Chapter 49: Council Meeting, Pt. 2

  With the first big decision out of the way, the next biggest choice faced them next; the specialisation of the town-central building they were sitting in. It was perhaps more important than the town specialisation considering they had two options to decide upon that would provide bonuses. Thoughts and discussions about synergy went back and forth between the council and their honoured guests, the experts in their fields.

  “If we’re talking synergistic relationship between the three different bonuses, then we have no choice but to choose faith and management!”

  Grace stood upright, having risen from her chair moments ago, even before her demeanour heated. Her voice was sharp and almost maternal, as if to teach her children—or young flock, rather—a lesson.

  The alternatives were the same as those the building was designed for, with the added option of faith that had come out of nowhere as a bonus, likely for the building itself surrounding the effigy that stood in its centre.

  Hospitality, crafting, brewing, trading, management, and faith. Choosing two of them wasn’t the hard part; choosing four to throw in the trash was much more difficult.

  “Considering Sigil Lake being a dungeon town now, the most synergistic approach would be hospitality and either tradin’ or brewin’!”

  Wen rose just then, hands planting themselves upon the table between them with a smack.

  “Show your work,” Grace said with a thin-lipped smile.

  “Easy!” said the hostess. “I know my dungeon delvers and adventurers; there’s nothing that pleases them more than a nice ale or some fancy wine they haven’t been able to afford before. Treat’em right, and they might stay for another few days, go through the dunge again. Treat’em right and proper, and they’ll even return come winter when the spiced abble cider is in season!”

  “Spiced abble cider?” Grace frowned.

  “I’ve got plans for this place, Grace, don’t you go distrustin’ that! It just so happens that bein’ a dungeon town is the best and quickest way to get there. Travellers are willin’ to pay for room and board, of course, should the price be fair and the roof not leakin’, but adventurers? Dungeoneers? They’re payin’ premium.”

  One could hear how worked up Wen was about this by the fact her dialect changed, going wider for every sentence she uttered before calming herself down again with a huff of sharp air.

  “Going the other way, toward faith and management, we won’t need to just stand here and hope enough dungeoneers will come by us naturally. If it’s your brewing you’re worried about, the Church of the Scorned Witch can choose to have its faithful drink and abble cider a day, not just to keep the doctor away, but to prove their loyalty to the church and the Witch. As a town, we of the council have all the power to make alcohol the primary pastime if we so wish—more so if we’ve bonuses to go with it.”

  Theo was taken aback by the calm manner of speaking, especially considering the unveiled meaning behind her words. Was she saying the council could force alcohol down the villagers’ throats? Would the followers of a church guzzle what they had to in order to keep favour with their church? Was this legal? Was it normal?

  “And think of the effigy. There is no higher incentive than to go hard towards faith with an effigy of the Witch herself; one that Arcana has created for us, no less! She wants this; she’s telling us that we should embrace her at any opportunity!”

  “Where was that argument when we decided on the town’s specialisation?” Wen snickered.

  “I had to save it for the most opportune time. That is now.”

  “We’re sure we don’t know what kinds of bonuses to expect?” asked Theo, hoping to get the girls’ bickering under control.

  “As we’ve said—”

  “There’s none of you who have been in a government position before…” Theo sighed. He was taking his system for granted again. He mixed what the system could do and what the world was capable of, like telling them they’d been recruited to a brand-new town because they offered their services through a book of some kind. “But not as much as an idea?”

  His fellows shook their heads. Then, Theo considered it a different way; what bonuses were usually available in a small town? One would be the town’s specialisation, but what of the others? He asked.

  “Some bonuses might affect a wider area of the town, maybe even all of it, but most building-related bonuses are contained within the building itself, or some small distance away from it,” said Hank Hankersson. He was saying they had rarely spent any amount of time in a town-central building, which were usually town halls.

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  “Okay. I guess we should ignore the bonuses again and keep on this trail of synergies.” He shrugged.

  Sitting back down in a gesture of good faith, Wen eyed Grace before the cleric did the same, though slower and more hesitant.

  “We could take a simple vote,” said the brewer. “All of us choose two specialisations, and the two with the most votes in the end win. We could sit here and talk synergistic effects all we like, but in the end, it’s all just a waste of time. Sorry, Theo, Willam, for lashing out before.”

  “That idea is as good as any,” Willam agreed.

  “Then we’ll do that. Julie, will you keep count for us? Hank, Bella, your voices should matter in this,” said Theo.

  “I’ll keep count,” Hank said. “Julie’s voice would better reflect the true workforce of the town. I trust my wife’s vote more than my own, anyway.”

  “Should we each take a vote outside, with Hank? No peer pressure of sitting in a tight space like this?” The question was from Willam.

  They agreed. One by one, the council members left the room to give their votes to Hank, coming back inside the council chamber in near silence so as not to impact the decision of the others. As a council matter, they couldn’t rely on this method forever—talking their cases and making others see it their way was all a part of it—but this was a tough decision to make. There was no right choice, nor were there wrong ones. A vote fit.

  Finally, after everyone’s brief time-out, Hank returned behind Bella, the last to put her vote in. He walked to stand front and centre, clearing his throat before speaking up:

  “Six of you, and twelve votes. I’ve tallied them. Should you want to keep your votes a secret?”

  Most shrugged, but Theo and Wen both shook their heads. Hank nodded a quick nod and continued:

  “Falling behind in last place, with just one vote each, are hospitality and crafting. I can tell you; this was a close race with three ties regarding number of votes: two threes up top, two twos in the middle and these two lowly ones below.”

  “Stop the drama and theatrics,” Grace complained.

  Hank laughed. “Julie, I’m sorry to say you didn’t win with a single vote. Crafting and Faith both lost out.” He continued building the unnecessary tension.

  Faith was out of the running along with crafting and hospitality. It must’ve received two votes, so Julie and…No, wait. Theo had also voted for faith! If Julie and Theo voted for faith, then Grace didn’t? He eyed her with suspicion, but her focus remained glued to Hank.

  “Wen, I’m happy to say, you hit the mark just right; the winners, with three votes each, are brewing and trading.”

  Wen beamed in her glorious victory, rubbing it in Grace’s face while she could. Theo had also voted for brewing. His reasons were both the dungeon and the effigy—brewing cider from the higher-quality abbles from the dungeon was a given, and though they could trade the finished product, exclusivity might be better than prosperous trade. As for faith, there was no way the effigy wouldn’t provide some sort of boost to whatever bonus the building provided. He could feel it in his gut. But now, he would never know.

  Grace took the rousing with a graceful look in Wen’s direction as Theo looked around the room. Julie’s votes had been revealed in their entirety, as had Wen’s, the two who either hit the mark, or missed. Everyone else had one win, one loss. Eight votes, and he knew his own, brewing and faith. Six more to go. The two specialisations in second place were faith and management, considering the two in third place: crafting and hospitality. He didn’t have enough information to go on. Theo bumped Willam’s side, asking what he voted on.

  “Management and trade.”

  Four to go; Grace’s votes and Bella’s. One of them had voted for management, while the other for hospitality, then. It couldn’t be just one; that would make them lose both, like Julie had. Theo noticed Hank’s gleeful expression as the builder watched the founding council member math his way through this election. He ignored it.

  Grace was almost as adamant about management as she was faith. Supposing she voted somewhat as Theo had first expected, she’d vote for that, so Bella would have to have chosen trading. The last pieces of the puzzle were falling in place; two votes left, but with Grace’s one vote missing, Theo couldn’t make sense of the remaining choices. Either Grace voted for hospitality…or brewing. That couldn’t be right. He had to have thought wrong somewhere, made an error.

  He recounted every vote, placing them back with their voter. The only way he could be mistaken was if Grace hadn’t voted for management, but hospitality. Was that right? Was that better? Not at all. Each of those options was antithetical to Grace herself, or rather her attitude towards Wen. And then, like a gentle breeze blowing past his ears, a soft voice caressed him, its touch so light he almost didn’t sense it. The voice was Bella’s—she was chatting with Julie in the room’s corner.

  “Trading and hospitality.”

  “You voted brewing!”

  Theo rose, pushing his chair back, his hand pointing straight at Grace’s calm demeanour even as Wen kept teasing her. Wen froze; her own finger pointed at the hazel-haired priestess.

  “You what?”

  “She voted brewing! There’s no other explanation. She voted management and brewing!” He was sure of his words, and Grace’s lack of surprise in her expression, but a devilish smile in its stead, was the last stroke of the hammer. The nail was in.

  Grace smiled a polite smile, altering her better-than-thou demeanour ever so little. “Maybe I did.”

  “But if you chose brewing,” Wen said, and Theo expected her dialect would soon come rushing back in full force. “Then…Faith would’ve won out if you hadn’t.”

  “Faith and trade? Not too connected with each other. There are better unions of specialisations for this building,” Grace explained without really explaining.

  “You say that as if you knew trade would win.”

  “I’m a bit surprised Julie didn’t vote for trading herself—I didn’t take you for being pious.”

  “And I didn’t take you for a drinker,” countered the blood-haired Lumberlord.

  The cleric’s smile widened, her teeth showing. “I’m expecting great brews from Wen’s work, not least with Theo’s garden crops as ingredients and the dungeon’s rewards.”

  “But why remove faith as your choice?” Theo asked.

  “Easy. This isn’t a church, Theo. Do you know what would be even better than this building, despite its surrounding the effigy of the deity in which a church should be raised? A church that is designed for the Scorned Witch from scratch, placed right in the shadow of the divine.” Grace’s smile widened as she revealed her plans. “I can wait,” she added as she eyed the builders.