Chapter 132 - Masters of the Country Club

  I gave a small shrug. “I’m in worse shape on that score than Turner is for his, unfortunately. We’ve been wholly focused on getting walls up around the farm and bringing in supplies from the mall, now that it’s clear of enemies. In fact, we’re actually tearing the mall down, chunk by chunk, as a source of raw materials for our walls. We’re clearing out most of the stuff from inside it, since a lot of that’s going to be irreplaceable before long. When the Domain appeared a few days ago, I sent Kara down to check it out. Kara?”

  Passing the buck was awesome.

  She made a face at me, then turned back to the group, all professional again. “I have a bad feeling about these guys. They set up shop at a golf course, of all places, right after the Event. It’s a bunch of country club types who figured out early on that if they had a place of relative safety, they could charge entry fees and rent, basically.”

  “What sort of rent?” Gideon asked.

  “Crystals,” Kara replied. “I went down personally to scope the place out. Snuck around for a bit, making sure it wasn’t crazy bad like those pirates. It’s not that awful. It’s not great, either. They’ve built a wall around their base of operations and they’ve turned a lot of the golf course into fields. Late crops. I saw a lot of beets, kale, other fast-growing stuff like that. They’re definitely settling in to stay.

  “It was clear they were taking in new people; there’s a steady stream of them entering the gate each day. When I went to the gate to ask about joining, they said entry cost one crystal, and then upkeep was two more crystals per week. If you couldn’t afford to pay your week’s rent, you had two choices: leave, or enter indentured servitude, working the farms. I gave them a crystal to get inside and look around some, talk to the people. The indentured folks aren’t really slaves. No collars; they can leave whenever they want, and they’re fed and housed—even if it is bunkhouses and minimal food.”

  “Not like they have a lot of choices,” I pointed out. “If they leave there, then where do they go? The only folks who know where all the Domains are would be people who own a Domain themselves, or at least hold a control stone. If these people opt to leave, then they’re truly on their own again, and the world is a pretty scary place right now.”

  “What are we looking at in terms of military strength?” Turner asked.

  “That’s another area that bugged me,” Kara said. “They have a huge population and it’s growing fast. There’s a few thousand people living there now, which means the leaders of that place have collected a few thousand crystals just for initial entry, and they’re getting maybe six thousand additional crystals per week. Some of those are being resold to the public in exchange for other goods or labor, but the bulk seem to be just vanishing. The place is ruled by a small council of men, and my guess is that’s where most of the crystals have ended up. With thousands of them in their hands, they have to be pretty high tier.

  “The other place that a lot of those taxed crystals have gone is their military. They have put a lot of work into having a strong, well-armed and armored force. There were guards on every wall, and they had a lot of walls. Patrols walked through the interior regularly as well. The lowest tier guard I saw was tier three, and a lot of them were five, a few even tier six.”

  I took over after Kara finished her report. “To me, that doesn’t sound like a purely defensive force. Kara said they’ve got about three thousand people within the walls. Maybe a thousand of them are working on food production. Another thousand seem to be filling odd positions; some are just heading outside the walls to kill monsters, collect crystals, and bring them back to trade and pay their rent. The third thousand are their military force.”

  “And their entire military is ranked tier three and above? That’s astounding,” Turner said.

  “Alarming, is how I’d have put it,” I replied. “I hate to say it, but I can’t see why someone would have a thousand troops unless they were planning to use them. The military is exempt from taxes over there. They get fed, clothed, housed, and don’t have to hand over crystals.”

  “Which explains how they’re able to get so many willing volunteers,” Gideon said. “If the choice is between farming, risking your life killing monsters outside, and taking orders as a soldier, a lot of folks will see that as the easiest route. No offense intended,” he added, looking at Turner.

  Turner waved off the apology. “None taken. It was something we dealt with in the Air Force, pre-Event. I understand the mindset, although in my experience most people who signed up for that reason tend to regret it when they get summoned to actually fight.”

  “They will fight though, I’d guess,” Gideon said.

  Turner nodded. “Absolutely. Most will, anyway. Especially so if they have decent leaders training them up, and it sounds like they must, with that size force. A thousand troops would be a disaster if they lacked good leadership. So we’ve got a potential threat down there, because sooner or later, they’re probably going to want to use that force.”

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “That’s my worry, yeah,” I said.

  I’d had a couple of sleepless nights after Kara returned from her scouting trip. The report she came home with, it wasn’t good news at all. The idea that we had a major fighting force just a day’s walk south of us worried me a lot.

  “The best bet might be to bring them into the alliance,” Turner said. “They’re less likely to attack us if they think of us as allies.”

  “True, but do they need us?” Carver asked. “Their fighting forces are about as large as all three of our Domains combined, and most of them are higher ranked. I have over a hundred undead, with a mix from tier one through five, and another fifty human fighters trained and armed, all about tier three to five. How many troops can you call up, at this point?”

  Turner thought a moment. “Two hundred, all tier three to five. We’re working on armor and weapons for more, but it’s taking time. Training takes a while too, and gathering more crystals takes even more. The council continued the rules I set in place about work—everyone has to work, to contribute to the community in some way. But most of my people are civilians and don’t want to leave our gates at all. It can make gathering more supplies and crystals very difficult.”

  I heard his frustration at that and had to wonder what he’d prefer. If he'd pushed people to get out into the world more early on, perhaps he’d have a stronger, more capable population. But I’d seen the civilians over at the Guard base. My guess was that about half of them didn’t have a single crystal, which was insane to me. He had thousands of people inside his walls—not as many as the folks south of us, but a lot of refugees had found their way to the Air Guard base. He just hadn’t gotten them moving enough.

  Would it be possible to push them into going out to fight, at this late date? I didn’t know. With the council now in charge of things, that aspect wasn’t Turner’s problem anymore, but it could be an issue for all of us if—when—someone attacked next.

  Gideon turned to me next. “And your fighting force?”

  “I have five hundred tier one zombies under my control, plus a dozen tier five Abominations, a scattering of fire skeletons, the twenty-four Domain skeletons, and of course Sue,” I said. “Then there’s the ratkin—we have about a hundred and fifty of them living with us, but only about eighty are capable of fighting. Most are tier three or four, with a few fives, thanks to the orc raids. We’re getting a lot of crystals in the three to five range from them. I’ve got about fifty humans with us as well, almost all of whom have crystals, and most of whom can fight. All told, I can probably field six hundred and fifty fighters. But the majority of them are only tier one, and since they’re undead, they’re not going to rank up on their own.”

  It was impressive sounding, until you added that last bit. On paper I had more troops than Carver and Turner combined. But the reality was that my force wasn’t actually much stronger than either of them, because a supermajority of my force were tier one undead. They could swarm a higher ranked foe, but a group of tier fives would tear through my undead like they were tissue paper.

  The more time went on, the more I realized that rank mattered far more than numbers. I’d shown it myself, fighting the ants, and again fighting against the mall undead. It was difficult for any number of tier one and two foes to take me down. Unless I screwed up or they got very lucky, I could outfight scores of such enemies.

  What I needed to do was trim my fighting force down to a smaller number of higher ranked undead. I had a feeling that a hundred tier five undead was going to be much stronger than five hundred tier one undead.

  I also had a sense that the difference between those two numbers was probably going to matter in the near future.

  “All right, then. We have enough troops to at least be interesting to them as an alliance, and we’ve already got cooperation between three groups. Adding more sounds wise,” Gideon said. “Turner, would you like to invite the Army base you mentioned? Tell them about our alliance and offer them membership if they’d like to join. Same deal as we all have: mutual defense if attacked, refuge for our people if we’re overrun, and free trade between our people.”

  “I will. I think General Adams will be very interested,” Turner replied.

  “Selena, I think you ought to see about the folks south of you,” Carver said. “I’d suggest approaching them with some strength, so maybe bring enough troops with you to look impressive when you go. I’ve got a feeling I know the sort of men who’re down there, from the description Kara gave. You being a woman will count against you some, and being young even more so. You’ll want to ‘dress to impress’ when you visit.”

  I gave him a sharp nod with a grin. “I think I can do that.”

  “Let’s not start a war with them though, please,” Turner added, a wry twist to his voice. “We want them to like us.”

  “I think I can manage,” I replied. I wasn’t liking his tone, or what he was trying to imply. I hadn’t pushed back against him until he was acting like a complete asshole. But Gideon wasn’t saying anything, just watching our interplay. I was on display, so I needed to keep my cool. “Best case, we’ll bring them in as allies. Worst case, if I find out they’re more like those pirates Gideon trashed, we’ll at least know we have a serious threat out there to handle.”

  “And the avians too, if you think you can get through to them somehow,” Turner asked, this time turning his tone far more polite. “I can’t get them to communicate at all, not even in gestures. They keep killing my scouts and foragers. If you can help there, I’ll be in your debt.”

  He honestly sounded like he meant it, which was impressive. I gave him a genuine smile in return before replying. “I will do what I can there, too.”

  The conversations continued for some time after, but we’d covered the meat of things, so talk drifted to plans for the future, preparations for the winter and even some light talk of next spring. Everyone had gathered enough food from the various grocery stores to keep our people fed through the cold months, but we’d all be relying deeply on planting successful crops come spring. That, and talk of how to beef up our defenses, occupied most of the next two hours.

  After that we broke the meeting, and prepared to head our separate ways again. My mind was full of all the things I needed to get done. This whole leadership thing was a hell of a lot more paperwork and management crap than the movies showed…!