The fifteen System Points I held were a formidable power, a war chest of potential progress. The temptation to spend them on advanced military doctrines or powerful new weapons was strong, especially with the knowledge that the wider world was now aware of us. But the foundation of any lasting power is not its army, but its economy. A starving soldier cannot fight, and a bankrupt kingdom cannot arm him. Our next great leap had to be commercial.
The blueprint for the Marketplace was elegant, but to build it from mud-brick and timber felt… insufficient. This structure was to be the heart of our new civic identity. It needed to be a symbol of our permanence, our ingenuity. It needed to be built of stone.
I opened the technology tree, my gaze drawn to the Engineering branch. There, waiting for me, was the logical next step.
[BASIC MASONRY & ARCHITECTURE - KNOWLEDGE PACKET][Cost: 6 System Points.][Description: Provides knowledge of advanced stoneworking, including the principles of the arch, the vault, and the dome. Unlocks the ability to construct multi-story stone buildings, bridges, and advanced fortifications. Includes designs for kilns for firing bricks and producing mortar.]
The cost was significant, but the potential was immense. This would allow us to build structures that could last for a thousand years. It was the knowledge that separated a town from a true city. Purchase, I commanded.
The influx of knowledge was one of the most profound yet. It was not just data; it was a deep, intuitive understanding of geometry, of stress distribution, of the majestic, load-bearing beauty of the arch. My mind filled with the designs of aqueducts, vaulted ceilings, and fortified keeps. I looked at our simple mud-brick hovels and saw them as temporary shelters, the primitive cocoons from which a magnificent stone city would emerge.
My first project was to build a new, powerful kiln. With the iron tools from Ironpeak, we quarried a special type of clay I had located, and following my new knowledge, we constructed a kiln capable of reaching temperatures high enough to create not just pottery, but vitrified, waterproof bricks and a crude but effective form of lime mortar.
Then, the construction of the Marketplace began. It was our most ambitious Great Work to date. I laid out a large, rectangular plaza in the city center, and at its head, I designed the Market Hall. It was to be our first major public building, an open-air structure whose roof would be supported not by clumsy wooden posts, but by a series of magnificent stone arches.
The work was slow and difficult. Teaching my people the art of cutting stone with precision, of mixing mortar to the correct consistency, of building the wooden scaffolding needed to support an arch as it was being constructed, was a monumental task. But they were eager students, their pride swelling with every perfectly cut block, every successfully completed arch. They were no longer just building a market; they were creating a masterpiece that would stand as a testament to their skill for generations.
While the masons worked on the Hall, another problem arose: the issue of exchange. With our new surplus, a complex system of barter had begun. A farmer might trade a sack of vegetables to the blacksmith for a new knife, but how many vegetables was a knife worth? How many knives was a goat worth? It was inefficient and led to constant disputes. We needed a standardized medium of exchange. We needed money.
I tasked the blacksmith, our chief Artisan, with a new project. Using our iron stores, he began to mint our first currency. They were simple, small iron discs, about the size of my thumb. On one side, he stamped the insignia of Oakhaven—the stalk of wheat in a green field. On the other side, using a set of number punches I designed, he stamped a single mark: 'I'. This was one 'Iron', the base unit of our new economy.
I convened the council and the populace at the half-finished marketplace. I held up one of the new coins. "This is an Iron," I declared. "Its value is not in the metal itself, but in the promise it represents. It is a promise backed by every sack of grain in our granary, every goat in our pen, every tool from our forge."
I established the first exchange rates, inscribing them on a large stone tablet to be erected in the market. One Iron would be worth one large loaf of bread, or a day's ration of hardtack, or a jug of beer. A good skinning knife was worth five Irons. A young goat was worth fifty. It was a simple, centralized system, but it was the birth of Oakhaven's economy.
The day the Marketplace finally opened was the greatest celebration in our city's history. The stone arches of the Market Hall soared into the sky, a symbol of our strength and grace. The plaza was filled with stalls, each citizen displaying their wares. Kael and his herdsmen had a stall selling fresh goat cheese and soft, spun wool. The farmers displayed pyramids of desert vegetables I had helped them cultivate. The brewers had a long line of thirsty customers, their new Iron coins clinking in a clay pot.
The first transaction was a moment of civic theatre. I walked to Kael's stall, took a small wheel of sharp, tangy cheese, and handed him two of the new Iron coins. He, in turn, walked to the blacksmith's stall and used one of those coins to buy a new whetstone for his knives. The currency was circulating. The abstract concept of economic flow became a tangible reality.
The Marketplace was more than just a place of commerce. It was the social heart of the city. People gathered, exchanged news, argued, laughed. It was here that Oakhaven truly became a community, its people bound together not just by shared hardship, but by the interdependent web of a thriving economy. Looking at the scene—the bustling crowd, the clinking of coins, the magnificent stone arches overhead—I felt a deeper satisfaction than even the first harvest had brought. We had not just built a farm. We had not just built a fortress. We had built an economy. We had built a polis.