The walk back to the waiting Hodekin revealed that there were a few more patches of degraded road, including one brief stretch that was paved with bricks. The Hodekin had dispersed around the drop-off area, but one thundering shout from Naile brought them all running back. After they were gathered, they marched in a very loose column back towards their new home inside of a giant tree.

  The group's mood was notably elevated as they explored the bridge for themselves, and a chorus of excited barking and shouting came from the first few who found the inner hollow. Shelby retrieved the Good Deed from her inventory, but she wasn't sure where to take it. AIDAN took pity on her as she glanced around the tree for any sign of the area's Heart, "You will need to complete this process from the map menu, Ms. Shelby. You may return the Good Deed to your inventory."

  With a sigh, Shelby returned it and opened her map. AIDAN activated an overlay and showed her the same blue hued interface she last saw when she was dead. There were red circles scattered all across the map, but Shelby focused on the one inside of the circle of land that her indicator arrow was hovering over. She tilted her head, "You're sure I can only pick this one? Not that I wouldn't anyways."

  "Yes, I am certain. The sites you have been tasked with picking between are instanced areas," AIDAN said.

  "You said that before. With a dungeon I think? What does it mean?"

  "It is a location that only you or a select group can access. Other players may have chosen to settle at this location as well, but their progress would only be visible to them."

  "Oh, it's just for me... I guess it would have been that way anyways, huh?" Shelby shook her head and activated the heart.

  "Here goes nothing!" Shelby said with a laugh as she confirmed.

  The red circle on the map shrank down to nothing, then bloomed into a green star. Shelby closed her map and watched as a soft twinkling light washed down over the tree from above. As it passed over the bridge, the Hodekin stopped their exploring to let the veil of stars sweep over them.

  Thimble jogged over to Shelby, "Was that you? Did you do it?"

  Shelby smiled, "Yeah! It feels different now!"

  She had a vague sense that she was now in a safe area, whereas before it felt like she was exploring a dangerous ruin. Thimble shrugged, "Feels the same to me, but that magic was interesting. So this is how a village is formed..."

  "It told me that I need to advance the Heart to level 1," Shelby said with a shrug.

  "It? You mean the magic? And what do you mean by Heart?" Thimble asked.

  Shelby frowned at Thimble, "Oh, right. Pico said that not everyone can see the menus..."

  "I can see the system," Thimble said, "if that's what you mean. You can too?"

  Shelby nodded, "Mmhmm. Can you see this?"

  She concentrated on the only entry in her quest log, Bleak Outlook, and the description box reappeared. Shelby concentrated on moving it out into the world, and after some fussing, she felt it pop into a slot in the air in front of her. She laughed, "Wow! I didn't know if that would work."

  Thimble's eyes widened as the box slipped into view before him. He walked around to Shelby's side and stuck his hand through the pane, "Well, I haven't seen this before... is that a pun? Did you make this?"

  "No, it was given to me be the g-," Shelby hesitated, "by the system, like you said." I don't think he would react well to being told this is a game...

  Thimble poked at it a few more times, "Interesting... can Naile see it too?"

  Eek, should I even ask...? She might know more about hearts, Shelby reasoned. Naile was sitting on the edge of the bridge a couple dozen feet away. She was watching the water with a contemplative expression, so she hadn't seen the menu.

  "What if she can?" Shelby asked Thimble.

  "I've heard that people with special jobs or great leaders can see it, too. Since she was the leader of this clan before you she probably knows about it," Thimble said.

  Shelby shouted at the wolf woman, "Naile, can you see this box?"

  Naile looked up from her daydreaming, "Hmm? Ah, did you get your Heart after claiming this place?"

  She stood slowly and strode over, "Hmm? This is not a Heart. What is this?"

  "Don't worry about it," Shelby said quickly as she closed the quest, "you said there's a Heart menu from starting the town?"

  Naile narrowed her eyes, "That's right... for keeping track of your people. Some Hearts are special and have other powers, too."

  "Did you control a Heart?" Shelby asked.

  "Of course. That is what being a pack leader means," Naile said, "controlling Hearts is controlling territory."

  "Perfect!" Shelby said as she searched for the menu.

  Shelby swooshed out her menu to show Thimble and Naile. Naile nodded, "I see, this place is more than a Wild Heart. That is good. After it is repaired we can build homes and storehouses."

  "How do we repair it?" Thimble asked as he read over the information again.

  "By providing resources," Naile said, "look to the Heart to see."

  Shelby concentrated on the Riverspan Tree site.

  "There. We should gather those items as quickly as possible," Naile advised as she pointed to the lower half of the menu.

  "I can gather lumber, and maybe a divinity," Shelby said, "but... I'm not sure how we're going to get the stone." I could switch over to Ginger, but that would mean leaving Thimble alone again... Maybe he wouldn't mind.

  "It is not a problem," Naile said dismissively, "send Noora and Clain with some helpers. Thirty stones is nothing to them."

  "Uh, sorry, but who?" Shelby asked.

  Naile stood up straight and glanced around, "I don't see them out here, but they're around. Use your magic to send them off on an errand."

  "I don't know how to do anything like that," Shelby said.

  "You need to look at your population," Naile said with an air of impatience.

  This is so complicated, Shelby whined to herself as she opened yet another menu.

  "Good," Naile directed Shelby, "go to the special ones, and find Noora."

  Naile tapped a claw on, or through, the screen over Noora and Clain, "Here, they can be ordered from their names."

  "Ah, they're hungry..." Shelby said as she read.

  "We will send out Scyla too, then have Aniya and Churu cook for everyone. But that can wait, we have been hungry for weeks, a few hours won't make it worse," Naile said.

  Shelby selected Work and a few basic options appeared, including an option to request a gathering task be performed. Shelby filled out a work order for 30 Stones, didn't specify a quality, and also asked for a minor trade divinity. There is probably one embedded in a road nearby. She then assigned additional workers, selecting Clain and 2 helpers from the Basic Laborers pool, who didn't seem to have names, and were listed as just Hodekin α and β.

  As she confirmed the order, she was greeted by her map screen with the prompt:

  The segmented outlines areas in Copperglade had some smaller sub-areas that were faintly glowing. As Shelby looked over them she saw some indicators of how suitable they were for the job:

  Shelby selected the first and third map segments she had examined them, guessing that the percentages meant that her requested items would be easier to find in those parcels. She had the option of sending them anywhere on the map she that she had uncovered, but the travel time increased dramatically for regions even slightly farther away. Sending them to areas near Copperglade would take hours.

  Shelby confirmed the job and a pair of Hodekin milling around the bridge perked up, then moved to wait by the end of the flat platform in front of the ruined buildings. A couple of seconds later, two gruff looking wolves stepped out from the passage to the center of the tree. One was charcoal grey and lanky, easily one of the taller Hodekin, outside of Naile. They had a short cropped black mane and tired-looking eyes, possibly just caused by a streak of dark black fur lining their upper cheeks. Their partner was squat and powerful looking, with a cookies-and-cream fur pattern and a permanent smile on their face.

  The lanky one growled as they approached their awaiting assistants, then shouted something and pointed towards the treeline. After some kind of small argument, all four of them strode off and left the bridge behind.

  Naile nodded after them, "It won't take very long with four of them, but you can watch their progress on your work orders. They'll come back here when they're done, as well. Now do the same for the lumber, then food."

  After repeating the process two more times, the village horticulturalists were off to the forest with two helpers, and the lone hunter, Scyla, departed with another two assistants to hunt for any meat they could find. The hunting trip had a very low acquisition rate, but since food wasn't a high priority, Shelby didn't worry about the outcome as much. The gourmets, Aniya and Churu, were set to have a standing order to prepare 24 'Simple' meals using whatever they had on hand, which was currently nothing.

  Naile clapped Shelby on the back, "Good, good, you should set up your other workers to keep a stockpile coming in, too. Busy hands drown out crying stomachs."

  With a few adjustments, she requested that 200 Stone, 200 Wood, and 10 Trade Divinities be kept on hand at all times, then closed out of the dozens of menus she had up. She wanted to request unlimited hunting, but when she tried she received a warning:

  Shelby eventually found a work-schedule menu and lowered Scyla's working hours from 10 hours per day until the warning went away, settling at 4 hours per day. Shelby took note that moods get get so dire, and promised herself that she would improve morale as soon as she could. Can I throw a welcome party of something? Ooh, maybe a barbeque! I'll see if I can build a grill pit!

  With the reconstruction ball finally rolling, Shelby set out with Thimble to walk around the new town and its surroundings. She also wanted to see if she could secure some extra food and wood. Wait... Shelby flicked herself on the forehead and quickly changed Scyla's work order to include both meat and spirit fruit, since they could trade that with Copperglade. Thinking of other trade goods would be important too, plus she had to help repair Copperglade's two damaged villages. Well, one step at a time. No point in sending out resources while everyone is sleeping on dirt, or, well... on wood.

  It had been a while since she used her own horticulture skill, but once she got back into the swing of it she started to notice a bevy of useful plants. By the time she and Thimble had reached the edge of the forest, she had collected three cartons of real blueberries, ten dandelions, four burdock roots, and a sheath of peppercorns. Thimble got tired of stopping every ten feet and demanded that Shelby only collect things that were relevant to their reconstruction efforts, and Shelby reluctantly agreed.

  Lumber itself was rare, as only a few trees had the right qualities to produce harvestable wood. They could probably chop down a tree and somehow process it into lumber, but that would be a lot more work than using her job's harvesting skill, Reticulate. The skill neatly split wood into eight foot logs that registered in Shelby's inventory as Lumber of a Normal Quality. After ten minutes of exploring the woods, she had found 8 usable pieces.

  Their hunting was less successful. Like most of Copperglade, there were plenty of natural spirits in the northern woods. The monster level was high, and the fruit rats they encountered were large and fast, but nothing they couldn't handle together. Although they came away from a few skirmishes with a half dozen Spirit Apples, they still had nothing that the Hodekin could eat. Thinking back, the only animal they had ever run into that produced meat were the crabs that invaded the fishing village to the far east.

  "AIDAN, are there any crabs in this area? That would help," Shelby asked.

  "There are crabs on the western coast, perhaps 5 minutes from here with the aid of Ms. Madeline. There are also crab-like enemies in the rivers near your village," AIDAN reported.

  "Crab-like enemies in the rivers... like what? Crayfish?"

  "That is correct."

  After harvesting another four logs, Shelby summoned Madeline and helped Thimble climb on. He seemed to be enjoying exploring with her, and he glanced around every tree and large rock with wide eyes as Madeline trotted back north. When they reached the river, Shelby instructed her porcine steed to travel east along the water's edge. The water was muddy and difficult to see in, but there were flashes of fish darting through the gentle current. No crayfish though. Aren't they... tiny?

  Shelby hopped off Madeline's back after several minutes of coming up empty handed. The only thing she knew about crayfish was that they were sorta like dull brown lobsters. She had never seen one in the real world. Thimble jumped down too, and Madeline busied herself with trimming the yellowish grass by the riverbank. Shelby sighed, "Any idea how to find crayfish, Thimble?"

  "I have heard of them before. I believe I heard that they will attack the feet of unwary travellers who walk through rivers," he said with a shrug.

  "Your power lets you block anyone who attacks me, right? Would it work even if you couldn't see the attacker?" Shelby asked hopefully.

  "No, I have to see the attack," Thimble replied.

  "I don't want to have my toes pinched..."

  Thimble gave her a look that clearly communicated that he would not sacrifice his toes either, so Shelby summoned her courage and stepped into a shallow bend in the river. The water was cold, but not freezing. She splashed a few steps forward, waited for something to attack her, then stepped a few more times and watched her feet.

  She leaned over to inspect something small and skittery on the sandy riverbed, and reached in after it. It took some chasing, but she managed to grasp the tiny creature by the tail and pulled it free from the water. It did seem like a tiny lobster. She stuffed it into her inventory.

  Shelby re-read the description. She turned back to Thimble as she said, "This thing says they become 'titans of the stre-'"

  She flinched back as Thimble shimmered into place, holding his shield up between her stomach and a grasping, mottled brown pincer the size of a laundry hamper.