The following day dawned bright with promise. Rory was up with the sunrise, greeting the pink blush on the horizon of the sky with a bright smile.

There wasn’t any notification or sign that things had changed. Maybe it was too subtle. Maybe the system didn’t care enough to inform them that the world had changed once more, likely for the worse.

Or maybe there was something else going on.

Rory tried to think back to the information he had received. In seven days, it had said. Which… was vague, as Rory was starting to see. It either meant that the war between the Homeworlders and the Otherworlders would start today, or the day after, and there was no way he could be sure.

Ah well. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst. That was the mantra they had to work with.

While most people kept sleeping, some of the others had begun to rise. Mikey was exercising in one corner, Alyssa taking care of Darcy who had woken up for some reason, Miles taking Jerky out for an early walk, and Viv had risen as though she had never slept in the first place. A part of Rory wondered if that was true, but he decided not to doubt her.

“What’s on the agenda for today?” Viv asked.

Rory smiled at her. “You think there’s an agenda?”

“You’re the leader of this establishment, dear,” she said. “And you’ve taken to it really well. I’m sure you’ve got something cooking in your head, don’t you?”

Rory’s s mile turned into a soft laugh. “Surprised I took to it well, huh?”

“Well, you did retire. I for one wouldn’t blame you if you decided to… not be at the forefront of everything.” She smiled, the warmth in it filling up Rory’s heart to the brim. “And I don’t think anyone would have done as well as you have.”

“Bah. You’re selling yourself short. I’m sure you’d have rallied everyone, including my retired butt, perfectly well.”

“But I didn’t have to, thanks to you. Now, stop evading the subject and start telling me what you’ve got planned.”

Rory sighed. “Well, you’re not going to like this, but I plan to head out today at some point.”

She frowned. There was definitely some recalcitrance in her look, which was what Rory had expected, and what had made him reluctant to tell her so early in the morning.

“Today, of all days?” she asked. “I was thinking today would be the day we keep a proper watch on things and figure out what, if anything, is going to change.”

It seemed that Viv hadn’t forgotten about the start of the war. Rightfully so. Her memory about such things was often immaculate.

“There’s no guarantee it’s starting today,” Rory said, explaining his suspicions regarding the wording. “We should assume it starts today and prepare accordingly, but we still need to take care of our regular business.”

“I suppose you’re not wrong.”

Rory grinned. That might be as much as he was going to get off her for the moment. He scooted closer to Viv and started telling her about his plans for the day. Her frown faded, and a sense of agreement was soon on her face. Rory smile. He had won her over.

First things first—breakfast. It was still stale, old, dried fare as before, but Rory found it more energizing this time. Might have something to do with his bonuses from all the different Settlement improvements they were making.

He explained his ideas to everyone there. Well, everyone who was awake, which wasn’t saying much. Only Dez, a couple of the office workers, and Raj. Rory only just noticed that the others seemed to be sleeping more deeply than normal. That was a good thing, sure, but he was stumped as to why. Maybe they were getting used to the strange condition of living in Belcourt palace to stay safe from roaming monsters.

“Might be the new improvements you did,” Raj said. “What did you call them again?”

“Oh!” Rory should have thought of those before. “The Zonal Configuration. That makes sense.”

“How so?” Oliver asked.

“Zonal Configuration let me select certain areas to be specialized for certain things. So, I set the main hall as one of our primary residential areas. A zone for Habitation, which I’m assuming boosts our ability to rest.”

“Oh, alright. That does make a lot of sense.”

Once Rory had finished explaining his plan, those who were awake at least reacted positively. He informed them that the war between the Homeworlders and the Otherworlders was likely to start sometime soon, so there would likely be changes in the area. The extent of said changes were likely a mystery, but they’d find out at some point.

After their early breakfast, they dispersed to their own duties. Dez was intent on taking some of the newer people on a scavenger hunt, both to gather more supplies and to help them raise their Sigils’ Tiers in a controlled manner against monsters.

“Grinding!” Miles said with a grin as he returned with Jerky. “I’m all for it. When do we head out?”

“You don’t head out,” Dez said. “You need to stay here and recover.”

“I did that overnight!”

“Miles.”

Grumbling, Miles gave up on the idea. “Fine, but unlike you, I’ve got a bunch of Experience I can use to raise my Sigil’s Tier.”

“What?”

Rory barged in at that. “Miles, come over. I want to see what you’ve got. Good luck outside, Dez. Don’t let them get into trouble.”

Dez frowned between Miles and Rory for a moment. Then he finally relented and left, though not before he shot Rory a look that promised he was determined to find out what that had meant.

“What’s up, gramps?” Miles asked. Jerky yipped a greeting as well.

Rory took him to the main hall, where Viv was helping Leo and Leanne with something.

“Do you want to hear about the Sigil of Experience, gramps?” Miles asked. “Why do we have to be so secretive about it?”

“We don’t. I just want to figure it out, first. What can you do with it? Have you raised any of your Sigils’ Tiers yet?”

“Well, I’m thinking I’m not going to get any better Sigil just yet so why not use it now instead of hoarding them for no reason?”

Rory nodded. “Which ones are you thinking of using them on?”

“All of them, actually. Just raise their Tiers, one by one. They’re all pretty great, after all.”

Rory wasn’t sure he agreed, but it was Miles’s Sigils, so it was his call to do with them as he thought best. There were other things Rory needed to figure out. “Come on over, I need to Viv to check out your Sigil for a second.”

“What?”

“She won’t bite, trust me.”

When they reached Viv, she pulled herself free from her ongoing discussion. Harlow, Trish, and Allen had all joined in on the conversation too, and Rory almost felt a little bad for barging in.

“Need something?” Viv asked.

“We can wait if you’re all busy,” Rory said.

“We’re not busy. We’re just discussing power options. Those lightning rocks on the roof ware working well.”

Rory blinked. “I think I nearly forgot about them. What’s up with them? Did you finish laying out the cables?”

“We have, actually.”

“It’s awesome,” Trish said. She placed an arm around both Leo and Leanne, ruffling their hair. They both cringed and squirmed away. “These guys are smart. They were able to figure out how to connect the wires to some of the devices we’ve got, and on the other end, we connected the cables to the Electrium so there’s now a flow of current we can tap into.”

“It’s just…” Leo began.

“Cumbersome,” Leanne finished.

“Right. That’s the word. Cumbersome. We don’t have outlets or wires inside these old walls, I think.”

“No, we don’t,” Viv said with a sigh. “And that’s not something we can easily fix.”

“Imagine all the walls we’d have to tear down and everything we’d have to rebuild,” Allen said. “Nuts.”

Trish elbowed him. “The external cables work for now. We can plug them into the freezer and start freezing up everything that’s been trying to rot.”

“And get the other freezers while we’re at it.”

“That’s right.”

The discussion had gone over Rory’s head a little, but now he was starting to see a potential solution to their problem of wiring. Of course, he was assuming a lot from his side. But maybe, just maybe, things would work out after he visited the substation.

“What are you thinking?” Viv asked. “You’ve got that look.”

Rory felt himself flush a little. “What look?”

“That look. The one that says you think you’ve got a great idea and can’t wait to test it out. Spill the beans, dear. I want to know what’s going in that head of yours.”

“Well, it’s the same thing as before. I just need to get to the substation and get a Settlement Sigil from it. Once I Ward that into the Sigil of Settlement, I think I can do something with our power problems somehow. Maybe we’ll get a power generation category in the Zonal Configuration, or something like that.”

“That’s a great idea,” Trish said. “When are we leaving?

Rory laughed. “As soon as Dez returns. Then we can head out.”

“Perfect.”

They were about to adjourn their meeting after that, but Miles cleared his throat loudly.

“Ahem,” he said. “You didn’t drag me here to learn about electricity, did you, gramps?”

Rory laughed. “No actually. But I only need Viv for that.”

The others nodded and left. Rory hadn’t meant to dismiss them and wouldn’t have minded if they’d stuck around and sated their curiosity, but ah well

“What’s going on?” Viv asked.

“I need you to use your Sigil of Knowledge on Miles’s Sigil of Experience,” Rory said. “I just want to know what goes behind making that Sigil.”

“Oh, alright. Let me have a look then. Hold still, Miles.”

Miles did his best to hide his hesitation and walked over. They clasped hands for a moment, then pulled back. Viv had a thoughtful frown on her face.

“What did you see?” Rory asked.

“I can write you a list.” She smiled. “I’m guessing you want to give it to Samson to find, right?”

“You got me.”

“Why, though? Is it really that good? As good as Wielding?”

“I think it’s great,” Miles said. “I can raise my Sigils’ Tiers by a lot, and all that after doing not many things, to be honest.”

Viv pursed her lips. “Not sure that explains much.”

“I get experience­—it’s not really experience in the typical sense, but that’s what we’ll call it—for a lot of things. Taking out monsters, exploring different places, raising a Sigil’s Tier naturally, all of them give experience, among other things. Biggest one is completing big stuff like rescuing all those people trapped under the destroyed school.”

“That sounds pretty interesting,” she admitted.

“I think it’ll help us all grow faster,” Rory said. “We just need to get one for all of us. That’s why I need the ingredients for them, so I can Weave them up for everyone if Samson can find them.”

Viv nodded. “I’ll write it down and give it to him. Don’t know if all of these are easily obtainable, though.”

“What are they?”

“12 drops of Oak Sap, 7 Dust Bunnies, 4 Desiccated Cow Teeth, 6 clods of Worm-turned Earth, and 5 Seed-riddled Rotten Cores.”

Rory blinked. He wasn’t sure he had any proper reply to that.

They adjourned their meeting. There wasn’t much else to discuss, and they all had other business to take care of. For Rory, that meant heading back to the storage chamber they’d found yesterday and check up on Diane.

“You doing okay?” he asked when he reached the room.

“I’m fine,” she said quietly.

However fine she might or might not be, the room certainly wasn’t. Most of the half-monsters were as Rory had left them the last time he had been there, though four of them had been transformed to regular humans.

Rory grimaced. There was no sign of any sort of recognition on the humans’ faces. Their faces were blanks, their eyes glassy and staring off to nowhere. Diane was right. Just transforming them back to regular people wasn’t fixing the real problem. If only there was some way he could have helped.

“What did you decide?” he asked Diane.

“I’m the one who’s supposed to decide?” she asked back.

“Well, what does your gut tell you? You’re the one with the Sigil, the one who knows the most about it. I think we’d all trust you to make the right call.”

Diane didn’t reply for a while. “I think it doesn’t matter if I turn them back to look human, but they still had the reaction and mentality of a vegetable.” She turned to look at Rory right in his eyes. “There’s no point in helping them to be more human if they’re really not.”

“You want to transform just their mind, then?”

Diane nodded. There was nothing Rory disagreed about it. But there was still the potential of danger, so they had to take precautions. Rory went back downstairs and asked Viv to send some people to keep an eye out and stay ready in the storage chamber. She agreed.

Rory was intrigued to see what became of the Neophytes. He was afraid some of them would still view the newcomers as monsters, as though things were so black-and-white.

It didn’t matter. They’d just have to learn to live with it.