"That was insanely fast, were people just sitting by the monolith or something? Were you guys prepared for this?" Teresa asked as she stood before someone who had arrived all the way from The Mall. They were standing in a nearby home that had a similar property to the town hall that blocked people from listening in.

"We've been doing a lot with it ever since we took in Blue Waters and the Albino Gorilla population, would you believe the gorillas are Agility based? Well, most of them anyways." Madeline responded, smiling as she came face to face with her old party. Everyone grinned before hugging the woman, it had been a long week away from home.

"I can't believe you left us with her, she nearly took us through Chernobyl." Preston said sarcastically.

"Yeah well you probably deserved it." Madeline told him. "We've been dealing with that at The Mall anyways."

"How's Mackenzie doing?" Sarah asked, referring to Madeline's infant daughter.

"She's doing about as well as you could expect, William's watching after her right now while I'm here. I'll be praying for his sleep schedule, but he's had kids before so I'm sure he knows what he's getting into."

"So what's going on at home?" Teresa asked, not wanting to skip over the important details.

"Well for starters our population has increased dramatically, though not from other humans. The Scilians are considered our citizens now, we came to an agreement and they're a part of our nation now. They had no natural predators pre-System, and they have minimal experience in combat so they were on a fast track path to extinction now that monsters are everywhere. We negotiated with Arbor about the conditions, and they seemed plenty happy to join forces. We control both Blue Waters and The Mall now, which makes teleportation way cheaper." Madeline explained. "We protect their swamp from monsters, and in turn they're responsible for agriculture and supplying drinking water. A lot of the plants in and around Blue Waters are safe to eat, though it's a delicate ecosystem that's extremely prone to overharvesting."

"Are we even capable of guarding both settlements? When we left we were already concerned about The Mall as it is." Teresa asked.

"We've got a few parties to level 30 now and multiple to the 20s, so it's not a huge concern. Nikolas and Theo's parties have been racing to see who can get everyone to hit level 40 first. It's pretty neck and neck, people are taking bets on who'll win. Once the Contaminated Zone quest showed up everyone started monster hunting a lot more, the idea of slowly dying to radiation poisoning wasn't exactly appealing to anyone. We took out a Radioactive Portal as a trial run pretty early, but we've been struggling to keep it from spreading. We made a deal with the Albino Gorillas since they were right on the border of it all, and now they're living with us too."

"Well I'm glad we're bringing them all in, both species seem just as sapient as us and there's not really much of a difference aside from biology. People are people." Teresa said, making her stance on the matter clear.

"We've got a few System Plots now as well which helps a lot, we've been actually progressing on building infrastructure now that we have tools. The gorillas have been particularly interested in construction, though there's a big learning curve."

"How do the System Plots work? William mentioned them before we left, but nobody had really used them yet."

"Someone in the government goes to the monolith, typically the Lead Developer, and spends some of the city's money to purchase a building. They decide where the building will be placed, and it just kind of builds itself out of thin air. They're really pricey, but we can buy stores for tools and weapons. There's also other buildings we can buy like a Portal Station that would accept incoming and outgoing teleports without people having to visit the City Monolith itself, but it's way too expensive for us. We decided to get just the necessities for construction and have been focusing more on armor and weapon stores. Nikolas is running a program where he's trying to equip every competent monster hunter with better gear, but it's slow. Everything is expensive, though things are going pretty smoothly otherwise."

"So we don't have any problems with money in circulation? No dollar shortage or anything like that?" Teresa asked.

"Uh, let me think I wasn't ready for that one." Madeline replied. "I don't think so? Having more money in circulation would definitely be nice, but it's not that big of a deal right now. Almost half of the humans are children so they don't exactly care a lot about money, the Scilians never really came up with the idea of a currency in the first place, and the Albino Gorillas don't have much understanding of money either. Everything is still being regulated by the Council, ranging from food, water, construction, monster hunting, tailoring, you name it. Everyone is more focused on surviving than their retirement fund, but once things get going I can see how that could become a problem. Why do you ask that?"

"We happened to walk in on a meeting where they were discussing that exact problem here, they were thinking about introducing a temporary currency separate from the System to deal with it." Teresa explained.

"I don't think we'll be having the exact same problems as Arconette, our population is about a tenth of theirs and we started out with a lot less infrastructure from the looks of it. How are the demographics here, you didn't mention anything about that."

"Everyone we've run into is human, though there's a mix of nationalities. I think they know about alien life, but we haven't seen any in the city itself. They got a few people who've figured out some stuff we might consider useful though. There's an alchemist we were going to visit that can make potions, and they have a variety of livestock that have been mentioned in passing." Teresa told her.

"Well Saylee should be here any minute now, she was in the middle of something when you- oh there she is."

In the middle of her sentence Saylee appeared out of thin air next to Arconette's monolith. She had a stack of papers in her hands, though surprisingly they didn't have a bunch of text already printed on them. Saylee had happened to bring several pre-System documents with her through the Tutorial, and she had been writing on the back of them as it had previously been their own source of paper. Since some of the papers she was holding were blank and had a yellow hue to them, Teresa felt it was safe to assume they had gotten access to paper now. Saylee spoke to a few guards and was brought over to the same building that Teresa was in, entering with a calm demeanor.

"Teresa, it's good to see you again." She greeted. "Now who will we be talking to?"

"Probably Nalangu, Madeline can catch you up a bit. I'll introduce you." Teresa brought the group back outside and led them towards Nalangu, who was still stationed by the monolith.

"Nalangu, I'd like you to meet Madeline and Saylee, these are the people you will be speaking with." Teresa said, gesturing to the two in question. Introductions were briefly exchanged, then they got straight to business.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"We will be sending our own delegation to your city, and we will only finalize our deal once they return. Is there anything they should be aware of before they head your way?" Nalangu asked.

"A lot of our population isn't human, so be prepared for that." Saylee informed the man. "Also you will be teleporting to The Mall, not Blue Waters. They are both under our control, be sure to select the right destination."

"You have two cities?" Nalangu asked.

"Yes, is that a problem?"

"Not necessarily, you are not the only nation to control two monoliths. I will need to ask how you came to obtain the second city however."

"Through negotiations. We were already on good terms with the race that lived there, and after some talks they agreed to work with us."

"May we also see this other city? We need to ensure nothing out of the ordinary is occurring before we establish an instant method of transportation between our nations."

"You may, but be aware the Blue Waters monolith is in about a meter of water, so expect to get wet."

"Very well, we'll make the preparations. Now, where would we like to start?"

"There are a few things we would like to discuss, such as your efforts to contain the Contaminated Zone along with the incident relating to human trafficking within your city. We have some serious concerns about the safety of our own citizens should this problem spread over to us."

"I can certainly update you on everything related to the Contaminated Zone, but any information regarding that other matter will take some time. We are currently in the middle of an active investigation of this situation ourselves."

"Very well. In addition, I believe Teresa and her party should be allowed to leave this meeting early unless they wish to stay." Saylee added. "They have just travelled a vast distance on foot to get here, I doubt the first thing they want to do upon finding civilization is to go into a meeting."

"There's a few things I wanted to check out." Teresa admitted, thinking about the potions. It's not like she would be of much use here anyways, she didn't know enough about the situation at The Mall nor did she know enough about politics. If they needed someone to punch or incinerate something, Teresa was the girl to talk to. If they wanted to talk logistics, supply chains, troop movements or economic policy then Teresa started to nope out.

"That works for me so long as their guards accompany them. You are free to leave if that is what you wish." Nalangu said, a very diplomatic smile on his face.

"Great, we'll meet up with you guys later." Teresa told them, glad to not be involved in the complicated bits. She could probably figure out the basics if she took the time to learn about these topics, but ever since she had brought up alchemy she had accidentally begun hyperfixating on it. Her brain was just in waiting mode until she could see the potions up close for herself, not to mention whatever else might be in the city.

Teresa opened the door to the building and left, with the rest of her party following closely behind. As soon as the door closed, Teresa was completely incapable of hearing anything being discussed inside. She was a little bit worried for Madeline and Saylee, but if anything happened to them she could always just bring havoc and destruction down upon Arconette until she had answers. Maybe only a little havoc and destruction considering Ezio's party were still around, but hopefully it would never come to that.

"Is there anything else you guys want to see?" Teresa asked, figuring she should get the opinions of her party members as well.

"Gabriel mentioned a Guild, I'm kind of curious about that." Preston said.

"Oh yeah, I can lead you guys there if you want." Gabriel said, who was still accompanying the group. Marty and Jeremy had already separated from Teresa's party and went back to salvage what they could from their restaurant, but Gabriel had stuck around with his family. "If you have any monster parts to sell, that's the place to do it."

"Sure, that sounds like a plan." Teresa agreed. They could head there after seeing the alchemist, she was curious herself.

The party carried on walking through the streets of Arconette, glad to not be in an immediate rush for once. The thought of Teresa's family being alone in the middle of a monster infested wasteland kept popping up in the back of her head, but there was stuff to be done here that prevented her from leaving early.

After a few minutes they reached the alchemy hut they had seen earlier. It was a wooden hut with a thatch roof and curtains blocking most of the doorway, while a booth was set up just outside showcasing various potions. An elderly lady was speaking to a younger man just outside the hut, and Teresa once more did her best not to accidentally eavesdrop.

"Excuse me, I was hoping to talk to someone about the potions here." Teresa said, waving awkwardly. The elderly woman and young man looked over, and the woman began to approach steadily.

"Well of course dear, I have a few for sale, my name is Petunia and I run this stand. Felix here has <Appraise> and he can show you more precise details about what you find interesting. Is this your first time here, I'm afraid I don't recognize you." The woman spoke, her voice friendly. "I do know Gabriel, but the rest of you are new faces."

"Yeah, this is our first time here, my name's Teresa. I was wondering if it would be possible for you to teach me how you make these." Teresa asked, figuring she should just be upfront.

"Unfortunately I don't believe I am able to, it's a state secret and you need the right skills for it." Petunia replied. "My Tutorial was in the Hanging Gardens and there were a lot of conditions that had to be met for me to even get the right skills offered in the first place, if I was allowed to teach you I don't know where I would start."

"I understand, getting the right skills can be rather difficult." Teresa said, a little disappointed. "Could I see what you have for sale?"

"Why of course! We have health potions, Mana potions, and Stamina potions. They each restore the respective resource by a certain amount over a short window of time, and they have various cooldowns determining when you could have another." Petunia explained. She gestured to a potion and Felix shared a screen with the group.

<Inferior Health Potion (F-): lv 12>

Materials: ???

Status: Ready (100% Remaining)

Restores 55 HP upon consumption and grants potion sickness for 1 hour 18 minutes.

"Uh, what's 'potion sickness?'" Teresa asked, reading the description of the consumable.

"That's the cooldown dear, if you drink a potion when you already have potion sickness then it won't do anything but upset your stomach." Petunia explained. Teresa used her own <Appraise> on the potions, and found that the numbers were rounded off. The same potion's description said 50 to 60 HP with a potion sickness duration of roughly 1 hour and 20 minutes. Felix likely just had a higher level <Appraise> suited for specifically potions.

"How much do they cost? I'm hoping for something a little stronger than that." Teresa asked.

"It depends on the potion dear, this is one of our middle range potions. Our best are capable of restoring up to 100 of a given resource with almost exactly an hour cooldown, though I have never been able to reduce it below an hour. Health potions in that category will cost you $400 each while Stamina and Mana potions will be $350. There's also a limit of three potions per customer, we can't have anyone buying out our entire stock."

"I understand." Teresa replied, doing some quick math in her head. If she wanted to buy one of each 'higher end' potion for each of the six people in her party, it would be $6,600, or $1,100 per person. That included both Thomas and Mathew, and she wasn't sure if she should include Mathew in it anymore since it was unlikely the teen would continue adventuring with them. If she included Gabriel then it went up to $7,700, which was really expensive. Still, she had over 50 grand thanks to the Tutorial rewards. If she had a potion on her when she had fought those drones, it would have gone significantly smoother.

Well, when in Rome…

"I'll take seven of each."

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