Unchosen Champion

After Amanda and Mikey arrived, the various advisors of Ghost Reef made their way through the crowds to Coop’s hangout spot. Each of them decided they should get the scouts’ intel as soon as possible, just in case urgent action needed to be taken. They really took their responsibilities seriously.

The beach party raged on while Coop was pulled into the spontaneous council meeting. Normally, he wasn’t present for such things, but it just happened to form around him while he was essentially minding his own business. Buck had the good sense of bowing out, joining Mikey and Amanda as they went to find more drinks after their scouting report was entirely relayed.

The fact that the oathsworn interloper had come from the settlement currently ranked first was met with mixed reactions among the advisors.

“This is perfect!” Kayla declared with an excited smile spread across her face and Sharkbait looming behind her. “We can kick them off their pedestal and prove we aren’t to be messed with.” She smashed her first into her other palm and her first mate huffed, possibly in agreement, but only his captain would know for sure. “For all we know, we’ll usurp their spot at the top if we destroy them, then others will really think twice about raiding us.”

“Now, hang on,” Marcus interrupted before she really got riled up. “There’s no real proof that we would need to engage with the Yucatan settlement at all. It seems more likely, to me, that this Chakyum is operating from the outside, especially with how cagey his envoy was.” Marcus argued, advocating for a diplomatic approach, naturally. “It’s certainly a large settlement to be ranked first, with a huge population to expand their territory over hundreds of miles, it wouldn’t be hard for them to have blind spots underneath their noses.”

“The envoy wouldn’t have been shy about threatening us with the might of a top ranked settlement. He threatened us in so many other ways.” Arthur added, at least agreeing that they didn’t need to jump straight to armed conflict with the most formidable foe they could find. “We might need to make contact on the inside before coming to any conclusions. Even if we can’t organize a joint effort, it would be an opportunity to gather some valuable information before action is taken.”

Shane fixed his hair and grumbled quietly before speaking up. “I wouldn’t be comfortable committing a large enough force to assault them either, even if we could. Ghost Reef would be left vulnerable to them and to anyone else with bad intentions, some ambition, and lucky timing.” Shane pointed out, weighing in for the more diplomatic approach. “Almost all of our tactical advantages come from our defensible location. We lose too much if we leave the islands behind.”

Gideon nodded, agreeing as he assessed the fresh phantoms. “The army personnel may have been replenished, but we are in need of time to gather experience. The settlement would be overly exposed if we committed to an attack. Only those who survived the siege are prepared to contribute to a defense. The rest of us need to train hard to catch back up.”

It was Olani, standing at Jones’s side, who offered the obvious solution. “Just send Coop.” She stated firmly, leaning both hands and her chin on the end of her gnarled driftwood staff.

The group looked at him, almost as though they hadn’t realized he was there. He just shrugged. Of course his plan had been to go by himself, but he was letting them work out the details. He figured, collectively, Ghost Reef would be fine without him, but he wouldn’t oppose some company. Obviously, he’d need a ride at the very minimum.

Marcus frowned. “His last diplomatic effort didn’t exactly go to plan.”

“But, it worked out for our purposes, and it proved he can somewhat fill either role, depending on the circumstances.” Arthur pointed out, not for the first time making a results-based determination. “Got ourselves a decent first advisor as a bonus.”