Meanwhile, Allistor was discovering a similar issue.  All the scrolls he looked at were expensive.  On a whim, he did a search of a Levitate scroll and found it was worth two thousand klax.   That was big money, but not big enough to make him sell it.  He’d try to improve his Weaponsmithing the old-fashioned way first.  Plain old hard work and experimentation.

While he was at the screen, he checked his account.  The display told him he had three hundred and ten personal klax, and two thousand five hundred klax in the Stronghold account, over which he was the sole authorized individual.

That reminded him.  He added Michael and Ramon to the Review and Recommend list, so that they could review what had been done and make recommendations in the next upgrade discussion.

Authorizing individuals put him in mind of his old guilds.  He asked Michael, who was still perusing the market, whether he’d spent much time in a guild.

“Yup.  Ran one for a few years.  Wasn’t a big deal.  Mostly a social guild.  We did some raiding, but it was hard to get everyone’s schedules sync’d when they’re not hardcore.  We were lucky to do one a month.”

Allistor felt his pain.   “You think we could form one here? Now?  I mean like, officially.  Through the system.”

“Maybe?  But why would you want to?” Michael stepped away from the market window and looked at him.  “Why sign yourself up for all that hassle?”

Allistor grinned.  “Actually, I was thinking of signing YOU up for all that hassle.  I’m already somehow in charge of the Stronghold.  But I was thinking if we expanded… Like if we also made the hospital a Stronghold, with one of you as its boss.  And a few others around town in strategic spots.  We could fold them all into one guild.”

He could see Michael wasn’t convinced.  So he added. “I mean, maybe it comes with perks like guild chat.  We could talk to each other at a distance anytime.  No need for radios.”

Michael looked less skeptical, but he wasn’t biting yet.  Allistor left him to think about it.  There wasn’t an urgent need for a guild yet.

They were just taking seats again when the proximity alert went off.  Allistor pulled up his interface and the map that went with the alarms.   The radar-like screen showed multiple red dots moving from the forest almost directly toward their front gates.  He tried to count the dots, but they kept merging and crossing over each other.  His best guess was a dozen of them.

As he turned off the audible alert, the others began to emerge from the various buildings, weapons in hand.  As one they moved toward the gates.  There were few words.  Meg said, “I can’t tell how many.”

Ramon responded, “Lots.  It’s either a pack of canids or vermin, or a group of human survivors.”