While the Central Continent leaders were discussing issues with the giants, Cain got bad news from the Southern Continent. Someone was building up an army to try to take over the furthest inland areas of the continent.
They had already received two reports of Guardians being assassinated right before a city was attacked by unknown forces. Then, the morning after the attack a Demon named Morgeth had come into town announcing that he was the new Guardian and that the entire city had been drafted into the army of his alliance.
How many cities it currently occupied, Cain and Cyrene did not know because the trade routes had mostly closed so the news wasn't spreading like usual.
They were still a ways from the group allied with Cain, but they had been expanding in his direction, which would naturally lead to conflict with this Demon Alliance.
For now, Cain had ordered the Echoes to have the candidates start looking in other directions to solidify and expand, but something would need to be done about the Demon alliance if they were going to be drafting an increasingly large army.
Now that the world was in chaos, Cain wasn't the only one who had thought of building strength and establishing their presence. But not everyone had the same plan on how they would do it.
The Darklight Host was the kindest of the expansionist groups currently active, thanks to Cyrene using her visions to interpret the best ways to accomplish their goals without loss of life on their side.
Most often that has led to there being no combat at all, but they had gotten tough with a few other Guilds and City States.
The Lamia was Currently trying to use her combat visions to see what cities would be the most likely target of the new force on the Southern Continent. If she focused on sending Guild Members to various cities to become Guardians it gave her a good idea of what cities were available and what ones were taken.
Surprisingly, she saw quite a few visions where the people would welcome them, but the Guardian and his team would viciously attack before they even had a chance to make their intentions clear. In some visions they even managed to capture the Candidates, leading to a full-scale attack by the Echoes to retake their allies and punish those stupid enough to attack them.
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"Boss, the best spots to go are east of where your forces are now, and then slowly have the Candidates start extending your influence toward the mountains. Most of the smaller villages in that direction don't have a Guardian yet, because the Youkai are still discussing it, but some have Guardians they want to get rid of." Cyrene whispered into Cain's ear when she had gotten enough short visions to give her an idea of the situation.
"That's great news. I'm looking for a Librarian who is in that direction as well. I put it off because the book I need is about Ancients and their children, but she also has many others that will be incredibly valuable to us." Cain answered, giving the white scales of her Serpentine lower body a gentle rub.
Now that he had that information from Cyrene, he could give it to the Echoes and they could get started on the new instructions right away. Cain intended to rejoin them soon, since things seemed to be mostly taken care of around here for the moment, or at least they would be if the Wave Riders didn't want to go to war since the Dragons had been assured that they weren't going to keep getting attacked by the Giants.
"I propose we begin traveling in groups. The less scattered our merchants are, the lower the chance of running into the Giants." One of the merchants from near the border of Landis was suggesting when Cain decided to pay attention to the negotiations again.
"And if we convoy, how exactly do you propose we deal with the fact half of us sell the same products?" Another merchant countered, concerned about being muscled out by the larger fleets and losing his customers.
"You could just sell everything to us and we would make the deliveries." One of the Wave Rider Captains suggested, becoming increasingly bored with all the pointless arguments.
It was a legitimate offer, the Wave Riders would gladly do it, but none of the larger merchant groups would ever accept, even if the city they were going to was blockaded they would not give up their routes to the Blue Elves. Some of the smaller ones might though, the safety-minded merchants would prefer to take a small margin from their customers and let the Wave Riders do the dangerous part.
The suggestion made the meeting more lively though, even if it was now filled with threats and shouting.
The Wave Riders had formed this suggestion into a new game and were doing their best to argue even with the large fleet merchants that they were the best option, using the theoretical losses of a large-scale attack by the Giants to suggest that their services were actually more affordable than shipping the goods out themselves.
Earl RhickJaymz already used the Wave Riders to bring Assah their high-priority orders, so he sat the argument out, taking a seat beside Cain and bringing out a bag of candies to share.
"They will be at this all day, but it would be rude to leave, even if it didn't directly involve us." The Earl said softly so he didn't interrupt the argument.
"Unfortunate but unavoidable. How are things in the library? I heard it was popular with my Guild members lately." Cain answered, watching as the Wave Riders started drawing pie charts to make their point.
"Busier than ever. Though the demand that we find higher quality spells is growing as if they just appear out of thin air and people willingly give them up to a library." He sighed, shaking his head at the impossible request.
"We will help you with whatever we can. I've sent some Ancient Grade abilities to the Guild that they have made extra copies of. My inscription isn't anywhere near high enough to write Mythic Books though."
"I doubt we could find the materials for them even if you could reliably inscribe them anyhow. Once you're moderately strong, it's really on the system to deem you worthy of that last step. Though I heard there are some more reliable ways to get awakened skills on the Southern Continent.
We have been considering sending the more ambitious transfers there to look for their opportunity to awaken, but these days that's really high risk. The Awakened beasts are everywhere, and without a guide, there is too high of a risk of immediate and gruesome death." RhickJaymz explained.
"In a little while, once we have a stable set of allied cities and trade is working properly again that could work. Right now we are working on replacing the old system of farmer's markets with Awakened traders that travel between cities.
As you said, it is too dangerous for random unawakened people to be wandering around alone when awakened monsters appear every night and nobody knows where they will show up.
They can even show up inside the cities, though that is rare. All the Guardians are on watch at midnight though, just in case they appear somewhere that puts people in danger."
Cain's explanation didn't paint a very comforting picture of the situation on the Southern Continent, but that was the essence of how things were going in the wilderness that used to be the Awakened area right now.
The only reason the Central Continent was in better shape was that the Darklight Host was everywhere with a number of powerful summons to bolster their combat abilities.
"Are we going to reach an agreement, or can I leave for dinner?" One of the Dragon Riders finally asked the squabbling pirates and merchants.
"Let's gather again tomorrow. There is still some distance between our positions." The Captain in charge of negotiations for the Wave Riders didn't seem upset about the delay. The fact that the merchants were still negotiating meant that there was a chance she could get the merchants to agree to let the Wave Riders take over North Sea trade entirely.
Not only would it be an incredible amount of money, but it would make an entire Continent a little more reliant upon them. That was a big thing for a nomadic group of sailors. They had always done some legitimate business, but it was only a small part of the total, and Piracy was used to make up the difference between what they needed and what they had.
If they could get a deal this big and hold on to it, they might not need to put in the effort to actively Pirate anything anymore. They could just do legitimate business, then scuttle and loot anyone who opposed them. That seemed like a much more relaxing lifestyle to most of the Wave Riders, with the exception of a small handful of battle maniacs who preferred that every encounter ends in a good fight.
With the meeting adjourned, Cain returned to the beach house here in Assah for the evening, finding that it was getting a bit dirty and lacked maintenance. He could have sworn that he left Puppets here, but there weren't any here now. A quick thought showed that they had all followed the Guild Members' orders to assist in other locations and simply hadn't been returned, leading to the empty state that the house was in now.
Some of them had duties in their new locations, but a few were entirely idle, only filling in when someone asked for something directly, so Cain ordered those ones back and added an order to return to their posts when they were finished with any task that brought them away from the house. That should at least keep the place clean and stocked.
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