The lead woman closed to within 20 meters of the tower I now stood but didn’t move an inch closer. I was checking all three of them out as they approached but the leader was an absolute stunner. She had waist length platinum blonde hair folded into a tight braid that curled around the left side of a porcelain colored, heart shaped face. Deep crimson lips sat below a pert nose flanked by two brilliant glowing blue eyes. A simple silver crown sat on her brow and was swallowed by the aforementioned hair.

Her braid found itself partially resting across a well proportioned bosom that descended into equally appealing hips. A gleaming, silvery chain shirt hung loosely over a deep blue tunic that seemed to have been strategically loosened enough to reveal enough cleavage to be a distraction, but not enough to be considered lewd. Across her hips sat a plate and leather tasset skirt. She wore thick leather sandals that rose into shining shin guards backed by leather and fur. A long sword hung horizontally in the small of her back.

Her female companion was dressed similarly, and while being rather attractive, she paled in comparison to the leader. The man on her left wore dark armor in a similar style to the women though he wore black undergarments and his hair was dark as well. He carried a dark wooden bow with a short sword strapped to his hip. I could tell he was feigning casual indifference as he seemingly watched all around him and his charge for any sign of threat or hostility. He had no doubt categorized every person in the settlement and ranked them in order of threat to his party. And the way he looked at me when he wasn’t checking out everyone else told me I was the first one to catch an arrow through the eye if this meeting turned to shit.

“Ho there, Great Warrior! And congratulations on a battle well fought! I am Freya, Queen of the Valkyr. And this is Troels and Hilga, my lead scout and most trusted advisor. May we join you?”

I stood there for a moment stunned at how much like the Valkyries of legend these people looked. Well, at least the women. This shit is surreal. “Yeah, sure. Name’s Karl.” The trio landed and their wings folded behind them and seemingly disappeared. Up close I realized the women were actually a bit taller than myself, and the man with them was slightly shorter. That’s something.

“Well met, Karl. We saw you break the siege on your settlement. I must say, compared to the other humans we have met, your prowess in battle was quite impressive.” She complimented me as her eyes flared while speaking of the earlier siege.

“Thanks. I think.” I cast a confused glance. “That was you I sensed at the end, wasn’t it?”

“Most likely, we Valkyr, our emotions run hot when in the presence of battle. It’s what we live for. And also the reason we are System Refugees.” Her expressions shifted rapidly as she spoke, a deep sadness akin to shame screwed up her face at the last statement.

“We’ve already formed an… ‘alliance’ with another group of refugees. Lord Shubin, their leader, informed us some of what caused them to earn refugee status. I assume you destroyed every dungeon you could?”

“Yes. Only my ancestors bothered to capture any. And once they learned of how the dungeons reform stronger than before, it was too late to correct the course of our actions. It takes many generations before the dungeons become unstoppable. But it happens eventually. Your strongest warriors are dead or too old to battle the hordes.” A tear rolled from her eye as she continued her explanation, “Then your children are born and they have no chance to properly grow, as everything the dungeons spawn is reaching into the Master Rank level.”

“Pretty much the same story from Shubin.” we stood in silence for a moment. Junipher approached from below the parapet to join us and wrapped herself around my arm and smiled at the trio of Valkyr.

“My savage King. Why don’t you introduce us and bring this meet down to the bonfire.” Junipher purred and extended her hand to the Queen. I barely caught myself from flinching at her proclaiming me king in front of the gathering. I breathed in deeply and saw that the sun was quickly setting and nodded in response.

“Of course, Junipher, this is Freya, Queen of the Valkyr, and her entourage, Troels and Hilga.” Junipher extended a hand to the Queen, bowed her head and dipped into a little curtsy. Laying it on thick aren’t you girl? “Follow me.”

The Valkyr seeing the indicated bonfire simply stepped off the tower and extended their wings as one and glided over. I shrugged and jumped down myself, landing with a heavy thud and walked over to the waiting Queen and her people. The normal gathering of people had apparently been told to beat feet and the benches around the fire were cleared for us and positioned so that we could talk in relative confidence while enjoying the warmth of the fire. Junipher followed shortly then Johnny and Eli joined us.

Introductions were made and as I was about to continue our previous discussions several people came out with bowls of hot soup. Seems my people knew I wasn’t particularly diplomatic and decided to intervene. “I guess it actually is time for dinner. A day of slaughtering gnolls works up an appetite.”

“Aye! I can get behind that sentiment!” Troels spoke up for the first time with a wide smile.

“Here! Here! To slaughtering your enemies!” Eli rose his glass in the air with a wicked grin.

“To BATTLE!” The Valkyr cheered and everyone dug in. The three Valkyr tore into their bowls like we had just fed them a King’s feast.

When they finished the other woman, Hilga commented “It’s been so long since we ate a hot meal, I feel a bit guilty.”

Junipher laughed and reached for her bowl, “Would you like seconds?”

The woman looked over to her Queen with pleading eyes, “Gods, girl! I’m not your mother, if they’re offering it, it would be rude to refuse good food!”

Junipher didn’t wait for the response and collected all of their bowls and headed to wherever they were cooking food for the settlement. As she did so Eli leaned into Troels, “I'd love to pick your brain about what you saw between here and, was it, Flagstaff?” Troels looked over to his Queen for approval and she nodded her assent, “Right then, what can you tell me…” He trailed off as the pair shifted to the other side of the fire to have their own conversation.

Johnny then swept up Hilga in a conversation about, I’m actually not sure what the two talked about, but, in the end it left me with a one on one with the Queen of the Valkyr. Junipher returned with more bowls of soup and quickly distributed them then faded to the background as the Queen and I considered each other carefully. Why didn’t I think to just bring them down to the fire to start with? I mused as Freya devoured the new bowl of hot soup.

I wasn’t sure where to start so I decided to ask more about her and her people. “So, Shubin indicated his people were on the brink, how do yours fare?”

Freya looked at me with wet eyes yet managed to maintain her composure, “We are down to about ten thousand women.” She paused and looked down with flushed cheeks, “And only roughly two hundred and fifty men.”

“Wow. I don’t know if those men are lucky or not.” I joked to lighten the mood, then cringed when I realized it may have been taken in poor taste.

She sighed and smiled, “Some may be looking forward to it, though I’m not sure what it will do to our society. If I didn’t trust Troels and his scouts to do their jobs so well I wouldn’t let them out of my sight. Our people were already leaning towards a matriarchy. With so few men to give us children, I fear it will get worse.”

“I can see that as a problem for sure. So why did you risk trekking across the monster infested Arizona desert? I think the only place hotter is further north in Nevada or Utah. Not sure, I could probably look it up, though, it doesn’t have much bearing on the question.”

“To be honest, Karl, we didn’t want to. Our portal opened at the top of Humphrey’s Peak. It was quite pleasant, the planet my people come from only experiences a few months of moderate weather. We are built for the cold. Not this damnable heat.”

“Oh shit, this is still mid spring, come summer I doubt we’ll light the bonfire even at night.”

A look of horror spread across her face at that statement. “Fuck!” Her eyes went wide as the word slipped from her mouth and she looked around like someone was going to appear and shove soap in her mouth.

I laughed at her suddenly innocent looking expression, “Yeap. Fuck. You might want to ditch the furs if you intend to stick around.”

When I repeated the word she let slip, she relaxed and let out a little giggle. “Anyway, we appeared above your city of Flagstaff. It was hit pretty hard but groups of people were adapting to the realities of the system quickly. Then that damnable bitch took control of the city core.”

“So uh, would that ‘damnable bitch’ have a name?”

“Eh, Mayor Carol Blevins. She didn’t even have a combat class! Apparently the city core appeared in the same room she resided in when the system initialized. How your people elected her to be Mayor is beyond me, the witless twit is beyond incompetent! We tried to offer our services in helping protect the city from the monster incursions, but she refused us!”

“Ah fuck, why do I think I know where this is going.” I muttered rhetorically.

“The first thing she constructed after we approached her was the city wall. Which is much larger than yours, by the way. With the walls marking the territory we can’t enter without gaining permission. Which is why we waited til you noticed us and then requested access.”

“Ok, there’s some things I need clarified there, but continue your story.”

“Anyway, the bitch wouldn’t let us enter. She wouldn’t talk to us either. I believe your people call it stonewalling. She basically fortified herself within her city, which she now owned, and began implementing some seriously fucked up policy!” The winged woman was now fired up and on a roll, so I sat back and listened to her story without interrupting.

“She started raising taxes on the adventurers and restricting access to the City Kiosks. As things settled down we watched as the adventurers would go out less and less. We had yet been granted an audience with the dirty cunt, but occasionally we could approach one of the few adventurers that left the walls to hunt and gather information. What learned about the inside was infuriating!”

I leaned forward as Freya fed me insight into what I would be facing when I decided to deal with Flagstaff. And if I wanted to keep Earth from becoming refugees themselves I knew I would need to act eventually.

“She hadn’t bothered replacing the wrecked housing as she promised, claiming she didn’t have the SP to expand. But the bloody cunt had the SP to build herself a mansion! No food production, no access to the kiosks unless you had paid an access tax, she confiscated all settlement cores adventurers had earned without even offering a reward, and then the ones the other adventurers referred to as inmates showed up!”

“What was that?” I dared an interruption at the mention of the inmates.

“The ones you call inmates. Your criminals, from what I understand. A mean lot. They fought their way from the prison here and each and every one of them had progressed to their Advanced Class. There were about a hundred of them.”

“ELI!” I stood with urgency intending to find the man directly, instead he rounded the fire with Troels in tow, both men held a hand on their swords looking for any threat.

“Sir?” The Guard Captain looked around in confusion.

“Those fucking assholes. I gave them one order. An ultimatum, I told them the consequences and they fucked me!” Rage was building in my veins as I thought about what I can only imagine they had done. If they hurt anyone I’m responsible. Mother fuckers.

“Are you referring to the inmates you released from the prison, sir?” Eli asked the question he already presumed the answer to.

I looked back at Freya with something of a guilty look. She hadn’t risen to her feet but she stared at me with knowing intensity. I don’t know what she saw but she didn’t seem mad, rather, she seemed quite pleased. Junipher rounded the fire and joined me, then I motioned for everyone to join us and asked Freya to continue her story.

“Yes, the inmates, as you call them, appeared at the gates of Flagstaff. Their leader met with the Mayor and soon the police force that she had gained control of were replaced by the inmates who called themselves ‘Red Bands’. She enacted several laws that allowed the so called Red Bands to claim any loot they wanted and… the amount of atrocity this woman and her goon squad are committing is unconscionable.” Exasperation at what she had experienced there radiated from her voice.

I ground my teeth as she spoke, I fucked up.

“We asked again to meet with her and request Sanctuary. She refused us. Stated she couldn’t trust someone as white as we are. What the fuck does that even mean!?!?” She spread her hands in frustration. How the tears that formed in her eyes hadn't yet fallen baffled me.

I literally face palmed. I should have killed every one of them. Junipher squeezed my arm gently.

“After that she activated a law that forbade us from entering the city. With that we had no choice but to head here. No word of the North had reached us, and it seemed the grand city in the south, Phoenix, was at war with itself. Yours was the only potentially safe harbor within 100 miles in any direction. I just wish Gregor had brought his people with us when we left.”

I sat there for several long moments and forced my rage down and mulled over what she said. “Ok, I have two questions, which will probably lead to more questions. But first, who’s Gregor, and second, and probably more importantly, why do you need to attach yourself to a human settlement, why not go make your own? I swear, if someone explained it to me I’ve completely missed it.”

“Ah, well, as to the second question, we don’t have any land rights. Earth is your planet and any being of earth blood has a sole claim. All you need to do is seize a settlement core, as you seem to have done here. With refugee status we can not found a new settlement unless given permission from a local land holder. Which would be you or that fucked up Mayor.”

“So if I give you permission, you can set up shop nearby, just as Lord Shubin and his people have?”

“Yes, it’s called a Contract of Sanctuary to my people. You set the terms of our residence, and the cost.” She admitted hesitantly.

“Oh shit, that’s why Shubin was so happy with our deal!” I laughed and Choox’il and Alyssa appeared from around the fire.

Choox’il strode forward and dipped her head deep as she overheard the explanation from Freya. Her advisors tensed at the creepy, yet eerily attractive woman’s presence. They noticed my smile and Alyssa at her side and relaxed a touch, Freya never batted an eye.

“As the current representative of my people I wish to apologize. The deal you struck with Lord Shubin was done so in ignorance and so favors our people. If you wish to renegotiate, Lord Shubin indicates he would understand.”

I looked at her for a long moment then turned to Johnny, “Johnny, you got the numbers on the Dark Iron sales?”

“I do.” He stated and passed me a clipboard with a sheaf of papers chaotically bent back to the page that showed our current income.

“That’s alotta zeroes.”

“It is.” He smiled.

During the entire exchange Choox’il never raised her head from her supplicant position.

“Choox’il,” I spoke softly to the woman now, “Raise your head and don’t ever bow to me again. You may have taken advantage of the situation you found yourselves in for personal gain, but I would have probably done the same. In all honesty I’m not displeased with the arrangement. I didn’t want to manage a dungeon and had no idea what to do with the resources within. As long as he holds to the letter of our agreement I’m fine with that.”

“Really?” She asked with incredulous tears forming in her eyes.

I shrugged, “Yeah, the deal was made, I’ll live with it, though once Winslow is secure I may need his help in keeping it so.”

“Of course, Master Karl, I’ll inform him when this meeting is complete.”

“Yeah, yeah, when the fuck did I start gaining official titles!?” I looked around in mock anger at the people gathered.

Freya was the first to laugh sensing my jest, the rest of those gathered eased their posture and we returned to the issue at hand. “So, you need permission to settle.”

“We do, though I think we can offer something you seem to be lacking at the moment.” She said with arched eyebrows and a feral grin.

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“Warriors, of course.”