Chương 15: So, Funny Story...

"The objective of these council meetings is to decide on the appropriate actions we should take as a whole moving forward, and to ensure each of the three class related factions making up our camp feel like they are being heard," Spur summed up, looking around the small table that had been brought into the command tent. Just like he'd said, there were now five people supposedly in charge of their small camp of Earthers, and somehow Vin the former homeless vagabond had ended up as one of them.

Spur represented the camp as a whole and Vin was supposedly going to represent foreign matters, but the other three seats had in fact been filled by a few quick elections. Acting as the representative for the support classes, Vin was not surprised in the least to see Patty, wearing her too perfect smile and beaming at everyone sitting across from her at the table.

He also recognized the representative for the combat classes as Phil, the man that had been shadowing Spur last they spoke, and who still seemed like he was itching to draw his sword on Vin for some reason. The final member, the representative for the crafter classes, had been introduced as a woman named Tasha. She was a short, serious looking woman that reminded him of a middle aged librarian who Vin hadn't yet heard say more than a few words at a time.

He wasn't certain how she'd ended up as the representative to speak for nearly a dozen people when she barely spoke herself, but here she sat.

"Unless anyone has any pressing concerns they'd like to bring up first, I figured I'd give you all a rundown on what my current plans for the future were, and we could follow that up with Vin's report on what he found out in his travels," Spur said, his eyes practically gleaming as he looked at the uncomfortable Explorer.

"Then we can see if any adjustments need to be made to my plans."

"Tasha and I do have a pressing concern actually," Patty said, drawing everyone's eyes toward her as she gave them all a warm smile.

"The support and crafter classes feel as though their desires are not being heard. Despite lacking the skills and strengths of the combat classes, they are being made to go out into this new, unknown, and recently proven dangerous world. I don't think I need to remind you we just lost three of our already few crafters to that recent monster attack." Their eyes moved to Tasha, who simply grunted, nodding her agreement. In response, Spur sighed, leaning back in his chair and frowning at the two of them.

"Right now, what is more important than their skill set is their bodies. We need hands to collect materials and eyes to spot threats. They might not like it, but it's necessary until we're more settled." He held up a hand, cutting Patty off before she could argue.

"The three deaths were a tragedy, of course, and I'm planning to lessen the number of scouting parties we send out so that we can increase group sizes and ensure everyone is better defended. But we can't just let a quarter of the camp sit on their asses while everyone else is working hard."

"I agree with Spur," Phil said, managing to take his eyes off Vin long enough to nod toward the two women.

"I understand where you're coming from, but Spur is right. This is a military operation first and foremost. People have to learn to suck up their disagreements and follow orders."

"Those people were forced into joining the military and you know it," Patty frowned, tapping the table with a firm finger.

"What's to stop them from deciding that staying in this camp isn't in their best interest and finding somewhere else to live their lives?"

"I mean, the seemingly random monster attacks for one," Spur said honestly, earning another glare from the woman.

"What? I'm not going to sugar coat it. You honestly think I'll believe the weakest portion of our camp would survive heading out on their own? Come on, at least make a believable threat if you want to try and blackmail us." Patty's face grew flushed and she leaned forward, no doubt about to give Spur some choice words before her gaze flicked to Vin for a moment. Vin watched in confusion as she hesitated, slowly sitting back down and taking a deep breath, seeming to collect herself.

"Well. I suppose that puts us at a two-to-two vote fight out of the gate."

"Right you are," Spur grinned, glancing at Vin.

"Vin? Thoughts?" Vin almost shrunk back from the four heavy gazes that landed on him, but he steeled his resolve, remembering why he was doing this in the first place. I can't believe I'm about to say this…

"I think you both have good points… but your thinking is wrong, Spur."

"How so?" Spur asked, a slight frown on his face.

"You're thinking about the situation as if we were still back on Earth, and not in a new world following a new set of rules," he explained.

"The System gave everyone a class when we came here, but the different types of classes play by different rules. Those of you with combat classes for example gain experience and level up by fighting stuff, right?"

"Yes," Phil nodded.

"The stronger the enemy, the more experience we earn. And we have already confirmed that the experience is split evenly between all members that significantly contribute to a fight."

"Right, so it makes sense for combat classes to engage in combat as much as possible," Vin explained.

"But support and crafter classes function differently. I'm an Explorer, so I gain experience by exploring. Look at what happened when you let me embody my class. I went off to explore the new world, and now I'm probably one of the highest-level people here, right?" He watched Spur and Phil share a quick glance before Spur nodded, leaning forward.

"To be entirely honest Vin, you are the highest-level person in camp. By a lot. We haven't even been in this new world for forty-eight hours yet. After you, we don't even have anyone above level 3."

"Oh…" Vin scratched the back of his head, surprised by the news. He'd joked about it to himself earlier, but he hadn't expected to actually be that far ahead of everyone else.

"Well, that's kinda my point I suppose. Skills and passives, and therefore levels, are the strongest tools available in this world. If you want high level people, you need to let them focus on what grants them experience. Let the crafters craft and the supporters… do whatever their class is supposed to do." The tent was quiet as everyone digested this information. After a moment, Spur crossed his arms, his face scrunched in thought.

"That makes sense… A lot of the support classes are already gaining experience and leveling up, seeing as their classes tend to go hand in hand with the combat classes. It's the crafters that are lagging behind."

"So let them craft," Vin shrugged.

"Not to be rude, but the first thing I noticed after coming back today was the fact that the camp is a bit of a mess. Why not let the crafters work on improving it?" The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"I was planning on relocating camp sometime within the first few days, so I was focusing on getting eyes on the ground and figuring out where the best place for that was rather than fortifying this location," Spur sighed, raising an eyebrow.

"Unfortunately, our Explorer up and vanished, so it's been taking longer than I expected." Vin felt his face heat up, and could hear Alka laughing quietly in his head while Spur continued.

"But you're right. My mindset has been all wrong since coming here. Even if we are planning to move, having the crafters work to improve this location would give them valuable experience to level their classes. Not to mention give us a point to fall back to if needed. Tasha, would you be able to keep your crafters productive and focused if we pull them from their current duties helping the combat classes? They may still need to help collect crafting materials however."

"Yes," was all the woman said, seeming extremely confident in the crafters she represented.

"I suppose all that's left is a vote then. All in favor of pulling back the crafting classes and allowing them to work on improving the camp?" Four hands went up immediately, and after a slight hesitation, Phil's hand joined them as well, making their first official vote unanimous.

"Well damn, I honestly wasn't expecting this council to be all that useful," Spur said, letting his hand drop and barking out a laugh.

"Good job Patty, looks like your idea actually had some merit."

"Of course," Patty said, looking far happier now that she'd gotten her way. Vin had watched her through the corner of his eye during his entire conversation with Spur, and she'd seemed both surprised and pleased by all the points he'd made.

"I have to say Spur, I appreciate the fact that you are willing to change your mind when presented with reason."

"I'd be a pretty crappy leader if I wasn't," Spur snorted, shaking his head.

"Well, with that out of the way, let me give a quick rundown of what's to come before we get to our main event." Spur stood up and grabbed a whiteboard, flipping it over to reveal a brief list of bullet points.

"Priority number one is determining the location for our settlement and moving our camp there of course," Spur said, tapping the first point on the list.

"We need it to be defensible, with close access to water, and not too far from this location. We're assuming the System is going to drop waves two through nine at our current spot, so we want to prevent the need for a grand pilgrimage of thousands of people across too large a distance. Ideally, we wouldn't move our camp more than ten miles at an absolute maximum." Oh crap, Vin thought, staring at the man with wide eyes.

"Uh… Spur. Quick question. How far out have your scouting parties traveled at this point?" Spur paused, grabbing a nearby sheet of paper and scanning it over.

"Obviously we lost all our technology, and GPS wouldn't have worked on this new world without satellites anyways, so we've been hesitant about moving too far too quickly as we don't want anyone to get lost. Not surprisingly, compasses don't work either. At our best estimate, our furthest team has traveled about four or five miles away from camp before returning, while most don't travel more than two or three."

"I was afraid of that." Vin rubbed his eyes, wondering how on Earth he was supposed to break the news about how this world was made. As far as he could tell, their camp was smack dab in the middle of a giant hexagon, about six miles from any one side. Through some crazy magic, the neighboring fragments didn't actually become visible until you got about a half mile away from the border, which meant no one else in camp currently knew that their new world was actually just a tiny hexagonal slice.

Getting to his feet with a sigh, he gestured to Spur's chair.

"You might want to sit down for this." Grabbing one of the empty whiteboards, Vin did his best to draw a hexagon with six equal, six-mile-long sides. Then he drew six identical hexagons bordering it. Tapping the middle one, he made a small dot in the very center and labeled it 'camp.'

"So… turns out, this world we're on? Edregon? It's actually got a rather interesting story behind it." Over the next thirty minutes, Vin explained everything he'd learned about the world so far. How the fragments bordered each other, how each one was actually a salvaged slice of a dying world, even how he'd met the neighboring stone village and helped them retrieve their missing scout party. The only thing he decided to leave out was anything involving Alka.

He figured they had enough to digest without also throwing out the fact that he was currently harboring a slightly murderous ghost inside his body. By the time he finished his explanation, the entire council was staring at him with wide eyes and open jaws. Even Tasha, the seemingly unflappable crafter representative, was looking at him like he was some sort of alien.

"So yeah… that about sums it up," he said, taking a seat and trying to ignore the four stares burning a hole through his head.

"My point is, I'd recommend not traveling more than six miles in a straight line from camp without taking some serious precautions. Some of the fragments appear to be far more dangerous than others." The council continued to stare at him, none of them seeming to be able to form a coherent thought. As he waited patiently for someone to finally say something, he heard Alka laugh.

'Well. I think you might have broken them!' After a long, uncomfortable silence, Spur seemed to snap out of his daze first, shooting daggers at him as he stood up and leaned over the table.

"You encountered an entire village of humans living peacefully in this world… and discovered that this world is unlike anything we could have ever imagined… and you didn't think to tell me about either of these things immediately?"

"I was going to," Vin argued, pointing at Patty.

"Then she appeared and this whole council thing started! You agreed to it, and I figured it would be best to wait and fill in the entire council at the same time!"

"Vin made the right decision," Patty agreed, even her usual confident visage seeming a bit shaken by all the recent revelations.

"This is too much for just the two of you to know, Spur. Everyone living on this new world needs to know how it works."

"I agree," Phil said, scratching his chin and staring off into the distance.

"But we shouldn't tell them the parts about the other worlds dying to corruption, or whatever it was that did them in. No need to cause a panic that it might happen here as well. Or to Earth." The thought of Earth falling to some sort of spreading corruption seemed to take the wind from Spur's sails, and he collapsed back into his seat, looking as though he'd aged a decade.

"You're right of course. We'll let our respective groups know about how the world is made of fragments, and warn everyone about crossing the boundary. Vin!" Spur barked, causing him to jump.

"New orders for you. I want you to spend however long it takes to explore the rest of our current fragment and finally give me a goddamn map. After that, you need to figure out what the surrounding fragments are filled with as fast as possible. Just because your friends at the stone village don't want to start a fight, that doesn't mean the next group of people you encounter will be quite as friendly."

"That was already the plan," Vin confirmed.

"Good. I'd prefer if you swung back to camp regularly, but I understand if it's faster for you to make a big ring around this fragment. But no matter what, I need you back here in time for the arrival of wave two, understand? Eight. Days." He paused, tapping the table with each word as though to drive it home.

"There'll be a thousand people coming with this next wave, and we need to present a unified front. I have a pretty good feeling you're going to blow our growth out of the water as you continue to explore, and I want the highest-level Earther by my side come wave two. Capeesh?"

"Yes sir," he said, balking slightly under Spur's intense stare.

"Good. Now for the next item on the agenda." Spur sat heavily in his chair, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples.

"Tasha, do any of your crafters know how to brew alcohol? After that revelation, I think I need a drink."