Loading up into the vehicles took about half an hour between making sure everyone used the bathroom and was on the correct transport. Finally ready to take off, the team slowly began moving their procession forward.

"I just don't see why we can't stop at the steak house again. It was fine last time, we just need seating for five hundred." James complained as they pulled onto the highway.

"We told you, they won't have enough seating and likely won't have enough meat for all of us plus the others who go regularly," Derek replied. "We can always come back some other time."

"Ugh! Fine, but I want a steak when we get back to Dallas," James warned Derek with a single finger extended.

"We'll see what they have. You'll eat what they make and you'll like it, or you'll be on bathroom cleaning duty for a month." Derek retorted.

"You wouldn't dare!" James gasped.

"Try me," Derek said coldly.

Both stared at each other for a long moment, James finally looked away.

"Wise choice," Derek grinned wickedly at his triumph.

"Only because I don't want to clean toilets," James grumbled as he leaned against the window putting his chin on a hand as he sulked.

The parade of vehicles moving down the highway continued on late into the night. Goblins apparently didn't set up their barricades at night, as was evidenced by seeing them pulled off to the sides of the road in several places. This was valuable information to know if people needed to travel and wanted to avoid them. Tom agreed with Jay though, that this was stupid as they were missing out on some great XP and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Jay even whined a little every time they passed a set of barricades on the side of the road.

"We could have been smashing those fuckers to pieces, but instead we are driving at night because we had to accept every human being that has ever been to join us," Jay grumbled to himself after passing yet another barricade.

"Oh, come on, Jay. You know you don't feel that way and wouldn't have turned them away either." Tom said, leaning back in the passenger seat again.

Jay continued to grumble for a long time all of his words incoherent in his attempt to keep Tom from hearing what he was really thinking. He finally let out a long sigh.

"You're right. But I don't like it. And I don't think that even though I would have done the same thing, necessarily makes it the smartest choice." Jay said, trying to express his feelings on this.

"Right. It makes terrible actual self-preservation sense. We could move as fast or slow as we needed alone. But that isn't what we are about." Tom explained.

"I know, it's just not something I ever thought I'd be doing. I always looked out for myself with most people. Because most people are bastards." Jay began. "But now that terrible things are happening to people who probably didn't deserve it, I can't help but feel like I have to help them."

"It's a terrible burden, my friend. But it's the right thing to do. Even if it never pays off." Tom replied, a sad smile on his face.

"That...is really depressing man!" Jay groaned. "Why would you go and explain it that way? That would make me far less likely to want to do it."

"Because I'm not sugarcoating anything any more. When we lived in that incredibly PC world you had to say the right thing to everyone. Now that it's fight or flight, kill or be killed, I'm not going to tell people what they want to hear." Tom explained, laying his cards out on the table for his friend.

"Well, I do appreciate that. I hate playing a game of bullshit the bullshitter when it comes to people telling me what I need to know." Jay gave in and finally admitted.

"Yeah, and deciding to be this way has been very stress relieving. You were right about sharing this load and not keeping it all to myself. I appreciate you all saying something about it." Tom graciously bowed his head to his teammates.

"We're just glad you listened and realized it. It's always messy when someone doesn't listen." DeeDee added from the back of the vehicle.

"What's that mean?" Tom asked, now concerned about what could have happened.

"Oh, when people are flailing like that and don't reach out for help, they usually implode and get fired. I guess the translation here would be removed as guild leader? Or you get people killed?" DeeDee continued nonchalantly.

"Wow, I see now why you were a little flustered with the completely honest truth," Tom said turning to Jay.

"You can be honest without being a jerk," DeeDee interjected.

"I get your point. I'll still try to be tactful...sometimes," Tom reluctantly agreed.

Continuing in much the same way until late morning, the team finally reached the border of Decatur. Letting out a collective sigh of relief when they reached the arm gates that were set up still at the edge of town. The guard on duty leaned out to see how far the line of vehicles went and had to remove his sunglasses and squint to see the end. Jay rolled down the driver's side window and leaned an arm on the window ledge.

"Good morning," Jay said cheerfully.

"Uh...good morning," The guard replied in confusion. "Are all of these vehicles together? And are you all planning to stay in town?"

"Yes, they are all together, and yes we want to stay in town, but not like permanently or anything. Just a short time. Like a day or two. Tops. Probably, I mean if that's okay and all..." Jay rambled on as he looked nervously at the guard.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Uh, huh. Alright, I just need to make a quick call." The officer stepped into the booth that held up the arm gate.

Returning just a minute later he looked in the window and asked, "Who are you again?"

"Tell whoever it is, that it's Tom. The team the Seth went with." Tom leaned forward and called to the guard.

"Oh! Tom! It's you guys!" The guard suddenly realized who he was talking to. "I'll let them know!"

Walking back into the booth, the guard was on the phone for several minutes looking at the phone, then back at Tom's group, then back to the phone, then back to Tom's group as he made a few hand gestures then tried to count how many vehicles there were before giving up. When he did hang up the phone he walked back to the vehicle.

"Okay, this is a lot of people," The guard began.

"I know, and I'm sorry to be bringing so many. But we are on our way back to Dallas and are just passing through, so we just need a place to park the vehicles and we can handle the rest." Tom butted in to try to explain.

"What? Oh, no it's nothing like that. I was just going to tell you that you'll need to stay at the hotel on the other side of the courthouse because the one you stayed in last time doesn't have as many rooms. Now go on in and meet up with the mayor at the courthouse." The guard replied with a big smile as he raised the arm of the gate.

"Oh...well, thank you, sir. We will meet up with them." Tom stammered as Jay let off the brake while making long weird eye contact with the guard.

"Smooth move ex-lax," James teased Tom.

"I didn't see you jumping in to tell them what was going on," Tom replied with a bite in his voice.

"Easy there killer, just having a bit of fun," James said in a British accent.

"Sorry, just feeling stupid," Tom apologized to James.

"Yeah, we all saw. Anyway, let's get there so we can get out of this vehicle. I think my ass is asleep." James complained.

"Don't make me turn this car around. We will go right back to where we were." Jay mocked being a parent.

Driving down the road to the courthouse only took about fifteen minutes and once they arrived the mayor was already standing out front of the courthouse and guards were standing by to show everyone where to park. An entire lot had been cleared for just the buses so they didn't have to worry about parking in small spots next to average-sized vehicles.

Once parked, everyone exited the vehicles to stretch and look at their surroundings. John walked over to them and shook Tom's hand.

"Tom," John said shaking firmly.

"Mr. Mayor," Tom teased, shaking firmly as well.

"None of that Mr. Mayor crap. Just call me John." The mayor replied, shaking his head at Tom's antics.

"So how has it been going here, John?" Tom asked.

"We have been very busy, but things have gone well. With your guidance, everyone has found a class and is working to get stronger. We have been fortunate not to have any more large creature attacks, but we are out preparing for that eventuality. Fighters are training hard to raise their levels to be better." John explained. "Where is Seth? I was looking forward to seeing him again."

Tom's eyes dropped, and his mood darkened. Sadness hit him like a truck. "Oh, um...about Seth..." Tom began but started to get a little choked up.

"Oh, I see..." John tried to reply but also cut off.

"We tried to save him, but he was gone too fast. He died defending one of us from the monster that was causing all the System's problems." Tom tried to explain, but he just felt like they were hollow excuses.

"I'm glad to hear he went heroically," John said, and he reached out and put a hand on Tom's shoulder.

"Do not worry that we will blame you. You came here and saved all of us. Sure we loved Seth and would have liked for him to stay, but you all were right. It took losing our protector to make everyone see the light of the situation we were in. For that we are grateful." John tried to relieve Tom's worry. "Seth was an adult capable of making his own decisions. I know that he would be proud to say that he was defending a friend."

"I'm so sorry John..." Tom tried to apologize again, but John silenced him with a raised hand.

"Don't go down that road. It leads to madness and grief. You have to stay strong and resolute for those that follow you. You came back here, even though you could likely have avoided us forever to give us news of what happened. You are a good person, Tom. Don't change that." John spoke looking into Tom's eyes as if he was trying to make him believe the words mentally as much as verbally.

"Thanks, John. I appreciate the wisdom. I'll try not to sink into that logic." Tom replied, feeling an immense relief that the people were not going to blame him for the loss of Seth.

"Let's go to where you will be staying so you can get these people settled, then we can talk in the courthouse about what happened." John offered, turning to extend an arm in the direction of the hotel.

They followed him to the hotel where several of the town's people had gathered to work to ensure everyone had rooms. Queueing up for room assignments, the hotel staff were very efficient in getting people what they needed which included a set of clean sheets, pillows, and blankets for the beds.

"We raided the town Bed Bath & Beyond, so we have a ton of bedding," John explained to Tom when he was looking curiously at the amount of bedding they had available.

"That is a really great idea. I'll have to use that in Dallas if they haven't thought of it already back at the guild building." Tom replied making a mental note to ask Brian about it.

Once everyone had been settled into their rooms, the team that had been at the Grand Canyon went to set up in the lobby.

"What are you all doing?" The woman at the check-in counter asked the group.

"We are setting up. This place must be full now." Tom explained confused by the question.

"Oh, no it's not. We reserved rooms for your entire team. We would have put people up in a different hotel before giving yours away. Here, take these keys and you'll find your rooms on the top floor." The woman explained smiling at them.

"Which rooms on the top floor?" Tom asked curious about the numbering.

"All of them. You can each have your own room or you can share, whichever you want." The woman continued, pressing the keys into Tom's hands.

Tom was speechless for a moment, then he remembered himself and thanked her for the kind gesture.

"We also have the water working here again. It's not hot, but it's a shower." She explained as she ushered them to the stairs. "Soap and shampoo are on the sinks. Hint hint, use both."

"Yeah, yeah, we get it, we stink. You'd stink too if you had to camp out all the time and fight monsters to save the world." James complained as he started walking up the stairs.

Once they reached the top floor, Tom handed out keys to just about everyone. The only people who chose to bunk up were DeeDee and Graham, as the only married couple present, and Clay and James, because crazy loves company.

Inside the rooms were spacious and had either a king-sized bed or two queens. The bathrooms were pre-lit with some kind of magic light that was stuck to the walls. It appeared to be a good alternative to electricity, but not a full solution. The rooms were still pretty dark, but as long as the bathroom doors were left open, enough light was let out to see by.

Tom took the first shower that he had taken in over a week. Scrubbing himself nearly raw to try to get off the caked-on filth, including blood, that he had been living in. After this exfoliation, Tom found himself just lying on the bed in nothing but a towel, staring up at the ceiling with the greatest feeling of contentment he had felt in a long time. At that moment, there were no worries, there was no world, there was just a darkened room with soft bedding.

Tom pulled a set of clothes out of his inventory to put on, an climbed into the bed. Lying under the sheets in the quiet of that moment, Tom fell asleep, finally feeling a bit of peace.