Teresa Of All Trades (Book 1 Complete)

"This way please."

Teresa had arrived back at Arconette and was immediately greeted by her party's assigned guards that ushered them through the city entrance. They had stayed behind at Arconette waiting for their return as their job was to protect Arconete, not to hunt monsters well beyond their levels.

"Has Sarah gotten back yet?" Teresa asked a guard.

"They have not, however your presence is requested at the town hall."

"Oh shit, they haven't been waiting long have they?"

"We received the request minutes ago. "

"That's not too bad then." Teresa said in relief. She didn't want to be holding up a bunch of important people or anything. They had gotten another item token that could upgrade an F rank item's level cap, but they decided to talk with Sarah before using it. It would probably go to Jake as his equipment was falling behind him, though that should be a full party discussion.

The group was led to the town hall, where once again Teresa could not hear anything going on from outside. How did that work? There was definitely some magical chicanery going on, she wasn't trying to eavesdrop but the fact she couldn't wasn't insignificant.

Once the door was opened the magical silence was completely dropped, and Teresa could hear exactly what was going on inside.

"-sensitive information is too commonplace." One man was saying.

"Hang on, the door's open." Another announced, causing the discussion to cease. As soon as Teresa and her group entered, the door closed behind them and discussions continued.

"The details about multiversal trafficking is common knowledge in their city, everybody knows about it. If we fully opened teleportation then the citizens of Arconette would hear about it as well. This could lead to riots, chaos, you name it." The first man continued. Ezio was the only member of his party to be seen, and there were several others in the room that had been present at the first meeting. Madeline and Saylee were also there, though they both looked exhausted.

"We can understand the need for some secrecy, but shouldn't people be aware of a direct threat that they are facing?" Madeline asked.

"It's more complicated than that." Ezio answered. "It's hard enough to keep society functioning when monsters can rip us apart at any given moment. How do you think people will react if they find out there are invaders from outside our universe looking to kidnap people? Do we even know what happens to the victims?"

"We do not. Several guesses have been made, but we haven't been able to verify anything as nobody from The Mall has been taken." Saylee responded.

"What kind of problems did you face when your city learned about this? Perhaps we can take that into account when discussing our own strategy."

"Actually, we didn't really have any major issues come up from that." Madeline told him. "As soon as we found out we made sure everyone knew as soon as possible. The threat to not just us, but to all of humanity is made worse by keeping this information hidden. Truthfully, we caught this early on enough that everybody took it as one big thing. It wasn't 'monsters are trying to get you,' followed by 'multiversal aliens might try to kidnap you,' or anything. It was more of a 'monsters and aliens are after us,' kind of deal."

"That's… shocking. I would have expected much worse."

"In retrospect I'm a little surprised too, but our demographics are also vastly different. At the time children made up almost a majority of our population and they seemed honestly indifferent. We weren't exactly going into horrible details with them or anything, but if the kids weren't panicking then we couldn't either." This was all relatively new to Teresa as well. She hadn't really been all that involved in The Mall itself. She had spent most of her time hunting monsters, going to meetings, and training her friends.

"For now let's agree to a restricted travel agreement. Teleportation will be allowed, but only with approval and thorough vetting." Ezio concluded. "For the humans."

"Huh?" Teresa blurted accidentally. Shit, she did not mean to do that. It had very much been a quiet expression of confusion, but with the Perception stat altering people's hearing it was definitely audible.

"Is there a problem?"

"My bad, you just caught me off guard with the humans thing."

"You weren't here for that part of the discussion. Only humans will be allowed to teleport to and from Arconette." Ezio explained.

"I mean, I kinda get it since I don't think there are any Scilians or Albino Gorillas that would particularly want to visit another human city. It's just, you know, how long is that going to last?" Teresa asked.

"That would be up for discussion another time." Ezio replied.

"I should introduce myself. My name is Luke, I was sent to The Mall along with a small group." The man who had been speaking earlier said. "While your relations with these species are certainly interesting, many may find them unsettling. The Scilians are not exactly easy on the eyes, and these Albino Gorillas are naturally very intimidating. If they were to walk the streets of Arconette, it would be incredibly uncomfortable. I believe it would be best if The Mall kept their pets to themselves."

"Ex-fucking-cuse me?" Teresa asked. "I know you didn't just call them pets."

"My apologies, I am aware you treat them as fellow citizens-"

"Nope, don't you walk back on it now. They are just as sapient as you or me, that makes them people. People aren't pets, and you'd do best to remember that."

"Have you measured their intelligence? Their behavior? I do not believe enough time has passed to accurately assess if they fit in human society."

"I can understand being cautious, believe me, but you lost me as soon as you called them pets. If anyone is going to be a judge of their character, I don't want you to be involved."

"That sounds like you're just-"

"Luke, that is enough!" Ezio interrupted, glaring sharply at the man. "One more word and you're out of here. I am sorry, most cities have not had the same kind of interactions with alien life. During the early days the distinction between monster and alien was not apparent, and a lot of conflicts arose from early fighting. People thought they were monsters, and they thought we were monsters. It's hard to come back from that, not to mention the only alien life we interact positively with are cattle about as intelligent as a farm animal. Please know his poor choice of words should not reflect us as a whole."

"But our nonhuman citizens still won't be allowed to teleport?" Teresa asked.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Unfortunately that is the case."

"What about if there is an emergency and people need to evacuate?"

"We actually have not discussed that yet. If some tragedy were to befall The Mall, there would only be 10,000 people. In the event of a real emergency, we could accept refugees." Ezio replied.

"There's 10,000 human people." Teresa corrected. "That's not a great slip up right there Ezio."

"Having nonhuman refugees might make their situation worse. It would depend on the circumstances. You are right however, there are only 10,000 humans within The Mall. I apologize."

"Would you mind if we took a minute to talk with Teresa?" Saylee asked, glancing over at Madeline.

"Go for it." Ezio responded. Saylee nodded to Teresa and began to make a move for the door. Teresa took a breath and stepped out, her party following close behind. The door closed behind them, and before Teresa could say anything she spotted someone coming her way.

"Hey! We're back!" Sarah called out as she approached the group. "Did we miss it? Please tell me we missed it, I would not be complaining if I didn't have to awkwardly sit in on another damn meeting."

"Sorry, but it's still going on. We just stepped out to talk for a minute." Teresa informed her, disappointment immediately visible on her face. "Though is it even worth stepping out? Can't they listen in on us anyways?"

"Whatever they do to stop sound from leaking out of the house works both ways, but they certainly could have someone a block away listening to our conversations right now." Saylee responded. "It doesn't matter, we aren't discussing anything sensitive in public. About our nonhuman population…"

"Go on."

"I get that it's kind of bullshit, but we need to see the bigger picture right now. Our teleportation discussion isn't the biggest thing we have to talk about today, there is something far more important we are just about to move onto."

"Like what?"

"We're in public, I'm sorry but you'll have to wait until we go back inside. Just know we don't have to like how they do things here, we just need them to at least be willing to work with us, okay? We don't need the best allies in the world, we just need someone to be on the same team as us."

"So long as they actually are on the same team, this all sounds sketchy. We're going to have to be careful with this, they clearly don't see nonhuman life the way we do." Teresa warned.

"I agree, but you were also right that none of the Albino Gorillas or Scilians would want to come here. Travel is already going to be regulated heavily anyways, and we are likely to see similar issues in other cities from the sound of it. If Arconette's values oppose our own too much, then how will our negotiations go with the many cities that feel the same way?" Saylee asked. "This isn't just an opportunity to travel across the Contaminated Zone quickly, this is a chance to find the very people you're looking for. Arconette has agreements with other cities, any one of which might have someone you know. This is an opportunity we can't afford to pass up, so let's go along with it for now and bite our tongues."

"Alright, I'll behave." Teresa relented as she got ready to head back inside.

"We'll wait out here if things are that important." Thomas said, one hand on each of his sons' shoulders.

"Works for me, I want to know how training is going so you'll be telling me about that later." Teresa replied as her party went back to the meeting.

"I think our current agreement is good as it stands." Saylee announced once everyone was situated. "Any instance of teleportation will require approval from both governments, we will be sending a list of names that belong to the relatives of our people and reunite any families we can."

"That works for us. Can we move onto the next subject now that Teresa's party is all here?" Ezio asked. Sarah shifted uncomfortably in place with the attention on her. Saylee nodded, and Ezio continued. "We have looked over the situation and we are willing to agree to participate in a joint operation against Chernobyl."

Oh fuck, so that's what Saylee meant by something big.

"As have we. Teresa, did you encounter any other civilizations or cities while travelling across the Contaminated Zone?" Saylee asked.

"Other than Arconette, no. We stayed near the western edge of the zone throughout most of our travels and didn't encounter anything but more monsters. The only other city we found was Arid Junction, and it was an empty ghost town within the zone that had already fallen." Teresa explained. "There were a bunch of really strong dinosaurs, but I'm not sure if they were an actual civilization."

"In that case, we are certain that this operation is necessary. The Mall is willing to send in forces from the north while Arconette attacks from the south. These Avatars that patrol the zone will be forced to split their focus, allowing a greater chance for someone to attack the source of the zone itself." Saylee announced confidently. Did The Mall even have forces capable of dealing with this sort of thing?

"We are on board with this operation, but we will need a much more thorough plan than that." Ezio replied.

"Understandable, our General is currently fighting monsters and gaining levels, but once he is available we can discuss the plan in more detail."

"Hang on, I got a question." Teresa interrupted. "I've heard you guys have 50 people who beat the Tutorial, is all of this really necessary?"

"You've heard correctly, though it's not exactly 50." Ezio started. "Many of them will be participating in this operation, but not all of them. We need to be careful who we tell about this, at least on our end. There are a few parties of Completionists who have set out to explore our surroundings, and they will not be back in the near future. Additionally, there are Completionists who are directly opposed to destroying Chernobyl. They believe that the Contaminated Zone is a once in a lifetime chance to farm for consumable items dropped from the Portals. Destroying Chernobyl would likely end the quest and thus end the production of new items, not only would some be opposed to this but they might even try to directly interfere."

"Can we farm the Contaminated Zone?" Teresa asked. "I mean, I do see where they're coming from but it's also a huge risk."

"If we do not take out Chernobyl soon, both The Mall and Arconette will fall." Ezio answered. "The Avatars and Portals grow stronger the larger the Contaminated Zone gets. The Mall is holding it off from expanding north while Arconette can hold the south, but nothing is preventing it from spreading west and to the best of our knowledge it is spreading uncontrollably to the east as well. If we could reliably contain the zone from all sides then they would be correct, this would be an amazing chance to farm resources and I too would be actively opposed to destroying the zone."

"So if it's expanding to the west and east unabated, the radioactive monsters will get stronger." Teresa reiterated, making sure she was following along. "Aren't we getting stronger as well though?"

"Yes, but not at the same rate. The Contaminated Zone is not a circle, it doesn't need to be uniform at all. It may be expanding to the west and east right now, but eventually it'll be able to expand north and south again around our cities and completely close us in. From there, its growth would be exponential and we would stand no chance. Unless there is something else particularly powerful out there, it might even have the potential to spread across the entire planet."

"Okay well in that case why not just explain it to them? Honestly I was kind of on board with farming it too when you brought it up, but that convinced me that it wasn't worth it."

"They would disagree, some believe we can still contain it."

"The Contaminated Zone is massive, how would we contain it?"

"We can't, not forever. Unfortunately, containment isn't the most problematic part of this issue." Ezio warned. "The Contaminated Zone gets stronger the larger it is, but in the best case scenario what would happen after we surpass it? What about when the strongest among us can walk through the whole thing without a care in the world? When the monsters are too weak to give us enough experience?"

"Just go somewhere else then, this isn't the only place in the world to find monsters." Teresa said.

"That is what I believe as well, but the unfortunate reality of our world is that not all people are rational. You didn't hear this from me, but some people are really, really, stupid, even some of those who beat the Tutorial. I say this, because some of them want the Contaminated Zone to spread, that way they can keep getting better items and fighting stronger monsters for more experience."

"So what you're saying is that you need The Mall because not everyone from Arconette is willing to help?" Teresa asked. A moment of silence passed before Ezio took a heavy breath in, sighing with a mixture of emotion.

"I'm saying we've launched several covert operations to take out Chernobyl, yet it still stands. If we want to do it, we'll need a larger group that won't necessarily be able to stay under the radar of the other Completionists. If Arconette launches a full scale attack on Chernobyl, it's likely we won't just be fighting monsters. We may have to fight some of our own people. That's where you come in…"