Patrick, Oakley, and Archer were joined by Jerry Howard, the mid-fifties metal affinity Tank, in building rooms for everyone in the safe zone. With half their Tanks busy with housing, that forced the main groups to switch things up as far as clearing the squares went.
To ease things, Penelope gathered all the fire and air Casters and put them in three groups. Derek had been allowed to come down to the third floor but wasn’t put on the ‘burn squad’.
All of the fire Casters were brought down to the third floor, with there being a total of six new people that were added to the team of Judah, Stephen, and Allis. With three fire Casters on each team and two air Casters, the burn squad was able to spread the fire faster through 21D than they had in the previous loop.
Patrick wasn’t pleased about the destruction of all of the wood, nor was he happy about all of the soot and ash that the burn squad left behind, but it allowed them to clear 21A-21D in a single afternoon while leaving most of the other higher-level people free to work on living spaces.
Ula put together three teams to head down to 21G-21J and clear those while the burn squads were busy gathering passive experience. By the end of the second day, the entire column of 21 was clear.
Rather than build against the outer wall in the safe zone of 21E and 21F, that was where Penelope was allowed to put her portals. She released a single fire spell to help the burn squad, then spent the rest of her time making the portals. Since each square was a 3x3 square, that allowed her to make a portal in the exact middle of each square, so she didn’t bother adding the point five at the end of the location.
Since the length of the columns was almost three miles long, she doubled the number of portals. Putting one at 21A, 21C, 21H, and 21J and having that be the pattern for all of the odd-numbered columns. For the even-numbered ones, she mapped those out to be on B, D, G, and I. Since there were no stone walls in the squares, except for the outer wall, she had to get one of the earth Tanks to make her a wall in the middle of the squares for her to make the portals.
Earth affinity people were tasked with tilling under the soot behind the burn squad so they could use the upper area, while the building crew worked on making simple rooms for people in the lower area.
After how easily the burn squad mowed down 21A-21D, the Shadows pulled back the foliage in the 22nd column, so day 23 was spent with the fire Casters focusing on cooking. A forge was made in 21A for Penelope to show the air Casters how to make rings and Oakley came over to make a bunch of stone trays for the three air Casters to practice with.
Derek watched the jewelry building from afar. Penelope hadn’t invited him to join and she wasn’t sure how settled she felt about having him be the person with the most experience while she was fighting in the squares. Since he didn’t seem willing to join, it hadn’t been an issue, but she knew there was only so long that Derek would be able to stay away from the action before he tried to insert himself in somewhere.
Penelope shared the idea of making walls on the other side of the barriers so everyone would be able to group up and get into position. Considering it took away from their time to build housing and other facilities, Patrick had been against it but conceded to try it once. There hadn’t been much of an advantage with 22E, but having two lower-level teams in 22D being able to group up in the corner made everyone feel more at ease. The wall strategy was put into place, giving structure to the dungeon floor since now each square was walled off.
With forty-two days to finish the third floor, they only needed to do two to three squares a day. Considering they were eleven squares down by the end of day 24, things took a more relaxed pace.
The enchanting and alchemy buildings were enlarged as more people meant more hands to train. Food was plentiful, but that created problems, which forced Patrick to call a meeting of the leaders before they started fighting on day 25.
Penelope took her seat between Circe and Eldri and looked around the table. Patrick had made a large meeting hall with a very long rectangular table for all of them to sit at.
Raelyn was there to represent the alchemists; Marlow was the representative for the Healers. Ula sat at the head of the table as the main leader, while Patrick was there as the camp manager. Frederica was over the melee attackers, Circe the Archers, Eldri the enchanters, and Oakley the builders. Riva was in charge of the Debuffers, with Judah over cooking and Kingsley in charge of monster processing. Archer had taken over the Tanks, rounding out the last of the classes. Nina was there, sitting on her mother’s right and beside Judah. Having her in the team with the fire Caster had pulled all of his attention to her. Penelope bit her cheek to keep from smiling at the idea that she had helped inadvertently to play matchmaker between the two.
“We’ve got a problem.” Patrick cleared his throat. “We’re just over three days in on this floor and we’ve seen a huge drop in productivity.” He looked around the table at the others. “I get that one of us can put together a room in about five minutes.” He pointed at the closed metal door. “And Jerry is cranking out doors faster than we can hang them, but that’s part of the problem.” He looked around the room again. “How many of you are having trouble getting everyone assigned to you to actually show up?”
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A murmur ran through the group. They’d all had a reduction in participation.
“No one is going hungry.” Judah piped up.
“Which is what I think the problem is.” Patrick grumbled. “Nobody wants to sweat in the jewelry room all day when they can sit in their room with a full belly instead.”
“Are you talking about cutting off rations?” Ula eyed him. “I thought we agreed we weren’t going to do that.”
“I’m not talking about cutting off access to the pantry.” Patrick cleared his throat. “But I am saying that if people aren’t contributing around camp, then we need to do something to force them to help out.” The balding man held up his hand as a few people tried to talk at once. “LOOK!” He took a breath and lowered his voice as everyone stopped talking. “I get that we could all shoulder the load and in a week everything would be running smoothly to where we wouldn’t need anyone else to help out but that’s not fair to any of us or those who are out there doing the work of two or three people so those other people can hide in their rooms.”
“How would we regulate it?” Oakley gestured at Judah. “Are you going to have him keep up with who has helped out and who hasn’t?”
Patrick sighed and gestured at Penelope. “Can you do the thing that we talked about last night?”
With a thought, a silver prism appeared in the middle of the room. Penelope sent a
Patrick reached out and grabbed one of the coins and held it up. “We get these and hand them out based on how long people work.” He handed it to Riva, who was sitting to his left. “I’m not saying that we need to make people work eight hours for a single coin. But our fighters are putting in three hours in the morning and then giving four to eight hours in the afternoon to make camp more hospitable. I think requiring the non-combatants to put in two hours of work for a coin and making them pay a coin for a meal is more than fair compared to what we’re asking of those who are risking their lives to fight the monsters.”
“So we’re going to have to make people clock in and out?” Frederica scoffed. “How do you expect us to keep up with everyone?” She looked around the room. “Especially in the morning when we’re out fighting.”
“You’ll all have to get assistants to supervise while we’re fighting.” Patrick cleared his throat. “Look, we can back off the system once we get camp up and running, but right now our fighters are having to shoulder the majority of the work around camp and I don’t think it’s fair or going to help morale to let the majority of the people down here skate by without contributing in some way.”
Circe held up a coin. “If Pen can make these that easily, what’s stopping counterfeits?”
“We talked about using a different metal, but right now all Penelope can make is steel.” Patrick sighed. “I’m sure Jerry or one of the metal Casters will be able to replicate them before we clear this floor, but by that point, it’s going to be maintenance that we’re concerned about instead of construction.”
“I could enchant them.” Eldri flipped a coin in the air and caught it. “But you’re talking about over a thousand coins if people are going to get three a day. That's going to take everyone I’ve got a week, not to mention all the material it’ll take to enchant them.”
“Let’s hold off on that idea until we run into a problem with counterfeits.” Patrick looked at the raven-haired woman. “But I appreciate you offering.”
“Are we going to hand out coins to start with?” Ula took a deep breath. “And what about those in the infirmary?”
“No one is in there for much more than a day.” Marlow spoke up. He looked around the table. “But I don’t think it’s wise to make those who are injured push themselves.”
“But if you give free meals in the infirmary, you’re going to see an increase in ‘accidents’ because people are going to want the free ride.” Frederica countered.
“Um…” Kingsley flinched.
“Okay, we know that there are some people who are accident-prone, but you’re still out there doing your job every day.” Frederica waved her hand at the young man. “You’re not getting hurt on purpose to get out of working.”
“It’s not a perfect system.” Patrick dropped into his chair; his shoulders sagged as he rubbed his temple. “And It's one that we’ll have to walk back the deeper we get into the floor, but I think it’s the best one we can implement to force people to carry some of the weight around here.”
More murmurs ran around the table, but no one outwardly objected.
“We’ll try it.” Ula looked over at Penelope. “How soon can you have enough of these coins made?”
Penelope did some quick math in her head. “I can get you about fifteen hundred in just under an hour.”
“Make as many as you can in an hour, then I’ll make an announcement to the whole camp.” Ula looked at everyone. “You all need to find assistants who aren’t part of the fighters to run things for you in the morning. Everyone do that while Penelope gets us the coins, then we’ll gather everyone up and make the announcement.”
The group of leaders got up and headed out the door. Penelope stayed in her seat and watched them all leave.
Why do I feel like this is going to cause more problems than it fixes?
“Because people hate being told what to do.” Jeru sighed. “A lot of those people came down here because they were trying to escape the regulations and oppression of the Star Tower. You’re going to see pushback because many of the non-combatants are going to see this as more of what they were trying to get away from.”
Any ideas on how to do it differently?
“Reward systems are usually better than punishment ones, which this is closer to. Having better lodging, better food, and better facilities as a reward for doing things around camp would be a better motivator than taking away people’s food if they don’t help out.” Jeru watched as a batch of coins fell on the table.
I just hope this doesn’t blow up in our face. Penelope cast her spell again. But Derek is going to use this against us, isn't he?
“You can count on it.” The blue Elf grumbled. “You can count on it.”
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