Back in the city, the party ran late into the evening, while Karl and Opal worked to renovate all the houses that might possibly need improvements in the new Guild compound.

You could more properly call it a village, as there was no wall around it to keep anyone out, and there were public shops all over, which the Lycans were rushing to prepare for occupancy.

They were a third the size of the original Clan that was here, but this place had everything that they needed. Open wilderness to hunt and run, a short walk to the ocean, a steady stream of fresh water to play in, and most importantly, no hostile neighbours.

They were still working on getting everyone set up when Dana arrived at first light, accompanied by Cara and Rae.

Now that they had their own space again, Rae wanted to set up a clothing shop.

To be run by Gargoyles or Lycans, naturally.

"Branch Leader, good work picking a location." Dana teased as she saw Lycan children running through the streets in the pre-dawn light. They were all going to meet their friends before their classes started for the day.

The Lycan pack didn’t have much for a school, but Opal had graciously made copies of the basic schoolbooks in the Illusionary Domain that would serve as the new school. It wasn’t much, but they weren’t a large pack, and the Elders thought that it was best to keep teaching the children here, instead of sending them off somewhere else.

Karl had offered to put in a good word with the New Home, so the kids could go to school there.

They had all the knowledge that young Immortals would need.

However, the Lycans were not big on outsiders educating their children. Keeping up the culture of the pack was already hard enough without some teachers who understood nothing about Lycans filling the minds of children with random values.

There were truly evil sorts of Immortals in the world who would gladly siphon off the potential of the powerful species for their own growth, and letting the children get involved with strangers before they could defend themselves might stunt them forever.

The news that they would not be coming to the Tiny World to learn was a great disappointment to Lotus.

She would get over it, but Cara saw potential in this arrangement. They had brought literally hundreds of fluffy things into the Darklight Host. And then put them in a location that Lotus couldn’t get to without advancing.

If that wasn’t a motivator for her, the badger didn’t know what would be.

However, it wasn’t going to be too long before the rest of the team advanced anyhow. Living in Karl’s Tiny World, they were being forced to the peak of Mythic, the same as any other mortal would be.

But they had the System on their side, and they’d been studying the Fundamental Rules for some time already. Cara fully expected that it wouldn’t take more than a month, and they would have the old crew back together.

She could wait that long.

Or...

She could go talk to Remi and see what they could do about forcing them right to the bottleneck with a bit of alchemical assistance.

She didn’t quite understand what was so hard about the Fundamental Rules that humans struggled with it. But she had no trouble at all advancing, nor did any of the other beasts.

Tian hadn’t even intended to advance, and he did it anyhow.

Remi was on board with that. They could definitely do something to get the team up to standards. They were already at least one full stage behind anyhow, so it would be a challenge to force them to keep up.

But it was better that they were Immortals.

They could still go back and forth to the Tiny World, so they weren’t going to miss out on the bunnies and the baby dragons. There really wasn’t a downside to finding a way to help them reach the bottleneck, so they could undergo tribulation.

Plus, Remi already knew from the others they had obtained that you wouldn’t be forced to advance before your time.

The Tribulation simply wouldn’t start.

Lotus wiggled her nose, then sneezed. "Someone is thinking of fun things behind my back."

The bunnies in the kitchen laughed at her insistent tone. They were on their fifth batch of pastries for the morning, learning all the favourite recipes of the Tiny World from the little Cleric, in preparation for the promised new cooking skills they were going to get.

Lotus might be a bit flaky, but the Werebear had promised them it would happen, and she looked pretty reliable.

With the former Cleric in a relationship with someone furry, the bunnies felt much safer being around her. It tempered her fluff obsession at least ten percent, which put it at the tolerable level.

But she also had that baby Spirit Bear, which appeared to be at least sixty percent pure fur.

Picking it up, the bear was much smaller than it looked. But Lotus had washed its fur, and it was much more fluffy than a wild bear would ever be.

And the bunnies loved it.

Back in the new Guild village, Karl greeted the Elders of the New Home Merchant Clan.

"Gentlemen, welcome to the new Darklight Host outpost. I think that this is going to be a great opportunity for the Clan. With this town in place, our exploration teams now have a safe space to rest and restock on their travels.

I am still a member of the Clan, and I don’t intend to change that any time soon, even if I mostly move to the Guild House here.

That does present some opportunities for us all to make Elder Douglas cry, though."

Socrate began to laugh. "Oh? Make him cry harder than he’s going to when we bring back the increased loot volume from four runs through the dungeon at Tel?"

"So much harder. You see, I was thinking that we could let the Clan set up an outpost of the Warehouse here, so they could move goods back and forth through the territory without members going all the way back.

There are no clans along the north coast between our locations.

So, it’s all ours by default.

It might not be the most abundant land that we’ve ever come across, but there are some randomly appearing instances and dungeons, as well as the wild resources.

The towns are actually quite some distance apart. So, instead of wasting an entire day or more going back with a full stock of resources, they could deliver them here, and then take another route back with an empty inventory."