A Bar a Vampire and the Apocalypse

Nothing of note happened Sunday. The day went as expected with me finishing the spares with the twins and Edward. As to be expected they did much worse without the things their classes relied on. This once again hammered home the power of skills to me.

Most of the latter part of the day was spent setting up a makeshift stage in front of the dungeon tree, which made for a rather dramatic backdrop. We also once again set up the bar to be kid friendly so those that brought families could leave them in the bar. Of course there would be supervision. Both for those that have already unlocked the system and for those on the younger side.

Monday morning came around and we all found ourselves back at the makeshift meeting table. With Sarah going over what we agree on for things we wanted to address before we took questions.

“First off the dungeon. We will explain the dungeon master’s rules for the dungeon and then our own rules such as only let those Vivi see as fit to fight to be let in the dungeon and in no less the groups of 5 along with how deep it is safe for people to roam on the first floor. Second, we will pay people up to a certain amount to bring back good meat to be butchered. We will have a notice daily of how much we are looking for.

As for edible plants to eat, we will hold off on that until we can gather samples of different plants to be able to post quests to gather things for our food.” Sarah looked up from her notes to nodes then continued.

“Next we will be hiring a number of people. The job list is carpenters, engineers of all kinds, electricians, plumbers, any kind of handyman, those with farming and herb experience, any kind of I.T. experience, brewing and alcohol crafting, blacksmiths, tailors or people with cloth making experience, leather workers, cooks, anyone with military or combat training or those that can also teach combat training, people with water gathering or creation magic and finally anyone with an interesting class. Did I miss anything?” Sarah looked up again, everyone shook their heads. I spoke up to say something.

“I would like to add that we do not know if the U.S. dollar will be worth much in the long run. So I would like to make a currency to give out along with normal payment. With that being the case if there are any economic or accounting majors in the group it would not be a bad idea to maybe not hire them now but keep them on call. Creating a currency is both a hard and delicate thing that I would like to have a strong handle on if we end up using it in the long run.”

Everyone looked thoughtful at my proposition. The first to speak up was Samantha.

“What would this currency be backed by? For the U.S. it is the confidence in the government and I can see why it might not be worth much in the near future. But what will ours be backed by? Your protection or power?” I smiled and answered.

“The dungeon.'' A few people's eyes widened at that. I continued. “At some point if things go well everyone will want to go into the dungeon. But we can't have everyone in there all the time. So my thought is that after things are under control the only way in the dungeon will be to pay a fee that can only be paid by the currency that we give out. By doing this we can even control the amount of currency in the system. If we need to remove currency for the system we raise the price of entry, if we need to stimulate the economy we can lower the price of entry. Along with us being the primary buyers of things coming out of the dungeon and being the origin of the currency we can control it that way as well. By doing it this way we will never need to levy taxes.

There are a handful of other benefits as well. I’m not sure what a lot of the downsides are. That is why I want the economics and accounting majors to help us look into this. We will not announce what the currency will be used for yet and even say that we might not end up using it. Say it is just an extra way to show that you have been paid should something happen. So if the economist and we all think it will be a bad idea we can just scrap it at any time.”

Everyone went into quiet compilation for a bit then turned to each other and started discussing. From what I gathered from the discussion most of them thought that it could be a good idea but did not know how to go about it or if it was possible to make it work out.

Edward eventually spoke up.

“The big thing with something like this is price control. Like you said, assuming all things go well we will be able to control inflation by how much we pay for items and how much we charge for entrance to the dungeon. But at the same time we would have to be smart about this because too much change could make people angry. We will also be the only source for such money and before it can get widespread we may end up with problems of there just not being enough currency in circulation.”

Nodding, I answered. “That is why we will not use it but pass it out for a while. People may by themselves start to use it for trade. Especially if the dollar starts to collapse. As for the price control. I may have a lot of money but I am by no means an expert in it. Most of my money is just the fact that I spent less than I made for most of my life and once banks and such came into being I was able to make money from the interest and investments in businesses.

I may be old but know that no one person can learn everything. Well at least before the system came around. New things would be discovered just as fast as you can learn about them. Thought with age comes wisdom and the ability to better see patterns and such.”

Edward nodded and said. “With that being said we should prioritize the economist and such. We will need them to help us start handing out this currency. We don't want to start handing it out in the wrong way to start and have to fix the mess down the line if it could be prevented.”

Everyone agreed with this. There were a couple comments about naming the currency but we decided to put that off for now.

“Sorry for interrupting you Sarah, please continue.” She nodded and continued

“We will be setting up a food vender of some kind here. Due to the fact that most of the food providers are low on food or no longer making shipments we will be butchering the meat we get out of the dungeon from both those going in and what Vivi and the combat crew will bring out. Me and Vivi will be doing the butchering for the time being but Ana and Maria I would like both of you to be with us when we do and learn. Seeing as you two are the ones that are going to be primarily cooking it. It might also help with your leveling.” Both the cooks stated their agreement and Sarah moved on.

“We will also be stating we will be purchasing traditional weapons and the like. Swords daggers combat knives maces etc. From what I have gathered online firearms in the hands of someone without a class to boost them like Todd's seems to be unnaturally weaker than they should. While weapons that derive their killing ability from solely the craft of the weapon and skill of the user such as a combat knife are just as effective as normal, and with the system even more so in some cases.”

“Lastly we will be doing our best to both buy and or gain control of all the nearby land and begin to renovate it to better accommodate people that want to move closer. Both creating work and living space. But this is a long term plan. Does anyone have anything to add?”

Angie raised her hand. I acknowledged her and she spoke. “We should also ask for teachers of all levels. There are going to be a lot of kids out of school and we will need to keep them learning. Even if it is not how we did school before we need to keep them both occupied and learning. Parents will also be able to be more involved Because of the fact that a lot of them are not going into work.”

“Great point Angie, that's my girl.” Alex said, giving his daughter a light pat on the back. She blushed and said. “Come on dad, not in the meeting.” He just smiled.

Cameron spoke up next. “I don't know if all skills with the same name act the same with each person or similarly but we should inventory all the skills we can and document them. Maybe even make a place where we can have people experiment with them so they can learn to use them and we can learn about them and maybe how they got them. This goes for classes too.

I'm sure there are going to be a lot of people with the same classes at the lower rarity. I believe it is the same to assume the classes do not get more unique until you hit at least advanced as the twins Sarah and Vivi are great examples of this. Think about the names of the classes we all have. Apprentice tailor, Carpenter, Rifleman they are all simple and very clear on what they are. But look at the twins Gemini Martial artist. Now that is a name, it is less one dimensional of a name.

This is also important for the long term. As we all know we have the ticking time bomb that is the dungeon. In this we need to know how to best increase the power level of the people around us and how to best use their skills. The faster we learn this the faster we can improve. In another long term goal. If we become a place of knowledge ignoring the pull of the dungeon we will get more people looking to learn and trade information.”

There were a few dropped jaws at Cameron. What she brought up was well thought out. She must have been thinking about that for a while and with Angie bringing up teaching she must have thought now was the time to bring it up.

I clapped a bit, smiled at Cameron and said “That was well said Cameron. I have said it quite a few times before but this is why I asked all of you to help me. I would have never thought about doing something quite like that. Maybe it would have come to mind later but at that point it might have been too late.”

There were a couple confused looks at my words. So I continued.

“After the basic fear of the unknown washed away and people started to gather power they would most likely less likely to share information about their classes and skills especially if they found something unique but if we start with a culture of sharing this information now and helping them learn how to use the skill when they do more people both now and in the future will be willing to share. That's not to discount that Cameron is completely right about needing to help people be the most effective that they can be and help them level.

This also brings up another point I would like to ask you all about. The dungeon breaks and raids for the time being are not something we need to worry about but when they do what will we tell the people and how will we get them from leaving the area?”

Carl spoke up this time. “I believe that is one of those, tomorrow us problems. While we can try to come up with some basic plans in the near future for all we know they will go out the window depending on how people find out. Will they find out by the break happening? Will they find out do to the system announcing it in the phase they will begin to happen? We can make plans based on some of the possibilities but for right now it is not something we should worry about.”

The table was in agreement for the most part. So we left that for as Carl said tomorrow us.

To wrap up the meeting and finish the prep for the town hall I did a quick summary.

“So in summary I will be announcing that we will let people in the dungeon at my discretion along with both the basic rules of the dungeon from the dungeon master and my personal rules. We will be buying some amount of meat out of the dungeon. We will be looking for a number of people with a variety of skills to hire, mostly looking for those in the trades. Next alongside paying with normal U.S. dollars we will also in the near future be paying alongside that a custom currency that for the time being will have no value. It will mostly be in place as a backup should the worst happen and the U.S. dollar fall. And maybe be used for other things in the future but that is not dissipated yet.

Next do to the soon to be lack of food we will begin making food for the general public at a discount using the meat we gather from the dungeon. Next we will be in the market for weapons of all kinds with emphasis on non firearm weapons. Next we will announce we will try to start up a school for both minors and those trying to learn about their skills. Did I miss anything?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“In that case meeting adjourned.” Everyone got up and got to work.