Chapter 8: Crowd Control

Perspective: Steve/Lucy


Steve regretted that when they were dividing duties for the day all the refugees were due to arrive, he and Jennifer had offered to do crowd control. It really hadn't occurred to him just how confused and hungry these people would be. All of them, the second they saw the stage they had erected in front of the shelter, had flocked towards it.

The two of them had spent the last half-hour picking people off of it. Eventually it had seemed smartest to just build a fence. As foreseen, no one, no matter how tall, could get their leg over the top of their meter-high fortification. So, now he and Jennifer were just marching through the crowd trying to calm people down and prevent any panic.

Thankfully, people were more confused than anything. Destiny and Voidblade were on guard duty, and fully armoured the two looked pretty powerful without looking too threatening. They had ushered everyone toward the stage through a path which avoided any major choke points or bottlenecks. Thankfully, the crowd wasn't large enough for a stampede to be too dangerous, but there were still a good two thousand people there and it was better to prevent that sort of thing.

"Don't worry ma'am," said Steve to an elderly woman. "Once everyone's finished filtering in, our commander will come out on stage and explain what's going on. The Prophet reckons he's the hero, Champion guy you're looking for."

The old lady smiled and fell back into the crowd. He saw her resurface in the sea of heads talking to a nervous young man holding a baby. She spoke into his ear and the release of tension must have reduced his height by a foot because Steve lost sight of his contented face pretty quickly.

After answering or deferring a few more questions, that part of the crowd seemed happy enough. They weren't moving around as much and were now just patiently looking at the stage without being jostled. Steve looked about for Jennifer. She had achieved a similar lull.

"At times like this, I really miss the Alliance," Steve called out.

"Yes!" Jennifer agreed emphatically. "We could've just asked Mark to set up some sort of seating machine. Or gotten Wolfric to cast a spell to calm everyone down. Even Ozen would've been useful. He could hand out his terrible sandwiches. Someone might even have had the bright idea to put up a sign or two explaining things."

Steve smiled and they got close enough to talk at a near-normal volume.

"These people are starving," he said. "And I'm not even sure they'd eat his sandwiches once they found out there was redstone in them. But that wasn't what I was thinking about."

"What were you thinking?"

"Mostly that, if the Alliance were here, all this was over, there'd be a group of people ready for a game of Dungeons and Enderdragons just at hand."

"Who said there wasn't?" said Jennifer, smirking.

Steve looked at her cock-eyed.

"You're not saying what I think you're saying?"

"I certainly am. I had a kit in my inventory before we got trapped here."

"And you're only mentioning this now?!" laughed Steve. "Jennifer, you lifesaver!"

Someone beckoned to Jennifer for help and she began walking over to him.

"It's pretty much become my job. Wherever would you be without me?" she shouted back at Steve.

Steve's mind raced with possibilities. It might take a night or two to get a group together, but by Notch it would be worth it!

That was when Kir spoke in his mind: "Commander Fire coming in thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight…"

They were using Kir as a crude intercom between the various teams. Steve and Jennifer took their cue and began to gesture and hiss for silence. Pretty soon half the crowd were shushing their neighbours in solidarity with Steve and his girlfriend. He was grateful, he'd thought that would take ages.

With all that accomplished, they went back over the fence and looked at the stage just as Fire came out.

Fire began: "Welcome to the shelter, I am Commander Fire. Not all of you may have seen me at the Prophet's hill but that is not really important now. What is important is that you made it here. Back when I first spoke to the congregation I promised a roof over your head and food in your stomach, both of which are available here."

There was a pause, the quiet was quickly filled with cautious cheers from the crowd.

Fire continued: "However there are also other reasons for why I built this shelter. Namely to have a base of operations for what could very well be a civil war. I will not sugarcoat this, the Entity is most likely not going away on its own. Both from the Prophet's predictions and independent investigation we have found that there is something big on the horizon and if nobody is there to stop it, we might be looking towards a dark future."

Another pause, this time without cheers but with worried contemplation.

"I have gathered a group of skilled people to help me in what is ahead of us, they will train and instruct anyone willing and able to join us. If you are no fighter, there are still plenty of things you can do to help out. If you are unable to do either, the shelter will still welcome you, there is enough space for everyone. The important thing is that we realize we are stranded in this world together, and that is also how we will turn our fates around!"

The cheers returned with a vengeance. Steve couldn't believe how ecstatic some of them were. Then, he remembered how dinged up the team had been upon their return. These people had been travelling for even longer, in much greater numbers. It must have been terrible.

Fire spoke up again: "If you want to enlist as a fighter, report to Rose at the left of the valley. If you want to help in any other capacity, report to Fristad on the right side of the valley. Anyone else, go down the middle to the entrance of the shelter, Lucy will show you where you can sleep, eat or get medical treatment."

Steve barely had time to let the speech settle and savour it before he and Jennifer had to dash off to shepherd people during the door. It didn't help that a hundred or so new arrivals had already sprinted off ahead of them.


Lucy watched the speech from the entrance of the shelter, she couldn't hear much of it but she knew the content. Fire had asked a few people for opinions on the speech so she heard it before. Now that the speech was over people rapidly started coming towards the entrance. Lucy took a deep breath.

"Okay, you can do this." She quietly said to herself.

As the first arrived near her she spoke loudly: "Everybody please wait up, once everyone is here we can go inside!"

The new arrivals were exhausted from the journey and hungry, more than a few were injured. They looked even worse than what Lucy had seen when she had been at the hill. These were not only people from the congregation, these were friends and family of them, who normally wouldn't make the trip to the hill but still undertook the march to the shelter. A thought flashed in Lucy's mind. Some might not have made the entire way. She pushed it away, now was not the time.

Steve and Jennifer had also made their way over to the entrance and were now in the process of calming the crowd, just a few more minutes until everyone would be here. Lucy took looks to the left and right to compare the size of the crowds over at Rose and Fristad. Rose had accumulated a respectable amount, a few hundred if Lucy were to guess. Fristad had fewer people, maybe half of what Rose had. The majority of people were still crowding to the shelter entrance, perhaps some of them would later join one of the two other groups once they were fed and healthy.

Once it looked like any stragglers had joined one of the three groups Lucy spoke again: "Hello! My name is Lucy and I will show you around the essential parts of the shelter."

She turned around and pulled a lever that was embedded into the stone. The entrance to the shelter had once been a relatively small cave entrance, in the meantime it had been widened out and fitted with a large wooden door that was now in the process of swinging open, driven by whatever gears, shafts and pulleys Urist had crammed into the floor beneath the entrance.

Lucy proceeded through the entrance, giving Steve and Jennifer quick looks, they'd have to make sure that nobody stayed too far behind. A few hundred meters into the mountain was the first big chamber.

As Lucy explained her voice echoed from the walls. "This is the central hub, you can reach every section of the shelter from here, there are signs in as many written languages as we could find that indicate what tunnel leads to where."

She pointed at one of them. "That one leads to the infirmary. If anyone is in urgent need of medical treatment, please go there now. Once you feel better, you can ask any instructor to show you around, you can identify them by their armbands."

A good portion of the group split off, Steve guided them into the tunnel. Lucy continued. "Follow me please, next we'll go to the canteen."

Lucy went straight ahead through the cavern into a tunnel. This one was significantly shorter than the entrance tunnel. The canteen was another huge cavern which had a large number of tables and benches set up, on the left wall was a hollowed out section of the wall where the food would be served.

Lucy explained: "As said, this is the canteen. We try to offer meals at any time of the day but our main meal times are in the morning, at noon, in the evening and at midnight to accommodate for shift work. Now please follow me out again, we'll reach our final destination at the barracks."

The barracks were built into the largest of the natural caverns they had found, and even so it had been expanded by a good bit to make more room. The cavern was filled from bottom to top by a wooden frame, the different tiers were connected by ladders and stairs. Wooden walls had been built between some of the logs of the frame, forming rooms that offered sleeping space for eight people each.

Lucy said: "This is the barracks, you are free to pick your room but ideally fill up from the bottom upwards, it makes the maintenance crew's job easier as well helping me keep count of how much space is left. Are there any questions?"

A man at the front of the group asked: "If we want to stop sitting around being a load, who do we ask?"

Lucy replied: "As said, anyone with an armband will do but if you have specific roles in mind, the support and logistics roles have green armbands, the combat roles have red ones, leadership is grey. There are signs in regular intervals that illustrate the finer details indicated by the symbols on the arm bands."

With that Lucy made a gesture towards the interior of the barracks, the crowd slowly thinned as people went and got some well-deserved sleep. Once only a few people were left Lucy turned around and walked down the tunnel. Jennifer joined her a few steps in.

Lucy took a deep breath. "Phew, that went better than expected."

"Don't undersell it; you nailed it!" said Jennifer with a clap on Lucy's shoulder.

Now that Lucy thought about it, she did nail it. Everyone got the info they needed and the sick and wounded were probably already receiving treatment. In general, the people who had arrived a few days after them were an interesting group, a lot of personality to be sure. None of them seemed bad to Lucy, a bit weird sure but not bad. As glad as Lucy was for Fire bringing her here and as good of a leader he was, his confidence in her was at times a little intimidating, sometimes it seemed like he knew her better than she knew herself. People like Jennifer were a good contrast, more grounded in a way. Jennifer in general was good to be around, her outlook on life went along well with Lucy's own. She always seemed to be looking for a way to make the situation that little bit easier. There was always a well-timed compliment, discovery of some extra food or even a pleasant smile in her back pocket, waiting for the right moment to be produced.

Just before they arrived at the central hub, Jennifer stopped and asked: "Hey, Lucy. Are you up for a game of Dungeons and Enderdragons this evening? I even managed to get permission to use the command room for the duration!"

Lucy replied: "Not sure if your game has the same rules as a similar game in my world did but sure, I'd love to."