Explorer of Edregon

Once Vin finished chatting with Lumel, and thoroughly apologizing for his unintentional suggestion which had turned the pulmon's face redder than he'd ever seen before, he stepped out of the dungeon and calmly made his way over to what was finally looking like a real town. In fact, Vin actually had to stop as soon as he left the dungeon treeline, because he was caught off guard by what he found.

At this point, it had been almost a week and a half since Witherson had put forth the motion to turn the camp into an actual town. Obviously, there had been quite a lot of construction and progress being made during that time, but while standing in the middle of a work in progress, it's easy to miss just how quickly things are changing.

After having spent the last two days in the neilans' fragment, Vin finally got to take it all in as he left the dungeon and, rather than spotting the familiar half-constructed camp he'd come to expect from his many trips home, found himself admiring an actual settlement.

Most noticeable was the fact that Witherson hadn't just expanded the stone wall surrounding the former camp. She'd improved it as well. From where Vin was standing the wall looked to be nearly twice as thick, and they now had what were clearly combat classes actually patrolling atop the wall, keeping their eyes peeled on the surrounding area. Oddly enough, it seemed as though one in every three of these guards had what looked like a snoozing sqerret resting on their shoulders, their tails curled around the guards' upper arms keeping themselves locked in place.

The temporary camp of the third wavers he'd help construct was all but empty at this point, and the small area they'd set up for the former prisoners looked like a small offshoot of the town itself. Vin could only imagine Spur wasn't letting them fully integrate into the new town just yet, because there were simple houses currently being built and people trickling to and from the small offshoot area and the main town. As far as Vin could tell, the former prisoners didn't seem to mind having their own separate housing, and they grinned and spoke cheerfully with the Earthers that were helping to teach them the basics of construction and get everything set up.

Shaking his head in amazement, Vin wandered over to the thin stream of people entering town as he approached the main gate. He was so blown away he didn't even notice the shocked stares and waves of whispers that erupted when he walked out of the dungeon to join them, his attention far too spread out on taking in all the changes.

At the moment, the large, thick wooden doors at the main gate were wide open, allowing everyone to pass through without issue. The two guards were carefully eyeing everyone up, and Vin was pretty certain they were using some sort of subtle skill or passive, as the back of his neck tingled when their gaze swept over him.

He was then certain that was exactly what they were doing when their gazes immediately shot back to him, and after a quick, unspoken discussion, one of the guards turned and disappeared into town.

"Sir," the second guard said, nodding at him as he finally reached the main gate. "The council asked me to notify you upon your return that they'd appreciate you attending today's meeting."

"I was already planning on it," Vin said, barely hearing the man as he took in the former camp on the other side of the new wall and had to do a double take.

What felt like only a short while ago the Earthers' camp had consisted of little more than a collection of a few dozen tents and some primitive looking wooden buildings. The hundred members of wave one had done what they could to form a staging ground for, at the time, what they'd thought was the rest of humanity. Those scattered tents and shoddily crafted structures had been replaced with an actual, functioning, town.

Vin ignored the people calling out to one another and the laughter coming from some of the different buildings as he took it all in. There was a paved road leading from the main gate into the thick of things, and Vin slowly walked along it as his head bounced around on a swivel.

Buildings lined both sides of the road, and based on the people he saw working and mingling within, their new town had everything from workshops, to restaurants, to what looked like actual shops of all things. Rather than uniform, simple boxes, the buildings appeared to have been put up with some actual life and flair as well. The materials ranged from stone to wood to that strange new form of concrete they'd manage to invent, but all of them looked like they were sturdy enough to stand up against even an angry trunkback for at least a little while.

Other than the glass windows inlaid in each of the buildings of course.

How do we have shops? Or restaurants? We don't have any form of currency!

Vin moved further into town, and after walking past a small park that held walking paths and some jungle gym-style structures that were clearly designed with the intention of strength and cardio training in mind based on the people currently working out on them, he stumbled upon what had to be the town square.

There was an actual, working fountain in the middle of the large, paved circle, and a handful of exceptionally wide buildings that stood out even among the rest, which could only be the guilds Witherson had talked about working with Golrim to build. The colorful and symbolic signs in front of each one weren't even needed, as each building's purpose was quite clear solely from the people walking in and out of the doors.

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The simplest and most obvious one to make out was the combat guild, as Vin could hear the sounds of sparring coming from behind the building, and just about every single person either entering or leaving the building carried a weapon and looked like they knew how to handle themselves in a fight.

Next was the crafters' guild, which was a rather strange-looking building with what looked like dozens of chimneys jutting out of it in different directions. Based on the frequent and sometimes colorful smoke coming out of a good number of them, the ample ventilation had been an excellent idea.

The least eye-catching of the three was the support guild, looking like a rather standard, unassuming building other than its sheer size. It seemed the building wasn't without its own quirks however, as every so often, rather than walk through the main door, people would walk over to the side of the building and trigger something, causing a hidden trapdoor to open beneath them and dropping them into some sort of basement before resetting.

Vin recognized Alice's handiwork immediately upon seeing the modified pitfall trap.

Besides the three guilds, there were two other buildings situated around the town square, and one spot that was clearly designated for a third to be put up. From the giant red and white cross and the injured warrior Vin watched limp through the door, it seemed Frank had finally gotten his hospital up and running. Thankfully, there weren't a lot of people going in and out of that building like the guilds, because Vin was pretty certain Frank would toss someone out on their rear if they tried coming to him with anything short of a serious injury.

And finally, there was the largest building in the entire town. This one was actually still under construction, and Vin watched nearly three dozen crafters go about their work as they put together what would eventually be the third floor of the town hall. He was surprised to realize that a good half of the crafters working on the building were obviously former prisoners based on the black bracelets around their wrists, and even more surprised by how well they and the Earthers were getting along. Based on the jeers and friendly taunts being exchanged between all the different crafters, it sounded like the former prisoners had really integrated themselves into the Earthers' camp over the last week. Vin knew Spur had put them all through extensive testing via truth-gem, but he was still surprised by how quickly everyone had adapted to having them in their midst.

Looking around, Vin confirmed that there were a good number of former prisoners simply wandering around as well, helping with work or attempting to chat with Earthers here and there. Seeing as the former prisoners made up about twenty percent of their population after the massacre that was the battle for wave three, he supposed he shouldn't be so surprised by the number of black bracelets he could make out.

The language barrier issue was a rather big complication when it came to the two groups working together, but it was one that was being bypassed surprisingly quickly. It turned out that putting even just a few extra points into the focus attribute made picking up new languages much easier, and those people who were using it as one of their primary attributes could learn extremely quickly. Combine that with the near total immersion, and many of the former prisoners were picking up English far quicker than any regular person back on Earth could ever hope to match.

It was while he was admiring the sight of plenty of Earthers doing their best to learn the former prisoners' language in turn, that he heard a woman's voice from behind.

"Excuse me. Do you have a second to talk about our hero and founder, The Roamer?"

Vin's awe-filled smile shattered in an instant, and he slowly turned around to find himself face to face with what looked like a nun of all things. The elderly woman and her black habit couldn't have possibly looked more out of place in the sea of grey Project Ark fatigues, and for a moment, Vin questioned his own sanity.

Then it hit him.

"God, damn it, Theodore!" he snapped, glaring at the elderly woman as she began cackling. The nun stepped back and performed a brazen twirl, her face suddenly replaced with Theodore's beaming visage as he swept the black handkerchief off his head and gave Vin a deep bow.

"You're getting faster!" he laughed, standing up straight and throwing his arms out wide in an all-encompassing gesture. "Welcome to Terra! Home of the Earthers!"

Theodore's bold proclamation snapped Vin out of his inner gumblings and plans to convince Scule to steal all of the Spy's shoelaces, and Vin couldn't help but blink in surprise. "Wait, they named the town already? Whose idea was Terra?"

"Not sure, some crafter I've never met," Theodore shrugged, tucking his handkerchief into his pocket. "Spur held a large event the other day where he asked for people to enter ideas for the town name. After leaving the suggestion box open for a few hours, the council went through and picked out their top five choices, and then they put it to an actual vote. The majority of people voted for Terra, so that's what we are now. Shame they didn't even put my suggestion up for a vote, really. I thought 'Better Earth' was a shoo-in."

A small part of Vin was mildly hurt that they hadn't waited for him to come back to pick the town name, but he quickly got over it as he realized that was the life he chose to live for himself. While it might not have been the name he would have picked, he had to admit Terra was nice and simple, and he was glad they finally had an actual name for their camp-turned-town.

"Anything drastic happen around Terra while I was gone?" Vin asked, a strange feeling going through his gut as he realized he was functionally asking his own personal Spy for a status update on the town.

Being the council member in charge of the Foreign Branch was weird.

"Plenty of the usual gossip you're probably not all that interested in," Theodore grinned. "There's a small tiff going on between the new crafter and support guild about the current allocation of resources. Then you've got Alka's Slayer-trainees from the third wave who got in a bit of a fight with some of the standard combat classes from wave two… Oh, Devin swung by the camp again the other day to hand off a good number of trained sqerrets to the new vice-captain of the guard, who herself has already busted what looked like the beginnings of an illicit drug-production racket. You know, standard stuff."

"Sounds like our fragment is as eventful as ever," Vin muttered, glad not for the first time that he wasn't Spur.

Though that didn't mean he wouldn't help out where he could.

"I'm going to check in with Myers and get a status update at the council meeting," Vin said, going to hand Theodore the ring Lumel had made for him before pausing. A quick glance around confirmed that there were dozens of eyes on them, and Lumel's mention of the less people knowing about Theodore having the ring the better flitted through his head.

Frankly, it was probably best not to give the Spy the ability to access the dungeons until he could personally show him how they worked.

"I'll check in with you and Kelly tomorrow morning," Vin said, waving at Theodore as he turned and made his way over to the town hall. "Try and stay out of trouble until then, alright?"

"When have I ever gotten into trouble?" Theodore grinned, a twinkle already in his eye as he stepped back and vanished amongst the crowd.