28.

“Lot of people here, Tank,” Santi immediately moved to settle his questions. The larger young man didn’t even look up from his labor. They were working to stack a series of pallets to build a small station for people to look over the wall of cars. It was amateurish work at best, but Santi couldn’t help but be surprised at everyone’s industrial nature.

“Yeah. We started knocking on doors and pulling people out of their houses. It’s bad out there Santi.” Tank interrupted himself by using a hammer for its actual purpose, nailing a long board into the pallets. Santi only needed a quick glance to see they were going to make rudimentary walls for the stands. He doubted it’d offer protection later on, but for now it might suffice.

“I thought we weren’t going to do that?” Santi tried to keep his temper in line. People were looking at him, people he didn’t recognize. Older people. People who would have opinions and who he hadn’t personally saved.

“You told me you didn’t want to be in charge. This is me taking a leadership role.” Tank waved a thick corded arm around at the possibly hundred or so people working together. It wasn’t a tranquil scene by any standard; the workers were dirty and smelled, fear rank in their every expression, but they were working.

“It’s going to be hard to be in charge when you bring in this many people. They won’t take us seriously,” Santi tried to explain his thoughts, but found himself falling silent. Tank waited patiently for him to elaborate and when he didn’t, Tank started talking.

“They shouldn’t. Shit, Santi. We’re teenagers. We don’t know shit. It’s pretty simple man, we need to best use everyone here and work together. I thought about what you said, about me taking charge while you are off fighting and whatnot.” Tank paused as he hammered in a second post, shrugging when the two posts weren’t identical.

“We need people. People with skills and thoughts and experience. I’m not going to be some dictator, Santi. I know that’s an easy route to go man, just standing there and telling people what to do because I’m in charge of the food or healing. It’s not right though. It goes against who I am. I wish to lead, not rule.”

Santi walked around the small stack of pallets and helped grab a piece of plywood with Tank without being asked. The two of them leveraged it up and Santi waited while Tank used a single hand to awkwardly hammer in a few nails to the post.

“This is going to get people killed, Tank. They’re going to fight to be in charge, they won’t agree with us when we need to make fast decisions. Supplying all of these people, I don’t think we will be able to, Tank. There’s just too many.”

“I never said it’d be easy. I know there will be struggles, but we’re going to have to work through them. We could easily build some small community where everyone does as we say. We level quick and are super strong, right?”

“I mean, yeah, that’s kinda how I was thinking of doing it. A small elite group of people.”

“I can’t imagine that, Santi. Imagine all of the dead people who would have been alive if we only had the courage.”

“Courage doesn’t feed people, Tank.”

“You are of course correct. You feed people. Or, at least, you will be feeding people. Training people how to get food. The next few days I’m going to be sending over some volunteers for you. People who want to do these grocery runs. Scavengers, raiders, whatever you want to call them. Our survival is going to come down to you and them.”

“There’s not enough long lasting food to last us through a winter if we gather this many people.”

“I know that too. Some of these monsters will be edible, no?”

“Define edible?”

“I can eat it and not question if I’m a cannibal. Or get a prion disease that causes me to go insane.”

“Tank, I don’t know what a prion is.”

“Mad cow-disease Santi. That’s a prion.”

“Oh, well, then I don’t fucking know. Probably?”

“Then we train hunters as well as raiders and scavengers. We grow gardens, already started that, and do whatever else we need. If this dooms us, well then, that’s on me. But I’m not willing to not try and save people.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Fuck, that’s a decent speech.”

“Thanks, I’ve been practicing for a few hours. I had a feeling you wouldn’t like this decision.”

“What are we going to do about running this joint? I have a feeling these old-heads aren’t going to be super willing to listen to teenagers.”

“We will cross that bridge when we have to. In the meantime, I suggest being as useful as possible and nice as possible. Last thing we want is factions starting. Focus on building a singular community identity rather than a group’s.”

“I think we’re straying into idealism rather than reality,” Santi said, laughing a bit. They backed away from the small wall they had built on the equally small tower. It was crooked and sagging already.

“Fuck, I am terrible at this.” Tank laughed as he disparaged himself. Santi didn’t want to say anything about the quality of the tower, but it did look terrible.

“It’s a good thing I’m a healer and not a builder. I got another two levels just from that walk. Lot of people hurt and needed healing. Also got to use my club on some of those red goblins.” Tank informed Santi as they walked away from the poorly constructed tower.

“Club?”

“Yeah, didn’t want to run around unarmed. So, I made a club.” They got to where a pile of people’s belongings had been set down, close to the base’s sturdy brick walls. The club in question was just a pair of metal bats that were bound together by a metric shit ton of tape.

“I think that make’s you the highest ranked person here,” Santi mused as he tried not to smile as Tank swished the club through the air.

“Oh, I am. Part of bringing in all these people was doing a census. Finding out who they are and what classes and levels they have. The next closest, aside from your team, is a guy named Dennis. Level six Survivor. Apparently he crossed half the town by himself and fought and killed some of those hobgoblins like you and Daniel did.”

Santi let out a low whistle at that. Hobgoblins were no joke at this low of a level. Santi had the advantages of nearly a decade of fighting and a title that boosted his stats. Dennis had none of that and had managed to level six times in two and half days. Impressive by any standard.

“Did he say where he saw those goblin’s come from?” Santi asked. He was determined that the goblin monster nest would be the next thing on his staggeringly long to-do-list.

“No, but I can ask him. How big of a threat are they? Compared to everything else?” Tank was curious and they were walking by themselves back into the safer walls of the base.

“You got the quest just like I did. Rewards are always good. I don’t like having any of them around me. Clear them out, get levels and rewards, rinse and repeat till the area is safe.”

“Simple enough. Need to get you a full sized raid team though. Some of the people we found had combat classes on them like Chloe and Paulie. See if they’d be willing to join us on our foray.”

“Us? You planning on coming too?”

“I told you, Santi. Leadership. First word in it is lead. I’ll be right there with you and all the other fighters.”

“Good healers are worth their weight in gold.”

“I don’t think you have enough gold to pay for my weight,” Tank was laughing as they entered the base and started moving through the dim halls. Santi was happy to see it wasn’t overly crowded, with many of the doors still chained and locked.

“Gold isn’t worth shit anymore anyways. Can’t really buy anything,” Santi complained.

“Fair enough. Food and weapons are the gold of today. Which we have more than most, but nowhere near enough.”

“Never have too many knives,” Santi conceded. He still had the poignard and iron dagger from the kobold warriors.

“I guess. I’ll stick with my club.”

“Barbarian,” Santi nudged his friend with an elbow as the two of them smiled together walking into the main room. All of the cases of water that Santi had bought were stacked along the walls. Food and other goods sprawled out as the now empty carts from their raid were pushed to the side.

“You didn’t tell me how your raid went,” Tank noted quietly as they stood staring at the mountain of food and water.

“We lost Justin. There was some type of curse there. We killed the thing the curse was attached to, but Justin didn’t make it out.”

“Fuck. Did you know him?”

“No, he was from one of the other dorm rooms. Didn’t have any classes with him either.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Going to be a lot of these conversations, I fear.”

“Tomorrow. We start prepping more raids and finding more survivors. We can send out scouts and interrogate people we find about the goblins. Try to find the nest that way.”

“And for the rest of the day?” Santi asked.

“Take it to yourselves. Everyone from your team.”

“Thanks, Tank.”

“We’re going to need you, Santi. Whatever weird fucking shit is going on that you know about, we need you. So get some sleep, we can tackle this tomorrow with some fresh eyes.”