Chapter 48: Peacock Park
Coop found himself in the ruined living room of Charlie’s childhood home with some strangers. The girls had left him with this Mr. Gibson to arrange the transport of all the people Charlie’s father had already organized. Charlie’s goal had been to gather her family and friends, but honestly, Coop had expected maybe five people total. He wanted to recruit more, keeping an eye out for anyone that might have some expertise with curses, but Charlie and her father seemed keen on bringing everyone they knew.
Coop thought it was a good thing they had brought the Eye of the Storm. They could probably squeeze a thousand people onto the huge ship if they needed to. He hoped it wouldn’t be that many though. Ghost Reef may have just received an influx of phantoms, but the number of human residents was still really low.
“So what’s your deal?” Coop asked the middle-aged man before he inspected him for the second time. Coop had been distracted by the Empire’s Chosen when he initially checked the group’s auras and Mr. Gibson was kind of a forgettable looking guy. Coop thought he seemed like the kind of guy you might find as the head of some kind of small administrative body, like the point person for a condo building or the head of a co-op. The kind of guy that kept track of lots of details.
[Human (Level 20)]
[Argent (Body)]
[Chosen of the Allies of Genesis]
“You could say I’m sort of the representative for the people Emmanuel had collected. That’s Charlotte’s father. Oh! You can just call me Gibson, Mr…” Gibson introduced himself and gave Coop an opportunity to introduce himself.
“Oh, sorry, I probably shouldn’t say exactly who I am…” Coop realized he needed to come up with an alias. “But I am representing another settlement. We came to pick up Charlie’s friends and family.”
“That’s perfect! We really didn’t want to resort to joining the Empire’s settlement. We were hoping to travel together and take our chances at a different one. Where’s your place? I can start gathering everybody.” Gibson started.
Coop stopped him. “Hang on, there buddy. How many people are we talking about?”
Gibson paused, doing a mental headcount. “I’ve been organizing them by household, so I don’t know exactly how many are willing to go, but including the children and elderly I’d guess there’s close to 50 people.”
Coop didn’t think that was too bad. “Alright, I’ve got two conditions for anyone that wants to come. First, they’ll need to take professions and level up to contribute to the settlement itself. We don’t have millions of residents, so we don’t have the capacity to absorb freeloaders.” Gibson nodded firmly, accepting the condition. “Second, anyone that has a faction looking to dominate the planet is going to need to defect. Especially if they joined the Endless Empire.” Gibson nodded again.