Chapter 6.29 - Restabilization

"So our nation was saved due to a loophole in our law?"

The remaining national council, which consisted of five members from the remaining two cities of the Sarween Technocracy, sat around a table. There were five empty chairs that previously belonged to the heads of the five ranking families of Morat.

"Technically. It seems that a key technology was withdrawn from government control, and purposely not renewed. We are aware that this person, Kira Marquest, has sought refuge in Haven, however this fact has since saved us. Some time ago they must have renounced their citizenship of our country, and the moment they stopped being a citizen of Sarween she no longer fell under our nation's contract law, which allowed us to assume control of the contracts for the pacification fields. Thankfully our cities started the contracts after Morat or our nation quite possibly would have ceased."

It was true, Morat had fallen, and the rest of the Sarween technocracy would have followed had it not been for the expatriation of one of the citizens owning the patent.

"So how do we avoid this issue in the future?"

"I worked with a small team to figure out how best to manage this, although the solution might have a sour taste to some at this table. But to make these decisions it must either be majority or unanimous. As there are 10 of us the could possibly be tied, so i suggest reduction of our council size to 9. Since we are supposed to represent the 'common good' this shouldn't be too difficult of a change."

One of the assembled 10 raised his hands off his portly jacket. Reverius, stood for all that was meant to be an aristocratic noble of Sarween, both good and bad. A paragon to their Oligarchic roots. "I feel that this would personally affect those of us who may have a differing opinion. Yes the common good is important, but so is our longstanding traditions which have gotten us to where we are today. If these people didn't have us to lead them, they would be happy with inventing nothing more than fancy spoons and a new form of manure spreader."

Sybal looked at his fellow councilman, pulled a revolver, and shot him in the head. Not expecting the shot, Reverius did not have a shield up, nor did he have the physical strength or speed to withstand or evade the round. It hit his head, pierced through, and blew brain matter and blood against the wall behind him."

Sybal, seeing the shocked look of his fellow councilmembers started to talk. "Now there are 9 seats."

Sybal watched as another council member Ferrin adjusted himself, most likely activating his shield, and commented. "I understand that he was dead wrong in his assessment of how we got to the mess we are in today, I just didn't think you needed to stress the 'dead' part."

A few nervous laughs came out. Sybal continued. "I had to make a point. We all hated him. But he, and his fathers before him, were the authors of most of the initiatives we have adopted to get us into this position. We are all equally at fault, but the people need a scapegoat, and I didn't want that to go to vote."

Everyone calmed down a bit. Ferrin was the first to speak. "This came about because we were greedy, plain and simple. In hindsight it was definitely a short-term gain for a long term loss. I mean, if you check with the patent offices, since we took control of patents from creators about 200 years ago, our innovations have declined. Sure we have increased our systems efficiently and built up our infrastructure to the peak of our technological progress, but Haven has flying ships for divines' sake and they haven't even been around for a decade!"

Everyone nodded. They were always the 'technological powerhouse' of their world which had saved them from even the though of invasion by their inferior neighbors. That hadn't been true since Haven arrived. This very council had thought to regain their glory, but their method was to do so by sabotaging Haven. This ended in disaster for Sarween. So now it was back to the drawing board.

"This is what I wanted to discuss. We need to go back to our roots. Encourage growth and trade. Encourage ingenuity. That is why I have created this specific reformation for encouraging innovators at every level of society."

Sybal handed out a document to each of them. "This will be the 'Common Good Clause' which will be written into law. First is that no one can take the rights away from the original owner, nor can it allow for businesses to impede the development or sale of technology. That was the first reason that Morat failed."

Then Sybal laughed. "However, as a secondary measure, it states that after 20 years control of a patent expires and anyone can use it without permission from the owner or his estate. This will ensure that patents do not last into perpetuity."

There was a bit of an uproar. Most of the council had never invented anything personally and had instead lived off the royalties of their family.

Sybal smiled, tapping the barrel of his revolver against the table like a gavel. "Calm down. Most of you are well enough in your finances to cover, and you can even afford to have and train a few children to take over, but the sedentary nature of those that got this high up is the reason we are in the position we are in now, and for that to change, we need to change how we do business. And for that sacrifices have been made. The successful apex of our society should not be at all intertwined with a lack of technological progress, or we will be doomed to suffer the same fate as Morat."

Another counselor Tyrrian shouted, "of course you would say that! You are a recent arrival to the council having invented most of the breakthroughs your family has built."

Sybal smiled, "And should my son attempt to succeed me without meeting or exceeding my merit, the next bullet in this chamber is for him. Nepotism got us into this mess. It won't get us out of it."

The council understood. As the governing body, they could make such changes to law, and would then pass announcements to their people.

Ferrin shook his head. "We are still in quite a terrible situation. With Morat's facilities destroyed and its stockyards of materials within the quarantine zone, we are lucky if we can maintain our current auxiliary facilities until winter, let alone through it."

Sybal smiled, "Ladies and Gentlemen, that leads me to our next topic of discussion. The Quarantine zone. Has anyone inspected the report I submitted to each of you last week?"

Mythil, one of the few female council members commented, "We have been a bit busy shoring up our borders. All of the scouting parties we have sent had done nothing to quell the forces. It was as if they appeared out of thin air."

Sybal smiled, "That is because they do. Some of you are aware of the classified reports on how Haven that details how they can increase the average strength and level of its people without conquest or constant subjugation. This is because of the rumored 'endless dungeon'. According to my scouts, that is what Morat has been converted to, and by all accounts it follows the same rules. Our Capital has been converted into a large scale dungeon whose enemies get stronger as people move towards the center."

This caused the group to murmur. Some with anxiousness, others with excitement. Sybal continued as he passed out another document, "I have determined that the outline I am passing to you is the limits of this dungeon. Regardless of what you do, the creatures that are assigned to this area will not exit this dungeon, nor attack anyone outside of it. I have personally confirmed this. I stood on the edge of the dungeon and shot at the creatures inside its perimeter. Some died. Some snarled. Some ran off. None attacked me, as i was outside the perimeter. Stepping one foot inside of it however caused them to swarm on me."

It was starting to make sense to the councilors. They had a way to fight endless amounts of enemies safely. Mythil smiled, "I understand that this will help shore up our rather low average level for our citizens. But how does this solve our material problem?"

Sybal looked over to his left and snapped a finger at the quiet assistant who had been standing the entire time. He wheeled over a large crate and three other assistants helped him lift it onto the table. Sybal nodded and they cracked open the crate, spilling its contents.

Magic Crystals, Gemstones, skill runes, and pure metal discs of dozens of rarities. It was a fortune large enough that if Sybal wasn't the strongest member of the council, the others might have killed him for it. "You see, it is what Haven learned from the onset that we have never discovered. Nature will find a way, either to help or hurt. It's time we adjusted strategies and began building our future strategies around that."

The council was barely listening. They had all already begun planning on how to exploit the 'raid dungeon's' riches for themselves.

***

Sarween wasn't the only group that had to readjust their policies in light of Haven and its alluring success. The remaining leadership of the Grand Woods Alliance, or GWA, sat around the emergency council room. Efforts had been made to fill many of the seats that now sat empty. As they sat they read and discussed a particular document. This report was an argument piece against the current economic and military policies that had been adopted by the GWA, as well as the expected outcome should the trend continue.

The intelligence officer who wrote this document was now the highest ranking member of the Intelligence committee. After writing this document, his immediate supervisor had him suspended pending trial for sedition. That jail sentence happened to save his life, as the slave penal camp he was sent to was outside the blast radius of the Lockbox massacre.

Now he presented his findings and approximations to the remaining council body.

"As you can see gentlemen, I was correct. I thank you for my promotion to my former supervisor's position, but if you want to make sure that the truth of this document does not come to pass there are a few things we will need to change immediately."

"Currently, we need to stop the breeder program. No more quotas, no more slave auctions. There is no place for our success if 40% of our populace is made up of slaves willing to revolt at anytime, and another 40% is made up of people not knowing they will become slaves in 20 years. It is important for our people to keep reproducing, but we must immediately take measures to produce citizens, not slaves."

"But what about the war effort?"

"We admit temporary defeat. Losing a bit of ground now is better than losing our country in a decade. We cede the three contested regions to the Northern Kingdoms and request a non-aggression treaty."

"How sure are you that they will accept that?"

"We aren't the only nation to be outfoxed by Haven. We might have lost much of our country's personnel strength, which was terrible. But the Northern Kingdoms lost control of the trade hub, which has formally joined Haven's Alliance. And the Sarween Technocracy lost their Capital Region. I am not sure Haven's involvement in either, but it would be foolish to think they didn't have a heavy hand in these events."

Alright, assuming that you are correct, you know why we both have gone to war right? How can we raise our levels?"

"If you have forgotten, quests are largely ignored in our nation. We are too underdeveloped to elicit a strong response from the Wild. We force the issue. We begin building infrastructure and industry. The Wild will begin to grow in response, and we subjugate. We can fight the wild. Our population education is already centralized, and today we will take those inclined to combat, group them into combat teams, and have them complete a 'rite of passage' where they exit the GWA's territory and cannot return until they have increased their level to a minimum of 30. The average level of a soldier after their 10 year stint is between 40-60, and I am sure fighting the wilds the survival rate will be about the same."

"This could work, but there are many out in the wilds that are resistant to physical damage. Thanks to our forefathers for damaging our connection to the flow of Mana, how might we solve this?"

The intelligence officer smiled, "Easy. there is an entire branch of magic that relies on health. It is called blood magic, and uses a target's life force to weave spells."

The crowd had heard of these spells, but usually its practitioners were branded 'unclean'. The officer continued, he formed a sliver of blood, which crystalized and shot out from his finger, piercing through the back of the empty wooden chair of one of the dead councillors. "I assure you it is powerful when learned correctly. And it's limits are within reason. This spell cost less thant .01% of my health. I have cost more damage tripping on my own feet."

A bit of a laugh came out.

"Alright, say everything you have said is followed. How do we solve our issues with Haven? How do we stop Haven from taking quests inside our territory or clearing the wilds outside?"

The intelligence officer smiled. "We start today with a zero tolerance containment policy. Everyone within the GWA will be subject to random inspection. If they do not belong to our country, even if they have a merchant seal or a letter of good conduct, they are executed. No exceptions. Bounties for non-humans will be placed at every adventurer's guild. And should we encounter groups of Haven merchants or soldiers in the unclaimed lands between our nations, they are to be assessed. If they can be killed, they will be, otherwise they will be avoided. If battle commences, we give no quarter and we do not get taken alive. This containment policy must be absolute. Additionally, reactivate our Dragon defense squadron. We might not have had a Titan of the sky in decades, but Haven has flying ships that vary in size from a young dragon to well exceeding an ancient dragon."

The council nodded. There weren't many of them left, and if they did not heed this sharptoned advice, it would spell the doom of this country.

At least that is what was outlined in the report. Mora, or 'Nighmora' as her mother used to call her, smiled. She had long assumed the role of this intelligence officer, and with her 100 Endurance changeling perk of "Perfect Facade" there was no way the weak magics of the GWA could see through her disguise. Short of a master diviner of the dhamphir or the Lancer Gole, she was untouchable. She had also inserted herself perfectly within the GWA. Enacting these changes, the plan was pretty simply explained by Dana. "it was a wounded animal that needed to heal before it would be worthy of a hunt."

This isolationist policy was two fold. First, it gave Haven full rights to contain the GWA, as now the GWA's soldiers would be belligerent outside its borders.

Second, it cut the GWA off from the only two groups that could have saved it. Mora smiled internally as she smiled at how easy it would be tearing down this country from the inside.

But before that happened, she would be long gone.

Mora smiled. Her Sovereign Serin Aegis may be the most powerful person on Terra, but a large reason for this was because he trusted his advisors. And Dana was far more cunning and calculating that he was. She was several dozen moves ahead and the GWA would definitely implode. It was now only a matter of time.