Novel Full Chapter 1954 Leaving for a Meeting.
Chapter 1954: Chapter 1954 Leaving for a Meeting.
— Kat —
Gravel rubbed his eyes in annoyance. His advisors were arguing behind him in hushed whispers, back and forth without making any real progress. Though it had only been a few seconds since Kat had finished talking. “ENOUGH” shouted Gravel, instantly silencing the advisors around him. “This is… an admittedly complicated issue. It was already bad enough, and now, things have been massively stirred up. I do thank our guests for bringing it up… though… it occurs to me we never did introductions for everyone, other than myself of course. Normally it wouldn’t be necessary but in this case…
“I am King Gravel, as you already know. My eldest advisor is Stad, and he is in charge of economics. My only current female advisor is Malory responsible for our agriculture, and the youngest advisor, in charge of popular sentiment, is Wheth. You should also know the guard captain,” Gravel gestured to the guard with the feathered cap. “Whose name is Steel. An ambitious name that he has lived up to well.” Gravel paused to adjust his attire slightly. It didn’t really need it and seemed more like a nervous tick then anything else. “Regardless, this seems like a more involved topic so I request we all move to the nearby meeting room.”
“The big one or the small one sire?” asked Stad.
“Ah, the small one, it’s closer,” answered Gravel.
“Of course sire,” agreed Stad. From there the advisors all started to funnel into a door somewhat hidden behind the throne. Kat and Hedera got up at this, and were ready to be led off back out the front door and around the castle a bit before getting to the meeting room… but nope. Steel had them heading straight for the throne and the door behind it. They did lose a few more guards though, with only the four surrounding them and Steel following along. The ones on the edges remained behind.
The meeting room in question really was small. It had circular table you’d expect at a large family dinner. It had enough spots for everyone involved, and another two people, maybe more if you pushed it but there weren’t extra chairs for the moment. The only notable thing in the room was that the chair at the back, clearly for the King was somewhat fancy but it was just larger and a more solid construction. It was closer to a lounge chair, if not so comfortable looking.
The advisors had arranged themselves around the King, and when Steel looked to be heading for a nook in the wall he was gestured to come over and take a seat of his own. Kat and Hedera took their spots on the opposite side, leaving two chairs free to separate the groups a bit while the four guards that were doing actual guarding chose to stand with one behind each of them, and the one at each door. There was the one to throne room, and one at the back behind the King that went elsewhere.
“We should refuse!” stated Malory as soon as everyone was seated.
“We haven’t even discussed the topic,” counted Stald.
“And I barely see a reason why we should. Opening up the city in such a way… it would be too major a risk,” stated Malory confidently.
“Is that not MY call to make?” asked Steel.
Malory huffed but didn’t rebut Steel’s implied point. Gravel however, was clearly interested in Steel’s opinion on the matter. “Indeed it is. Do you feel like this is something that can be made safe?”
Steel tilted their head, and as they still had their full armour on it was hard to tell what they were thinking underneath it. “I feel I would need more details on how this all works. I’m only vaguely familiar with the legends, and I’m sure they’ve changed from the truth. Would our guests be willing to introduce themselves and provide some insight onto the matter?”
“I’m Kat, that’s Hedera and this is Lily,” Kat rattled off. “As for the specifics… if you would allow it I can use the node in a… ’low power’ type of deal allowing Weaver to see through the node and talk back to use. She could explain it herself, though she wouldn’t TRULY be here, thus not breaking any laws.”
Malory was already shaking her head, Stad seemed unsure, Wheth was the same and Steel… well she still couldn’t tell what Steel was thinking. Gravel clearly looked to all of his advisors before shaking his head. “I’m afraid I don’t think we can agree to that. There’s no way for us to know the difference between a partial and a full activation and I believe it’s best just to keep things as they are for the moment. Things are already complicated enough,”
*Not ideal.*
[Sort of expected it though.]
*I mean… I’m not surprised but I had hoped.*
“Alright. To explain… a partial activation is like opening a window, or perhaps pulling the curtains away. It allows Weaver to see, and to interact a little bit. Full activation is just the tunnel. A hole in space that would take a good deal of effort to close or move. Um… they can be put basically anywhere but I’m not sure you’d want it in the castle? I don’t know how the space distortion around it would interact.“Weaver could probably tell you if it would be an issue but,” Gravel shook his head so Kat shrugged back. “But that’s not on the table. Um… the tunnels are basically just holes in space. You could put a door over them I suppose, and it’s not that different to just digging a new tunnel out. Weaver just does it through space instead of rock.
“The tunnel connects back to the pocket dimension she owns and lives in, and from there you can go to any other tunnel. Though she could restrict that part if you want, or you could restrict things on your end, such as with a door like I suggested or putting it in a secure room or somewhere hard to reach. That’s pretty much it?”
“Where else is it connected?” asked Gravel, which got a round of nods from his advisors.
“Pretty much just places in the Autumn area for now. There is one town there that has a connection but it’s not being used much right now,” explained Kat.
“Why so limited?” asked Stad.
“Weaver lost access to a lot of her old tunnels. She needs one new connection to start checking all the old ones in each of the four biomes and even then plenty of the tunnels were destroyed during the attack on her, and while they could be re-opened with a node it’s just as easy to make entirely new, more convenient ones,” explained Kat.
Gravel nodded. “Alright, that seems to be enough of an explanation on that. What do the rest of you think about, even the possibility, of allowing some people to leave. Let’s just say ’leave permanently’ and table the discussion of potentially allowing them to move back and forth. Call it voluntary relinquishing of their citizenship if they make the choice.”
Stad shrugged and said, “It would change things, though if it were permanent… I’m not sure how much. Plenty talk big game about leaving and making a new life for themselves but knowing they could never return and that we could likely enforce this without too much added manpower? I suspect they’d chicken out. Not sure if they’d complain about the never returning part, or they’d find something else to whine about.”
“I said my piece. We shouldn’t do it,” grumbled Malory.
“It would help us deal with the worst of the bad actors,” offered Steel.
Everyone turned to Wheth who shrugged. “It’s actually super complicated. If we had too many leave we might have some population issues. We also might have issues with jobs as it’s mostly the younger generations that want to leave. The demographic shift could be catastrophic… and might get worse if ’leaving the nest’ becomes a common desire. Obviously with no way to check back in it’s hard to know how successful those who leave would be imagined as.
“I think, even if we were to allow it, there’s no possible way for it to safely remain one way. Now, the issue with disease and other things for them coming back in is a problem. But allowing people to leave? For all that it would give us some nice short term reprieves… I suspect it would lead to the collapse of our society in a generation, maybe two.”
“That is… extreme,” stated Gravel. “You believe it to be true though?”
“Eh… it’s hard to say. I think a lot of the biggest complainers would leave, and they’d drag their families along. Then their friends… then a lot of friends of friends. If the idea leaving would give them a better life was wildly believed nearly everyone under forty would leave and that would kill us eventually,” explained Wheth.
“Ah… a risk then. And not one that sounds like it’s worth taking…” mumbled Gravel.