“If Northwood to Concord was about twenty minutes by car,” Loch said, looking at a map spread across the meeting table. “And we estimate the world has grown at least five times its prior size…,” he trailed off, running a finger down Route 4 to the west, a straight shot from Northwood to Concord.

“As I said, it’s not going to be consistent,” Cerie said from where she sat on the edge of the map. She stood up, walking over to where Loch’s fingers ran along the streets. “In the more wooded areas like Northwood, two to three times growth will be common. But in the more urban areas, congested with houses, it will be far less if none at all.”

She walked over to Concord, which by the way the streets were laid out on the map was obviously a city. Loch had detailed the towns and urban growth between Northwood and the New Hampshire capital. He knew the stretch of road very well, having driven it almost daily for decades. He knew the more built-up areas and the more wooded. When the map had first been brought out, he’d gone over that with Cerie.

“About fifteen miles,” Loch said. “It takes us over a day to travel what used to be five miles or so,” he shook his head. “It’s hard to believe that’s even possible but it is…”

“Not just the distance,” Kyle said, the leader of the Clan’s hunters invited to the meeting. Out of the entire Clan, Loch included, it was Kyle that probably did the most traveling in the surrounding area and felt the increased distance the most. “The conditions of the road and the woods have changed. It’s harder to walk. Not physically but..,” he trailed off and just shrugged, not having the words.

But Loch knew what he meant. The roads were in horrible condition. It made traveling them slowly, even with their Adapted bodies. Add in having to keep watch on the surrounding words, and the occasional fight with monsters. It just took longer to get anywhere. Even in the woods, which didn’t have the ruined roads, but had more monsters and other dangers. They just couldn’t walk many miles in a day.

They had always estimated that it would take weeks, maybe even a month, to walk to Concord now. Maybe even longer because who knew what was between Northwood and New Hampshire’s capital. Loch remembered the chasm that had opened up almost beneath their car the day the Connection appeared. No one had gone as far as that chasm yet, and no one had come from any of the towns beyond it. They didn’t know how long the crack in the earth was.

There could be another one somewhere west on Route 4. Concord may not even exist anymore. Monsters could have a nest on the road. Invaders could have a camp. Anything could be there.

Loch had always known that eventually they’d have to make the trip and establish contact with other communities. Either bring them into Clan Brady or ally if there were already other Clans. It had always been something in the future, the length of travel so daunting.

As was the lack of being able to communicate.

But now? It might not be as bad. The trip would still take a lot of time but instead of weeks, it might only be a week. Lots of unknowns.

“The horses can cover two or three times the miles we can,” Liam said. “At least the Storm Stallions and Mares.” He shook his head. “I don’t really understand it. Larry didn’t father Jarl, Swift or any of the others that he found, but somehow they all Adapted the same way. Becoming a Storm Horse made them stronger and faster, along with their other Abilities.”

Loch still hadn’t seen the horses fight, but Liam had described the Abilities he had seen. They all had some form of lightning attacks, along with stun attacks caused by stomping on the ground. Swift was faster, able to move in bursts. Larry and Jarl probably had more, but no one had seen them unleashed yet.

“So if fifteen miles is now fifty or so,” Loch prompted.

“Without moving in bursts, depending on conditions,” Liam started to answer, tapping a finger against his chin as he thought. “Say they can do ten miles a day,” he finally said.

Loch smiled. That had been the answer he had been looking for.

“That’s only the Storm Horses,” Liam said. “The others, like my ol’ Tobias, can’t keep up that pace on those roads.”

“And we only have a half dozen,” Loch said.

He sighed, standing up straighter. Even with his Adapted body, leaning over the table peering at the map, had strained his back. He didn’t feel it like he would have Pre-Connection and maybe it was a phantom pain, something he expected to still feel so he did. Either way, Loch stretched.

“Still not something we’re going to attempt anytime soon,” he said as Kyle folded up the map. “But it’s moved up the list. Once we have the communication issue solved…”

***

Loch walked out of the room. He could hear Kyle and Liam talking quietly. Out in the hallway, Loch saw Ed Turner leaving the other meeting room. They’d started doing some renovation work in the school, now that they’d managed to move some people out, allowing them to change the existing structure to serve their new needs. Ed had been in a planning meeting, working out how to enlarge and reorganize the school and outbuildings.

“How’d it go?,” Loch asked as Ed started to walk by, not paying attention.

“Huh? Oh.. Loch,” Ed said, coming to a stop, looking embarrassed. “Sorry, was lost in thought.”

“Meeting was that good?”

“Yes but uhm… no, I was thinking of Mike,” Ed admitted. “He’s been acting strange lately.”

“How so?,” Loch asked, motioning for Ed to lead as they walked the short distance to the offices.

“He’s more aloof. Barely spends any time with Susan and I. Always hanging out with that caster from his adventuring party. Theodore I think his name is.”

Loch opened the door to the offices, letting Ed walk in first. Following, he let the door close. Theodore. The man’s name was coming up a lot lately. Some of the newcomers had been talking about him, even some of the older Clanmembers. Mostly those that were laborers. Loch had always had an odd feeling about the man. Still couldn’t tell why.

“It’s not easy doing what he’s doing,” Loch said, having a hard time believing he was defending Michael Turner.

“Your girls seem to be handling it just fine.”

Loch had no answer for that.

“Anyways,” Ed said, stopping at the doorway into his office. “The meeting went good but we’re running out of space again.”

Kristin was sitting at her desk, turning her chair to look at Ed. Loch leaned against the counter. The day-to-day running of the Clan and the Clanhold was Ed’s department. Now that there were wider concerns with the Silver Bark, finding more Resource mines, eventually getting to Concord, and more Dungeons, Loch could focus on that stuff and let Ed run the Clanhold.

“We just moved the last family into the completed bunkhouse and already filled up the space they vacated,” Ed sighed. “We can’t build them fast enough. The schoolyard has space for one more bunkhouse and maybe we can squeeze in one half the size.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Is that with moving anything else planned for that area,” Kristin asked, notebook already open with pen ready to write.

“Thankfully, no.”

Ed moved out of the doorway, taking one of the spare chairs near Kristin and Lochs desks. He leaned back, hands joined behind his head.

“The crafting stations are going in behind the school, between it and the lake. There’s not enough area there, and it slopes too much, to build more bunkhouses. But between the school and the outbuilding where they’re building the wall? All the space is used up.” Ed sighed, shaking his head. “We made a mistake with the placement of the first buildings. We built them too far back.”

“The plan was to keep the space between them and the dungeon open for future wagon travel,” Kristin said, tapping a pencil against her notebook.

“We should have just made the call to have them drive by on the other side of the Dungeon,” Ed said. “We could have used that space.”

“No use regretting it now,” Loch said. “What are the solutions?”

“They’re coming up with some plans for two or three story bunkhouses,” Ed replied. “But the solution is to start building past the walls.”

Loch shook his head, not liking that idea. It would happen eventually, but it still felt too soon. There were still too many monsters roaming the woods around the school. Mutated Chipmunks, Coyotes and Ticks were common, coming out of the trees a couple times a day. That didn’t even account for threats like the gaunts. The Silver Bark were out there. Giants, hobs, frogmen and so much more.

The walls weren’t much protection, but they were protection. Anything built outside them wouldn’t have anything defensive at all. Those people would be vulnerable. They could move the walls, but most of it was already built. Secondary walls?

That was how villages in medieval times were built. There was the castle with a wall, then the village with more walls around that. As the village grew, the wall would move outward and expand. It went back to the same problems they’d been having.

Manpower and resources.

“The good news,” Ed said, smiling, “is that we’re starting to have a surplus of labor. With the recent newcomers, we’ve gotten about a dozen more workers and over a dozen fighters. Barely any of those fighters want to be adventurers, but they are willing to be guards. Darren is already working on increasing the patrol ranges. We need to have guards go all the way down to the fire pond and the new smithy, so the plan would be to build new bunkhouses along that route.”

“It’s been long enough since the Connection, that anyone still traveling the roads now will have a lot of fighting experience,” Loch said.

“We could run into the opposite problem of what we have now,” Kristin said. “Too many guards and not enough workers.”

“Hopefully it levels out,” Loch said. “At some point we’ll need more civilians than guards or adventurers.”

“If it follows trends like it did Pre-Connection,” Kristin pointed out. “But this is a new world so…,” she shrugged.

Loch nodded. Cerie had told them that eventually the monsters nearby would thin out, no longer coming near the growing community. That would allow them to expand past the school grounds with homes and more fields. Having grown up in already established towns and cities, places that had been around for hundreds of years, Elora had only stories about when the Silver Bark and other Clans had first established those towns. They had grown just as Clan Brady’s was. A small Clanhold that expanded. Sometimes the Clanhold would even move to a better location.

Loch feared they might end up having to do that.

Modern society hadn’t been built like the old, especially in rural areas like Northwood. There was no town center, with blocks of buildings built around it. Northwood was spread out. Homes on multiple acres, space between them. Aligned down both sides of streets. No square blocks, or homes close together around a central point. There wasn’t enough land nearby to start building townhouses or small homes clustered around a central point. For that, they’d have to go pretty far from the school.

There were the recfields or Bow Lake Field, which were closer just up Bow Lake Road. There was plenty of space to expand there. There had once been entire villages in the space that Bow Lake Field had. And there would already be a decent amount of traffic down Bow Lake Road. The Smithy was being built next to the fire pond and the trail to the mine was just up the road, almost across from the entrance to Bow Lake Field.

He’d heard people talking about moving back into the still standing homes, the ones along Route 4 and the closer side streets like Bow Lake and Harmony. Loch had thought about moving back to their house but dismissed the idea. Not just because of the memories of Kelly. The Ranking Board showed she was still alive, but didn’t tell them where.

The house was just too far away. And there was the spawn field.

Spreading out was a mistake. If people started occupying the homes along Route 4, there would be no way to protect them all. And it would take too much time to get back and forth.

Loch liked the idea of expanding into Bow Lake Field. They could build a wall around the acreage and start building small homes. If they planned it right, they could fit a lot of homes along with park places, taverns and some larger buildings, maybe even shops for the crafters. Move the living areas to Bow Lake Field and really turn the school building into a new version of a castle.

And Bow Lake Field wasn’t that far from the school. If attacked, a force of guards could get there relatively quickly.

“Do we have a scalable map with Bow Lake Field?,” he asked.

“I think so,” Kristin answered, pulling up one of her communication notebooks. She started writing in it, sending a message to one of her many assistants. “I’ll see if we can track one down. Why?”

“That’s where we expand to,” Loch answered. “Get the planners and start seeing what they can do with the space. Tell them to make it a real village.”

“Not just homes?,” Ed asked.

“No. Everything. Park, fountains, shops, tavern.”

Kristin made a couple more notes. Ed looked thoughtful, fingers tapping on the arm of his chair.

“What’s the status of the construction projects?,” Loch asked.

“The buildings at the mine are behind schedule,” Ed admitted. “Because of the available resources, we can only devote workers and guards there for a couple days before needing to bring them back and send out the next shift. So there’s days of downtime. The barn and bunkhouse at the dump for the chickens is almost done.” Ed stopped, glancing at Kristin.

She set aside the communication notebook, pulling out another one. Loch was amazed at how her Skills allowed her to keep track of everything in the many notebooks she had. She’d shown him the notes once. Secretaries once used shorthand to take notes, allowing them to write quicker and then translate it later. Kristin’s writing was along those lines. It wasn’t code, but more like shorthand. Short word and letter combinations that would trigger her memory and translate into the full sentences. But it was only stuff she could understand. It was gibberish to anyone else.

“The smithy is almost done,” she said. “Having Clyde Baxter join the Clan was huge. He’s helped get the final pieces needed constructed. We should be able to start smithing in a couple of days.” She paused, holding up a hand to stall the excitement. “But it won’t be weapons and armor. Not yet. Clyde says he doesn’t have recipes for any of that. We’re looking through the books taken from the library to see if there’s anything that can help. Cerie says it’s just a matter of time.”

“Everything is a matter of time,” Loch grumbled.

“What else is on your agenda?,” Ed asked, standing up.

“Nothing,” Loch answered.

He shot up, looking around. First out the window, then through the glass doors into the lobby. Ed followed his gaze, looking at Kristin when he didn’t see anything. She shrugged, both looking confused at Loch. She started to speak but he held up a finger.

A minute turned to two before Loch seemed to relax.

“I think it’s safe now,” he said.

The door into the office burst open, a guard breathing heavy, eyes wide as he tried to speak.

“They found another one,” he finally managed to get out.

Loch sighed.