The first order of business as the Mayor of the new village was to decide what we needed to prioritize. Shelter, food and water were the major concerns. We could survive in the woods with the carts for a long time – but it wouldn't be comfortable. People wanted something permanent. To make that happen we needed building supplies. The principle of which was wooden planks. We already had a contingent of expert wood cutters and carpenters on hand to make it happen.
Following a brief back and forth between the woodsmen and the hunters of the group, I made the first executive decision and designated our current location as the future hunting grounds. My godly eye told me that this was a perfect place for the wildlife to proliferate. For the woodsmen it wasn't so convenient to traverse the needed distance to find wood that they could cut down and use, but they admitted that going without meat would upset them greatly, so they agreed to my plan in the end.
As for where those houses would go. I had no idea. The best idea I had was to place them in locations where there were no natural resources that we needed. The waterfront would need to be kept clear of residential buildings. If the port and town ever got too large, it would become impractical, uncomfortable and noisy to live there, and I didn't want to leave it to the magical hand of the free market to fix when I could make sure it never became a problem.
While the rest of us haggled and debated over where the centre of the town would be, the farmers and the builders set about the task of constructing the farmhouses which would eventually feed us. They needed places to live and room to store their produce and animals. I made sure that it was a priority that we got started on those things right away. Though it did elicit some credulous reactions when I announced it, since they'd supported me in the election.
An unexpected issue soon arose. Jerimiah approached me as I was trying to organize my thoughts, "Hey. What are we going to call this place anyway?" That struck me as a rather important question! I'd taken to calling it 'the town' in my head, but that wasn't a very elegant solution. It needed a name.
"I never thought about it until now," I sighed, "This is going to cause a lot of arguments again."
"Some of the settlers have already started calling it Celeste's Landing."
"Why's that?"
He shrugged, "The Laddites think Celeste touched this place and gifted us it's bounty. I'm not one for that kind of tale. We came here because of the Kingdom…"
I unfolded a roll of parchment I borrowed from one of the settlers. I needed to take down some notes about my plans. "If that's what they're calling it though, I don't see much of a reason to turn them down," as if to confirm it, I scribbled the name down at the top of the page.
Jerimiah stared at my writing for a moment, but didn't comment. "I guess you're right – most of the folks here are very religious. Been talking about picking a good spot for a chapel already."
"A chapel huh? I better take that into consideration when I'm picking out plots for houses."
"That eye of yours is mighty handy," Jerimiah nodded, "Can it do anything else?"
"To be honest, this is all new to me too. I'm sure there'll be other powers hidden in this thing."
"Makes me wonder what happened to your old eye."
"You're not the only one," I muttered. Maybe Celeste threw it in the divine trash or something. I flipped up the leather patch that covered it and stared at my newly entitled document. The moment I did so, the title lit up in a golden glow. The eye was having some type of effect on it. Under the heading I scribbled down a sub-title, 'population,' I wanted to put together a breakdown of all the people in the caravan, employed or otherwise.
It turned out that the eye could do that for me. No sooner than the quill left the page did a long list of statistics emerge from nothing. It was exactly what I wanted.
Celeste's Landing
Unincorporated Territory
Total Population:
156
Active Workers:
74
"What the hell?" I mused, "It can do that?"
"What's up?"
I tapped the blank space, "Turns out we won't need that census after all. I have the numbers right here."
"I don't get your meaning."
"Correct me if I'm wrong, but we have one-hundred-fifty-six folks here. Seventy-four of which are of working age?"
Jerimiah scratched the back of his head, "Sounds about right to me. How did you figure that out?"
"Didn't I just say? This eye has a lot of surprises."
Jerimiah was taken aback, "I'll be damned. It's almost like you were born to do this job, huh?"
I understood the mechanics of this new power clearly. Any information I wanted about the town could be summoned merely by giving a page an appropriate heading. Population numbers, employment, maybe even the supplies in our storehouses. To confirm my suspicions, I retrieved another parchment and wrote 'supplies' on the top. The list generated itself promptly though it was so long that it cut itself off at the bottom. I held out my finger and flicked it upwards like I was using a touchscreen phone, causing the magical text to scroll.
What an amazing power! With this, making plans would only be limited by my imagination. I could know exactly how many people were doing what, what building materials and other stores we had, and perhaps even more should the need arise. Celeste wasn't underselling the eye's utility. This was an artefact design to create leaders. I returned to the census list and scrolled down to find a list of each induvial, their job and their dependants.
A flash of inspiration struck me. I returned to my supplies page once more and scribbled a new heading, 'Food Supply.' Underneath it I added a smaller text that stated 'Producing food for X people,' the X being a blank spot I left for a number to appear. Just as I wanted, it shifted to a zero as my eye activated. I could program real time counters and trackers! As the farmers started working in the fields, that number would go up and show me how many people we could support.
"Oh man, we need a town hall or something. I think I'm going to be making a lot of these. Or at least somewhere to keep them."
It was time to knuckle down and really get things started.