The rest of the day, and the following went by without any surprises.

The Tendril siblings and Joe were making great strides integrating with our group. Both were struggling with the freedom of progression that we operated under, but by the end of the second day I knew we had them hooked. That, or Jolene was a master brainwasher that got the Tendrils to want to sell their souls for more time in the Nash medical library. I knew for a fact Daniela was doing some serious hypnosis whenever she spent time with Joe and Billy. The two youths had become as much battle junkies as her all in the name of 'feeding big ant boi'.

Sam was still deep in his own experiments, and I was bleeding myself like a faucet. While progress hadn't slowed down, like with the assimilation of my other Traits, it was getting harder and harder to get meaningful cuts. It was almost as if my body had gotten the hang of not bleeding and still functioning until enough Slurry Ichor could solidify the injured location back into working flesh.

Thankfully, while my assimilation of Slurry Ichor stalled at 74% my understanding of the magic that had been lurking within my body grew by leaps and bounds. While I hadn't been able to use my Ichor to power anything, it had a stabilizing effect on any spell chain that I applied it to. managed to repair itself to a small degree, maintained its form for longer without needing my intervention, and rotated faster in the presence of my blood even without me needing to strain my will to achieve the effect. For , and I hadn't been nearly as successful at finding how my blood was affecting the spell chains but I knew the impact had to be there somewhere.

Beyond those more magical effects, I'd also discovered that controlling my Ichor as an Earth-adjacent element was almost free in terms of using it as the physical material subsidy requirement for my Skills. It had been somewhat ridiculous, and had gotten me many strange looks from the others at the Embassy when they'd returned towards the end of my first day of practice, but I wasn't going to ignore the ability to feed Fievil and Amelia while also practicing with minimized versions of my Skills.

In a call back to Ava's first few attempts to get us to properly flex our magical chops, I'd been creating as many stick figures as possible with that I then liquified back into Ichor with , smashed with thumb-sized , or ground to dust with hand-sized . Joe had found the process amusing and had asked to cast his obsidian Gift like shooting skees at some of the creations I'd set to the side. I'd immediately pulled them back and placed them along shelves I created in my room when I managed to get a particularly cool looking stick figure. Jolene had scowled at me after dinner for scaring the newbie when he'd been trying to extend an olive branch to the boss. You don't mess with a man and his miniatures.

As a peace offering, I'd created a number of targets that the draconian and everyone else at the Embassy could use to practice on their off time. They had cores of Ichor-stone, which seemed capable of compressing one step further than mana-formed stone, and exteriors that I was able to quickly regrow with or . Those had been a huge hit, especially after Daniela had me add horns to one of the targets and Samuel painted a demonic face on it. Very eloquently, and not at all subtly, Daniela had named it 'Drunk Demon'. Just like no one touched my good figurines, only she was allowed to blast Drunk Demon with everything but her dragonfire.

Despite all the progress and healing I was getting, each moment of silence left me more tense than the last. I was starting to wonder whether I would have to reach out myself to get the ball rolling on the conference, but those worries were put to bed on the morning of the fourth day after Eurus' visit.

"Oh, good morning Ponzio," I said, waving my hand and forming a door beside the actual door the Zebelos' elf had been ready to knock on. I watched the elf do a double take at the gathering in the room, and no doubt my blatant power flex. It had been a costly combination of and , but considering all my efforts with my Slurry Ichor resulted in only minute mana expenditures I wasn't too worried.

"Good morning, Bunker Busters and company," the elf said, bowing slightly towards our new additions and deeper to the rest of us.

"You don't need to be so formal, pipsqueak. We've killed stuff together," Daniela said through a mouth full of grits. She hooked a thumb towards the kitchen. "I've got some extra if you want."

Blobby perked up at the mention of extra food, but Daniela pointed towards the corner near the entrance where she'd strung up a whole cow that a Blobite was working its way through. That the other mini-Blobbys were getting gluttonous had been a development Daniela had taken on herself to handle-- especially considering she was partly responsible. Anthony was already eating her out of house and home, even after she pumped the ant full of low Quotient, large mass critters.

"No, I am quite fine, thank you. I actually --"

I cut Ponzio off with a wave of my hand, causing the elf to tilt his head in confusion. Another wave of my hand and a pulse of mana later reopened the wall I'd secured to reveal a flustered pair of satyr.

"Hey Ezrah. And... Teion, yes?" I said, greeting the pair as they got their first look at the Embassy. I grinned at their expressions; the Nash had construction chops, but stone had different, superior appeal and it was satisfying to see it recognized.

"Mister Terrigan. Mister Nolan," Teion said, bowing slightly to me and Billy before entering the room. "Apologies everyone, I don't believe we've all met properly even if I recognize most of you. I am Teion Nash, one of the leaders of our Nash Mage Circles."

"He did well in some stuff in the Hog Parade," Daniela informed our three unusual charges in a poor stage whisper. Of course, that drew Teion's attention.

"Have we come at a bad time?" The satyr glanced at Ponzio, inclining his head slightly in a sign of respect, before focusing on me. "We have a very important message from our Shaman."

"Go ahead," I said, forming additional stools with for the three visitors to use.

"It's somewhat sensitive information," Teion said, the confidence in his voice slipping by the second. Likely because you've thrown him entirely for a loop, Ronan. Not everyone is as good about adjusting on the fly.

"Don't see why it can't be shared with the group. I am hopeful that you two actually showed up with the same message actually," I said, leaning forward in my seat. A twinge of pain caused me to stiffen but I did my best to play it off. My exsanguination efforts hadn't helped my overall body's healing rate in the slightest. Teion and Ponzio sent the Tendrils discreet glances before focusing back on me, their postures tense. "Everyone here is invested. As a matter of fact, they are to be heavily involved with us in the future."

"The Ocala Conference has been scheduled for two days from now," Ponzio said, making the decision to go forward with his message while taking a seat. He let out a world-weary sigh that did not fit his age in the slightest.

"Could have just sent a postcard," Daniela said, discreetly tapping the back of her neck.

"We believed this warranted representation," Teion added, joining Ponzio. Ezrah opted to hover behind the Nash heir. "You are right, we have the same message."

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

"Those old codgers have anything else?" I asked, crossing my arms. Daniela was right. If that had been it, Ponzio could have just used the comm-plant. Of course, Teion would have still showed up, but there had to be more.

"Il Padre wanted me to give you a breakdown of what he expects the discussion topics to be," Ponzio said. The elf pulled out a rolled up wad of paper from his messenger bag. Seeing that, Teion mirrored the gesture with a small booklet Ezrah had been keeping hold of for him.

"One at a time then," I said, sighing. "If you overlap, there isn't really a reason for you to repeat things you both have on the docket."

"Please, Mr. Zebelos," Teion deferred.

"Right. Let's get right to it, then. Sorry for crashing your breakfast," Ponzio said, starting to flip through some of his pages of notes.

"Don't worry. We were just getting ready to scatter, so a morning meeting was your best bet to catch all of us," Sam said.

"Well, great then," Ponzio chuckled. He cleared his throat before speaking, having found what he was looking for. "The Conference will start with a formal introduction of the parties. Il Padre will push for a brief summary of the standing and mission of the Factions at the start as a way to set up the introduction of the Allied Towns."

"Straight forward so far," I said, gesturing for him to go on.

"The complications come into the topics. The basic ones will start off, with the state of the city after the hurricane. This will be mainly focused on how many people will shuffle to the Breakers due to failed Threshold boundaries, but will also address shortages or damaged stocks of the city. As Daniela has likely kept you appraised, there is a tight hold on meat products and that is because of this head count.

"Once that is out of the way, Grandfather expects that you will be put on the spot. The Factions will want to know what your goal is here in the city. He is not sure whether that will be addressed directly at your squad or to the Allied Towns in general," Ponzio said, flipping a page.

Teion took that opportunity to interject. "Our analysts believe it will lean on your team, Mister Terrigan. The impact you had winning the Hog Parade essentially flipped the table on the political scene of Ocala."

"Yes, that's our best estimate too," Ponzio agreed. "Our Family is in full support of the operations your squad has undertaken while in the city, but some of our subsidiaries have been... asking questions."

"Such as?" Jolene said, leaning forward herself. "I don't much like being gossiped about."

Ponzio looked somewhat sheepish as he answered. "About each of you. We believe they are trying to gather as much information on your capabilities, as well as what those living in the Ock Outpost can manage. They... want to know when they'll have access to the Allied Towns."

"I can tell you right now I don't like what you just said. Straight up," I said, frowning. My eyes swapped to Teion. "Is this the assessment of the Nash as well?"

The satyr hesitated, before nodding. "The Nash Family is more than willing to cooperate with the Allied Towns, but we don't answer for the ambitions of everyone that lives in our Faction territory. The Shaman has already put out a decree that your bridge is to be respected but..."

"Humans are humans," Daniela growled. Steam was curling off her hands. Devon placed a hand on her shoulder, even if the elf look too pleased himself about the news. He kept his mouth shut.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," I said. The whole room paused for a second. "Yes, that was intentional. I don't intend to let anyone cross the Ock unless we put down some serious ground rules."

"Some of the Spring Hoppers already have," Teion said, glancing at Ezrah.

The younger satyr added. "Just yesterday we got word of some of their barges along the south shore."

My skin prickled at the idea of the Ocalans circumventing our presence to reach the Allied Towns. Of course, the river limited access to those with vessels or magic strong enough to get them across but that almost made it more concerning. It wasn't like I planned to ask the Wild Guard to start blasting every single person that set foot on our territory without authorization, and now that we knew not all Tendrils were bad there would have to be some degree of hesitation when engaging the corrupted humans. I had to restrain a growl as the implications passed through my mind.

Jolene placed a hand on my back, drawing me to the moment. I'd crushed a section of the stone table between my fingers and I had to release the crumbling bits to try to flex the stiffness out of my hands. I'd thought that the threat of the unknown and our general presence in the city and our outpost would be enough; I'd been wrong. However, the simplest solution would be the most effective for that problem. I knew what I had to do.

"Anything else," I said, keeping my voice as flat as I could manage.

It wasn't Ponzio's or Teion's fault. As a matter of fact, I was confident they'd actually been doing what they said. Radolfo proved his integrity with his lack of hesitation when freeing Hec, even if he knew it would be costly. Sharon had slapped a hurricane to protect her family and the city, even if she was now bedridden for lord knew how long. However, they couldn't speak for every single person below them. Not to mention the Clansmen, which were neutral if not antagonistic, or the Breakers who were just plain antagonistic.

Ponzio and Teion shared an uncertain look before the elf spoke. "They will likely talk about your operations here in the city. We don't expect it will turn into a trial but..."

I felt the veins on my temples throb just thinking about someone bringing up the Dreg poisoning as something we should have just let happen. As a matter of fact... I want them to talk about it. They are going to eat their words and probably a fist in the process.

"We understand," Jolene said. "We've been preparing for our discussions on those topics. Any avenue we'll address."

Ponzio nodded, spent a second reviewing his notes, before rising to his feet. "I will have your back. We aren't the strongest fighters, but we are the backbone of Ocala."

"The Nash also stand with you," Teion said, jumping to his feet only to bow low. "And we thank you, for keeping my grandmother alive."

The sincerity in the two youth's voices did a lot to cool my temper, especially with how clear the emotion came through thanks to Harmonic Sinew's upgrades. Sighing, I shook my head and leaned back. "Your help is certainly invaluable. As for Sharon... I don't think she needed my help for a second; she's a tough old lady."

"That she is," Teion said, smiling and looking to the southeast where the Nash territory was.

"If we get anything more concrete I'll pass it along," Ponzio said. "Unfortunately, these things are very 'loose' in the sense of structure."

"We know," Jolene assured them. "Your archives provided a lot of context. Thank you, Ponzio."

"Thank my dad," the elf huffed a laugh. "If he and Grandfather weren't so obsessed with keeping logs of the past it would have already been turned into a Condenser. Did you know a Water Attuned one formed in the plant, but instead of converting it we moved the whole thing elsewhere only to have it dissipate in the process?"

"No, I didn't. But it makes a certain amount of sense," Jolene replied. "Or it's ironic. One of the two."

"Thanks for the heads up," I said. "Can we presume it will be in the super security ex-public park in the center of the city?"

"That's the one," Ponzio said.

"We will be providing an escort for your group on the day of the Conference," Teion added quickly.

"Our grandparents really should have just coordinated better," Ponzio said, rolling his eyes at the satyr before turning back to us. "Our Faction will also provide an escort."

"It's like we upgraded since the Parade happened," Daniela huffed. "Who would have thought we'd get this important."

"Everyone," Jolene, Samuel, and I said simultaneously. Even the other members of the breakfast table were nodding along. The brunette blushed, looking away while grumbling something under her breath. Teion didn't look like he knew how to handle our antics, but Ponzio and even Ezrah just shook their heads. Got them both trained up quick. Despite the gravity of the situation, I gave the messengers friendly smiles as they left the Embassy via the normal door.

Breakfast continued for several minutes before the group started to disperse for their tasks. Billy was almost done with linking up the Huntington Faction Wards, and the deadline for the conference had lit a fire in him to get just that completed that day. The others were intent on the same tasks they'd been working on, but I stopped Sam before he could escape the building. If I wanted to put plan 'You Won't Ignore Me' into effect, I wouldn't be able to do it alone. Especially not the last part that was more experiment than an actual step in the plan.

"Do you think I could steal you for today?" I asked, voice serious.

Thankfully, I was talking to Samuel and not Daniela because he immediately picked up on my tone. "April was supposed to swing by my experiment plots but I don't think she'll mind waiting. What's going on?"

I laid out my plan despite the growing grimace on his face.