Explorer of Edregon

Vin knew he was exhausted from everything that had happened with Neurol and the blue fur clan, but he hadn't realized just how tired he truly was until he groggily woke up the next day and spotted the sun high in the sky. Cursing his decision to try out Kark's remarkably soft blanket last night, he barely had time to run by the mess hall and grab a bite to eat before making his way to the day's council meeting. He made it through the door just in time to catch Witherson's update on the current construction.

"With our crafters working around the clock in rotating teams, and the influx of former prisoners, many of whom have decently leveled crafter classes, the plans for the town have been coming along nicely," she explained, shooting a disapproving glance his way as he rushed in and took his seat. "Both my prestige class and Golrim's expertise have been critical in the town's formation. It's difficult to come up with any reasonable prediction seeing as our crafters are leveling every day, but we expect the majority of the town to be completed within the next few days."

"What, uh... What exactly is your prestige class?" Vin asked, offering everyone a sheepish grin when they turned to look at him. "Sorry… I only just realized I don't know anyone's prestige class."

"Perhaps if you checked in more frequently you would be more up to date," Witherson frowned. "I am a Dependable Architect."

"You took the class change?" Vin asked, recalling that Witherson had originally been a Crafter with a specialization in carpentry.

"No. The Crafter class is different from combat or support classes," she explained. "According to Kym, 'crafter' is more of a placeholder than an actual class. Upon hitting level 20, all crafters will abandon the base class for a prestige more suitable for them. Now that I am a Dependable Architect, the buildings I have a direct hand in helping create will be a bit more durable, regardless of the materials used."

"I definitely see how that would be useful," Vin nodded. After all, the battle for wave three had occurred less than a week ago. The sight of all the destroyed buildings was no doubt still fresh in everyone's mind.

"Steadfast Commander," Spur said, waving his hand lazily. "No real significant changes, other than the fact that fighting beside me now provides our warriors with a literal strength boost."

"Great choice," Vin smiled, looking toward Phil. For some reason, the leader of their combat classes had a blank look on their face, as if they were ignoring all of them. Leaning over, Spur began poking him in the side.

"Don't you want to share with the class? Huh? Phil? Don'tcha? Mr. Hippo?"

"…Hungry Challenger," Phil grunted, not going into any further detail as his eyes bored into Vin, as if daring him to comment on his new class.

"That's… interesting," Vin said with a strained smile.

"After he learned Phil's new prestige, Spur started calling him the 'hungry hungry hippo,'" Alice explained quietly as Phil turned his glare on Spur, who was continuing to poke at him while asking if they needed to send a runner to bring him a second lunch. "I know they're old friends, but honestly, I'm shocked Phil hasn't stabbed him by now."

"Phil has too much restraint for that," Vin whispered back, watching the Challenger's eyes narrow dangerously as Spur just kept going. "…I think."

"I guess we'll see," Alice chuckled. "Also, I don't think I ever actually told you my own prestige. I'm a Deadly Trapper. It's hard to explain, but my traps essentially deal more lasting damage than they would otherwise."

"From what I've seen, honestly, that sounds fitting," Vin admitted.

Clearing her throat, Witherson ended the discussion on classes and brought everyone's attention back toward her. Before anyone could derail things again, she quickly ran through the other updates she had on the town, which included the plans for those large foundations Vin had noticed last night.

Vin was surprised to learn that not only were they taking care of the essentials, but with Golrim and Kym's help, they were preparing for the future at the same time. The three largest objectives being the formation of an actual town hall, a functioning hospital, and the construction of three different guild buildings.

"You guys are already thinking about guilds?" Vin asked, shooting a questioning look at Spur. "Isn't it a bit early for that?"

"Golrim and Kym both believe they would be beneficial," Spur shrugged. "And I can see the logic behind having them. Golrim explained the many benefits of having guilds for like minded people to join, and while I'm not ready to commit to quite as many different guilds as he mentioned their old kingdom used to have, I am willing to start with the bare minimum at the very least. A combat guild, a support guild, and a crafting guild. That way everyone can feel like they have somewhere they belong. There are a few individuals that have requested buildings for their own guilds or purposes as well, but I haven't agreed to any others just yet."

"Alka personally asked for a slayer guild," Phil explained. "But seeing as her group of trainees is down to half a dozen people, we're holding off on the moment. Most likely we'll start by giving her a private section within the combat guild to call her own. My hope is that she'll manage to refine her teaching methods and will be able to turn a far larger portion of the combat classes from wave 4 into Slayers. Though we've yet to see if her experiment will even bear fruit at all."

"We also have a few nerds from the second wave who have banded together to plead their case for an adventurer's guild," Spur snorted, rolling his eyes. "As if we need any more adventure than we're currently getting. You best hope I don't change my mind, Vin, because if I do, you'll probably have to take control of that one."

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"Wait, what?!" Vin asked, glancing around the table at his fellow council members. "What do you mean by that? I'm already responsible for the foreign branch!"

"In terms of guild masters, we have Witherson for the crafters guild, Phil for the combat guild, and Alice for the support guild," Spur shrugged. "Everyone will probably just appoint a second in command and have them do the actual running of the day to day things, but these future guilds are basically just an evolution of how we handle our respective branches and everyone under us, which means we need to be in charge. An adventurer's guild would absolutely fall under your jurisdiction."

Spur must have picked up on the look on Vin's face, because the colonel sighed. "Vin, you'd basically just be a guild master in name. You're already a bit of a special case in that you're away from camp more often than not. I'm well aware that we need you way more than you need us, I'm not going to saddle you with anything that will keep you here long term and risk driving you off."

Vin realized he must have looked a bit more annoyed than he'd intended, and he winced. He'd agreed to help with all this when he accepted Spur's offer to join the council way back when. As much as he hated being tied down to any one place, he couldn't forget why he was doing all this in the first place.

The memories of people dying all around him during the battle for wave 2 rose to the surface of his mind, and he grimaced as he recalled all the people that he'd been unable to save from dying gruesome deaths at the hands of monsters.

"Sorry… I didn't mean to come across as whiny," he sighed, shaking his head. "Just keep me posted on whatever you decide. Though personally, I agree that I think an adventurer's guild is kinda a silly idea at the moment. If anything, it should be more like an explorer's guild or something."

"Huh. There's an idea," Spur muttered, looking lost in thought for a moment. "Anyway, like I said, not a problem for now. Seeing as Witherson's update on the town's construction is finished, want to give us an update on your latest findings?"

"Can do," Vin nodded, getting to his feet and pulling out his journal. "We hit two more fragments while we were gone, and you guys are just going to love the new race of people we met."

"The hell do you want?"

Vin sighed, scratching the back of his head as he looked through the bars at one of their camp's very few prisoners. The man he'd come to visit had been lounging on his small cot, looking bored out of his skull before he'd spotted Vin. Immediately, he'd jumped to his feet, a deep scowl spreading across his face.

"I just came to apologize again," Vin finally said. "I know I said I was sorry right after what I did… but I felt like you might not have heard me."

"You're right, I didn't," Kyle scowled, pointing at him with his heavily bandaged hand. "I was somewhat distracted by the pain of having my entire hand crushed from your freaky arm!"

"The accident never would have even happened if you hadn't been shaking down the fresh and scared members of the third wave," Vin frowned. "Or tried to, 'make an example,' by attacking me for that matter. But I'm not here to argue, I honestly just wanted to apologize. When I broke your hand, I was still getting used to my new arm and couldn't control its strength. I honestly don't know why, but I guess I wanted to tell you of all people that I've been working hard to control it better. So… There you go."

"Well, load of a lot of good that does me," Kyle snapped, plopping himself back down and glaring at him. "Doesn't exactly fix my hand, now does it?"

"I just spoke with Frank, and he thinks he'll be able to get it back to how it was soon enough," Vin sighed, wishing he had a more powerful healing spell at his disposal. Because Frank knew human anatomy and had an actual Healer class, the old battle medic was capable of much more than Vin or Shia were. Even so, he was still freshly prestiged, and it was going to take quite a number of visits for Kyle's hand to be fully restored.

"He better," Kyle grunted. "Last time he stopped by he said he 'didn't like my attitude' and refused to do anything."

That sounds like Frank all right, Vin thought, suppressing a grin. Instead, he decided to ask what he'd been wondering all this time. "Kyle… Have you ever considered you might be the problem? Maybe if you-"

"Just because I'm locked up in here, doesn't give you the right to preach at me," Kyle growled, jumping up and grabbing the bars separating them with his functioning hand. "I don't give a damn about you or this camp or anyone in it! New world, new rules! It's survival of the fittest out here, and that means the strong get to do what they want. As soon as I get stronger than you, you'll be the one trapped behind bars with every bone in your body broken. How does that sound, huh?"

Vin took a step back in shock, surprised by the man's sudden vitriol. He'd known Kyle had some issues he obviously needed to work on, but he hadn't realized he was quite so fixated on this concept of strength meaning he could do whatever he wanted to everyone else. He'd originally come here to apologize, but it was pretty obvious that his words had fallen on deaf ears.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Kyle smirked, misinterpreting Vin's expression as one of fear. "You just wait. I'm gonna be running this whole operation soon enough, and you and your little group of do-gooders are the first ones on my list to deal with."

Realizing there was little point to try and reason with the man, Vin silently turned and walked away, ignoring the repeated death threats and loud warnings of bodily harm directed at him and every other Earther that Kyle shouted angrily at his back as Vin left the prison. Nodding absentmindedly to the guards as they shouted back for the prisoner to keep it down, he wandered aimlessly as he tried to figure out what to do.

Kyle had made his intentions crystal clear, and that made him a serious threat to the future town's wellbeing. Vin knew he should probably go and inform Spur of everything Kyle had just told him, but he also knew there were really only two options available to Spur if he did.

He already knew Spur wasn't willing to waste resources keeping people locked up forever, which meant Kyle would either be banished from their fragment, or executed on the spot.

If Vin said nothing, who knew how many others would suffer at Kyle's hand once he got out of prison. But if he spoke up, the man was as good as dead.

Vin knew what he had to do, but rather than head toward the command building and talk to Spur, he found himself walking in the opposite direction.

Before he condemned a man to death, he wanted to make absolutely sure he was making the right choice. And while he didn't know too many details about her past just yet, he could only think of one person he knew who might have experienced their fair share of public executions.

Luckily, he'd already been planning on speaking with her soon.