B2-29 - Ibadan (Patreon)

Maya rapped her knuckles upon the marsani block and grinned. “Solid work, Scotty,” she said. 

“Thank you, Maya. I had trouble with the tolerances, as the cutter is not a fine machining instrument.” 

“I gotcha, bud. Until we can find or make a machining… machine, you’re our best bet to create these things. Keep up the good work,” Maya heard a thump making its way toward her and looked to see a drone walking across the open space of the manufacturing room. 

Roci sat upon a pile of mana batteries and had her tentacles raised above her head, as if she were conducting an orchestra. Instead she was piloting the new drone that she and Scotty had managed to cobble together on their ‘free’ time.  It was a six foot tall, four legged creature that had been made from a processor unit and some scavenged computer bits from the old engineering AI core and various places. Maya was impressed, it was their first system tech drone creation. 

It was also ungainly and had various power supply issues. As power was their main bottleneck, Maya had to put her foot down on its usage. Charging the mana batteries, setting up the defenses, and heading to Earth were their main objectives and she had been drilling it into everyone’s head for the last three days. 

Maya stood beside Roci and watched as she moved the drone around the manufacturing area. Labor had become an issue once more, too many things to do and too little people to do it. Yosi had claimed the Nerigana also used some servant drones to do the heavy lifting for them, but the Consortium were assholes and they preferred to use living beings as their labor force. Roci had taken up the challenge of creating a drone to help with moving supplies around.  

“Looking good, Roci,” Maya said. 

“It could be better,” Roci mumbled in reply. She dropped her tentacles and the drone shuddered to a stop, half slumping against a bulkhead. “There are guidance issues, mobility issues, and the processor is overheating for some reason.” Roci gave a human-like sigh and looked at Maya. “I gained a level though.” 

Maya grinned. She had been surprised to find out that Roci was leveling. It was a strange and somewhat terrifying thing. From what Maya knew, only AIs that had gained full sentience and sapience while being Tier 2 would begin gaining levels, but at that point they wouldn’t be artificial intelligences, but System Identified Lifeforms.

That the System had somehow changed Roci and made her sentient and sapient while having no levels was an incredible thing. Maya didn’t know what it meant or what the purpose was, but on occasion she felt the massive weight of responsibility and minor terror at trying to raise Roci right. 

Perhaps it was something her parents had dealt with when they had children, Maya mused. She hadn’t been the golden child growing up. Most of her elementary reports labeled her as disruptive, argumentative, and aggressive with other children and adults. She remembered even making one parent cry because their child was a real dick. 

Maya leaned forward and tousled Roci’s smooth head. The young AI… no, SIL, looked up at her in confusion. Her parents had decades to get to know her, they had spent years raising her, but Maya realized it had been barely three weeks since Roci had been formed.  

In three weeks she had become a barely speaking one foot tall AI to a fully conversing, near adult that was three feet tall. Maya still didn’t understand how she had changed her body, only that Roci claimed she grew bigger. She chalked it up to system fuckery and filed it away for later pondering. 

“We haven’t spoken much the last few days,” Maya said to Roci. 

“We’re speaking now,” Roci said with a sullen tone. “Stop rubbing my head.”

“Are you still angry about me yelling at you?” Maya asked. 

“No. I’m angry about you rubbing my head. It feels condescending.” 

“It’s a sign of affection.” 

“For me?” Roci snorted. “That would be a first.” 

“Oh, we’re in that phase of your development,” Maya said, smiling again. 

“What does that mean?” Roci demanded. 

Maya stopped rubbing Roci’s head and then pulled her into a hug. She was surprised as she lifted Roci up. Maya didn’t know if it were her increased Physical strength or Roci wasn’t as heavy as most AIs were. Maya gripped her in a bearhug and twirled Roci around. 

“Stop it!” Roci cried. 

“No,” Maya said. “You grew up so fast, you’re smart and talented, you can do things that I still struggle with.” Maya kept a hold of Roci. “I kinda forgot you’re not an adult.”

“I am too!” 

“Nah, Roci. Don’t be in a hurry to grow up,” Maya continued holding onto the struggling young woman. “You’ve been aware for only three weeks, it takes a lifetime to fully grasp what it means to be a person. I should have devoted more time to you.” 

“Like it matters,” Roci said. “I am doing well enough.” 

“The worse thing a parent can do to a child is ignore them,” Maya said. “There’s no excuse for what I’ve done. I’ve been ignoring you, not out of spite or maliciousness, but that doesn’t matter. I haven’t been giving you the attention you need.” 

“Don’t bother,” Roci said. “I am fine.” 

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need to know that I love you.” 

“What?” Roci sputtered. 

“I love you. Know that. It’s not just words, it’s the truth. I love you.” 

Roci stopped squirming in her arms. “I-I…” 

“The System might have changed you, you might have grown up fast, and you might be crazy smart, but you’re my kid. I love you, Roci Sullivan.” 

Roci hung limply in her arms, not moving or saying anything. Even with her metallic body, Maya could feel a sort of tension leave her. After a long moment, Maya felt Roci hug her in turn. 

“After I install the railgun turrets, we’re heading to Earth. I want you to come with me.”

“But there’s so much other stuff to do,” Roci said after a moment. 

“That doesn’t matter. I want you to come with me, to be with me when we deal with other people. Making guns and selling stuff isn’t our goal, that’s just the side project. Our real goal is helping people. I want you to be there with me when we provide them with the help they need.” 

Roci looked at Maya and then slowly nodded. 

“Okay.” 

***

“You sure you’ll be able to leave Badblood by herself?” Maya asked Nan. The doctor had arrived before the Cage was formed, carrying her equipment and supplies. 

“I underestimated the depth of Badblood’s injuries,” Nan stated. “It has been three days and she has not regained consciousness, I suspect that her body is undergoing a full restoration, which from my calculations will take another three standard days. There is not much I can do now, except provide her nutrients, which are easily automated.” 

Maya nodded and turned to Bell. “You don’t want to see Earth?” she asked. 

“As Tender and Veskari are not present, someone has to remain on watch,” he said. “There could be another rogue AI attack.” 

“But, it’s Earth!” 

“I have seen it from orbit,” Bell said. 

“That’s not the same!” 

“There will be plenty of opportunities to see Earth.” 

“Fine. But we have four full mana batteries and we’re gonna take our sweet time, might even stay the full forty hours,” Maya said. 

“So be it.” 

“Let’s load up, kids. We got people to see and things to sell.” 

***

Ibadan, Nigeria

Day 8

Ezra Adenekan crouched behind the shattered wall of a coffee shop as explosions roared around him. He took a breath and popped his head up for a second to scout the street.  

A hideous roar filled the air as a creature called a Whalewalker stalked the street. Half a kilometer away several mortar teams were trying to triangulate their fire to hit the massive creature but they were hitting the buildings instead.

Ezra pulled out an old rotary phone with a crank, he cranked the phone and put the receiver to his ear. There was a crackle of static and he shouted what he had seen to those on the other side. There was a moment of silence as the mortars stopped firing and then resumed, their aim dead center upon the creature. 

The whalewalker had arrived from Lagos the day before, although couriers had sent warnings to the city, there wasn’t much anyone could do to hold it back. What was left of the Nigerian military had managed to chase the creature out of Lagos, but that forced the monster to make its way to Ibadan instead.

Through desperation the Ibadan Emergency Militia had been formed with the University of Ibadan as its heart. They had spent days gathering as many weapons or creating makeshift weapons as they could. 

Even those that had gained Powers from the Integration were called upon. Ezra had the Skill Sneak, awarded to him when he had to escape his apartment complex as it was overrun with mutated rat creatures on the second day of Integration. 

Two days later he had been ‘drafted’ into the militia and he’d been made into a scout. Five days before that he had been a struggling law student at the University of Ibadan, with a healthy dose of pragmatic self preservation.  

Ezra stared up at the whalewalker as it reeled from the mortar fire. Thick blue blood erupted from the explosions, one explosion tearing off a huge crablike leg that propelled the monster. 

Hope filled his heart as he watched, but then he saw the thick veins along the creatures underside begin to glow with blue energy. He cranked the phone again and screamed into the receiver, but only silence greeted him. Ezra cursed as he looked down at the cord that trailed behind him. A kilometer of phone cord strung across the rubble of Ibadan was a delicate thing. Any kind of debris could and did slice through the thin wire. 

But it was their only form of long distant communications. Radios and cell phones had died the first day, anything that ran off of electricity had become useless. Only when they managed to revert to the most basic of electronics did things work.  

Ezra stared helplessly as the veins glowed brighter and brighter. He knew what would happen next, the whalewalker would eject a massive energy blast. It was the creature’s main weapon, when it wasn’t destroying everything with its crablike arms, it was blasting them into atoms. A disintegrator, as some had called it. What the blue light hit was utterly destroyed. 

A pressure filled the air and Ezra scrambled away from the wall and threw himself across the serving counter and into a small back office. He gagged as he was greeted by a half eaten corpse. 

The whalewalker let out a hideous scream that gave Ezra pause. He had been scouting the creature for the last day and he thought he knew all of the noises that it emitted. The screams of joy, hate, and rage were the common sounds, as it killed and chased prey. Even the mortars had caused it to emit the rare screams of pain. 

Ezra cocked his head and listened to the new scream. It was a wet and gurgling scream, the sound of a wounded animal. Ezra eased himself out of the office and crouched behind the counter, peering out into the street. What he saw amazed him. 

The whalewalker was cut in half, as if a giant guillotine had slammed down upon it. The back end of the creature lay on the ground, flopping sickeningly and the front half of the monster tried crawling forward. The massive mouth of the walker was gaped in a scream, but all that came out was its blue blood. 

Ezra stared in wonder as a small tidal wave of blue blood and viscera poured out of the creature. He stood there and laughed, the creature was dying. 

He pulled out the pistol he had been issued and snapped off the safety. 

“Die you fucking monster!” he yelled and fired a few shots into the creature. He had seen it dismantle buildings filled with people, he had watched as it crushed them underfoot, snap them in half with its pincers, or throw them screaming into its massive maw. 

The monster ignored his shots and it crawled another twenty meters before finally collapsing to the ground with a massive thud. It let out a shuddering breath and died. 

Whalewalker - Level 60

Defeated

+ 12,000 EXP

+ 5,000 credits

Level up! (Level 5)

…

Level up! (Level 8)

Ezra grabbed a chair off the ground and sat down heavily, sobbing as the stress and terror finally caught up with him. He shakily set the safety back on his pistol and holstered it.

The mortar team had stopped firing, perhaps there was another scout with a working phone that told them the creature was dead. Ezra didn’t care at the moment, instead he buried his head into his hands and took a long breath. He wiped away his tears and got to his feet. He would need to report back. The creature was dead and the biggest threat to Ibadan was taken care of, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any danger in the city.  

Millions had died in the last week, entire sections of the city had burned or were overrun with creatures equally as terrifying as the whalewalker. It was only the massive creature’s presence that had kept the worse of the monsters away, but with it dead they would be returning. There was a grace period before they would return, though, and the militia had a chance to retake some areas or scavenge for more food and weapons. 

Ezra eased himself out of the coffee shop, looking up and down the street. He paused as he saw something amongst the viscera of the monster. A glowing sign. 

“Ma-ya-s Em-po-ri-um?” he said slowly and sighed. English wasn’t a language he was good at.  

***

“If my chest were a railgun,” Maya misquoted as she looked at the bloody mess that remained of the creature before them. “This guy was a massive Moby Dick.” 

“Whalewalker. An interesting creature,” Nan said. 

“I didn’t even get any experience points for killing it,” Maya fumed. “Sure, it was technically the Cage forming within the creature that cut the whale in half, but still. Who controls the Cage? Me. That’s who. Where’s my experience and loot?” Maya sighed. 

“There’s a human over there,” Yosi said, highlighting a figure who was staring at the Cage wall. 

“Finally,” Maya said. “Third time is the charm, ladies.” 

“Being underwater was pretty awesome,” Roci said, happily. “That giant snake creature was cool.” 

They had arrived in the middle of the Pacific Ocean upon their first attempt. The Cage wasn’t compromised, but Maya could almost feel the pressure of the ocean upon her. It was far different than whenever she arrived on land or in space.  

Their second attempt had landed them in the middle of a desert. There was literally nothing but hot crystalized sand for miles and miles, according to their sensors. Yosi claimed it was a Blighted Area, a place where essence mana had wiped away every living thing, even bacteria and microorganisms in the soil. 

Now they had finally arrived in the middle of a city and as luck would have it, in the middle of a monster. A level 60 whalewalker, one hundred meters long and five hundred metric tons of pure sea food. 

“This creature is calorie dense,” Nan said. “I believe we can transfer one kilo of this beast’s biomass into two kilos of ration bars.” 

“Whoa,” Maya said. “We usually only get two kilos of biomass for one kilo of ration bar.” 

“That human is advancing with a weapon drawn,” Yosi said. 

Maya looked to see a young man walking toward them. He was a mess, covered in dirt and grime, a slight limp in one leg, and his clothing was torn. He didn’t look like a soldier. In his hands he carried a pistol, Maya recognized it as a Browning Hi-power, a pistol that Pops also owned. 

“Well, he’s cautious and this is going to take a while,” Maya said. She activated a window and brought up some messages that had been blinking in the corner of her vision. 

Anisa Karam, Chosen Representative, has raised the Settlement, Beirut, to Level 2. Do you approve this level change? Y/N.

Maya looked to Yosi and called her and Roci over. 

“What’s this mean?” 

“Well, it seems Anisa Karam has gathered the necessary monetary and resource requirements to upgrade the Settlement Deed,” Yosi said. “Normally, Chosen Representatives wouldn’t do that since it comes out of their pocket and you still own the deed.” 

“So it’s a better settlement now?” 

“Once you approve it, then yes.” Yosi said. 

Maya selected the ‘yes’ option. 

Congrats, Bierut has now achieved Level 2 in Defense Settlement. Settlement Area increased to 50 square kilometers. 

+ 2 percent increase to combat XP gains

+ 10 percent Defense Bonus

+ Anisa Karam, commander, has gained Skill: Fortify

- 5 percent XP gains from Crafting

- 5 percent tax gains from Settlement

“Less crafting and less taxes?” Maya muttered. “I wasn’t even collecting taxes from them.” 

“Normally one would only use Defense Settlements to create a small defensible spot in a ring of regular settlements,” Yosi said. 

Notice: Upgrade 10 Settlements to Level 5 and you will have access to Settlement Logistic Network, allowing resources to be moved between your Settlements at standard rates.

“Oh?” Maya asked, surprised. “A mini trade network?” Maya asked. 

“I believe so,’ Yosi said. “I don’t know much about this, but I believe it is only for raw resources, not finished goods, and it only works on the planet itself, not the entire solar system like a System Assisted Logistic Network.” 

“Boo,” Maya muttered, “but still... Logistics is something that made our world run smoothly. What about something in orbit around the planet? Can I make a space station and would it be considered ‘on’ the planet?”

“I don’t know,” Yosi said. Maya sighed.  

“That means you’re going to have to retain ownership of the Settlement Deeds,” Roci said. 

“Oh, shit.”

***

It took the young man nearly an RSH hour to reach the door and after another few minutes of dithering he finally pushed it open. Maya got everyone into their places and created an inviting room for their first customer. The man stumbled in and nearly fell as a wave of dizziness overcame him. 

“I gotta put up a sign,” Maya said. “The first step is always weird.” Maya stepped up before the young man and held out a hand. “Good day, fine sir! Welcome to Maya’s Emporium!” 

***

“I guess it’s just bias and all that,” Maya said as she watched Nan and the young man talk. “I just assumed everyone knew some English.” 

“How many languages are there on your world?” Yosi asked. 

Maya shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe thousands?” 

“That’s odd, but not unheard of,” she said. “There are twenty five different Nerigana dialects in the Consortium and about fifty Class Two languages.” 

“Eventually everything homogenizes?” Maya asked. 

“Basically. One culture tends to dominate and eventually over the thousands of standard years, they shape the culture to their own.” 

“Ugh.” 

“We are ready,” Nan said as she and the young man approached. Nan was actually moving this time, not just sitting in her chair as she had done on previous occasions. “I will have to translate for you, but I have updated the language module for Yoruba.” 

“Hi there,” Maya said cheerfully.

“Your friend tells me that this place is a market?” Ezra asked. 

“Yeah, basically. We sell goods and supplies,” Maya said. “Interested in buying anything?”  

Ezra looked about nervously, his eyes falling first on Yosi and then Roci, who were sitting and watching him in turn. “What are you selling? Can they help us?”

“Come, see my wares, be wowed by my fine selection of weapons, tools, and armor.” 

***

Maya ignored the bitter argument and watched as men, women, and children hacked and sawed at the corpse of the whalewalker.  It had been only an MVT hour since she had arrived and an impromptu party had erupted outside of the the Cage wall. Hundreds of people were streaming in, carrying weapons or pushing carts, wheelbarrows, and even occasionally an old working vehicle. Computers took a big hit from the influx of mana, but it seemed anything mechanical still worked. Water still boiled and gasoline still burned.

Nan had said the meat was edible by humans and before she could pass on that information, it was already being set upon by the hungry people of Ibadan. Ezra told her that they had been eating the mana mutations around the city, with only a few being poisonous. 

It had been a very long time since Maya had eaten anything resembling human food. She looked at the giant steaks that people were cutting off and felt a gurgle in her belly. 

“This will not do!” a woman cried. “We cannot let this opportunity slip by!” 

“Well, what are you going to do?” demanded an older man. He was dressed in a suit, that was actually cleaned and pressed. He, unlike many others, seemed well fed. “These are my credits and I’ll spend them any damn way I want.” 

“You swindled those credits off people, selling trash to them for high prices,” another man announced. 

Maya wasn’t interested in the politics of the city, she was interested in helping the people. But before she could even help anyone, the Ibadan Emergency Militia had stepped in and taken control of the area. They allowed people to harvest the whale, but refused to allow anyone into the Cage to purchase anything. 

From what she was learning, the well dressed man Deji Oyekan, was the top dog of the place. He had been a wealthy business man with connections to the military and a plan just in case the world came to an end. That included a massive well stocked and armed bunker for him and his close friends. What he hadn’t counted on were the mana mutations that invaded that bunker and left him the sole survivor.  

As he couldn’t survive alone, he reached out to other survivors and built a small following for himself using the resources of the bunker to hunt, kill, and set up shop in an area outside of the University of Ibadan. He was also the first to realize that the credits people were gaining killing mana mutations could be used for something down the line, so he had been collecting them from his ‘tenets’ and anyone who came by his small outpost to trade or ask for help. 

When the whalewalker approached, Oyekan had been given the rank of Colonel in the Militia in exchange for the mortars that had been used along with some automatic weapons and explosives. 

Usually, Maya would have found him fascinating. A man with a plan and resources, but it didn’t take long for her to completely despise him. 

He was utterly selfish and only wanted things that would benefit him and his group. After they all saw the weapons that Maya could sell, they were bidding over one another and Oyekan was the only one who had the credits to burn.  

Jolasun Ladipo and John Adenuga on the other hand were government types. Adenuga wanted control and complete access to the Cage, he looked at it as a resource and was trying to get Maya to remain here and lend them all the support she could. Ladipo did not like the fact that Maya was willing to sell deadly weapons to anyone, even as the world was falling apart. 

Ultimately it was about control. Maya hadn’t set up a plan to deal with an existing governmental structure; it hadn’t been apart of her ‘sell stuff to everyone’ plan. Now, the three people before her argued and were wasting her time as she could feel the mana being drained from the mana batteries. 

She had been here for nearly thirteen hours and had not sold a damn thing to anyone. Well, besides Ezra who had almost six thousand credits on him. 

Speaking of the young man, Ezra sat at a table not far from them, talking with Nan. Maya had spent some of the time waiting and cobbled together a speaker that accessed Nan’s translation module and then spat it back out in the Yoruba language. That way Nan didn’t have to talk for her. 

Maya mentally added translation modules to the list of items she needed to buy when she got to a system tech world. 

“Is this the humanity you wanted me to see, Maya?” Roci asked. 

“It ain’t all selfless acts of heroism,” Maya said.

“I can see that.” 

“Don’t judge them too harshly, scared people are ultimately selfish in their desire to protect themselves and their own. But yeah, this has gone on too long.” Maya got to her feet. “Silence!” she demanded. 

The three before her quieted up. 

“You three represent the existing government of this place. A place that has a million people still living, the most that I’ve seen in any part of the world I’ve gone to, albeit that was only two places. Still, you have a million people to protect and help, so why the hell are you arguing over who gets what? If you have the credits, then buy what I have. If you don’t, send in people who are willing to buy stuff.” 

“Buy, buy, buy,” Ladipo responded. “Just another greedy American trying to get money off of us. Exploiting our blood and sacrifice to bankroll your lifestyle.” 

“Jesus, lady,” Maya snapped. “I’ve already given you all the food and medicine that I had on me, all I ask is for some god damn credits so that I can continue making more stuff to help others.”

“There are a million people here that need your help,” Adenuga stated. 

“There are billions of others that also need my help,” Maya replied. “Food and medicine I will offer you freely, but weapons, tools, the small cache of knowledge cubes I have, those will cost credits.” 

“This Settlement Deed, also,” Adenuga said. “Why are you the owner of it?” 

“Because I bought it,” Maya said slowly. “I’ve been over this. The settlement deed is yours to use, but because of the System it needs to belong to me. It allows me to stay in contact with you and when you level up the settlement I’ll be able to create a Settlement Network to move around resources.” 

“Then release it fully to us,” Ladipo said. 

“Or give me one,” Oyekan said. 

“If you’re not apart of my Settlement Network, then you won’t be able to receive resources from me,” Maya said slowly. “You will be considered Independent and no longer under the SSS umbrella.” 

“I will not sell my country out,” Lidapo said bitterly. “You know our history, foreigners coming to our land and exploiting us. You are a foreign corporation that expects to own a piece of my country, without any restrictions because the System does not recognize our sovereignty.”

“I’m only looking to help ya’ll out,” Maya said. 

“But we have no guarantees that you’ll do any such thing,” Ladipo replied. “You talk only about money and you offer us some free goods, but the things we really need you hide behind credits. We are dying and you’re trying to extract the last of our blood from us.” 

“Alright, fuck it,” Maya said. “If you’re not going to buy anything, then let those who are in. Otherwise you’re wasting precious mana and I need other places to be. If you just want to keep arguing, then I’ll sell everything to the person who brings me the credits. I am willing to sell you half of the stuff I have split between you and Oyekan, but I do not have time to waste. 

“Please, stop,” Adenuga said, sighing. “We need what you have.” Ladipo glared in anger. “We are dying out there and we need all the help we can get.” 

“People are dying everywhere,” Maya said. “I’m trying to help where I can.” 

“I understand,” Adenuga said. “We shall buy what you have, although we do not have the same amount of credits that Oyekan has, we were not foolish enough to think they would not be needed for something. We have half a million. “ Ladipo grumbled as he admitted that. 

“I have three quarters of a million,” Oyekan bragged. 

“Maya, a word please,” Nan said. Maya got up and headed over to Nan and Ezra. She created a thin opaque wall between her and the others. 

“People have been fighting since Integration,” Ezra said. “They have credits also, not as much as I had, but some. If you sell to those three, they will only give it to those that they trust and they’ll use it to solidify their power base. Adenuga was known to be corrupt and he hasn’t changed in the last week. I hear he has been buying nightly ‘comfort’ with food we have collected. Lidapo is not much different, she talks a lot about how our people have been wronged, but wraps herself in the finest goods she can find. She was wealthy before Integration and wishes to keep her lifestyle. Oyekan is also not a good person. There is talk that he has a harem in his bunker, young women.” 

Maya sighed and shook her head. “God damn it,” she muttered. “What’s your deal?”

“Me? I was a law student and now I’m a scout,” Ezra said. “I had a Skill that was needed and I helped where I could. I guess it’s better than being stuck in the bunkers with everyone else..” 

“Do you know their levels?” Maya asked, gesturing to the three beyond the wall. 

“I think Adenuga is level 8, Ladipo is level 7, and Oyekan is level 9.” 

“And you?” 

“Uh, I just leveled up… level 8 now,” he said. 

Maya chuckled and then sighed again. “Alright. Alright.” She took a breath and then pulled out the Settlement Deed she had purchased. She wasn’t foolish enough to hand it over to the others before they agreed to her terms, but she looked at Ezra and gave it to him. 

“What?” he asked, shocked. 

“I’ve a good sense of people,” Maya said. “I was awarded Intention a long time ago and I never really understood what it did. But now I think I do understand it, it tells me to trust you because you’re an honest person and will try to do the right thing.” 

“I don’t understand,” Ezra said. 

“I’m naming you the Chosen Representative for the Sullivan Survival Society. I don’t want to fuck up your government here, but I can’t trust those three out there. I think I can trust you and I need someone who will help as many people as possible, not just trying to enrich themselves.” 

“No one will follow me,” Ezra said. 

“You have a deed that will prevent mana renders from forming, that will lower the levels of the monsters around your chosen spot. People will come because it will provide them protection.” 

“This seems like a terrible idea,” Ezra said. “I believe in democracy, not dictatorship.” 

“Look, you are my Chosen Rep, but that doesn’t mean you have to lead. I’m entrusting the Deed with you, so that you will have final say on everything that is done to the Settlement when I’m not around. You can elect a democratic government and all that, but I need someone to hold the Deed until we can figure out the best way to handle all of this stuff. If we keep dickering about this BS, then the more people die and the harder things get.” 

“I… Okay,” Ezra said. 

“Cool. I’ll tell everyone.” 

Maya opened the wall up again and entered the silent room as Ezra followed her. All hell broke loose when she told them what she was doing. Lidapo stood up and screamed that he would be dead within the day.  

Ezra left well armed and armored as Maya didn’t trust him to be safe until the Deed was activated. Luckily he had a Sneak skill and vanished into the crowds. Ladipo, Maya kicked out playing the video of her screaming death threats on the Cage wall. 

Maya turned to the others and smiled. “Buy something or GTFO.”