Forming a force

After having taken an hour-long nap, I walked outside again not wanting to boil alive. I could hear birds chirping in the background which was a nice change from the steps and quiet chatter from when we were wandering.

I could see foldable tables arranged around the building with people cutting meat and vegetables from varicose houses standing by them. Things were also cooking on wood fires, which I assumed was because the ovens and stoves wouldn't work.

It really was offputting to think, that even though we haven't seen many monsters, there were so few people anywhere. This region of the city must have had thousands of people living in it, but with all our searching for survivors, we had only 100-120 people here.

Moving away from the morbid train of thought, I continued to look around at the landscape.

It really was beautiful, on the one side was an expansive open stretch of semi-desert land and on the other was the city with a surprising amount of greenery and trees that I didn't notice while walking around, and wasn't interested in focusing around there either.

I could also see the benefits of this site as a camp for instance it was on a hill, and though not extremely tall, it helped get a good view of the surroundings, and since there were no trees in the imidate area, nothing obstructed the line of sight either.

"Hey, Dan right? We met before," John had managed to sneak up from behind while I was mid-thought.

He must have noticed my surprise because he led it up with a

"sorry for startling you, just wanted to talk" while making some hand gestures I slightly recognised. "Oh, oh! Ah, didn't realise I was even doing that, it's sign language, just a habit I can't seem to lose," he replied to my odd look but seemed to get thoughtful after.

A few seconds passed with him looking just below my eyes before bouncing back.

"Seems like I'm a bit out of it right now, well, like I said, I just wanted to talk," though I was confused about why he wanted to talk to me of all people, I figured he must have a reason.

"You managed to take out one of the roaches yourself, that was pretty impressive,", he paused, I figured he wanted me to add something, but I was unsure of where he was going. After I didn't add anything, his expression grew more serious, and his tone more formal.

"I want to know if you can do that consistently, or if it was just a flook,".

The cogs in my head started turning, and I finally figured out what he wanted. I realised that he intended to send groups out there to look for more people. It was nearly obvious when I thought about it, he has been jumping at everybody coming into the group, and he was the one that started this group in the first place. I assumed he was being so severe around it since he didn't want to risk others' lives if they didn't have the ability and the fortitude to endanger themselves "Honestly, I'm not quite sure myself, but I am ok going out there again,".

At my reply, he squinted slightly, studying me.

His face softened, and a wide smile grew on his face, "Hrm, seems like I didn't even need to tell you what I want,".. "well, I think the food should be done by now, why not eat with us?" he added. Now that there were no serious overtones, my mind decided to drop all cognitive ability, so just responded with an "uh, yeah?" confusing myself other than how I made it sound like a question.

He led me to an area with Dave and Mary, along with a 3rd guy I hadn't seen before.

Dave jumped up and reached out a hand, "hi, so Dan? I'm Dave, good to meet you," his speech held tones of energy that I couldn't reciprocate if I tried. I hesitantly moved to grab his hand and when I did he gave a firm handshake.

Mary, who stayed sitting down, turned to me and said " I'm Mary" then turned away.

The third guy stayed silent, but no one seemed surprised by that, so I decided to just flash a retracted smile and sat down.

'Should I have introduced myself? Was that poor manners? Should I talk to that cloak guy?'. While my thoughts decided to go haywire, John had managed to leave the 4 of us and was now standing by the outdoor kitchen on a stool.

"The food is nearly done, we can eat soon" John was shouting with a fair amount of energy, "when it's done we're going to start with the kids, then people can stand in 5 queues to the respective tables, there's a lot of food, we have chicken, pasta, lasagna, burgers, and quite a lot more."

He also added a bit more information along with talking.

You could see some gloomy faces that glowed up slightly for food, and I couldn't help but admire Johns's ability to improve the mood with his general character.

3 minutes after his speech, the food was finished, and after the kids got their food, people started queuing. I stayed where I was, it seemed pointless to wait to stand for so long when I could just wait for the line to shorten. It seemed the other guy had the same idea because he was also staying here, though I couldn't tell since his face was covered in a hood of sorts, similar to what you might find during the medieval period.

'Wait, did he get that from-?'

"What are you staring at?" a surprised question came from the guy in question. His tone was gruff but also higher pitched than I assumed it would be.

"S-sorry wasn't trying to, it's just a bad habit of mine", I jumped and everted my gaze, realising that time had been passing during my examination, so I had just been staring at him.

He didn't respond at all, not even with a grunt. I was curious about the hood but he had made it outstandingly clear that he had no interest in human interaction. Not that that bothered me, the feeling of needing to talk not hanging was appreciated.

We sat there in silence for a while, until Dave came back from the queue.

"Are you not hungry?" he asked me, carefully sitting down beside me while balancing his plate of food.

"Oh, I'm just waiting for the line to shrink a bit, too lazy to stand up that long" I tried framing that as a joke but failed terribly.

"Ye, yeah" he twiddled his thumbs before he asked me something else

"so, what's your class, you were able to take out one, no?"

"It's beast tamer" I responded.

"Beast tamer? I don't remember seeing that, oh no I do, didn't seem worth it with the level-up decrease, did it come with any special skills?", He was suddenly speaking fast, and I was finding it hard to follow, but I managed to get there.

"No, it just came with monster tame skill," I responded carefully.

"Huh, oh yeah you also had a special skill didn't you, I had the choice of speed dancer which would allow me to use certain skills faster, flame touch, which would let me set alight anything I touched and gold hint which said I would get more gold, though I'm not sure what that means. Well, I choose speed dancer, since swordsman class seemed to have a lot of skills."

He was talking lively and his entire posture was leaned in.

"That sword you have-"

"yeah, this?" I started asking about the sword, but he seemed too impatient to wait for my full question before answering.

"Yeah, I got it from an ant when I killed it. Like, after I killed it, a message appeared on my screen, and it told me that I had an item. Obviously, I pressed it immediately, and it just appeared in front of me! Well, I assume it has stats and stuff, but I can't look at it yet, wonder if I need a skill for that, maybe analysis or identify or something."

"Hrm, probably," my response was fairly short, but that didn't seem to matter, since John and Mary were now coming over again, with food practically towered on their plates.

"Waiting for the queue to get shorter then?" he asked me, once again showing how fast he was on that.

"Haha, I should start eating, shouldn't I, food's already getting cold, talked too much, ha," Dave said after looking at the food on their plates.

"Another rant then? Sorry" Mary apologised to me with a smile.

five more people joined the little gathering having been asked by John at some point to come.

Everyone was discussing life and the like, I'd sometimes interject but largely kept to myself.

I went and got food once the queue wasn't giant, taking all the fish I could before going back to where everyone else was and eating.

Shortly after everyone had eaten (the guy in the cloak went and got food while we weren't looking) John started talking seriously.

"So, as I said so earlier, I gathered you here because I want to send search parties out for supplies and possible survivors and those of you here seem to be the most capable of doing that safely,"

"Do you really think there are more survivors out there?" it was Hanna that asked though I think she was probing instead.

"Yes, there are definitely survivors out there, how many and how close, I wouldn't know, but there are definitely more survivors," he responded to her directly though so I wasn't sure of my assumption.

One of the other new people, Samuel, asked "And what are we going to get out of risking our lives?". Nearly everyone apart from the Hanna and guy in the cloak turned and looked as though he was saying something horrible.

I understand why he would want to know that though, he obviously knew that it would be dangerous, and simply helping people isn't always going to be something everyone's driven by.

"That is the kind of thing we can work out here. I know that this would be dangerous, and I'd do it myself I would but-"

"Are you saying that you won't be going out yourself then, getting us to do the dirty work while you sit do-" Samuel started interjecting, but was cut out by another new person, Brandon.

"Could you Please wait until he's finished before adding your nonsense," with a heavy emphasis on please, "also, it's only natural he can't go out, he's holding the group together and there needs to be someone that can settle disputes. attacked."

Samuel held his mouth open for a second but closed it again with a scowl when he couldn't retort.

"So as I was saying, I can't come, which is why I wanted to ask you all too. Naturally, there isn't an issue with saying no, risking your lives isn't something that should be expected of anyone, but you'd be supporting everyone if you did."

"The first thing I want to do is ask what all of you can do, so we can start."

"I just want to know, wouldn't it be safer if we were a larger group," this time it was Curtis to question John.

"That's a good question, yes a larger group would be good for some things, but they are slower and harder to manoeuvre, which be more harmful if there's something more dangerous out there that we haven't seen yet."

"thanks. well, I guess I'll just start then, so I chose elemental mage class, but I'm not quite sure how to use it yet though." "When I was fighting the bug before, well it wasn't really anything special, I just bashed its head with a rock while the others were distracting it, not that that killed it."

The last of the new five, Alexander spoke up, "Oh if that's what we're doing, then I chose the druid class, but like he said," 'he pointed to Curtis' "I can't get it to work"

After everyone apart from the cloak-guy said their piece, it was my turn to speak. I had been thinking of what I'd be saying while they spoke, so I could talk coherently.

"I choose the Beast Tamer class, but like most of you, I don't know how to activate it, I also have the Regenerator special skill, which does as you would expect. Eh, when I fought one of the bugs I stabbed a knife in its neck after it flipped while charging at me." after finishing, I realised how much I omitted, but it was pointless to add anything then, so I let it be.

"You managed to take one out yourself, huh, that's pretty badass," Alexander added after I finished, leaving me unsure of how to take the compliment.

Then John turned to the Cloak-guy, who surprisingly said something.

"Hrm, Dark artist, I shoot black spikes,"

As our surprise dissipated, John continued to talk.

"Well, since everyone understands what everyone else is capable of, it should be easier to create a plan"

We then spent multiple hours on the specifics, though I didn't really include myself much, the conversation was far too tiresome to keep track of.