Blake tried not to immediately freak out when he got to the end of this system notification. He queried his AI assistant to check if the message that appeared was legitimate. Was it possibly a trap left behind by Clay Atlas designed to trigger after his death?
Confirmed. The System's broadcast message didn't come from me, and I can confirm that I've verified its authenticity. It also fits in line with how the system originally spread into your world. It started with fire and earth cards, and those elements are also generally the most destabilizing kinds of natural disasters. But now if the system is going to manifest water and air cards, you're looking at a whole new wave of natural disasters. Storms, floods, tornados, blizzards, drought, constant rain… All of this is possible. Moreso when people start finding these cards. Are you going to tell the people of New Meridia?
"I don't know," Blake answered aloud. "I'm trying to decide whether I want to spread this news and cause a panic, or hold onto it and betray the trust of the people."
Once trust is lost, it's impossible to gain back. Panic is just chaos, and your whole planet is pretty chaotic already.
"I just don't want to lose control."
Oh, Blake. You never had control from the start.
Blake sighed and immediately called an emergency meeting with all of his most trusted advisers through the city's messaging system. He felt a pang of guilt calling Harry back to a meeting so soon after he'd just left the tower, but he needed his friend to be informed about whatever decision he made. If Harry was to leave in the morning, this could change the entire trajectory of his mission.
The night's agenda was critical. They needed to come to a unified decision about whether or not to pass the information about the incoming new elemental cards on to the general populace. If they were going to form an alliance of all the people from around New Meridia, they needed to make sure that everyone was united and prepared for what's coming.
In Blake's mind, a path seemed clear, but the complexity of the situation demanded an open and honest conversation with the rest of his friends. By sharing this information, Blake knew there was a risk that someone might leak it out, allowing news to spread in an uncontrolled manner. But he was determined to stay ahead of the situation so they could prepare rather than be caught off guard.
Just like any office building back in the real world, there are a whole host of meeting rooms available spread throughout the building. One of the most secure ones was on the floor below the penthouse and could only be unlocked by the person who holds City Lord status. Blake decides to hold the meeting here, away from any prying eyes. Chelsea Otto ensured that all of the required attendees found their way to the room and sat in on it as well.
Harry entered the room with a wide grin, full of life and not at all worried about being called back. "Did you miss me already, man?"
Blake's smile reflected Harry's for a moment, but then his face grew solemn. "Something happened a little while after you left, and it's going to affect your mission tomorrow anyway. I didn't want to send you out there into the wilds without letting you know exactly what was going on. Please, everyone take a seat."
Samuel Jackson and his son Randall stood together, and both Sarah Hardy and David Millwater stood nearby. Samuel smoothed over his trimmed white beard while his son Randall looked awkward and suspicious. Sarah stared at Blake like she was a hawk watching her prey; the scar that ran all the way down over one of her cheeks and onto her lips gave her a constant snarling expression, though Blake knew that she can be lovely when she wants to be. David Millwater's anxiety is evident as he brushed his long curly hair from his eyes, clearly bewildered by the sudden gathering.
With a deep breath, Blake starts. "I've just received a broadcast from the system that only went out to City Lords. So the other six already know this information as well, but I don't know what they are going to do with it. In less than 24 hours, things are going to change dramatically."
"What do you mean?" Samuel asked. "Haven't they already changed enough now that Clay Atlas is dead?"
Blake shrugged. "Who knows if me becoming City Lord is what triggered this change or not? I certainly don't. I just know what the system said, and I've got no reason to doubt it."
"What did the message say?" David asked in a nervous voice.
Blake read it out to them verbatim, and then he read his AI assistant's response in full as well. Eyes went wide as shocked glances shot around the room. Everyone was terrified, but nobody wanted to speak. They all looked to Blake like he had all the answers, or they expected him to know what to do.
"I want to hear from all of you," Blake said. "I'm in two minds about this. If we tell people, there's either going to be a mass exodus from New Meridia as people flee to find their own copies of these new cards, or we're going to have a migration of people coming in from the outer settlements to escape the chaos that is to come."
"But if you don't tell them, then your first act as the new City Lord is to keep something from them," Samuel replied, understanding in an instant.
"Exactly," Blake said.
"Quite the predicament. You know this reminds me of a time in Cedar Creek that happened when you were just a young lad," Samuel said. He smoothed over his beard, which seemed to be a focusing and concentration motion more than anything else. "Why yes. You see there was a company who wanted to do some exploratory mining on the outskirts of town, quite close to the reservoir. We knew the dangers of water contamination, but also saw the benefits it would have for the town. Jobs, revenue, an increase in house value, an argument for more Federal funding for more infrastructure, all those good things. But our environmental team was open and honest about the risk it posed. We had to decide whether or not to simply reject the proposal, or put it out to the town and explain the risks so people understood."
"What did you do?" Blake asked.
"We came up with a plan. We couldn't keep the proposal away from the people, because the mining company would have just leaked the positives to the media anyway. So we held a town hall, invited a representative from the company to come along, so they could talk about their plans about what would happen if the worst came to pass. If they contaminated the reservoir, what would they do?" Samuel asked. "And the answer was simple. They didn't know. The people who bothered to attend understood our own reservations, and saw with their own eyes just how useless the company was, and how little the people mattered to them. There's a halfway point here we can hit. Something that will appease the people's need for transparency, but also tell them there is nothing to fear."
Blake nodded. "I see. Yes, I agree that we need to tell them. I think that when I send the broadcast out to everyone, I'll focus on how unpredictable life outside the city is going to be when these new cards drop. How dangerous the natural world is going to be."
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"Tell them about the NMFA!" Harry shouted.
"What's the NMFA?" Sarah asked, skepticism etched on her face.
"It stands for New Meridia Frontier Alliance. It's what I want to call the alliance that we're going to foster between our city and the settlements out there in the wilds. We can't exist without them, and they need our protection. Even more so with the new cards that will be coming tomorrow," Blake explained.
"I'm the envoy of the NMFA," Harry said and shined an imaginary badge that was supposedly pinned in front of his heart. "Let's face it, if you wanted a face for New Meridia, Blake chose the best one. I'm everybody's buddy!"
That managed to get a smile from everyone, even Sarah.
"A sound plan," Samuel agreed. "So what do we do now?"
"All we can do now is wait. I think it would be a good idea to get a list of people together who have specific utility cards we could use to rebuild after all is said and done. Or that we can use to counter any natural disasters that might follow the expansion of the system tomorrow," Blake said.
"We've got a few people who have cards like Landslide, Conjure Earth, Fissure, and Wildfire," Sarah said. "Any chance you could put something in your broadcast about people with power cards who would be willing to put themselves forward for rescue missions?"
"Even cards like Stone Fists, Flame Fists, and all the different kinds of armors might help. If we need to send someone in to rescue people and the environment is hazardous, armor would be a great help," Randall said.
"Absolutely. I can do that," Blake said. "I'll make a couple of quests that they can access from the City Hub. Once they accept the quest relating to earth card or fire card duties, I'll get them to report to you in the morning."
Sarah nodded. "Yes. Sounds like a plan. I'll coordinate them from there, see who's useful and who's not. Randall, can you stop in at the clubs after this and see if you can make contact with any of the duelists who fought tonight? Spread the word for them to check the City Hub in the morning."
Randall nodded. "Yeah, I can do that. No sweat."
"I'll check on the city management diagnostics tonight," David said. "I'll see if I can spot any glaring weaknesses, or places where we might begin to struggle if we do get a mass influx of people."
Blake nodded. "Yes. Harry, I want you to head out to any of the closest settlements first. Tonight if you can. If they have any kids or infirm adults, tell them they should send them to New Meridia at once. Don’t tell them exactly what’s going on until I can send my broadcast out. Just urge them to come to the city. Stress to them that all of the others who are capable of protecting themselves should stay exactly where they are and protect their settlements. We'll need them in the rebuilding effort."
"Roger that," Harry said with a lazy salute.
"Okay, well I think that's it. I guess I'd better go and prepare the broadcast," Blake said. "I'll hold off until the morning. We don't want a midnight panic on the streets."
"No sir," Samuel agreed.
After everybody left, Blake was left alone to return to his penthouse. The enormity of the weight that bore down on his shoulders almost felt like it was too much to take. He knew that there was no one else who could do what he did, or free New Meridia from the chains of Clay Atlas, but there was a part of him that didn't know if he was up to the challenge that was being presented to him.
He understood now why the previous City Lord had been so keen to get his hands on a hospital card. Right there in the city management interface, there was a list of critical facilities that the city needed to be able to take care of its people. The only super critical one it was missing at that moment was a hospital.
Blake had managed to find a hospital card, but instead of playing it here in the city, he instead fused it with his Meteor Colossus monster. It formed a brand new monster called a Radiant Colossus, which fell to the earth like a meteor from heaven, and exploded into a crater filled with light that either healed friendly monsters or damaged hostile targets.
The Radiant Colossus healed other cards that were within a certain vicinity of it, but now that the monster was fused, there was no way to separate it as far as he knew. Blake couldn't simply take the hospital card back and deploy it in the city. That just wasn't how it worked.
The only time that Blake had used the Radiant Colossus card in battle, it had healed his other monsters that he had also summoned. He wondered if the healing energies would heal any other empowered Challengers who could use power cards. Maybe the Radiant Colossus would do exactly what Blake needed it to do, but it took a hefty amount of anima to summon.
Blake would need to wait and see what happened as part of the system expansion that rolled out in the coming day before deciding whether to play the Radiant Colossus or not.
He did think about the possibility of using the dueling arena and the other practice dueling facilities across New Meridia as a way to exploit the inbuilt healing properties of those facilities. In order for practice duels to happen, the dueling arena would refresh the entirety of the anima supply for the person engaging in the duel. If that person was injured as part of the duel, the arena facility would spawn a health potion card, which could be played and used once, restoring that person to perfect health.
That might be a way that Blake could get around not having a hospital card, but it would only work for empowered contenders who had their own power cards. If someone who didn't have any cards of their own were injured, then they would have to rely on traditional non-system-based healing.
Blake wrote down all of the possible different speeches he could give to the people of New Meridia in the text function of his City Lord interface. It was as easy as thinking or speaking the words, and they would appear on the document. He wished that his powers as City Lord extended to all of the other settlements in the surrounding areas so they would also be forewarned, but he was going to have to rely on Harry to do that over the coming days.
That was okay though, because Harry had a card that allowed him to sprout a pair of wings. The guy obsessed with moving about and seeing the whole country could fly now. He could cross vast distances in a very short amount of time, and by crafting a specific individual work order for Harry, Blake could map out all of the different settlements he wanted his friend to visit. Harry could go from settlement to settlement, ensuring the message was passed to everyone in as little time as possible.
Eventually, after Blake had tried to write at least twenty different versions of the script, he decided that he was just going to be honest with the people of New Meridia. Inside his City Lord interface, he could record a message right then and scheduled it to be broadcast the next morning.
The video editing suite included with this interface was actually quite robust, and Blake's AI assistant offered him suggestions on framing, angles, and word choice to ensure the broadcast contained the same punch and oomph that he intended.
There were also a number of other options when it came to broadcast triggers which Blake found quite surprising. He found out that he could record a whole host of different messages and have them waiting in the system until a certain trigger was tripped.
He didn't have any use for that at that particular moment, however, he would certainly explore that in the future. He did however do a search to see if Clay had left any of these triggers behind, but there were none.
That said to Blake that Clay had never intended to have anyone defeat him. The guy thought he was unbeatable, which the other six City Lords probably thought as well. Blake had another half a dozen lessons to teach.
Blake set up a couple of work orders for the next day. He wanted people to focus on any repairs that needed doing. If a tornado ripped through New Meridia, things would not be good. They were far enough north from the Colorado River that a flood wouldn't bother them, but they were close to both Steamboat Lake and Pearl Lake, which could break their banks without enough rainfall.
Would that be a danger to New Meridia? Blake didn't know for sure, but he wanted to be prepared.
While standing at the penthouse window, looking down at the city beneath him, Blake watched as people walked around the streets like tiny little faraway ants, scurrying about on their late-night business. It was well past midnight when Blake finally had a recording that he was happy with.
He set this to be sent out to every citizen of New Meridia at seven o'clock in the morning of the next day. Blake also set himself an alarm for half an hour prior, to ensure that he could react and manage any fallout that came as a result of this broadcast.
Blake retired to a bed that didn't feel like his own, in a place that definitely didn't feel like home. Part of him missed his dorm room back at College in Denver. He missed the tiny little studio apartment he had when he was trying to find work as a programmer, before all of this started happening.
Back when he still thought he knew who he was. This bed was too big, and so was the penthouse. He was so far off the ground that he thought he could feel the tower shifting in the wind. Everything was wrong, and there was nothing he could do to make it right.
Not yet.
All he could really do was protect the people he could, and do the right thing. That's what his father had always tried to do, and Blake was damned sure he was going to follow in his father's footsteps.