There were more nods and the Sheriff looked at me with surprised respect. I gave him a respectful nod of my own.
“Sheriff, if you would please lead us? Deputy Franklin, the rear? Danielle and I will take either side.”
“I’ll get the deputies at the street to help cover us,” said the Sheriff. His face went blank. We waited a few minutes. “They’re outside.”
He opened the door and the group started filing out. The dwarves surrounded the smaller members of their clan, presumably children, and walked in good order. The elves split up, with three next to me and three with Danielle on the other side of the dwarves. All of them had equipped some much more elf-y looking leather outer garments, but no weapons. Three more deputies joined us, walking on the outside of the group and trying hard not to stare.
Gravelle’s head might as well have been on a swivel, so intently was he trying to watch everywhere at once. Once we were all out and grouped up, we moved toward the corner of the yard nearest the street that led to the refugee area. Two deputies were still on Trade Center guard duty.
“Smile, everybody,” I said quietly. “We’re all friendly. It’s traditional to wave as a greeting here.” I gave the crowd a little wave and the elves and a few of the dwarves followed suit.
As we reached the street, I could hear the crowd buzzing. The Sheriff moved to the front and held up his hand, which stopped the humans. The dwarves walked another step or two before figuring it out. Somebody snorted.
Not me. Really.
“These folks are the new immigrants the messages talked about,” he said in a loud, firm voice. “They’ve agreed to help us with the System and fight the monsters. If you have a problem with them, you talk to one of the deputies or go to the City Manager. She’s agreed they can stay. Mister Erickson and Ms. Braid…” He indicated us in turn, and we waved, trying to look helpful. “…are going to help them learn about how we do things. They’ll be at the refugee area for now. Let them get settled. Thank you for your cooperation.”
“Are those elves?” shouted a voice from the crowd. The buzz grew much louder.
I checked my Status and saw that I had regenerated more than enough Mana to give myself a little help. But only a little.
Activate ‘Indirect Suggestion.’
SYSTEM MESSAGE: Indirect Suggestion active. Beings who can hear and understand you will be much more receptive to what you say. 100MP used (cast, one minute.) 32/260 MP.
“They are,” I said loudly, moving up to where people could see me. “They’re a little like the ones from movies. But they’re real. So are the dwarves. They’re friendly and they can fight the monsters with us. We’ll be getting to know them better, all of us. Please be patient with them.” No one interupted me: the people closest to the front were staring at me open-mouthed. I switched off the Skill after speaking.
By some miracle, likely a miracle called ‘Totally OP Charisma And Also, Mind Control Magic,’ no one did anything stupid, and with a few more shouted questions which we pretended not to hear, the deputies got us through the crowd. Some tried to follow us, but the rearmost deputies told them to go home and wait until the newcomers got settled. Most of the crowd just dispersed.
When we reached the refugee area, I indicated our tent and the large area next to it which was still open. “This work, clan masters?”
“It will be fine,” said Treesinger. “We don’t need much room.” He gestured, and the elves on the other side of the group slipped through the dwarves like they weren’t even there, followed by Danielle. I was gratified to see Treesinger’s face when he realized she was at least as graceful as his people.
He gave her an appraising look, then turned to me. “I see some of you have adapted well to the System already.”
“You’ll find we’re full of surprises,” I said with an innocent face.
“Ow! Not in front of the elves!” I said a second later. Treesinger and Master Stonebender jumped at my outcry, or maybe at the sight of Danielle socking me in the shoulder. Again.
“He thinks he’s clever,” she said to them sweetly. “It’s not good to let him get too full of himself.” Treesinger smiled, and the dwarf roared with laughter.
“She may be thin but she could be a dwarven lass,” he said. “I think I’m going to like it here!” A few of the other dwarves laughed, and the rest of the elves smiled too. Even Gravelle’s poker face cracked for a moment.
“Fine, fine,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I see how it’s going to be.” I looked at Danielle pointedly. “I’ll deal with you later.” She stuck her tongue out at me and Stonebender brayed with laughter again. “Never mind her. These shelters you’ve got, do they have fences or anything?”
“No,” said Treesinger. “It’s hard to sneak up on elves.” He tapped his ear with a faint smile.
“We have a fence we can put up around ours,” said Stonebender. “We didn’t know for sure how long it would take us to get our backs up against some rock. Why?”
“Because I don’t want any drunken idiots sneaking into your camp on a dare or worse,” I said. Part of me realized that my ability to anticipate was so vastly improved by the Intelligence boost that it was almost a cheat. I didn’t care. “In our stories, elves and dwarves don’t always get along. Is it going to be a problem if you share space for a day or two?”
“We don’t get along any worse than any other beings, lad,” said Stonebender. He seemed to have forgotten all about that ‘Adamant Erickson’ nonsense, which was fine by me. “Plenty to fight around here without getting into it with these treehoppers, I bet.”
“Don’t let them drink more than a barrel of ale a day and they’re as tolerable as anyone else,” said Treesinger with a shrug and a smile. The dwarf laughed at this too.
“I am very happy to hear that,” I said sincerely. “If possible, please put the elves in the middle, and the dwarven fence around the bunch of you.” The Sheriff dismissed the rest of the deputies except for Franklin, and they reluctantly moved back toward the center of town as the elves and dwarves spread out and started taking things out of their packs.
Fifteen minutes later, Danielle, the Sheriff, Deputy Franklin, the Noobs and I were staring openmouthed at what looked like a tiny little Lord of the Rings movie village. It had gone up so fast it was like it had been conjured. The dwarven fence had a gate in it which faced the door to our tent. Treesinger passed through it to where we were standing and frowned at our expressions.
“Is this not all right?” he said with faint worry.
Stonebender looked over from where the last of the dwarven shelters - which looked like small wooden cabins but had a greyish metallic sheen - were going up and joined us.
“It’s fine,” I said, forcing my jaw to work. “It… that was quick, is all. Nice cabins.”
The dwarf laughed. It was a good laugh, which was nice, because I suspected I’d be hearing a lot of it. “Lad, you’ve only seen the bad parts of the System, sounds like. These are pretty basic. We didn’t have a lot of Credits left after we bought transit.”