[Level 9 Business Guild Master]

It was the fifth day since they diverted from the road, with approximately six more still ahead.

Livia felt like the rocking ship was finally starting to calm, and having been the captain at the helm filled her with a sense of pride that was wholly unfamiliar.

Her old life had never put her in a position of real authority, certainly not over people out in the wild. Her one advantage was all the books she had read, her incomparably wide perspective born from growing up with the internet and reading so many books with themes of everything from raising cities and armies to apprentices and orphans, to managing demographics during the defense of a siege or how to play a group of opponents off against each other.

Like most others of her generation she was too young to be a true expert in anything yet, but when you had so many tidbits of knowledge and insight into different personalities other than your own, with the right attitude that could be turned into a real advantage in leadership.

After all, while reading she was always most considerate of the failures, that was where Livia’s mind tended to really dwell. What it had taught her was that faking it until you make it was a good way to get killed. You needed to contribute something, but often that something need not be more than a calm voice and a decisive personality. The rest you left up to experts and the wisdom of the crowd.

The rest of the job was staying busy in the downtime between important decisions, helping people grow and giving them the confidence to speak up once their time finally came. Be a shield they could count on to take a vanguard position to support them whenever they were making sense.

Alright fine, maybe she had one more advantage. But it’s about as far from wine and roses as you can get.

He was coming. She had sent him away when he would not stop laughing as she bounced up and down tied to the sika. She recalled vaguely that they made some deal, when she was about to pop a vessel and he was still not stopping.

Now she felt the build-up in her head, the vibrato of a shout about to be unleashed. It was a strange sensation, completely non-physical.

[BAAH, okay I cannot take it any more.] Mr Beard was even faking a deep heaving for breath, like he had been holding it all those days.

Livia tsked under her breath and looked around to see if it was safe to whisper. “Alright fine, you can talk again, but keep it minimal, you know I can’t respond most of the time and I can’t stand you jammering in my ear,”

[Phew, good. I did well, yes? 132 hours, you said you would doubt I could ever do 40, hah.]

She could tell he was feeling proud of himself, but Livia could not help but be annoyed. She knew what was coming next.

[So, what is the secret reward you promised?]

Livia had yet to think of something, so she did the only thing she could be arsed to, since she did not want this hanging over her head.

Fuck it, may as well come clean. “Oh, that. I lied. You would not shut up so I just said whatever would work.”

The ensuing silence stretched. Not until a full minute had passed did he respond again.

[I was silent for 132 hours. I counted.]

Livia did feel a bit bad about that, but it was her mind he was shouting in damn it. I did not ask for this. I bet this weirdo did. It’s his soul in there after all.

[Every second.]

She snapped. “Fine, I owe you a small favor, at some point… And I did not ask you to do that… But if you do it regularly I promise to be nicer.”

[Hmph, I suppose. Hardly fair but if it is all that is on offer...]

She glowered at… Well, her own mind.

“It is, take it or leave it.”

[Deal then. It was not as bad as it may have sounded anyway, I spent quite a lot of your sleeping hours shouting whatever mantra came to mind for hours on end, finding an outlet.]

“Wait, what?”

Of course that was when he chose to be silent.

“Have you really been doing that, is that bad? Can you affect my dreams?”

[Hmm, I am not sure, what have you been dreaming?]

She nearly even started responding before she shut her mouth tight as a clam. Then she spoke carefully. “You first. What have you been saying?”

That was when Mr Beard started laughing. [You are too silly, obviously I do not shout in your sleep, what would be the point? Exercising my vocal cords?]

Livia’s first thought was how this felt out of character for Mr Beard, he was hardly the kind to joke around. Then again, maybe 132 hours of isolation could do that to anyone.

“Are you alright then?” Despite him representing the thing that brought her to this difficult place, she did consider him a part of the team. Livia realized this now that she had noted his absence for the first time.

[Yes. I am fine, I just feel like I am wasting processing power. I keep getting these encouraging prompts, they are merely reminders of my mission statement, but they do nag as they repeat.]

She could understand that.

“Then you can work on figuring out where we could do the most good with our kauri seed, if we somehow manage to grow it at a speed close to Brunner’s then that could be our shot at accomplishing something truly grand within our lifetimes rather than just setting things up and leaving the responsibility to our children,” She was feeling like their momentum was slowly building. “If we actually pull it off I want us positioned where we can do the most good, for the longest time. Every data point could be important, we have a goal in mind but any reason you can think of that might make us want to change to elsewhere and I need you to speak up right away,”

[Aye, aye. Captain.]

“Hah, haven’t you heard? We have a Captain already. You can call me commander Beltaine.”

She absolutely meant it as a joke, even Mr Beard was able to catch on that far. But there was no denying she liked the ring of it.