Chapter 19

Bianca - Day 10 of Landing

Population of Thornhill - 30

The meal served at our communal dinner was a combination of two options. One option, for those who couldn’t eat pork, was red snappers caught by Herman and his new fishing assistant, Clark, who had just arrived. The dish consisted of redfish steamed in a clay pot, a side of roasted wild greens, and a relish of berries. The alternative was wild boar hunted by Orion. The cook prepared the boar by roasting it whole on a spit and serving it with a stewed fruit sauce and stone-baked potatoes.

We washed it all down with filtered water, courtesy of Anika’s new filtration system, which uses charcoal and sediment. Anika, Ethan, and Orion were already working on fermenting berries and fruit into alcohol, which they said would take about a week to ferment.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Alex and his group of young adventurers trying to hide the scars they’d received from the dungeon. Despite my warnings, they kept pushing themselves further. Orion had ventured with them a few times but had become torn between his duties as a hunter and cook and dungeon diving. Alex had formed a new group with Sasha, who had left farming, a young police cadet named Cade, and one of the water boiler’s sons named Bryden.

Tensions were mounting in our small community. To clear the air, we decided to have a town meeting after dinner to address the issues most of the new arrivals had. I couldn’t bear to do the usual after-dinner motto. It just didn’t feel right.

As usual, Tiffany, a woman with bleach-blond platinum hair now showing grey roots, spoke up first. Orion had taken to calling her Karen, which I had scolded him for.

“We are tired of working our asses off for no reason. Why am I gathering seashells? We should be looking for a way to get home!” Tiffany barked, looking at the rest of the villagers at the town meeting for support.

A few nods and statements of general agreement came from the group, mostly from the new arrivals. Orion had been calling them the classless or newbies, which I also scolded him for.

“Seashells can be used to make lime, and they can also fertilize the crops,” Anika explained in a calm voice.

“Just get that rock golem to do it,” Tiffany said to more signs of approval.

“Slate can’t be everywhere at once. He can’t do all the work for us,” I explained trying my best not to sound upset but understanding. “We all need to pitch in to build this place up. You all want more shelters, right? So you don’t have to sleep right next to each other? If you’re willing to help build shelters, we can get Slate to do other things.”

“I’m sorry. Who died and made you boss? I thought we lived in America, the land of democracy. I don’t remember voting for you,” Larry, a corporate executive in a stained suit, spoke up. Orion had taken to calling him rich bozo, which I also scolded him for.

“Show Bianca some respect,” Herman said with authority. “If it weren’t for her and her golem, you’d be sleeping out in the cold.”

“Listen, buddy, I didn’t choose to be here, alright? All of us just want to get home to our real lives,” Larry cried, anger and frustration plain on his throbbing bald pate.

“There is no going home,” Orion sighed. “When will you people learn that? The sooner you get to work, the more comfortable your life will be. You want better food? Work. You want someone to fix your clothes? Work. You want a better place to sleep at night? Work. If you can’t work, you might as well just kill yourselves now. There is no going back.”

I glared at Orion. There were ways of saying things, but that wasn’t one of them. He brushed me off when he met my glance.

“Then how come some of our strongest people are going to this... dungeon thing?” A woman named Ruth pointed at the four adventurers who had kept silent, now looking embarrassed. “They tell us they will bring back stuff, but all they bring back are these useless weapons and armor they keep to themselves.”

“H-hey. That hammer and axe we found were useful. Slate uses them all the time,” Alex defended himself.

“My boy keeps getting himself into danger instead of helping us here,” Ruth said, pointing at her son, who had his head down trying to hide himself. “I want you to close that damn dungeon and order those kids to stop going there.”

“Mom, please. We need to level. Once we level, we’ll be stronger and can get better loot,” Bryden said sheepishly.

“Loot, loot, loot. That's all I hear. This isn’t a video game! You should be studying or helping out, young man,” Ruth said, glaring at the youth.

Arguments broke out as the young adventurers started shouting “Studying?!” over Ruth and Tiffany’s scolding heckles, sounding like mothers lecturing their children loudly at a grocery store while others watched awkwardly from a distance.

“Bianca, we understand, but most of us aren’t used to this kind of work,” Gladys, a flight attendant and one of Orion’s helpers said in a patient tone. She was another cook who didn’t have her class card. “We need a break or some limits. Some of us aren’t young.”

A chorus of agreement went through the group, and I spoke up, “I’ll see about getting you a break. I think we can rotate breaks so that a few of us can be working while others get a rest, okay?”

Orion was shaking his head profusely, gritted teeth on his tired face and his muscles tightened on his crossed arms every time one of the new people spoke. I tried to ignore his intense glare of disapproval.

“I know things are tough. I’ve been there. We aren’t asking you to build us Paris overnight, but if we all try our best and work together, we can make this place more bearable. I know it sucks, but together we can pull through this.” My hands clenched together as I pleaded with the crowd.

The newcomers looked doubtful but eventually showed signs of hearing me and went their own ways, each taking a torch or lantern and going to their various shelters.

When they left, Orion, Ethan, Herman, Anika, and I gathered for our own meeting. It was an unofficial council, as the others called it. I hated that name, along with Queen B, which I overheard someone say. We didn’t want to be the ones to decide what to do, but it had kind of fallen to us to guide the group as we were the veterans in this place and the ones with classes.

“Any new classes pop up?” I asked, and they shook their heads in disappointment, except for Orion.

“One of the dungeon people got a class,” Orion said. “Guard class. I forgot his name... You know, that huge black guy who is in the group. His skill is Hometown Advantage. He is stronger and faster whenever in located in his city. Whatever that means.”

“A fighter class,” I sighed. “We need a farmer, a blacksmith, or a carpenter. Why aren’t more classes appearing?”

“People might be hiding their classes. They don’t want to get pigeonholed into doing something over and over,” Ethan said, and we all watched him in concern. “Oh, not me. I’m fine with being a doctor. Err... over here, at least.”

“I think I know of another one, but since they won’t reveal it themselves and are working hard, I suppose they have their reasons,” Orion looked as though he hadn’t slept for days, with dark bags under his eyes. Between his responsibilities with Cass, his job around the camp, and his ambition of going further in the dungeon, he was stretched thin.

“We have to do something about morale. People are straight up just not working. We can’t keep up with the demand for soap, and our supply of salt and string is running low. Pots and tools keep on disappearing. Our freshwater pots are nearly always empty. If Slate weren’t here, we’d be lost,” Anika reported trying to straighten out her long black hair, a habit I knew she did whenever she was stressed.

“It’s different for them. They come here, and everything is handed to them. They have shelter and food given to them. There was no desperation for them like there was for us,” Orion commented. “I think we ought to give up on the farms and focus on the hunter-gatherer phase.”

“But... I thought farming was important,” I said, remembering our discussions about starting the farms.

“It is, but between the amount of selective breeding and fertilizers we need to get our crops to the level they are in the real world, the yield might not be great, especially with no pesticides. Not to mention the harvest is going to need all hands on deck. We don’t even have a plow animal yet. It’s a lot of work, even with...” Orion kept quiet as though he was about to reveal something that I suspected he knew---one of the farmers had their class, either James or Samar.

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“How are we going to manage calories then? Herman and you can’t simply fish and hunt for everything. According to the stewardesses, there were over fifty people on that flight, not counting the two pilots and two staff.” Anika asked.

“We’ll need to make salt and nets. The shoals here are rich like the schools of Atlantic cod described before the Europeans arrived in America. We can use the salt to smoke and dry the fish to build up a supply. We need more people fishing,” Orion said.

“Fish alone is a poor diet. It’ll cause scurvy,” Ethan said. “That’s why I suggested planting potatoes. They aren’t great in vitamin C but better than nothing.”

“It was a good idea. Plus, they can store well. England and Ireland sustained themselves on potatoes and fish when times were tough,” Anika said.

“You serve fish and potatoes all day, and people are bound to mutiny,” Herman said with a sad smile. “People don’t need a reason to survive; they need a reason to live.”

A silence fell over the group as though they had no other suggestions for that. We all knew we were on thin ice. Right now we were just barely meeting the first level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

“I think some people have used bones to make dice. Might be good for one of us to make chess and checker pieces and boards. Heck, we have magic cards. We should find a way to make a deck of playing cards,” Ethan suggested.

“How are we going to get people to work, though?” I asked.

“Exile,” Orion stated blankly without an ounce of emotion. “Get them the hell out of here. When they come back begging, they’ll be ready to work.”

“What?! No! That’s way too harsh,” I was baffled he would even suggest that.

“We’re already threatening to take away food, but it’s not working,” Anika said glumly. “Unless we can get a monetary system, people don’t like working for free.”

“What can we even use for currency?” Ethan asked.

“Well... there are those dungeon coins,” I suggested.

“That gives too much power to the dungeon divers. It will encourage people to dive into the dungeon rather than do work out here,” Orion said.

“We have to set up a paperless credit system. You do work, you get credit,” Anika suggested.

“What about the people who can’t work, like the very young and old?” Herman asked.

“We’ll adjust the credit system for those with dependents like the tax code. As for the old, they can look after the children. We might have to think about schooling for them; the old and infirm can teach and babysit. They’ll get credit that way,” Anika suggested.

“It won’t make sense for one of us to be in charge of the credit system. If we sign our paychecks and decide who gets to eat and not based on our rating of them, we are pretty much dictators,” I said, shaking my head.

“Is that such a bad thing?” Orion shrugged. He stared intently at one of the shelters being chinked by Slate. “Without someone with a clear long-term direction, this village will quickly descend into anarchy. If we ruled by democracy, nobody would want to work. Everyone will just lay in their shelters or go dungeon diving.”

“Rye, you forget we are Americans? Half of these people only just arrived, and we are telling them to live like communists. I don’t want to be a Stalin or a Hitler,” I said.

“Then don’t be. Be Lee Kuan Yew,” Orion said.

“Who?” I asked, not recognizing the name. “Anyways, you aren’t going to convince people to live in a dictatorship or some communist regime.”

“Wait, I thought we were an autonomous collective,” Ethan joked, and Orion covered his mouth with the back of his hand in a laugh.

“Even if you wanted to be some tin-pot dictator, you need strength to enforce policy. With no consequences for their actions, these folks will do what they please. You can threaten them, but your words will carry no weight if you don’t have any power behind them,” Herman said, stroking his gray beard and looking contemplatively at the alien night sky.

“Herman, you can’t be taking our dictatorship talk seriously now,” I scoffed.

“This is life and death, Bianca. Even in the United States, we have martial law to keep order in life-and-death emergencies, and an emergency is brewing, that’s for damn sure,” Herman said sagely. “I’m an old man... I can’t feed all these people. I can maybe catch four fish a day, and that’s WITH my ability. Clark has been following me and learning, but he ain’t got all those voodoo cards yet, so he ain’t going to catch much. People are one day away from me getting a bad cough from starving or having to ration.”

“If I see someone not working, we’re not feeding them. It’s just that simple,” Orion gritted his teeth at the fact that we had to rely on Herman to feed the group.

“Yeah, and how will you enforce that, Orion?” Herman asked, laughing softly.

Orion had a look of malice as he brandished his ivory-gripped knife, the moonlight reflecting off it and giving it a surreal glow.

“Oh please, Rye, just a couple of weeks ago you were probably sitting at home playing video games. You aren’t going to use that thing,” I said, rubbing my head in frustration at the insanity of this conversation.

“I won’t hurt anyone, just threaten them. No work, no food,” Orion said.

“You guys don’t understand how hard it is for them. You’ve been here longer. They miss their families. They are used to living in air-conditioned rooms and using computers to order what they want. Just please. I don’t want to do that to them. I know you guys worked hard to bring food, and you are tired of doing most of the work, but give them some time,” I begged.

This all had gotten out of hand. Everyone was so angry. This was just too much. I didn’t feel like I could handle it; my stomach was in knots.

Everyone around this so-called “council” had no more words. We all were staring at different places, all feeling tired and bitter. All feeling too inept for the job of leading. All tired of talk.

None of us ask for this position. We were never ready to tell people what to do.

“I’m going to work on my distillation apparatus,” Anika let out a deep therapeutic breath. “Lots to do. I’ll catch you all tomorrow.”

“I have to clean some gut strings for thread and check on Alex’s sutures,” Ethan nodded, smiled faintly, and took his leave.

“Son, can I talk to you?” Herman directed at Orion, and the old fisherman and the cook went their ways, walking towards the river.

Probably organizing a coup. Good, someone like Herman or Orion should be in charge.

I wandered uphill carrying a torch until I found a cliff. It was a trail I knew well. Below the cliff on the far horizon, I could see the lights of the shelter at the beach and the kilns firing nonstop. This was a place where I came to a lot when I was overwhelmed. It was all too much. Tears streaked down my face, blurring my vision. I knelt, covering my face and mouth with my hands, and I screamed at the top of my lungs into my palms, my nails digging into my forehead.

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The next day things would only get worse. I was working on upgrading my Pottery Skill to 5 and was putting the finishing touches on some terracotta lamps ready to be fired. Slate had been assigned to build an animal pen while Marek had the day off to spend with his family and plan out his own house.

According to the hourglass, the time was around 5:00 pm when the dungeon team arrived back. Three of them, Alex, Sasha, and Cade, were carrying the body of Bryden. Bryden had been a sixteen-year-old boy with dreams of making it in the dungeon. Now his body was strewn with long cuts that looked to be made by several tigers. Ethan, our doctor, and Bryden’s mother, Ruth, rushed over to the scene, the mother wailing “Bryden!” as Ethan rushed over to monitor his heart and do chest compressions on the unconscious bloody boy, the boy’s dungeon companions holding the inconsolable mother back.

“What the hell happened!” I asked as I came over, directly giving a glare to Alex, whose face was red but otherwise unharmed, his leather plate covered in gore and blood of others.

“It wasn’t my fault. We got separated,” Alex said. “When we came to his rescue, he was surrounded by gremlins. I swear we were careful. We were only farming level two.”

“Where the hell is Rye? I thought he went with you,” I asked.

“He’s still in there. We got separated, and like Alex said, we had to leave him behind. Bryden just lost too much blood,” Cade, the young black dungeon diver, explained. The guard’s legs were shaking while he held onto his bronze spear for support. All of them looked shaken as if they were overrun by enemies.

Panic-stricken, I pulled out my card and checked the Dungeon card, which I was an owner of.

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Thornhill Dungeon Status: Open

Current Occupants of Dungeon:

None

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My heart skipped a beat when I saw Orion wasn’t in the dungeon anymore, and my thoughts turned to a worst-case scenario. Hopefully, he was fine and got out. I clicked on the card, intending to close the dungeon.

“No more, Alex. I warned you,” I said coldly.

Alex started to argue, but Ethan, who had stopped doing chest compressions and given up his attempt to resuscitate Bryden, shook his head despondently, cutting off any attempts at a debate.

Ethan came over to the mother and said in a soft, wilting voice, “I’m sorry I couldn’t save him. He... just lost too much blood.”

“This is all your fault,” Ruth pointed at Alex and then at me, “You and you other stupid kids! Playing your games! THIS ISN’T A GAME. THIS IS MY SON! MY SON!”

Ruth held her son’s body staining her clothes with his blood, crying uncontrollably while more folks gathered around. Wails of “my son” and “all their fault” echoed throughout the base, and people stood around realizing the finality of their mortality in this world. There was no coming back. No waking up. This was their lives now, and one more was gone from it.

We had a small service for Bryden as Slate dug up a grave for the boy and we marked his grave with a wooden cross. No coffin; we simply couldn’t afford to spare the lumber or the time to make it. Orion came back before the service started with an apologetic look. Ruth was too upset and angry to speak at the small service, so Herman said a few words instead; he looked and sounded like he had given many eulogies in his long service career.

The whole thing didn't feel real at all. I just wanted to hide during the entire ordeal.

Orion said it was for the best when I broke the news that I would close the dungeon and apologized for everything.

The next day, the first death in Thornville still haunted the community. I wanted so badly to run away from my responsibilities and have someone else take over.

I should have been more careful about what I wished for.