Behind building six, the group found a small crowd gathered. The whole Lemonade party was there, boys included, as were all the rest of the new SHAD party boys. Both of Gideon and Ezra’s roommates were there, and Peter and Lucas went to join them. Lucy, Angela, and their roommates were also there, as were Melanie and her roommates, and of course the ABCs. There were at least a dozen other boys and girls that Danielle either didn’t know or just vaguely recognized, too.

  “Zephyr, are you all right with me calling on you as a leader-type person during this?” Danielle asked. “We’re going to have a lot of Christians and non-religious people, but not a lot of Systemist, just because of who I know and have some trust built up with. We’re going to need someone who can perspective-check us from the Systemist point of view, but I don’t want to put you on the spot if you’d rather stay a little more in the background.”

  “You’re seriously asking?” Zephyr asked. “I can say no?”

  “You can say no, and I won’t call on you as one of the leaders, but you can still shout stuff from the crowd like anyone else,” Danielle promised seriously.

  “I, uh. Wow. Crowd, then,” Zephyr said.

  Danielle sighed. “All right. I can’t blame you, really,” Danielle said. “Find the rest of the party and, um, do whatever until we start, I guess. I need to go find Lauren and the ABCs.”

  “Looks like most of us are over there,” Sadie said, pointing. “I’ll go join them, too. Akari, are you sticking with Danielle?”

  “Yep. In fact, I’d like a private word before we push into the crowd,” Akari said. “Can I have the privacy Skill?”

  “All right,” Danielle said, and waited for everyone else to be clear before activating Bubble of Silence. “All right, it’s up. What do you need?”

  “Did you get Flash Shield last night?” Akari asked. “I know you got Purify Food, because you just started helping Sadie with it like you’d always done it that way, but we haven’t had a chance to talk about it.”

  "I unlocked a bunch of stuff, including some of the big ones I've been working on. My active Class is now Field Medic, I did tell you about Mana Researcher, I added Trait: Extra Mana Pool as planned and I've been working from that pool all day - cool stuff, I'll go into it later, but the thing to know now is that I can swap out pools once an hour, like we can swap out Careers every four hours. I got Class Skills and Traits, Flash Shield, Local Anesthetic and Purify Food as planned, and the voice of God spoke to me again and told me to take Defend Another, so that happened, and then I lent my last 25 mana in tokens to Zephyr to run his Career check while it was likely to give him the result he wanted; he's paying me back in four weeks or less. Does that cover everything you needed to ask about?"

  “Yeah, um, all that and then some. Please switch to Survivor and your bigger mana pool now, and activate Flash Shield. Maybe I’m paranoid, but I suspect this get together is going to be very unpopular with the Wolves, the ‘armies,’ and quite possibly the other three political parties too.”

  “Ah. You’re thinking like a Bodyguard, I see,” Danielle said.

  “That’s right, and your body is the one I’m guarding right now,” Akari said. “I know you got the Skill and the Class unlock too, but right now, you’re the one standing up saying unpopular things and trying to get people to be reasonable anyway; and I’m the one standing behind and trying to make sure you stay safe. So please, make this easy for me.”

  “Right. All right,” Danielle said, and switched her mana pool, then activated Flash Shield. “Done. Now – “

  “What’s the duration?” Akari asked.

  “Until the effect is actually used, according to the description,” Danielle said. “I think it might also end if I put down the staff for too long, though.”

  “OK. If something happens, your first priority is to re-activate, got it? Anything else comes after that,” Akari said.”

  “All right, I’ll take care of myself, I promise. Now let me go make sure this is still a meeting and not turning into a circus,” Danielle said. “Please. I can’t let this saint business derail everything else.”

  “Oh – right. I’m done, go ahead,” Akari said. “Thanks.

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  “Thank you, too,” Danielle said, then ended the Bubble of Silence and headed for the fire, where she saw Lauren talking to Candice.

  “There she is,” Candice said as she walked up to them. “Did you get everyone you wanted to get?”

  “Yeah, though I also learned that the Wolf Pack of all people have been shouting about me being a saint, and some people are freaked out about it,” Danielle said.

  “Oh, I heard about that. Super weird,” Candice said. “Do you have any idea why that guy thinks you’re doing miracles?”

  “Kind of, but I didn’t do it,” Danielle said. “It just happened. Then Vince misunderstood what I tried to tell Jordan about why I thought it happened, and now he’s got people convinced that I’m a miracle worker, or think I’m a miracle worker, and I really, truly don’t. There’s a huge difference between being someone who gets rained on, and being someone who can call down rain, you know? I’m a ‘gets rained on’ person.”

  “I’m not sure I followed that,” Candice said. “Just tell me this: do you believe you can work miracles, and do you believe this political party we’re supposed to be working on should be religious?”

  “No, I cannot work miracles,” Danielle said. “It freaks me out that there might be people who actually think I can. As for the second question, I deliberately brought in a Systemist to offer balancing perspective to the Christian and non-religious perspectives we already have; I think the town and the political party should be able to tolerate all non-violent religious groups to the same extent that the state we still technically belong to does.”

  “I knew we picked the right person to ask about this,” Candice said. “Anyway, you called this meeting, so you can go ahead and get us going whenever you’re ready.”

  “Is everyone else you invited here?” Danielle asked.

  “Yeah. I brought some more Systemists and non-religious types, just so you know,” Lauren said.

  “That’s fine,” Danielle said. “I’m going to come at this from a religious frame of mind, but we’re working on a town, not a church, and I’m not going to try and mix the two up. Listen, I think we’re going to need to use people who are already leaders of hunting parties and things as the party leadership; are you two interested in that? Can I call on you as potential party leadership?”

  “Really? I mean, um, sure,” Lauren said.

  “Yeah, really. You’re a good organizer, as you’ve proved twice this week already,” Danielle said. “Candice, what about you?”

  “Yeah, sure, if you really think so,” Candice said nervously.

  “You’re your party’s voice of reason,” Danielle said. “If you can do that with other groups of people, you’ll be invaluable on a leadership team.”

  “Oh! Um, thanks,” Candice said. “I, um, I kind of learned that from dealing with my sisters, actually.”

  Danielle chuckled. “OK. Listen. I’m going to open this weird, but bear with me.”

  “OK,” Lauren said, and Candice added, “It’s your show! Do your thing.”

  “Wish I’d been able to advance Amplify Voice,” Danielle said, turning to the crowd. “I didn’t expect to actually need it again so soon, though. Ahem.” She cleared her throat and took a deep breath, projecting as best she could. “All right! Please quiet down, and let’s bring this meeting to order! Since this is a major undertaking that could seriously affect our futures, I’d like to begin with prayer. Peter, would you come up and pray on behalf of us Christians? And would someone from the Systemists present come up and pray on their behalf? And um, Bethany I think? Would you offer an opening reflection for the non-religious?”

  A wave of low-voiced conversation rolled through the crowd; everyone offering an opinion of her opening to their friends, Danielle was sure. Peter and Bethany came up to the fire, as did Melanie to Danielle’s discomfort. Everyone else sat down, and gradually quieted down enough for Peter to begin.

  “Oh God, our Father and our ultimate Ruler, please help us to create a political party that is pleasing to you today,” Peter began. “Help those of us who follow you to support the earthly nation where we live, like Daniel did in the days of Babylon. Amen.”

  “Thank you. Melanie?” Danielle prompted.

  “Holy System, we who live by your gifts thank you for protecting us,” Melanie began in turn. “Please aid and protect us anew as we build an organization and a town that will protect our citizens – er, or residents – in like manner. May the strength of the elements support our endeavor!”

  “Thank you,” Danielle said again. “Bethany?”

  “Uh, right. Ahem.” Bethany fidgeted. “Um, As we open this meeting, I ask my fellow non-religious to reflect on this: today, many of us have heard from two different organizations that believe it is not only acceptable, but actually their right, to kill other people in order to get their preferred lifestyle back. Now, what has been done to us in Sending us before we even finished school is wrong, and we do deserve to go back Inside. However, killing each other is the wrong way to go about it. I believe it’s better to live under a religious believer who holds human life as sacred than to live under a nonreligious leader who thinks life is already so rotten it’s not worth trying to clear the stink. That’s why we asked Danielle here, and the SHAD hunting party, to help us make a political party that would be less insane than the ones we heard from earlier today. The SHAD Party charter is a good starting place for a new political party, or even the town itself. Please take it seriously. Thank you.”

  The three of them sat down, and Danielle found herself facing another crowd of people who expected her to lead them. How did this keep happening? Worse yet, she could see people gathering on the balconies of building six again. Well, Bethany had given her a place to start, she supposed.

  “All right. Since the main reason for putting my hunting party in charge of this meeting is our charter, let me start by reading it to you all,” Danielle said. She pulled the organization charter for the SHAD Party out of her satchel, and read it off to everyone, loudly and slowly so she could be understood by those in back.

  https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/128501/firmitatem-exile/chapter/2570463/ch-5-the-shad-party-4

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