Book 2 C6 Progress Part 2

I decided to call a meeting of all Heads of Departments, since Larry Benally has taken control of the food issue there was lots more to be done and delegated, and instead of seeking out everyone, I will have them all come here and we can deal with it all at once.

Cindy, Julie, and Ki'Diera come right way, as does Rick and Bre'Tirgan, Alexander is standing by the door and waiting the for the rest to arrive. Larry Benally is looking at the various graphs on the walls and thinking.

Everyone is stunned when they enter the room and see all the displays and the numbers flickering in live reports.

“Wow this place is something”, Rick says trying to take everything in.

Bre'Tirgan walks to a display and reads it, “I can understand this.....” then looks to the bracelet.

The Girls are talking excitedly among themselves seeing the displays. Others begin to arrive too, Ryan Holster Head of Foreign Affairs, Derek Adams Head of Commerce, and Lisa Roberts head of Education.

“So lets begin this meeting and thank you all for coming on short notice.” I say to everyone,” As you all know our population is growing and our needs are growing too. So I want to brainstorm with all of you and get the ball rolling to prepare for the future and be ready for day to day life.”

“Food, housing, security are the most basics, but to get that we need a workforce as well. Bulldozing, planting, building, just to name a few, plus we need to gather animals to raise if we can find any, and gather the remaining food in this city while we can and stockpile it. Fresh meat, fruits and vegetables are going to be rare if any to find. Most will have to be canned goods for now.”

“In a sense we will be starting a new city while demolishing or adding the old to our territory, we can only support what we can secure. Getting the second walls up will be high priority so we can build within providing a safe environment. Looking at the Kingdom map we can set up the second walls about 500 meters from the first walls. But to be honest, that is stretching our forces beyond their limits.”

“Even with the Ny'Har'en, the Regular and Elite Guard, And the Super Soldiers we will be spread too thin on the second walls. We will need more people to become Elite guard or Super Soldiers. Alexander how many with a second wall do you estimate?” I ask and look at Alexander.

“785 troops your Majesty.” He says quickly.

“That is almost everyone we have Scott” Cindy speaks up.

“Yes it is and if we go by 15% population is military then we need about 5000 people to support them. Thus there lies our problem. More food, more supplies, more housing etc..” I say to them. “We need troops to secure the people and we need people to get the troops.”

With that everyone fell silent.

“Well you and your Queens could just appoint people to a known profession” Lisa Roberts speaks up hesitantly.

“Yes I could appoint more Elite Guards”, I say in response.

“No, Mr Smith, I mean any profession in the Kingdom”, She says quickly her voice is now clear.

All heads now focus on her. “Would you care to explain please,” I ask of her.

She nods and then with a nervous voice,” I took on the profession Scholar, it came with the perks of getting system information as I request it” She then pauses.

“I found this out actually by accident when the Ny'Har'en arrived and I wanted more information on them and got their entire history about them. At first I assumed everyone had this information and thought nothing of it.”

“Then the Were-beasts arrived and I got their history, and lastly the Drow.” She says now with an apologetic look.” I did not realize I was the only who had this information at the time, but after listening to everyone, I have since realized it is a Scholar perk of some kind and I can share that information freely. I just thought everyone had it” She whispers and then pauses.

“Had I realized sooner, I would have come forth and said something, I am truly sorry” she says apologizing.

“That does not explain the profession assignments” I say to her.

“Yes, as you were talking about the needs for workers and such I was thinking how we could get more farmers and other needed professions like Super Soldier, and a system notice popped up for me, stating the King and Queens have the authority to grant any Profession which resides in the Kingdom unto others” She says quickly..

“Scott we could get more builders, farmers, healers, Elite, and even Super soldiers, my god we can even get more Fire Mages, or even ....more like you?” Rick says now excited.

“Keep in mind, it is Professions, and does not apply to skills.” Linda adds.

“But still, that is incredible,.” Rick says quickly.

All at the table are now excited at the news. I am still taking it in, at the implications. Can I make copies if Julie and her area mana barrier? More healers?, more Super Soldiers and Elites? Farmers....lots and lots of Farmers? And the Builders...can I copy their powers as well?

“Are the Builders considered residents of the Kingdom?” I ask Linda.

“No Mr. Smith, they are not” She answers quickly.

“Ok then a town hall meeting then?” I ask all at the table.

Everyone nods enthusiastically.

“Ok, we will have one tonight right after dinner in the courtyard” I declare. “Can the Ny'Har'en be assigned professions?”

“No, they can not, but they can apprentice to someone and learn the profession over time.” She answers.

Bre'Tirgan looks to me and nods with a smile.

“So what professions do we have now?” I ask looking at everyone around the table.

Julie now speaks up and reads from a list”Besides the Kingdom professions of maid, cook, butler, servant, and army, as well as Elite Guards, there is Healer, Super Soldier, Fire Mage, Scholar, TA Advanced Marine, Butcher, Lighting Mage, Barrier Specialist, Robo Cop, Deputy, Farmer, Seamstress, Builder our guys that is, Water Mage, Accountant, Taxidermist, Livestock Handler, Gardner, Beautician, Ny'Har'en Warrior, Baker, Hunter, Mechanic, Electrician and a Psychologist and there is more, but they get more mundane or ridiculous” She adds the last slowly.

“Baker? Accountant? Taxidermist? Those are listed professions?” I ask in disbelief.

“It seems after our meeting, when we had that discussion on professions people got scared and picked their current professions for some reason, just to have one, not wanting a repeat of day seven.” Rick says.”it seems someone started a rumor, that anyone without a profession would die like the Holdouts.”

“Wait you said Robo Cop?” I say again in disbelief.

“Umm yeah four of the Farmington guys were of the local Police and one came up with the idea, when they saw and heard about professions seeing the Lightning Mages and Barrier Specialist, It went ok for a day or two till they ran out of ammo.” Rick says now snickering.

I sigh and shake my head. “Ok we can pick some, from those, the Water Mage, I saw her once before in the Cafeteria, can be useful, as are the Lightning mage and Barrier Specialist, Farmer for sure, Live Stock handler sounds good too, at this point, once we get some. We also need to see the full capabilities of our own Builders, Not too sure on Robo cop, and I want to see the Psychologist as soon as possible after this meeting. Anything else?”

“Which bring up my next item, we need as ironically as this sounds, a school house.” Linda says

“A school house? Is the Library not enough?”

“No, we had only 22 children to start with and my two aids. Then the Ny'Har'en arrived, and they have many children as well. And now Farmington survivors arrived and little over a third are children. In all we have 305 Children under the age of 16 now in our community. I also feel that the Ny'Har'en children should join in the learning as it will not only help them, but bring the communities closer together as well”. She says

I sigh at the news.”yes bringing the two closer is the goal, do we have the teachers or people able to teach?”

“Farmington had two teachers among them and a substitute part timer. Giving us six educators right now. I am not saying teaching is an easy job, and far from it, but I am sure there are a few more talented people who can help as well, if we look for them.” she adds confidently.”it would be nice to get it down to 20 students per class even.”

I groan again, meaning we would lose at least 10 more people to our work force. Then a thought hits me.

“What if we start an apprenticeship system starting with the age of 13?” I ask.

“You want to put the kids to work?” Cindy asks

“No not exactly”, I say quickly, “In some countries, kids go to school and at an early age also start going to jobs to learn the trade, it is a very part time basis, no more than 10-15 hours a week at most.” I say explaining.”Tho I must admit some countries did exploit it harshly, but I digress, we have them assist for 10 or 15 hours a week to learn the profession so when they come of age, they can already have some of the skills maybe to go with that profession.”

“Will that not actually hinder our workforce? Having almost 100 kids who know nothing trying to help making more of a mess?” Asks Ryan Holster.

“Not really, if done properly the first week or two is observe and learn, then slowly start the hands on.” I say.

“We can then split the classes into two, one group goes in the morning for 3 hours, one in the afternoon for 3 hours, Mondays thru Thursdays and alternate morning and afternoons each week, then on Fridays have one big class. This will give our workforce 6 hours of extra help over time each day, and lessen the stress on Teachers four days out of the week,” I finish up.

We speak more on the subject, but in the end, it is adopted with the understanding it would be tweaked by the Educators as not to impact the kids too much, and we move on to other issues of the Kingdom. The clearing of housing and shops south are mentioned. Larry Benally also mentions that south of the River, many farms already exist, and several orchards are there as well, and that this entire area used to be full of orchards, apples, pears, peaches and apricots, tho apricots are harder to grow here.

There are also an abundance of Walnut trees in the area as well. We could easily take on the existing farmlands he explains after having viewed the overhead map of the territory as irrigation systems already exist there. Tho crops were probably not planted yet, as most crops in this area are not planted till May.

We discuss the need to get all the food in the area, daily supplies like toilet paper. We discussed our current water and plumbing issues, tho it seems the Builders have already addressed this for us as we still have clean running water. I also discussed the need for a return to Fort Carson and also visit the Drow Caves. I wanted to take most if not all the Soldiers and Marines for a day and hit Colorado springs for supplies as well, since this was an opportune time for it. I would leave Cindy and Ki'Diera behind to unload my inventory here while I load up there, taking Julie along for the heals and barriers.

Next we discussed the survivor issues and housing as well as sending people to neighboring towns and cities over the next week, we have seven buses now too, which will come in handy, we can also use that time to gather more supplies from there. Cindy and Ki'Diera were not looking happy at that prospect, as it meant they would probably be left behind again.

The meeting goes on for 2 more hours until we adjourn for lunch. As we start moving towards the Cafeteria, Julie pulls Ki'Diera, Cindy and me aside.

“I did not want to say this in front of the other people, but there was one more Profession listed in our Kingdom,” she says and hesitates as we look on with questioning looks, “Predator Sniper.”

______________________________________________________________________________

Author's Note: Ok, with this, we got some important info out of the way. Time for some road trips and some new discoveries :)