The Systemic Lands

Chapter 148: Day 332 – Aftermath of the Second Battle of Purgatory

I had gotten back late the night before. Now it was morning and the leadership council as I had taken to calling it had assembled once again. I sat at the head of the table. Naran was to my right, Clarissa to my left. Next to Naran was Gerold. Next to Clarissa was Bob. At the opposite end of the table was Laura.

A copy of the treaty had been passed around and eventually came to a stop in front of Clarissa who was making notes. I could see people going from relieved to pensive and then back to relieved. “Do you believe this treaty will hold?” Gerold asked.

A stupid question, but I would answer it to get it out of the way. “No. Eventually the Ritualist will recover enough to feel confident in attacking. Or I will find a way to track him down and kill him once and for all.”

“The doctor’s method?” Laura asked.

“Needs a monster for it to work. Even then it is only a vector pointing in a direction, no distance. Inside a city it is too easy to hide,” I explained.

“What about the trade?” Clarissa asked.

“I leave that to all of you. In fact, the Ritualist is no longer my immediate priority,” I said. There were looks of shock at that. It had been something I had been thinking about. “I will fight him if he attacks, but I can’t win. Instead, I will be focused on the research aspect and grinding even more.”

“So, you are letting us decide if we should trade?” Bob asked.

“Yes. Since you will be the ones at risk. Trade to make peace, or don’t trade and create barriers. Regardless, I can’t do anything about him right now. So, I am just not going to deal with it.” It was a waste of energy and frustrating.

“Very well, we have time to think about it,” Clarissa said. “What should we tell the populace?”

“The truth. I can’t win, the Ritualist can’t win. So, things have reached a stalemate for now. If people want to live, they should increase their strength and grind,” I said.

“Very well. Then there is the issue of a funeral. We have something planned for later today. We were hoping you could say a few words,” Clarissa said.

“That is fine. What else?” I asked.

“The city of Truth reached out and asked us to back off the skill point dungeons. There has been no confrontation, but they are threating to fight our teams if we don’t leave,” Clarissa said and then looked pensive.

“What is it?” I asked.

“They have captured Tom.” Ah, so that is where he ended up. “They are offering him back if we agree.”

“He can die for all I care, but the risk to the teams. Laura?” I asked.

“Large. The risk of ambush is high. We can’t remove them?” She asked and I looked at Naran who let out a long sigh and shook his head.

“No. They know what they are doing. It is the same problem we have with the Ritualist just on a smaller scale. It is impossible to track people down within a city,” Naran explained. I nodded at that.

“We have secured and repaired the entrances, but we can’t hold against a determined attacker,” Gerold said. I looked at him and he stared right back at me.

“I don’t want troublemakers here in Purgatory. Make sure the guards screen everyone. Run tests. No masks, no disguises. No exceptions. That brings up the next issue, Ruth or Nox. She allied with the Ritualist to attack us. Any news?” No one spoke up. I looked at Clarissa who pursed her lips.

“She has vanished. But our information network into other cities is limited at the moment.”

“Unacceptable!” I slapped my palm down on the table with a smack and everyone jumped in their seats a bit. “A level 3 skill for information leading to her location. Bad information will be punished by torture and death. Spread the word. I want her dead. If I can’t kill the Ritualist, she is going to die.”

“I will make sure I get the news out,” Bob said. I nodded at him. I knew he was kissing my ass, but I didn’t care. I wanted this to happen, and it was going to happen. Her head was going into a jar, and I was going to keep that jar a memento to look at whenever I started to feel overly sentimental.

“The issue with Truth, what is our response?” Laura asked. I thought over the issue. There was no good answer.

“Did they come here, or speak with a team at a dungeon?” I asked.

“They spoke with a team entering Truth to use the store,” Laura said. They didn’t want to leave, but an ambush was still a risk.

“We take the skill points at the at the start of the reset. Treat the city as hostile going forward. Move in with force, maybe double teams for each dungeon?” I looked at Laura.

“It is possible, but my people aren’t ready to fight other people,” Laura said. I frowned at that.

“Then get them ready. We are also in a state of war with Truth. We can’t lose those dungeons. Skills are the quickest way to get people up to speed to kill level 2 monsters and beyond. Skill points are critical. If we aren’t grabbing them someone else is. President Bob, how are the efforts going with grinding organization?” I asked.

“Right now, there are no issues, due to the lack of people after the last two battles. I have been working with Garret, Laura’s assistant to create a process for people, where they move. We have people starting out in the slime area, then on the next arrival they rotate out to the wolves.”

“That way they get too full arrivals to grind up level 1 monsters. After that they will be pushed out to grind level 2 monsters. People who were there before will form up teams. We will auction off dungeon slots for skills and then people will move to the Union.” He looked at Laura who picked up where he left off.

“The idea is to create something sustainable long term. The big bottleneck will be surrounding level 2 areas. Don’t have a good idea on attrition rate yet. But we should be good for another 1,000 days. The big issue is after that. While the Union will take teams on, we will be tightening up our requirements.”

“How exactly are you tightening up requirements?” I asked out of curiosity.

“At least 200 stats for all members of a team. That is about 120,000 points. With the tax back at 25% and 10% for level 1 and 2 crystals respectively, and other equipment, they would need to grind up 200,000 points or so. They get 20 days in the level 1 zone, then they will spend about 80 days in a level 2 zone.” She then turned to Gerold who took over.

“After that, they can take a position in the RMPF, start a business, or work to form up a Union team. There is a focus on group training, attacking and moving both in units and squads. Also, Mind has to be at least 50.”

“We found after reviewing the after-action reports, this is the point where people weren’t overwhelmed by mental attacks from level 1 and 2 monsters. More is better of course, but I want all my people to not be incapacitated so easily.”

I wanted to scream hallelujah. I was seriously starting to think all these people were NPCs, then they go and get their act together. This was exactly the kind of forward thinking I wanted to see. I guess hundreds of people dying was enough to get people motivated to figure things out.

“Good job everyone for working together on this. This is exactly the kind of thinking this place needs. Any projections on where we will be in terms of forces in the future?” I asked.

Gerold spoke up. “The goal is to bring the RMPF up to 1,000 people with at least 200 stats each. Realistically, we are looking at day 500 to hit that number.” That was about 170 days away. “It is a long time, but with attrition, people wanting to stay out there grinding, and people opening businesses, or even just retiring that is the timeframe we are looking at.”

Clarissa spoke up now. “We can’t increase our strength any faster. It comes down to the issue of points and creating a sustainable process.”

“Until then, I am guessing we are severely understrength?” I asked Clarissa.

“Yes. There are two other options.” She looked at Gerold who spoke up.

“We need more people with the Radiant Beam skill. We can’t get the skill, we need your help. If we had four people with that skill, we can cover each gate.,” Gerold said.

“Fine. Pick a person. Draw up a contract. They can pay back the debt, Clarissa can work out the details. When I leave, they can come with me and then return with someone else. Any more people will have to work it out once I return,” I said.

“I will handle things with General Gerold,” Clarissa said.

“Purchasing a city upgrade if you aren’t present,” Clarissa said. I closed my eyes and thought on that.

“The repairs, how did that work for the city gates?” I asked. Was I missing something?

“The same as any other building that one has permissions for. Had to pay points for the repairs,” Clarissa said. I guess there wasn’t anything special.

“Purchase the buildings. Name me as heir. Give administration permissions to everyone in this room,” I said.

“Monster processing, first? Or more defensive upgrades. Once we purchased the gates, more options opened up. There is wall tower for 250k, communication stone for 250k, and energy gate for 1 million. Communication stone would be the preferred option.” Clarissa suggested.

“Monster processing regardless. I want to see the options for equipment. After that I want a focus on city structures. We have been delaying them for too long. Defensive upgrades can also wait for now. The city gates are enough.” Three times, three times the city treasury had been used up or stolen.

“No more waiting for me. Spend the points, purchase the buildings,” I said.

“Those points are what allowed us to survive the war,” Clarissa said.

“No longer. The purpose of this government is to upgrade the city and support high stat individuals. Everything else is now a secondary importance.” I looked around the table, no one objected. “What else?” I asked.

“Business loans have come up, what is our stance since we were disallowing interest before? Stick with the contracts?” Bob asked.

“Issue them if they make sense as zero interest contracts, with a set amount of repayment. People can go through your office to set up loans and get them confirmed by witnesses,” I quickly made a decision and Bob nodded.

“What else?” I asked. There was a long stretch of silence.

“That covers everything we needed to bring up, I know you wanted to speak with Doctor Katz,” Clarissa said. I nodded at that.

“Before we disperse, there is one last thing. This should be considered top secret information, not to leave this room. I found a giant tower in a level 3 zone.”