309. Dealings II
Year 297 Part 2
Treehome
Treehome. Our home base, and the long peace led to a decent growth in terms of population. Our measures to soften the blow of parenthood and supplying the central continent’s families with a high level of support meant we continued to see good growth in terms of population, and so, our recruiting pipeline is healthy.
Freshka, the capital and heart of the Valtrian Order, buzzed with energy. Politically, the mood in the population was fairly upbeat. Progress was made on many fronts, and the world entered an unusual era of peace.
It was this peace that partly enabled Emperor Erranuel’s expansion plan to the world of Shasan. It was going to be largely a one way trip for the first five years, and we intended to deploy a few Valtrian Order agents just to accompany them, and void mages would drop in once a year to help them move people or resources, as needed.
The news of the Emperor Erranuel’s travels to the other worlds was largely kept quiet, mainly because of fear for the merchant guilds and merchant kings’ attack. However, no one was really in the mood for attack. The Valtrian Order’s consumption of crystals has reduced gradually, but the world’s smaller forces are still not ready and have not rebuilt their stockpiles of war.
The consequences of the past war, and the fear of my punishment for now continued to deter the prospect of wider war.
Instead, the guilds came to us with a proposition. They too would like to expand to the wider worlds. I immediately thought about Raph and the White Statue, and the risks.
I was willing to let them try expanding, though a part of me felt a little disturbed at allowing corporate forces to have a stake in expanding into other worlds.