It was time for a change of pace. He had spent most of the last day and this day planning, but now it was time for him to do something. He had cut trees, worked on his magic, and trained a few people, but it seemed like he was not accomplishing his goal. The primary one was that he wanted to upgrade the town.

He had also been too easy on the townspeople. They had done nothing for the last three days except scavenge for a little food and wait for him to build them houses. This excluded, of course, the woodcutters who had been mostly responsible for him being able to build everything in the first place.

The first step was to call a meeting, from there he could explain his thoughts and plans, and how expected to accomplish them. It would likely be difficult, but he could include the people in the plan and lay out how he expected them to help.

Joseph’s people, on the other hand, deserved some rest, and Sally needed time to recover mana so that she could heal all of them. Joseph himself seemed to be a natural leader, and Callum felt he could at least entrust some responsibilities to him.

He set out towards the houses and found that most people were lounging around. That convinced him that they needed this even more. Each house received the same instructions, he was holding a meeting in an hour outside the town hall and expected everyone to be there. He was unsure yet what he would do with the people who did not come, but how this town would be run needed to be laid out.

Monarch was the first word that he thought of, though that was a term that people in modern times would balk at. However, that term resonated with him for reasons that he could not describe. It felt like something beyond a calling like it was a predetermined course of action. Callum shivered at the thought. Not because it was appalling, but because it reverberated so strongly within his soul.

He shook the thoughts from his head and moved on to the task at hand. Once he had delivered the notice of the meeting, he stood waiting for the people to gather. There were several that came immediately but it was clear they had nothing better to do. Others trickled in over the hour, and finally, there was a group that would rather laze about for an hour before coming to the meeting. Decent results for people whose lives had been upended.

While they trickled in, he went over in his head what he would say. The goal was to not come across as too harsh but to express that the times they were now in would require hard work. He also needed to ingratiate himself to them, but maintain that he was in charge. He had heard the saying somewhere that good leaders serve the people they lead. He would do his best to embody that.

Looking out at the gathered people made him nervous for a moment. He hadn’t done much public speaking in the past, and this was over a hundred people he was now speaking to. He took a calming breath and began his speech.

“I’m sure you’re all curious why I called a meeting. To put it simply, life has changed a lot and we need to change with it. There are monsters now, as most of you already know. They are dangerous and will kill any of us easily and without a second thought. For not only your protection but the protection of others, we are going to have to grow stronger. However, we have a gift. Whatever entity has caused these monsters also gave us the tools to combat them. You all have classes and skills you did not before, but you need to use them.

“That also brings me to my next point: we are going to need more people. ‘Safety in numbers’ is a phrase I’m sure you’ve all heard before, and I’m sure that holds. We have already been attacked once, but me and Eliza were able to kill the wolves that attacked us. A proof of the need for strength. I am sure this will happen again, and when it does, it will be worse. And when it comes, we need to be ready.

“In addition to this, we are going to have to fend for ourselves. I don’t know if any governing bodies still exist, but I have not seen any of them. It seems all modern technology is gone, and with it, most modern forms of governance. This also means that the supply lines that we depended on for food and other necessities are gone, and we will need to grow our own. I don’t know about any of you individually, but I don’t know the first thing about growing food. For that reason, I am proposing this: we need to get to the library. Most likely, it will have the information we need. At some point in the coming week, we need to have a group that we are confident will be able to handle whatever dangers are in the city.

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“I have built the training grounds for this purpose, but that is not the only thing that will help us. There are dungeons nearby that we can use to gain levels, while the training grounds is for gaining proficiency in skills. In time, I believe we can get back to some semblance of the lives we had before.”

Callum let his words hang in the air for a few minutes while making eye contact with random people in the crowd. It seemed a good way to emphasize his point. He knew his next words would likely stir up the crowd, so he braced himself.

“Any questions?”

“Yeah, I’ve got one,” someone in the crowd said. “Who died and left you in charge?”

Callum had expected some variation of this question, but what he said wasn’t his prepared answer.

“No one had to die, I simply did what no one else was willing to do.” A little frustration slipped into his voice. “I also didn’t see anyone else willing to step up and go into that first dungeon. I did it because I thought it was the right thing. Tell me, do you have the will to do the hard things that are necessary for the good of us all?” He didn’t know where the anger came from, likely left over from his encounters with the Vipers. The words themselves were a whole thing to themselves, but as he spoke, they felt right.

Thankfully, no more questions about if he was right for the job came up, but several were asked about his plan. He was more than happy to go explain details, and as he went through the explanations, people trickled away, until the last person left was Ryan, leaning against the wall of the town hall.

“Where did that come from?” he asked.

“The speech?” Ryan nodded. “I was getting tired of people not doing much, and decided that I needed to give them some motivation that took the form of a plan.”

“I thought it was good, something about the way you carried yourself was convincing, but some people are not going to be happy about you putting yourself in charge.”

“I came to terms with that before I gave the speech.” Callum joined Ryan, leaning against the wall. “But I think it needed to be said. Life is going to be hard now.” They stood there a moment, enjoying the calm breeze and the warming afternoon sun.

Ryan nodded his head and walked into the town hall. Callum followed, he needed to sit down a moment while he organized the people. What he found was people who were starting to organize themselves. Using Identify, he saw that they were grouping themselves by class. It was not everyone, but it was roughly forty people, with warriors being half, and the other three basic classes in equal groups.

What came next was a series of questions from each group that asked him what they thought he should do to grow their skills. The enthusiasm was more than he could have hoped for. The warriors were the easiest as he could give them simple instructions on how to sense their skill and then direct them toward the training grounds.

The rogues were a bit more difficult as he didn’t know how their main skill, stealth, worked. If Eliza was there, he possibly could have coaxed her into giving a lesson on stealth. He would likely see her at some point in the day, she usually came to see him at least once, but until then it was guesswork on what they should do.

Next was the rangers. He weighed his options and decided to spend some of his gold on bows. If he had more gold, he would have gladly outfitted all seven of them, but as it stood, each bow was ten gold. He could only afford one and still have some left over when he needed to arm other people for a dungeon run.

He looked around to find the mages, as that was the only group he hadn’t spoken with, but Ryan had already taken charge of them. It was good to see Ryan stepping up as well. Callum trusted him to give the same basic instructions Ryan had taught him. Since the other groups were occupied with their own training, he decided to sit in and see if Ryan had any more insights that would be helpful.

What he heard felt like it no longer applied to him. Ryan spoke about the way mana flowed through them and the atmosphere around them, but it was all too calm. Callum’s magic seemed like he was exerting his will upon it, but all the other mages nodded along.

It was truly an amazing thing to see all these people suddenly so interested in what they could do now. Callum attributed it to a natural desire to do something than sit in boredom, and he had given that desire a goal. It was an important lesson for him in being a leader.

He sought out Sally again and found that she was most of the way through healing Joseph’s people. It was a mixed bag. The ones who had minor wounds she had managed to get back to full strength, but the ones that were missing limbs or other pieces of themselves had not been as lucky. A brief word with Sally impressed on Callum how bad she felt about this. He could only resolve to find them something to do as they all seemed to want to help.

This was in line with his initial assessment of them. All of the people that had survived that dungeon understood how dangerous life was, and how much they were going to have to work just to survive now.

Callum spoke briefly with Joseph and explained that he was going to go scout out the next target for a dungeon. He felt a bit of the tension leave him when Joseph confirmed that he and his people would be ready in case anything happened. At least now the town would have someone watching over it while he was gone.

His scouting started with checking the map on the obelisk. He knew there was no massive dungeon in the direction of his apartment building, so that was where he would start. He got a rough idea of what the boundaries were to the east and set off in that direction.