Chapter 360 (2/2)

But all these things took time, and the clock was running out on that.

Donny looked at the rest of his desk. Along with currency, came the issue of private/public ownership. Right now, you owned basically whatever you worked or lived on, without anymore legal ability. You traded goods or services for other goods and services, and relied on friends if you couldn’t find the right thing to trade for what you wanted.

But if there was a currency, suddenly ownership became important. You could provide an object of concrete, durable value. Whereas a bushel of corn could be traded for a lot of things, it had to be consumed eventually; it didn’t save well. Being able to transform that into currency would put that issue to rest. That way, the farmer could save to purchase a larger tract of land, a bigger home, a better weapon, more help for the farm…

Which led to another stack of papers. Grimacing, Donny took a drink and sat down. What to do with the land…? The obvious answer was to either sell it very cheaply to the people who were living on it now, give it to them for free, or to auction everything off, but all of these had problems. Problems that set precedents for the future…

Now they were firmly in the realm of governance, and Donny was way over his head. What was shocking to him, is that even though everyone knew that, they insisted that he make the decisions. Mrs. Hamilton provided several tutors for him, so most of his mornings were spent reading history books, but it still didn’t feel like enough.

When he had insisted she just make the decision, she gave him a pointed look.

“I can do a lot of things...one of them is to try and protect people from you, if you were to go mad with power.” She said primly. “But the one thing that I can’t do… that no one can do… is protect people from myself.”

Donny thought about that for a long time. Although he found himself disagreeing with putting the decision in his inexperienced hands, he could understand her fear. It was a fear he faced everyday in the mirror. And perhaps… his own lack of knowledge was helpful in that regard, in that it injected humility and reflection into every decision.

Not that this benefit meant he skipped his lessons, far from it. But Donny did begrudgingly accept that someone had to take the fall for bad decisions, and everyone had nominated him.

After a long hesitation, he pulled the packet of papers regarding what they would need to make their own currency towards him. He began to carefully read through, analyzing every word.

“Do you ever wonder why he picked you?”

Donny looked up sharply, giving Daniel a level glare. But his friend’s face was guileless, and his gaze was back on his own work. Daniel focused mostly on Skills, Classes, and Paths, and the exhausting journey to chronicle the inputs and outputs of each. Even just thinking about it, Donny was exhausted. It just involved so much interviewing, and conjecture. He would grow frustrated with it in a second.

But Daniel loved it.

He considered Daniel’s question. “...Because I was there, probably.”

“Ha!” Daniel guffawed, his round face twisting. “Is the world ever so simple, especially in regards to the Ghosthound?”

Donny shook his head, smiling, but saying nothing. In his mind, yes, sometimes things really just were that easy. Being there, next to Randidly, when he needed help… that was the impetus for all of this. And now, a small thought, such as the image of Donny’s own face, stamped upon a gold coin, carried and traded across all of their Zone… of course he had other, more positive and practical reasons for choosing the currency option, but…

That image wasn’t one that Donny could get off his mind. It gave him a wide grin that he had to bury his head in paperwork to hide from Daniel. Sometimes, things really were just that simple.