Will followed her back to the kitchen. Once again, there was a Scooby snack of venison waiting in the new refrigerator. Jake’s mom led the current kitchen crew in an exploration of the changes to the kitchen that Jake had done last night.

Big copper pots, an oven, a grill, a stove, three prep tables, cutting boards, three resin-based trash cans that ‘disappeared’ the trash when nobody was looking. And a couple of serving tables that were just outside the north low wall where food and plates and whatever could be set up to form a buffet line.

All told, Jake was pretty much out of mana again and waiting on his siphoning to give him more. That big bronze cube had pretty much taken the last of his available mana, not counting the cushion he’d left himself.

“It’s starting to look like a kitchen, isn’t it!” his mom said.

Everybody agreed, but kind of looked warily around. The idea of being inside a dungeon, a being that could well, create and drop big blocks of metal, was a little bit overwhelming to these women.

“Look,” his mom said. “I raised my boy right. You don’t need to worry about him. He’s on our side. He’s looking out for us. Just help out and he’ll help you back. Ok?”

She waited and everybody nodded, looking a little calmer now.

“Let me tell you something. I can speak with him now, but I forgot that he couldn’t speak to other folks,” she said. “So when I asked him to ‘Say hello’ I had forgotten that he couldn’t talk to other folks. That cube I guess was the only way he could figure out how to answer!”

Everybody looked around, then finally one of the women and two men started laughing and it spread, everyone almost rolling on the ground.

“Big cube!” said one of the women.

“Hello!” said another.

All of them laughing, gasping for breath.

“Let’s just keep that between us,” his mom said when the group had finally calmed down. “But did you see the face of that man when the cube fell right next to him? Oh my god! If I hadn’t been having a heart attack too, I would have been rolling!”

“Yeah,” said a woman. “That’s Danny Michaels. He had this big black Ford 150. He put glasspacks in it and it had these big chrome exhaust pipes that stuck up above the cab. Used to drive my husband and me crazy when he’d drive home at two-thirty in the morning on Saturdays from clubbing. Buppput puttt buppput putt" she said trying, and mostly failing to imitate the sounds a truck moving down the street with a loud exhaust would make.

They made another four big pots of stew and everybody started to eat and chat amongst themselves. Between the kids playing in the pool and the shocked they had enough seats for everybody. And were able to pull the kids out of the pool and get them fed as a chair opened up.

Finally, everybody had finished their breakfast and sat back on their bench seats with a look that said they were ready to continue the discussion.

Fern stepped up on the cube and smiled and said, “Let’s all thank the cooks with a round of applause.”

After the applause died out she said, “Ok, here’s what needs to happen. We need to figure out what everybody is good at and get them doing that, if at all possible. Obviously, no computers means no spreadsheets, no PowerPoint presentations, none of that stuff, but we existed before Office, and by god, since we’re still here, we’ll continue to exist after it. How many of you chose a class or two last night? By hands.”

Her family all raised their hands, but other than that, no one else did.

“How many of you already had classes chosen?” she asked. It looked like only four people raised their hands, all from the original group that had gathered at her house.”

“Ok,” she said. “That’s the first thing we’ve got to get done. Everybody needs to figure out what they are going to be doing in this new world. I was offered a bunch of classes:

Chef Homemaker Clan Leader Hunter Archer Serving Wench Herbalist Apothecary Alchemist Druid Mage

She paused and counted them on her fingers. “That’s it. You all should have a bunch of choices too. I’m not sure how many or what they are, but you can view them just by saying “Choose Class”. She paused and let everyone say it.

“Ok,” she said, “Close the window by just thinking ‘close screen’ at it? It’s a smart system, you can pretty much think whatever at it and it’ll read your intentions. Now, is everybody with me?”

She paused and then said, “Now think ‘status’.”

Everybody seemed to be doing that as well. “That’s you. Summed up in numbers. We think that the average number before the Event was ten. That would be neither high nor low, just your plain everyday person. Olympians probably were above eighteen, and if you had a number six or less, you probably had a problem of some kind. Billy here, sorry Billy, I’m going to use you as an example, had a really low Constitution. He had chronic asthma, could barely leave the house. It showed up as a six on his ‘status’ sheet.”

Billy didn’t really like the fact that everybody was now looking at him.

“Once again, sorry Billy,” Fern continued.

‘Welcome to the family, Billy,’ Jake thought. ‘Get used to being volunteered!’

Fern continued on, “I mentioned Billy because that is no longer his stat. He’s assigned points to it and cured his asthma.”

A bunch of whispers swept the room then.

“That’s right,” said Fern. “In this new world, you aren’t stuck with what you began with. Always wanted to be smarter, assign some points. Same thing with every other stat. Prettier, wiser, less clumsy, healthier. But you only get so many to be assigned per level. Which brings us up to another thing. Levels. Just like in your video games or dungeons and dragons games, you can level up. You do this by gaining experience points. Which you gain from practicing skills or, well, killing monsters. The first levels are easy. After a while, it becomes harder. So your first easy attribute points don’t last. Assign them wisely.”

A bunch of questions were shouted out of the crowd at her, but she just stood there with her arms raised. Will started shouting then, “Quiet, quiet. Eyes to the center.”

Once she had gotten most of the people’s attention again, she said, “You can share your screens with each other. But I would encourage you not too. It shows who you are. Do you really want to show that to someone else? Should you? Anyway, do it or not, your decision.”

After another pause to let that sink in, she continued on, “So, here’s what I’d like to have happen today. Everyone should select a class. If they’ve got the class they want, go for it. If they want to cast spells and can’t? Or they want to be an alchemist and can’t? See Hildi or Billy here. They can help you unlock or discover your mana and Qi.”

Once again the crowd started shouting questions.

‘Ah! Ah!” she said, holding her hands up.

“They’ll tell you what those things are, but if you don’t know, I would encourage you to find out what they are BEFORE you select your class or classes. They’ll be telling you all what they are as well as guiding you through the process of unlocking them right here.” She gestured toward the two and motioned them toward where she was standing.

“Will, Georgia, Joseph, and Dianna,” she continued. “We need to meet over by that little lounge area just behind the kitchen as well. Now, it’s about eight o’clock in the morning. We’ll start getting ready for lunch at 10:30, so everybody has about two and a half hours to get their questions answered. And maybe, chose a class or at least get started in choosing. Then we can meet again, right here after lunch is over? OK?”

She looked around, smiled and hopped down from the cube, before helping Hildi up to take her place and walking out of the room toward where the four people she’d asked to meet with her waited.

She could hear Hildi starting almost the same way that she’d started about a week ago in her living room, “... You guys know about the apocalypse. It happened. The world changed whether we wanted it to or not. But not like in the bible, it’s different. I don’t know why or how, but I do know it happened. What happened is that somehow the world acquired a system or maybe the system acquired the world …

“That sounds familiar,” her husband said as they walked towards the area where the others had already gathered.

“It does, doesn’t it,” she said. “It’s hard to believe that it’s only been what, slightly over a week? All these changes. Who’d have ever thought I’d go from a restaurant to a clan?”

“I would, honey. You kept us afloat through some lean times, I’m betting you keep all us afloat through the end times,” he said.

She leaned up and kissed him then. “You say the nicest things Will Silvestre. I hope they go from your mouth straight to well, whomever’s ears!”

They arrived then and instead of the four people she’d expected, she was greeted with pretty much her whole original crew.

Old man Wither’ broke the ice, “I guess we figured we wanted to know what was ahead of us. And since you seem to be charting the course, we thought we’d come listen in. Besides we’ve all selected our classes and heard Hildi’s presentation before.”

She was a little nervous but figured he was right. They had as much a right to hear her plans as anyone else did. At least for now.

“Ok,” she said. “I originally only called the four I mentioned out because they got drafted into one of the main jobs in kind of a leadership role. I don’t know if they want to continue that way, or even if they’re the best person to be doing it. It could be they have other skills, other roles they want to work on. Not everybody likes to lead. That can be worked on in the future. And if they want some changes made, just let me know. The way I see it is we’ve got four things we’ve got to do to keep the wheels on this bus:”

“Keep these people safe” “Keep them fed” “Keep the shocked alive until we can somehow fix them up” “Keep the children safe, educated, clothed, fed and loved.”

“If we can do those four things, we have succeeded in my book. The other parts of making a society that will work should given enough time, fall into place. We may need to encourage them to fall that way, but they will do so eventually.”

She looked around and saw that everyone was nodding their heads. “I asked Will to take on the safety portion. I’m taking on the cooking portion until I can find someone to hand it off to that wants to do it, Georgia has taken on the shocked, and Dianna has assumed responsibility for the children. What do you all need from us to succeed? Will?”

Will looked at her and then the rest of the room. “We need someplace that we can watch the outside of the building from. I’m assuming that we’re going to have workers outside, helping make this wall and these houses too?”

He looked around and seemed to get his answer because he continued, “then we’ll need some guards for both monsters and humans and probably some drills on what to do if they get attacked while outside. And we’ll have to talk about what kind of rules living in a big building requires. Curfew? Cleaning? And what kind of penalties someone that breaks them is going to suffer, things like that. I’m not sure if my crew is supposed to worry about stuff like that or not? And, there’s the thing that you didn’t mention, but I know you haven’t forgotten. What are we going to do about all those people that are getting hungry, afraid to leave their house, and waiting for somebody, maybe the government to come rescue them!”

“Lot’s of good points there,” said Fern. “Everybody, keep them in mind, we’ll devote some time to each group after we’ve had a look at the problems each group leader has discovered, Ok? Dianna, you’re next.”

“Well,” she said. “I’ve got 68 kids in the kid’s rooms. I guess Jake miscounted, ‘cause I’ve only got beds for 52. Most of them don’t have parents. Having survived by hiding or being rescued by neighbors or just taken in by neighbors when they showed up on the neighbor’s porch like stray dogs. Fortunately, some of these kids are brothers and sisters so they can easily sleep two to a bed. Most of them actually want to do so and would cry if we tried to separate them. I’ve got some picture books, some board games. Sixteen of these kids evidently out level me and could probably slaughter most of this place if they so desired. One of whom is five years old. That’s where I’m standing.”

“Thank you!” said Fern to a subdued bit of clapping from the spectators. “I knew we had a lot of children. I did not know that there were that many. As for the levels on the kids, I assume you mean Billy’s group, right?”

At Dianna’s nod, she said, “I think Billy has that crew well in hand, but it does raise an interesting point. What about teenagers? Lord, magic and hormones both hitting at once.”

“Georgia?” Fern asked. “What about you?”

“I’ve got fifteen shocked,” Georgia said. “None of them are demonstrating any signs of getting better. None of them are demonstrating any signs of, well, personhood. They eat when you tell them, will take a shower, use the restroom, put on clothes, take off clothes, but that’s it. They might as well be, for all I can tell, human dolls. Whatever it was that made them human, the spark, it’s gone and ‘til they get that back, they ain’t doin’ nothing. If they were left alone, they’d die of thirst in three days. There are three of us helping out now. Two of them’s men whose wives are in the mix and we have another three or four kids whose mom or dad is one of them. They stop by and help, but they’re just ten or so. ”

“Thank you for that report and thank you for doing what you're doing, Georgia. You may have the most difficult job here. I hope I could do half as good a job as you,” Fern said. “As for me, the kitchen is coming together. We’ve got food, we’ve got cooks, as of this morning we have pots and pans and prep tables. Heck, we have coffee!”

At this, a cheer went up from all the adults standing around!

“I know,” she continued. “That was a gift from my son Jake. Along with the food we’ve been eating.”

There was another burst of applause then too. More tentative than the previous one.

‘People were still remembering that big brass cube falling,’ Jake thought. ‘Oops!’

“We’ve still got to get kitchen workers lined up, maybe some of the people currently doing it will stay, but I don’t know that yet. Also, we need to get more stuff planted and get some variety in our meals too. Venison stew is going to get old pretty quick. Probably by lunch, I imagine. I’ll need to get back and start prep work on lunch by ten-ish. It’s hard saying. That’s why we need a chef. People have been pretty good about bussing their own tables, but not everybody does. We haven’t got a lot of ‘cafeteria’ dishes and stuff yet, so everybody has been pretty much using their own, which also helps. ”

Will spoke up then, “I need people too. People that are actually committed to security, the army, keeping people safe. Right now, I’m getting by on what might be loosely termed as volunteers. I need people that really are dedicated to it. And, well, I’ll say it now, they should probably get paid.”

Dianna said, “The same here. I need teachers, I need a curriculum, I need a couple of therapists, I need room mothers or dads, I need a structure to help these kids keep it together. And, they, whoever they wind up being will need to get paid too.”

Georgia said, “the same thing goes for me and mine. We’re doing it because it needs to get done. I don’t know how long we can keep it up though. But we should also get paid as well.”

“I hear you, folks,” said Fern. “I want to pay my kitchen workers and myself. I don’t want to ask anyone to work without some kind of payment, but here’s the kicker. I don’t have any money. This clan that I talked about starting doesn’t have any either. We’re going to have to figure this out together.”

Withers spoke up then, “Well, can’t you have your son make something? Gold or silver? Heck, even copper?”

“Yeah,” said Jake. “Who’s gonna pay me? What do I get out of it?”

Fern nodded her head in agreement with what Jake said, but then turned to Withers and said, “He’s already given us beds, toilets, running water, showers, pots, pans, tables, chairs, a safe place to live, food, now you want him to pay us to take care of us. Is that what you're proposing?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I guess,” said Withers. “You said people need to get paid. The only one here I can see who has any money is him.”

“Even if I did have money, why the hell should I give it to them? What do I get out of all this? Sorry, mom. I’m just asking?” said Jake.

“My boy asks basically ‘what’s in it for him?’ And I’m having a hard time answering that. You want him to step in and be the new government tit? Is that it?” Fern asked.

“No, but sure as shit we need to figure something out,” he said. “We’ve got 130 plus people to take care of. We need some way of figuring out how to pay people for working. I mean soldiers get paid, so do health care workers and busboys and chefs. At least they did in the old world. People will work for free in an emergency, but once that wears off, and it becomes the standard, they’ll want to be paid. That’s what I’m saying.”

“That’s a good point and one I’m very glad to hear you bringing up,” Fern said. “We’ve got no economy. No way to earn money. No way of spending. I’ve got some of these copper and silver coins that I got left when my car was taken.” She pulls some out of her inventory and plays with them a bit, looking at their faces.

“But that’s it,” she continued. “I haven’t gotten any more since, nor have I been able to spend them on anything. I can’t even trade them for something with Jake here.”

“Mom, you don’t need money with me. If you need it and I can make it, it’s yours,” she said.

“Thank you, Jake,” she said.

“He was being a good son,” she said to the inquiring eyes around her. “But we need to figure out a way to pay people.”

“Can’t your boy do something?” said Withers. “Like issue a coin? Make a credit card?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Let’s ask him.”

“Well, seeing as how you’re the only one that can talk to him, how about you do that?” said Withers.

“Need another cube?” Jake asked his mom.

His mom smiled again and said, “I’ll do that, but in the meantime, our problems seemed mainly people based. Paying, selecting, and determining their jobs. Is that what I’m hearing from everyone?”

Everybody seemed to think about it for a moment before looking around and then nodding their heads in agreement.

“Ok,” she said. “Why don’t we do this? Everybody here counts off, one to four.” She waited until they’d done that, then said, “Ones you’re with me, twos you’re with Will, threes you’re with Georgia and fours you’re with Dianna. Talk it over and try to figure out some way to jumpstart our economy and figure out how many people each group needs.”

Later that day as Fern was chopping vegetables in the kitchen for lunch, Jake spoke to her again.

“Mom,” he said.

“Yes,” she replied. “I’m a little busy here. Don’t want to lose a finger.”

“Practice your healing,” he said. “Billy’s gotten really good at it. We’ve been talking.”

“I thought that only people that could take the vow could speak with you?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “If I work at it, concentrate, I can break through and talk. It’s a little painful, but doable. Well, painful for them.”

“Does Hildi know?” she asked.

“Well, no,” he answered. “I’d just as soon keep it that way if you know what I mean. She’s a little protective.”

“Uh-hmm,” she said, kind of noncommittally. “I’ll practice when I have time.”

“Make time,” he said. “Billy’s advanced to level eight just by practicing. Now that you’re the big cheese, you need to be strong.”

“I know,” she said. “It’s just time. Everything takes time.”

“Delegate,” he said. “You need to get stronger!”

“I will,” she said. “I promise!”

“Good,” he said. “You know what an Adventurer is?”

“I’m assuming you mean that in a specific way, so no,” she said.

“In the stories, it’s a person who goes out and fights monsters. Usually, there's a guild behind them called the ‘Adventurer’s Guild’.”

“Ok,” she said. “Is this going somewhere?”

“Yes,” he said. “In the stories, they have a card, or plate or badge or something that keeps track of various stuff.”

“Uh-huh!” she said. “Cool, just got another level on the skill, ‘Small Knives.”

“Anyway,’ he continued. “The things that the plate tracks usually include quest rewards.”

“So money,” she said.

“Exactly,” he replied. “Money.”

“Ok,” she said. “I’m with you so far.”

“Look at this,” he said.

Suddenly on the prep table beside her appeared a bronze plate with a picture of his mother in the center and her name in the other corner along with her supposed rank, “Bronze.” There was a circular hole in one corner to allow a chain or a thong to be attached to it to make it easy to carry.

She set down the knife and the potato that she was currently peeling and picked up the plate. When she did so, a blue screen appeared,

“Would you, Fern Silvestre, like to bind this Dungeon Born adventurers plate?

Agree

Deny

“It’s asking if I’d like ‘to bind this Dungeon Born adventurers plate’?”

“Don’t do it yet, but you could. And if you did, you’d own the plate. Then people could use this,” and an item that looked vaguely like an old gumball machine appeared next to her knife, “to assign money to it.”

“So, we could say, pay people and let them keep track of their money in our guild,” she said.

“I’d have to make enough gold to cover the rewards you’d be giving or the wages you’d be paying, but essentially, yes,” he said.

“Sounds like you're hedging there. What do you mean?” she said.

“Billy said that when the Event happened the Bobs started with a notice that said something like they controlled all the gold? They even mentioned it when they talked to me. Remember that?”

“Vaguely,” she said. “It was just another of a long list of things that I was too busy freaking out about to pay attention too.”

“Well, according to Billy, they did,” he said. “And, when I try to make money or script or tokens or something that acts as money, I can’t do it unless I have enough gold, silver or copper in either bullion or specie to back it up with. I literally can not do it! Nor could anybody else, I’m pretty sure. The Bobs are a hard currency kind of being, I guess.”

His mom just sat there with a blank look on her face, considering something, her fingers playing idly with the card.

“Actually,” he said. “It feels in a weird kind of way, fulfilling. Like it might be another purpose that the Bobs put on me. I’m the damn banker of this world! Or at least, I’m here to make gold, silver, and copper so the bankers of the world can make more currency. I get the feeling that people that want to debase their currency are in for a nasty surprise too.”

“So you actually can make gold,” she said.

“Have to if I want to create loot,” he said.

“Loot?” she asked.

“You kill something, a monster in me, I owe you gold or silver or copper. I literally have to pay, for some reason,” he said. “I also can pay in items too. For instance, I could give you a toilet.”

For some reason that struck them both as funny and they started laughing. Fern put her head down on her arms, laughing and kept saying, “A toilet, a toilet”

After she calmed down, she asked, “Is a gold piece expensive to make?”

“Pretty much,” he said. “Gold, silver, copper, all have mana limits on them. Same with platinum I guess. Maybe others. Other things go down in cost as I get better at making stuff. Those seem to have a set cost. I guess I won’t be making a gold toilet.

“What? Why would you want to?” she said. “Lord, have you lost it, son?”

“I was just making fun of Trump and I said I’d make a real gold toilet, that’s all,” he said.

“You’ve been alone too long. From now on you are to talk to me at least once a day. You hear me?”

“Yes, mom,” Jake said.

“Anyhow, how much does it cost to make a gold coin?” she asked.

“Well, from what I can remember, a gold coin usually has about a troy oz of gold in it,” he said. “That means it should take about five mana points to create one. But it doesn’t. It takes a lot more than that.”

“How much more,” she asked.

“Over 10 times as much,” he answered.

“50 mana,” she said. “Really?”

“53 if you want to know exactly,” he said. “It’s like there’s luxury metals and non-luxury metals. Luxury metals cost more, way more to make. And that’s just the way the Bobs wanted it. Also, I’m not sure about whether or not the skill rank will continue to impact the cost.”

“What do you mean,” she asked.

“I’ve noticed that as I got better at making things like wood or stone, the cost of making things has gone down. The walls here are made out of balsa. I mean it’s thick balsa wood. Like half a meter thick, so don’t worry, no one’s coming through it some night armed with an X-ACTO knife. I can make it cheap. And it got cheaper as I got better at making it. I’m not sure that will happen with luxury metals. They might stay at this price forever. On the positive side, iron should be dirt cheap eventually, just like bronze is becoming.”

“Isn’t bronze mainly made out of copper?” asked Fern.

“Yep,” he said. “I guess you could refine it and make yourself a nice profit. Provided you can figure out a way of doing it. From what I remember from high school chemistry, refining metals isn’t just heating them up, you’ve got to add chemicals too. Maybe it’s not really an easy process? But you still have to have a dungeon to make the original bronze, so there’s that. Maybe an alchemist could do it. Or a smith. I don’t know.”

“Could you do it?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I’ve never tried. Might piss the Bobs off though. Maybe not, after all, it’s just copper.”

“Still that means I could make two or three pieces of gold a day if I learn the spell,” she said.

“Good luck with that,” Jake said. “I’m pretty sure it's an ability or spell that gets passed out to only some beings. I think the Bobs keep its circulation pretty limited. Under their hats, if they wear hats. Remember the old alchemists and their search for the philosopher’s stone? It sounds like a good way to waste a life if you ask me.”

“It’s always something isn’t it?” she said. “So what’s this thing do?” she reached out grabbed the gumball looking machine, holding it up and looking over it.

“Well, that one, nothing. I made a look-a-like that doesn’t actually work because the real one would cost over a thousand mana to make.”

“Jesus Wept!” she said.

“I know, that’s for one of them. That’s what, over eighteen gold pieces. It’ll probably cost more than a thousand though. I can’t tell for absolute sure until I make one for reals.”

“Well, what do they do?” she said.

“It’s way cool! See that plate on the front of it?”

“Yea,” she said.

“You stick your badge on that plate and it verifies that you are the actual owner of the plate,” he continued. “But the plate does that as well. If the owner holds it, it looks normal. If someone else does, it glows a soft reddish color.

“Anyway, once it’s on the plate, the operator can view your money, answer questions about your basic level and class which they can view in the globe part. No one except the assigned user can view the globe or people that they allow to view it, and they can deposit rewards straight to your account which is basically created when the plate is issued.”

“Why would the adventurer wish to leave money in here?” she asked.

“I assume you’d give them interest on it. That machine seems to be able to calculate and keep track of it. It also somehow networks with the others that get created by and for you. So they all are operating from the same information. Also, that way people don’t have to carry around big chunks of money. And, they help their community by allowing the bank, which I guess is the Sect, to use their money as loans.”

“Why would someone care about carrying money around?” she said. “With our inventory, nobody can get at it, right?” she asked.

“Right now, yes. Maybe not in the future. If somebody takes a thief or rogue-type class, they might gain the ability to ‘dip into’ or ‘see’ what you’re carrying. At least Billy said that might be a possibility,” he said.

“That’s not encouraging!” she said. “The inventory is one of my favorite things about all this nonsense. Well, what about this thing? Can they do the same?” she asked.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I think the Bobs are looking out for it. It falls into the same category of protection as their ‘hard currency’. They protect their money supply.”

“So, no more trillion-dollar deficits? Is that what I’m hearing?” she said.

“It seems that way,” he said.

“What happens if there's a run on the bank?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but the Bobs would handle it. There’d be enough to cover it and somebody would be responsible,” he answered.

“You mean, us?” she asked.

“As the Sect Leader in charge of the bank, I can only assume you’d have to take some of the responsibility,” he answered.

“What about loans?” she said.

“Same deal. Pay them back, no problem. Default and don’t negotiate a new payment plan, big problem. For the debtor.”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Bear in mind this is only speculation, but, you know how the Bobs got me and Baxter? Caught us in a weak spot and asked us to volunteer to be a dungeon more-or-less? I suspect that they might just pay off your debt and you’d start working for them,” he said. “They might just have a lot of openings, this being a newly ‘System-ed’ world and all that.”

“Damn!” said Fern.

“I know. Damn is right!” Jake said. “But the other part about the card is that it tracks the card holder’s guild status.”

“And by guild, you mean sect?” she said.

“Maybe, maybe not,” he answered.

“Meaning?” she said. His mom and he used to play a game where they’d try to answer the other in the shortest number of words. If you had to ask, you lost and owed the other one a favor. The contests usually ended in a draw, one or the other of them hurrying off before they could lose.

“Two,” he said. “One guild, one sect.”

“Why?” she asked.

“People join guild, not sect,” he said. Funnily enough, his time spent conversing with Baxter seemed to help his skills.

“Hmm!” she said, thinking about it. “Good,” she finally answered. “Do it!”

“Need people,” he said.

“Get dad,” she answered. “Guild leader.”

“Ok,” he said and quit talking, preserving his record of three, now four matches with no losses. His mom went back to peeling potatoes. And staring thoughtfully at a gumball machine.