Magic Murder Cube Marine - Chapter 50: Earning Their Keep

While Francis and Willow were occupied, the others went to work. The first thing they did was waste an hour arguing about what to call their group. Everyone, including the musicians and new recruits, was invited.

“Chuck’s Heroes” and “The Rainbow Brigade” were rejected. As were “Assassins Without Borders”, “Auldric’s Army” and “Mac’s Militia”. Just when it seemed that nobody could agree on anything, Brick came to the rescue.

The young man could see the problem. Which was a strange feeling, usually his mind was as foggy as his eyesight. But Brexis was boosting his skills. And going from a zero to a one made all the difference.

“Who do we want to be?” He asked. “I mean, I know who we are. We’re a bunch of random people. But who do we want to be?”

The mish mash of adventures, assassins, and cooks looked at one another. Auldric spoke up first, “If I’m honest, all I want is to make things better. Because I’m tired of serving lords that aren’t worth my time.”

“Same.” Agreed a young woman that had come with Julia’s parents. She was wiry with a scar down the side of her face. “The world is a shit show. But at least Francis seems to care.”

Brick tried to think of something intelligent to say, but he was tapped out. He looked to Mac for help.

The demon sighed, Brick was too pathetic for it to ignore. “Fine, I’m probably going to be stuck with you all for a while. So I’ll help, just this one time.” It concentrated and words written in fire appeared in the air.

THE BEST OF BREXIS

“You can call yourself The BOBs and have shirts made with embroidery on them,” the demon said miserably. Team building wasn’t its thing, but getting people to do what it wanted definitely was.

“Wow!” Brick grinned as he reached over to scratch Mac behind the ears. “You’re one smart kitty.”

The demonic cat curled up in Brick’s lap and began to purr happily. “Yes… I am the best.”

***

The Best of Brexis didn’t want tomorrow to devolve into a complete cluster fuck, and that meant they had to be proactive.

Waiting for the refugees to come to Brexis was asking for trouble. The BOBs would need to manage the flow and get infrastructure in place before the main body arrived.

Anyone with money fleeing Olympia had traveled on horseback or by carriage to the capital and other major cities. That left the vast majority of people traveling on foot.

There would be a vanguard of faster moving refugees as well as a trailing element of the sick and injured. The BOBs’ goal was to peel away at the mass of people layer by layer like an onion.

Auldric had already started by sending notice that Brexis was looking for skilled artisans, as well as laborers to help rebuild.

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The request would draw people from far and wide, creating vacancies and job openings in the surrounding cities for the refugees. Because not all of them would be headed to Brexis.

The merchant’s guild had been alerted as well. The opening of a major trade route with low taxes and tariffs would have them scrambling to claim their piece of the pie. That would get goods flowing through the city, which Brexis would happily accept as payment in lieu of coins (for a modest markup).

An unorthodox suggestion had come from Mac, and time would tell if it was brilliant or incredibly stupid. The other BOBs (besides Brick) had trouble trusting the demon, mostly due to a thing called common sense. But it was strangely appealing.

Francis was unique among the gods because he believed in freedom of religion. To hear him tell it, he could give a shit if people prayed to him or not, so long as they did what he said.

Mac’s idea was to invite the other religions into Brexis. Naturally, Francis would be keeping the palace and his position as head god of Brexis. But there was a ton of space for the other gods to establish their temples.

It wasn’t uncommon for followers to seek out new deities after a holy city fell. The more pragmatic gods usually tried to siphon off as many as they could with offers of aid and shelter. If the other gods wanted to take on some of the burden, that was fine with them.

Francis had explained to his core followers early on that he was looking to “avoid planting the same crop in the field every year and fucking up the soil”. He wanted to diversify Brexis’ income and favor long term stability over short term profits. To that end, they were going to try and attract manufacturing and other industries to the city.

Skeleton powered machines were common in Brexis. They were cheaper than golems and didn’t require access to the river like water wheels. Plus, the machines could be purchased as-is and didn’t require modifications. If something was designed to be operated by humans, the undead could use it.

Something Cassi had brought to everyone’s attention was that if the undead did most of the fighting, and there would eventually be fighting, Brexis had a unique economic advantage. Instead of losing their young able bodied citizens to the wars that cropped up around Vahnis, they could stay in the labor force. Between that and the undead, Brexis would become an economic powerhouse.

When Francis woke up and went to them for a summary, he approved most of the ideas. But the Marine made a few changes. When it came to goods, quality was going to be more important than quantity. He wanted them to be producing “expensive and heavy shit, not cheap plastic crap and dogshit”.

According to the maps and tax documents, Brexis had more than a few shipbuilding facilities. The Silver River was deep enough for them to fill the ships with cargo and drift them down to the capital for sale. But they wouldn’t sell anything that could move against the current. Francis remembered what happened with the CIA and their stinger missiles. He didn’t want warships on his doorstep.

The other major changes were regarding art, music, and food. Brexis’ black on black color scheme was depressing as hell and the skeletal minions weren’t exactly pleasant to look at. It was only slightly better than living in Seattle.

They needed to liven things up. Francis proposed grants to beautify the city, get some good chow cooking, and support the arts. The chefs and musicians were very much in favor of this, as was Shiv. Mostly Francis supported the programs because he wanted some tacos and a nice spot to eat them, but he didn’t need to tell them that.

When they were done, Francis went out to the garden to watch the sunrise. He puffed on one of Willow’s cigars as he took stock. Their plans for the city were ambitious and he figured they might be able to enact about ten percent of them, if they were lucky. They would adjust as needed. Things like higher numbers of wounded, or nasty weather, would shift their priorities.

The Marine cocked his head to the side. He could hear something in the distance that sounded like a scream. It was getting closer, but he couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from. Finally he looked up to see Amanda the red dragon flying towards him. In her claws was a kobold wearing a bright white hard hat and enormous boots. She released her minion without bothering to land first.

“Ah,” Francis said as he watched the unfortunate lizard man plummet through the air without a parachute, screaming like a banshee the whole way down. “At least he’s wearing his safety gear.”