Darren's Sanctuary

Darren looked at his farm with pride and hope. he could see that all the Spirit Herbs the system had planted were coming in nicely and were about a week away from harvest. All the tools he had bought from the system had done wonders in speeding up his harvest. 

In reality, only a week had gone by since the system had shown up on earth and integrated it with spiritual energy. Miriad changes had already started to appear in the farm and it's surroundings and Darren started to study it as soon as he noticed. Since then he has kept a journal and writes down any observational changes he sees in anything. 

So far he has only recorded a few similar phenomenon that universally affect all living being when in contact with spiritual energy. Our cells get sturdier and muscles more flexible. This is also true for plants and even certain non-living things as well; though the main one was mostly living. 

Darren opened his status screen and started doing his routine inspection for any changes and today he was surprised to find he had a notification in the top right of the screen. Opening it, he found the title of the message and to the right had three options for him to choose from. 

[3 Unidentified Sentient being detected in your Area of Influence!]

[Exile them.]

[Ignore them.]

[Activate Ruler mode in area.]

[Note: Activating Ruler Mode will deactivate their system functions while in AOI and instead display a message notifying them they are in your zone.]

Reading over the messages, Darren had an easy choice. He would for now do nothing until he had a talk with these people and figured out who they really were.

Darren was then given the option to pull up the map to his land and chose to do so. On the map there were three small red dots on the northwest corner of the map and were slowly moving in the direction of the farm, which was in the middle of the map.

He watched as the dots slowly got closer and closer and when they were right over a hill between the woods and the border of the farm, Darren looked up. Over the hill emerged three familiar faces of whom Darren though he would never see again. 

Dan, Sharrol, and little Miranda who was now eight, stumbled over the hill looking worse for ware. Dan stopped at the top of the hill and didn't seem to notice Darren standing there until Sharrol, still breathing heavy and wide-eyed, smacked Dan's arm and pointed.

"You! Boy! what are you doing, help Dan into the hou-" Sharrol started barking orders at Darren before realizing there was no more house and here previous home had been turned into a little one man cottage for Darren. She gave a shocked look at Darren before she looked at the rest of the farm that the changes made. 

"What have you done to my farm!" Dan wheezed still clutching his side. 

"Relax! Did you not notice that there is a summonable screen in front of you and it's capable of a store inside? It's been a week already this shouldn't be news to you." Darren said with a straight face. He was not sure why his family was being so slow.

Both Dan and Sharrol looked outraged at his comment and Sharrol was the first to speak.

" Liar! We have been trying to get that blasted magic to do something different ever since it would only show us our status screens."

Darren was quite confused with this information and decided to inspect their status screen and see in his was in some way different.

[Name: Sharrol Jones]

[Cultivation: 0]

[Class: none]

[Daos: Fire] 

[Bloodline: none] 

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[Name: Dan Jones]

[Cultivation: 0]

[Class: none]

[Daos: Wind]

[Bloodline: none]

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[Name: Miranda Jones]

[Cultivation: 0]

[Class: none]

[Daos: Fire, Wind]

[Bloodline: none]

Darren looked over the information and quickly found the differences in theirs verse his. He had the class 'Farmer' while it seemed they did not have a class at all. 

"Seems like you don't have a class, that should be the reason you haven't been able to get the system to do anything." Darren said while still looking at the screens.

" And you do have a class? What class do you have?" Sharrol said, even more distain dripping from her tone. Remaining calm and stone-faced, Darren replied.

" Farmer. Which only makes sense concidering I have been the one solely running this farm since practically the day I could walk." He looked at Dan and then back to Sharrol. " I plan to use this farm as my ticket to glory in whatever world the system wants to convert Earth into. Whether you like it or not, I now own this entire farm and have the ability to kick you out at any time through the system so we can either get along and I can set up a new place for you to live or I can just kick you out and you can deal with the collapse of society on your own and homeless."

Silence ensued for what felt like an eternity and then suddenly Dan spoke up. 

" I understand we have not treated you very well over the past years but please, If you have the ability to give us a place to stay through the system I would greatly appreciate it." Dan spoke while keeping his eyes closed.

Sharrol seemed less than enthused with the situation but what other option did she have. She couldn't risk homelessness when society was so fragile and she had Miranda. 

She curtly nodded to show her agreement to the situation then backed off to clean invisible mud off Miranda's cheek. Dan meanwhile thanked Darren and started asking some questions that had been bothering him.

" What are these new crops all over the place? Some just looks like you planted grass and the other looks like the tiniest wheat plant I've ever seen." 

" This is called Springsage Grass and is a great ingredient in alchemy apparently." Darren said while pointing at the little sprouts of grass that lined the field in front of him. " And this is called Rivergrain Wheat and is useful for feeding animals affected by the spiritual energy." Dan finished explaining.

"What do you mean by infected?" seemingly remembering a particularly horrifying nightmare.

"Just animals that are a bit stronger and smarter than the normal versions of their species. Why?" Darren asked noticing the fear in his voice.

"It's just that we were almost attacked by the biggest hare I have ever seen on the way up here but before it could reach us a massive hawk swooped down and snatched it. The hawk was the size of a small propeller plane and could have killed any one of us if the hare wasn't there. Hell, even the hare could break a few bones of mine if it used it's legs. "

After finishing his story Dan turned to look at the shocked Darren, slightly glad to verify that this was not to the extreme he was talking about.

"Let me show you something" Darren hesitated but eventually brought Dan over to the massive doghouse after telling Sharrol to wait with Miranda by the hill. Walking inside the two were greeted by three balls of energy scrambling over one another to lick the shins of the two newcomers. 

"Cute little guys" Dan commented while leaning down to pet Nina, the Spirit Shepard.

" Yeah I got them as a starting gift from the system upon receiving the farm. Since I was only able to get the farm by you guys making me work it my whole life; even if that is a little twisted, I feel it's only fair that I thank you." Darren said while petting Chuck and Sharryl one in each hand.

Dan looked at him with surprise then looked back down at Nina. " You mean this dog? Darren I appreciate it but I don't know if we have the kind of resources to take proper care of it."

Darren heard the response and knew it was just a front, Dan didn't want the dog because he believed it would grow up to be like the hawk and kill his family. " Here, how about this, you should have the inspect function since that is not exclusive to people with a class so use that to inspect Nina." Darren instructed to which Dan did exactly that. 

A surprised expression came over Dan before he looked back over at Darren with surprise. 

" These three dogs are tied to this farm by the system and are bonded to it and it's owner, me. Thus even if it does become as big as that hawk or even bigger, it would be only an asset as it would protect the base. Also by giving Nina to you would give Miranda and Sharrol more protection for when they grow up. I also feel that expanding and integrating more people into my farm as a form of sanctuary is going to be a necessity in the future if what you tell me about the outside wilderness is true." Darren explained then decided to ask a question, " Did you see anyone else with a class when you were in town? or maybe just someone who might hold one." 

Thinking for a bit Dan replied " Not that I know of, We only went out to the tavern and it was about to close for the night when the screen appeared. Although now that I think about it, the bartender did seem to be quite happy and jolly even after the shock of the system. Maybe he has a Bartender class or something." Darren nodded to this and felt he might be right.

After transferring ownership of Nina as well as creating a new Nany doll with the spiritual imprint of Miranda on it, which Dan asked specifically for, Darren walked with Dan over to a clearing that Sharrol and Miranda were waiting at. It was time to build an abode for his family.