“It’s not a bad idea,” Kat said, cutting a piece of her steak.

  It was from something called a Horitio. A beast from the elves, and I had finally confirmed they were elves, home of Cryim. It looked like steak, tasted mostly like steak. It was good.

  It was just the three of us; me, Kat and Jack; having dinner in my house. I had thought about going out, there were a lot of good restaurants in Solacetown, but I didn’t want the attention that usually came when I was out in town.

  When Kat had shown up, I’d expected her to come in swinging, still mad from earlier. Instead she was calm, a notebook already filled with possible name changes. Jack was all for it, coming up with his own list.

  “Clan Howell was never the most imaginative name,” she said.

  “Hey,” I said, offended. I’d thought of it.

  “And you know it wasn’t.”

  “True,” I conceded.

  “We need something exciting,” Jack said with all the enthusiasm of a thirteen year old. “It has to be mean, tell people not to mess with us.”

  “Too late,” I muttered quietly, earning a sharp glare from Kat. I smiled sheepishly, letting Jack continue.

  “It has to be powerful. Something like The Knights Of The Dragon!,” he said, practically standing up in his chair, arm raised like he was holding a sword.

  Which he had before, many times. I’d put him in pretty strenuous training. If I had my way, the kid would be stronger than I was when I got done the Challenge Tutorial.

  “I think that one is already taken. Some wanna-be Knights Templar in what probably used to be Europe?” I asked, glancing at Kat.

  “I think so.”

  When the continents got rearranged, most of the world wasn’t recognizable, but some people had a hard time letting go. If a bunch of people from the same old culture ended up together, they tended to rebuild that culture. Case in point were Fred’s United American Alliance trying to become a new United States, and Subotai trying to be like his supposed-ancestor, Genghis Khan. I was American and understood that the American pre-System hadn’t been as great as it once was, so I wanted to hold to the ideals on which the Nation was founded and then take the good stuff from old Europe, meshing it all together into something greater.

  I thought I had succeeded.

  Hoped I had at least.

  Jack sat down, a little deflated.

  “It should have Solace in the name, or somehow be related,” Kat said.

  “You know I took Solace from a book right?”

  “Yes,” Kat said. “I am very well aware of that. But it is a good name that fits what we want to do here. Our goal is to give ‘comfort and peace’ to the people that live under our protection. To give them solace from the threats and dangers of the new world.”

  “I’m a genius,” I said, fist bumping Jack.

  Kat rolled her eyes. I seemed to have a habit of making people do that.

  “Solace doesn’t naturally fit with Sect, Clan, Tribe or anything like that,” Kat said. “Solace Group? It works but seems lacking…”

  “Don’t have to figure it out tonight,” I said. “And we don’t have to do it.”

  “Yes we do,” both Kat and Jack said at the same time.

  They looked at each other and just started laughing.

  I grumbled, drowning my sorrow in beer.

  Maybe before we could open the pub, we could sell some beer in the shop. I’d have to talk to Fields, see if could make room for a cooler. The two finished laughing.

  “Seriously though,” Kat said. “As much as I like the name Solace, it just doesn’t fit easily…”

  “What about something bear related?” Jack asked. “The flag has a bear, the lake is bear related right?”

  I looked at Kat, who looked at me, both thinking that wasn’t a bad idea. Ursine and bear could make for a better name.

  “Hey Nick?” Jack asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “What’s that movie trilogy you’re always complaining that I won’t ever get to watch? Fellowship of something?”

  “Fellowship of the Rings, the first movie in the ultimate trilogy, Lord of the Rings.”

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  “Yeah, that,” Jack said, indifferently.

  I felt like scolding him. How dare he treat the ultimate movies that way, but then he really had no idea what a movie was. We really needed to get someone to figure out how to project images from the crystals in our mountains. Then we could have movies again. Just never Lord Of The Rings. The Celestial Challenge System had taken a lot from us, but that was one of the worst things they could ever take.

  “What about The Solace Fellowship?” Jack asked.

  Again, Kat and I just looked at each other and sighed. How did we not think of that? It was perfect? We’d just got done saying how Solace fit what we wanted, a place for people to find comfort and peace. And we were made up of a bunch of smaller Clans, that all came together to unite and work together. A fellowship of Clans.

  “I like it,” I said.

  “Me too,” Kat said.

  I motioned for Jack to receive the high-five.

  “Good job kid,” I said.

  ***

  Dinner ended and found us on the couches at the window, looking out over Solacetown. I loved my view, especially when had a beer in hand. It was just Kat and I. Jack had run off to do something more ‘exciting’, as he had put it. As long as he didn’t cause a mess or destroy stuff, he could do what he wanted.

  Destroy part of Solacetown. If he wanted to go do some training and beat up on some training dummies, those he could destroy.

  “What’s your next couple days looking like?” Kat asked.

  “Back to the Nexus tomorrow,” I replied. “Running a new biome on the Tower’s first floor with Sunie.”

  “The elf from the Sunrise Formation? Think he’ll be a good match?”

  “I hope so. I really don’t want to start running the floors with a full party, so hoping he’ll be strong enough that we can get by with just the two of us, maybe another for a total of three.”

  “Where would that third come from?”

  I shrugged.

  “Not sure yet. Hopefully another race’s Faction.”

  Kat nodded, flipping through some pages of her notebook. She had a glass of red wine next to her on an end table, which was really just a bit of log I’d chopped from a tree in the woods somewhere. It hadn’t even been finished, stained or anything like that. I’d needed a table, so I went and made one. That had been years ago and it’d stayed with me.

  I could upgrade. There were plenty of furniture crafters in Solacetown and the other cities. But that felt like I’d be showing favoritism if I picked one. And I really didn’t want to start rotating out my furniture. I didn’t know where the rest of the furniture came from. I’d just had Kat get a bunch and I picked randomly from the selections. I could do the same with the end table, but the stump had some nostalgia to it.

  “Expanding Clan Howell’s,” she paushed and shook her head. “This’ll take some getting used to,” she muttered. “Expanding the Solace Fellowship’s connections beyond just mercantile will be valuable. Especially since our next handful of parties running the Tower will all be pure-Fellowship parties. You said Fred’s first group is all from his Alliance?”

  “Yeah. Fred and those four he’s been partying with since the beginning.”

  “He was originally talking with the Sunrise Formation. Did he make a deal with them?”

  “No idea,” I said and glanced at her, making Kat look up. “And before you ask me to, I’m not going to ask Sunie.”

  “I wasn’t going to suggest it.”

  “Sure,” I said, looking back out over the lake, chuckling. “He probably wouldn’t know anyways. From what I can tell, the Formation keeps the Adventuring and mercantile aspects separate.”

  “As will we,” she said. “It just makes sense to keep the two separate. There’s no need for us to reinvent the wheel. We’ve been doing that for the last twenty-five years under the System and doing pretty good. Now that we’re in the greater Multiverse, we can start to take advantage of those that have been under the System for centuries or millennium.”

  “Did you know that we can claim other planets?”

  “What? Seriously?”

  “Yeah, crazy isn’t it? I haven’t looked into it because it’ll be a while before it’s even anything we can consider but it’s something to think about.”

  “Are these planets with life?”

  “Sometimes. From what little I’ve gotten, they aren’t planets that the Celestial Challenge System integrates, for whatever reason, so no intelligent life. Just planets with untapped Resources. The System does just enough to start opening Dungeons and adapt the creatures to Arcanebeasts.”

  “And the older and larger Factions don’t just claim them all?”

  “They do, and there’s lots of fighting over them from what I gather, but for the larger factions some of the planets just aren’t worth their time.”

  “Interesting,” Kat said, tapping her pencil on a notebook.

  I could tell from her expression, she was giving it some serious thought. Which meant that I might be fighting for a planet sooner than I thought.

  Fun times.