"Do we have a clear answer?" Dylan said, slumping in his chair.

"Last thing we got was that they were attacked in Summerfield. Based on the injuries I would guess it was those birds again, but they mentioned humanoids," Sarah said, reading from a report.

Everyone in the room tensed at the implication. Our enemy hadn't been idle. Samuel was still working with the injured while Daniela had split a wider patrol of the area with Devon. Both were staying at the edge of Implant perception, in case they ran into some kind of funny business.

Dylan continued speaking with his daughter, getting caught up with the situation and the engagement. Apparently my attempt to seclude myself in the small office the Council of Wildwood used failed, because Irwin approached me.

"It wasn't your fault, you know," he said. The man crossed his arms, tucking the talons at the end of his fingers into his armpits.

"But we could have done more," I snapped, immediately regretting it.

"Yeah? What would that have been? Less sleep so that one of your experiments kills you? More time on guard so that one of our cutting edge crafters is put out of commission doing a job someone else could do just as well? Or perhaps you thought you should be out there working your little spider dungeon, grinding this 'Pith' stuff?" Irwin barely paused to take a breath and I was distinctly aware of the eyes of the rest of the council swiveling towards us. "I have seen you run ragged and then blast carried to the infirmary more times than I can count and I've hardly known you a year, Mr. Terrigan. We do what we can, to the best of our ability, but we all lose something at some point. If you waste time questioning what you did, then you are neither working towards your future nor enjoying the present you fought to attain!"

Silence reigned in the room as the councilman's words echoed in our minds. It was calloused, but I couldn't deny that I'd already made some assertions of that kind to deal with life on the surface.

I'd struggled past my issues with my uncle, and even forgiven the Bunker's leadership for lying to us our whole lives, because I knew they'd done it out of love. If I had made much more of a fuss, or fought to eke out as much retribution for their actions as I knew I could have then we would have squandered our time on the surface. We would have let the fear and indignation towards our deception dictate the future we'd been hoping to unlock.

Things hadn't gone well on our first outing. They went terrible by almost all metrics, except the one that counts in the end: survival. Just because they didn't go well didn't mean we gave up, but instead rushed to grasp all the opportunities that Bec managed to give us. What would have happened to Wildwood if we'd opted never to risk ourselves against the wilderness?

"Didn't know I was walking into the wake," Clara said from the door, snapping me out of my self-reflective reverie. She thanked a trainee for having helped her get there, and the youth scampered out of sight when the whole room turned their way.

"Clara!" Sarah forewent any sort of decorum her new station had and crushed the woman with a hug. The demoness let out a single grunt before the normally serious Sarah backed off. "Oh lord, I'm sorry!"

"I'll be fine." The woman didn't look fine, but I wasn't going to point it out. While her eyes weren't bleeding, they were still severely bloodshot and her grey skin looked clammy and paler than usual.

"Can you tell us what's going on?" Dylan said, pulling out a chair for the demoness.

The woman sat down deliberately slowly. Her whole body swayed and I worried she was going to keel over right there. Thankfully, she took a few deep breaths before looking at all of us. "They were attacking Summerfield when we arrived. They had the whole town pinned in, so we were forced to engage."

"The civilians?" Irwin asked.

"They are from Summerfield, yeah." Clara paled but kept herself together to continue. "We had just enough time to get them running back to Lake Weir, but they chased us. Weir doesn't have enough resources to take on the sixty people, much less while warding off the Tendrils."

"What about Stonecrest?" Sarah asked, arms crossed; The scowl was back on her face. "Their two teams were just as good as the Big Guns."

"Stonecrest didn't have enough resources either. Their teams have been fighting almost non-stop. If my timeline is right, it coincides with us putting the spiders on the defensive by farming the dungeon territory."

"The spiders were hunting north of town?" I asked.

"Seems like. Their main issues were always to the east, but now they are fighting on two fronts. They have been eating their kills mostly, because their farms are a bust thanks to all the fighting. They have a smattering of Q4 in their squads, but they can't afford to take the Pith if they want to keep eating.

"They hosted us for a few days, dealing with the worst of the wounded, but they couldn't help with the long stretch back to Wildwood," she said wearily.

"How many did we lose? You didn't come back with all the trainees," Sarah said quietly. I hadn't even remembered that she left with a much larger group.

"One of the trainees. Geoffrey and Dennis are holding Lake Weir with the bulk of the trainees. The Tendrils were sending probing attacks, so my guess is that they are trying to take the towns out one at a time," Clara said.

The room fell silent as we worked through the new information. In my mind the only thing I kept going around to was that we weren't ready. Even with all the progress we'd made, the town wasn't ready to face off against the mind warped forces of the Dreg. It was almost a guarantee that the Tendrils had been people at some point based on what we'd seen of the Afflicted trainees, but there didn't seem to be much of anything human left in them other than a certain level of intelligence.

Fighting creatures like the ants and the spiders in droves like we'd been doing was 'easy' since they followed animalistic tendencies, but each battle with the Tendrils had required us to react constantly just to stay ahead. If numerical advantage was added into the mix, we were well and truly borked, as Danny would say.

"Can the crystals help with anything?" Clara asked, turning to me.

"I... I don't know," I said, shaking my head slowly. "But it is definitely worth it to ask."

Taking a look around the room told me that everyone present had an Implant. Since we were going to be asking for help anyhow, I opted to shift the meeting to the whitespace so that Tec could interact more directly. Sarah lent Clara a hand, while the rest of the council waged internal wars with their thoughts. For the life of me I tried to remain optimistic that there was another option.

Once we got to the Blessing of Magic, Tec instantly snatched us up into its crystalline depths. Instead of just the usual featureless expanse marked by the glowing orb presence of the Entity Cluster, there was now a round table with enough chairs for everyone.

--Accommodations. Discussion does not appear to trend towards brevity--

With the monotonous and even greeting out of the crystal's way, everyone took a seat. We spent a few minutes getting the Entity Cluster caught up on the status of the other towns, as well as some of the movements the Guard had observed from the enemy. As if not wanting to directly interact in the meeting, a dull ringing echoed through the meeting until a familiar voice joined the hovering orb in the whitespace.

--Dreg Warriors seek assistance. Combined analysis would be optimal--

"Hey Bec. We've got a bit of a pickle," I said, addressing the other Entity. Before I had a chance to give the abridged version of what we'd just told Tec, the Entity in question affirmed that he'd conferred the information at a speed beyond thought. Impressive, maybe I'll get that as a side effect of ? I didn't think it was likely, but it was a nice thought to have that the Skill would have a further benefit other than interrogation and giving me nightmares.

Bec droned.

"It all comes down to a simple decision, really," Trey, the fishermen's representative, started. "Are we going to intervene or not?"

"Of course we are going to intervene," Dylan said, rising to his feet. When no one jumped up at his proclamation, the fire-headed man looked to his daughter. "Right?"

"Not easy to say," Sarah said. Her frown deepened further, even if I wasn't sure that was possible. Her tusks were fully visible, giving the woman's face an intimidating edge that seemed to make Arnold, Trey and William uncomfortable. The rest of the group had seen her face like that enough to not be bothered it seemed.

"I thought you were making good progress with the Trainees. I can imagine that despite everything, if Clara left some trainees behind then they were worth promoting to Wild Guards," I said, trying to prompt the woman to elaborate.

"As far as I am concerned, those kids proved themselves several times over. Now, I wouldn't say they are necessarily ready to get sent out alone quite yet, but they aren't going to let us down," Clara said.

"That's part of the issue," Sarah said, sighing.

The orc woman broke down the statistics on the trainees. All of them were at least Q3, roughly thirty percent were Q4 and there was one stellar Q5 amongst them. As for the actual Wild Guard, all of them were at least Q4 and battle hardened in one way or another. She mentioned that the New Hopers were close to having all Q5 members, as Clara mentioned that Godfrey, Lilly and Dennis had all bumped up to Q5 with her. Other than the Bunker Busters and New Hoper freaks, the other squads were still trying to catch up from being limited in their absorption of Pith. In summary, the Guard were still short of their goal of engaging with a plethora of Q5s.

"We have some really experienced people. Why can't we use them to fight back?" William asked. The older farmer was stroking some kind of scar on his arm absently, but his eyes were sharply focused on the discussion.

"It's not enough. With the qualitative change that happens with each Quotient Level, the beasts we fight are stronger. Not only that, even if we can easily deal with lower Quotient creatures, it doesn't mean we can just ignore them. My team barely made it through a fight with a bunch of fire ants, and that was only because we were pretty familiar with their behavior to begin with," I said.

"The things that could close that gap aren't ready yet," Arnold huffed. "The crafters have been pulling extra shifts just to arm up our boys and girls, but there is only so much they can do and only so much material we can afford to burn through for training them at the moment so production is slower."

"I've got an update on that actually," Irwin said, patting his patchwork pants and finding them empty. Instead of saying anything, Tec materialized a sheet of paper in the air above Irwin. The man looked at the sheet with a quirked eyebrow, before shrugging and grabbing it. "We've acquired close to seven hundred Q0 Infusions, two hundred Q1 Infusions, between fifty to sixty of Q2 and Q3s and just under ten of the Q4s for the various Attunements. What that has translated to is having about half of the Guard equipped with weapons and a third armored, including the pieces you've already donated, Ronan."

I gave the man a nod of appreciation, but I could already feel the headache building behind my eyes. Exhaustion wasn't the problem, but the weight of the Dreg was ramping up its invisible pressure on my psyche. Tuning out my own thoughts, I focused on Dylan who brought out a list of his own.

"Short of having daily feasts for the next month, I don't see us starving through the winter. If we keep this pace up, we won't even have to ration. Our food situation is steady and climbing," the councilman said.

"Can we offer that?" Clara asked, some of the anxious energy she'd been holding on to surged as food was mentioned.

"If we divert some of the new refugees to help the farms, we can probably turn up our production," William added, giving Dylan a pointed look. I watched the interplay closely, but all it seemed to indicate was a 'we'll talk later' look.

--It is imminent that the Afflicted Trainees awaken. They should be of significant support on the field of battle--

"Tec, we can't just throw people that were essentially just cursed into the deep end. Even if it was at the people that did it," I added.

--Social convention cues speak that the Wildwood Dreg Warrior Council disagrees with the Dreg Warrior Leader--

Sure enough, there were gentle nods from the faces on the table, even the noncombatants. When he seemed to sense the confusion, Dylan affirmed to me that it was most likely that the Afflicted would seek swift and savage retribution for how the Dreg Entity played a part in changing their bodies. I tried to think about it from their perspective and it made a bit more sense, but I was still hesitant to let them out to fight. If they appeared unaffected by their conditions, then it was something we could bring up again so I conceded the point.

Bec added.

"Where does that leave us, then?" Clara asked, leaning forward and meeting everyone's eyes. "Do we attack or do we do nothing?"

"It's too soon," Sarah said gravely, and I could see Clara deflate.

"Unfortunately that is also my consensus. We aren't quite there with our agricultural reserves to sustain a jump in population if we tried to take in the population of the other towns in their entirety," William said, addressing the possibility of evacuating the group.

"They are going to be defenseless!" Clara yelled. "They are coming in droves and I am pretty sure it's the work of those Tendril bastards. They are using the wildlife against the other towns. They've only made it this long by remaining under the radar and under our protection. We can't abandon them now that a tangible threat is actually present!"

The council devolved into mayhem. Many argued that they'd already stuck their heads out more than they should. Not only did they lose some of their own people in the exchange, but they were still stuck fighting for the sake of the other towns. Clara complained about the Council's continued negligence in actually helping the other towns, which was true even if Dylan countered the point. Had the New Hopers not continued to insist on risking the trip to the other towns, they would have all remained disconnected. Adrift in a sea of monsters with no real way of consolidating their strength, regardless of the 'protection' the Dreg Tendrils had offered until we uncovered their corruption.

I wanted to say something-- needed to say something-- but the words failed me every time. I was struggling with a handful of deaths, while the Wildwoodians and the survivors of the surface had lost many times more in their three decade struggle. Anything I could contribute to the discussion felt flat and callous to the actual lives being discussed and weighed. It was a burden of leadership I hadn't even contemplated and put my bravado in leading the Wild Guard against the Dreg into a light I wasn't exactly sure I wanted to examine.

Thankfully, before the council devolved into accusations, name calling and words that couldn't be taken back, our silent supporters joined the discussion.

Bec's voice wasn't overpowering, like the yelling humans, but the entire council paused. Its tone was unmissable. Sarah was actually holding her father as he stabbed a finger at Clara accusingly. The Entity Clusters remained silent for several seconds, and the humans in their varied levels of distress settled back into their seats. The grave atmosphere was somewhat sobered, and I was fairly sure it was because everyone realized the two Entities had watched the humans devolve into anger before them. It wasn't a good impression, even if I knew the two of them didn't sit on propriety like those before the Fall did.

He's really leaning on that sarcasm. After a moment of consideration, I was surprised it hadn't come up more since Danny, Sam and I were all part of its personality. My mind didn't have much longer to drift as what he said next snatched up my attention.

"Expand? Like its Influence?" I asked, referring to the area in which the crystal could deter creatures from approaching.

--Town Entity responds with an intermediary plan to Attack and Abstain options. Influence Expansion is one potential way of alleviating the struggles of aspiring the Dreg Warrior program--

--Influence Expansion will entail partial fragmentation of crystalline matrix. Fragment will retain a Category Level 2, matching Bunker Entity's earlier processing power and limitations. Installation of this fragment will allow for real time communication between said location and Wildwood. While unconfirmed, proximity between two repulsive areas of influence is expected to reduce the likelihood of creatures attacking. While not directly under the effect of an Entity Cluster’s Influence, this would expand the Human Territory boundaries--

"That sounds fantastic!" Dylan exclaimed, rising to his feet. The man's hair had returned to its warm red glow after the blaze to blue while arguing with Clara.

"What's the catch?" Trey the fisherman asked, crossing his scaly arms. "Sounds too good to be true."

"As much as I hate to agree with our fish friend here, I have to agree. Why hasn't this been an option until now?" Arnold said, earning himself a glare from the other council member.

Running some rough, highly speculative numbers, through my head made the decision much more palatable. The appearance of the Reproductor ant, even with the torturous strain it had put on the Bunkerites, had managed to push Bec closer to the next Category. If the other towns were in as much of a desperate need, then it would be worth it to turn their struggle into a growing opportunity. Victory from the jaws of defeat, in a sense.

"Do you think the Town of Lake Weir will be receptive to joining our group more permanently, Clara? We would have to check with the Entities, but maybe it would be possible to Implant the leader of the town to help coordinate with the other Dreg Warriors,” I said, redirecting my question to the closest thing we had to a diplomat.

--It would increase the mass needed to be transported, but it will not burden this vessel overly much--

"Thanks, Tec. And as far as LW? Almost certainly. After seeing our new Skills in action, many of them wanted to come back with us right away just for the opportunity. Of course, everyone already knows we just took the ones in most need," the demoness said, nodding the whole time. Her expression tightened, as if she'd eaten something sour. "Stonecrest... well, they might take a bit more convincing."

Installing a crystal would then effectively create a small network for the survivors to really dig into their Territory. If they only had to focus on fighting with the occasional high level creature that ignored the repulsion areas, then trade would be possible between the towns. Not to mention that it would allow the Guard and other Dreg Warriors like us more time to range further without the danger of their friends and families getting killed in their absence. Obviously, being able to launch the attack on the Dreg Entity from Lake Weir would be much more effective, so that wasn't something that we could dismiss as an additional benefit if their leaders okayed it.

Since I personally didn't have any issues with the plan, I tried to think of what Sam and Danny would add to the meeting if they were here. Samuel would want to make sure that everyone was safe as much as possible and Danny would be clamoring for them to use the crystals offensively somehow.

"It's entirely possible that some of the Wild Guard would need to be stationed there for a while," I added. "I don't know if I feel okay leaving this new Cat 2 Metier Crystal undefended, even if we are able to deal with the Dreg."

"It can be done," Sarah said. Dylan almost immediately moved to protest, but the death glares he received from Clara and the orc woman had him withering back into his seat. "We'll need to help out with their food situation regardless."

--Warning should be given prior to ascent--

"I knew it was still too good to be true," Trey complained.

"Go ahead, Tec. Just lay it on us," I said, bracing for whatever downside we would have to deal with.

--This fragment will be unstable. While the shard is unable to emplace an area of influence the energy contained within will be released steadily--

"Can I get a translation on that?" Dylan asked.

"Ha! So, we just have to transport a giant magic rock through a beast infested forest while it throws up a flare telling all the critters where it is? Not only that, but an evil magic rock is trying to sabotage us at every turn. Do I about have it?" Arnold chuckled without humor.

--References to unstable energy status and Dreg Entity identified--

--Dreg Warrior Arnold, your assessment is correct--

"Why I ought to--"

"Do nothing. Are you going to argue with a rock that is actually smarter than you, Arnold?" Irwin said, cutting the man off. The council let out huffs or short laughs at the word play. With the tension broken somewhat, even if the dwarf in question grumbled his displeasure, the group discussed how the revelation actually affected the plan moving forward.

While the actual logistics would have to be modified, and fighters rallied, the council had already made their decision. Within two days, a force of Wild Guard would head on a tour of the towns to the north hoping to assist Stonecrest and dig in at Lake Weir with the help of their first Crystal expansion.