The conversation flowed smoothly after that, we made preparations and plans for what was to come and delegated tasks out. Me and Aureus were going to start with the walls around the camp, after that we were going to erect a large lookout tower in the middle of the camp. Caroline was tasked with creating weapons and armor, Reid volunteered to visit the sick and needy almost immediately.


    Finally we were trying to decide how we should level up the lower leveled members of the camp when a middle aged man interjected. “I’ll go fight, I know we’ve been relying on y’all for a while, but if something’s coming we need to get stronger.”


    It was the first time I’d realized that we’d drawn a crowd, I supposed that it wouldn’t make sense if we hadn’t with all the mess and noise that Aureus created earlier.


    “We’re all gonna die!” A woman screamed and the crowd erupted into chaos.


    “You said you’d keep us safe!”


    “What about the kids?!”


    I frowned, I could understand that they were in a rough situation, but it was hard for me to feel bad for them when most of them had only managed to get to level three or four in a few weeks. The time inconsistencies were still confusing me, but I was pretty sure they had enough time to be higher leveled than that. They continued to shout and complain. The noise buzzed in my ear.


    “How can you expect us to run into battle?”


    “Is it their job to protect y’all?”


    “Why did you come here? We were doing just fine before!”


    “They attacked us with a dragon!”


    “Why are we listening to these strangers?!”


    “Oh, SHUT UP!” I screamed.


    They were quiet for a second, but someone in the back shouted about how they didn’t even know me and the group devolved into yelling again until Aureus roared back at them. I patted him on the shoulder with a smile. The silence that seeped in after made me feel like I was standing on a bed of nails. Children, men, women, the elderly, they all stared up at me. Waiting.


    I pinched the bridge of my nose, partially because I was irritated, but mostly because I was uncomfortable and subconsciously wanted to hide my face. I took a deep breath. “Y’all are seriously shameless. You have no right to expect these people to help you.” I started.


    “They-”


    “NO! I am not done. Y’all are grown. Fully grown adults acting like children. The world’s gone to shit and y’all thought that by letting them make you a little safe haven you’d be fine? Did you think that would work? Did you think the hell was over? Seriously?” I paused.


    “I’m telling you right now if you don’t suck it up and help out that you and your loved ones are gonna die. These people here won’t.” I gestured to Rosalynn and the others, “Well unless they die for y’all and then what?” I gave them a moment to consider it. “Next time after that you’ll die because there won’t be anyone else left to save you.”


    “Yeah?... Well… How do you know?” The woman who shouted originally asked timidly.


    I stared at her for a moment while I considered how to explain it, it was just too much work to explain all of it so I just said, “You can consider me a messenger of the gods.”


    A hushed murmur filled the crowd as they discussed what I had just said. I could tell they were still apprehensive about it. They had gotten comfortable and lazy in their new normal down here. It was uncomfortable but it wasn’t all that dangerous, so some random lady coming in and telling them that the apocalypse wasn’t over wasn’t something they wanted to believe.


    I sighed, “Look, if y’all wanna die be my guest. I’ll be here for the next seven days, in the meantime I’ll be fixing up your camp a bit and helping with training. Reid will be staying here to heal you in the name of his patron god ‘Golden Light that Shines On All’. Also Caroline will be crafting items to help, but the cost of that is up to her. I understand that the world is changing and that’s scary, but we’re humans. We will adapt. We have to adapt, if not for our own safety for the kids. Plus it isn’t just me who thinks this way, Rosalynn agrees with me. Isn’t that right Rosalynn?” I smiled cheekily as I passed it off to her.


    “Yeah that’s… what? Mia?” I heard her ask as I hopped on Aureus’ back for the first time and we took off into the smoggy skies. We flew around for half an hour letting off steam and enjoying ourselves before we started the real work. We flew the circumference of the camp getting a general idea of where and how to build the walls before Aureus returned me to the group again. Then he took off to start work.


    “Mia! How could you!” Rosalynn whined at me, having finally escaped the crowd.


    I laughed, “You sound just like your sister!”


    She elbowed me in the ribs playfully, but her elbow was sharp enough to bring tears to my eyes. I laughed with her through the pain. “I gave Aureus some instructions on how to start the walls around the perimeter. I was wondering if you had any thoughts on how we should go about the event of a wave. I have a couple ideas, but I wanted to brainstorm.”


    “Oh? Yeah maybe, but we’ve never seen a rat wave like you have.”


    “Hmm, hey Noel?” I asked towards nothing in particular, but I felt like he’d be nearby.


    “Yeah?” He responded behind me to my left. Surprisingly I didn’t jump this time, Rosalynn did though.


    “Jeez! Do you always sneak up on people like that?” She asked.


    “Usually, yeah. Did I scare you?” He responded with a huge shit-eating grin.


    “Nearly outa my skin, yeah.”


    He giggled, “So what’d ya need me for boss?”


    “Boss? No, nevermind. I wanted to know if you can create another rat wave like you did on our first day here?”


    “Hmm… Yeah probably, should I create it on the north side where Aureus created the wall?”


    “Yeah, but try to make it smaller this time so that the camp won’t get overrun. Now, Rosalynn can you and your group try to convince some of the lower leveled members to come out and level using the wave? We should probably set up a group to protect them while they fight too. Wait, actually would y’all have enough weapons for them yet?”


    “Yeah I’ll ask Trevor, he used to make weapons before awakening so the stuff he’s got isn’t half bad. Not nearly as good as real items though. Damien, can you go gather up some volunteers for this experiment? Jeong, I want you, Rosalia, and Tali to protect them, but let them fight. Just step in if necessary… Aaaand I’ll go and make sure none get through and into the camp.”


    If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    “Sounds like a plan,” I said cheerily. Things seemed to be coming together. The group started to disperse, I stayed for a few minutes to talk to Caroline and Reid. I wanted to talk to Rosalynn and Damien more about the walls and the plans, but after everything that had been happening I wanted to talk to my family first.


    “That was… more explosive than I’d expected.” Caro chuckled.


    “Yeah, that was definitely more than I expected walking in here.” I paused, “I wanted to talk about the walls and plans a bit more, but I thought maybe we should see how things actually go before making any solid plans.”


    “Yeah it’s a pretty different set up than how we fought the wave last time, and we don’t know what kind of monsters will come…” Reid’s eyes looked somewhere in the distance, no doubt he was remembering that day. The worm and the shapeshifter.


    “Shit, if those worms show up will there be any point in the walls?” Caro asked with a frown.


    “I’m not sure, but I’d rather have a wall crumble because of one of those worms than not build them.” I replied as I scanned the horizon, there wasn’t much we could do in the way of defensive structures for a creature that tunneled like that.


    “That’s true, it’s better to do what we can.” Reid snapped back into focus, “That’s why I want to spread word on Celes. The more people who can come here and have our help the better.”


    “Uh… I dunno, it’d be pretty hard for the nine of us to protect more- No actually it’ll already be hard for the nine of us to protect the ones we already have.” I sighed as I went through all the things we needed to get done in such a short time. The thought that something extremely dangerous was coming plagued me. Rewards of the caliber they offered were just too good for this to be an easy endeavor.


    He shook his head. “No, you’re not thinking about it properly. If more people are able to find their way here there have to be some useful people in their groups or they’d never make it.”


    “He’s got a point, right now we’ve got a lot of really low level people so anyone who can fight would be great.” Caro shrugged, “But there’s no telling if it’ll be a net positive or negative. Either way I still think it’s a good risk to take.”


    I sighed, they were right. “Yeah, yeah. I agree, but how are we supposed to tell them where we’re at? It’s not like we can give them an address and there’s virtually no landmarks to be had here.”


    “Then we should just make some.” Theo interjected.


    “Gah!” I yelped, “Jesus Theo, how long have you been here?”


    He stared at me with a hurt expression, “The whole time…”


    He had led us to the meeting, but things had gotten so chaotic and he hadn’t participated so… I cleared my throat, “So… Uh, making landmarks? With Aureus? He’s got some other things to get done at the moment though.”


    “No, we don’t need him for all of it. Pillar road sign things would be pretty helpful though.” He seemed lost in thought for a second, “Anyways, we can just create as many of those path markers in as many directions as we can. We found our way using them, so why not?”


    It was a pretty good idea, all we really needed to do was make a post or two on Celes letting them know to look out for it and create a few more paths. “That’s a good idea, do you have someone you could go out with to create them? From what I heard you’re basically the map or scout or whatever.”


    He pushed his thumbs into his pockets as he looked off to his left, into the residential area of the camp, “I’m just using the skills I got… Maybe I can find someone. I’ll ask, I guess…” He looked uncomfortable, the people at the camp had been ignoring him so it did make sense he didn’t want to ask for any favors. Especially one that didn’t have any obvious benefits.


    “Why doesn’t he just take Noel?” Caroline asked.


    I snapped my fingers, “Yes! Caro, great idea! We can ask him when he gets back.”


    “Does he really need another person to go with?” Reid asked with an eye roll.


    The three of us looked over at him and he shied from our collective gaze, “Well, it’d be safer… Plus I’m not as strong so it’d take a lot longer.”


    “Well Noel is one of the few people who could easily keep up with you, or at least it seemed like it.” I replied with a shrug.


    The conversation naturally ended as we all went our own ways to accomplish our various goals. Reid headed into the camp to seek out patients, Caro went looking for a place to set up shop, and I was headed to Rosalynn.


    “Hey!” I exclaimed as I slapped her on the back, she didn’t budge even an inch.


    “Mia!” She grinned as she returned the gesture. If my arm wasn’t around her, I wouldn’t have maintained my balance. I took a faltering step forward and tried not to wince.


    “So, how’s it going over here?” I asked as I looked up at the crude wall Aureus had created. I’d have to ask Caro to work with him after the bones were made, we’d need doors and maybe towers? I wasn’t sure how to go about it, but I figured Caroline would figure it out once she started.


    “Eh, the turnout was a little smaller than we’d wanted and the wave is sort of spreading around them instead of directly towards them in front of the wall.” She replied casually.


    There were a couple rats lying dead on the open side of the wall, at least they weren’t overrunning the camp. “Wait, small turnout as in rats or people?” I asked.


    “Rats. Don’t get me wrong there were a lot, but to call it a wave? Though, it was a good thing since they’re still not very good at fighting. From what Rosalia told me, for every 5 rats Jeong, Damien, and Tali were killing three while they were getting the last two.” She frowned.


    “Well, they might have a lot to work on, but they’re starting. That’s better than nothing.” I tried to cheer her up.


    “Also I was thinking, maybe we can have people who have long distance based abilities up on top of the walls? Or if there aren’t enough people who can be on the front lines we could have some up there too to push rocks off onto the horde?” I asked, I wasn’t sure how people fought with forts usually. If you could call our crude camp and walls a fort. The only thing I knew of that sort of combat was that sometimes lords would pour boiling oil over the walls onto their enemies. I shivered at the thought of it.


    She considered my suggestions for a moment, “Yeah, that’s probably a good idea, but what about the people on the ground? They might catch some strays that way.”


    “Oh yeah… Well, maybe we could have the people on the front lines come back in after they’re spent? I dunno, I’m just trying to get a general idea.” I tugged at my hair, walls were my idea, but I wasn’t sure how to move forward with it.


    “You make it sound like we’re going to war.” Damien chuckled as he approached us, “Well I guess a wave is a possibility, so it wouldn’t hurt to prepare for it, but we should consider others as well. Like new monsters or flying bats appearing like in that labyrinth y’all were in.”


    “That’s true…” Rosalynn trailed off as she bit at her lip lost in thought.


    “Well I guess we should also consider whether or not it will be monsters at all. I mean the gods wanted me to stay, but they also can watch other humans so it is possible they’re starting something.” I said with a shrug.


    “Yeah Tali is really concerned about that possibility. She’s really been trying to get me to change my mind about trying to gather other groups.” Rosalynn said with a sigh. She had a lot on her plate.


    “I understand her perspective, but it’s something we have to try. I’m sure she’ll come around.” I patted her on the shoulder.


    “I doubt that.” Damien muttered, he had been a pretty expressive person, but the look of sadness he wore now was one I was all too familiar with.


    “Oh… Uh… I’m sorry to hear that.” Was all I could get out, I’d heard plenty of condolences, but none of them ever helped. Eventually they were annoying and infuriating more than anything, they reminded me of my helplessness before death.


    Rosalynn and Damien shared a look for a few seconds, then he looked towards me. His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He closed it again, looking for the words, I waited until he found them.


    “My dad, he uh… he wasn’t a combat related class. He was a blacksmith. We had just met Rosalynn and Rosalia, the four of us suffered some pretty heavy injuries against some of that gang.” He stopped to gather himself, his expression of pure fury smoothed out, “We got away, but while we were trying to recover, Tali ran into us bloody and beaten with that gang right on her heels. The five of us spent hours playing cat and mouse with them, trying to get away somewhere. Fighting monsters the whole while.”


    “It was so frustrating. Everytime we got away, everytime we thought we were in the clear, they would pop back up. We couldn’t get any rest. At some point Tali lagged behind. She ended up tripping, and he ran back to help her.” His eyes began to well up, and he swallowed hard. “And they- They shot him. He was hit in the gut. I just… I saw red, by the time I’d come to my senses I’d killed a couple of them. I’d probably have died if I hadn’t leveled up…” He cleared his throat, “She blames herself for that, so, ahem, I don’t think she’ll be up for the idea.”


    We all sat in a dense silence after he finished talking. If it was a gut shot, was he at least able to sit with his dad as he passed? Did they get to share his last words? How did Tali get away from them on her own? Did Rosalynn and Rosalia meet them by chance or was one group helping the other? Did they meet Jeong after that? Did any of them know each other before the awakening? They were questions I could never ask. No one said anything after that.