Allistor nodded thoughtfully.  “Yeah, I need to read some more, try to find out if there is anything stopping me from having two Strongholds in a city.  Or within some particular geographic radius.”  He stopped talking and did some reading.

Helen began thinking out loud.  “This place would make a good Stronghold, with all the stuff in here we can forage.  And there’s plenty of space.  Maybe we don’t need the bunkers.”

Allistor stopped reading to answer.  “Well, I do want the bunkers, and for more than one reason.  I mean, how awesome would it be to have a secure underground facility with our own nuclear missiles!  But also, if we don’t claim them, how do we know some trigger-happy psychos won’t claim the base and nuke us all?”

“And you’re not a trigger-happy psycho?” She elbowed him in the ribs gently.

“Ha!  Would I know if I was?”  His attention shifted to a word that had appeared on his interface as he’d been reading.  “One sec; I want to check something.”

He shifted his focus from the Stronghold tab to one that read Citadel.  In Allistor’s mind, a Citadel was a small town encircled by a wall that included a few score or more shops, homes, a couple taverns, smithy, etc.  If he could declare this huge mall a Citadel, then maybe he could also still claim the missile base as a Stronghold.

But when he tried to complete the transaction to claim the mall as a Citadel, a message appeared.

While this structure meets the size and available resource requirements for a Citadel, and your title of Baron entitles you to claim Citadels, you do not have the required population to staff and defend a Citadel at this location at this time.

He relayed this information to Helen, adding, “I think maybe we should go ahead and make this a Stronghold, and just assume that we can upgrade it later when we’ve found more survivors.”

“And hope that you can also claim the missile base.  I’m with ya.  Let’s do this.”  Helen moved to stand in front of the gate leading to the mall.

Allistor joined her, Fuzzy right next to him, still gripping the Fibble doll.  Allistor pulled up the Stronghold interface and pushed the green button.

This time the golden light and chimes that surrounded them lasted much longer.  When the light faded, Allistor blinked his eyes and looked around.

The first thing he noticed was that the pull-down gate in front of them had been replaced with double metal doors.  The opening was smaller - only about eight feet wide now.  Looking around, he noted that all the glass doors had similarly been replaced with swinging gates.  All metal-framed drywall walls had become stone.