((Caeriadne)) The Blue Storm

She nodded slowly, calculating. "I don't know that 'harboring' is precisely the word I would use. Raziel...planted himself here, and seems to have drawn me into his little web of schemes. I can't say that I dislike him, but I certainly don't care much for him having attempted to play me into his plots. Naturally, I found out. But there is more that he knows that he still has not yet told me." Caeriadne danced through her words with the grace of a politician, giving no affirmative stance for or against Raziel.

Darilith nodded "Well, it will please you to know, even as a chromatic, I was never very interested in Tiamat and therefore feel no need to exact any vengeance for my murdered god." He chuckled "So my dear...we spoke of true terms for an alliance. We should we begin drawing up such an agreement, it interests me."

"Indeed." She swept across to a large table towards the center of the room and drew up a chair. "Let's discuss our terms. We can make ourselves quite useful to each other. What did you have in mind?

It occurs to me that once you capture the Orc kingdoms to the South, you will have quite a surplus of followers. Not very well-trained followers, though. But that is where I excel - and by that time, I will have a system well-established. Perhaps it would be of interest to you to have some of them relocated here to me, and I shall train them and then remit them back into your forces. Not only will you then have elite, war-trained Orcs that are practiced beyond the primitive raiding that such folk are used to, but they will pass along their new sense of discipline to the other whelps at the bottom of the ranks. More structure, more skill. They will become more useful to you than mere cannon fodder in this way, without you wasting your time to train them up."

He nodded and sat down with a small sound of soreness, he seemed to glance at the side where his arm was missing. "I think that is quite a reasonable arrangement for me, I would very much like to have my orcs not be so...simple. What would you demand in return? With such a surplus of manpower and resources in the orc lands, I assume you would want me to help with expanding your little city here."

"This place will expand quite well on its own," she smiled with the pride of a doting mother - not arrogant, yet without any doubt. "In fact, if I push it, I may as well counteract what I've accomplished so far. An oak that spreads its branches too high without strong roots will fall. No, I want something a bit different - a network. Please, allow me to explain."

She strode over to a map of Arlia that hung on one of the walls in the meeting chamber, plucked it down frame and all, and then laid it out across the table in front of them before taking her seat. She had marked and drawn across it extensively, and there were tiny push-pins stuck deep into the thick canvas. There were lines, points of interests, whole areas sectioned off. Hours of work had been poured into this. It was elaborate...the concentrated work of a mastermind.

"We are here," she illustrated, and then showed the nearby landmarks. "This is BlazeHill. I already hold it; it's all but abandoned for now, but I shall build it back up into a garrison. It is defensible and has the means to be self-sufficient in producing soldiers, with all the living space below ground and all the farming space above. It can be walled off, and needs no vital trade routes for its supplies. It can withstand siege. It will be one of my strongholds, the northernmost for now. Perfect for training the best of the best. The absolute elite among our ranks." She traced her finger southeast, back across Brighton, and then to the coast. "After I establish that stronghold, this bay is my next priority. I will hold it from here," she started at the mouth, where the ocean snaked in at its thinnest point, "until here." Her finger stopped at the northern lip of the bay. The larger landmass to the southwestern side of the bay was sectioned off with a line. "That will be my border. I wish to expand no further south - that is your domain, after all - and so I wish to stake my claim to that, and no further. This is what I want your help with." She paused and looked up at him, her finger still on the chunk of land bordered to the east by the bay and to the southwest by a large lake. "I want to establish a city here, with a port. It will be my trade network. It is in an ideal position to link with BrightHammer Hold to the west, your domain and the humans of Eurasifa to the south, my own Brighton to the north, and perhaps most importantly, the Free Oceanic Kingdoms across the ocean to the east. The problem now, as you know, is that the Orcs hold practically all the land from here to the fringes of Eurasifa. Hundreds of miles, perhaps, of valuable coastline and fertile farming ground, plains and lakes and who knows what else." Saying this, she waved her hand across the huge section of the map that Goreboz held. "Such a shame - good resources, wasted upon a glorified gaggle of marauders."

"So," she continued, "I want that little chunk of land, by the bay. It is vulnerable, and open to attack by land and by sea. If we share a border here," she lined a stretch of land from the choke-point of the bay out towards the inland lake to the west, "that protects the both of us, and opens a very profitable and direct trade route from here..." she pointed at the proposed coastal city, "to here..." and then to Brighton, and finally..."to here." She finished meaningfully at Blazehill Hold. "That means a direct trade route from my future garrison and training grounds for the most elite of our troops, as I've just promised you, along with all the valuable trade goods of my new port right to the very doorstep of your future domain, which will be fully insulated in the centers of our borders and impervious to any raids or strikes by outside parties." Finishing her proposition with the sparkle of a genius in her sapphire eyes, she looked up at Darilith to read his expression.

Darilith looked at the map and listened to her intently, when she was done he looked at her and smirked with a laugh “I have very rarely encountered gem dragons, even more rarely the sapphire variety. But if they are all as intelligent as you...then I wish I had run into them more often. I believe these terms are quite agreeable. Though there is one thing I do wish to bring up about the area...I do believe that there is an opening to the under dark in this area. Which one of us should hold that? It needs to be fortified or else all manner of creatures could spring forth and cause both of us quite some issues.”

"I have no qualms about holding it. The Underdark is far from my favorite place, you see, but I am acquainted well enough with the pests and would-be conquerors that may spawn from it. Too many Overworld-dwelling dragons make the mistake of underestimating the kind of filth that wretched place can spew forth, and it sounds like you are just as well aware of that as I. If I ever needed your assistance in securing it, I would not hesitate to ask you before such issues could take root."

She smiled a sweet, pleasant smile that was completely disarming, given the tone of the rather blunt words which followed. "If the terms are agreeable, then what is our plan of action? I would be pleased to go forth with you and assist in corralling those troublesome Orcs - and with minimal casualties, so as to ensure the ranks of your future armies remain well-stocked and without the displeasing drop in morale that might come from just roasting all of them right where they stand. Between the two of us, their leaders may just see fit to surrender - we could hold an entire siege, right above wherever their savage war-chief lays his ugly green head, and butcher him in front of all his vassals if he won't submit."

Darilith chuckled and smirked "Orcs in the region historically worshiped and revered my kind, some of them even still have the visage of a blue dragon on their banners and shields. I should simply have to appear to them and walk into their midst in my true form to make them all bow down before me."

"So be it," Caeriadne smiled. "Do you want me alongside you, or would you prefer that I stay back and let you handle the lot of them? There is no doubt in my mind that you'd make quick work of them, even if they were to mount some sort of foolish resistance."

Darilith smirked slightly and thought about it for a moment "Well, I know that you have quite the handful with Raziel bunking here so perhaps you should stay here, and beat him a little bit. Beat some sense into him." He spoke as if he was rather knowledgable about Raziel, like he knew him.

Caeriadne blinked. "I would love to try, but I do believe his skull might be so thick I'd only end up putting a dent in his pretty little head." She smiled with an inquisitive gaze, tilting her head a bit as if to encourage Darilith to tell her more about the mysterious creature that had riddled her life with such confusion recently.

Darilith laughed softly and gave her a questioning glance "Has he not told you about his past? He used to be so talkative, has that changed?" He laughed a little more and sighed "I knew him...back when he was just a dragonling. I am...very old. You know he's a Lapis and I assume you know the story of him slaying the gods and his wife being killed by Tiamat. What you don't know, is that by somehow making him a friend, you have garnered the attention of one of the most powerful members of dragon kind, that I know of."