Spaceships and Magic, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

The rest of the meeting passed in a blur of planning. 

The first thing I learned was that I had been a bit ambitious when assuming that the territory push was going to be global. 

The push for territory was going to happen in six key locations across the surface of the world, each location equidistant from the two next to it, in one big ring. 

The hope was that after the push had been made in those locations the rest of the people on the planet would be incentivised to make pushes of their own, to occupy their own territory. 

I wasn't sure if that was going to be the case, and I also felt as if the dwellers of the Furnace were going to be taking their grief out on entirely the wrong people. 

What had the people in the fifty floors above actually done to the people in the Furnace? 

The answer was nothing at all. 

Those people shouldn't be displaced and punished just so the people of the Furnace could move up in the world. Not to mention the untold number of deaths that would likely be the result of resistance from the upper levels. 

Not only that, the moment they launched their attack on those upper levels, any secrecy the people of the Furnace would have had about their operations and plans would be blown wide open. 

All of a sudden the upper levels would understand that the Furnace actually constituted a genuine threat, and once that had happened I wasn't so sure that the dranes would be as willing to leave them to their own devices any longer. 

I brought all of this up in the meeting, of course, and was met with wary stares and uncertain expressions. That was when I revealed what actions I thought we should have been taking. 

For a start, breaking cover before it was necessary was an inherently bad idea. The moment the uppers got any idea that the people living below could actually pose a threat to them they'd start acting incredibly cautiously and would double their efforts to maintain the status quo. 

Obviously, that would be bad for any revolutionary effort, so we'd need to keep our actions on the down-low until it was absolutely necessary. When we attacked it would have to be quick and decisive. In other words, we'd have to cut the head off the snake instead of holding it by the tail. 

My plan would be a simple matter, all things considered, but likely quite difficult to execute. 

First of all, we'd need to capture a drane. 

Then we'd need to figure out some way to get the drane to talk without either notifying the rest of the enforcers or draining anyone of their life energy. 

We'd get the drane to tell us exactly where the leaders of this world were situated. The true location, too. 

After that, a small strike force composed of only myself and Lara would go up to wherever it was that the leaders were hidden and we'd kill them. All of them. 

From that point onward it would become much easier for the people of the Furnace to push up and take their rightful place in society, even if that only meant being able to move between the upper and lower cities or leaving the planet altogether. 

<I'm sorry, you want to fight alongside Lara and only alongside Lara?> BB retorted as I explained my plans to the assembled council. 

It might have sounded insane to him, but in my mind, it was the only thing that made sense. 

She was the only being I knew that was for certain stronger than me, and considering how hostile she had been in the past I needed to know whether she was completely out of my league or if I'd be able to handle her when I eventually got access to my full suite of abilities back. 

Not only that, if we were actually going to have a chance at taking down the people at the peak of this civilization then we were going to need to go in fast and go in hard, eradicating anyone and everyone in our path. No one else would be able to keep up with me. There was too much chance for other people to end up dying. 

"I'd agree to this plan, strategically it makes more sense than a gradual push," Lara weighed in from her hologram, her pink eyes glinting dangerously in the holographic light, "Besides, it'll be nice to catch up with such an old… good friend." 

Her voice still set me on edge. It felt like she was going to lash out and obliterate the planet at any given moment. If she was even stronger than she had been before I had no doubt that she'd be able to wreck the world without any effort at all, even if it had taken her some time to charge the spell she had used back at Prespian City. 

Nevertheless, I responded to her words with a smile and an appreciative nod, thanking her for her support on the matter. I needed to keep her sweet and the other attendees of the meeting in the dark. 

After the agreement from Lara, the meeting wound down fairly quickly. Her opinion seemed to hold quite a bit of weight on this world. If she agreed to something it felt as if that was the motion that would pass, even though she wasn't the leader of the group. 

I couldn't help but wonder what she had done to garner such a level of respect. 

The holographic display flickered off as the other leaders began to disappear one by one, casting the room back into near darkness. 

"You know, after that I think I need a drink from the club down stairs," I sighed, shaking my head, "Talk about a blast from the past." 

"Yeah, gotta say, you knowing her was not how I expected this evening to go," Tessa agreed. 

Still, it could have been worse. 

Somehow.