Daniel reached the front lawn with Julie and Ethan following behind him.
The scene before them looked like chaos ready to erupt. Dozens of residents formed a restless circle around the porch.
At the center, Donna maintained a rigid posture, her palms facing downward in a calming gesture while overlapping voices hurled hysterical questions at her.
Tabitha, who was standing near the stairs, spotted the three of them and quickly walked over.
"What's going on?" Daniel asked without raising his voice, his tone sharply contrasting with the collective hysteria surrounding them.
"The faucets..." Tabitha wet her dry lips. "The faucets just ran dry. Donna said this has never happened before."
Daniel narrowed his blue eyes, observing the frightened faces around the house leader.
"Everybody listen! It could just be an isolated plumbing problem here," the woman's powerful voice echoed, cutting through the uproar.
"I already sent Paul to check the town. There's probably still water there. Let's not freak out before we understand what's happening."
She wanted to hide the crisis until she had more information, but keeping a secret in a crowded environment was impossible.
Someone turned on a faucet, saw nothing come out, muttered it to one person, who whispered it to another, and the dread spread like wildfire.
The next few minutes crawled by in tense silence.
The sound of heavy footsteps made everyone turn their heads almost at the same time.
The young man Donna sent as a messenger came sprinting up. He stopped with his hands braced against his knees, his chest rising and falling uncontrollably.
"There's none there either!" Paul blurted out between ragged breaths. "The faucets... they're all dry!"
That sentence was the trigger.
Panic exploded.
Shouts erupted across the lawn. Some people grabbed their heads, others started speaking all at once, losing what little control they still had.
"That's impossible!"
"How does the water just vanish?!"
"What are we supposed to do now?!"
"Are we going to die of thirst?!"
While the crowd in front of him gave in to panic, Daniel was already calculating possibilities.
"What are we going to do now?" Julie asked quietly, gripping the sleeve of his jacket.
Tilting his head slightly, Daniel leaned closer to her ear.
"Relax. We've got plenty of water stored in the motorhome."
Julie nodded slowly, but her expression remained tense. The vehicle was large, yes, but in her mind, even a full tank wouldn't last forever.
Nearby, Jim, who had approached while Paul was checking the town, tried to calm his wife. The engineer had already begun thinking of solutions to the problem.
"Donna, is there a river nearby? Any natural source of water?" he asked loudly enough to overpower the lamenting voices.
The house leader rubbed her temples, exhausted.
"We have the Brundles," she answered. "It's a small lake not too far from here. But the water's murky, full of sludge. It's not drinkable."
"Listen! We can fix this," Jim declared with the authority of someone who knew exactly what he was talking about. "If we get our hands on some charcoal, fine sand, gravel, and clean cloth, we can rig up a makeshift filter."
Jade, who had been leaning against the porch railing smoking nervously, straightened up at that. His eyes lit up immediately.
"We'll need large containers, like plastic barrels," Jim began listing, gesturing as he explained.
"We'll build it in layers. First, larger rocks at the bottom. Then smaller gravel. Above that, coarse sand, then fine sand. And finally, crushed charcoal."
Daniel observed everything in silence as Jim broke down the process.
"The lake water passes slowly through those layers. The gravel and sand trap mud and solid waste, while the activated charcoal absorbs toxins and metals."
"Will that make it safe to drink?" Donna asked cautiously.
"Cleaner, not perfect," Jim corrected. "After that, it'd still need to be boiled for several minutes to kill bacteria, parasites, and microorganisms."
"If we boil it for at least five minutes and store it properly, the risk drops drastically."
"Especially if the water's collected far from the shore," Jade unexpectedly added. "Less mud. Less contamination."
Jim shot him a surprised look. He knew the man was intelligent, but he'd assumed that only applied to technology.
"Finally found a use for all those hours I spent high watching survival shows." Jade shrugged.
The engineer's explanation worked like a sedative on the crowd.
Hope returned to the exhausted faces, and a collective sigh of relief spread across the lawn.
"There's also Daniel's motorhome," Dilan commented loudly from the middle of the crowd, seizing the opportunity. "He ought to share his water with us."
Daniel felt dozens of eyes fall on him at the same time. Some carried hope. Others held a hungry desperation.
This is interesting.
Even with the filter solution, most people still preferred already clean water.
Rationally, they understood the purification process. Emotionally? It was still the same lake where they used to bathe.
"You can get that brilliant idea out of your heads," he replied indifferently. "I'm not running a charity."
Exchanging a quick glance with three nearby men, Dilan gave a subtle nod.
"That selfish bastard," an older man snapped. "He caught two huge animals earlier and didn't share a single damn piece of meat with anyone here!"
"And now he doesn't even want to give up any water," Marcos added, though without quite meeting Daniel's eyes. "We're all in the same boat here!"
Hostile murmurs began spreading through the crowd.
Julie's blood boiled. She stepped forward, fists clenched at her sides, stopping in front of Daniel like a human shield.
"You're all a bunch of useless hypocrites!" she shouted, trembling with indignation. "He's the one who went into the forest and risked his life hunting!"
"Daniel has no obligation to support a bunch of lazy deadbeats. The water is his, and he can do whatever he wants with it!"
[If she bites Dilan's neck right now, I'll release ten bonus silver coins into your account.]
A slow smile spread across Daniel's lips. It was hard not to feel a certain pride seeing Julie lose her temper like that because of him.
I chose well, he thought, casually sliding his hand to the small of her back.
Jim and Tabitha exchanged surprised glances at their daughter's outburst, but neither of them tried to stop her. After all, she was right.
Dilan pointed a finger at Julie, his face red with anger.
"At Colony House, we share everything! That's the rule! During the ceremony, he chose to live here, so he has to follow the house rules too!"
Letting out an irritated grunt, Donna walked down the steps and stopped in front of him.
"Shut up, Dilan. He only chose Colony House because he didn't want to follow the town's rules. He doesn't even sleep inside the house, he sleeps in the vehicle. So stop stirring up trouble."
Fatima was quick to agree. "He's already helped more people here than half the ones complaining."
"Without Daniel, a lot more people would've died that night," Ellis added, leaning on his crutch.
Other residents started defending him too, though not all of them looked convinced.
Daniel watched the pathetic little show unfold without reacting.
"Fascinating," Jade commented, applauding slowly. "The faucet stays dry for five minutes and civilized society instantly devolves into angry monkeys trying to rob the neighbor who still has bananas."
"Unfortunately," Daniel replied while looking at Dilan, "natural selection missed a few people around here."
[Humanity at its finest. If the lack of water doesn't kill them, jealousy certainly will.]
Let's turn this into profit, he decided while ignoring the rest of the argument and mentally opening the shop.
Daniel checked the price of water. Each liter cost 1 Silver Coin.
After confirming it, he spoke again. "I could make part of my reserves available."
The faces around him changed in an instant, lighting up with interest.
"But nothing in this world is free. I'll trade for live animals. A small one, like a rabbit, is worth twenty-five liters.
"Something the size of a goat equals two hundred. I don't take newborns or anything smaller than a rabbit."
The collective reaction was immediate: stunned expressions and disbelieving stares appeared everywhere.
For several seconds, nobody knew what to say while their brains processed the bizarre market that had just been created.
[With a monopoly and you're only charging double? A disgrace to the free market. Starting to think you're too soft for this universe. Maybe I should demote your hunter title to honorary social worker.]
"What can I say?" Daniel replied internally. "I'm an extremely generous person. I'm practically running a charity for these lost souls."
[Your kindness makes me nauseous.]
He almost laughed. In the end, he wouldn't even need to spend coins. The motorhome's reservoir had autonomous purification and enough capacity to supply three people for an entire year.
Checking the price had only been a precaution to make sure he'd profit from this little business venture.
"Are you sure about this?" Donna asked. In her mind, Daniel looked like he was caving to the group's pressure.
"Absolutely," he answered without hesitation. Then his gaze settled directly on Dilan and the men around him.
"But I don't do business with him or the goons standing around him. You're blacklisted.
"And if I find out someone traded with me on his behalf, they'll get the same treatment."
He turned back to Donna.
"And that offer extends to the people in town too. Same prices. Same terms."
Dilan's expression twisted into a mask of hatred as he clenched his teeth so hard the muscles in his jaw jumped.
The other three instigators looked away, realizing far too late that their intimidation attempt had backfired badly.
With the market now open and the rules established, construction on the tower had to be interrupted. At that moment, survival came before any plan.
Jim knew the problem needed to be solved as quickly as possible. Without wasting time, he headed behind the house with Jade in search of the containers needed to put together the improvised filter.
Even so, the engineer seemed far less worried now.
Mainly because Daniel had already quietly guaranteed he would provide water for him and his family free of charge.
Meanwhile, the rest of the residents began spreading through the forest in improvised teams, trying to hunt anything they could find.
Their chances of success were minimal. Almost nobody there knew how to track animals, set traps, or even move through the woods without making noise.
But desperation was an excellent motivator.
Aware of the dangers in the forest, Donna made an exception due to the severity of the situation and authorized the more trustworthy residents to take the house's shotguns, instructing everyone to stick to groups of three.
Back in town, Boyd, who was still trying to calm people down alongside Kenny and Khatri, received the news through Paul.
Some of the tension left the sheriff's shoulders when he heard about the filtration system Jim had come up with.
Even so, Daniel's proposal left him intrigued. Boyd doubted that motorhome could sustain both the town and Colony House for very long, even through barter.
To test the limits of the offer and secure an immediate reserve of clean water, he went to Nathan after calming the crowd down and promising to return with supplies.
After asking a few questions about the available animals, Boyd selected three older chickens that barely laid eggs anymore, along with a porcupine Kenny had caught in a trap shortly after dawn.
Placing the animals inside wire cages in the back of the pickup truck, with a heavy cloth partially covering the porcupine's crate, Boyd headed toward Colony House accompanied by Kenny.
The meeting on the lawn in front of the motorhome was purely business.
"Three chickens and one porcupine," Boyd announced with his usual serious expression.
After checking with the system, Daniel discovered the porcupine would give him one hundred and ten coins after being devoured.
"I can trade all of that for one hundred and thirty liters."
"Deal," the sheriff replied a little too quickly, worried Daniel might change his mind.
Using the containers they had brought, Daniel handed over the agreed amount.
"Pleasure doing business with you," he said with a professional smile. "Feel free to come back if you need more. I'll return the cages later."
While the animals were taken inside the motorhome, Boyd started the pickup.
One hundred and thirty liters would be enough to stabilize the situation until Jim's filter became fully operational.
He had no intention of continuing to trade away the town's livestock.
The problem was that cows, goats, and chickens needed water too.
Let's see how long this remains sustainable, the sheriff thought, letting out another tired sigh.
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