We flew out over the sea again, heading back to Jewelston, and I continued to wonder about the writings in the journal and everything I had learned. There were still many things I needed to understand from the writings that Anromir left in his journal, things I still couldn't wrap my head around because of my lack of knowledge of this world. Brutus had been able to help me solve a few things as well, but because of the secretive nature of the Dragonriders and their habit of hoarding knowledge, Brutus didn't know many things either as most of the Dragonrider-specific information was missing from his data bank as well. Looking over Aeolith's side, I stopped and watched the waves in the ocean and stopped thinking about what I was trying to learn for the first time in days as I took a moment to just exist in the world I was in. My mind felt at ease for the first time since I found the journal and I realized that I needed to take that break that Al'Doran kept pushing for. I still hadn't rested since the last time we took a beach day and I could feel myself fraying at the edges. I resolved to take time off when I returned to the city.

We passed over the sea and onto the land knowing that the city would be in sight in a matter of a couple of hours and we spoke briefly about what we needed to do when we returned.

"When we are in Jewelston we need to take a day to really rest. We have been going for too long so I want us all to stop and relax and recuperate so we don't break down in a fight," I said to the others.

"We've been waiting for ye to realize that lad. I'm so happy to hear you say that!" Vokin replied, relief evident on his face.

"I'm sorry for not taking the time sooner. I'm beginning to see why that is so important now. I will be sure we take more time for rest to be sure we aren't just fighting all the time. I just feel responsible for so many things now, and like so many people are all relying on me for protection, I just haven't been able to slow down. I will try to be better."

"We know, Callan. We are here with you too and can see the pressure. But we can't have you dying on us because you got into a fight and made a mistake simply because your brain was fried from going all the time. It could be really dangerous," Tristan said.

"Not to mention you're incessant need to obsess over that journal is keeping you from even sleeping. I understand that the answers may be in that book, but if you don't pause in your thoughts, you'll slip into madness over the obsession and miss everything." Aeolith added, her weariness beginning to be evident across our bond from the long flight.

I sent her love and reassurance back across the bond and I could feel her love in return.

"Thank you all for being so worried about me. It truly shows how much you care and I know I won't be able to do this without you in the days to come. I just wish I knew how I could help you all in return to be able to really fight alongside me."

"Just let us do what we can and we will kill those shadows with ye."

I smiled at that. Vokin was a fierce warrior and truly an asset to my team, but I still worried about them not being able to kill the Shadow Beasts without some ability to kill the shadows. I kept coming back to the thoughts that at some point this fight would come to a point where we would need to be able to fight more than just one Shadow Beast at a time and I still had no idea how that fight could be overcome. For now, though I decided to let some time pass before finding the answer and hope that a clearer mind would lend itself to finding the answer.

Silence fell amongst us again and I watched the landscape unfold beneath us. Trees dotted the landscape like a swarm of ants over a picnic, so close together that I could not see the forest floor. Snaking, and winding paths wove in and out of the hills, valleys, and forests below guiding travelers from city to city while great mountains jutted up from the horizon as though they were trying to reach the clouds themselves.

After a time we reached the city of Jewelston and Aeolith flew in low, then pumped her wings to slow our forward momentum. She landed in the space provided for her takeoff and landing near the Dragon Roost where she slept in town. She touched down lightly and lowered herself to the ground so that we could climb down from her back. I felt her weariness through our bond and embraced her head, touching my forehead to hers as we closed our eyes and simply expressed our love through our bond.

"Go get some rest. I am headed to the Dragon's Nest to find the others and do the same. I need to show them the books we found and talk about the information we acquired. And we need to rest. I hope we are able to leave in a day or two to complete that quest for the eyes of the serpent."

"Be sure that you do. You need this rest more than the rest."

We separated and I walked back to the inn to find the rest of the party. When we arrived at the Dragon's Nest and entered Patsy was there as she always was serving guests and pouring drinks.

"Callan! so great to see ye lad. Let me send someone to get the rest of yer team. They are out helping with various jobs around town. While ye wait, sit and eat." She greeted, a smile splitting her face as we walked in.

"Thanks, Patsy. What's on the menu today?"

"Fer ye, lad? Whatever ye like."

"Alright, how about some of those sandwiches?"

"Ye got it, sit down and it'll be just a couple of minutes. Patrick! Go and get the others in Callan's group. Go on, lad, this be important." Patsy yelled to a boy sitting near the door.

The boy, apparently named Patrick, jumped up and dashed out the door so fast he almost left a dust cloud on the stool he had been sitting on. I walked over to a table and slumped down into the chair feeling the weight of the past days weighing on me. Vokin and Tristan joined me at the table and Patsy came over with some drinks for us to sip on while we waited for food and the others to join us. A short time later Patsy returned with the sandwiches and some thinly sliced and fried potatoes.

"You guys have chips here! Awesome!"

"Chips?" Tristan questioned. "Oh, you mean the fried potato slices? I guess chips is an OK name for them. Yeah, we have them. Do you have them where you were from?"

"Yes! And we had so many flavors that it was almost overwhelming sometimes. You can put all kinds of spices on these and they taste awesome. We even had them individually packaged so they could be taken to eat wherever you went. I'm going to have to talk with Patsy about creating a market for these."

"Creating a market for what?" Patsy said, leaning over behind me catching part of the conversation.

"These chips," I replied

"Oh, you mean the crisps?"

"Well, that's very English of you."

"Very what?"

"Nevermind. It's a whole debate where I come from. In my country, we call them chips, in another they call them crisps. They have debated the correct term for years."

"Sounds like a boring place if they argue about what to call fried potatoes," Vokin interjected.

"I guess compared to here it kind of is. But Patsy, next time you fry up a batch of these, if you take some powdered spices like chili powder and then squeeze a lime over them for the sour flavor, you will sell out of these in minutes. And if you put them in small bags of some kind you can sell them as snacks on the go."

"That's a right fine idea, lad. I'll give that a try! What did you call them again?"

"Chips."

"Hmmm. Chips?" Patsy said the word again as if tasting the word to feel it. "I kind of like the sound of that."

About half an hour later the door burst open and in walked the mayor followed by Rutherford and Randal. I could see the striped body of Zephry walk by in the background as well. He clearly wasn't coming in and was going to lie down somewhere nearby.

"Sandra? I wasn't expecting to see you here." I said, standing and extending a hand to shake.

She took the hand and looked me in the eyes. "I wasn't expecting to come either, but there were...other extenuating circumstances," She turned to Patsy. "Is there a room we could meet in privately?"

"Aye. Ye can take the back room over there in the corner. I use it for business meetings," Patsy said pointing to a door in the far back corner off to the side of the bar.

"Thank you, Patsy. Come, Callan. We have urgent business to discuss."

Concerned, I grabbed my food and drink and followed the mayor to the room. Vokin and Tristan looked at each other for a moment then followed suit. We entered the room, which was just a small conference-style room with a ten-foot table and about ten chairs around it, and took seats around the table.

"Thank you for agreeing to meet so quickly," Sandra began. "There is someone that would like to speak with us. Goddess, we are ready."

"Goddess?" I asked, just as a light flashed in the back of the room.

When I managed to blink the stars out of my eyes, I stared at the woman at the end of the room. Erot stood there with a half smirk on her face looking directly at me.

"Erot!" I said, quickly standing to bow slightly to her.

"Thank you Callan for that sign of respect." She motioned for me to take my seat.

I returned to my seat and the others picked themselves up off of their knees to return to their seats.

"Callan, unfortunately, there will need to be some changes to your plans. I know that this will be a lot to ask of you, but your power can be boosted by becoming the leader of a settlement." Erot said.

There was a long silent pause in the room. I looked over at Sandra who was staring down at the table.

"I don't want to be a leader of a settlement. That is too much responsibility."

"I know it is a lot to add to your plate, but it is for the greater good."

"Wait, I thought you weren't supposed to directly meddle in our affairs like this?"

The goddess smirked slightly. "That is true. But there have been....new developments that allow me to bend the rules slightly to make sure that the balance is kept. I am not causing this to happen either, merely suggesting it."

"But you know that when a goddess appears in person and suggests something happen that mortals will basically trip over themselves to please them," I said skeptically.

"That may be true, but I still haven't caused anything to happen. I'm the goddess of balance, Callan. You really think I don't know how to bend the rules to keep things in balance?"

"That's hard to argue with. What about Sandra?"

She looked up and over at me at this. Hope filled her eyes for a moment.

"She is a leader, not me."

"That is why she is here. She truly is a leader. But you must be the one whose name is on the deed to the town, so to speak. The rules for settlements allow for a lot of leeway in the setup. Sandra, you should know a lot about this. What would you do in this situation?"

Sandra rose to her feet quickly, bowing her head to the goddess.

"Well, in this situation it would be best that Callan become the leader to boost his power for the fight ahead. He will have to make a lot of final decisions, but he could appoint someone to be the town steward. The steward would be given enough power to make decisions based on the leader's wishes. That could give the leader the ability to help lay out a basic plan and then the steward would be able to make the plan come to fruition based on the guidelines set up by the leader."

"So, what you are saying is that I should take the title, but basically let someone else do the leading?"

"Technically you would have to make the plan, but the steward would basically be the mayor in your place."

"What do you lose when I become leader, Sandra?"

"The title, some bonuses, a pay decrease, and I can't make major decisions without your consent."

"Can I give a blanket permission to allow you to make decisions?"

"In many things, yes, but in some cases, you will be the only ones with access to the options in the town menu. Things like building allocation, for example."

I paused. I thought hard about what this would mean.

"I really don't like this idea. I really don't know what I'm doing with settlement development."

"That is why you will have help," Erot said, looking around the room. "Everyone here is willing to stand behind you to ensure you are successful, and others will be as well."

"So, you mean to form like a board to help me with decisions?"

"Yes. A wise leader always seeks out the advice of those who know more than he does."

"Sandra? Do you think this is a good idea?"

"I don't like the idea of giving up control, but that's always been part of my personality. I see the wisdom in this decision and believe it will be for the better in the long run." Sandra said, a steely gaze on her face.

I sighed deeply. "Fine. I'll do it, but only if Sandra will be my steward. I can't do this without her."

Sandra gave one firm nod of her head.

"Good. Sandra, you will have my permission to make any changes within your power even without my consent. If you need me for something we can plan it around when I will be here. I will have to leave for missions to kill Shadow Beasts and I have a quest now that I need to complete as well."

"Very good, my lord. I will do as you say." Sandra replied bowing slightly.

"And none of that my lord crap. I am just Callan. I will take the title, but I don't need you being uptight around me. Please treat me the same as you did before."

She nodded. Relaxing slightly. She clearly was still worried that someone was coming in to take over everything and make major changes.

"Others can call me that when they see me in the street, because we don't want to have people stop respecting the leadership here, but I don't need it for you."

Sandra's eyes went unfocused for a moment, the look of someone reading their own screens. A few moments later everyone's eyes were unfocused as a pop-up appeared in all of your visions. The notification that appeared in my eyes differed from any other I had seen before. It was a golden color and a light glimmered around the edge that seemed to move around the border as though backlighting it from behind.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Attention citizens of Jewelston!

A new mayor has been appointed to the city as the leader of the settlement! Callan Ryder is now the leader of the land and town known as Jewelston. This change in leadership will usher in a new era for the settlement. May his rule lead the town to a new level of prosperity!

I dismissed the prompt after reading it several times. This was a huge change. I also had several other prompts waiting for me after this one. Erot stood patiently waiting for me as I read the others.

Congratulations!

You have been appointed as the leader of a settlement. You have been given the title of Mayor for becoming the leader of the settlement of Jewelston! With this title come the following perks.

+5 to Charisma

+2 to Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Luck

Access to the Town Management tabs of the character menus

Town Management

With your new appointment to Mayor, you will be able to access the town management interface. This section of the menus will allow you to make changes to the city that has been built on your settlement. You will also have access to the town leadership tab which will allow you to make changes to the people of authority in the town. Open the Town Management screens to see all the options available to you.

I thought about the town management menu and a new page opened in my view. There were more options available here than I had thought would be. Buildings, taxes, leadership, crime, economics, market, trade, research, alliances, and enemies. At the top of the screen, above the tabs were meters that read town points, town health, citizen disposition, and treasury. Each screen had more and more information available as I opened them. It was getting to be a bit overwhelming. I could understand the basics of what each tab might mean and possibly the meters, but I was going to have a lot of questions about what each meant and how it all worked.

"This is a lot," I said beginning to feel a little worried.

"No one expects you to understand everything right now, Callan. This is something that will help you later. For now, just focus on what you have been and we will give you a brief overview of what you need to know." Erot said.

"Fine, let's go over the options really fast," I said opening the menu to see the details.

Town Points

Town Health

Town

Disposition

Treasury

48,135

93%

Communal

40,000 P

26,650 G

135,295 S

49,856 C

"Well, that is not as easy as one would think, but we can try. First, we can talk about the meters at the top. Town points are something that is earned when building a town. The number of points you can earn is based on a few factors. The number of buildings, level of buildings, size of the population, and the disposition of the population. The more buildings and population you have, the more points the town earns per day as well as the higher level the buildings and the happier the population, the more points the town will earn." Sandra began to explain.

"So, how many points does Jewelston earn now?" I asked.

"Jewelston earns about five hundred points per day currently. We have a good number of buildings, many of which have been upgraded, and a decent population that has not only expanded since you have been helping with the attacks on the villages surrounding us but also the people are happy because they feel safer knowing a Dragonrider is helping to protect them. This has led to a good increase in the daily allotment of points, which comes in handy when needing to build new buildings or complete expansions like the one Al'Doran helped with."

"OK. How many points does a building cost to build?"

"There isn't a straightforward answer to that question. The number of points depends on the building being built. A single-family home might only cost five hundred points to build if we want to use city points to do that. That would seem reasonable, but we have seen an increase of hundreds of people since the Shadow Beasts have become more active in the villages. So it would take hundreds of days just to house all the families that have been coming into the city so far, not to mention the continual stream of refugees coming in every day. We typically save the city points for larger buildings that take longer to build. In the meantime building on the example that we already talked about we have professionals who can build the homes if we needed to, though the best use of resources for the refugees is to build something like a barracks or dormitory to house those who are coming in for now. While this takes longer to complete, it means we can save the points for things such as town defense."

"You mean like the ballistae that are on the walls?"

"Exactly like that. Those each cost about nine thousand town points to create. We currently have just under fifty thousand points to use, as we don't have to use them every day and have been saving them for larger structures. We also know we need to upgrade some of the defenses like the wall in case of attack. The newest upgrade is going to take fifty thousand points to complete and we have been saving the points to use on that. It will leave us with very few points, but the next upgrade to the wall not only makes them taller and thicker, but stronger and will allow us to expand the city size by another thirty percent at the same time."

"That's incredible!" I said pulling up my town management screen again.

We had forty-eight thousand one hundred and thirty-five points. That meant we should be able to build the wall upgrade in four more days, based on the number of points given per day.

"OK, I think I have the basics of the town points for now, what about the others?"

"Well next is the Town Health meter. This shows the overall health of the population at any given time. You read this like you do your HP bar. When it is above fifty percent it is green and the population is in generally good health. A typical town should normally be above eighty percent health, so long as they have a system of bathing and waste removal. When the health drops below fifty percent the bar turns yellow indicating that there is uncleanliness or disease in the town. When it drops below twenty percent the bar turns red. This generally only happens when there is a widespread health crisis like a disease outbreak."

"OK...so our town health being at ninety-three percent is pretty good?"

"Yes, it's very good. There are always those with health issues such as the disabled or the elderly, so one would have to be really ruthless or have a very small population to have a health rating of one hundred percent. Ninety-three percent is a very good health rating that we have achieved through having apothecaries available with cheap cures as well as healers working for lower-than-average wages to help those in need. Also, our waste management is top notch and we have many public baths for everyone to use along with a soaper to make sure we can keep clean easier."

"A soaper? Is that someone who makes soap?"

"Indeed. They are a huge boon to the city and always have a source of income with our mandatory level of cleanliness for the city. It's actually an offense to not bathe at least once a week for public health. You can be fined for not being clean. We really do not want to take the chance of spreading disease in Jewelston."

"Interesting. I support this idea. What's next?"

"Citizen disposition. This measures the overall feelings of the citizens of the town. This is an important statistic because the lower the disposition, the higher the chance for revolt and crime. The scale for disposition is Revolt, Angry, Upset, Dissatisfied, Neutral, Satisfied, Happy, Communal, and Elated. Right now the disposition is Communal, which means that they are happy enough to be willing to work together as a community to better everyone's standings. The other statues are fairly self-explanatory, but if we need to we can go over them."

"I think I get the idea. We can come back though later if I need to."

"Good. The last of the meters is the Trasurey. This is simply a measurement of the wealth that the town currently has."

"This one is changing a lot. What do the letters stand for?"

"P is platinum, G is gold, S is silver, C is copper."

"Well, that makes complete sense when you say it out loud," I said, now embarrassed for asking.

"It's OK, you have a lot on your mind I'm certain. Now the values are constantly fluctuating here because there is always money coming in and going out. Taxes are being paid by not only individuals, but by businesses, and wages are being paid to individuals who do work for the city as well as for the purchasing of commerce. But we have approximately forty thousand platinum, twenty-five thousand six hundred and fifty gold, one hundred and thirty-five thousand three hundred silver, and just under fifty thousand copper."

"That is a lot right?"

"It is a good number. It means we have plenty of reserves for when we need to purchase goods for the city such as building supplies and can always pay those who work for the city."

"That's great! Now, for the tabs."

"This is where things can get more complicated, but I will try to summarize. Buildings is the first tab. This will show you a list of the buildings that we have in the city currently along with their levels and the maximum number of occupants for residential buildings. There is also a list of blueprints for buildings we can build, as well as the costs to build those buildings both in money and the materials needed. Each building can be selected to view further details on it and to see the costs to upgrade the buildings."

Looking at the tab and seeing the list of buildings along with a small icon showing a picture of the building and then all of the information to go along with them, then being able to select a building and seeing even more information was making my head spin.

"Alright, that feels like a lot to go through for now, so I think I understand the basics and we can explore more of that later. I take it Taxes is up next?"

"Correct. Taxes will show the current rate of taxation for various actions and statuses as well as allow you to set the amount taxed for each. I would recommend leaving this tab alone for now and letting someone with more experience set this. Changing taxes can have dramatic effects on a town, such as making people happier when they are lower, but depleting the treasury, or making them angrier and building the treasury faster. We currently have found a happy medium that works for our current situation."

Looking briefly at the Taxes tab I was able to see that the standard tax for individuals was about ten percent for the general population, with twenty percent for businesses. There were other individual taxes such as sales tax, property ownership taxes, and gambling taxes, along with about twelve other different types that I just didn't feel like messing with for now.

"Alright, I will leave that one to you all. Next?"

"Leadership. This tab is going to be important to you right away, then likely not important again for a while. This tab allows you to set those who are in charge of various jobs for the city. Now that the leadership of the town has changed, all those who were in charge will have been removed from the jobs they had before to allow you to select the leadership. This is where I can help you. Stewards are allowed to appoint any leadership position beneath them. This means the only two jobs you will need to appoint for now would be the Steward and the Captain of the Guard. It is the only position that is at the same level as the Steward to ensure that they have checks on the power given to one person."

"That is a relief because I looked at the tab and there are so many positions to fill."

"Correct. Anyone on the city payroll would need to be appointed. So if you could appoint those two positions now, then I will handle the rest for you."

I opened the tab and selected the Steward position. When I selected the position a list of thousands of names appeared in a list next to it.

"There are so many names on this field to choose from!"

"That is because that is a list of everyone currently in the city as well as any citizens who are not in the city."

I thought of Sandra and her name appeared selected in the list highlighted. I selected her name visually and it was applied to the Steward.

"Thank you, Callan. Now is there someone you have in mind for the Captain of the Guard position?"

"I think that Commander Harlow does a great job, so I will just let him continue to do the job."

With that, I found Harlow's name in the list and selected him for Captain of the Guard.

"A wise choice. You could have made one of your companions the Captain though and no one would have objected."

"True, and I know whoever I chose would have done well, but I need them with me."

"Very well. Shall we move on then?"

"Yes, please."

"Very good. Crime is a metered value as well, but also has space to list what kind of crimes are most committed. If you look at that tab you will see that we currently have a rating of eighty-eight percent which is a very good rating. There will always be crime in a city as there will always be temptation in a city of this size. Typically, anything above seventy percent is decent. Above eighty percent is great, and above ninety percent is generally something only seen in smaller villages or towns with extremely harsh punishment laws. Those laws though usually lead to higher dissatisfaction with the populace. People just generally don't like to have a micromanaging government."

"That makes sense. Big government can be big problems."

"Great. If there are no other questions we can look at Economics."

"Not right now."

"OK. Economics."

"I'm actually going to stop you right there. I looked ahead a little and this tab is way over my head right now I think. The graphs and charts showing the GDP, and GNP alongside those of the surrounding areas and interest rates, inflation, security, and all that other gobblty-goop....no thank you. I hated Economics in high school and college, and I don't want to deal with it now. I'll leave that to the professionals."

"Very well. Then the Market tab. This tab shows the state of the Market in the town. Currently, we are on the rise with the influx of refugees, but it's being balanced by the fact that we have to keep giving some of our supplies away when people arrive until we can find a place for them to work. Callan, are you OK?"

"This is really boring. I'm sorry, but I don't really even know where I'll use this."

"I know, but as a leader, you will need to know so you can make decisions on changes that have to be made."

"Fine. Keep going."

"Anyways, yes, while this is really dull and mundane, and hard to understand, it shows the health of trade amongst our citizens. Just like before green is good, yellow means there's a problem, and red is bad. Is that simple enough to keep your attention?" Sandra asked, sarcasm beginning to drip from her voice.

"Yes. Thank you." I said, deciding just to ignore it for now.

"Fine. Trade is next. In this tab, you will see a list of all the trade partners that Jewelston has an agreement with. You can also click on the town to review the specifics on any agreement anytime you want."

Looking at the list I picked Herferton since I had been there, and the agreement came up next to it. I was shocked at the detail in the agreement. It basically the same as the terms and conditions section of products back on earth. It was filled with lawyer language and the party of the first and the party of the second. I closed the agreement, deciding to leave that to the professionals.

"Right. That is pretty straightforward. Research?"

"Research is where you can see all of the research facilities in the city and what each one is working on. As the leader, you can decide what types of research each facility will do within the fields of research in which they specialize. If we need to research buildings we can use the structural research facility to begin researching new blueprints. If you want spells or magical weapons we can assign something to the magical research facility to research."

"What about weapons upgrades? Can we research that?"

"Yes, that would be in the combat research facility. They can also research defense options as well as things like explosives, and projectiles."

"That is really interesting. But for now, I will also leave that to you all to decide. Though I may take a look at what they are doing and what can be done in the future."

"Very well. Lastly are the Alliances and Enemies tabs. These are the simplest of all the tabs and merely contain a list of each with whom we are allied and who either we have declared as enemies or who we have declared to be our enemies. If a city, town, or village is on the Enemy list, either by their doing or ours, they cannot be on the Alliance list. As long as we have a city relation of at least neutral, we can add them to the Alliance list."

"What are the ratings for city relationships?"

"There are not many. It is Enemy, Neutral, Friendly, and Allied. We can be friendly and not be allied, which gives us the opportunity to not need to be called on to aid them in a time of need, but if we make them an ally, then we must help when they call for it, or we lose that allied status. The same goes for their city though."

"That is simple enough. Thank you Sandra for explaining all of these. It will take me some time before I feel like I will be proficient in them though."

"That is understandable, but I will expect you to be studying them to know what is happening when we have cabinet meetings."

"We have to have cabinet meetings?"

"Of course. How else would we make big decisions on what needs to be done with the town?"

"Right. Sorry, hadn't thought about that. Man, this is going to be a lot more work than I wanted."

"I know, but it will be for the best in the long run."

"Callan," Erot said. "I know you didn't want to be put in this position, but trust me when I say it will be for the best. You have to know that I have your best intentions in mind when I make suggestions, and I do not make them lightly. It could throw off the balance of the entire universe if I meddled in the wrong way."

I let out a long and hefty sigh. "I know, goddess. I just don't want to feel responsible for so many things. What if I mess up? What if I make the wrong decisions? What if people die because of me?"

"People die every day, Callan Ryder. And you will inevitably make bad or wrong decisions. You have made wrong decisions in the past. All mortals have. Your past bad decisions even affected other people but you may not have noticed. You are now just more aware of it because of your title. You will still just need to have the fortitude to know that you are making the world a better place. Just being a Dragonrider puts you in the spotlight for making decisions for others. You just need to do it for a city now with people who will help you make those decisions. If anything this should be easier." Erot said, her arms crossed by the end of the speech.

"You're right. Fine, I'll do it. Let's get this going. I want everyone here on the council. Sandra, please get anyone else who is the head of the departments to be in the cabinet meetings so they can relay information discussed on their specific areas to those under them. Also, add Harlow and Patsy to the council."

"Patsy?" Sandra questioned.

"Yes. She knows the people. She will be a valuable asset to the council. you can add anyone else you feel is important to make major decisions, but try to keep it as small as possible so that we can make decisions more effectively. If there's one thing I've learned over the years its when there are too many chiefs and not enough Indians, nothing gets done."

"Cheifs? Indians?" Everyone looked confused at me at this point.

"Ugh...right, earthisms. When there are too many people trying to make the decisions and not enough people just following orders to make it happen, the process grinds to a halt while people argue about what's best. One other thing I think would be helpful would be to have the heads of research and the heads of the crafting guilds meet in panels to get ahead of developing new technologies as well as preparing for when there will be an eventual attack. What do we need to be ready? What can we do to increase security? How can we make sure we have an advantage in battles? Those types of topics."

"That is a good idea, Callan. I will do that." Sandra replied.

"Alright guys, does anyone else have anything else to discuss while we are all here?"

The room was silent.

"Good. My team stay here. Sandra, thank you so much for your help. If you need anything from me, send someone or come find me and I will work to make myself available. I know how important this is."

She nodded and stood and left the room.

"Thank you as well, goddess, I know you likely have many things to do."

"I do, but I'll be here a bit longer. I enjoy watching mortals." She smiled at me and sat down in a chair, putting her feet up on the table.

"As you wish. Rutherford, Randal, I brought back a bunch of books for our team to read over. I really hope they will be helpful to you in learning more about your classes or skills or spells.

I took several stacks of books out of my bag of holding and put them on the table. Each member of the team stood up and came to read over the titles and took a stack of books back to their chair.

"Please read through these and let me know if you need more. We can make trips to the isle when we need to. For now though...I need to sleep. I haven;t been resting like I should so for the next twenty-four hours I will be taking time off to rest and recover. After that though, I need to travel to the destination for the eyes of the serpent quest. I'm not sure who to take with me though."

"I think I can help with that one," Erot added. "Excellent, who should I take then?"

"No one." She replied flatly.

"Excuse me? Why no one?"

"The Great Serpent Monks are not very trusting. And my brother Beraz will not want intruders. You will likely get a pass, being a Dragonrider, but the others will be seen as outsiders. Ever since those stupid shiny rocks were stolen they have not trusted anyone."

"Well, I guess that makes things easier. I will go alone then for now."

"I'll be sure to let my brother know you are coming. Hopefully, he will let his followers know to expect you."

"Thank you, goddess."

"And with that, I will take my leave. I just wanted to give you a bit of a heads-up. Good luck Callan. And always remember, balance in all things." And with that, she winked and vanished from the room.