
Shadow Dome
The Shadow Dome creates a dome of shadow over the homestead, putting it in a state of perpetual darkness.
Cloaking Field
The Cloaking Field is a special field, designed to block the presence of the homestead from scans of all types. Even people who know where it is may have a difficult time finding it. This structure is very rare and expensive.
Seeing the special structures list I immediately knew which one I wanted, the cloaking field would be perfect for what I want, and it appears to be hard to come by under normal situations. I select the claim bonus again and choose the Cloaking field.
The Cloaking Field will take 24 hours to construct. Please choose the location you would like to construct it.
A map pops up, showing a large amount of land with various structures in different places. I see the manor and the structures around it and decide to build the cloaking field in the middle of everything so that it covers as much ground as possible.
A valid location has been chosen. Your construction will be complete in 24 hours.
After finishing with the homestead information. I look at my watch and see that it's nearly 10 and decide to go to bed. Its been a long day, tomorrow I'll try to find out a little more detail about this place and figure out what an NPC is.