Home at last

The next morning, you and your troupe are standing outside the caves, ready to make your way back home. "Alright everyone without Darkvision please make your way to the middle of the group. We don't want anyone getting lost in the Hollow Path." You instruct. The Gorilla and the kids make their way to the middle of the pack. After everyone is situated you enter the tunnels and traverse the cave systems until you arrive at your lair. At the entrance are a few copper ore pieces and and a few mushrooms, a nice offering from some crazed monster down here.

"Everyone, make yourself comfortable, the lair shall be under going some... renovations very soon." You explain once you show them around. You tell the kids to be especially careful around the big pit, you don't want to explain THAT to Thistle.

"It's... not what I expected." She says coming up to you.

"I realize. But like I told you I have a plan. Give me a few days, and our current arrangements shall be relieved." You explain. She nods before going over to supervise the children.

"Gnoll, how is your armor currently?" You ask.

"Not bad. In good shape." He replies.

"Very well then. If it becomes damaged, I have something that can replace it." You explain as you equip the studded leather arm guards. They fit nicely over your arms and provide you with more protection in hand to hand combat. You then go over to the Gorilla man.

"You have any skill with a sword?" You ask. He mulls it over for a moment before shrugging. "Give this a try, see how it fits you." You say handing him one of the swords you obtained. He holds it for a moment, weighing the sword it his hand, giving it a feel before going through a few swings. After a few minutes he nods at you.

"Seems your a man of many words." You say driely. He shrugs once more causing you to chuckle. "Keep it then, oh and here. Some boots as well." You say handing him a pair.

Now that you've taken care of that you walk over towards the end of the cavern and stick your hand on it, revealing the same message.

Unable to expand. Land beyond this point is unclaimed. Claim land for 500 fame? Y/N?

"Yes."

The popup disappears before a new message takes it's place.

Land claimed. Expansion authorized.

(!) New territory features unlocked:

(!) Territory map unlocked!

(!) Territory classifications unlocked!

Intrigued, you open up the map menu and a sky pov map appears, with a cylindrical dotted line encircling what you guess is the entirety of your territory. Off in the corner, you see a legend that has a compass and an upward and downward arrow, presumably to change which level you are on. Currently there are three levels, with you on level 0. The lowest level, B2, is the bottom of the pit and the tunnels back up.

You zoom in and more information starts to appear to you. The doors are there, labeled stone entrance. The temproary lodgings appear as well, but what really catches your eye is the line pointed towards the developed area labeled Main dungeon. You click on it, and a new tab appears with a light blue circle filling up the original area appears labeled main dungeon. You play around a bit and learn you can change the territory size by physically moving it around. You can also change its specifications to things like entrance, outer territory, lair, and others.

You return to the main map and look for any sort of measurement system to guage how much territory you control and find a filter to do so. It's incredibly conviluted, but after about ten minutes you deduce you control 3 miles of territory total. Not in reality, as you have not expanded out to the edges of your area.

You close the map and open up the build menu, eager to start your plan. First you expand the cave around you, making it now about 45 feet wide, and no longer curved in like a natural cave. It now ends in a straight, 90 degree angle, and maintains its 45 feet wide scale all the way up to it's 60 foot ceiling. You next remove 20 feet of the wall from the ceiling, except for two towers that reach all the way to the ceiling. Your making a wall.

The walkway on top of the walls will be 15 ft wide, and the towers are 20 feet wide. The wall goes all the way to the end of the caves before a tunnel om the right snakes down to a court yard. You next add a gate, currently empty, in the middle of the wall allowing entrance and exit.

With that planned you move on to the Keep, a great tower, reaching up 80 feet tall to reach the extended ceiling. You kept it roughly cylindrical, but gave it a rouch circle that twists and turns in different directions throughout the entire tower. You decide that a 50 ft diameter will suffice. Finally, hanging down from the ceiling are two stalagmites that you connect to the tower.

You set it to the left of the main gate, about 50 feet in, making a rough courtyard between the two. You then connect the right tunnel to the courtyard, and the left one will go into the keep. From there you place another gate next to the keep, where once you have the ability, you shall have a metal gate that opens from within the keep, so any invaders will have to fight their way to the top to open the doors. Next you place a few wood dummies that the menu said could be used for training.

Finally, you start work on inner rooms of the tower. From the entrance you make a bit of a great hall, roughly half the first floor. At the sides, two staircases go up the the next floor, and you out stone tables and benches here and there around the place. The first floor has to be easily defendable, but also be a place for your people to relax, and any travelers to wait for a meeting with you or whoever you put in charge in the future. The second half of of the first floor is the barricks. It holds 20 beds, which will require you to do a lot of hunting in the near future. It will house all your allies for the moment until you can expand further. Against the walls, you place wooden weapon and armor racks, allowing you to keep both warriors and weapons together.

The second floor houses a smithy/workshop combination, along with a storeroom. The tunnel to the left part of the wall is also here. You think for a moment before adding a small infirmary as well. The third floor has a kitchen, mess hall, small bath, and a more secure armory. Finally, the fourth floor has the meeting hall, where you shall meet with visitors, and fight off any heroes who make it to you. Here is also where you plan to place the opening mechanism for the gate. In the back of the fourth floor, you make a passage towards the keeper of the keep's lodgings, and a small treasury which are held in the stalagtites.

With that, your plan is complete and a message appears before you.

Building materials required:
1352 stone
683 wood, any
65 pelts, any
47 ore, any

Error, Insufficient materials detected, begin construction anyway?

Lair Inventory:
2,443 stone
4 wood, oak
10 wood, ironwood
49 ore, copper
4 ore, Silver
4 jewel steel
2 gemstones ???
4 pelts, rabbit
1 pelt, deer

Notice: you have insuficiant materials. You can begin construction, but construction will halt when more materials are required.

You quickly go through your lair's materials and grey out the Jewel Steel, Silver, and Ironwood as to not accidently use them in construction. With that done you hit yes and call together your people and start a meeting.

"Alright everyone. We need a lot of materials in order to complete my plan here, so we are going to have to go out on a few harvest trips." You explain.

"What materials do we need?" The fox girl asks.

"Wood. Lots of wood. And pelts of any animal you can kill." You explain. The fox girl nods, satisfied with your answer. With that you dismiss the group and grab the Pebble Golem and have him begin construction. Once it's settled with its job you craft two axes and give them to the gorilla and gnoll. "You two are coming with me to chop a few trees down." You explain. As you go to leave you place Thistle in charge and inform her about the Shadow and it's sentry post.