After about ten more minutes, the rest of the travelers came to the gym and patiently awaited what would come next. Tom and his team stood at the half-court mark with the same mic and speakers set up again. Moving to the mic, Tom spoke to the assembled people.

"Hello. Thank you for coming. I know this has been a long journey in getting here and many of you uprooted your entire lives to come here and I want to say thank you for putting your trust in us." Tom began awkwardly. "But this is just the first of many hard steps to surviving in this world. You will face dangers around every corner and we can't guarantee everyone's safety. I know that's not what you want to hear, but I want to make sure I say it."

The crowd went eerily silent and began looking at each other.

"I do, however, promise that if you strive to do your best to help make the guild work, that we will protect you to the best of our ability. Some of you will be fighters helping with that as well at times, but others will be putting your skills to use in keeping the day-to-day life running smoothly." Tom continued trying to make eye contact with as many of them as he could. "We also require that everyone work on getting stronger and building skills to help out. So we will work with you to hone yourself into the best version of whatever you excel at."

"So we have to go out and fight monsters?" One man asked, standing up so they could see who spoke.

"Yes. But you will be placed in a team with people who have been doing this for a while. We would never send people out to slaughter without making sure we took every precaution to ensure you are safe. But it's the fastest way to make sure you are strong enough to survive this new world." Tom explained.

Sitting back down, the man seemed satisfied with the answer.

"Now, I know you all will have many questions, and we will make sure we answer them all, but this isn't the forum for questions right now. This is to give you a basic understanding of what we will be doing and what is expected of everyone and to welcome you all to the guild." Tom went on, ignoring several raised hands.

Tom went over a few more rules and objectives of the guild before finishing with an introduction.

"And now I'd like to introduce you to your guild liaison. And she has no idea I'm doing this so come on up here Sarah!" Tom said motioning for her to join them at the mic.

A look of shock came to Sarah's face as she slowly stood up confused about what was happening. She walked to the circle at half-court and sheepishly waved at the crowd.

"We all know Sarah worked to get you all organized and here, so I thought it prudent to put her in charge of helping get you integrated into the team," Tom explained as Sarah began to get her confidence. "Thank you all for trusting us and being willing to help out to make survival better here. If you need anything ask and we will do what we can to help you."

Tom stepped away from the microphone to a moderate amount of applause. He knew that people would be feeling mixed emotions when faced with what they would want them to do, but it had to be said. Guild membership wasn't mandatory, but they needed to know what would be needed if they wanted to stay.

"Why didn't you tell me you were going to do that? What if I didn't want to be a liaison?" Sarah hissed at him after the meeting broke up.

"Sorry, but I need your skills and knowledge in that area. Would you have actually said no if I had asked and explained why I want you to do that?" Tom asked staring at her for a moment in expectation.

"Well...no. I would have said yes." Sarah admitted begrudgingly.

"See, I knew you would. You were going to join no matter what or you wouldn't have come. So putting you there made the most sense." Tom smiled as he replied. "Sorry it was a surprise. Not sorry for doing it."

Sarah rolled her eyes but accepted the position. With that out of the way, Tom and his team excused themselves and went to their rooms for the night to rest. Falling into bed, Tom was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow. Finally able to let all his defenses down in a familiar place.

The next morning after another shower because it felt so damn good, and breakfast, Tom made his way up to the conference room they had become accustomed to meeting with Brian in. Most everyone else was already there. All the major members of the guild were present and ready to help give him a rundown of what had been happening.

"Thanks for coming, Tom. This is not going to be a fun meeting and is going to take a while, but we are ecstatic you are back to be able to fill you in." Brian began.

"I'm super happy to be back. We really missed this place out there." Tom said, dropping into a chair and pulling himself up to the table.

"We truly appreciate what you did. Bob here filled us in on what was happening at the Grand Canyon, but we would like to hear about the rest of your journey." Brian thanked him and gestured for him to take the floor.

Tom told the story of everything that had happened on their journey. Many were worried when he got to the cult portion of his story, but were happy to hear that had been dealt with. When he got to the part where they lost Seth, he had to take a moment to compose himself before he could continue. Finishing with the most recent set of events, Tom looked around the room at the people present.

"Wow. That's a lot. I don't think any of us would have been able to do all of that." Brian said looking to others who were all nodding in agreement. "I mean holy shit dude. But again, we are glad you are back safely. We haven't been idle by any means, though our story isn't nearly as exciting as yours. Let me start with the obvious. Electricity. Herbert, would you like to explain?"

"Sure. We have put some items in place that we were able to scrounge together from scrap around the city to build mana collectors as well as a mana battery. Then we used some of our skills to help figure out a way to convert mana into a system that could power the extremely large generators in the basement that power the building." Herbert began.

"We heard something about that. How does it actually work? Does the system convert the mana to power for the generators?" Tom asked.

"No, it's nothing like that. We would just hook the power up to the batteries if that was the case. We were able to create a machine that ran solely on mana as a prototype. Then we simply took that idea and modified it into a machine that essentially runs the generator. So the machine that runs on mana turns the electromagnetic armature in the generators we already had and creates the energy without the need for fuel. The armature rotating inside a stationary magnetic field is what creates the electrical current through copper wiring that can power the building." Herbert explained.

"So, you're saying the hardest part was making a machine that runs on mana?" Tom asked.

"Pretty much. Once we figured that out, we could just fashion parts to connect the new machine to the generator and voila." Herbert smiled as he explained this, clearly proud of what he had accomplished.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Excellent work, Herbert! I'm excited you managed to figure that out." Tom congratulated him.

"Unfortunately, this breakthrough seems to have seriously pissed Shandra off," Brian interrupted. "So we have a bit of a target on our back. We offered to teach her how we did it, but she seems to only want the people who made the changes for herself. She's incredibly unreasonable."

"Fuck. Alright. What else have we done?" Tom asked, still slightly distracted by what that meant for their safety.

"We have figured out that as long as the people who work in farming have a specific spell that they cast on the crops every day, their growth is sped up. We have taken the traditional three-month growing time of most crops and reduced it to a little less than ten percent of the time which means we have a harvest once a week." Andrea explained excitedly.

"That's incredible! What about meat? Do we have enough of that?" Tom inquired.

"We have been short on meat. People have been bringing back what they hunt, but it's not nearly enough. We need to look for a much more sustainable resource for that." Andrea admitted glumly. "We'd like to start finding a way to keep livestock, but we haven't been able to find the space."

"So what are our options?" Tom asked leaning back in his chair to contemplate the problem.

"We can expand our barrier to allow for creatures to be kept there, but that would be extremely difficult for the amount of space we would need, we could find another location, or we could try to expand and put them inside our current building." Brian offered as solutions.

"Inside? Like here roaming around with us?" Tom asked feeling that was not a great option.

"No. More like spending points on building upgrades and expanding the basement to house them." Brian countered.

"We can do that?" Tom asked, sitting up at the idea of making changes like that.

"Technically. It's an option we could use and then build something to house them in the new space." Brian continued, looking at menus as his eyes unfocused. "We can expand any part of the guild building with points. It's costly, but it would be far easier than trying to take on a construction project of that size and complexity."

"Great! Let's do that. But where do we get farm animals?" Tom asked after choosing that idea as the best option.

"We can find some. Just need to go out and get them from some kind of farm. This is Texas, it shouldn't be too hard to find some." Andrea said.

"Perfect. What else?" Tom pressed forward, hoping to get through more topics.

"With the number of people you have brought, we have definitely crossed over the one thousand-person mark so we need to set up places for them all to be productive. Which means figuring out what they are good at." Brian began.

And so the meeting continued until after dark. Each person present was a specialist in something going on around the guild. They all gave reports and brought up all the progress they had made. Once they had all finished updating him on the progress, Tom's head was spinning with the amount of information. He stood up to get ready to leave when Brian stopped him.

"Oh, and Tom, one more thing. We have gotten reports of two new dungeons. I didn't want to say anything until the end so you wouldn't lose focus." Brian called to him.

"That is...actually very smart. I totally would have." Tom replied chuckling slightly at Brian's tactic.

"Yes, well, they are in different parts of the city, but you can get directions to each from TJ. He has been scouting the area and was the one to make sure that getting to them was safe." Brian explained as Tom came over to sit next to him.

"Thanks, Brian. I really appreciate you taking care of all this. We don't know where we'd be without you." Tom praised him.

"Thank you. I am happy to be of use. And I really would rather not go out and put my life on the line like you do, so it's perfect." Brian said, puffing up slightly with pride.

"Now, I have spent so much time here I need food. Did you give my team the day off? I think they earned it." Tom asked, worried that his friends would get burnt out if they kept going.

"Yes. We didn't ask anything of them so they were free to do whatever they wanted today. Go and get something to eat, check on them, and try to take some time for yourself." Brian instructed. "I can at least recognize that what you went through was taxing. Sorry for pulling you into this so soon, but we want you to be up to date so you can help us make decisions."

"Thanks. I get it. Just a lot on my plate. But I want to include the others too so they can help as well. This isn't just me running everything it's a team effort. I would fall flat on my face if I tried to do it all." Tom replied, realizing he was feeling lost about some of the items.

"I'm so glad you see it that way. Wouldn't want to be working with someone who wanted to rule." Brian commented as he shuffled some papers around on the conference table looking at notes.

Leaving Brian to what he was working on, Tom walked down to the cafeteria area to see what they were making for dinner. It appeared to be some kind of stew and as he waited in line numerous people came up to him, thanking him for his help in getting them back to Dallas safely. His embarrassment grew as children came up and hugged his leg saying thank you over and over again.

After their mothers came and shooed them off, he got his food and saw Kiera sitting at one far end of the room with a book and went to sit with her.

"Sure feels weird to be seen by so many as some kind of hero," Tom commented as he set his food down and looked out across the room.

"Yup," was all Kiera said as she continued reading, licking one finger to turn a page.

"I don't rightly feel like I did anything to deserve this," Tom continued, looking back to the table and stopping when he realized she still wasn't fully engaged in the conversation.

"You did what you thought was right. And that helped a lot of people." Kiera said, still not looking up from the book.

Pausing for a moment to see if she would get to the end of what she was doing, he continued when she licked her finger again and turned another page.

"Is it any good?" Tom asked, gesturing at the book with his spoon.

"What, this?" Kiera said turning the book over to look at the cover. "It's a book about a similar situation to us. It's a fiction that some author wrote, but it's written in a post-apocalyptic earth setting. I was hoping to get some ideas out of it." Kiera said, resuming reading.

"You mean like a zombie book?" Tom asked curious about the premise.

"No, like actually about the world ending, and everyone getting skills and such. People actually wrote about this shit and then it happened. It's obviously not our exact situation and the magic system is different, but what the hell. Figured it wouldn't hurt to see if I get any ideas." Kiera explained letting Tom look at the cover.

"Ether Collapse, by Ryan DeBruyn. Huh...I wonder if he survived the apocalypse. Maybe we could talk to him?" Tom commented looking at what appeared to be some kind of winged lion with a scorpion tail standing on a rock across from a man carrying a sword.

"Not sure. This takes place in Canada so he might be Canadian. The chances of finding him without some kind of global communication network are pretty small." Kiera commented based on what she knew from the book.

"That's pretty awesome! I hope it helps. Let me know what happens!" Tom replied excitedly.

Kiera smiled at him and then after spooning more stew into her mouth picked the book back up and continued reading. Catching the hint, Tom finished up his food and turned in his tray after disposing of the trash.

"I wonder where the trash goes now?" Tom wondered idly to himself.

Walking out of the cafeteria, Tom decided to go back to his room for now. He had a long day and was tired.

"Jerky, are you there?" Tom called.

Jerky appeared a moment later on his shoulder.

"Of course. Jerky always with Tom. Is Tom's familiar." Jerky said in his broken English.

"Awesome. Are you ready for some rest?" Tom asked the little demon.

Jerky nodded and Tom scratched him behind the horns. He pressed into it, clearly enjoying the attention, and Tom walked to his room to rest for the night, intent on getting a good night's sleep again.

Ding-ding-ding-dong

A chime sounded over the entire building and a voice came over the speakers in the guild building that had been used to give work announcements.

"Tom Harris, please report to the security center immediately. Tom Harris, please report to TJ at the security center immediately." Came the voice of TJ over the speaker.

"What on earth do they want now?" Tom complained but began to make his way down to the center.