>>5526706You take a week to think on the matter. During this time, you prepare yourself for battle—physically and mentally. You spend your days between refamiliarizing yourself with your once-more precarious logistical and economic situation. Even now, however, the Engineer’s improvements and the ‘carrot-and-stick’ approach you have taken to morale and discipline bears fruit: conditions now are STILL notably better than a two seasons ago. As your circadian rhythm adapts once more to the natural day-night cycle of the surface, you find you naturally gravitate to the company of Glowie and your sons in the evenings, and to the Novice Fleshweaver at night; Glowie is too large, and her offspring too unruly, to share the Novice’s lab any longer, forcing you to leave one to accompany the other.
When you feel you have weighed the situation with due diligence, you call a council of your greatest strategic minds to you, to discuss your plans for the expansion of your Bloodrise kingdom.
“Our first priority is the dwarves,” you declare. “The mountains are a stronghold, as the darkness below has been for aeons. Only when this fortress-kingdom is secure can we focus on the world below and outside of it.”
Your assembly nods along. You are… Honestly, a little underwhelmed by the level of tactical mastery at your disposal, seeing them all in one place. You prioritized other things in assembling your entourage, recruiting mainly from the lowly and the culturally and economically inclined. Your subsequent additions have been based more around combat ability, specific mystical specialities, or personal affinity. As such, your war-council consists of a few elder kobolds, the Thief, and the Translator (mostly so as to avoid snubbing him and wounding his Serpent Priest pride)… Oh, and the Novice, for reasons to the male of her caste, but mostly because you appreciate her presence on a personal level.
“I am not prepared to trade with the enemy,” you say. “We must cease it entirely—or leave it halted—as far as the human-led baronies go. Anything we offer them is wealth they can wield against us. Any interactions we have with them risk exposure, before we are ready to reveal ourselves.”
“We CANNOT reveal ourselves,” the Translator protests. “It goes against the Great Conspiracy!”
“Then we will not do so,” you say appeasingly, “unless our hand is forced. But make no mistake, Translator: it’s going to be.”
You have seen the Green Knight in your dreams—increasingly so, as these visions invade your rest once more, since defeating your more immediate threat in Hapo. This last scion of the Yosef bloodline will NOT stop. You can feel it. You feel that you KNOW it.
