Cassandra grinned as she held up a poster she’d printed out. Bright cartoon characters splashed across the page, text proclaiming ANIME-CON and the dates JULY 25-27, among a lot of text about location and presenters and the like.

“What better place to start recruiting than among the sort of people who’ve waited their entire lives to get an opportunity like this?”

Cassandra started passing out tri-fold pamphlets she’d printed out. “Ignore the stuff about potions, I wrote that before you bothered to tell any of us not to feed them to our sick friends and family, I’ll edit it in the final version.”

“This seems a bit… blatant,” Levi said.

“I know you want to be all secretive and stuff, and if we had unlimited prep time I’d be inclined to agree. But the more I’ve thought about it, the less I think there’s any way around this. If we’re going to have the kind of impact necessary to change the future, we will come to the attention of a lot of people. There’s no way to both get news out to everyone who needs it and ensure absolute secrecy. This allows us to distribute information that can’t be quietly erased from the internet or monopolized by anyone. This gets all the basics they need to know into the hands of the people most likely to act on it.”

Levi read over the tri-fold page. It included basic information on the Fighter, Ranger, Medic, and Tamer classes, a guide to locating a dungeon, warnings to only ever travel in groups of four or more, and a brief rundown of the benefits and side effects of each of the restoratives. ‘Free healthcare alternatives!’ Yeah, that would need to be changed.

He scribbled a few corrections on his copy, but apart from getting a few facts wrong it looked like a solid effort.

“I’ll be going in person and talk to recruits directly, not just mailing them out blind. I have the video we made of the fight, Laurence agreed to help me get a book together, Mom knows some people who agreed to help with the design.” She waved a hand in a wide arc. “There are so many people who would jump at this chance. Anime cons, comic cons, game cons… it’s the right time of year, I can find one every week. This one’s in California, and I can go to a few dozen more of these all across the country over the next month, demonstrating my power and leading initiates through their first dungeon experience. By the time word gets out to anyone who could be a danger to us, the information will be spread too far to trace back to us. It’ll be perfect. People like Laurence? This is their Mecca. By this time next month, I’ll have a thousand disciples ready to spread the info too far and fast for anyone to shut it down. And ready to build their own groups to combat the forces of evil.”

She slapped the poster down on the table and spread her hands to either side, as though waiting for applause.

"I'm not sure if this is really the best use of our time," Levi said. "I don't think this sort of person will be reliable. They may love the fantasy of being powerful and important, but they're the sort to shirk responsibility rather than step up and carry it."

"I wouldn't generalize people like that," Cassandra scolded. “Just look at Laurence, he’s dedicated enough to becoming a mage to drop everything and drive halfway across the country with a group of strangers. That’s the kind of passion we need if we’re going to build enough momentum.”

“Laurence is dedicated, I’ll give you that.” Levi considered continuing to argue, but shrugged instead. “I’ll have a few more things for you to add to the pamphlet, aside from the elixirs. We should be very clear on the pros and cons of the classes. I’m not sure we should be promoting Ranger, its viability in the long term—“

Cassandra scoffed. “Bullshit. You don’t know anything about Ranger. You’re a Tamer now, and you said yourself you were only a Fighter in the first timeline. I know my class, and you don’t get to pull that elitist ‘I know better’ crap on me. You know a lot, yes, but you sure as hell don’t know everything.”

“Yes, Rangers focus on high damage rapid fire attacks from a distance and can be incredibly dangerous, but the tradeoff—“

“Have you ever stopped to consider that so many people defaulting to Fighter might have been the problem from the beginning? It’s the easiest class to get, it’s the tankiest class, it’s the most survivable class. But 80% of people ending up as Fighters meant that our fighting was primarily done on the front lines in direct conflict!

"Imagine if instead, you had a group of monsters to fight on the front, a Fighter to protect the team if anyone got close, a Mage for devastating range damage, and a Ranger to pick off anyone who survived the Mage, a Medic to keep them all in fighting shape, a Scout to keep watch. Imagine ten thousand of those units - easily within our scope of possibility - spread across the country ready to respond to any portal incursion.

"Wouldn’t that be better than just throwing wave after wave of Fighters against what you’ve admitted is a too-powerful enemy? You say you want to change things this time - then actually change them! Don’t just follow the same patterns that led to defeat!”

“I am changing things. That’s what this whole meeting is about, how to change things.”

“But you have to admit your knowledge is incomplete. You aren’t a ranger, you aren’t a mage. Laurence knows more about magic than you, and I know more about being a ranger than you. So don’t go dismissing our classes as useless just because you haven’t experienced them for yourself.”

“I’ve seen wizards at high levels, I’ve seen scouts and rangers at high level, I know what they can do. And more importantly I know what they can’t, and it’s survive what’s coming.”

“Look. I know you’re hyper fixated on that year ten fiasco, but this isn’t year ten. You said yourself that each wave is progressively stronger than the last, well, that means that each wave before those you started fighting is progressively weaker than the next. It’s not your fault you weren’t involved in the earlier waves, but the fact remains that your knowledge is based on a much more powerful enemy than what we’ll be facing this year. And it seems to me that what we need to do this time is to have balanced parties, and we need to have every class available.”

“Fighters have a much better chance of surviving.”

“Yes, but that’s not the point. A balanced group has a better chance of winning.”

Levi’s immediate reflex was to keep arguing, Cassandra’s aggressive tone bringing out his fighting instincts, but he swallowed his ready retort and forced himself to consider her argument. He didn’t like throwing the dice so dramatically with the fate of the world… but could he really say she was wrong? His plan of using Tamers to build a buffer between Fighters and the demons was similar to her own conclusions. Hers was just taking it further.

“If you want balanced groups, that won’t happen,” Irene said, before Levi could decide how to respond. “You give everyone the choice, you know that’ll only tip the balance further? I bet the distribution is pretty close to normal games. You’ll have a crap ton of fighters and mages, lots of rangers and scouts and tamers, and only a handful of medics.”

“What if we recruited people in actual medical fields?” Gordon suggested. “I imagine a lot of nurses and hospital workers would be happy to have the chance to actually, magically help people directly instead of being forced through the bureaucracy. Or what about other non-military organizations that would have a high ability to deal with danger? Volunteer fire departments would be independent and they’d be the sort of people who already choose to put themselves in personal danger to help others. If you're looking for reliable, that seems like a pretty good indicator."

"Oooh, Gor, that's brilliant!" Cassandra clapped her hands decisively. "Okay! Team split. We need one group to come with me, and one to go with Gordon. We'll try all the angles of recruitment and see what turns up the best results."

"You don't think we're getting ahead of ourselves a bit here?" Irene asked. "It's only been a few days."

“And every day we waste is one more day the dungeons aren’t being utilized to their fullest extent,” Laurence said firmly. “I agree with this plan. It may not be the perfect solution, but it’s better to start working on a solution now and we can always adjust if we think of something better later.”

Levi shrugged. "I still want to Awaken as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. If this is what gets us there, then that’s good enough for me. Let's do it."