The Systemic Lands

Chapter 42: Day 90 (2) – Factions and Power

The discussion had gone on in circles for an hour. I was feeling quite bored, but sat there listening in. It reminded me of a car crash in slow motion. Horrible, but you couldn’t help but keep watching intently to see every little detail.

The first conclusion was that the Council of Captains was divided into three factions. The biggest faction, was the neutral faction, keep their heads down, or the Boss Carlos faction. Underboss Roger was also part of this faction, hence he preferred to defer to Boss Carlos on matter of policy.

The second faction was Tyrese’s faction, but I wasn’t sure if he was the leader. I was calling them the integration faction. He wanted to form a larger group and I suspected he was being backed by the Guild. He wasn’t advocating for them per se but the solutions he advocated for weren’t against them.

The third faction, I decided to call the power faction. They wanted a consolidation of power at the top tiers of the Red Dawn.

The thing was, Carlos had to avoid another revolt, hence he had to take the integration faction seriously. But on the other hand, he didn’t want to give up control and power he had managed to grab onto, hence he tended to favor the power faction.

It was the political process at work. One good thing about this place, no media, twitter, or anything like that. I thought back on history and the founding of America. I think Benjamin Franklin and a couple others had printing presses.

They definitely published quite a bit, maybe, I think. I remember the Federalist Papers from high school. Arguing for the US as a form of government and other things. It had been a very long time since high school. While I liked history, I was more a fan of quick You-Tube videos rather than finding original sources.

Now I was sitting at the birth of a new government. At least I got the name of the city in. It was hard to fight the grin that wanted to come up on my face. Imagine, being able to name New York, something else? Crazy to think about, but I could imagine, people wondering years from now how this place got its name.

It was an accomplishment that wasn’t based in blood or fighting. I would take it as a huge win. Oh, they were finally getting somewhere, and this sounded like something I should pay attention to.

“The proposal is to form an integrated team of six people. Four from the Red Dawn and two from other groups. Our people will get a skill first. Then we will look at a recruiting process. This team is expected to go out into unexplored areas and report back. They will be responsible for their own funding but will not be taxed. All in favor raise your hands,” Carlos finished speaking.

Everyone raised their hand and then looked at me. “Oh, I get a vote?” I rubbed the back of head and there were some chuckles. Good job me, for lightening the mood.

“Yes, the most powerful person of the city will have a seat at this Council and a vote,” Carlos said. “You missed the vote for that.”

“Ah, thanks. I vote yes for what you said. Can I let you vote on my behalf when I am not here?” I asked.

Carlos paused to consider that for a moment. No one else spoke up, I guess they were all too scared of me. “You might not like my vote.” I looked over at Carlos and he shrugged a bit.

“I think I can trust you not to cause me trouble. You are managing things well enough, and it hasn’t turned into a complete mess.” There were some light smiles at that.

“Very well, any objections for me taking on Michael’s vote as proxy if he isn’t here?” There were no objections, and I did what I wanted to do. Make it all Carlos’ problem. By giving him my vote, I was saying that I trusted him implicitly and didn’t care about the politics.

It may seem silly that I had to keep making that point clear over and over, but I had no doubt I would be roped into trouble if I started getting invested into voting and power plays. Also it forced Carlos to protect my no tax status while taxing others for the store upgrade, which was what I really wanted. It was interesting and a nice change of pace from being in the wilderness, but it had a fakeness to it. Like the building options, it wasn’t true power.

True power came at the end of a gun, or sword here in Purgatory. Or would that be magic? Anyways, spending time on the politics wasn’t worthwhile to me. It was worthwhile to get a sense of what was going on and keeping the ship of government pointed in somewhat the direction I wanted.

I wasn’t sure what kind of government we had? Possibly a dictatorship with hints of an oligarchy. One powerful person in charge, with the richest forming the voting class. Well, that was a question for the historians to argue over.

They had started talking about the first person to get a skill. Now it was mind numbingly boring. No one wanted to go out into the unknown and Carlos was getting annoyed at his captains.

“Well, someone give me a recommendation from someone in Red Dawn and bring them here,” Carlos finally demanded and looked at his captains. The silence began to stretch on, many of them looking away.

“I will volunteer.” It was a Captain I didn’t know.

"Captain Frank, I commend you,” Carlos said and there were several sighs of relief in the room. “Your job will be to recruit five other people for your team, three of them from the Red Dawn. Michael, will you take him on a dungeon clear?”

“You have ten Mind at least, right?”

“Um, I put it all into Body,” Captain Frank said. I could tell Carlos wanted to slam his head onto the table.

“I can protect him. But he has to carry a torch, and I won’t be here in ten days, so he will have to watch carefully for the next person. Five thousand, if you want me to carry him.” Carlos looked over at Captain Frank.

“Well Captain Frank. Do you need the assistance?” Carlos asked. The man looked a lot more nervous and then looked at me with a pleading expression.

“I wouldn’t feel confident succeeding on my own,” he finally said.

“We don’t have that kind of crystal reserve at the moment,” Carlos said and turned to face me.

“That has to be the income from two to three days at most?”

“More like four days. That is with not spending crystals on anything else.” At least he wasn’t bringing up paying me earlier. That was for information, this was for direct help. Two completely separate matters. Still, there were probably a lot of unhappy people with how much I got off Carlos already.

“Two thousand by the end of the day today.” Carlos looked at his accountant who was sitting in the room next to a wall.

“Not with the free day for training up new people,” the accountant said. Carlos turned back towards me.

I let out a frustrated sigh. “Five thousand when I return then and you supply six torches for the dungeon. That price will also include information on anything else out there that I find, since I am planning a much longer trip.” That should hopefully take the edge off the cost a bit.

“Going to find another city?” Carlos asked.

“I will find what I find. If it is another city, I will take a look first and check out the situation. No killing everyone there.”

“Good, good. You planning to stay for the arrival?” Carlos asked.

“No, we should get going. I want to make tracks before it gets dark,” I said.

“Alright. Also disburse Captain Frank 600 crystals for torches,” Carlos said. The accountant gave an affirmative and I stood up. Captain Frank followed me out of the building after picking up a pack of crystals.

“So, what made you volunteer?” I asked the man as I picked up my cart.

“Decided that I was going to do something and not let fate control me,” Frank said.

“Hah, that is how I feel. Good luck with that.” We reached the pillars, and he began buying the torches he needed. I cashed in my remaining 110 crystals, bring me up to 1,853 points in reserve.

“Can I use your cart?” he asked.

“Only if you pull it.” He gave me an affirmative and we quickly began to make our way out of Purgatory.

“So, a couple of things so you don’t die. Hang back and keep a torch lit. This shouldn’t take that long.” With how static everything was, a big risk would be something changing on me. It wasn’t a huge concern, but I was aware of the possible issue and refused to become complacent.

“Anything else?”

“Not really. You do have to come into the boss chamber with me.”

He was silent for a while as we walked through Purgatory before speaking up. “How do you do it?”

“My good looks, have to thank my parents for that.” It was a flippant answer, but I did miss them. I took a deep breath to help center my mind.

“I meant going out there and surviving.” Hmmm, that was slightly different than people had asked in the past. It wasn’t about the fear, but about my uncanny luck. I liked to think of it as my game sense.

“What did you do before this?” I asked.

“High school principal.”

“Really? Would never have guessed. Well, the best explanation is game sense.”

“Game sense?”

“Game sense,” I replied. “This entire place runs on game logic. Praise be to the Almighty System in its eternal glory.” I could sense him giving me a look. “Not a believer, that is fine. This place has rules, unfair rules. Stupid rules. Rules that will probably be broken, but it has rules. To sense the patterns of these rules, you need game sense.”

“What rules?”

“That monsters have set attack patterns. While that might not hold true with the same monster in a different area, for here it is the rule. Same monster, same area, same type of attack. If a monster would have a different attack, it would appear different than the original. Bigger is always more dangerous, unless it is super cute.”

“Game sense, what kind of games? I have played some Minecraft and I played Zelda back when I was a kid.” Where were all the other gamers? Probably hiding in fear or dead. That left these middle manager type people who hung back and kept surviving after other people had cleared the way for them.

“Zelda is a good benchmark for this place, but not great. What version, the original?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Hmmm, that is a good comparison to this place. The environment is a bit more random. The monster composition is different. But the mindset is there. But that is 2D. This is real. My advice, always look up and check for routes that might angle in behind you.”

“There are monsters on the ceiling?”

“Yes, but the slimes aren’t that bad. The key thing is to always check, always check no matter what. Like if you pass a pillar, make sure there isn’t a tunnel behind said pillar as well. This place doesn’t take or remove anything where a person can see. So, monsters shouldn’t appear nearby you unless they have an ability.”

“Teleportation?”

“Short range teleportation is called blink, and I would think that it is likely. A lot of knowing when to attack and when to run should come from experience. I will admit a certain degree of luck starting off. Also, don’t slack in the upgrades.”

“Got it.”

“Well, that is about it from me. Any ideas who you plan to recruit?” I asked, more to pass the time than having a need to know.

“Not really, any suggestions?”

“You see people with me?” I shook my head. “I am the wrong person to ask. I had two pack carriers and both of them gave up due to the stress. It is stressful, but I have a life philosophy that helps me with situations like this.”

“That is?”

“The worst outcome is that I die horribly screaming. I am choosing to ignore that possibility, since if it happens, I will be dead, and it won’t matter. That is the best way to overcome your fear, embrace it.”

“That is…what did you do before?”

“I sat at a desk and did reports. But I also read way too much. The amount of reading I have done is astronomical. If someone has read more than me, that is truly impressive.”

“Fantasy, I am guessing?”

“Fantasy, science fiction, and a lot of fanfictions. It helps keep the brain fresh in understanding the exploits and looking at situations in hindsight. What could be done differently? Were there better options? One could say my hobby is to go back and reflect on some nuances.” Also regrets, but the past was the past. All I could do was try something different.

“That is…surprising.”

“If you think about death all the time, you will die. Your mindset impacts your reality. Doesn’t always work, but I prefer to focus on what I can do, rather than what I can’t. So, Principal, that must have been exciting.”

“It is more a supervisory role than anything. Sure, I see the kids, but mostly it is making sure none of the teachers go off the rails.”

“Hmm, well no kids here, so good thing you found a new job as monster hunter.”

“What do you mean no kids? The brothel isn’t exactly quiet and there isn’t protection.”

“Is anyone pregnant? Because I thought that would be huge news if it was the case?” I asked. Originally, I had just been thinking of the demographics of people transferred to this place.

“I haven’t heard anything, but…well, I am sure it will come up.” That was going to be drama. How would restorations work then if a woman was pregnant? If women could even become pregnant was the System pro-life or pro-choice. I almost laughed and cried at the same time at the absurdity of such a thing here in the Systemic Lands.

Oh, Almighty System, please save me from that discussion. It was such a huge can of worms, that I wouldn’t want to touch it with a ten-foot pole. Nope, nope, and more nope. If I was glad to leave before and that was a 10/10, my relief now was 10^10/10.