A short while later everyone in the settlement has gathered. Ace looks around at the group and sighs. “It looks like we might need to speed up our growth.”

Kelly shakes her head, “We are already going as fast as we should. Any faster could jeopardize our foundation. Really, we should slow down! If it wasn’t for the third floor’s metal ore, I would suggest we limit ourselves to the first floor. With how low the levels are there, our experience rates would plummet and push towards the money we need for the system anchor. That is the thing I am most afraid of with those people. They claim to have thousands of people. Even if they only have a single k of people, each would only need to chip in ten copper to buy one.”

Kyle raises his hand to gather everyone’s attention. “This seems like a good point to update everyone on this issue. I have been collecting up all the coins and am happy to report that counting all the copper and silver coins together adds up to 2,585 coppers’ worth. Just over a quarter of the way there.”

Ace frowns, “That is a lot more than I expected. What happened?”

Kyle nods, “I understand your caution, but most of this comes from my efforts. While the thugs had decent control over both the towns. They could not stop people from doing minor quests provided by the system stores. Most of those quests provided small amounts of copper as a reward.”

“Once the thugs fell, and we set up the new settlement, people saw little use for their coins. That, of course, is a stupid view. The system is here to stay and its coins are recognized as having inherent worth everywhere else. Not recognizing it would be like living in a small country and not recognizing the dollar.”

“I put out the word that I was collecting them and was willing to trade for small things. Ironically, Jan can be thanked as the biggest provider of coins. Right before they left, she gathered all the remaining coppers from her group. Then she handed them all over to me in exchange for a bunch of pre-system stuff for the trip.”

Ace nods, “Good job on that. What things did she want? I can’t think of much she would need for her group.”

Kyle laughs and shakes his head. “You still want to think she can’t be that bad. What she bought from me at a ridiculously mark up was scented soaps and other toiletries. Not for the group, but for herself. I asked around and apparently she was claiming the coins she gathered were a part of the deal to gain the pre-system armor.”

“Anyway, that only accounts for 1,394 of the coppers, of which 924 came from Jan. The other 1,191 coins are from dungeon diving. At first the dungeon was dropping mostly meat, but as time has gone on more and more coins are dropping. At this point even the horned rabbits and other such creatures are dropping them. Of those thousand and change coins, well over two thirds of them have dropped in the last week. Luckily the food drop rate hasn’t dropped by too much. Going by the current drop rate, we should be able to afford the system anchor within a month.”

Ace sighs, “Any way to speed that up?”

Kyle shrugs, “The second floor. At the moment, most of the harvesters stick to the first floor. While the last fight on the second floor is a little tough, everyone is perfectly capable of fighting through the smaller rooms. Not that they can’t fight through the rest of the room, it just isn’t quick to do and farming a dungeon is about speed.”

Ace rubs the bridge of his nose, “How much faster?”

Kyle smiles, “Despite there being fewer monsters to kill in, they drop a lot more. Just hitting up the small rooms should triple our coin collection speed. What was a month to complete would be shortened to between a week and a week and a half. Of course this depends on luck, but I would pin it on the shorter end.”

Ace smiles, “You hear that everyone? I don’t want a single delver to turn back until they beat the first half of the second floor.” Then he frowns, “Don’t take this as an invitation to be stupid though! If anyone gets hurt you turn back, no questions asked. Now Jimmy, do you need to do any prep to set up the town center? What things do we need to do with it?”

Jimmy coughs and steps forward, “The system anchor just needs a building to take over. This is quite literal by the by. We will lose all control over the building, including the ability to renovate or remove it. It is possible to do so later on, but it will cost a pretty penny to do so.”

“As for what we will need to be doing in the building? Part of why it needs a system anchor is the fact we won’t have to do anything besides use it. Since it will only be a town center, the place will be run by system based non-sapient AIs. If we upgrade to a city center and our world graduates from being coddled by the system? There will be actual people certed by the system working the counters. With that all in mind, I say we just put up a decent building outside the current wall in line with the dungeon entrance.”

Kelly interrupts him at this point. “Who can enter a town center? What tasks are done there? Also, how much control do we have over it and how does it decide who is in control of the town if it even does such a thing?”

Jimmy frowns as looks up and considers the questions. “There can be restricted areas, but that doesn’t prevent someone from entering it. Rather, people will be alerted when someone does so. An example the skill gave me was when a town leader made their own house into the center. They set up a foyer for system stuff while they restrict the house proper. This does double duty of keeping most people out and alerting the leader to unskilled burglars. As for who is in charge of a town? That is decided by the people who live there when the center is set up.”

Ace had been looking off into the distance, but when he hears that last bit he jerks his head back towards Jimmy. “How does it decide who lives there? Does it consider Jan and her people as still living here? If not, how long would they have to be living here before they count again?”

Jimmy squints his eyes before they go wide in shock. “Yeah, that could have been bad. Luckily, them abandoning the settlement in a time of need means they aren’t members anymore. Outside of that, the rules are a bit flexible until we set up the town center. For instance, if we have proper homes and they are only in tents, it may or may not count them as refugees.”

“Once we have the center up, whoever is in charge of immigration can decide on the rules for joining the town. That includes all kinds of silly restrictions based on almost anything under the sun. Besides that, you can have multiple levels of being a citizen. The only catch is after a couple of each the restrictions and ranks cost money to implement. Luckily, if all we want to do is separate us from them, it won’t cost anything. An inner circle of citizens is easy enough to set up.”

Ace nods, “That’s good to hear. Now you talked about how the people in control are decided. What form of government does it require?”

Jimmy shrugs, “How do you want to rule? While the rules of joining a town are restricted, even if only by cash. Who is in control and how is pretty open. Of course, since towns tend to be set up by someone, that person or group of people tend to elect themselves as the rulers. The other common power structure is a council of elders. While I respect democracy, our secrets are too heavy to let someone not in the know rule us.”

Doctor sighs, “I’ve served in several places ruled by fools that believed themselves to be god among men. Now we live in a world where the gods are truly among us men. Who knew that I would one day stand against what I considered vital to a community? We need full control of the area around the dungeon and the only way to do that is make everyone else second-class citizens to us.”

“We already have the ten founders. We can make them the current rulers with one of them voted by the others as the head. My only problem is how to deal with things past our own generation? At the moment, we trust everyone here. That can’t always be true. Even if we pass our positions down personally, that could lead to snakes and brown nosers getting into the position.”

Ace shrugs, “One thing another important founder from history once said has always stuck with me. I can’t remember the exact quote, but the sentiment was that the rules should be torn down every once in a while and redone. At the moment we are trying to duct tape everything together. In a decade or maybe even just next year, the situation will have changed. I say whatever rules for leadership we make right now are for this year alone. After that, the council expands to include all core citizens and new rules can be decided then.”

Jim raises his hand, though what attracts everyone’s attention is the awkward look on his face. “So uh, no one has probably thought about this, but we will probably end up as a clan. We all share a heavy secret that can’t be shared with an outsider, even if they are a significant other. Not only that, but we will have all gone through many hair raising events together. Chances are we’ll end up finding comfort with one another. Give us a few generations and all core members might be part of one family.”

Many of the others end up looking just as awkward, but Susan steps forward and breaks the moment. “Well, I’ve got my part covered!”

The rest of the group has a chuckle before she continues. “So I agree with him, but there is one detail beyond that which we are missing. There are literal gods and immortals out there. Now I’m not saying we will all end up that way. However, if there are immortals, then I’m willing to bet our lifespan isn’t as limited as we might assume. A million years from now we might be sitting around a table in a palace laughing about how short sighted we were right now.”

“Ace’s idea of a year trial period is good. But we need to keep in mind that while we might be dead tomorrow, we also might be alive to see the sun die. I can see it now, uncountable years in the future. We all are standing here with our much extended families looking up as the sun slowly expands and then we file into the dungeon. Who knows how many years we live within it till one day the gate out shows a whole new world to explore.”

Ace rubs his eyes, “Thanks for reminding me of that. Not like I was trying to put such long term things out of mind so I could focus on the now. Anyway, it seems like we agree on all of us being core citizens and the founders are provisional leaders with an elected head.”

Akhier

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