The settlers reached the land that Jason had won. They had to travel through a forest that posed little trouble to them with the T`kata working to clear a path through almost as fast as the wagons could carry them comfortably for most of the aliens. Along the way they met up with Lady Apisis and several other Apox carrying goods. They greeted each other happily and continued on their way to the castle town.

The town looked like a haven to the settlers despite the walls visibly crumbling and unlikely to be able to keep any force out, but it had also been a long time since they had any experience with siege warfare, not in living memory, nor the local history. The fighting between the Apox and Crita that Jason’s party had seen when they were first passing through made them aware that the peace in the area around Gondaluke did not spread across the whole of the world. So to former residents of Gondaluke, they weren’t even thinking about needing to defend their homes from an invading force.

Before entering the gates, the convoy came to a halt and Jason, his party, and the Apox exited their wagon to open the gates that had proven so much trouble to them. It was then when Apisis gave them some news that they weren’t expecting, “The gates and the standing structures began to collapse when we returned. We attempted to store their resources in ARMS storage, but we do not know the reason for them to be falling apart to begin with.” She pointed to the gate house, “We put all the agreed trade goods and the stored resources in there. We hope that they can be useful.”

“You mean the only thing standing is the wall?” Jason asked.

Apisis nodded, “That’s the only structure that didn’t degenerate when we came back.”

“What about the…” Jason heard a ring in his head and an alert popped up in his vision which said to read immediately. He was tempted to ignore it, but every time that he got an alert it proved to be important, or at least gave helpful information. He willed the alert’s message to open which caused a display of text to appear in his sight with small overhead map and what looked to be statistics for the settlement. Beneath the stats there was a heading in read calling his attention to it.

Human 000-000-000-002, you have been granted the ownership of this plot of land. The simulated settlement has been removed for reasons that have been decided by the creators of Debris. Resources that were preserved will not be dismantled and no new structures or materials are brought in will be tampered with unrequested. If you are going to use the land as new settlement you are ordered to build an external facade for an elevator to the arena. We will construct the elevator when you are finished. Be aware that failure to follow orders will be taken as a refusal to cooperate with the creators and your settlement will be eradicated. Otherwise, the creators will not interfere and wish you great success in your endeavors.

“Mystery solved. We don’t have to worry about it continuing,” Jason said. The others recognizing the look of someone reading something on their Visual User Interface. “Are you staying or just here to complete our trade?” He asked Apisis.

“We’ve been deployed to act as an envoy and help with protection while you settle in. We wish to solidify our treaty terms before anything can happen. I have been given the right to act on behalf of our queen and make official any terms we come to.”

“It might take a bit of time. Have a lot to build.”

“That is ok. I’m committed to the fulfillment of my queen’s orders, but we cannot allow our relationship to remain in limbo for too long. We would not wish to fall into the issues we wish to avoid.”

Jason nodded, agreeing with her, “I have an idea that should work as a stop gap for that, but for now I think we need to get busy building our new city.” With that he went back to usher in the wagons inside the walls.

When the people saw the empty expanse they had left their homes for they were more than a little upset. All that was a wall and an empty space. There wasn’t even a place to take shelter from the weather that they had assumed there would be and land surrounding the city didn’t look particularly good for farming. They weren’t promised such things, but they had their expectations. It was quickly forgotten however once they got to work. The T`kata began shaping the logs into planks and reconstructing the heavy gates that “the creators” had removed. There was a limit to what could be done until the got things planned and up and running smoothly, but there were always things that could be done that could be of benefit. Those who could and wanted to were asked to hunt scout out the area. Some Apox went with them as they were more familiar with the territory.

A storage shed was being built within the inner walls where the castle once stood while restless people began grabbing planks to start building houses. They all knew that it wasn't the smartest thing to do, but they had nothing else to do and they wanted to help and build shelters for themselves. The city’s interior soon became a discombobulated mess with no order to where people started trying to build and what they were building. Worse was that everything looked thrown together and shoddy. No surprise there, because that is what it was. Jason had been trying to put it off until he had the storage barn completed, but he now saw that wasn’t going to work. He gathered those that weren’t doing one of the important tasks into the center of the city, calling them to hold a meeting. A meeting where he would do something that he never would have wanted to do and become something he hoped he’d never be. A politician and a ruler.

“I want to thank you all for believing me. It must have taken courage to follow me away from your home, into the wilderness, and now, that we have arrived here, in this new land, I ask for you once more to put your trust in me and let me lead you as this city’s governor,” he spoke, looking around the crowd that he had gathered. It didn’t look like he had lost anyone. No one spoke up to oppose what he said, but some gave looks of disinterest. It dawned on him that he didn’t need to say that he wanted to rule them, but rather he just needed to set out what they wanted of him and how would he delegate what needed to be done. They didn’t care who ruled over them, but they did care about getting back to being able to live their lives in a society that was hopefully better than the situation that they had come from. “Our first order is to build the infrastructure. To do that we’re going to need everyone’s help, both in labor, and not wasting our resources and time. We don’t know each other, but we need to work together to make our city thrive using each of our talents and knowledge bases. It has never been good in my planet’s history to fight against a person’s cultural roots, but rather what made us stronger was learning and taking from each other what works, loving those differences that made us unique, and abhorring those things that we could come together and say were not right. We all have our flaws and strengths, things that we can learn from each other, and things that we will hate or already do, but if we wish to build more marvelous wagons we must work together.”

The crowd listened to what he had to say. They scowled at the insinuation that they had wasted resources, but all but the Humans didn’t quite know what he had meant by infrastructure which made them curious and amenable to learning how they had done what he said. They continued listening and to their surprise it sounded like he wanted to create a society, not just of freedom, but one of equal chance and status. Now they understood his earlier trepidation with the assumption of becoming governor, but they didn’t have a model for a world that wasn’t based on class and species. They got along, but by no means were species treated equal to each other. The treatment of Humans and Thisin on Gondaluke had shown this perfectly clearly. They’d expected to be on a lower rung of society, but perhaps with the new start allowing their kind to be higher in the food chain. They never expected that he’d suggest some sort of equality.

“To these ends, we’re going to need to learn about each other and have people that are willing to listen to each of our complaints when things go wrong. My proposition is that, for now, I will select representatives to be on a council to run the government and act as judges to settle conflict. In time we will hold elections, but for now, I’d like to select those that I have met and I believe can act to bring about the society I hope to achieve, one that ensures freedom and justice for all,” Jason paused waiting for a reaction, but only a few enthusiastic and patriotic Humans cheered. “I do apologize if you think these representatives are not ideal for you, but this will start the learning process for us all. The reps I’d like to select are the following five people, Mittana, the Thisin story teller, Ray, T`marin, and Lady Apisis.”

Each of the five selected representatives were not expecting themselves to be the ones selected, but to Jason, they seemed like the best candidates for the job of governing. Mittana had access to much of the knowledge and data that they would need to set up a system to handle hunts, the arena, the ARMS devices, etc. and she would be interacting with many people, but beyond that, she also didn’t fit in with her people and that would allow her to understand people who were forming a new culture of different people, where everyone didn’t fit in, better. The Thisin woman was an obvious choice as she seemed wise, open to others, and had quickly become beloved by those that gave her a chance to talk to them, but, because of their bias against the Thisin, they’d have never thought that this natural born leader would be selected. Ray elected himself the moment he stepped in to continue telling stories when the Thisin woman couldn’t go on. He had shown himself to be a leader, able to get people to listen to him and compel them to move in the way he wanted. T`marin was the hardest to choose. She was a T`kata, like all the other T`kata. There aren’t really unique ones. Only ones you know and the ones you don’t. She had been the one that he had talked to and had most of his conversations with when discussing what he needed of her people and he needed a T`kata rep. Jason would have selected their queen, but she was not prepared for the task. It was a problem that would correct itself in the future, but for now, the selection of any T`kata would be as good as any other. The last representative baffled everyone. Apisis was not a citizen and none of the Apox were either so there was no need for them to be represented, but Jason believed that placing Lady Apisis on the council would be beneficial. She knew the area. She knew the city’s greatest threat. And most importantly, with her on the council she could shape decisions to make a formal alliance with her hive that much easier to work out. They may not have been the ideal selections, but like the founding of this society, it was a start that could be built upon.