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SoK Chapter 181
🕑 Added 2025-07-29 15:00:18 +0000 UTC“I feel like Stanton would like this.“ Despite himself, TJ‘s first thought as he looked at the fields was about his old crotchety friend. He smiled, thinking of how Stanton would correct TJ’s thoughts about this just being “tall grass” all around.
“Yeah, the geezer would somehow make this into either a weird grove of sentient trees, or a giant field of spinach. That’s what he was doing in Pine, at least.“ Sarah picked out a couple of the strands of wild grass growing in the expanse as she said as much. In the… month? Since the Integration, the asphalt had been heavily cracked and almost consumed by the rich soil underneath it. Now, knee-high grass filled the freeway. TJ’s thoughts were pulled away by Sarah continuing, “He was responsible for almost all of the vegetables that we had in the Tutorial.”
“I miss him, and I think I miss that even more.“ Michelle said. “I’m sick of eating monster bits, especially since none of the monsters have any damn fiber.”
“Yeah, I don’t need the details about that.“ Sarah squinted as she said as much, and TJ waved the two women off as they continued to talk about “balanced diets” and so on. Instead, he tried to appraise the area to better understand how it would serve for his people to settle in. There was plenty of land, it was relatively flat, and they were on one of the tallest structures for probably half a mile in any direction, so they could see what was coming. What else had mattered about making a new settlement? Access to water and food? They had that, and even if they didn’t, TJ could hunt food out and make it rain. His mind flicked to an image of dollar bills falling from the sky instead of raindrops, and he laughed to himself before turning his attention to the world around him.
“Does anybody have any idea how to go about building a village? Because I feel like that’s probably the next thing we should do.” TJ looked around as he asked as much, and William raised a tentative hand.
“I have a civil engineering degree, though I’ve spent most of my life working as an attorney. If you have any general questions, though, I can answer them. Maybe?”
“To start with, where do we begin?” TJ asked. “I think this is probably where we’re going to end up settling down, and I want to make sure that we don’t have to rebuild the settlement from scratch when we’ve been here for six months, because as it turns out, we built in a stupid place or something.”
“Well, we have water and food, and we can see that the ground here is at least somewhat arable, so I suppose all those are good things for us in terms of settling down.” William said, scratching at the stubble on his chin. “I guess the next thing that I would think of is to make sure that there’s drainage, since we don’t know what kind of weather is gonna be happening around here. I guess we get rain frequently, given…” William looked at TJ in a meaningful, but also nervous way.
“Yes, I control the storms, and chances are, it’s just going to get more and more rainy around here. I get that this is probably going to be a much wetter place than most of us are used to living in so we need to prioritize streets that’re better suited to heavy rainfall than we had in the old world, got it. What next?”
William grew more confident as he talked about general layouts of public facilities, of how to ensure that the original layout of the town was constructed in a way that would allow it to grow further in the future. There were mentions of walls and how they could be placed strategically to ensure that people could retreat back to bastions of safety, as well as thoughts of what to do if a Silver tiered monster appeared. Those plans boiled down to how to get the hell away, which was a better plan than no plan, TJ supposed. Maybe making a tunnel through the ground to let out directly below them in the marsh could work, so long as there weren’t any monsters there that’d kill the attempted escapees.
After each point was brought up, everybody would look to TJ for approval, and after maybe 10 minutes of this, he threw both hands in the air. “Look, if we’re talking about fighting monsters? I’m your guy. If we’re talking about how to prioritize growth as the System comes in and screws up our lives? I wouldn’t call myself an authority, but I have some good advice. On the other hand, do any of you think I know anything about making a city? I’ll spare you the guesses, because I don’t know jack. Hell, somebody who’s played a lot of video games about making cities probably knows better than me, because I don’t know if I played a video game, that was anything like that in a decade. I’ve never thought about how to make a city, and I’m happy to learn, but I don’t know anything as of yet. So listen to the guy who knows things, we’ll talk, and after that, we’ll come to an agreement, got it? I get I’m the ‘god’ here, but I’m the Storm Serpent, not the ‘Civil Infrastructure’.”
Sarah laughed as she grinned widely and added, “Don’t ask me anything. If you want me to go hunt something, I’ll be happy to, but for anything management, I give my vote to Farid. Maybe I can become the goddess of avoiding responsibility or something?”
The descendant of Shiva rubbed his eyes as he accepted what she said. “I guess I’ll cast her vote. Both of our votes are that we don’t know a whole lot about this, but we’re willing to talk about what we do know whenever that’s relevant.“
TJ nodded and looked at each of the people who stood around, wanting to be a part of the conversation, and it was quickly made apparent that nobody really knew what they were doing. He didn’t have any workers who had been in construction or architecture, everybody here was a pretty unremarkable office worker before all this. Several of the men had made a shed in their backyard or assembled a playplace and furniture, but nobody knew how to make a house from scratch or something particularly complex. As the people stood together and went quiet, TJ clapped his hands, making the rest go silent. Then, he addressed them all.
“With this being the case, I think that, more than anything, we just wanna make sure we have a place to sleep for now. Our second priority is going to be setting up a place where our crafters of any kind can work, and our third will be clearing the surroundings of any potential threats. After that, anything that needs to be done will follow as necessary, because our number one priority is going to be making sure each of us stays alive, safe, and continues to get levels. The world around us is gaining levels faster than I’d expected, and it’s going to become very obvious that we, as Participants, are far from the ruling force of this planet. In the far distant future, let’s hope we can all become deities, but until then, we’re just ants fighting to keep our colony from being devoured. Are we clear?”
Serious faces answered him, and TJ met each pair of eyes for a moment as he said as much. Nods answered him, and he straightened his shoulders in turn. “Work hard, work together, and we’ll make sure we can get through this all. Look for an opportunity to help the other people with you, because we’re all going down or up in this, so might as well succeed.”
Seth and Sarah didn’t wait more than a couple seconds before they both stood up in front of everybody. The Avenger spoke first, “I’ll keep an eye out on the perimeter while you seek out any monsters or anything nearby that needs attention?“
Sarah nodded with a little smile at Seth’s words. “You’re speaking my language, buddy. TJ, do you want to be about in the center of the freeway, or whatever we’re gonna call this?”
“Seems to be the best option for me. I don’t wanna have anything able to immediately get access to us from around this blind corner underneath us. If we have our back to the open air, it seems like a recipe for disaster, so setting up as far away from the edges is probably the best way to avoid that.”
“Then that’s what we are going to do.” Sarah nodded as she walked off.
TJ nodded his assent as two of the strongest members of his little community jogged off at a speed unimaginable to him before the Integration. Seth’s heavy crossbow remained in his hands, and TJ wondered just how much it weighed. Even so, that was none of his concern for the moment. Instead, he turned to the rest of the people nearby. “Farid, do you think you can keep an eye on these people for a moment? I want to make sure that the four down below are OK, and then bring them up here. After that, I wonder if I'll be able to get your assistance on tracking down those damn thunderbirds. Don’t want them to be literally hanging over our heads all the time.”
“I’d be happy to. Safe travels.“ The handsome man nodded as he flicked a wrist and summoned his throwing javelins. Many of the people nearby were those who had trusted him before they’d ever met TJ, and with him obviously ready to fight for their safety, they seemed to sigh with relief. TJ rolled his shoulders and walked forward to the edge of the ledge, or cliff, or whatever he wanted to think of it as, that led down to the ground below.
“I’ll be seeing you all soon. Follow Seth and Sarah‘s lead, they’ll make sure that there’s nothing threatening you immediately ahead. Michelle, I’ll trust you to bring up the back, make sure that nothing ambushes our people.”
The woman nodded, and as she rolled her shoulders, her armor settled across her chest, arms, and face, her mahogany skin quickly being hidden under the solid steel. Without another word, TJ strode forward and jumped over the ledge, using Wind Manipulation to slow his fall as he settled to the ground underneath the freeway. As the scent of wetness settled into his nostrils, he couldn’t help but grin a little.
After all, there were new monsters to find, new monsters to kill, and levels to gain. To his surprise, TJ felt his Occupation calling him to continue doing what he was already planning, that he was being a leader, and he grew closer and closer to level 29 as he led, protected, and served as an inspiration to his followers.
“Then I guess I’ll have to guide these other four to safety, and get that level.“ He muttered to himself as he transformed and slithered into the murky marsh. Despite himself, the exploration sent a grin over his face, and he didn’t try to fight it, excited to gain more levels and reestablish himself as a dominant force.
Comments
Joseph
I want to know if it's worth reading to lol
Joseph
Where is the intro for sok
No_Creative_Name
Different one of my books. Accidentally titled this as PW, not SoK.
Joseph
Idk what sok even is lmao
