There were already cracks beginning to form amongst the group, the stress, expectations, and completely divergent worldviews all mixing together into a roiling broth that was consistently in danger of spilling over. It wasn’t something new either; August had already experienced his own crack in the aftermath of his injury and the anger at being associated by the Gaians through no fault of his own.

Rittan’s stressor completely eclipsed his own; that much was clear to him. There were Voithos, sitting in the dark, unable to do anything but regret, fear and feel their hope slip away as they realised that nobody would be coming to save them.

From an outside perspective, he could see the merits of Kalter’s strategy. It kept the group small and manageable. It stopped them from burning through resources, and it would curb anyone’s ability to take risky actions. Accountability would be present in such a small group, where the individual’s actions couldn’t be hidden or lost. They were all smart choices for a place that was as dangerous as the one they were in—but it wasn’t without its downsides.

Kalter was right that more wasn’t always better, but neither was less. Fewer bodies meant more duties and an increased workload for the individual. It meant fewer eyes watching for trouble, issues, or even opportunities. Fewer minds would be available to the group, minds that could work on complex tasks or take over duties, and a lack of community to share personal knowledge or experience with the group.

The increased resource cost of more mouths was true, but they had access to resources. The lake provided a source of meat and freshwater both, while the forest provided fruit. There would be others to find if they ever got to the point where they would move around Devil’s Nest. Surrounded by the ocean, they would be able to eventually establish some kind of fishing area by the cliffs.

More people working together to make a functioning society would free up his own time to work on the things that only he could do. The monsters were the biggest issue to overcome, but even something like that could be overcome with enough focused effort. Rune’s likely held the key to that kingdom—it was how the Gaians had created them, to begin with, and it would most likely be the thing that would destroy them.

“I’ve said some terribly unkind things today, haven’t I?” Rittan murmured, sending a furtive glance towards where Haiko and Kalter were standing by the shoreline.

“You’ve got a tongue on you,” August admitted. “But you’re not a bad guy, Rittan—everyone gets angry.”

“While that is true, I most certainly owe Kalter an apology—for my conduct if nothing else,” Rittan sighed, “Something for when we have both had some time to settle.”

Even in his anger, or perhaps hurt, Rittan was far more mature in the aftermath than August had ever been. August bit down on the pad of his thumb in an attempt to focus himself. It worked about as well as it always did—which is to say, not at all.

This was one of those moments, he realised. Where everyone in the group was adrift, and he was supposed to take action to steer the group forward. He’d recognised more than a few of those moments back before he woke up on Devil’s Nest.

Moments where Alice was one of the instigators of an argument and couldn’t facilitate her usual role. Alex was too used to letting her lead, and Ryan didn’t have a personality that any of them would feel good following. Eric was always willing to step up and fill the gap, but his willingness to confront people and the brusque nature in which he did it usually just made the group focus their anger on him instead.

August watched the cracks multiply within his little group of friends and witnessed how they’d picked sides. He’d listened to the arguments, remaining stubbornly quiet, and allowed the group to fracture, all the while telling himself that it wasn’t up to him to do anything. Each time Alice had managed to salvage things eventually after her own hurt had been dealt with. But every time, it had left the group that little bit more distant and more divided.

He didn’t know Rittan, Kalter or Haiko anywhere near as well as he had the others from back home, but he knew the signs all too well. Was he really going to sit by and let all of that happen again? Could he really hide himself away and hope that everything was dealt with without his involvement?

“Sorry, but we haven’t got the luxury of waiting,” August murmured. “Come on—I can fix this.”

August turned and headed for the shoreline, mind racing. It was a sad day when he had to use Eric as a role model for settling a dispute, but August simply didn’t have Alice’s charm. Haiko spotted them first, and Kalter turned a moment later.

“You suck,” August said the moment he arrived.

“What?” Kalter said, eyes narrowing.

“For one, your plan to keep the group size small is terrible,” August said, forging ahead. “Stealth only works until it doesn’t, and then we will be forced to fight with a tiny group, at which point we will all get wiped out in ten seconds flat by a single stray Efkini.”

Kalter’s face twisted into a grimace.

“Secondly, a smaller group means we have far fewer people to build things, and we will be individually pushing ourselves way harder,” August matching her gaze, “We’ll either get nothing done, or we’re going to exhaust ourselves trying to push forward, and that will lead to mistakes.”

“What about the resource cost?” Kalter said, staring him down.

“For now, we have a stable source of water and food,” August said flatly, “The lake isn’t going to dry up anytime soon, and the Mitikos aren’t going to leave out of nowhere—restricting our expansion based on something that isn’t an issue is stupid.”

“August,” Haiko said, wincing.

He turned away before any of his momenta could be destroyed and settled his gaze on Rittan—they’d already discussed this to some extent, but the Eric method required everyone to get some of the smoke.

“You don’t even have a plan in the first place,” August said, staring up at Rittan. “You just want to push forward and save everyone, and you haven’t thought about what that looks like or what we might need to do in order to make it work.”

Rittan glanced away.

“You’re supposed to be good at communicating,” August said, forcing himself to reach out and tap a knuckle against Rittan’s forearm. “Going off at Kalter out of nowhere was stupid when we could have had a real discussion about it first.”

August glanced between the two of them for a moment.

“We need to come up with something better than ‘hide and hope the monsters don’t get us,’ or ‘build an army of Voithos and hope everything works out,’” August said flatly. “So instead of forcing shitty plans on all of us because you’re both angry, let’s actually use our brains and come to a decision as a group.”

The group was silent in the wake of his question, and August found himself wondering how Eric could have dealt with anything like this—he always looked so pleased with himself after dragging them all through the coals.

“I agree,” Haiko said, breaking the silence.

August felt a profound sense of relief as she spoke, enough that for a moment, he had to close his eyes.

“Haiko,” Kalter said, clearly trying to swallow down her anger.

“August is correct,” Haiko said, shaking her head. “We should come to a decision as a group, rather than shackle ourselves to the first solution that no one is comfortable arguing against.”