blacksmithoftheapocalypse
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1232. Debrief
🕑 Added 2024-12-08 22:11:07 +0000 UTCFor the first time in a while, all the core people of Minas Mar were assembled in a room At this point the usual meeting room was no longer enough and the assembly was relocated to an auditorium inside of Minas Mar.
As a mage tower, it seemed that there were also lessons held for disciples, so apart from the facilities, dorms, and guest rooms, there were also auditoriums that went mostly unused so far. Now they were all assembled here.
“It's great to see everyone in good health,” Leana greeted everyone, once they found their seat among the many rows surrounding the rostrum. Everyone greeted her back. The mood was great, considering the frightening war they had prepared for ended in a victory without casualties on their end.
“I know everyone is already in party mode, but we called this meeting to talk about the most pressing matters at the moment, to decide the general direction in the future while everyone is present,” the princess reiterated the reason for their meeting shortly.
“if everyone is ready, the first thing I would like to talk about is how we will deal with Spatia,” Leana made a stylistic pause in her sentence, giving Link the time to raise his hand and call out a question.
“Didn't we just deal with Spatia?” the gourmet hunter asked with a big naive grin on his face. Although he had been stationed in Little Sigma during the battle, he felt just as proud as the people who were actually here.
“That was just Natina Durnham and a small contingent of soldiers. Spatia is far from done with us, especially since we just destroyed one of their royals and the legendary troops of another. We cost them almost 10 legends, there is no way they will ignore us after this,” the princess explained patiently.
She was right. Although Seth and the others had intended to teach the other side a lesson with this battle, things had actually turned out crazier than expected. None of them had much knowledge about the legendary society of the great empires. Not even Leana could have known that they would be sending 10 legends at them as if it were nothing.
From their initial investigations, these were just the legends under two of the royals acknowledged by Spatia. They were not even sent by any of their main force. It was hard to say they taught Spatia a lesson if what they defeated were just auxiliary forces.
“There is also the question of what to do with the prisoners of war, especially the captured legends,” she added another point to the topic. The room had fallen silent, as everyone listened to her and was thinking for themselves.
“Since it is very likely that they will send another force, we should start reinforcing our defenses and troops,” Monique suggested like a strategist. Yes, preparation was important. Many in the room agreed, although some hesitatingly.
After all, the goal for most of them was to return to Urth's ultimately peaceful society. Too much military could be a detriment on that part, however, there were no notions of fear or surrender in the room, which made Seth quite happy. Quite a few made suggestions on how to fortify Minas Mar further.
Seth also agreed that they had to reinforce themselves. Not just to deal with Spatia, but also with the dangers of Urth. However, after he got a good night's sleep and gave their situation some thought, he found that this was not enough.
“I say, on top of strengthening ourselves, we should double down on what we already did,” the bard suggested, his <Voice of Seth> being heard in the whole room, without overpowering the existing voices.
“What do you mean?” Leana asked a little concerned about what the blacksmith meant.
“Since it's already clear that Spatia isn't going to leave us alone, we should be more proactive than just preparing to defend. They are already our enemy. We should make sure it's known to the world,” the bard said confidently.
“We should not just aggressively publicize our victory over two royals in the Pathworks but also the atrocities Spatia committed here under the guise of the Scene. We will declare our hostile stance toward Spatia publicly,” Seth slammed his flat hand on the
desk.
As he spoke, he remembered the feeling he had at the start of the song during his fight with Natina. This wasn't enough. Spatia probably couldn't care less for their reputation outside of their borders. it would hamper their advances on Urth. Thinking of what they did here, he felt a lot less apprehensive about his following suggestion.
“Not just that, I think we should give them the parts of Urth they deserve.” The room had fallen silent, but he could feel their questioning gazes. Spatia had no claim to Urth, what did they deserve?
“ The endlessly growing forests of the south-east. The immortal zombies of the north. The robotic body snatchers from the Unclaimed Mountains. They wanted Urth? let's give them Urth. All the creepy, crappy shit this world has brought forth. Let's gift them the presents of Urth and see how they deal with that. Let's see if they still have the time to bother us if their worlds are also overrun with bullshit.”
The room had fallen completely silent. Maybe he had vented a little and became too emotional. When he thought that he might have gone a little too far, a clap broke the silence in the room. They were quiet claps from soft hands, only audible because of the silence in the room.
“Spoken like a true maniac, I love it,” Al'Zalsar commented derisively with a wide grin on her face. Obviously, the spicy sorceress was always in, if it was about taking merciless revenge on someone. Surprisingly, many joined her applause by clapping, laughing, or knocking on tables in front of them.
“Yeah, screw them and all this bullshit! Let's see them deal with this!” James and the other Urthans agreed with him. Whether they agreed with his sentiment, or he just hit the right tone, when he complained about the calamities of their home world, he didn't know.
“Wouldn't that also mean quite a lot of civilian casualties?” Jane asked concerned. If they released these terrifying and quickly spreading dangers on the world, it would be the general public suffering, not necessarily their true enemies. Seth also had those concerns at one point, but they had greatly lowered, when he thought of Spatia's deeds and plans on Urth, most recently the deployment of hell gates.
“Then we just have to make sure to hit the right places,” Jonah said with his disturbingly beautiful voice from below the mask. Of course, this was also an option to decrease the impact on uninvolved civilians.
“We could bring the seeds of a Hangingtree and plant them in their capitals, or sow the endless forests at some frontier. This would rob their land and give the normal people time to run.” Alison gave a very rational way to use it, although her knowledge of the Hangingtree was mostly based on what Seth told them.
“Then someone would first have to go and get those seeds,” Monique said thoughtfully.
“Can't Karina synthesize some for us?” Lydia asked. Since the Dryad had been able to come up with all kinds of plants based on the Guardian Tree, the idea that she could also reverse engineer the seed of the Hangingtree and the Evergrowing Forest was not unlikely. However, Karina shook her head.
“ Although I could make a seed to grow a version of the Guardian Tree that is very close to the hanging Tree, it would not be the original. As for the forest, they are not related. I can't make something out of nothing. You have to get those seeds, then I might be able to do something,” she explained with a shrug.
“So we would need to send an expedition to the southeast,” Mary mumbled to herself.
“I get how you want to deal with the forest and I guess Haa'Skon can control the zombies... but how do you plan to deal with the worms?” Mike asked concerned. he was the one who had dealt with the body snatchers the most.
“Idyllon, do you think you could disassemble the stone gates?” Seth asked the master enchanter and spatial wizard.
“Of course, given enough time,” the man answered with a nod.
“Then we could place some of the throughout the unclaimed mountains and allow the worms to move to greener pastures on their own,” the blacksmith suggested. Like this, they kept on talking for a while about their future approach to dealing with Spatia.
