Crafting the shortbow had unlocked the ‘bowyer’ vocation for Shuck, but I hesitated in assigning it to her. According to the Augmentary, specializing in ranged weapons would increase her speed in crafting those items as well as their overall quality, but at the cost of a penalty to the same things for melee weapons and armor. As the tribe’s sole armorer, Shuck’s skills had developed in balance; she was tier eight in both melee weapons and armor, and now a nine in crafting ranged weapons. The bonuses from the bowyer profession were tempting given our present demand for more ranged weapons for the tribe, but I was reluctant to sacrifice her versatility.
In the end, I left Shuck as an all-purpose armorer, and assigned a second gnome the armorer vocation. Then I set them both to working on another shortbow. Shuck’s expertise would make the task go quickly, and its completion would unlock the ‘bowyer’ vocation for the new armorer instead. After that, I’d set him to work on making arrows. The sooner we could test our new bows, the better.
After some deliberation, I also filled the position of overseer. Ket had been pushing me to do it for some time now, but when Bekkit explained some of the additional benefits, I finally took the leap and assigned the vocation to Buttress. I was loath to lose her as a builder—the stocky gnome was one of my best—but since the success of our journey depended as much on logistics as it did on military might it seemed prudent to put my most competent denizen in charge.
“I still think Shanky was the obvious choice,” Ket grumbled. “Especially since his injury. He shouldn’t be out gallivanting in the wilds anymore.”
“Longshank is our only hunter,” I reminded her. “Besides, he loves his job. He’d make a decent overseer, true, but he’d also be miserable if he were confined to babysitting all the time.”
As overseer, it was now Buttress’s role to supervise the tribe’s general organization. She got to work straight away, making sure everything the scouts and foragers brought back got distributed to the appropriate places, and that all materials were Assessed by those with construction-related vocations.
The new system had already unlocked a new crafting blueprint for the clothiers, and it was a useful one indeed.
Bramblecramps
Augment (clothing)
A traction device that improves mobility when attached to the user’s footwear. The hooked thorns on the soles provide additional grip, increasing movement speed on difficult terrain.
Prerequisite(s): Clothier vocation, Weaving I
Materials required: Bramble thorns x 5, hide sole x 2
Unlike Swift and Cheer’s ridiculous molar shoes, these so-called bramblecramps would vastly hasten the progress of our exodus… if we were entirely on foot, that was. Given that our pace tended to be slowed by the cumbersome wagons rather than the walkers, it didn’t seem all that prudent to expend my clothiers’ efforts into producing a pair of bramblecramps for every member of the tribe.
However, there was one group in particular that would benefit. The scouts traversed much wilder and trickier terrain than the rest on their daily excursions; anything that helped them better negotiate difficult ground would be sure to increase their efficiency and help them bring back even more resources to benefit the tribe.
“You know, speaking of efficiency…” Bekkit appeared beside me. “If you desire your workers to craft multiple sets of a single item, you can use the Augmentary to queue them in rather than assigning them one at a time.”
“Really?” Ket and I both said together.
Bekkit shrugged. “’Tis one of the perks of god tier nine.”
And what a perk it is, I thought as I located the relevant menu and queued in an order for six sets of bramblecramps, enough to outfit Longshank and his team of scouts. Since I hadn’t specified any one worker for the task, all four clothiers pulled on heavy gloves and began sorting through the tangles of brambles amid the component heaps on their cart.
“If you think that’s handy, just wait until your overseer gains more experience,” said Bekkit, clearly sensing my satisfaction. “At advanced levels, you can even pass the responsibility for commissioning crafted items onto her.”
Anything that involved fewer stages of micromanagement sounded good to me—especially since Buttress was already proving herself intelligent enough to make smart decisions. In addition to organizing the scouts’ resources, she even made sure that anything living was placed before my ark, as if somehow intuiting that these were the things on which I could use Insight on. Even Bekkit was impressed by this.
The sprite also pointed out other areas that needed supervision—namely, the preparation and distribution of food. I’d thought the gnomes to be managing just fine; the foragers and scouts brought back raw ingredients, and the civilian gnomes pitched in to make them into stew, which everyone shared.
Apparently, though, this was not the most efficient way of doing things.
Each of the six main traveling groups were made up of around fifteen individuals, usually a mix of adults and younglings. At Bekkit’s recommendation—grudgingly approved by Ket—I assigned the ‘cook’ vocation to one gnome per group. Not knowing what to focus on, I’d previously refrained from assigning vocations to many of the recently matured gnomes, so there were plenty of young, fresh faces, blank slates ready to be assigned wherever they were needed.
As for the other groups—namely Swift, Cheer, and Gneil and the acolytes—Bekkit assured me that they too would be provided for by the chefs.
“Did you choose the, um, portliest gnomes on purpose?” Ket asked curiously as one by one the skillet icon appeared above their heads.
“Of course. You can’t trust a skinny chef,” I told her. Bekkit hummed in agreement.
Six gnomes catering for over a hundred did not seem like enough. But the logic behind it—that one professional was worth ten unskilled workers—made sense. And after all, one thing we didn’t want
