Blood Shaper

“That… was a little dramatic but I think it conveys the level of gravitas we’re dealing with here.” Kay replied, unable to hold back some levity.

Amanda’s lips curled up slightly at the edges. “Thank you. We’re currently in a holding pattern and only reacting to what happens, we’re not making any decisions about what to do ourselves. Not only are a number of groups and interests pushing us about what our stance is going to be, being reactive to a situation of this level is a poor decision in my opinion. I believe we should pick a direction, whatever it may be, and commit to that.”

“I agree. If there’s on thing my mentor has taught me, it’s to be decisive.” Hey shot Eleniah a grin, which she returned. “Who’s been pressuring you, and what to they want us to do?”

“Multiple groups and each wants something different. Tumbling Rapids is one, and they just want this entire situation to stop. Not everyone fleeing what used to be Nelam are coming here, enough are headed to Tumbling Rapids that its quickly becoming a problem for them. They’re already straining to care for the people who made their way there and they don’t have a lot of military force to deal with vampyr attacks.” Amanda gave him a level look. “They would love for us to go deal with the problem, but they aren’t in a position to do much for us in return. If we do end the vampyr threat from the west in one way or another the most we’ll get from Tumbling Rapids is goodwill. They were already reeling from the events that you and Eleniah caused when the next round of the Nelamian campaign to take them over hit and caused more chaos among their politicians. Rooting out the leaders that supported Nelam immediately after we ended the Shatterplate War gave them a little bit of stability, but this has sent them spiraling again. They will need quite some time and effort to pull themselves back up.”

She took a moment to gather her thoughts. “Frankly, it might be in our best interests to not let them gain the stability they need. Or at least not help them with it.”

“Explain.”

“Tumbling Rapids has reached a point where they’re only going to decline if they don’t rapidly change their approach, and their leaders are focusing more on personal power and factional fighting to do anything about the problems their facing. If we give them assistance they should be able to dig themselves out of the hole they’re in, but if we don’t they’ll devolve further and further. In a few years the city will be ripe for annexation without any blood spilled, they’ll be so desperate that they might even come to us asking to become part of Avalon.”

Kay stared across the table at his Prime Minister. “How does that make us any different than Nelam was?”

“We aren’t actively trying to make their situation worse or force anyone into untenable positions to make them work with us, we would just refrain from any charity and let them deal with the consequences of their own actions.” She replied without missing a beat. “If we actually made harmful moves under the table we’d have Tumbling Rapids sewn up within two to three years minimum. Leaving them as they are will take longer, but there’s also less chance of harsh feelings down the road.” She set out three packets. “This is a plan moving forward under the assumption that we won’t volunteer to help Tumbling Rapids with non-emergency problems and will see if we can annex them once they reach a point of no return, without any interference from us. It includes the assumption that we will help if they ask and offer suitable payment. This one,” She tapped the on in the middle, “Assumes we do help when they have issues and take a very long term stance toward annexing them using goodwill and negotiations without letting them drive themselves into a losing position. And this final one involves us actively maneuvering to take the city quickly through some mild sabotage and espionage.”

Kay reached down and grabbed the first packet of papers. “Why are you focused on us annexing Tumbling Rapids at all?”

“Two reasons. The first is to take control of trade on this side of the continent. With Nelam gone we have the only working port on the western side of the continent, that we know of at least. There might be a handful of smaller ones on the opposite side of us to the south, but we have no information about that. Either way, taking control of Tumbling Rapids will but us in a commanding position for all trade to this side of the continent and will not only massively increase our revenue but also connect us directly to more nations. Second, it helps with out isolation problem.”

“Isolation problem?” Eleniah stood up from the couch off to the side and circled round to lean against the desk near Kay. “What do you mean by that?”

“The territory Avalon controls isn’t quite a peninsula, but we’re hemmed in fairly effectively by the ocean to our north and west and eventually the mountains to our east, leaving the souther border where our territory buts up against Tumbling Rapids territory as our only real border. That’s fantastic for defensive purposes, but it limits us in other factors. That includes trade and contact with other nations, but the main ones I’m worried about are immigration and future threats.”

Kay nodded. “I can see those. If everything you have seen says Tumbling Rapids is likely to collapse in on itself, then someone is going to either take over or replace it as a polity, which means we’d have an unknown neighbor at our doorstep, one that might be hostile. There’s no reason to leave that opportunity for someone else to take. Immigration wise…” He trailed off for a moment as he thought, but started nodding before he spoke again. “Yeah. Getting here by sea is basically impossible for most people. We’re far enough from other ports to make anything but large scale shipping worth the cost, and that won’t change for years. By land is the only real way to get to us, and we’re all isolated in the corner of the continent. How many people are put off by the level of work it takes to get to us and just… don’t.”

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“Exactly,” Amanda agreed with him, “The amount of territory we claimed as being part of our borders is quite a bit of land, and we don’t have enough people to really control it all. I know why you claimed all that land for Avalon and I agreed with your reasoning then, and I still do now, but there are still consequences to that. We have the authority to run off any ‘squatters’, destroy pirates and bandits, and take control of dungeons, ruins, or other valuable finds but we want to prevent more problems from cropping up, which means actively taking control of all our land. And that takes people. We need more people, and we can’t rely on just births, that would be too slow. Making immigration to Avalon more palatable is just one step toward solving that.”

“More people let’s us do a million other things too.” Eleniah muttered. She reached out an tapped the plan Kay was holding. “I say we go with this one. We don’t make things worse but we don’t help without them asking us to. Because you’re right, there’s no point in leaving a tasty target out there for other people to take if its going to make itself available.”

“We’ll need to discuss this a bit more before I make any final decisions, but I agree for now.” Kay handed the proposal back to Amanda. “That took us a bit off topic though, who else is making demands about how we’re going to react to this?”

“Refugees and escapees that don’t want to join Avalon, of every flavor, want us to go wipe out the vampyr and then leave and let them build their own nation from the ashes, whether that’s remaking what was lost or letting them build their ideals from scratch. The few holdout cities we’ve been able to contact through some of my people want the same thing, just without building new countries.”

“So we roll up, solve the problem, and then leave with nothing?” Kay cocked an eyebrow. “That’s presumptuous of them.”

“A few of those with brains are offering us trade deals, alliances, and the like, but most don’t have anything to offer. They do essentially want us to throw ourselves into a war and then not keep any of the land we take.”

Kay snorted and shook his head. “If we decide it’s the best move to start dealing with the vampyr where Nelam used to be then we can discuss if we take any land. My current thought is that we don’t, mostly because of what you just said about having too much territory already, but that’s a later conversation. Is that the last of the people wanting things of us?”

“No, there’s still the Shatterplate Order and the Itarian Crusade.”

Both of Kay’s eyebrows jumped to the top of his head. “They’re making demands of me?”

Cindy raised her hand and wiggled it side to side in a “sort of” gesture as she verbally entered the conversation for the first time. “It’s mostly Alice’s friend Zeia, but the Itarian Crusade people that are here have been adding their two cents.”

“The correspondence that arrived before you left was still mostly ambiguous about whether the rest of both organizations were going to accept your demand that they move there bases of operation here following the war, but we got more after you left and Zeia’s…” Amanda trailed off before huffing slightly and rolling her eyes, “Vociferous arguments to me and everyone else that she gets a hold of seemed to have changed things. As far as we’ve been able to tell, the events that have occurred have changed the minds of several of the hold outs. Both the Order and the Crusade are marching this direction in force, led by Commander Ravenhome and Crusader General Eahn. The messages they’ve sent are insistent that they be allowed to sortie once they arrive and get settled in.”

“That does tip the scales in one direction, doesn’t it? Add a meeting with Zeia and whoever they Crusade wants to represent them to my schedule. I’ll see what thoughts they have from a local perspective and if we haven’t made a final decision before then we can bring Ravenhome and Eahn into it.”

“Of course, your majesty.” Miri replied, cutting off Amanda who was about to say something similar.

Amanda gave Miri a look before a small smile graced her face. “Well, that will save me quite a bit of work, now won’t it? We’ll have to speak after this, Miss Miri so that I can give you access to a few different resources you’ll need.”

“Thank you, Prime Minister.”

“Of course.” Amanda turned back to Kay. “That’s the last group of people making demands of any kind, although quite a few others have suggestions of various levels. Whether that involves us invading too and fro and bring back spoils depends on how stupid the person making recommendations is, but sadly the roaming packs of mad vampyr haven’t rid us of idiotic fops that think they’re important.”

“Unless they become much more annoying then they are now, they aren’t my problem. Is there anyone I should actually speak to before we move on to other topics? I can go ahead and get Miri to start working on scheduling them in.”

“Regarding what we’re going to do about the west, no. In general, yes. Murunel’s two family members are still here, her cousin and his wife. You didn’t get a chance to speak with them before you left, correct?”

“No. Well, technically I did when I accepted their surrender and they promised not to do anything, but other than that, no. They were holed up with Murunel arguing about something if I remember right.”

“You do. Her cousin, the red dragon whose name is Azred, was insisting that she leave and return to the rest of her family and Murunel and her cousin’s wife were working on shutting him down, which she told me they did eventually. Then they had to talk him out of starting a one dragon punitive campaign against Glowl for capturing Murunel and throwing her in that glass ball thing you’ve all spoken of.” Amanda rolled her eyes. “Nelam ceasing to exist and Glowl dying seems to have taken all the wind out of his sails, but he’s sticking around. Apparently he’s decided that if he can’t out shout Murunel and make her go home with him or physically remove her, he’s going to do his level best to convince her to leave on her own.”

“Is that working?”

“No, he’s just been pissing her off. She’s been aggravated and snappy for weeks and every meeting with her is turning into a pain. As your Prime Minister I’m officially requesting your majesty to make him go away so that our friendly and efficient Minister of Resources comes back.”

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