Chapter 50: Chapter 49: Faction Size 26/50

“I’m pretty sure I’m human. Every purity test came back positive, I had to do a lot of them after my plus became common knowledge.” Carl chuckled.

“Yeah, didn’t they even do a stem cell scraping your first year? Dude, I still remember how hard Klaire hit me after nudging you.” Gillian laughed.

“Yeah, she was not happy. I think she was just picking up on mum’s, Lydia’s and Danielle’s tension.”

Carl laughed about it then asked if contracts were ready to sign. “Yeah, we also have occupational clauses. I am not happy about how we have already got used to the admin nightmare that is your build.” Alysse laughed as she started spreading out contracts.

Carl gave them a cursory skim read, then his face dropped. “Hey guys, can I talk to you in private please.”

When they had moved away from the others, Carl asked why they were imposing conditions, that to him seemed extravagant.

“Look, we have a lot of territory, rich in resources yes, but no way or knowledge on how to extract them. If we don’t plan ahead we could end up watching people starve.” Gillian stated the situation in a way that Carl knew he was right.

“Fine, you’re right. So we need to focus on securing and processing.” Carl muttered, making the others sigh.

“Don’t be an idiot, survey and analysis still comes first, that’s why we wrote in preliminary survey responsibilities to speed up the process and get at least a few surveys completed before we move them into long-term vocations.” Alysse grumbled.

“Carl, please try and have some faith in us, we aren’t trying to abuse those signing on. We’ve actually discussed contributions we need to start making as well. We might be your friends, but we can’t just leech of you and wait until you ask for stuff.”

“Guys, stop okay. I get why, trust me I felt the same with my mums. I don’t want to start operating and acting as lofty as the committee though.”

“Carl, hate to say it but you are the same as the committee…” Everyone tensed as Gillian spoke, they knew it had just come out wrong, but they also understood why the air was filled with a loud cracking noise as Carl’s fist connected with his jaw. “Fuck! Carl, just let me finish before you hit me!”

“You better speak quickly then.” Carl’s voice was frozen and his eyes locked on Gillian with violent intent.

“You are the ruling class here! That means you have to act like it! You can’t just expect everyone to get along all the time and you can’t expect everyone to only take what they need. I’m saying you have to set the rules and make it clear who the leader is. Too slack and it will become survival of the fittest and too strict and you will

be just like the committee.” He added the last bit as he rubbed his jaw, driving the point home.

“Sorry, I should have let you finish, but seriou-” He spoke as he extended a hand to help Gillian up.

“Carl you’re the last person that gets to complain about people’s phrasing.” Gillian’s response came as he was getting up.

“If you two are done with the lover’s tiff, can we go get these contracts signed. We need to get ready for Daniel’s family, register wavelengths, Carl needs to build housing, then we need to go through orientation.” Blanc said as he stretched two fingers for every item.

“Why two fingers for each job?” Carl asked after he, Alysse and Gillian spent time looking at each other in regards to his dubious counting.

“Because somehow you building housing will be the quickest item on the damn agenda, Mr. I’m gonna go claim half the damn cosmos.” Blanc ranted, a bit more frustrated about the scale of every little task than he realised.

“Well if it’s any consolation my week just got busy too.” Carl muttered, a prime example of the same vagueness that had robbed him of the right to complain about Gillian’s phrasing.

As Carl went through and began signing conflicts, back in the misty village and birthplace of the Bashe clan, Klaire found herself bombarded with messages as she tried to eat dinner.

[ SOPHIE HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ DANIEL HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ CALLUM HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ PHOEBIE HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ ALAN HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ JAMES HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ CONNOR HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ CRAIG HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ MARK HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ ANNE HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ LOUISE HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ HANNAH HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ PHILIP HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ MARY HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

[ SAMANTHA HAS JOINED THE HOUSEHOLD ]

Taken completely by surprise, Klaire dropped her cutlery and gripped her head as she fumed about Carl not warning her. It obviously confused them, but not enough for them to not find it amusing enough to make his inevitable punishment worse.

Back on Mirage, as everyone was recovering from the “What do you mean? Klaire send another message?”

“No, but I need to create storage armlets linked to a central bank for every member. I also realised I need a chief of HR and I want them to be a chimera as similar to Equinox as possible.”

The other three laughed. “Oh right, nothing says “human resources” like a dragon. Hahaha!” Alysse managed to wheeze out through the whiplash the sudden bout of hysterics gave her.

“I meant in terms of temperament. Level-headed and as human as possible. We could ask that half-angel for a few feathers.”

“Why? I already have some.” Alysse’s announcement caught the boys off-guard. “What? I asked him for some to make a pillow.”

“Typical Alysse, blind to anyone but Carl and Klaire…” Gillian muttered with a laugh.

“I better send him a message and let him know Alysse isn’t interested and ask his permission.” Blanc finished as they headed back to Lugaria to sort receive Daniel’s family and register wavelengths.

After that Carl had a big decision to make, which world to sacrifice for purely residential use. The future would almost certainly involve residential buildings on every controlled world eventually, but keeping everyone together at this stage was preferable, so no one felt disconnected from the faction.

Lugaria was operational HQ, Mirage was Diplomatic HQ, their beast keeping HQ was destined for Lunelia, Archyon was going to be the home of the re-established fox-kin and Carl hadn’t even named the other worlds.

“Let’s head to the map room after, maybe we can narrow it down from there.” Carl finally said.

“Yeah, I’m kinda glad the extra manpower means we can get all the surveys finished up. We obviously can’t keep Daniel’s family at HQ, so I suggest splitting them into three. We can have them split down the middle pretty much.” Gillian mused, the ever persistent chasm-dwarf had made it his mission to pester him for a complete list of available resources.

“I know that families like theirs and Klaire’s have different branches, but how many are we actually getting? I trust you guys enough to sign the contracts in advance…”

“Actually there’s over fifty coming, Lillim would blow a gasket if we signed on that much “dead weight she needs to beat into shape”, so Gillian had the idea to make family cell contracts. They won’t be faction members, but they will be bound to the core tenants of the faction under the member’s contract…” Blanc trailed off at the end, not wanting to take a punch like Gillian.

“What? I promise, I won’t hit you, you’re not as hittable as Gillian.”

“If any particular cell violates the rules three times, the whole group will have every memory from the time of signing erased and they will be barred from ever entering our territory again.” Blanc finished his earlier statement as matter-of-factly as he could.

“Sounds harsh, but not unreasonable, can someone give me a good reason for that level of punishment.”

“We don’t have the manpower to police everyone, only faction members can be assigned a pet, which is really the only believable witness we’ll have in a situation that doesn’t cause a contractual violation.” Alysse explained, as she gestured to tell Carl he needed to get a move on with the pets.

“Okay, okay, I get it. I need to focus on one thing at a time. On that subject, Gillian, honestly… How is it going with Sitter?”

“Honestly mate, I failed, I understand how much effort you put into getting on so well with them. I thought it was just natural because you created them, but then I saw you during your “family meeting” with the dragons.You don’t force it or even know them, you take the time to get to and comprise and stand your ground… I think the best thing to do, would be to reassign him to Kon, they get on like a house on fire.”

“Will do. I’ll have to reevaluate my plan though, seems you need a pet with a personality you can bounce off rather than cover each other’s weaknesses. Blanc, I know you’re about to be much busier as a realm gate technician, I want you to pick a team from the new starters to have one person at each station. Alysse, I want you and sophie focused on maintenance schedules, then the same, get a team you think can get the job done.”

“Do I get a team too?”

“No, you get to keep slugging away, you already have the dragons as emissaries and I want it to stay that way for now with pets fulfilling that role. I do want you to find a human to act on the human front when the time comes, but I will be handling that personally for the most part, so they will basically be free to act as your PA.”

“Sounds good, now I can I make a suggestion for the residential world?”

“Sure…”

Gillian swiped a hand to a desert world that was almost entirely the same as Earth, but was richer in resources. “I know, we’re sacrificing a lot in terms of resources for the time being, but thinking ahead it makes the most sense.”

“I agree, I was thinking the same to be honest, It will feel familiar and has enough variety that most races can find a place to call home and I can tweak certain areas without burning through my DIV.” Carl looked to the other two who just gestured that they didn’t have an opinion on the matter.

“Well I guess this planet is our faction’s new home. You get to name it Boss.

“I’ll just call it Haven, I don’t care enough about names at this point, I’m sick of it… In fact, start a poll, I want everyone to come up with names for worlds and people can vote on what sounds good and whichever has the most votes when the time comes will be used.”

“That is so lazy…” Alysse grumbled.

“Hey! I have to name, species, pets, chimeras and who knows what else when the time comes. I am all named out.” They all laughed at that and then made the name “Haven” official and then Carl collected the dragons and Kitsunoko before heading off.

[ FACTION WIDE MESSAGE RECEIVED FROM CARL : OFFICIALLY HAVE A FACTION HOMEWORLD, PLEASE SEND A LIST OF ANY IMMEDIATE HOUSING PREFERENCES AND REQUIREMENTS. NOTHING EXTRAVAGANT AS INITIAL HOUSING WILL BE ABANDONED WHEN PLANETARY SURVEY IS FINISHED AND TRANSPORT MAKES BRANCHING OUT VIABLE. I WILL SEND ANOTHER MESSAGE WHEN THE TIME COMES AND FACTION CHIEFS AND ADVISORS WILL BE GRANTED PERMISSION AND BUDGET FOR EVERYONE. ]

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