Chapter 103
Part 17
“Well now I’m very curious!” Talia chuckled. “How is it that you got to know Amirgath?”
“Oh, we were talking about asking him and maybe some of the other gods to do something for us, and
he showed up and said they would.” Fire giggled. “Along with Quewanak, Falgaroth and Visinniria. I
Content (C) N?v/elDra/ma.Org.
think they’re giving us quite a lot of their attention, though it might have been because we were chatting
with Zarkog at the time.”
“And you’re doing a fine job of seeming nonchnt about it, too.” Markughed as he set her down.
“Are you going to tell us about it, or just keep us in suspense with cryptic hints?”
“Well I’d sure like to, but it would take a while and we still have things to do before the Assembly
meeting tonight. So here;” Six grinned as the children Linked with their parents and shared the
experience, and gave them a moment to consider it.
“I hope you don’t mind that we n to take over running the world from you after we win the
tournament.” Val giggled to Mark as she hugged his thigh. “But really, you don’t seem that interested in
running it anyway. Will you even enter the tournament?”
“More important than that, will you speak in the Assembly in favor of letting the winner of the
tournament assume the leadership of The Just Alliance?” Six insistently inquired.
“Well.” Mark said with a proud smile, and paused before he continued. “I suppose I’ll have to field a
team. My supporters wouldn’t stand for it if I didn’t.
“And I’m going to suggest that we hold the tournament, then ask the Assembly if they’ll approve the
winner as Leader, and if they agree, then we’ll ask the people. All of them. If there’s strong support for it
all the way down the line, then I’ll go along with it and give the new Leader my full and honest support.
And that’s all I’m willing tomit to.
“Even with the gods running the tournament, and even with all of them sworn to justice, it’s still too big
a risk to guarantee that the winner will get the Leadership. If Zarkog or Zwak Deathbringer or someone
like that wins, and a major part of the Assembly or the poption disagree with it, it could throw
everything into chaos just when we’re facing the demons. There’s no use having the most technically
qualified Leader if no one wants to follow him. Then you just have amander, and maybe a bunch
of disobedient or mutinous subordinates.”
“Ah. Good points there, Father.” Six nodded. “So really, if we want to lead The Just Alliance, we have to
win the tournament, and before the tournament is held, we need to win over the Assembly and the
popce.”
“That’s about it, Son.” Mark chuckled as he gave the boy a pat on the back and a momentary firm rub.
“We’ll definitely need a nning session on that.” Fire decided, then changed the subject.
“How are your efforts at recovering innocent people’s propertying along?”
“The process is running, the teams are working, and we can take our attention from it for now.” Povon
told her. “Over half the cases have already been dealt with.”
“Which brings us to your ns for the Sylvan, I think.” Alilia interjected with a smile. “I’m interested in
how you think you’ll pull it off. You managed to control the Sylvan youth on Hiliani by overwhelming
them psionicly. But as formidable as you are that way, I don’t see how you could do it to four billion of
them.”
“We won’t have to.” Val chuckled. “We’re only epting volunteers this time. And even if most of them
y in The Game of Status, they are sworn to justice on the Truthstone, unlike the Hiliani Sylvan. So
all we have to do is get them to promise to follow the rules, and they’ll have to do it because of their
vow on the stone. We’ll hire good psionics to supervise things, plus we’ll have a lot of big automated
spells helping to keep things running smoothly.
“The really hard part will be lining up enough Healers to work the challenge arenas, but I have an idea
for that too. Automated Healing spells. It’s still tooplicated to make a spell-set that can rece a
Healer in most situations because diagnosis is so hard, but I think we can make one that observes
what happens in the challenge arena and notes exactly what injuries are inflicted. Then it’ll know
exactly what to do at the end of the match, because it’ll know it only has to reverse the injuries that it
just saw inflicted.
“Come to think of it, if we can do that, we can cast an automated Healing spell on every soldier that
Heals every wound they take in battle as soon as it’s inflicted. That would work really good. It’d be like
Father’s Resurrection spell, except it wouldn’t wait until you were dead before it saved you.”
She took a short pause before she continued. “Wow. That’s a really good idea, if I say so myself. I can
do it too, both of ‘em, the one for the arenas and the one for the soldiers. Mind you, the one for the
soldiers won’t be as necessary once everyone has magic and knows how to Heal themselves, but
that’ll still take a while, and this could be really quick. We can have it cast on every fighter in the world
by tonight, about an hour after we get it started copying itself.”
She nced around at Karz and the twins. “I’ll need your help, of course, but I know how to do it. I just
figured it out.”
“After the Sylvan project, before the campaign to win support for our leadership.” Six nodded.
“And after the meeting of The Assembly, probably.” Karz pointed out. “We have nine hours before the
meeting, and we’ll be lucky to get the basic structure of the training program in ce by then. And that
only if we get started soon.”
“You’re right.” Six nodded, and turned to Povon. “If this works as good as we hope it will, and we get
most of the Sylvan and all the most violent Serminaki dragons, we’ll need a lot ofnd, but thatnd
shoulde avable as trainees join the program. We’ll just expand our area of control into where
they live and convert their existing facilities, so they won’t have to move. But we’ll definitely need to
work with you and Zwak Deathbringer on the logistics of all this.”
Povon was about to speak when Alilia interjected. “Excuse me, I know I have no legal standing in this
conversation. Mark is Lord of Serminak, and it’s his decision as to what goes on here, while Povon,
Kragorram, and Zwak have actually been running things. But they’ve only had to maintain the systems
that Zarkog built over hundreds of years, with minor adaptations.
“What you’re talking about is a dramatic re-organization of the lives of billions of Sylvan and dragons in
only a few days. This makes the work you did on Hiliani seem like an infant’s project.
“Now, I am by far the most experienced ruler here. And I don’t think you’vepletely thought it
through.
“Val’s Healing spells need to be in ce before you even start recruiting, and so do a great many other
matters. The Sylvan on Hiliani lived as simple hunter-gatherers. You almostpletely reced that
work with automated spells when you took them into your training program, so you could keep them
fed. But there’s nothing to hunt or gather on Serminak; the continent subsists on huge andplex
systems of fishing, farming and livestock. As impressive as you are, I doubt very much that you can run
all those systems with automated spells.
“You’ll need to have every bit of your nningpleted before you begin to act on this. You’ll have to
make sure that you still have systems in ce to provide all the material needs of your trainees, and
you have to make sure all the maths of it bnce, with a healthy safety margin. Managing the transition
from one system to another will be the most difficult part of the project, when you’ll be dismantling
systems at the same time that you’re building new ones, while still keeping the products of those
systems flowing without interruption. Any break in the flow of work due to mistakes, mis-
everything backs up and piles up upstream of the break, while those downstream from the break
experience sudden shortages.