Cal had called everyone together for a meeting about a month after he, Ethel, and Tiffany had returned from his near-death experience fighting the squirrels. They had won, and the squirrel leader was dead, but even with the extra healing from pools, Cal had still found himself in need of real rest and trying to work some of his new powers into his existing ones.
So far, he had determined if he carefully combined the friction mana with that of his rock shaping, he could make his previous rock sleds a bit more controlled. They were still too dangerous to use in places where he didn’t know the exact path, but in open areas and on his way back, he hoped to use them to speed up his travel.
The egg was more confusing. After a few days of rest, he could feel a foreign mana source in his core that wasn’t absorbing into it, but he couldn’t actually find the egg itself. He spent the next several days working with Sleek to map his new channels, carefully and together, they found the egg resting at the end of one of them.
“Huh, I think it’s using your core as a pond to grow. I wonder what will happen when it hatches.” She had said on its discovery.
“I don’t know, but I don’t think I like it.” Cal had responded, downplaying just how uncomfortable he was with that prospect. “Do you think the world spirit will be able to help?”
“Probably, he knows a lot.” She had said.
This had been one of the driving forces behind him finally calling the meeting together. That and the question of how mentally free squirrels who had started showing up as refugees. It had turned out very few of them were actually true believers, between the mind magic and not knowing anything else they had been suckered into it. Once the leader was dead, a lot of them felt horrible about their involvement. So far,, they had just been putting them to work on rebuilding the grove they had freed and been invited to stay in.
Cal walked into their makeshift meeting room and took a seat. His father was already sitting down with Excalibur laying on the table in front of him. Ethel and Frank were talking animatedly in the back of the room about something that Cal could just barely make out. He heard the words root network extension and Tiffany’s name used a few times and wondered just what that old lady had planned now.
Albert and Onelder were discussing techniques for cooking various things, plants, and fruits they had gathered. In his time here, Onelder had taken surprisingly well to cooking with Albert. Cal could almost envision a future where he didn’t look at the man and plot his death. Two of the squirrel elders were also in attendance, thanks to the hard work of Tiffany, Ethel, and the ambient mana being added by Jen’s new mana spirit the language barrier had mostly been breached.
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Just as he looked at the remaining open chairs,, Jen and Tiffany entered the room as they were discussing the fishing around the grove. She stopped as she realized she was the last one there and quickly moved to her chair as Tiffany joined Frank in the back of the room.
“Well, hello, everyone. I know it’s been a bit since we all gathered like this, but hey, it’s been a productive month, so that’s always good,” Cal started. “And I’m guessing you’re all wondering why I’ve gathered you here.”
“Not really, it was probably just to be able to say that. If there’s one thing you are great at, it’s wasting everyone’s time.” Ethel quickly followed up on his comment. The smile on her face gave away her lack of real annoyance with him.
“Ethel, you really make me miss Bug at times like this, but no, we aren’t here just for my own humor. I’ve recovered pretty much entirely, and I want to head out soon. It’s going to be a long trip so I probably shouldn’t delay it.” Cal saw his dad open his mouth and cut him off. “I know Dad, you really think I shouldn’t do this alone, and the more I’ve been thinking about it the more I agree, but I’ll get to that in after everything else. You’re going to be in charge when I’m gone. How do you want to tackle the other pools?”
Stan was glaring at his son as he spoke, “Kind of hard to plan if you won’t tell me who your planned companion is, but here’s what I’m thinking right now. We start with the pools not under Gryalth's control. Investigate them, determine how functional they still are and either we seal them off as best we can until you get back or we use what remains of them before someone else can. That will be determined based on what we find. While I work on this, Jen and Ethel will investigate the Gryalth-controlled ones and start planning for their retaking of them. This is assuming you aren’t planning either of them coming with you.”
“I’m not. What I’m planning to do is take Third Smasher.” Cal’s statement elicited a few headshakes and a loud grunt from Frank. “Second and Third are our biggest current problem prisoners and I don’t want to leave both with you, and honestly I think I can at least bring Third around on our common enemy, so I’m going to take him. This will leave you with one less potential enemy. Any idea what you want to do with the continued influx of refugees?”
One of the elder squirrels joined the conversation on this question. “Our grove is now perhaps more secure than it ever has been. It’s time to start helping the others. I’ve spoken to several of the refugees and current residents and they are willing to help rebuild and secure a new age of intergrove communication. So we will be working on that.”
“Wonderful, that makes it easier for us then. I guess everything is settled then. Any questions?” Cal asked.
“Are you sure you want to just take Third Smasher?” Stan asked.
“Yeah, I am, and we are leaving tomorrow.” Cal tried his best to sound as though he couldn’t be talked out of it. In reality, he wasn’t sure this was a great idea, but it would let him know if Third could be turned in future loops.
“Alright then, if I can’t talk you out of it, then I guess we may as well break for the mess hall.” Stan shook his head, still obviously unhappy with this.
“FOOD!” Frank yelled as everyone started to file out of the room.