Divine Apostasy Book 5 - Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Looking to the left, Ruwen wasted no time starting. “Elder Yana, what is the Worker update?”

Elder Yana placed her arms on the table, the black Void Band around her left wrist visible. Her brown skin didn’t look any darker despite the fact she’d been working long days in the sun. Ruwen wondered if she’d invested points in Sunburn, which converted sunlight and other power sources into Energy. He had one point in the ability but wanted five.

“We’re spread too thin,” Elder Yana said. “Until yesterday we’ve been consumed with moving all the dead.”

Ruwen glanced at Elder Odalys. “I thought the Mages were going to open a small dimensional portal to the temple.”

“They did,” Elder Yana said. “Without them, we’d be hauling bodies for weeks. Also, it’s critical we empty the Inventory of all our Bands. Stripping the bodies of loot has overwhelmed us. The Bands are holding the most common items that stack well, but we have almost a hundred wagons of other loot we need to store.”

Ruwen looked at the Priestess, Elder Gabryel. “What of the temple vault?”

The Priestess frowned. “We’re storing the gear of all our dead. But the enemy’s equipment needs sorted first. The vault is at sixty-three percent capacity, and we don’t want to store a bunch of junk.”

Ruwen turned to the Merchant Elder Zahara. His Gold Fortified nose picked up traces of citrus and cedar from her perfume. “Do we need more Appraisers?”

Elder Zahara slowly pulled her hair into a bun and pushed her chest out. Her Charisma felt like a physical force and Ruwen worried an Enamored debuff might appear.

“The appraising doesn’t take long,” Elder Zahara said. “But organizing the loot is time consuming. We are using the field west of the city as all the existing buildings are occupied and Odalys and Yana refuse to create new ones.”

The Mage Elder Odalys stiffened. “The buildings are occupied almost exclusively by your Merchants, forcing us to create buildings of our own.”

“Buildings created with little forethought for city planning,” Elder Drivyd said.

It took Ruwen a moment to find the red balloons that Rami had added to his perception so he could locate the Observer Elder. “That is actually the topic I wanted to discuss.”

“Then you should have started with that,” Elder Vachyl said.

Ruwen faced the gruff Fighter Elder. The Warlord appeared comfortable in his plate armor and looked at Ruwen with a neutral expression. A vast improvement over the disdain Vachyl had viewed Ruwen with before the battle.

The old Warlord was right. Ruwen had been in enough of these meetings to know these arguments never ended and important topics needed to be addressed first. It continued to amaze him how quickly everything became complicated. Three days ago, he’d never contemplated the logistics of looting and disposing of forty thousand bodies. Now he understood all too well.

Ruwen nodded at Elder Vachyl. “We’ll come back to everyone’s issues.” Ruwen faced Elder Drivyd again. “But first I’d like an update on the war.”

“Some of this information comes to me second hand, but the source seems reliable,” Drivyd said. “With Naktos in full retreat, the Goddess Wenquian’s followers have returned westward, Haffa’s have returned to the Frigid Sea, and Quintyn’s have withdrawn to their northern cities. The invasion, for now, appears to have collapsed.”

Ky must have found and spoken with Drivyd before meeting them for breakfast. How else would the Observer Elder have such details from Uru’s northern lands.

Drivyd continued. “Vachyl can provide more details, but we destroyed another Naktos staging area this morning. My Scouts believe what remains of the enemy is completely outside Uru’s Blessing and moving south and west away from us.”

Elder Vachyl spoke up. “Drivyd placed some Scouts outside Uru’s Blessing, but I halted the army at our border. With your permission, I’d like to bring the bulk of them back to New Eiru, leaving a few teams to support the Scouts.”

“That seems reasonable,” Ruwen said as he looked around the table. “Does anyone disagree?”

A minimized notification pulsed in the bottom of Ruwen’s vision, but he remained focused on the Elders.

Elder Gabryel cleared her throat. “The return of our forces will worsen the housing situation here.”

“Right,” Ruwen said. “Which brings us back to the settlement plan. I’ve considered everyone’s input from the last two days and decided on the following.”

Ruwen paused as he organized his thoughts. He’d discussed the topic with Rami a lot and there just wasn’t a fair way to revive that many people. New Eiru’s infrastructure wouldn’t allow reviving everyone at once, so he needed some way to choose.

Using Chat, Ruwen created a group and used Draft to resize it to fit everyone in the room. Once they all joined the group, he pushed a map overlay Rami had helped him create.

“If you open your maps,” Ruwen said. “You’ll find thirty new towns spaced evenly across the area New Eiru’s temple controls. The towns are designed to hold ten thousand Merchants and infrastructure support with another fifteen thousand people surrounding each town in some form of agriculture or mining.”

“None of these towns are very close to New Eiru,” Elder Drivyd said.

“I know,” Ruwen said. “I’ll explain in a moment.” He glanced around the room. “First, we revive only adults. Once complete, we’ll focus on those under sixteen, working backward to the youngest.”

“How are you deciding the revival order?” Tremine asked.

Ruwen looked at the librarian who had been like a second father to him. “Beneficial Randomness.”

Tremine smiled. “I’m unaware of that algorithm.”

Ruwen smiled back and then looked around the room. Thoughts of Big D and the inequities that becoming a Worker had revealed to him had formed the nucleus of his ideas. It centered around one thing, fairness. Closely followed by resources.

“It will work like this,” Ruwen said. “We search the surroundings for dimensional bags. Once we’ve gathered three thousand, we take them to the temple. Where,” Ruwen almost said Lir but caught himself, “the temple will revive the owner along with their partner if in a relationship. Once revived, the partner will provide directions to their dimensional bag which the recovery team can fetch. In this way, the revival is random, but those revived have access to the resources stored in their dimensional bags which benefit everyone as we rebuild.”

“What about all our soldiers?” Elder Vachyl said.

Ruwen nodded at the Warlord. “Everyone we revived for the war effort will have their partner revived and their dimensional bag retrieved. Each town will need a contingent of soldiers to help and protect the town. We will begin transitioning them as they return.”

“What is your plan for those you revive?” Niall asked.

Ruwen faced Hamma’s dad. “Everyone is moved to a town and provided a home and basics for their desired pursuit. That might be a blacksmith, farmer, miner, brewer, or whatever.”

“Who will pay for all that?” Elder Zahara asked.

Ruwen removed a token Lir had created with Rami’s guidance. The white circular coin depicted the temple spire in the lake on one side, and Uru standing on a cliff with a lone tree behind her on the other. He handed it to Elder Yana on his left to pass around. “As we rebuild, everyone will use their capabilities to build their communities. The temple will provide whatever help it can. Every adult will receive ten of those tokens, each the equivalent of one hundred gold, for their efforts. They can save it, invest it in their home or business, or spend it.”

“That is generous,” Colyn said. “But that adds up quickly.”

Ruwen turned to his dad, who probably worried that Ruwen would waste all the terium his parents had worked to get. “Bliz has experimented with different shaped crystals for the Crazor. He’s found a size that will revolutionize mining. Even with all our revivals and expenditures, we will soon have access to much more terium.”

“That will bring in outsiders,” Elder Vachyl said.

“We are all Uru’s children,” Ruwen said. “But I understand your concern. I don’t believe there will be a rush south before we’ve settled everyone. If there is, we will temporarily stop it by not allowing people to bind in New Eiru.”

“It sounds like New Eiru will be empty,” Hamma said.

“That’s mostly true,” Ruwen said. “No one will be allowed to permanently live here until everyone is revived and settled in one of our thirty towns. That will give us time to rebuild the infrastructure and make New Eiru an example of planning and innovation. Things like underground tunnels with sleds to carry people quickly across the city, fresh water, and sanitation.”

Ruwen’s mom leaned forward. “That sounds wonderful, but when will you allow people back?” Clarysa asked.

“I’m doing all this for fairness,” Ruwen said. “Everyone will have, if they desire, a chance to open a shop or build a home around or in the city. But it will be decided by a committee and based on factors other than just wealth or being revived first.”

“You’ve put a lot of thought into this,” Elder Yana said.

Ruwen shrugged. “Overthinking is one thing I do better than the Overlord.”

Ruwen’s minimized notifications pulsed as another one appeared.

Elder Zahara frowned. “Fairness is fine, but we’ll require a few exceptions to your process to revive critical people.”

“Being rich isn’t critical,” Elder Gabryel said.

The Merchant’s eyes widened in anger and everyone began to argue.

Ruwen held in a sigh. It would be a long morning, but the notifications meant he’d done enough to satisfy the quests. Now he needed someone to manage his vision for the city while he travelled, and he knew just the person.

But Ruwen feared convincing them might require more openness than he preferred. He planned to find out as soon as this meeting ended.