The crowd of people dispersed, most not leaving the area. The plaza didn't seem very different than it had in the morning. Instead of people lying around and sleeping, they roamed about the area, some chatting, others sitting alone. What they all had in common was the slack postures, frowning faces, and all around defeated attitude. To the Orc party, this was nothing new. It was similar around the rest of the town.

For Lucas’s party, this was a wake up call on the state of the town. The streets were no longer filled with players running around with a look of wonder in their eyes, playing a brand new game with revolutionary virtual reality. Now, as both parties left the plaza and headed down a street, they only saw despair.

"Damn, everyone here looks so... Defeated." Tony glanced around as he followed along with both groups, Lucas and Grunk leading the way.

"It's only gotten worse and worse here." Izzy said, gaze lowering down to the cobble road. "Ever since the... Incident with that man and the clock tower, things got bad."

"Yep, and it got worse this morning when there wasn't enough food to go around." Scope added.

"Oh, no. It's even worse than I thought." Cookie said, hands held together.

"Don't worry, Cookie. We came here to help everyone. We'll figure this out. Art has a plan." Raven gave a brief side hug to the human as they walked.

To be more precise, it was Grunk leading everyone back to their base, with Lucas walking alongside him. Both were several paces ahead, having their own conversation.

"Why do you think I can help you feed a few thousand people?" Grunk asked.

"You were good at controlling that crowd when all hell broke loose yesterday. That, and I heard you were breaking up fights, trying to keep people calm. You sound like the guy that can really help us." Lucas explained.

"Well." Grunk rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. "You're not wrong there. My friends and I have been trying to keep the peace, to help who we can. Except the whole food problem. There isn't enough food to go around. I heard some people specifically chose the fishing job and ventured outside of town to find a place to fish. Eventually, word got around that there was a pond and river not far outside the south gate. But, there is the problem that only a person with the chef job can cook and prepare food. So, people would come to town with raw fish and no way to eat it. I even heard a rumor that a big purple kobold was cooking up-"

Grunk looked at the other with a curious expression. "Wait. Was that you?"

Lucas nodded. "If you were about to say a purple Draconian was cooking people's fish in exchange for a fish as payment at the pond, then yes. That was me."

"Huh. You're the first chef I've met, Draconian, too. I've only seen a few of you. I guess most of the people don't know what a Draconian is." Grunk was looking ahead, but turned to the chef. "What is your plan, then?"

"We did a bunch of math, and-" Lucas halted as the Orc came to a stop in front of a building.

"Hold that thought." Grunk turned to face everyone. "Scope, go do your thing. Make sure they are prepared for the new people we're bringing in."

Scope saluted at the Orc, dropping it after a moment and moving through the two groups to stand at the door. "Give me a minute or two. I've gotten pretty good at this." He opened the door after giving a sequence of knocks to it, then stepped inside. "Attention soldiers!" His voice faded as Grunk closed the door.

"What was that? Are you guys playing army men here or something?" Tony asked.

"Something like that. You'll understand when we go inside, but before that you have to promise not to tell anyone about this place." Grunk's friendly demeanor faded. The Orc looked stern, almost menacing. "Do. Not. Tell anyone about this place. I'm taking a risk bringing you all here, though I feel confident I can trust you. Especially since you helped Izzy out this morning, and are set on helping everyone." He paused, the other party looking at him with a mixture of confusion and concern.

Izzy shook her head. "Oh my gosh, Grunk. Just let them in already." She stepped forward and turned to face the other party. "Do you all agree to keep this a secret or not?"

A few agreements and head nods satisfied the Orc. "Alright, thanks."

The door opened, Scope's head poking out. "Hey, I'm good in here. What's taking you so long?"

Grunk grumbled. "I was about to open the door. Come on, everyone." He turned and went inside, the elf stepping aside to hold the door open.

"You think they have some kind of secret weapon or something in here?" Tony whispered to Raven.

"I doubt it." Raven said. "If you shut up and move, we'll find out."

Tony grumbled, shoving past the elf to follow Lucas into the building. "You're no fun."

Grunk's group filed into the building to stand in the middle of the room, waiting for their guests. Lucas followed in with his party, who all grew confused by what they saw. A large room with a multitude of tables and games, a staircase leading upstairs on the wall to their left, and a door at the back of the room. The most surprising aspect was the children.

Scope stepped out towards Lucas's party and turned back around, saluting to the children that were lined up. "Attention, soldiers!" He watched as all the children straightened their posture and saluted. "Welcome this friendly unit of soldiers with a sound off, starting from my left!"

There was a pause, the children looking between themselves and figuring out who had to start. After a few seconds, they began announcing their names. "At ease!" Scope said, dropping his salute as the children did the same. "You may all return to your assignments of having fun and behaving."

Most of the children returned to their games, except for a black curly-haired boy and a girl with long purple hair. They whispered between themselves, then walked over to the Draconian.

"Hey, lizard-man. You look cool, but how are you a big lizard? All the other lizards are short." The black curly-haired boy, Xavier, said.

"He had his growth spurt." The girl with purple hair, Crystal, said. She fixed her hair behind her ear, revealing they were pointed. "My dad says I'm due for a growth spurt and I'll get taller."

"Uh..." Lucas looked down at the two kids.

"That’s dumb. You don't get bigger in video games." Xavier paused. "I don't think so."

"Yeah, you can! How else did he get so big?!" Crystal narrowed her eyes at the boy.

"Ahem." Tony stepped over to Lucas's side. "He's not a lizard, he's a Draconian. And for that matter, I'm not a lizard either. I'm a kobold, just like Izzy." When he was met with confused looks from the two kids, he continued. "Haven't either of you played a good fantasy RPG? Draconians and kobolds are descendants of dragons and-"

"Oh!" Crystal gasped. "You're a dragon man?"

"Basically. Tony can explain it better than - whoa!" Lucas jumped. He spun his head around to see Xavier touching the thick scales on the topside of his tail. "I, uh... What are you doing?"

"You have a cool tail, mister. I wish I could be a dragon man too." Xavier said, hands still examining the tail. "I didn't see that anywhere when I made my character." He shook his head. "No way was I going to be a tiny lizard."

"I just said, neither of us are lizard men!" Tony's eyes narrowed, shooing the small hands off of his friend's tail. "Don't even get me-"

"Come on, soldiers. No harassing our new friends." Scope intervened. "Go back to your games. The adults have to study battle plans."

The two children reluctantly turned and headed back to their board game, whining about how they wanted to talk to the dragon man or also help with battle plants.

"Sorry about that, they get worked up sometimes." Scope said quietly.

"Oh, they're children. It's to be expected." Cookie piped in, watching the children go about their games. "I can't believe there are children here. They must be so scared."

"Nah. They are actually pretty brave, believe it or not." Scope smiled. "They have their moments, but they're fine. Oh, yeah." He turned to the Draconian. "Grunk and Izzy are waiting upstairs for you, all of you. I'm going to stay with the kids."

"Alright." Lucas made his way to the wooden staircase. He went up a few steps before stopping. "Cookie?"

Cookie hesitated at the bottom of the stairs."Art, you don't need me, right? I'd rather stay down here." She turned to Scope. "If that's alright?"

Scope nodded. "I don't mind, and I'm sure the kids won't."

"That's fine. We can catch you up afterwards." Lucas resumed his ascent.

"Thanks!" Cookie said with a wave. She glanced around the room, face lighting up as she went over to two children. "You're playing one of my favorite games!"

"Can you help us play?" Lucas heard one child ask before he got upstairs, the voices getting quiet.

The top floor was not nearly as spacious and welcoming as the first. The ceiling came to a point in the middle and was not nearly as tall. Not to mention the random assortment of items lying about the room. Wooden crates, large and small, were dotted around the room, along with the occasional tarp and bundle of cloth. In the center of the room were two square tables, with only a few chairs accompanying them. Grunk and Izzy sat at one table, with the other pushed beside it.

"Come, sit." The Orc gestured to the spare chair, and small crates positioned at the tables. "Where is, uh... Cookie?" He asked.

"She wanted to stay downstairs." Lucas answered. He took a seat on a crate opposite of the orc, the two facing each other from across the two tables.

"Yeah, she wanted to play games with the kids." Tony sat in the last chair, with Raven seated on a crate across from him. "So, what are we doing in your attic?"

"I was hoping to hear Art's plan for feeding everyone." Grunk began. "We've searched high and low in town, been in damn near every building. There is no secret shop or stash of food."

"Ahem." Izzy coughed.

"Well, Izzy did most of the searching for food." Grunk corrected. "Our next plan was finally heading outside and leveling up so we can get jobs and classes, but... Even if Izzy and Scope went with the fishing job and I tried to cook, that would only help us, and not the entire town." He looked across the tables to Lucas. "I've heard cooking isn't easy either. How did you manage to feed so many people?"

"People have said the cooking job is hard?" Lucas asked. "It's a lot easier than cooking in real life."

"You cook… normally?" Grunk's face lit up. "That would explain things. There isn't any easy food to work with when everyone is buying out all the ingredients, mindlessly hoarding."

"Huh. I hadn't thought of that. I guess that the realistic approach to cooking would be a hard barrier to get over, especially since preparing fish can be daunting as a beginner." Lucas leaned forward, elbows on the table. "You mentioned finally going outside. Why hasn't your party left town yet?"

"Same reason most of the people here haven’t." Grunk leaned back in his chair. "Everyone is afraid to die, even if the first death is 'safe'."

"Everyone feels trapped, because they are, and sitting around in the safe walls of the town is better than taking a risk outside." Izzy said. "We're all waiting to be saved."

"That's stupid. You only need to be safe if you die once, then you chill in town for a day for the mark to go away." Tony reasoned. "We even slept in the forest last night. It's not that dangerous outside."

"Don't forget the single spider we struggled to fight. It isn't easy, either." Raven said.

"That's only because we weren't prepared, and I couldn't use my skill to help us. It's the starting town. All the monsters nearby shouldn't be too bad to handle once you know how to play your class." Tony looked at the elf he sat across from. "The rats outside the west gate are easy to deal with. I'm sure the other gates have rats or other low-level monsters that are good for learning the basics."

"That's besides the point." Grunk spoke before the two could continue. "It doesn't matter if the game is easy or not. All the people here are too afraid to even try. They wanted to play a new game, not get trapped inside of it. They're all worried about their family, friends, and pets that they are being kept away from."

Grunk sighed. "Worried if they will lose their job, or how they're unable to take their medicine." He sat up straight. "Playing the game that is imprisoning them is the least of their worries."

Lucas sighed. "Damn. I thought more people would have been progressing like we've been. If most of the players haven’t gone outside of town, then they aren't even level five. That will make things difficult."

"Make what difficult? The plan you came up with?" Grunk asked.

"Yeah. My plan was to find you, and then you could help us recruit people who have a fishing, cooking, or botany profession. I guess we could help or encourage people to get level five and get one of those jobs. The only problem is time."

"What do you mean?" Izzy asked. "Are you saying we don't have enough time to do it?"

"Something like that." Lucas's head lowered a bit. "I wanted to have everything figured out by tonight, so it could go into action tomorrow morning, or at the latest, around noon. People might be starving by tomorrow, and if they're starving, they’ll need even more food to remove the starving status. Even if they aren't starving, a very hungry person needs more food to remove the hunger status from what I've seen."

"The hungrier you are, the more you need to eat?" Grunk slumped back in his seat. "That would make sense."

“We saw it ourselves. The people Art fed today easily ate a whole fish.” Tony said.

“My theory is that you need three meals a day to keep the hunger status away, and if you fall behind, you need more and more food to fix it. You can’t skip meals all day then have a normal sized one for dinner, you’ll still be hungry.” Lucas said.

“That’s worrisome. We figured that one or two meals a day would be enough.” Izzy said.

"And you're saying we need to fix this as soon as possible, because the amount of food needed will only grow." Grunk rubbed the back of his neck. "Alright. If we're going to do this, I have two conditions." He sat up, giving the Draconian a determined look.

"What are they?" Lucas asked.

"The children and the starving get priority for food." Grunk continued when Lucas nodded. "The meals we provide need to be free. Tips or food donations will be fine, but no one has to pay anything."

"That's fine with us, we weren't in it to get rich or anything." Lucas sat up. "Are you saying you're in?"

Grunk nodded with a smile. "Hell yeah, we are."

"Awesome!" Tony exclaimed, slapping the top of the table. "What's the plan now? Go back to the plaza and see who wants to help us?"

"Actually, I was thinking we would feed our new friends. That way we can all work undistracted by hunger." Lucas smiled at the Orc and Kobold. "That is, if some roasted fish is alright with you."

Grunk's face brightened up. "You have spare food?" The Draconian nodded to him. "Then yes, that'd be great. The children are going to be hungry soon, we need to feed them first." He leaned back in his chair, hand patting his stomach. "I could definitely use it. I haven't eaten since last night."

"This morning, for me." Izzy said.

"No worries, I can get you all fed pretty fast, then we can get to work." Lucas stood up. "Should we go to the Culinary Hall, or is there a stove closer?"

"There's one here." Grunk grinned. "Come on, I'll show you." The Orc stood up, leading everyone downstairs.

Cookie was too busy playing Parcheesi with two children to notice the group descending the stairs. "Alright, it's your turn now. Roll the dice."

Scope gave a wave as the group went through the middle of the room. "What?!" His attention turned back to the dartboard, and more specifically, the bullseye that had just landed.

Susie giggled. "I thought you were good at darts, Scope."

Scope shook his head. "I said I used to play a lot in college, not that I was good." He readied his dart, side-eyeing the group as they disappeared into the door at the back of the room.

"This is it." Grunk announced once they were all in the back room.

The room had the same amount of width as the previous one, except the depth was lacking, only allowing three people to stand side by side in that regard. A square table with three chairs pressed against the middle wall shared by the games room. Across from the table was a wooden countertop, and to the left of that was a black piece of furniture made of metal. It seemed like an ancient relic, even though it looked brand new. Beside the stove was a stack of firewood, and in the corner was a closed barrel.

"I don't get it." Tony stepped further into the room. "Where can Art cook?"

Lucas was perturbed for a moment as well until he got closer to the odd piece of furniture. "Wait, a second." He went right up and placed a hand on the smooth black metal top, then crouched down and opened the door that swung out from the left side.

"It's a wooden stove." His head leaned in, peering at the two stove racks. "This is the oven, and you put the firewood on the bottom." He stood up, closing the door to place a hand on the big smooth top. "And this is the stove top. Wow, this'll be better than cooking over a fire."

Tony got closer to Lucas, giving it a curious look. "That's an old school stove?"

"Yep. It took us a minute to figure it out." Izzy went across the room to the barrel, pulling the lid off. "This is a barrel of water, and this fills it up." She pointed to the metal crank attached to the wall. "It’s the only thing in here we've been using. I wish I had found this place earlier than I had."

"All that matters is you found it, and you don't need to go to any wells anymore." Grunk chuckled. "Will this work for you, Art?"

"Totally. I can roast fish on the oven racks." Lucas went to the countertop and deposited his bag, pulling out his knives and cutting board. "I should be able to do two fish at a time, two halves per rack." A fish was next to come out, the head cleaved off before the cooking knife came into play. The Draconian worked fast. The multitude of fish he had prepared and cooked that day gave him plenty of practice.

Raven sat down at the table, book and quill being retrieved from her bag. "Interesting looking stove."

"You mind if I watch?" Grunk asked as he went to Lucas's side. "Scope was already interested in fishing, and Izzy would be the best forager out of the three of us. It'd only make sense I'd do cooking. That way we can help with your plan."

"Yeah, of course." Lucas glanced at the Orc as he sliced the fish open. "I guess we can continue planning while we're here. If your party can gather and cook, then that'll be three less people we need to find. At the very least, our workforce has doubled with your help."

Grunk nodded, watching the Draconian prepare the fish. "That's true. The cooking part will be the hardest, but you make it look easy."

"Like I said, I do this in real life. It's actually my job, and something I've enjoyed since I was a kid." Lucas had removed all the guts and set them aside. "That, and I've prepared a lot of fish today for fishers, at least fifty of them."

"Fifty, huh?" Grunk asked. "Then we know there are at least fifty people that have the fishing job."

"Oh, yeah. That's right. We should only need to find, or help fifty more people get the fishing job, then we should be okay for fishers." Lucas said as he worked.

"Ugh, here we go with the math." Tony grumbled, loading firewood into the bottom of the oven. "I got the stove ready to go, it just needs to be lit."

"I can help you with that." Izzy offered as she moved beside the other kobold. "I figured out how to work this earlier."

"We need a hundred fishers?" Grunk asked. "That doesn't sound too bad."

"Raven, can you read out the numbers?" Lucas asked as he got a fish from his pack.

"Let's see." Raven flipped away from the sketch of the stove she had started. "One hundred fishers and foragers would collect enough food to feed two thousand people in about four hours. Um... We never finished the math for how many plates and utensils we needed, or chefs."

"Oh, right." Lucas sighed, already preparing the second fish. "A minimum of a hundred plates and forks should work as long as everyone eats fast, which they should if they're hungry. We still need to figure out where we're going to cook. I guess we could do it around the pond. We'd be close to the fish and forage-ables, but cooking over a fire isn't ideal."

"Why not use the banquet hall?" Grunk asked. The room got quiet as everyone looked at him, except for Izzy, who was getting the logs burning. "That big building by the church. It has a bunch of long tables with bench seats and a large kitchen in the back."

"There's a place like that? For real?" Lucas asked, his hands now still.

Izzy gave the other group a curious look. "You didn't explore the town much, did you?"

"Uh, no. We were actually playing the game." Tony sat down at the table across from Raven. "We looked around this morning, but only for stores."

"Either way, we have a place we can work." Grunk said, leaning onto the counter. "That should take care of seating and cooking, and it's close to the plaza. So, it should be easy to get people lining up."

"How much seating?" Lucas asked.

"At least a hundred, if I had to guess." Izzy said, taking the last seat at the table.

"Then yeah, a hundred plates and forks. I have four sets we can use, so, only 96 to go." Lucas finished the second fish. He poked at the guts till they disappeared, getting an odd look from the Orc. "I'll explain that later." The cutting board was taken with him as he opened the oven door, using his hands to move the fillets from the board and onto the wire racks. "Are the stoves bigger at the banquet hall? Cause this one isn't very big."

"I believe so." Grunk said. "We didn't pay too much attention to that."

Lucas hummed, closing the oven door and standing up. "If they are, that'd be great. With this one here, I could do two fish in the oven and one, maybe two on the stovetop, but I'd need oil or butter for that." He glanced at the water barrel in the room's corner. "I could make a soup with the fish heads that I've been saving up, assuming the banquet hall has water, too. The only issue is water and fish head meat doesn't make soup, it needs more."

"Fish head soup?" Raven repeated. "That sounds gross."

"I... have to agree. That doesn't sound good." Izzy added.

"I had it once. It's pretty good, but you have to at least have cream to make it. That's one of the key ingredients." Lucas moved back to the counter, getting another fish out of his bag. "Sorry, I'm getting sidetracked. The main thing we need to focus on is recruiting people."

"Yeah... If what Grunk says is true, and it looked like it was, then it'll be impossible. No one wants to go outside the walls." Tony slumped forward.

"What if we gave them something they wanted?" Grunk asked, gaining everyone's attention. "How many fish do you all have?"

"Don't even get me started." Tony moved his backpack onto the table. He opened the pack's menu, tapping on the grid system several times. The bag shifted with each tap, soon looking as if it might burst. "This is what I have on me." The kobold lifted his bag and turned it over. At least a dozen fish poured free onto the table.

"Hey!" Raven jumped up, a fish nearly sliding off the table and into her lap.

Izzy gave the fish covered table a concerned look. "You mean, there's even more?"

"Ah, I see what you're thinking. That's a good idea." Lucas smirked at the Orc. "We definitely have enough fish for that."