Alex was a bit too stunned to stop Tom as he dragged her away. Internally, she was morbid. She didn't mean that … or did she? She didn't know. Tom and she hadn't had any kind of tension between them before. But before, they hadn't looked like their wet dreams. Alex wasn't unaware of her own changes. But Tom's changes had been almost as significant. He had broad shoulders, chiseled abs, perfect hair, amazing eyes, pants that didn't hide anything, and actual biceps. Tom was hot now, and the change was a little jarring but hot.

  She blushed just thinking about it as she followed him up the stairs and through the third floor until they came to what had once been the photography room. Abaddon was already there. He had placed a collection of chemistry equipment throughout the room. That wasn't the most surprising thing. The most surprising thing was that she recognized some of the equipment from the chemistry labs on the third floor that had clearly been ripped out of walls and dragged down there.

  Abaddon was already hard at work. He was grinding up a bunch of red flowers, wheat, and some kind of root.

  "Hey, Abaddon, how's the potion-making going?" Tom asked.

  "Still doing the prep," Abaddon said, not even looking up as he carefully ground the red flowers into a red paste that seemed to glow slightly.

  "Well, I'm placing the busted Energy Condenser, the Green House, and the Cauldron in here, so stop what you're doing and pick your shit up, big guy, and get ready for the new building or room. The system is using those words interchangeably." Tom said.

  "Are we sure we shouldn't use that to grow food?" Alex asked. "I'm not concerned about our food situation with the dungeon nearby, but people might throw a fit."

  She didn't actually think turning the greenhouse into a discount farm was a good idea, but she knew someone would complain about it if she didn't at least bring up the issue. Abaddon looked at her as if she had grown a second head.

  "But that's so wasteful. We can find food anywhere. But magic plants are really hard to raise outside of the proper environment, especially if you don't have the proper class. Besides, the dungeons produce plenty of animals. So long as we can hunt, we'll be fine," Abaddon pointed out.

  "Yeah, I know that Abaddon and I weren't born yesterday," Alex said, rolling her eyes. "I'm not saying we should use the greenhouse for food. I'm saying people are going to start complaining that we wasted the greenhouse for herbs instead of food."

  "Then we can claim that the greenhouse was part of the alchemy lab. We didn't waste a greenhouse; we just got one along with our alchemy lab," Tom suggested.

  "And what happens when they find out we lied our ass's off? Hmm. they'll be pissed, and they might even attack, and we can't exactly just kill them all if they rebel… Can we?" she asked.

  "No, we can't," Tom said with a grimace. "Unfortunately, I don't see any way to avoid biting the bullet in this case. We can still use the herbs as ingredients in cooking. We could also argue the usefulness of potions. If the dungeon starts creating poisonous animals, we'll need the lab to remove the poison. So, hopefully, we can appease people long enough to set up a farm."

  Alex narrowed her eyes at him as she considered his explanation.

  "You made all that up on the spot, didn't you?" she asked.

  "100%. That doesn't mean I'm wrong, though. More importantly, we have supermarkets full of food. We have nothing equivalent for potions," Tom said.

  "Yeah," Alex admitted. "I just don't want to deal with more people complaining."

  "I know, but Machiavelli once said, 'Those who acquire a principality with difficulty will keep it with ease. Those who acquire a principality without difficulty will find it difficult to keep'."

  "When did you read Machiavelli?" Alex asked.

  "Um …" Tom trailed off.

  Alex didn't stop staring at him.

  "I kinda read it from a manga," Tom admitted.

  Alex cracked a smile.

  "Was it any good?" she asked.

  "Yeah, that's pretty good. Guy gets isekai'd to another world, becomes king, and quotes Machiavelli a lot," Tom said.

  "Send me a link. I think I'm going to need it," Alex said, and then a frown appeared on her face. "We might actually need to read the original book if we're going to be proper rulers."

  "Ugh," Tom groaned as he brought up the settlement interphase.

  "Huh, that's weird," Tom muttered.

  "What is?" Alex asked as her eyes roamed over the list.

  Tom bit his lip for a moment before speaking. "My bloodline allows me to see the metadata behind the system windows. Here, the Cauldron of the Fourth Circle of Hell isn't the real name of the cauldron. Its actual name is something along the lines of an alchemist's lab transformed into a pseudo-abyssal world of knowledge and greed. Not exactly catchy, but it's interesting."

  "What exactly does that mean?" Alex asked. "Hell, what does meta-data mean in this context? This is real now, not a computer system."

  "I think there are two levels to the system. One is hyper-specific and very scientific, and the other is a more baby version that we're using. It's not lying to us. But it's dumbing things down enough for anyone to use, like the types. [Beast] types are just mammals, but [Bug] types are insects, arachnids, and maybe all arthropods. It's helpful from a combat perspective but a little misleading if you're not a scientist. I wish Duncan were here. He might understand this better."

  Alex chewed her lip. "We can deal with it later. It's a brain teaser, but it's not immediately useful. Besides, there was no way in seven hells I was going to pick a demonic alchemy lab,"

  "Yeah, yeah, let's remove the demonic option first," Tom said.

  "But Master Tom, you did consider a demonic smithy?" she teased him.

  "The worst thing that could have happened in an infernal smithy was people being killed and harvested for parts. It's nasty but not exactly subtle. But an infernal alchemist? Do we really want flesh golems, diseases, homunculi, and slime factories?" Tom asked as he shook his head.

  "Hey, we can make some pretty cute slimes," Alex teased him again.

  Tom rolled his eyes as he tapped away at the screen in front of him, making their choice.

  The room underwent an immediate transformation. The room began to ripple again as its features distorted and twisted. Abaddon's scattered items were absorbed into the shifting surroundings as the room shifted and morphed around them.

  Counters and shelves emerged from the floor and walls, seemingly conjured from thin air. Glass beakers, flasks, and test tubes lined the walls. Some equipment was sizable, while others were more modest in scale. A vented hood reminiscent of her tenth-grade chemistry class stood against one wall, and then she realized it was the vented hood from the grade 10 chemistry class.

  The outer wall facing the exterior turned opaque as it was replaced by tinted glass, its surface shimmering like a rainbow in the dying light of the evening sun. Even from here, she could tell the greenhouse stretched out, its size nearly twice that of a two-car garage.

  To the side of the door, a massive black crystalline chest rose from the ground like a fish emerging from the deep. Its surface danced with iridescent blues and purples that seemed to shift as she studied it. At its top, there sat a pedestal for placing the material you wanted to replicate. But its most distinctive feature was the massive crack going right down the center of the chest.

  Simultaneously, at the center of the room, at the center of the chaos, rose a cauldron supported by four waist-high pillars spiraling counterclockwise. It resembled a large pumpkin in size and was crafted from what appeared to be jade, yet its eerie feature was the massive leering face on one side. Or maybe it wasn't leering, but it was disturbing no matter how she looked at it.

  Much like the Foundry before it, the Cauldron was nothing short of magnificent. However, in this case, there was an unmistakable infusion of technology, with large screens adorning the walls. Caldrons, along with more conventional chemistry equipment, adorned the numerous counters in the room. Lin's gaze was drawn to the walls, now a deep black, etched with intricate silver inscriptions she didn't understand at first until she realized they were elements from the periodic table. The floor had turned into white marble with gold inlay.

  The photography classroom had transformed from a ratty basement classroom into something between a witch's hut, a twenty-first-century lab, and a science show.

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  Tom placed his hand on the black crystal chest, carefully tracing the massive crack running directly through the middle.

  "Woah," Alex muttered.

  She didn't care what Tom said. This was amazing.

  “That’s disappointing,” Tom muttered.

  “What is it?” Alex asked.

  “The energy condenser. I was hoping the room might fix it, and we could start to transmute stuff,” Tom said.

  "Shit," Alex muttered. "Well, I guess we aren't turning lead into gold or creating a philosopher stone."

  "It wasn't likely to begin with, but I was still hopeful. Oh well, we're just going to have to build one then," Tom said.

  Alex had partially tuned Tom out as she pulled up the room's description.

  Alex let out a breath as she reviewed the effects. She had to admit they were rather impressive, though she was still worried about the pushback when people found out about the greenhouse.

  "We're going to need a [Gardner] or [Herbalist] to take care of the greenhouse. Make sure to mark that down." Tom said as he finished examining the room.

  "What am I, your secretary? Actually, that could be pretty fun. I will relent to being your secretary if I can wear a slutty secretary outfit." Alex said as she marked down the need for the gardener on her phone. Her to-do list was already flooded, and it was only going to get bigger.

  "Please tell me we're done?" Alex asked, hoping he would say yes.

  "Yes, this is fine. We don't have enough setting points to build anything else, so I'm just going to designate the library as the official library and then call it a day," Tom said as he stretched.

  "Before we head out, we can go over what to do with the settlement points from hitting level 3 tomorrow," Tom said.

  "We're heading out?" Alex asked.

  "Adams has asked for our help in clearing other settlements. We don't get to keep the settlements, but we get all the loot and the XP," Tom said.

  "Fucking finally, I was worried I would be stuck doing admin all day." Alex sagged with relief. "Did you know that while you were playing Jesus, I was going around finding people to do admin for us? It was exhausting."

  She wanted to slump on the ground, toss all of this work onto someone else, and have fun. Unfortunately, she couldn't.

  “While you're still here, I think we need to take a longer view. We need to set up a council of some kind, with representatives from the refugees, so we don't have to do all this ourselves. We’ll need law enforcement, which I understand the Major is already looking into. But we’ll need to think of long-term needs for food, shelter, and especially, clean water.” Alex began

  "You sure we'll need it?" Abaddon asked.

  "Look, if I'm wrong and things get organized, no harm, no foul. But if we don't prepare for the worst case. Then when the worst case becomes reality, we're fucked." she stated.

  “Dammit.” Tom put his head in his hands. “This is all getting out of hand. I think you’re right about the council thing, Alex. We should get that in place first. But we can't just give them all our stuff to be nationalized. Maybe we need to implement some kind of feudalism, with us as the [Lords].”

  “Won't work,” Abaddon said. “Four of us can’t hold off nearly a thousand people even with levels.”

  Tom looked a little crestfallen but plowed ahead.

  "Yeah, you're probably right. If they decide they’ve had enough, we would be screwed. So we need to give them enough that they feel in control while we stay far enough in front of this so that we can steer it a little instead of getting trampled." Tom muttered to himself.

  “You sound very manipulative again,” Alex pointed out. For now, we can keep it simple with work crews and crew leaders. Let's just put the leaders on this council, at least until we can have elections.”

  "Sure, it will be a hot mess, but it will work," Tom groaned.

  "Great, I'm going to deal with the people I'm trying to dump with admin to find out if anyone is trustworthy. Meet up for dinner?"

  "Sure, once Abaddon and I finish setting up, we'll grab a bite to eat. I'll make sure to grab you something," Tom said.

  "I love you right now," Alex said as she turned to leave.

  Then she blushed as she realized what she said. Dammit, what the hell was wrong with her. She left the room as quickly as possible. Walking down the hall to the school's main office, where she had assembled a team of people. Their sole purpose was to do all the boring admin she didn't want to do.

  She was still unsure if she and Tom could actually lead an actual settlement. Between magic, resurrection, and some lessons they learned from the Civilization game, she thought they were doing okay. But that could change, and she wasn't sure what they would do if people tried to take Hopkins from them. It would probably involve a mountain of over-the-top violence and swearing. But would that be the right thing to do? She was confident they would win. But she was unsure about anything after that.

  Her eyes wandered into one of the converted classrooms. The student desk and chairs had been stacked in one corner, and the floor was now covered in sleeping bags as a group of almost twenty haggard people settled in. Her heart ached at the sight, and she had to force herself to turn her head away as she walked past them towards the school office. Once inside, she found the handful of other people she had managed to turn into staff.

  They had initially hammered out housing for everyone on their own, mostly putting people in the gym and the classrooms. The bureaucrats she had required organized people to empty out the math and social studies classrooms and had them salvage beds and sleeping bags from the nearby houses.

  "So, how are we handling things?" she asked.

  One of the [Lawyers] she had managed to find, a man named Hanze, spoke up first.

  "We've managed to get most people settled. We don't have enough rooms for everyone, so we're mostly housing people in the gymnasium. The police have been helping keep the peace. I should mention that the squirrel."

  Hanze flipped through some papers he had. "Skippy, he came by to make demands that we set up a rotating guard at all hours and to set a curfew for nightfall."

  "Yeah, it's called a guard. What's the problem?" She asked.

  "He claimed that the monster repellent field wasn't perfect and that things would be more dangerous at night, especially for non-combatants. He phrased these as warnings rather than demands. I talked to the police officers about it. They're alright with maintaining a watch but unsure about the curfew."

  "Yeah, the repellent field only works half the time. That's why we don't trust it. Get us guard." Alex punctuated the last few words.

  "We also need to be concerned about the food supply," one of the scribes said. She couldn't remember his name.

  "The first responders have been bringing back supplies from the nearby grocery store. We should be okay for quite some time," Hanze said. "Unfortunately, the more pressing issue is the number of people coming to Hopkins. We don't have the rooms for everyone, even if we packed them in like sardines. We're going to have to put people in the gymnasium."

  "Tomorrow, the guild will be clearing additional settlements in accordance with the deal he made with Major Adams, so you lot will need to handle the basic mundane stuff," Alex said.

  "Oh, thank fuck, at least I won't have to deal with these fragging nut cases anymore." the scribe muttered under his breath but still loud enough for Alex to hear with her enhanced perception.

  Hanze had also apparently heard the scribes muttering and looked at the man like he was a moron. Alex figured he was probably right.

  Tom had resurrected at least a hundred people, healed nearly five hundred, and given them a personal inventory skill. Abaddon appeared functionally immortal, Alex had taken on an undead army solo, and Skippy was … well, Skippy's build still needed work. He was currently underperforming, but she expected him to get his but in gear.

  Hanze had seen what Tom and the other members of Awoken myths could do and was doing his best to prove himself and going all in on the guild. On the other hand, the scribe and people like him were just waiting to leave and return to their mundane lives that didn't exist anymore.

  Alex smiled. Tom had finished upgrading the school to level 3, which meant more work for her. Joy …she thought sarcastically. At least this would make her job more manageable.

  "Alright then," Alex said as everyone blinked away the notifications on their faces. "Where were we?"

  You may skip to the next chapter.

  Base

  Personal: +4 INT +4 WILL +3 EGO +3 CHA

  Racial: +3 WILL +2 END +2 SPIRIT +1 CHA

  Level Bonus: +1 to all Stats

  Mini-Character List

  Tom: Our Protagonist, the party healer, the Guild Leader

  Alex: Tom's best friend the group's wizard, and the Vice Guild Leader

  Abaddon: The partys autistic Tank and expert Alchemist

  AN: