"Yeah, yeah. I'm just griping because I'm probably going to be useless. My car's somewhere on the five. Just enough momentum to roll into the dirt." Sigh. "I'm glad you and Bys have a plan though. Of course you do, she's intense and you're active all the time."

Un-hug now? Or no?

She nods, unhugs, steps back.

She gives him a critical look for a long moment.

"Bet you get an interesting class option."

He shakes his head. "If anything, I'm gonna try to be the munchkin. I know I'm pretty into the roleplay normally, but this is a time for munchkinry."

"Damned right it's time for munchkinry. If ever there was a time for munchkinry, the end of the world is it," she replies with a giggle.

Sigh.

"I suppose I should try to be useful somehow. Maybe babysitting. Or reading those books you mentioned printing."

"Good idea. You can grab 'em from my bags." She describes the out-of-the-way stash spot. "I'm gonna channel my inner girlboss."

"Twice as much girl to boss with," he says distractedly. "Not worried about someone finding it? I can be a bag guard for you two, at least."

He stands up with a grunt and starts walking. "Well, see you soon. Go and contribute massively more than I can."

<Little bro still needs more self-confidence,> Hailey notes.

Sable nods, and grabs the first group of able-bodied folk she finds. "Y'all are coming with me. We've a wall to build."

She sweeps them up in her wake and leads them to grab a load of materials, then shows them the residential-side wall. "We have the worst sightlines on this section, what with the trees and houses. This side is our top priority for a better wall, and thus for a safer fort for your families. Get to it."

She walks them through how to reinforce things reliably, how to add on to the wall, and then leaves them to it. First construction-savvy person she sees gets asked to check on them when there's an opportunity.

Next group she finds she leads off in search of axes and shows to the treeline. "These fuckers are blocking our sightlines for a major approach. You'll do us all a service knocking them down, both in improved visibility and resource gain besides."

Next she grabs shovels and sets people digging up abandoned yards for soil to fill sandbags.

The most organized-looking ones get brought to Lisa and told that helping her as she manages logistics is of vital importance to keeping the place running long-term.

Everyone gets a heartfelt explanation of why their task is desperately important, even if it's boring. Because it is. Everything is necessary to keep the fort running, especially the boring things.

Periodically she checks on the construction map and the task list for more ideas to put people to use.

When she first needs a break, she switches, letting Maya keep going to corral more people into work.

The second time she runs low, she switches for Hailey. There's less left to draw from, switching doesn't get her as much mileage, but they keep going.

Finally Sable just sits down in a quiet corner and disassembles her gun, cleaning it carefully before reassembling, drawing peace from the meditative activity.

The whole area is a scene of tightly contained mania. Abyssia has joined the self-defense class, which is next to an arts and crafts class, which is trying to outfit everybody with makeshift blunt weapons or spears and armor, even if that armor is just cut up and sewn together patches of coats made into boots and arm and leg guards, which is next to a big cookout setup with tons of grills all working on all the meat and ice cream and other perishables before they go bad. Fresh food only, today.

Theodore seems to have gravitated into a theory crafting group near the central planners, writing down everything known about the System and lots of different predictions about what happens next. Is there going to be mana? Healing magic? If it works in this way, it has this implication, which they can test like that... Not so much a decision tree, too many unknowns, as a bunch of things to check once the System finishes starting up.

Speaking of which:

Integration is almost complete!

30 minutes remaining. Full tutorial will be available after Integration.

Notice: There will be a 15 minute grace period during which no monsters or critters will spawn. Use this time to learn about your available Classes and read any important notices.

"Okay, people! I want as much prep as possible done before zero so we can take that grace period to actually read things, so that means move!"

She's a whirlwind, a fusion of a manic pixie dream girl with a drill sergeant, as much as she'd love to just relax into cooking the perishables with Hailey there just aren't enough managers to keep things moving as it is. She does as credible an impression of being in multiple places at once.as she can manage, flitting across the fort in short sprints, at the east wall one moment, giving a pep talk to a sandbag team the next, and wait wasn't she just on the roof!?

The longest she stays in one place is when a team is hoisting a heavy section of materials, and she gets right in there with them, cheering them on while she pulls with them. Then it's up and in place, and she congratulates them before whirling off to someone else she can help.

At one point she flits past Teddy, giving him a warm smile and a shoulder squeeze, visibly proud.

When Bys is on a break in the self-defence class, Sable whirls by there too, giving her a proud hug and a playful kiss to the cheek.

But most of all, she just keeps doing what she can to give everyone in the fort a little more cheer and motivation and hope, help them all move just that little bit faster and more effectively.

There's certainly a few cases of arguments of what to do, or who's in charge, or people working to cross purposes- Disassembling a barricade for use elsewhere, for example- It's chaos, and the urgency and lack of connection between random people doesn't help much. There's a few incidents of trouble too. Some reckless idiot was playing with their gun and shot themselves, and was relieved of it. There's a great huge screaming match between one of the neighbors and the tree-cutting crew. Someone's dog, a big German Shepard, gets loose and nearly causes a stampede as he runs around the parking lot barking. A section of barricade collapses, badly built. Everyone's trying to do something useful, but the organization is... Lacking.

The steady and increasing stream of people on foot from the south isn't helping matters. Apparently the System is telling people where the nearest Safe Zone is, and Fort Bass is right up close to the edge of Tacoma's- People are walking in from Lakewood and Parkland, and thousands are walking straight along highway 5, having been turned away from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which apparently already has at least ten thousand people sheltering in it and a massive field of abandoned vehicles all around, the first place everyone tried to drive to.

Abyssia is having people practice moving around in formations in small groups, holding their makeshift weapons. There are mostly enough guns to go around, but she's worried about close range. Most people are bad marksmen and should avoid shooting if possible. She's not super deep into SCA, and someone who is is helping more, but this seems like a reasonable way to contribute.

The theorycrafting group has created a series of large posters explaining some basic gaming concepts. They've managed to worm out of the System that there will be magic, and HP, and MP, and friendly fire is very much on. The poster for 'Crowd Control' has some cartoon wolves being brutally murdered on it.

Sable keeps darting around, focusing on hotspots of chaos. Whenever an argument breaks out, she's there: sweeping in, smoothing ruffled feathers, helping people channel their frustration into something productive. Everyone's frustration is heard, understood, felt, shared, and then she helps them put it to use.

Tree-complaining neighbor gets her personal attention for a whole minute or two. She totally gets how frustrating this is: his nice, orderly life has been sent into disarray, and so little of it is in his control, even though yes, he did fight in 'nam, did his country proud. Y'know, since he fought in 'nam, he probably remembers what the jungle did to the sightlines, yeah? Well, they're facing that again, except now it's all these cute little undefended houses with their pretty trees messing up sightlines from her fort. Hey, he'd probably be pretty good at reviewing sightlines, wouldn't he? He should totally go talk to the boss, Noah, in the main planning area. They've got a whole new crisis on their hands, and he's got a whole new chance to save lives.

The barricade collapse gets that team a stern, disappointed talking-to. She knows it's hard to keep track of everything, everyone's doing things they're not used to, but she knows they can do better. Everyone's counting on them to do better.

As far as the tide of refugees, she grabs someone cheerful who's not better put to some other use and talks them through an explanation of "find shelter closer to city center, we're a border fort" that doesn't sound like "go be someone else's problem" (even though to some extent it is). She sits that person at the gate closest to wherever the refugees are coming from and sets them to redirecting refugees further inward. Then she finds three more similar people and sends them to the first for coaching, to sit at other gates.

...She's just not getting her range time until the first wave of monsters shows up to volunteer for target practice, is she?

Possibly not. For that matter, Abyssia and Theodore also don't have a gun, and don't seem to be thinking to acquire one.

5 minutes remaining! Good luck humanity!

Melee is valid? And Teddy just isn't a front-line fighter at all. He'll be best getting some kind of "squishy caster" build and getting his combat capability that way. Something that really rewards his intellect.

And that "good luck humanity" message is just fucking cheeky.

She finds Bys in the last couple minutes, when everything's as settled as she can make it.

"Hey. Mind spending the last minute or so just chilling together? I think I stopped moving maybe once in the past hour and a half. Could probably use a hug."

The correct answer is to hug her. Zero hesitation, once she's decided, just like Bys usually is.

This is a hug. Arms tight and leaning in. "Everything is going to be fine. We'll make it fine if it's not."

4 minutes remaining!

"Oh, fuck off."

She hugs back just as tightly, pressing close, smiling warmly, sighing happily. "Damned fucking right we will. This game can't beat the Pirates and the most badass goth on the western seaboard. No ma'am."

"Our nerd friend too."

Pat, pat.

"The world is bullshit, but at least this dose comes with magic powers."