Chapter 417: Chapter 417 - Familiar Factionalism, Familiar Schemers & The Way To Deal With Both
Strolling into the area while following a member of the Guild who had come to retrieve them on their approach, the gathered strikeforce stood eight cultivators strong - plus four other noncombatants. Nysoi knew she had nothing on the two leading them toward potential confrontation... and the three Void Defense members had specialized intellectual roles that made their martial leanings, like the healer of the group, more defensive than anything.
But they were all armed while approaching the heavy canvas reinforced with essence-treated wooden supports anchored to the ground. Inside, maps were pinned to boards that could be moved with cultivator strength, but weren’t exactly temporary fixtures. It clearly was not the setup of people planning only a quick evacuation.
Qatrand entered with Leysah and Zonnel flanking her, while the merchant’s daughter remained outside to pretend to continue her already finished supply assessments. Making subtle conversation with her Ironclad Order escorts that let them know things could get dangerous, she really wished her crush could have been spared to follow her.
’But I’m going to be busy trying random things with Clairvoyance anyways...’
The interior buzzed with the activity of upper members of an organization under pressure, but the raven-haired teen’s trained eyes caught details that didn’t align with crisis management in wartime. Some of it looked more like the exploration camps she’d been sent to throughout her tenure of pre-Descent missions.
Five figures waited around a hexagonal shaped planning table. The man at the ’head’ across from the empty space was tall, fairly young, and simply looked like he thought he was in charge - because he technically was. The Guild Leader of the Saltfire Storm Alliance gestured toward distant chairs with practiced courtesy.
"Your company can take their rest. Qatrand er Yecine, I am Salghis er Nalbet. Thank you for responding to our request so quickly."
His spiritual state read as if genuinely relieved they had all come. Tired, ’stressed’, but properly carrying the weight of real responsibility. Qat turned her head and nodded to those still following her, letting their Empath go sit in a position where she wouldn’t be watched reacting to people so much while the curved blade wielder protected her.
Two middle-aged cultivators flanked Salghis - a woman with acid-scarred hands and a man whose outfit bore the practical modifications of someone who worked in harsh conditions... namely, more thick layers than most would want. They seemed like the on-hands type who got into the middle of the work with all of their members.
And they showed the same exhaustion of people dealing with unfortunate circumstances. The other two, however, held themselves so differently that Qat wasn’t sure she needed her spirit to tell. Younger like the leader was, more alert, and watching her with the calculated attention of people running assessments rather than expecting or being thankful for her assistance.
’A look that I know very well. A look that those who raised and trained me wore.’
"The situation has been... challenging to coordinate. Environmental degradation at the edges of the ritual as we tried to conserve the keyshard uptime is accelerating faster than our scholarly members predicted. Now there were reports of Voidling activity along our planned evacuation routes."
"When did that conservation begin?"
Qatrand asked, keeping her tone professional. Though she was absolutely waiting for the chance to bring up what someone in the camp had done from afar... she knew that her wife would wait for the best moment. So, the usually more direct swordswoman was giving that a try.
"Three weeks ago. Since then, our barrier ritual has been experiencing what we can only call cascading failures. Important components that should last months are corroding and failing in days."
It wasn’t her first time dealing with small or large councils that broke in to answer things freely. Most Guilds operated like this, with only the Continental Army feeling the need for more absolute chains of command. Cultivators usually knew when to respect their areas of expertise and when to offer information. The acid-scarred woman had leaned forward to speak, followed by one of the younger looking members.
"We’ve lost two of what we considered major settlement areas already. The concentration there reached levels that can kill mortals in minutes of exposure, even though the ritual had made it so safe for so long."
Zonnel shifted her hand to adjust her brooch, a signal they’d developed to mark the first emotional currents that didn’t match the stated situation. Qat could see that the man was upset, but without attaching a tendril in a way that could be risky in this meeting, she couldn’t get a more detailed ’why’.
"I see. And what of the member of your organization who... tested my ability earlier?"
"Being dealt with. He had been under significant stress. Lost his homestead in the first wave of failures. We believe he also holds the Yecine name responsible for some past grievance, though he’s been... a bit incoherent about the details."
The younger man who hadn’t talked yet spoke up quickly. So quickly that even the Guild Leader looked confused about what was going on. Salghis had been given a short brief before the strikeforce came inside, but it still felt like a scenario that the one who led them should be the one apologizing for and explaining.
’I guess I’ll have to talk to him again. He keeps trying to act like a vice leader when our charter does not account for one.’
"Where is he now?"
While the heavy blade wielder didn’t expect them to answer truthfully, asking the question at all was good. Her El was a big fan of speaking phrases just to see what it roiled up to the surface in people. Analyzing all of that was more indirect than she preferred to handle things.
But she was also learning that the way she wanted to handle a social situation was not always the most effective. And that there were times you needed to give up ground to keep progressing.
"Sedated and under guard. I want to be clear, Commander - that behavior was absolutely unauthorized. We requested your assistance in good faith and the face that one under my responsibility has risked it even before we could talk is not something I take lightly."
His face and spirit carried ’embarrassment’ and ’anger’. But the healer’s posture suggested to the closely watching Leysah that the emotions in the overall room were more complex than such a straightforward response indicated. However, his answer did mollify Qat.
’Their leader may not be to blame... and he could potentially be talked to in private.’
"Has anything changed with the specific assistance you requested, in the short term?"
"Additional escort security for civilian evacuations remains our request."
"Your reputation suggests you can handle even leader-class threats that might target groups moving between forts. That will be helpful in the worst cases."
The man wearing many layers of clothes spoke. As he was the one of the five that would be accompanying them, he felt it was only right to at least say something in the meeting.
"And the timeline?"
"Ideally, we’d finish the movements to the closest stocked fort within the week. But..."
The man shook his head and Salghis took over, glancing at his colleagues.
"Our situation has become complicated by internal disagreements about priorities."
With that admission, Qatrand caught the brief exchange of looks between the two younger Saltfire cultivators at the table. A flash of something familiar struck her memories. The way the faction in her family communicated with looks in the middle of greater family meetings.
"...What kind of disagreements?"
"Some of our people want to focus entirely on evacuation of the mortals and weaker cultivators. Others believe we should be prioritizing resource recovery before too much is lost. There are... still very valuable materials in our territory that would be permanently lost if we abandon them to the acid rain too quickly."
The woman with scarred hands answered, rubbing them with full knowledge of what working inside the dangerous areas was like. If she had only been a Primalist in physical energy, she felt that her body could have healed better. But she was an elementalist foremost...
And she didn’t regret pulling the young idiot of their guild out of harm’s way like she had when an unstable shelf of rocks fell down a cliffside, bringing with it a pool of acidic water. She’d seen too many go deep into the acid wastes and not come back. All for the sake of-
"I imagine that includes the artifacts from whatever old civilization lies abandoned in your territory? I guess for some that would be more important long term than the safety of the people right now, even more so if you can ask someone else to do the less worthy task for you."
Qat turned around as she spoke, not particularly caring to look at any of them as they reacted to her blunt use of knowledge and the scathing assessment. She had two other people in the room for that... and a Physique that would react if her words made any of them truly upset.
"I’ve heard what I needed. We’ll handle the request. Good luck with your other efforts."
"Commander."
Pivoting smoothly between steps, the not-yet-former Yecine spun with more grace than her rather muscular frame suggested. The techniques to lower the weight of her blade made the item even more negligible than her strength usually did... and her last brief visit to see how the fox avatar was doing had led the mirror to fiddle with some of the sigilry inside of it.
Things it knew Elua had always meant to get around to unlocking when the girl’s birthday came... and what did the avatar care if its maker would hold a minor grudge for doing it? It wasn’t sentient - and it could only calculate that the sum of gratitude from the main soul would outweigh it all.
"We’ve invested a great deal of time in developing the only territory we own, among other things. Simply walking away from all of it feels premature to some of our members. We’re all doing our best."
Pigeon blues looked at the assured set of dark eyes of the young man, older than her and probably closer to Leysah’s age - and she had drawn the assumption easily enough. That he would be the one with the supposedly ’triumphant’ feeling earlier when she used her Cynosure.
And while she couldn’t entirely place the reason, she had a feeling that she did not like him all that much. Her gut instinct was that he was a scheming sort of cultivator, something she knew the skull of would fit in the palm of her hand.
But of the kind she shouldn’t dare to hold back her strength against if she was able to get such a close-quarters clutch.