To clear my thoughts and hopefully come up with an idea on how to collect two more beyonder chateristics, I decide to help Gram with gutting fishes at noon.
Despite the fishy smell, the repetitive work helped me enter a state of zen and relaxation.
Also, Pillar still drinks milk from his mom at times. I figured it would a healthy addition to his usual meals. He does enjoy the dogfood I feed him but why not add some milk? I prepare his food mostly by boiling leftovers with stale seafood. I add a dash of night soil before serving it as Muriel said it would benefit Pillar. I trust her judgement.
_
No complaints so far so I guess I must be a pretty good chef.
*Ruff!*
I'm going to consider that a compliment...
_
After about an hour of chopping, cutting, deboning, filleting and shucking all manner of seafood, I was visited by Rosa.
It was quite a surprise as she seemed the type to prefer isolation.
I guess no girls can resist my charm. Your boi here has got an excess of Rizz...
She kneeled down and patted Pillar, then spoke to Gram, "You should not vote for Bedlam. I've seen him covering his ears and muttering while laying feebly on the ground. He'll lose control."
Gram grunted, "I know. But we don't have time to promote a Secret supplicant and wait for them to stably digest their potion. If Rezo loses control, he might wipe out half the village. We don't have anyone strong enough to fight him. His abilities are too wierd."
Rosa tsked, "Then let the village contend without a warden for the moment! We'll kill the more dangerous suspects and have more warriors watch over the rest. A newly promoted Shadow ascetic losing control might be easier to fight, but the casualties will still be massive. I'd rather sacrifice the risky individuals than waste our experienced warriors."
Gram paused in consternation, then waved away Rosa, "Go away! Let me think about it. Needless killing might create resentment and attract evil spirits. We can't rush these desicions."
Rosa huffed and strode away in irritation, "That's the problem! We don't have enough time! Have you been near the root cellar? Rezo is already unstable! I'm going to find someone else who is willing to listen to reason!"
Wew. I think I just learned of a bunch of forbidden secrets. Time to act like I did not hear anything!
I continued plucking the claws off crabs, to be used for next day's lunch.
As I see Rosa's silhouette dissapearing in the distance, I realized she forgot to say goodbye to me in her rush to find some other elder.
Ahhh Rosa. You're such a tsundere...
***
Hmm...
The village these days seems to have quite a tense atmosphere, and even those not of the night dwellers proffesions shared their hesitation and fear amongst each other.
A meeting was to be held soon in the village hall, a building mostly used as shade and mother's bringing their children to play and run around in. The place was currently being cleaned and dusted as despite the attendants being quite familiar with one another, a formal and more serious atmosphere was sought after in the meeting.
All night dwellers, no matter their age and experience, was invited. A lot of adults in the village was also encouraged to participate, to share any opinions to ensure a semblance of fairness and transpancy.
The topic to be discussed was to find and vote on a solution of how the succession of the prison warden was to be handled. It was a rare event but one which could impact the island quite drastically if handled wrong.
Don also told me that a bunch of representatives for non night dweller beyonders would not only attend but vote in the current topic of discussion. After a bit of probing, I discovered they made up a couple of major groups.
The first group was the tall traders (The representative just called themselves merchants but I'm going to continue calling them tall traders).
They were mostly concerned with stability and ensuring the village was well stocked. Their experience mostly lies in logistics and warehousing and despite the current discussion not related much to trading, were still given voting rights due to their importance to the village.
The second beyonder representative was a warrior leader. Someone who assigns and leads teams in capturing or defeating the more dangerous beasts, and sometimes humans that threaten the village.
Also, they guarded the root cellar so this meeting is quite relevant for them.
The third representative was actually Rosa. To my surprise I found out she was a beyonder.
Huh. I guess exploring forests to gather resources came with risks and having beyonder abilities would be useful.
She represented the healers, midwives and gatherers, basically the bootleg version of a hospital in the village.
We night dwellers actually got represented by three individuals. Their heavily hooded and robed wear hid most of their appearance but from their hunched posture and walking sticks I'm guessing most of them are quite old.
The non beyonder, non night dweller, also had three voters, Gram being one of them.
So, the beyonders get three votes,the night dwellers get three votes and the 'mundane' get three votes. A rather peculiar system but I do not really wish to study the history of how it came to be this way.
History is boring. Never enjoyed it in school.
In total, there would be lots of discussions and if required, votes will be cast each to pin down a more popular solution. There will be multiple sessions of the so called village meeting, the first part hopefully eliminating the least desirable solutions.
Once three solutions were left, a final vote will be held, this time the solution with the most vote to be implemented.
I would be attending the meeting and even be allowed to voice my opinion. I was offered to join several groups discussing the topic. Even small debates would be held before the meeting.
I decided I have something more important to do.
...
I went fishing with Pillar.
Good doggo~ who wants a fishie? Look at what I just caught ~~