Chương 271: (266) 4.45. The Suggestion Box

Xaril has moved into town?" Vin asked, wondering what would possess the infernal to do such a thing. He knew the infernal loved books, of course, but he also thought Xaril hated other people as well. Willingly moving in with someone as their roommate wasn't something he would have ever expected from the Warlock.

"Are you serious?"

"From what I heard, he took one look at the book collection Kym had amassed over the past few weeks and basically moved himself in," Alice confirmed.

"Even after we began moving most of the books over to the new library, he stuck around. He and Kym seem to get along pretty well."

"Is the infernal really that bad?" Witherson asked.

"I briefly spoke to him the other day to ask about Madam Trebella's manor and how it had been constructed, and while he brushed me off, I assumed it was just because he was still grieving the loss of his mentor and home."

"I can all but guarantee you he doesn't care about that," Vin said, shaking his head.

"Look, Xaril's not really all that bad, if I'm being completely honest. He's even incredibly skilled, I'll give him that. He's just really abrasive. I'm willing to bet half the reason he moved in with Kym was simply to get away from his people because he was tired of dealing with them and being asked to do things. They wanted to make him the new leader."

"But Agne has been doing an excellent job so far," Spur pointed out.

"Wouldn't that have stopped them from pestering him?"

"I'm pretty sure Agne taking charge is supposed to be temporary. They have some deeply rooted traditions that they're probably not going to get rid of so easily. I think once they have a few Witches or Warlocks with some decent skills, they'll reform the council and Agne will step down."

"Regardless, other than ensuring Xaril goes through the same screening process as everyone else, and that the small handful of people who were throwing a hissy fit over us allying with the infernals don't try anything, he's not our concern at the moment," Spur said, bringing them back on track.

"Each of our branches of the council have given our reports, but I actually have a few things in your purview that I can give in your stead, Vin. Save you some time when you next meet with Kelly and Theodore."

"Oh, that would be great, thank you," Vin said.

"Let's hear it!"

"We've already mentioned how relations are progressing between us and the Sacred Forest, the infernals, and Sakis, so no need to get into that," Spur began, sifting through a few papers in front of him.

"Attempts at an alliance with the citadel have gone nowhere, but as you said ages ago, the guards are willing to speak with our Diplomats so long as they don't go anywhere near the gate. We have no way of telling if or when they'll finally run out of food or decide enough is enough and storm their holy district to discover their divine classes are gone, so for now, things remain stagnant."

"Scule was just in there the other week," Vin remembered, deciding there wasn't any need to mention how he was visiting his family.

"I can ask him how things are going."

"That would be quite helpful," Spur said, nodding his thanks as he went down his list.

"The three people who volunteered to learn magic, Wanda, Ronald, and Landon. Wanda and Ronald have long since learned the latest spells you gave them, and are eagerly waiting for more. Landon, on the other hand, has continued to refuse to work with us. I ended up making something of a suggestion, and he latched onto the idea. He wants to go learn necromancy from the compound you told me about."

"He does?" Vin blinked, surprised to hear the man who refused to so much as show his face when he offered to teach him magic was now willing to venture outside.

"I mean, sure, I don't mind bringing him over there. Though I'll need Lumel's help to get him through the Underside corridors."

"If possible, you should try to move him at night," Spur said, frowning at a note that was scribbled down in Myers' handwriting.

"Frank diagnosed him with, and I'm quoting him here, 'the bastard child of heliophobia and agoraphobia.' Apparently, he's terrified of leaving his room unless it's dark out."

"I guess that explains why he wants to become a necromancer," Phil drawled, looking unimpressed.

"He might have some problems moving through the Underside…" Vin said, thinking about the impossibly large rooms they'd have to go through.

"Maybe I can make him wear a blindfold."

"I'm sure you'll figure it out," Spur said, looking like he was just happy he wasn't the one who had to deal with that.

"Lastly, we've received word that Chance and Tiffany have officially finished their mergers over in the meriders' fragment. Both are a bit shaky at the moment, but back in one piece. Apparently, Chance is planning to remain with the meriders, but Tiffany is still on the fence. Ideally, I'd rather not lose one of our few Slayers if at all possible, so I was hoping you could ask Alka to go have a talk with her or something."

"I can do that. But you have to understand, she's not technically a Slayer anymore. She's a magical beast now, she won't even have a class or levels or anything."

"Be that as it may, from my understanding of the merger, she should still have her memories of Earth and how much we need her help. It's worth a shot."

"Alka's the perfect one to talk to her," Alice chimed in, shooting Vin a small smile.

"Technically, she hasn't been a Slayer in months either, not since she died. But she hasn't let that stop her from helping people." Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Yeah, that's a good point. I actually forgot she technically wasn't one myself," Vin admitted sheepishly. To him, Alka embodied the Slayer class more than any of the others. Honestly, it was somewhat unfair that the System had taken the class from her, at least in his opinion.

"And those are the main points from the Foreign Branch," Spur concluded, putting the papers away.

"Now that you're up to speed, I suppose we can call this meeting adjourned, right everyone?"

"You've 'forgotten' the request box again, Spur," Witherson said bluntly, pulling out a large box from under her chair and placing it on the table. Twin groans erupted from both Spur and Alice, and Vin blinked as he was pretty certain he heard a quiet one coming from the ever-impassive Phil as well.

"Do we have to?" Spur whined, sounding far from the powerful Commander most of the town knew him as.

"It's Vin's first day back, we wouldn't want to overload him or anything now, would we?"

"What's the suggestion box?" Vin asked, earning an annoyed look from the Commander.

"Is it just the issues people raise to the council?"

"Pretty much," Witherson explained, opening the box and fishing around inside.

"We've split them into different categories. Those that are deemed 'critical' don't even wait for a council meeting, and those that are labeled as 'minor' we go over every few days. Today would be that day. For example," she paused, reading the slip of paper she'd picked up.

"An anonymous complaint from someone about their assigned roommate keeping them up late into the night. Apparently, they are a Singer, and they like to practice in the common room."

"Why make it anonymous when they're just going to tell us the very specific class of their roommate?" Spur snorted.

"If we cared to find out, that already narrows it down to only a few people."

"I didn't know we had any Singers," Vin said, taking the note and reading it for himself.

"How many other people picked up support classes like that? Classes that are more for just recreational purposes?"

"More than you'd think," Alice said, ticking them off her fingers.

"Two Singers, a Dancer, twelve Bards, three Acrobats, one Storyteller, a Puppeteer, if you can believe it, a Jester, and a partridge in a pear tree," she finished with a laugh.

"I suppose when you've got around three thousand people, you're bound to get a few strange class picks."

"A Jester? Who on Earth picked Jester as their class?" he asked.

"A woman named Claire, from the fourth wave," Spur said, clearly having gone through this before.

"She was an amateur comedian back on Earth. Apparently, when Comedian wasn't offered by the System, she went with the next best thing. Curiously enough, she's not the only amateur comedian. One other was picked up with the third wave, but he ended up taking the Bard class. I guess it's a more common pastime than I thought back on Earth."

"So where are these people performing, anyway?" Vin asked, looking around the table.

"I was just chatting with someone I knew yesterday when I came into town, and they were complaining about there not being anything to do. But if we have a dozen Bards and all these other entertaining classes, I find that hard to believe."

"There have been some arguments among the Bards, so we've been working on getting them a fair rotation through the nine restaurants that doesn't leave anyone out," Spur explained.

"As for the others… I've seen them out and about, but none of them have really come to us with any requests. We've been largely busy with our own stuff."

"Maybe we should start some sort of subgroup within the Support Guild for entertainer classes," Alice proposed, looking excited by the idea already.

"I could work with them to find places around town for them to better perform. Some of them might need specialized stuff though, like the Puppeteer."

"Golrim and I actually already have designs worked up for a stage," Witherson volunteered.

"We were going to get started on it in another week or two, but I can bump it up the list if we think it best to have it made sooner than later."

"After food, water, and shelter, nothing is more important than morale," Phil chimed in.

"I officially put forward the motion. All in favor of both constructing the stage sooner than later and Alice starting an entertainers group within her guild?" Five hands were raised in unison, and Spur mimed slamming a judge's gavel down on the table as he grinned.

"Alright, that's one more thing taken care of, at the very least. Maybe we'll get fewer people complaining once we have some more stuff to keep them occupied. Anything else we should look at from the box, Witherson?"

"This one is interesting," she said, frowning slightly.

"It's from one of the guards. Specifically, one of the ones trained by Devin to take care of the monster-detecting sqerrets. They want permission to bring their sqerret back to their apartment with them when they're off duty."

"So basically, they want a pet. What normally happens to them?" Vin asked.

"We have a small building we put together for them," Alice explained.

"Think of it like a dog kennel, but much nicer. And, well, for sqerrets. We ended up getting another Tamer in the third wave named Tony who has been taking care of them. He loves animals so much we actually built him a special little apartment directly above the kennel, just so he could check in on them at night when needed and keep them company. Unlike Devin, Tony is more than content to stay in town and help out."

"Do you think Tony would be willing to help give out some sqerrets as pets?" Vin asked, recalling the general boredom he picked up around town yesterday once more.

"Would people even want that?"

"We're not exactly low on resources at the moment, but introducing pets into our society would be a whole 'nother can of worms," Spur said, scratching his chin at the thought.

"Maybe we can put out some feelers and see if anyone would be willing to do a trial ownership just to see how they even work as pets in the first place."

"Either way, let's move on," Witherson said, pulling another slip out of the box and letting out a weary sigh as she read it.

"Alright… we have yet another suggestion about exiling Theodore. Maybe we need to have another talk with him about messing with people before someone snaps and finally forms an angry mob."