The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2

Chapter 104

Part 17

“Now, I assume that you mean to recruit trainees with public Revealings. Those should be done in

three stages. The first would announce that you’ll be initiating the new system and show the benefits

and attractions of your program, to build interest without announcing when your opening day will be.

That should be the first thing you work on. Once your planning is advanced enough that you can say

with confidence when you can start operations and how many recruits you can take in the initial

opening, you can say so with your second stage of Revealings. After you’ve begun operations you

release your third stage Revealings to recruit for your expansion.”

After a moment, Fire laughed, then spoke. “And of course, the sentence you were too polite to add is;

‘And while you’re at it, you might want to reconsider whether you really are experienced and mature

enough to rule Kellaran’!”

“Just so.” Alilia nodded with a smile.

“I understand your concern.” Six smiled. “We should have clarified what we have planned already. I

admit that we’ve been keeping things to ourselves a lot lately, and maybe we’ve been overdoing it. But

we knew that when we left the time-bubble, we’d suddenly be psionicly aware of a lot more, maybe

even everything in the world, like Quewanak could do even when he was still a mortal. And we knew

that unless we were very disciplined, a great many powerful psionicists in the world would suddenly

become aware of us. To young psionicists like ourselves, who grew up in psionic isolation, both those This content provided by N(o)velDrama].[Org.

thoughts were somewhat intimidating. And both those things have happened. We’re not aware of

everything in the world yet, but we keep seeing and feeling and hearing things from all over the world,

and we’ve been probed several hundred times already. That we’re aware of. We’ve blocked all the

probes, as far as we know, but the experience has perhaps left us a bit paranoid. So maybe we’ve

overdone it on keeping things private.

“Anyway, our obvious first step as far as we can see is to convert Zwak’s existing training programs for

unruly young Sylvan over to our system, and that’s all that we planned to accomplish today. As for the

rest; as I’ve said, we knew we’d need Zwak and Povon’s help with all the logistics. I’ll admit that if you’d

not spoken we’d probably have found those logistics to be a more complex problem than we expected,

but I think we know when to seek the assistance of others and when to delegate, as well as when to act

ourselves. Perhaps we’re not ready to rule the world, but we still think we are, and we’ll know one way

or another after the tournament.

“Good point by the way on getting Val’s Healing spells finalized before we begin operations. If we’re

going to use them, and we are, we should use them from the beginning. We had planned to use other

methods that would have worked, at least for the systems we’re putting in place today, but you’re right;

it’s a smarter order of operations to go with our best methods initially when it’s practical to do so, rather

than following through on an existing plan and then altering it after with new and improved methods.”

“Well spoken.” Alilia laughed. “You’ve obviously thought this through a bit more thoroughly than you

made it seem before. Still, I think the advice of the point I was trying to make is still valid; Don’t be in

too much of a hurry. You’re capable of accomplishing things much faster than most anyone else, I grant

you that, but don’t overdo it to the point where you’re creating problems for yourselves.”

“It’s good advice, and I thank you, Heart-Mother.” Six said with a bit of a bow. “We’ll try to heed it, and

hope that any problems we create by working so fast are more than balanced by the benefits of doing

so, which will be many and obvious.”

He turned to his father. “To be honest, I’m glad we won’t be running the world over the next six weeks.

Because we’re obviously going to upset a great deal of The Just Alliance’s recently-established social

order. Other than the obvious changes we plan to make in Serminak; it’s obvious to me that in two

weeks, Val here will be the most influential person in the world, as far as initiating rapid change goes.

Her talent with automated spells is really taking off, and she’ll change everything with them. With the

spell-set she conceived of just now, along with the solution to the longevity and wizardry problems that

Hilsith and all of us came up with on Hiliani, most of the Healers in the world will soon be out of work.

“Do you think she’s paying any attention to this conversation right now? She’s not, or not very much.

Ever since Alilia said she doubted that we could run the continent’s food production systems with

automated spells, Val’s taken it as a challenge. Her awareness is out there right now, compiling a list of

every task performed in agriculture here, along with the procedures used. If she concentrates on it, I’d

guess it will take her less than six hours to have the basics of the spell design finished. Then she’ll

need our help to build up all the complexities of the actual casting without taking a year at it, but she

could do it all herself if she took the time, and we couldn’t.

“I’d guess that in six weeks, by the time we take part in the tournament, she might be able to do all the

work that gets done by everyone in every society on Kellaran with automated spells. If she decides to

profit from her work, which is her right, she could own a significant portion of everything by the time the

entire economic system collapses. And it won’t matter when it does. With her work, we’ll be able to put

every living able-bodied person on the fighting line against the demons if we have to. And after we beat

the demons, the entire world will enter a new age of leisure, completely free of any unpleasant work.

Thanks to Val.”

“I won’t need help with it anymore.” Val stated absent-mindedly as she stared off into space. “I just

came up with an automated spell to help me deal with the complexity of compiling automated spells.

And now that I think about it, I should be able to replace the entire military with an army of automated

spells. I just need Father to teach me that thing he did to Zarkog with the energy collecting fields so I

can power it all.”

Everyone except her took a moment to consider the implications of that. She just kept working.

“Sweet Mother of All.” Mark muttered under his breath.

Neela appeared before him, her gleaming black hair flowing over a white gown. “I keep telling you,

that’s an inaccurate term for me.” she giggled.

“And I keep telling you, I’m still not used to there being real gods in the world, let alone having them

appear when they’re mentioned.” Mark chuckled. “But it’s good to see you, Neela.

“I’m pleased for you to meet my children, and Povon and Kragorram’s son.”

Val turned her back to the goddess, and the distraction of her presence. “Sorry, I’ve gotta concentrate

on this right now.” she muttered.

“Quite understandable; it’s complex and important work.” Neela nodded, and contained her aura out of

consideration.

“May I ask how you know that it’s complex and important work?” Fire inquired.

“The second time I was Mark and Talia’s lover, I shared all with them, and since then they have held no

Shields against me, so I know what was just said here.” Neela explained.

“You shared all?” Fire marveled, then cocked an eyebrow at her mother. “That must have been a lot to

absorb.”

“Well of course we don’t remember all of it.” Talia responded. “But I retain her entire life as a mortal

pretty well, and her last few years up to when she shared with us, and the important events in between.

I’d have had to cast a serious memory spell to retain it all, and with the skill I had then it would have

taken an hour, and we were rather occupied at the time. But yes, she shared all; I have no doubt of it.

She’s a good and loving person, and either very cautious or very indecisive, depending on your

viewpoint on the matter.”

Neela smiled and shrugged. “I made a mistake when I was young as a goddess, and my people

suffered for it for millennia, perhaps for eons indirectly, and I had to watch it all. There’s no escaping

your mistakes once you leave mortality behind.”

“What was the mistake?” Fire asked.