Chapter 101: Scripted Defeat

You know, I heard Granesh was so afraid of William Oh’s arrival on this Floor that he allied with a secret clan of fishpeople to create the Scramble, hoping to delay his progress up The Tower to tear the crown from his head. Just you wait, another Scramble is going to happen again soon.

• One hundred thirteen strangers on one hundred and thirteen different vessels of the Flotilla.

Will’s eye twitched.

It had been over six hours of shouting back and forth from the moment the sun rose, a circular argument between Saint Jairus’s attack dogs and everyone else with any sense.

The Graneshians had lost their majority by the slimmest margin when Will had sunk ten of their believer’s ships and taken their votes for himself. They had wanted to declare him an Enemy of the Flotilla and petition the Tower for a bounty.

Will’s faction vehemently opposed that, while the moderates agreed that it was a bit extreme, given that the attacks on other Climbers was unintentional. They advocated for a more mild punishment: Temporary Exile.

The Floating Church of Granesh pointed out that Will had deliberately left his Tangled party member on board their ship with the explicit intention of attacking them, using that as a reason it should be permanent and carry a more severe penalty, such as confiscating Shimmer.

Will’s faction pointed out that the original had indeed left their ship, and the church had attacked Bee and Ria first, the fact that they split into nearly two hundred bodies in preparation for the conflict was irrelevant, as they were defending themselves.

They shot back with the extensive list of casualties they took trying to attack the Tangled.

Will’s faction pointed to the half a dozen ‘boarders’ that had been captured trying to steal Shimmer and been returned to the church the morning of that day.

On and on it went, in circular reasoning that chewed on its own tail like a mangy dog.

And all the while, Will and Saint Jairus stared at each other across the meeting room of Town Hall. The steel-haired priest looked amused, much to Will’s irritation.

Don’t we both have better things to do today?

Will didn’t particularly care about whether or not he was exiled. His Party had already proven they weren’t reliant on The Flotilla when they rolled in on a Leviathan-bone ship.

But if he looked at it another way: If Will wasn’t allowed in The Flotilla and the Saint was, they would always have a place to retreat and repair that Will couldn’t follow unless he wanted to get attacked by other Flotilla members.

Not to mention the Saint’s fishmen allies, Will thought.

If he got pushed outside the flotilla…

Will pictured Shimmer under constant attack by hordes of fishmen, attacking at irregular intervals to prevent any of his Party from getting any sleep before the Floating Church of Granesh swooped in to finish the job.

Typically that wouldn’t worry Will, since Brianna could fend off large scale physical assaults over a long period of time, but now that Jairus knew about Brianna, he would go out of his way to acquire some Charm-based Climbers to deal with the Tangled, And Will wouldn’t know if or when he’d done that if he didn’t have any eyes and ears in The Flotilla.

All in all, it was a bad thing to get exiled, indirectly harming him in myriad ways.

Will thought back to Loth’s mantra of leadership: ‘Always strive to make things as easy as possible for my Party to succeed’ My role as Party Leader is to line up advantages for them so that they can excel.

Even if we CAN survive without the Flotilla, it would be poor leadership to have that advantage stripped away from my Party.

I’m starting to think I should’ve attacked Jairus back on his ship, Will thought to himself. Now, the saint was accompanied by several bodyguards at all times, indicating he had been bluffing earlier when he strutted around Will without any form of protection on his ship.

And Will had bought it, assuming the saint, with Saint-levels, was a strong combatant.

They’d taken some time to ask around after last night and discovered that the saint’s specialty was mega large-scale buffs, not fighting.

This implied very strongly that Jairus had instigated the attack on them last night, buffing his crew to the point that they could fight toe-to-toe with Will’s Party. Unfortunately, since their features had been cloaked in shadow, not a single one had been identified.

This gave Will no leverage to accuse Jairus of attacking him.

In the end, the meeting was adjourned without declaring any particular punishment for Will.

On one hand, the six boarders they had subdued trying to steal Shimmer had launched a shitstorm, and on the other, they had proven a preceding incident that the church had instigated, allowing most of the accusations to slide off Will in the name of self-defense.

I guess being merciful has it’s uses, Will thought as he and Mason left City Hall.

They would reconvene tomorrow to decide on a punishment, but Will didn’t expect there to be a tomorrow for certain individuals.

“What did you get?” Will asked, receiving the Dimensional Assassin’s Amulet from Loth before she put on her usual one.

“There’s another Scramble coming soon, possibly as early as tonight.” Loth said. “The saint’s ledger shows ‘proof’ that the fish-people can only summon one storm per month, and they have dropped their guard against being hit twice in a row. This is the perfect opportunity for the fish-people to buck the trend and lure another storm on top of The Flotilla, while they are struggling to recover.”

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“How can you be sure?” Will asked.

“I read through the Saint’s journal and surmised the timing of previous Church-instigated Scrambles, then jotted down a note on the Saint’s waterproof stationary, attaching one of the many rocks on a string to sink it to the bottom.”

“So there is a bottom.”

“It would seem so,” Loth said. “Anyway, I requested that the fish-people wait an extra month before the next Scramble.”

“Implying that the Flotilla is weak and needs time to recover,” Will mused.

“Practically guaranteeing that a sound strategist will see an opportunity to attack immediately.” Loth said.

“And if the fish people don’t take advantage?” Will asked.

“They will, but if they don’t I’ll simply sink the Floating Church of Granesh and be done with it.”

“There’s no ‘and be done with it,” Will muttered. “Sink that one ship and they’ll commandeer another ship from one of the faithful and call that the Floating Church of Granesh. We need to kill them.”

“Killing a religious figure is the surest way to galvanize their followers,” Loth pointed out.

“Not if it happens in hyperbole,” Will mused. He didn’t need to just kill him. He needed to destroy his legend. The only way to destroy a legend was with another.

“You’re thinking of violence.” Loth said. “Please, do tell.”

“How’s Brianna?” Will asked.

“A little shaken after killing several of Jairus’s followers last night. And experiencing death through a few of her copies.”

Will winced at a pang of guilt for putting her in that position. She would eventually be forced to come to terms with killing, but for now, she needed time to rest and recover, so he would try to include her in their defense in the least violent way possible.

“let’s put Bee on a mission to spread the rumor that Jairus is summoning the Scrambles, and another one will hit soon. Ria can guard the boat, and Anna can keep our guests happy. Let’s have the others guard Jean.”

“Ah.” Loth nodded. “Understood.”

A thought occurred to Will as he glanced up at the afternoon sun. Saint Jairus probably expacted him to respond as soon as the sun went down. Why not immediately? Because everyone was still awake. Because it was bright outside. because he would fail.