Over the course of the last few days, their little table with a few fliers had turned into an entire corner of the camp. There was still a little table out by the main thoroughfare of the camp where it had originally been, except now it was manned by Rose instead of Juan. She still had fliers to hand out, but they were the updated versions now.
There were little information booklets describing the four elemental runes, the manipulate rune and the conjure rune, as well as how to combine them together to cast a spell. There was also a whole page of warnings. They had also broken down the healing spells to explain their parts as best as they could to help people understand what they were casting. And the list of warnings on the first aid fliers was even more detailed and in bold than in the elemental fliers.
Hopefully next they would be able to make a more intermediate flier that explained what some of the higher-level magic types, like space and such, were. But even Jeremy did not know what all those runes meant, so it would have to wait. Right now, they were only really equipped to teach people basic magic anyway.
Rose handed out the fliers and explained their content, as well as answering any questions. She also directed people further into what had become a complex of tents if they were interested in more details about working with the guild.
People were interested. Not only did they not have a clue what was going on, or what the future held for them, they were also bored just waiting around in this camp for news of a change. Derek and company setting up had been a change.
In one tent, Juan was set up with a group of people who were interested in learning to enchant objects. The lessons were still pretty much theoretical. Juan walked them through the structure of an enchantment from the string of enchanting runes to how to tack on the runes specifying what property they wanted the object to have. Only days ago, he had not understood this structure himself, yet he taught it like a master now.
Most people were not practiced enough to be able to actually enchant anything. Apparently, there was a baseline level of magical experience required in order to pull off an enchantment successfully. But yesterday, a whole shipment of clothes that Moira ordered from a warehouse nearby had arrived and those that were able to begin practical applications had started to do so.
Thus far they enchanted with simple properties, like strengthening the fabric against tears or making it waterproof or dirt proof. Just learning to embroider effectively seemed to be what actually took the most effort.
There was also a shipment of overstock military boots on the way, which would require leatherworking or some other creative application in order to enchant them to resist wear and damage such as puncture. There were perhaps other applications for enchantment on the horizon, but the guild had not even been in business for a week, so, small steps.
Those who worked on the enchanted clothes could take one piece that they successfully enchanted home each time they came to practice in the tent. The rest of the clothing was kept by the guild. For now, this worked well until they could set up an actual cash payment system of some kind for their work. People did seem interested in that. Bartering was king within the camp for now, but the world outside still ran on money and for these people to get back on their feet, they would need money. Derek was already bringing in some HR people he knew to begin setting all of that up.
Moira leaned against the central column of the enchantment tent, snapping a picture of one of the pieces that resisted wear and tear particularly well. She attached it to an email to send to her lawyer so he could share with the board that she actually had the steps for executing her new clothing line idea. Along with the example enchantment, she sent detailed instructions about how to enchant, as well as a list of all the runes known to her for her company’s experimental department to go nuts with.
After she sent the email, she put the shirt back into the completed bin, gave Juan a wave, and ducked out of the tent. She decided to give Pierre an actual call. It rang and rang and rang as she walked past Rose and gave her a little wave. Rose popped her gum and smiled back, but she had a line of people to work through, so she was a little too busy for Moira to stop for a chat.
Eventually it went to voicemail. Moira sighed as she listened to the stupid little recording of Pierre’s voice instructing the caller to leave their name, number, and reason they were calling.
“Hi Pierre, this is Moira,” she said after the beep, “I just sent over some information that the team working on our enchanted line of clothing might find useful. I was just calling to check in with you and see how that was all going. Give me a call back.”
She hung up and scrolled through her contacts to find the number for the Head of Design at the company that Pierre told her was spearheading the new clothing line. Shiela picked up after a couple of rings with a strained hello, sounding as harried as she ever did.
“Hey, Shiela, it’s Moira,” she said, scuffing her boot against a patch of grass.
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A couple of men in uniform walked past her and she eyed the guns held diagonally against their chests. Now that the guild had become a larger presence within the camp, there were always a few guardsmen about. Mostly to keep the peace between them and the couple of preachy assholes who had set up their crates a couple of yards from Rose’s table. One was the same guy who used to be over by the water tent, but the other was new. Moira scoffed and turned to walk further away from them.
“Moira, hey, how’s it going?” Sheila asked, then without waiting for an answer, she rushed out, “We haven’t made very good progress on enchanting yet. Apologies.”
“No, that’s alright,” Moira told her, “It makes sense you wouldn’t have, because it requires a specific set of runes. I just sent an email to Pierre with those runes and some instructions so he can add to the proposal, and I cc’d you on it so you can go ahead and get a jump start on the designs.”
“Oh, okay.” Something loud clattered and Shiela muttered a curse away from the phone, then returned, “I haven’t checked my emails yet today, sorry.”
“I literally just sent it,” Moira assured her, then because she was the crazy sole owner from the original family of a fashion conglomerate, she decided to do her duty by sticking her nose where it was not wanted and make some unsolicited suggestions. “I was thinking that it would be really cool to try and incorporate the runes into the design. Or make them, like, the focus of the design.”
“Yeah, okay, I’ll see what I can do, Moira,” Shiela said.
“They need to maintain a certain structure to a point, but I think they look really cool,” Moira insisted, “Just some food for thought.”
“Right, got it.”
Their conversation lapsed into silence.
“Anything else?” Shiela asked.
“No, nope.” Moira grimaced and scratched her ear, “Can’t wait to see what you come up with!”
“Alright, thanks for the ideas! Talk to you next time.” Shiela hung up. Moira dropped her phone and sighed, glancing around.
Aside from Rose’s information desk and the enchantment tent, there was also a medical tent. With what had apparently been minimal convincing, Nick got his supervisors over at the red cross to let him act as some kind of a liaison with the guild. So, he was set up inside, giving people more information about first aid, from ordinary CPR to how to practice the more basic healing spells that he knew how to cast. Everything from a scrape to a minor burn could be mended if you knew the right spell and practiced enough.
Most of his instruction, just like the fliers, consisted of warning people that healing spells could easily backfire and hurt the caster or the injured party. There was a lot of him saying that magic was not a substitute for medical experience. Aside from minor band-aid injuries, it was still a good idea to get to a proper doctor for treatment.
Nate was currently putting together a more advanced program of instruction that included more than just beginner level first aid. This would teach things like healing broken bones or more serious lesions. Field medic-type stuff. Which was going to be used to instruct the group of people who had shown interest in joining the guild to learn to fight monsters.
Another trusted member of the council was supposedly on their way here if they could manage to get across the country from California in any reasonable amount of time. Juan said they were knowledgeable about combat magic.
This was apparently not something that was approved of by The Council and was punishable by exile from the organization (i.e. death). The Council had a strict nonviolence policy to limit the chances of its members going at it with magical weapons of mass destruction, or at the very least fireballs, and giving their existence away. The rule hardly seemed to matter at this point.
Hopefully this council member, who thus far remained unnamed and mysterious, knew a little more about what they said they did than the rest had so far. Until they arrived, the people signed up for actual monster clean-up duty were preparing by practicing entry-level elemental spells just to get the hang of magic in general. In the next couple of weeks, they would each be fitted with enchanted clothes, and good working practice of combat and medical magic. For now, they just hung around and practiced spells and ran drills.
The couple of guardsmen who had passed by Moira earlier were currently standing over the group with their hands on their hips, playing drill sergeant because they were bored. The guild recruits that had just been lounging around in the grassy area behind the tents fell into line and played along.
They had grown used to the guardsmen. Sometimes it was a couple who had fun barking orders. And other times, a group of soldiers would come over from the National Guard encampment to do their workouts here just for the change of scenery. Derek thought this was fantastic, encouraged it as much as possible, and was in talks with the incident commander about whether or not he could contract the guild out to work with the military for doing things like guarding the camp or responding to magical emergencies.
Speaking of the devil, she spotted Derek ducking out of the tent that she and him shared to sleep. It was set up next to a couple of others for Rose and Juan. He glanced around, spotted Moira, and headed her way.
“What have you been up to?” He asked, joining her in watching the guardsmen drilling the new guild members.
The people who joined the guild for hunting monsters would also have to get paid at some point, but they would be getting piece rate pay based on jobs Derek eventually managed to whip up with the power companies or local townships or whoever. That meant that for now they were just hanging around practicing magic and working out with the guardsmen mostly just to have something to do.
“Nothing much,” Moira said. They weren’t really going out to advertise anymore because people just found their way here on their own. She had pretty much done her part by turning into a dragon and garnering interest and since then had mostly just hung around learning more about enchanting with Juan and chatting with Rose. Derek had been the one taking care of most of the logistics about whipping the guild into a legitimate company so that they could do things like contract with the military.
She wondered just how they managed to get to this point already. Barely a month ago, things had been normal. And now she and Derek were getting the paperwork together to file for an LLC to set up their magical adventurer's guild. She shook her head in amazement.