"You should have killed him," Becky said, leaning forward and dipping a chunk of bread into her bowl of stew. "I know you're not super combat focused, but I'll bet you could have done it easily enough. Once you had him paralyzed, just a quick dagger pop into the jugur, and he's done." Bridgette mimed stabbing someone in the throat, her ample chest rising with the motion. Bridgette was dressed - and often acted - like a crazed Viking warrior woman. She wore a chainmail bikini, scarcely more than a narrow strip between her legs, and small triangles connected by a small chain covering her chest. Her red hair, braided ornately, hung down her back. She wore calf-length leather boots, easily the rgest amount of skin anywhere on her body actually covered from the elements. Bridgette's outfit was actually a shape-changing battle dress, one she could alter the appearance of to suit her whims, while still retaining all of its benefits. For the st four months, Bridgette had decided she was a Viking warrior and cimed she was in her 'Red Sonja Era,' to everyone's exasperated sighs.

  Alice sighed, gncing at her lover. "That sets a bad example, B. If I just killed everyone who disagreed with me, that would be not be a good thing for the town. Nobody wants to live in a dictatorship." Alice looked around the table for confirmation. She sat at the table with Bridgette, Colin, Kyle, and Becky, the friends eating a te dinner, a pot of chicken stew and two loaves of bread in front of them to share.

  "I don't know, it's your town. You quite literally get to make the rules. Seems okay to me," the busty warrior shrugged in reply.

  Colin leaned forward, pouring himself some more soup from a central pot. He nodded his thanks towards Becky, who sat next to him, Kyle on her other side. "This is really tasty, thanks Becks!" Becky blushed in return.

  Kyle rubbed his nose with his remaining hand. Alice had immediately healed both him and Becky, but sometimes the mind remembered being injured, even once the magic had removed the pain. "I think Alice was right, even if I'd love to agree with you, Bridgette. What you guys say goes, that's the w of might-makes-right in addition to the fact that it's quite literally your farm, but if we want to keep bringing people here, we need to be fair to them. Obviously, I don't want to get punched by any more idiots who think they own the pce, but if we executed him, then new people would be a lot more hesitant to show up, wondering if they could get executed for disagreeing with you."

  Bridgette pointed at Kyle, "Yea, but they can get executed. If I was there and that fuckwit started spouting off to Alice, I'd have killed him right there. Quick and easy."

  Alice patted Bridgette on the arm. "I appreciate your eager defense of me, but no. That's the point. I'm a big girl," Bridgette chuckled at the innuendo, "and I can take an insult or two from some idiot. Even if he tried getting handsy, I can take care of myself. Things like rape or murder? Sure, execution. But I just have a really hard time jumping to capital punishment for beating someone up. I'm not sure if exile was the right call, but it's not like we want to get into the jail business, either."

  "Where did this guy come from, anyway?" Colin wondered. "I hadn't heard of anyone new being brought in for a while, and I didn't think either Jacob's team or Travis's team were roaming far from the farm these days."

  "I'm not sure," Becky said. "He wandered into the tavern where I was working on dinner, said he was new to town, and started his shit. I had assumed he came in with one of the patrol squads, but I also never got around to asking. Where are those two, anyway?"

  "Jacob and his guys went down to what's left of Defiance yesterday, pnning on sweeping the surrounding area. They're all getting really close to Level 3 and think there's still a few more packs of kobolds they clean up. I told them to be home by Sunday regardless, so that's three more days, sooner if they level." Bridgette tried to avoid most responsibilities around the town, but one area she willingly embraced was organizing the crews of adventurers. She loved finding them tasks, helping teach them combat tactics, and watching their growth. Alice teased her that if Bridgette kept acting like a proud mother every time the teams came back in, someone would get the wrong idea.

  "Travis took his team, and they were scouting to the west. He's really hit it off with that new girl, one of the ones from Denison, can't remember her name, and they have another couple with them. They were scouting along the river, I think. I told them to be back in a week and not to get too distracted out there. But yea, you're right. Neither team has found any new survivors in a while, so I'm really confused at where this Warren asshole came from to just walk into our town."

  "That's a little troubling," Colin mused. "I know we've done a pretty good job making this area safe, and that not everyone we've found has wanted to join our community, but the idea that now there's at least one person out there who knows where our vilge is and doesn't like us? Not great, B. Not to mention we still have the issue of Daniel and Karen who went missing during the troll fight st year. Nobody's heard or seen anything from them since."

  Bridgette nodded, "And that's why I'd have killed him." Alice spped her face with her palm.

  "I just told you why we can't do that."

  "Yea yea, I'm just saying. Easier."

  The friends all chuckled, Bridgette's love for simplistic and violent solutions having grown legendary over the previous year. Luckily, Alice was around to moderate her urges and keep the taller girl from going all murderhobo.

  "So how close are you guys to leveling anyway," Kyle asked, changing the subject. "It's been months, right? You've got to be getting close."

  "Well, we're not entirely sure, but I think I've managed to measure the change and growth of experience around a soul with a particur type of magical resonation detection device that I invented. It's actually quite ingenious," Colin began. "Did you know that each soul has experience particles clustered around it? And then as you take certain key actions, those experience particles are drawn into the soul and absorbed."

  "Like flies to a ball of shit," Alice quipped. Colin gred at her.

  "Ahem, no. But by traveling the world, you draw more of these experience particles in around you, thus making it easier for keys actions to trigger the soul absorption process. I've theorized that by remaining in a single area, there is the potential for draining or at least depleting the ambient experience particles, which would then obviously make it harder for you to absorb them into your soul, even if you did perform significant deeds. Also, by depleting the concentration of experience particles in an area, you make it harder for everyone else to gain them, as the area is essentially barren."

  Kyle blinked, realizing that Colin had stopped talking and was waiting for a reply. "That's uh, really cool, dude. Great job. Very ... science."

  "Why thank you, Kyle," Colin continued. "But to answer your question, I believe that I am close to cracking the science behind an 'experience bar' or 'progress meter', as it were. If I'm correct, and of course I estimate with about 98% accuracy that I am correct, there are certain resonance frequencies and at different waypoints through the course of a level, the experience particles change in frequency. If my theory is correct, which we won't know until we've gained at least one more level, possibly two, then I would believe right now that Alice, Bridgette, and me are approximately 25% of the way towards Level 8, but that our rate of growth has drastically slowed due to the ck of significant threats in this area."

  The entire table turned suddenly, as a snore came from Bridgette. The girl had leaned back in her chair, her eyes were closed, and a trail of drool ran down from her mouth. She was quite clearly asleep, Colin's technical expnation having been too much for her to handle.

  "Ahem, anyway..." Colin said, sheepishly. "I wish we were closer, but we really do need to get out and explore and find new challenges. We've been pretty stagnant here."

  Alice nodded, interjecting, "It's been awesome for the town's stability to have us around, but I worry that other folks have been making a lot more progress than we have. We know that the world got issued the demand to grow strong and protect it, and I'd rather it be us than anyone else, so we need to make sure we're the strongest around, not letting others pass us by. I was going to mention it this weekend, but I suppose now's as good of a time as any, but the three of us were going to wait until Jacob and Travis's adventure teams are back, and then we're going to head out on a longer trip of our own, probably a month or two."

  Becky and Kyle gnced back and forth, surprised. Becky asked, "You guys are going to be gone for two months? That's such a long time..."

  "I know, but it's something we need to do to gain strength, plus it'll help us find more resources." Alice sighed, knowing it was going to be a difficult conversation. "I can delegate town mayor duties to you both while I'm gone, and I'll leave the map here, so you'll have all the details for running the show that I normally do. You're honestly way better at it than me, anyway. And when Jacob and Travis get back, you'll have nine adventurers, hopefully most of them level 3, to keep the town safe. The farm is doing great, you've got what - ten or so more non-combat folks who help with chores these days?"

  Becky sighed, agreeing. "Okay, I see your point. I don't love it, but part of me has known you guys need to get out there and keep fighting. Just don't forget about little old us."

  Alice smiled, her cheeks dimpling. "I could never! You guys are our home and honestly, without you here, we'd never feel comfortable enough to do it. So thank you for being so great. Now let me help you clean up, this meal was delicious."

  Kyle, Colin, Becky, and Alice stood and cleared the ptes, emptying the food scraps into a compost bucket. Alice stood at the door, wishing her friends a good night as they walked back out to their homes. For a long minute after they were gone, Alice kept looking at out at the vilge. Her vilge. Her parents' farm had grown into a small hamlet now - the barn was obviously the biggest structure, but her house was pretty rge as well. Then a bunkhouse, a bathhouse, and ten small single bedroom homes stood in a row past the barn. Various other buildings dotted the ndscape, barely visible in the twilight - a bunker near the barn contained an extensive cold celr, a chicken coop kept the flock safe at night, and the rge cookhouse that doubled as a common meal space and tavern sat opposite the main courtyard from where the bunkhouse stood. Dim torches lit the common areas, casting enough light for folks to walk around in the evening.

  Alice gnced back into the kitchen where Bridgette still slept, drool now running entirely down her face and into her cleavage. Alice smiled in a fond amusement, then walked over to shake her lover awake and head to bed.