“Pryte, just how old are you?” I asked curiously, as I was reasonably sure I remembered him claiming to have been around during Sanquar's initial time in the Arena.

  “No idea, well, not really no idea. I think my official birth record has me listed as a few hundred million years old, but time measurement tends to get a bit complicated in the Spiral. I was born on a planet long before it was integrated, and merging that timescale with the Spiral standard year isn’t really possible. Why?” He asked nonchalantly after his explanation as though his age was perfectly normal

  “Very few humans make it past a hundred years on Earth, and I still have no idea what old really is in the Spiral,” I answered, trying not to let any of the shock I was experiencing at the idea of being alive so long show on my face.

  “Once your core reaches C-grade or above, normal means of aging aren’t really much of a thing anymore, and my species is already naturally long-lived,” Pryte answered without any hint of this being unusual in his voice. So that meant even without using different magic, anyone fortifying their core enough was functionally immortal. Was that the right word? I couldn’t remember the difference between eternal and immortal. I was sure one meant can’t die period, and the other one was couldn’t die of old age, but which was which escaped me at the moment, assuming I ever knew.

  “Can we get back ta something that’s actually important right now?” Mel asked, gritting his teeth in a way that I knew meant it wasn’t really a request.

  “No, Dave has a point about aging here. Just because so many people die fighting constantly doesn’t mean I’m anywhere near an outlier in old age. There are plenty of people with a lot of amassed power who aren’t going to like it when they learn about Constance here. Korl’s presence in all of this already means we’ve struck a pretty big nerve,” Pryte continued, completely ignoring Mel’s request.

  “Well, if I wasn’t sure before, now I know I’ve just gotta stick around. Gramps would be pissed if he found out I walked out on this,” Connie added, her wide eyes full of excitement.

  “I don’t think it was the System that gave us Constance,” Elody said, speaking up.

  “Then who? I can’t believe you, of all people, expect a coincidence,” Pryte asked doubtfully.

  “Judge Zcalria,” She answered confidently.

  Mel grunted loudly and rejoined the conversation. “Hrm, I think Elody’s right. It explains how he even thought us clearing floor ten would be possible. He prolly already knew she had registered. Now, ya got me wondering if Korl was even behind anything besides maybe the jesters. Dammit, it’s all Zcalria. He told Floor Master to slip Dave the note. He’s setting this all up so we can make the biggest possible show of force,” Mel said, deflating as he voiced his full realization of the situation.

  “My thoughts exactly. He’s giving us the only real chance we’ll have. We have to make just a big enough splash to make everyone back away for now and rethink how they want to interact with us,” Elody replied with a smile.

  “Alright, fine, I’m convinced. We’re gonna win this damn thing, even if it kills most of us. Now for the other point of this meeting. I put some feelers out for a handyman. The problem is we ain’t got shit to pay them with yet. I know what little Dave and the brothers managed to save during their dungeon raids, so the faction is effectively broke. Elody can’t dip into her own funds for risk of her order being considered tied to the faction. Rabyn’s certainly been cut off, and I’ve been broke for years,” Mel said. Considering everything I had heard about Mel, it seemed odd for him to have no money, but I wasn’t going to embarrass him in front of anyone by pushing the topic.

  “Didn’t really bring any funds with me. I thought it would be important to try to make my own way without relying on the family fortune, sorry,” Connie said as though Mel’s comments were pointed toward her.

  “Don’t worry; he didn’t mean you. I’ve got a pretty big nest egg, but I’m going to have to blow the whole thing just to keep this place remotely operational,” Pryte said, loudly sighing.

  “Hey, once my fields start to come in, I’m sure we can start paying you back!” Cecile exclaimed happily.

  “Okay, so I assume a handyman is more than just a basic handyman. What exactly can one do?” John asked. That was a good point; for some reason, I had been just sticking my own frame of reference onto the term when they had used it. It had to be much less limited than what I would expect.

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  “It’s a specialized crafting class. Most factions employ a ton of them, but there are independent contractors we can hire. I assume Mel wants to shore up the area around us, as I assume it’ll take some time for your world to accept that it’s been placed in your father’s care. If we can hire one, we can get the buildings and fortifications we’ll require in the short term taken care of,” Rabyn answered. So they were actually just an advanced version of our handymen. I supposed that made sense with the weird language translation functions, however those worked.

  “Good, we’re going to need them before winter. There’s no way this place is ready to hold us all through an Alaskan winter, and at the rate Dad seems to acquire people now, we need to prepare for growth as well, which is still a problem with our limited food supplies,” John replied. Mel had been right on the quartermaster idea; John was taking to it extremely well.

  “Alright, then,” Mel started before the door swung open as Timon entered the house, followed by Sanquar. Where the hell had they been anyway?

  “Started without us? That’s a bit rude,” Timon said as he looked around the room. “Who’re the new guys?”

  “I’ll explain later. What did you learn?” Mel asked.

  “That even with Chip, the bus does not have enough mana for quick trips around this planet right now,” Timon said, eliciting a glare from Mel. “Oh, you meant about the orcs. Yeah, you were right. I was wrong. Most of them stuck around and are either fighting it out with some of the humans or going underground. Literally, this planet has a pretty big network of caves,” Timon answered. Did we? There were a lot of caves all over, but I didn’t think we had a ton of major connections between them. Then again, spelunking wasn’t something I’d ever had much interest in. I preferred camping under the trees.

  “How many groups did ya find still on the surface?” Mel asked.

  “At least five, though Sanquar is convinced there’s something weird going on on the southernmost continent,” Timon answered. Southernmost? Did he mean Antarctica?

  “Weird, how?” Mel asked.

  “There’s an energy source in Antarctica, but I don’t think it’s connected to the orcs. I’m not sure what it is exactly. It doesn’t seem possible for a dungeon to already be forming, which leaves me out of guesses,” Sanquar answered.

  “To be clear, this wasn’t here before the orc invasion, right?” I asked. I couldn’t see how it could be, but I didn’t want to overlook that possibility.

  “No, well, if it was, it didn’t make itself known until their invasion started,” Sanquar answered. It wasn’t the most reassuring of answers, but it would have to do.

  “Well, add that onto the potential shit pile. Fer now, we’ll focus on the certain shit pile. Here’s how we’re playing the rest of the Arena. Tomorrow, y’all get a day off, and we do the meetings like I said, we need to put together some good profiles. The next day, yer gonna start taking out the big orc encampments on the surface. I doubt it’ll be much of a problem, but this is gonna be more about learning how ya function as a team. Once that’s done, it’s back to the Arena for two floors. Any questions?” Mel finished his eyes darting around the room, looking at every set of eyes in turn.

  “Still the same ones as last time. I really want a core,” Maud said when Mel’s eyes hit hers, garnering a chuckle from the perpetually angry man. Maud had somehow graduated to Timon levels with Mel, and I had no idea how she had pulled that off other than by being herself.

  “If you’re going out to take down the rest of the orcs, or at least as many as you can, I want to come with you. I’ll stay on the bus, but I need to see how bad things are,” Alex said when Mel got to her. It wasn’t the worst idea. She was likely entirely safe on board.

  “Oh, we’re all going. All the newcomers to this world need to get an idea of what it’s like, and the rest of ya need to tell me how bad shit has gotten while they do the fightin’,” Mel explained calmly. Was he just gentler with all the humans that weren’t me?

  “Not to be too self-interested here, but did we ever decide on how to handle the soul knots within some of us?” Rabyn asked. Oh yeah, I had entirely derailed that part of the conversation, hadn’t I?

  “Thought I made it clear, ain’t anything we can do as of now. If any of ya encounter a jester, run, best thing ya can do now until we can find a way to break whatever hold they managed to get into ya,” Mel answered matter of factly, ending that line of questions.

  “I’m exhausted, and I’m sure Cecile feels the same. It’s been an extremely taxing day, so if this is the end of the discussion for now, we’re heading to the bus,” Elicec said once Mel finally reached the twinoges. Now that he said it, I felt the waves of exhaustion break over me as well. This was the hardest I had pushed myself outside of simulations, and the fact that I was still going was a testament to my own growth in power.

  “Yeah, y’all need the sleep. I assume the only spare space is in the bus for sleeping, so everyone who doesn’t already have a bed, follow me,” Mel said as he floated towards the door, officially ending tonight’s discussions.

  Gnomes as a whole are hard to describe in the Spiral. It’s almost like when some species refer to all things in the water as fish or all large plants with bark as trees, but a bit stranger when you consider how much gnomes resemble a thousand other species and yet can still easily be identified as a kind of gnome by most they encounter. The main unifying trait seems to be an inherent curiosity in at least one lifelong passion.

  The Varied Peoples of the Spiral by Krrtck

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