The rest of the journey to Max’s passed quietly for Hildi and the rest of the caravan. Everyone was tired and trying to figure out the last encounter. Fern quietly explained to the new folks what they’d heard about Wade and his crew. The biggest question seemed to be why the caravan had reacted that way to what seemed to them a relatively minor encounter. Although Wade’s group’s holding weapons had definitely made people a little nervous.

“So, they’re bandits?” one of the new people asked.

“I guess you could say that. They chased Hildi there,” she said pointing towards Hildi at the back of the caravan, “for a couple of kilometers. Shouting that they wanted a piece of her, that kind of garbage. She had to hide from them. That’s how we discovered the place where we’re going.” She left it at that. Not attempting to explain the dungeon being her son or any of that. She figured that they’d get a chance soon enough to react to that bit of weirdness. And future Fern could attempt to handle it then.

Eventually, the group settled down and they arrived at Max’s. There had been some changes, even since Hildi had left. The roof had changed a bit and the windows and doors were black. Not like dark, but black.

“Hey, Jake,” said Hildi, her voice falling off at the end. “We’re here.”

“Great,” said Jake. He didn’t know quite what to say either. Their relationship, whatever it was, had begun about a week ago and then they hadn’t talked or anything since.

“Need snack!” said Baxter. “Need snack now” and with that, he trotted through the door and then came to a complete stop.

“Too dark,” he said. “Need lights. Where go?”

‘Oh shit!’ Jake thought. ‘OH SHIT! LIGHTS! Fucking hell!’

“Yes,” said Hildi. “I brought them here. Where do you want them to go?”

“Through the door is what I guess is the first level of my dungeon. I’ve killed off all the rats and cleaned up the place. I’ve also added a whole bunch of things I thought you’d need. It looks kind of like a hotel. A kind of plain hotel that has really comfortable beds.”

While Jake was talking to her, he had his other mind, the one he usually had siphoning all day, start the process of creating lights. Not for the rooms but for the hallways. He figured he’d need to do something different for the rooms. He didn’t have time to deal with that now.

For the hallway lights, he went into his pattern space and created a small plate of bronze and then inscribed the rune for light on it. He also created a timer and a dimmer functionality. And an override function for both the timer and the dimmer.

The timer would turn down the lights to a dim glow every night at ten o’clock. Enough to allow the hallways to be navigable, but not enough to wake up a sleepy adult or child. Then he had the timer also brighten the lights back up to full strength every morning at 5 am. He figured that if he had to be awake all the time, then, by God, the people inside him should be awake too!

The final things he did were to have a call of “Emergency” turn on all the lights throughout the whole floor at once. And a call of “Lights On” turns the nearest light back to full brightness. The last instruction would only last while the person was within eight meters of the light. If they left beyond that, the light would dim again.

He thought about the pattern for a brief moment and then decided that it needed a shade. The lights from the runes were a little directional and could use some diffusion. Glass was too expensive, so he opted for a thin alabaster shade, made into a globe surrounding the glowing light element.

The material was not too expensive to make, about the same cost as his sandstone. Then he decided to get a little artistic. Over the top half of the globe, he put what he thought of as a large shell. He wanted the idea to be of an oyster with its pearl shining from within. Fortunately, the ‘Loot Creation’ space came through and it didn’t look half bad. Way better than his limited artistic abilities could account for. The pattern cost him 100 mana. After he created one, he determined that a light was going to cost him 112 mana points.

He thought about that for a minute but decided to go for it. He liked the looks of his fixtures and he could add more lights tomorrow. Right now though, he needed to get the place, well, not dark.

After he’d placed his first one, he stopped and thought about it some more. He knew that he was going to need mana for more than lights. Something would come up and people would be asking him for something that they needed now! Not to mention, what if there were core stealers in the group? He needed the mana to protect himself! He still wanted the lights, but could they wait?

What could he do that was cheaper? He thought about that for a minute. Cheaper lights. Well, flashlights cost less than light fixtures in the world that was. Could he make a flashlight?

He immediately started trying. He began with a short bronze rod about twenty cm long and five cm in diameter. Then he thought beam, glow and on and off. That was all he wanted the light to do. The glow would cast light out from one end of the rod and light up a circular area of about three meters around the rod. The beam function would generate a focused beam of light that would extend about thirteen meters. He didn’t want to mess with a touch interface this time. He just wanted the thing to work. Say “Glow” it glowed. Say “Beam” it generated a beam of light. Say “Off” it turned off.

The pattern wasn't cheap but he expected that of anything with runes on it anymore. He got the feeling that it wouldn’t cost that much to make though and when he created one, it turned out he was right. One mana point. He thought about all the people that he’d need to create one for, 132 elderly, kids, adults and, well, the shocked and decided to make it an even 150. He created a couple of chests inside the door and then filled them with flashlights, light rods, light sources, whatever.

In the meantime, he’d been having a conversation with Hildi and through Hildi a conversation with his mom and the other folks.

Hildi said to Fern, “He’s been busy creating stuff for us to live. He’s changed Max’s to be like a hotel he says.”

“What do you mean?” Fern asked.

“I guess he’s created a bunch of rooms and stuff. He says that the inside is like a cheap hotel with comfortable beds,” Hildi answered.

“Plain, not cheap!” Jake inserted.

“Plain, not cheap hotel,” Hildi said. “He wanted to make that clear.”

“So we go inside, find a room and settle down?” asked Fern. “That’s not going to work.”

“No mom,” said Jake. “I made rooms for you and dad, Sammy and Dato, Rex and Bernie, Billy and Hildi, the Withers, the Falcons, and the Fishers. I also created a bunch of rooms for single folks like Joseph. But then you went and added a ton of people too. So, the single folks get shafted and have to sleep three to a room. I’ve got a queen-sized bed and a full bed in every single room. I do have another two couple rooms if there's a couple of couples in the new folks.”

“He says that he made a bunch of rooms for the original folks. The original married folks and our families all have rooms. The single folks and the new folks will have to share a room. Three folks to a room.”

“Can you create more space, more rooms?” Hildi asked Jake.

“Yes, tomorrow or the next day. I’m pretty much out of mana for tonight. I’ve got a little but not enough to make another floor. And I probably won’t tomorrow either. It takes a lot of mana to build.”

“Can they use the other floors of the dungeon?” she asked.

“No!” said Jake. The answer came out almost involuntarily, sharply.

“Ok, relax!” she said. “We’ll figure it out.”

Hildi looked around and saw that everybody was watching her. “It looks like we’ll have to triple up. Sorry about that single folks, but it’s temporary until he can make some more space.”

One of the new folks said, “Who are you talking to? I hear you, but I can’t hear anybody else. What’s going on?”

Fern stepped up then and said, “That is a discussion for inside. It’s almost dark and I feel like getting some walls between me and the outside world. It’s not safe out here. What say we all head inside and we’ll take a look around, answer your questions and get everybody settled down for the night. We can get a meal ready and everybody fed too. How’s that sound?”

The suggestion seemed to be well received, but everyone was tired and hangry, so there wasn’t a lot of talking going on.

“Ask him if there’s a space inside where we can all sit down and discuss what needs to happen from here on out,” Fern said.

“Tell her that the dining room has tables and benches. It can seat about ninety-four people. The kids can go swimming, I guess. Everybody can take a flashlight from the chest when they step inside. Say “Glow” it glows, say “Beam” it creates a flashlight beam, and “Off” turns it off. I didn’t have enough time to finish the lights. That’s the best I could do,” Jake said to Hildi.

"That's fine Jake," Hildi said. "To tell you the truth, I'm just glad the rats are gone."

Hildi told the waiting crowd about the flash sticks and how to operate them and then asked everybody to grab one as they stepped inside.

The people from the caravan piled into Max’s following behind Jake’s family, Hildi, Baxter, and Billy. He started to identify them but there were so many that he gave up before he even began. He thought ‘I can do it later tonight when they are all in bed.’

‘Wow,’ he thought, ‘that’s not at all pervy!’

They all came inside and grabbed a light stick? Stick light?

Anyway, almost all of them grabbed a small bronze rod and said ‘Glow.’ Some of them seemed to be being guided by others and didn't take a light. He guessed those were the shocked. The glow from their lights spread throughout the entryway, followed them down the hall to the first single rooms as they pushed their way inside and showed the first garden patch where they would hopefully start planting tomorrow. The crowd began milling around, the kids and even the adults were all fascinated by the lights. Shifting them rapidly from Glow to Beam and then Off.

“Ok,” Jake said, “Looks like everybody’s in and got a light. If you’d tell them to head straight ahead. That way's south. Past the first garden patch, you’ll see a path between it and the second garden patch that runs east/west. Turn left and head east. You should see a light up ahead. That’s where the dining area is.

He had already placed the single light that he had created there. But he quickly created another two in the dining room and one in the kitchen. He figured that it would be better to have the meeting space brightly lit.

Hildi said, “Ok, if you will all follow me, we’ll head straight down this corridor, past the garden space here, and then take the first corridor to the left. It will take us to the dining room and we can all sit down and figure out what is going to happen. That's where the lights are shining.

The tired group shambled behind Hildi and Fern as they led the way toward the dining room. The space they walked through was cavernous and dark outside the range of their flashlights. Most people were using the glow function but some were using the beam. This caused beams to flash around lighting up the ceiling, the passageways, the bedrooms that they passed. Their feet caused echoes that bounced off the floor and ceiling. The group tightened up into an almost instinctual herd. No one said anything until they turned the corner and saw the lights up ahead in the dining room. Then almost as one, the group let out a sigh and a couple of them laughed nervously.

Jake thought about what to do with the kids. ‘I mean are they going to want to be part of this meeting or will they want to go swimming. Although most are orphans now, maybe they will want to be part of the meeting. Heck, I’ll light up the swimming pool and they can make their own choices. Plus, I’ll light up the restroom closest to the dining room too.' So he created another four lights and placed them too.

The group filed into the dining room and started taking seats. There was some confusion about what to do then. The shocked had all come along with the group since they were being led there. But now that they’d arrived in mass and had seen the seating situation, the group began milling around again.

“I assume that the adults being led by hand are what Baxter called the ‘shocked’? Jake asked. “Is that right? If so, you passed the room I created for them. Did you want to take them there and let them rest up?

“Georgia,” Hildi said. “That room that we passed was created for the shocked to stay. Did you want to take them there before we have this meeting?”

“Is there a restroom?” Georgia asked. “I imagine that they need to go and then they could rest before we eat. How’s that sound?”

“Yes, there is a restroom,” Jake said. “There are actually three sets of restrooms. The only one that’s lighted is the one right behind you. It has a light between the women’s section and the men’s. The women’s side is on the east end, the men’s is on the west end.”

“The restrooms are right there,” Hildi said, pointing toward the wall with the doors in it. The east end is the women’s, the west end is the men’s.”

Georgia nodded her head and began marshaling the shocked and their helpers toward the restrooms.

Jake thought about whether to say anything about the toilets but decided he’d better say something. “The toilets are kind of bidet style. All you’ve got to do is sit down,” he said.

“The toilets are like bidets,” Hildi said. “All you have to do is sit.”

At this, a murmur sprang up from the crowd. A couple of men, including Will, looked as if they were going to investigate this strange new occurrence, but Fern loudly said, “Will! There’ll be time for that later. Let them get the shocked situated first.” And all the men turned back, looking kind of sheepish.

After about ten minutes, Georgia led her shocked and their helpers back to their room and began arranging them for the night.

“OK,” said Fern. “Restroom’s open boys and girls,” and two lines quickly formed.

Watching their faces when they left the restroom was a hoot. Jake was rolling. Of course, he could have watched the whole procedure, but decided that just the face of people when they exited was enough. Man, woman or child, they all had a vaguely discomfited expression on their face leaving.

Listening to the conversation afterward was funny too. They seemed to both want to talk about it and not. There were a lot of conversations that began and ended with, “Have you used the restroom yet?” People seemed to figure out the sinks fairly well too. They seemed to like the dry function, the soap. He received some negative feedback too, but overall the experience seemed positive.

After a while, he decided that it was taking too long and added another two lights to the closest restroom. He told Hildi that there was another restroom available, now lit. She walked around the corner and discovered the pools and the other restroom. She promptly shared the information with the others and everyone finished and settled into the dining room. The kids overflowing onto the floor around the edges of the room.

Fern stood up in the center of the dining room, standing in a firepit to raise herself up enough to see everyone.

She held up her hands for quiet and eventually everyone settled down and focused on her.

“Hello,” she began. “For those of you that don’t know me, my name is Fern Silvestre. That’s my husband Will over there, my two daughters, Dato and Sammy, and my oldest boy, Rex and his wife Berni and their baby over there. I’m the reason you're all here. I’m the one that invited you. So I’m the one that you all can blame if something goes wrong, I mean, other than the end of the world.”

The crowd kind of chuckled at this.

“Two weeks ago, I’d never met some of you,” she began again. “And that makes me a little sad. It makes me a little sad because I lived a little life, took care of my husband and kids, my garden, went to work, but I didn’t have time to get to know all you. But now I do, we do, have time to get to know each other. What I’m trying to say is that while awful things have happened to us, to our families, to our neighborhood, our country, our world, we are now at a point where we can start to bounce back. To recover. To grow and survive. To take back control over our lives.”

“This is where it begins. This spot, this building is going to be our refuge. I’m not going to make a long speech. I’ve never been a person that liked talking in front of a group, but I felt I needed to say something to you all. To say, we will survive!”

She looked around, trying to make eye contact with everyone in the room.

“At this point, normally after a long day of walking, we’d go home, make something to eat and probably watch some TV, maybe get a glass of wine, a beer, a coke, then lock our front doors, and settle in for the night. That’s what I’d like us to do also, but I’ve got no TV, no wine, no beer, and maybe even, not a bed. For that, we’re going to let Hildi here explain what Max’s offers.”

She pointed toward Hildi who smiled and did a little wave, palm up, fingers pointing toward the ceiling.

Hildi looked a little surprised and nervous when Fern said that, but Jake just laughed. He recognized the feeling. He wasn’t sure how many old folks lawns he’d ‘volunteered’ to mow but it was more than ten. Less than a 1000, but way more than ten.

“But before that,” Fern continued, “how many of you have a class? Or even know what a class is?”

Only the 22 adult members of the original party raised their hands. Then Billy thought about the second part of what she’d said and he raised his hand and his group all raised their hands as well.

“So, it looks like 33 people have started to figure out now how our new world works. All you folks that didn’t raise your hand, don’t worry. We’ll talk about it later. We’ll explain everything that we can and answer all your questions.”

“How many of you are good cooks? You can cook on an open fire, you can cook without a recipe. You look at a bunch of vegetables and meat and think, ‘that would make a good stew’.”

Jake noticed that Hildi didn’t raise her hand. Bernie, his brother’s wife did, along with Fern and a couple of people that he recognized from his mom’s block parties. All people who’d raised their hands earlier. In addition, four people that he didn’t recognize at all raised their hands. He was surprised, seven women and a single man. He thought there would be fewer folks than that.

“We’re going to be your cooks tonight. Give us a round of applause!”

She smiled and everybody not selected started clapping.

‘Probably,’ Jake thought cynically, ‘because they weren’t selected.’

Fern continued, “we can work out roles in the future, but tonight, they need us! Do any of you have a problem with that?”

The cooks looked at each other and then shrugged and shook their heads.

“Ok, one last job we’ve got to sort out, is, who here’s been hunting? Shot a deer? Been a soldier? Been a member of the police force?”

Basically all the men raised their hands and quite a few of the women too.

“Good,” said Fern. “Let’s cut down the numbers a bit. If you’ve been a soldier or involved in Law Enforcement, raise your other hand.”

Jake saw his dad’s other hand go up, then a woman that he didn’t know well, but recognized, Diana Caldwell raised her other hand. Rex’s other hand raised which surprised Jake until he remembered Rex was a part-time Sheriff’s Deputy. Although he’d completed the training last year. And three other adult men that he didn’t know, raised their hand as well. Four of the elderly men raised their hands also.

“Good,” said Fern. “Everybody can lower your arms. You folks that raised both of your arms are our army. At least for tonight. Keep us safe tonight, and like the cooks, we can talk over roles tomorrow. Is that ok with everyone?”

She waited until the people selected had all nodded their heads and the conversation murmurs had pretty much died out and then said, “Hildi, you're up. Keep it short, we've still got dinner to fix, but tell us what this place has to offer.”

Hildi began, “There are three restrooms, only two have lights though. But I’m sure they’ll all three will be lit up by tomorrow.”

Jake said, “Yes, definitely.”

Hildi continued, whispering, “Help me out here, Jake!”

Jake said, “On the East wall, there are three rooms for married couples: one of them is for the Fishers, another is for the Withers and a third one is unclaimed.”

Hildi continued, “The East wall, over there,” she pointed, “has rooms for couples. One of the rooms is for the Fishers, another for the Withers and the third one is open for any couples that joined us later. We can figure out who's in there later.

Jake said, “In the middle, you have the pools and north of the pool is another restroom and beyond that is the start of the singles housing. Every single room has a queen bed and a full bed. The queens in the single rooms are the same as the bed in the couple’s room.”

Hildi continued, “There’s a pool on the other side of this restroom.” She reached out and patted the southern restroom that she was standing next too.” All the kids perked up at that announcement.

“It looks like a lot of fun and if Diana or your folks say that it's ok, I don’t see why anyone shouldn’t be swimming tonight!” Hildi continued.

At that, the kids let out a little cheer. Even the adults and elderly looked interested.

“There are three hot tubs too!” Jake said.

“And there are three hots tubs too!” Hildi repeated.

At this news, everyone perked up a little bit more. Especially the rickshaw pullers.

She continued, “Just beyond those, are the single rooms. Unfortunately, you’ll have to sleep three to a room. Two in the queen-size bed, one in the full. Sorry, we didn’t know how many people were coming and didn’t have time to create more rooms, or the energy either.”

"To the west of the dining room, north of the bigger garden are the kids' rooms. Each one of them can hold 13 kids,” said Jake.

"And to the west of the dining room,” said Hildi, pointing, are the kids’ rooms. Each one of them can hold 13 kids. They’ll need to be divided up however, Diana I guess approves. But there should be space for all the kids.”

“On the far wall, is mom’s room, Rex and Bernie’s room, your room, the Falcon’s room, and another unclaimed couples room,” Jake said. “And that’s all they’re getting.”

“And the far wall is where the Silvestre family will live along with the Falcons. All the rooms there have been assigned except for one couple's room. And that’s pretty much it.”

The same man who’d asked the question of Hildi who she was talking too, asked another question, “who built this place? I mean, I was here, what, two weeks ago. This was a truckstop Indian post with a couple of pretty good restaurants in it. What happened to them?”

Hildi looked at Fern, who stepped up on the same fire pit that she’d used to introduce Hildi and assign the roles and said, “The answer that you’re looking for is my son. Not either of the son’s that you’ve met on the journey here, but my third son, who I’m very proud of. We can get into the ‘the rest of the story’ tomorrow though after we get fed, after the sleeping arrangements get worked out, and after the watch schedule for tonight is set up. And after we get a full night’s sleep.”

“I think that we need to get us cooks into the kitchen, the watch set up, the doors and windows closed,” she said, glancing at the ceiling, “and maybe some kids in the pool and some weary adults in the hot tubs. Hildi will be in charge of getting the adults settled. Diane, I realize that you’re also on the watch team, but could you handle getting some adults and settling the kids into their beds?”

“I can,” Diane answered. “All the kids which I guess means people younger than thirteen follow me toward the big garden.”

“Honey,” said Fern to Will, “Can you set up the watch?”

“I can and I will,” he said. “All you folks that got volunteered to be in the army come with me. We’re going to walk the inside perimeter and see what we’ve got to work with. Ok?” And he started walking toward the kitchen then paused to let his group catch up.

“All right cooks,” Fern said. “Let’s see what we’ve got to work with.”