"I'm surprised you held up your end of the promise. I truly appreciate it." Moxius said, slightly dipping his head towards Owen. Owen had seen him two different ways up until now, both as an echo, but also the real him inside of the gate. The version of him that stood in the center of a farming field, looked the most relaxed and free. There was a visible weight that had been lifted off of him and a satisfied exhaustion seemed to take over the stress and anxiety.
"I would've hated to need to fight you, especially if I didn't have to, plus I owed Bear." Owen said nonchalantly. Most of those that had come through the gate almost collapsed to the ground upon their exit and Owen couldn't even imagine the stress involved as he saw several families exit, parents holding their children close.
He couldn't even process trying to take the risk into account. Nine times out of ten, most of those families would've been forced to fight or die against whoever attempted to clear the gate. On top of that, they had chosen to trust someone their leader had only known for a couple hours. Owen felt bad, but he was glad to see that everyone was okay and that it had worked out for them. He had already asked Moxius what would've happened had the tier six gate broke, but the answer was surprisingly not good for any of them either.
All of their kingdom's elites would have been released into the world, but none of their items would've been brought with, meaning every single civilian would've been lost back on their old world. Owen was still curious how they were going to handle integrating them in with the rest of Rochester, but they still had a couple weeks. While most looked like they were ready to collapsed from exhaustion, Owen knew it was partially because they all needed to feed.
Peggy and Myra went over and began talking with them about the plan going forward for the next week. Owen gave a simple wave at Moxius as he turned around towards the city again and began rushing back. There was still a lot that needed to get done, but first he had to check in with Audrey and see what else they still needed, before beginning renovations on the city.
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"Alright, so I know Owen offered you the ability to create and act as a subsidiary guild, but I can't have that actually." Myra started and Peggy gave her a reassuring nod. She forced herself to ignore the worried look on the families faces surrounding them and could tell they were all on edge, but Myra pushed the thoughts down. "We don't really know what we are doing. The system only appeared on our world a little over two months ago and most people would've considered my friends and I kids before that." She saw several eyes open a little wider in shock, but was relieved they hadn't been jumped after that.
Owen had pretended to run away the first time to see what the reaction would be and if it was good, he would finish his run towards the city, if not, he would come back in blazing. Seeing the sorry state of the people resting on the ground in front of her had made her fairly certain she wouldn't need the help, but it had also been a small test of trust. Myra could sense Owen decided to keep running and she nodded before turning back to them all.
"Given that we don't really know how guilds are supposed to function, we need help with a lot of things and we hope it can become a way for us to develop a partnership." Myra said, this time turning her full attention to Moxius, who seemed lost in thought.
"I appreciate the sign of trust, but before we help with your guild, please let us go replenish our strength. Many of us have been needing to split the already dwindling strength with each other, making the ache even worse." Moxius said, as he turned towards a tier one gate that stood only a couple hundred meters away. Myra nodded and saw several people stand up and getting ready to rush over to the gate, but before Myra could ask them to stop, a loud booming voice rocked their surroundings as Moxius gave a command. "WAIT, THEY WEREN'T DONE GIVING US OUR DIRECTIONS. WE HAVE WAITED FOR A LONG TIME, A FEW MORE MINUTES WON'T BE OUR END."
All of those that had gotten up, shamefully moved back to their seats. Moxius nodded at Myra, who smiled brightly and this time Peggy spoke up. "Any and all items gained inside of the gates you clear in the next week are all yours. We will buy each item for credits, at a minimum of a thousand credits each. You can then choose to either continue this, or save up your credits to create a vitality anchor." Murmurs moved through the crowd then and Peggy smiled. "We have been told about the issues and we don't want anyone to fight that doesn't have too, but we aren't strong enough to provide for you all yet, which is why for now, this will be our fix."
More murmurs, but Myra knew most of them were just waiting to feed, so she gestured Moxius to come talk with them as the rest were dismissed by Peggy. Causing a stampeded of people, all heading towards the single nearby tier one gate. Moxius and a few others were the only ones to stay behind and Myra handed each person that stayed a map. "These were the only gates we could find between here and a military base nearby. You'll probably want to avoid them for a while, at least until we can have a conversation with them, but otherwise, we have marked the tier of gate next to the location."
Moxius handled the map as if it were a piece of legendary gear, carefully surveying each of the locations. "Thank you, we will avoid the military base then, I expect it will take us a couple days to feel replenished. Should we meet you back here in let's say, three days?" Moxius said. Myra nodded and continued explaining where they hadn't checked yet and how to mark the map if you had gone to a gate. Peggy was busy meanwhile discussing the same with with the rest of those who had stayed behind, also explaining a little more about their purchase process.
They had all done a lot of research the past week, finding out about vitality anchors and maps you could buy, that would instantly fill with locations you had already been. The most interesting item to all of them though had been the vitality anchors, even if they weren't the most useful. Essentially, they were pillars that stuck out of the ground that boosted HP regeneration, which by itself wouldn't help with any of their visitors. However, landing any hits against the pillar could activate some HP draining skills, which had led her and Owen to believe that they would be useful.
They hadn't had to drop many credits on them, but Myra and Owen had raided almost all of the gates within a five mile radius of the city, so they had easily surpassed a million gathered credits. The other bonus had been that since they had waited until they bought maps, the ones they had handed out, covered a wide enough area to give their visitors enough to feed themselves for weeks, until they found a better solution.
Moxius's people were already a godsend though, they had been rushing to try to meet deadline after deadline and even she had been beginning to run out of steam. As she watched Moxius and the others race off towards the tier one gate, she could only hope it didn't come back to bite them in the ass somehow.
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Owen had made it back to the city fairly quickly and had immediately gone to find both Mark and Audrey. They both had so far been the most useful and helpful people with each of the goals that Owen and his group had wanted to pursue. Audrey had finally come back with estimates for rebuilding, a general census, and costs for defenses. It was helpful, but Owen could only trust she had done her job right and it would be up to Peggy to make sure it had been done correctly.
Owen was still in an interesting position, even if it didn't bother him. He had been managing a lot of the finer details recently, while also working on training people and managing people as well. It was an exercise he was pretty sure he would've failed at immediately if it was before the system. Part of it was because of his secondary class. It hadn't made him a more confident person or generally better with his mental help, but its effects were still interesting. The mental state he had had when creating the class, echoed through his mind every time he wasn't certain about his next steps.
It was like an itch in the back of his mind, reminding him of who he wanted to be as a person. It had been a weird experience at first, but the constant itch to make sure he was being who he wanted to be, had been the biggest help when dealing with his increased work load.
His position was a comfortable one though, while he did manage a lot of smaller details and he felt like some days he was nonstop rushing back and forth, he still didn't have to worry about learning how the actually system behind guilds worked. It had made it so that Myra and Peggy were locked away for hours at a time, learning as much as possible about guilds, while he raced around. That had made people like Audrey key to his sanity, as she was forced to deal with the most numbers and planning, while he only had to pay attention to the basics.
Mark had been another person who was extremely helpful, by attempting to keep general crime low, though he could only do so much, when everyone was still desperate. The entire city had experience tribulation after tribulation, and it would take a long time for everyone to feel comfortable again, if they ever did. It hadn't fully stopped people, but enough officers and other people created a sort of task force to keep things in check, while Owen did his best to begin rebuilding.
That was led him to his next meeting with the two of them. They were both going to be offered official positions inside the guild and a part of Owen was curios what it would look like. The guild was almost a blank slate with most things, and could be customized to an extent they hadn't found the limits of yet. His position also hadn't been settled, but the general ambiguity to his role, had slowly made him the go to person for most everyone in the city. Some people weren't happy it had changed to him from Peggy, but they had already started getting used to it.
Some nice aspects of being able to create quests now, without needing to worry about the amount of credits, was that people who had used to help with city structure and other jobs in the same line of work had come forward as Peggy continually created quests to fill those roles. Some of the specific quests had even been enough to also grant skills on their own, and one person had gotten a class related to city structuring.
Only a couple days passed after positions were given out and he was given the guild title, Resource and Personnel Supervisor. It was the most ridiculous title he had ever been given at a job or anywhere else, but it still was considered official by the system. The other benefit, that was just as important as the title to him, was that while the title name itself didn't matter much, the rank he had been given in the guild, had opened up another branch of the guild shop. They had also upgraded the guild a couple days prior, which meant that the shop was almost unrecognizable.
He still hadn't used almost any credits for himself, rather focusing on spending his time trying to keep his level at the higher end of people on earth. It had worked, if only barely, most of his time was still spent working with Mark and Audrey. When he wasn't helping them, he was organizing funds to purchase new homes, to replace the rubble that decorated the streets. The new buildings weren't anything special, and while they only cost credits to build, they were lacking in a lot of ways. They still hadn't managed to get general plumbing to work, and almost anything related to electricity wouldn't work either, unless created from the guild shop.
The million plus credits they had, almost immediately melted away and more frequently both Myra and Owen had to go on a gate clearing sprees, to keep up with the credit demand. The hardest aspect they had run into, was that they didn't have any revenue, as anyone who earned credits spent it on the store, which didn't send any to the guild. It made trying to maintain an economy almost impossible, though Owen had started working with Peggy to come up with a tax, that would help keep them a float for longer.
Several weeks passed as the city of Rochester was slowly erected from a barely livable wasteland, to a semi safe haven for the general populace. The sections of the city that hadn't been hit by the gate breaks were even eventually integrated, though some still decided to stay in those sections of the city, hoping that monsters wouldn't return.
Mark had eventually changed from being in charge of a task force, to helping with training anyone who was interested, though Owen stayed in charge of tempers and taking people inside of gates. There was still a small task force of people trying to protect the city, but the defenses that had slowly risen over the past several weeks, made any threats from outside the barrier almost null. Owen was still fairly certain that if he went on a rampage, he could bring down most of the city on his own, as long as no one tried to protect it, but it was enough to keep him on high alert, even if not as many people were anymore.
The whole city had become almost unrecognizable as the small clinic building, which had been his home for a while, had been transformed into a semi-futuristic building, with dozens of defensive and offensive structures built into it. The rest of the city looked like dozens of extremely high quality trailer park homes, with different defensives barriers staggered throughout. It brought with it an extremely satisfied feeling, but Owen was also still stressed. While they had temporarily improved the lives of thousands of people, both he and his friends had almost definitely fallen behind of levels. But he didn't let it get to him, they still had time.
He and Myra were having dinner for what felt like the first time in months. They had both had incredibly hectic schedules, making it a rare occasion they could eat and have dinner together, as just the two of them. It was even more rare that Peggy didn't join in, since most of the time, meals were chances for all of them to catch up with each other, while also passing on any important tidbits of information.
They took full opportunity to try and have a relaxing meal, though they had found out a long time ago, that eating wasn't required for anyone past level ten. it was surprising, but all food helped with after that, was natural regeneration. It could give a decent sized boost, which made it even more helpful to eat a ton of food, before waging war against the never ending gates that had continued to spawn, since the first day they had returned from their month of training. It was exactly the reason both Myra and Owen had given everyone, just for a chance to eat alone as a couple again.
But of course, even with their lives still stressful, the system had decided they had been living live too easy. In the middle of their date, a system notification appeared, this time the text a golden color, rather than the usual white color.
*Congratulations, to all those who have managed to survive until this point.
With everyone given enough time to settle and prepare, the placement ladder for the top three of those capable of competing for the ownership of earth have been identified.
1.) Unnamed Guild in Rochester
2.) The Conquerors of Man Guild
3.) Paradise Incarnate Guild*
*A bounty has been placed on these top three competitors, starting at 5,000,000 credits for third and 15,000,000 for first.
Good Luck.*