"No, damn you! I lost men for that meat! I'll not let you simply walk off with it!" Elanor raged, standing up so abruptly that her chair slammed over backward. She was a tall attractive woman. Or at least she was when her face wasn't screwed up in anger. Fake anger, Timothy wondered, or real? That was the question. Not that she would be alone in faking rage at this table.

500 men and women united to deal a punishing blow to the invaders. But that unity was in dire danger as they discussed splitting the spoils. Timothy took a small sip of water as he looked away from the table. He was sick to death of their posturing and it had only been around a half hour. A half-hour of debate, but a day and a half for the assault force to return and for the spoils to be tallied.

And the costs.

And that rankled, no matter how much he knew it shouldn't. Here they were sitting around a table like vultures discussing the loot instead of mourning the dead. Survivors guilt perhaps, but either way, the feeling was bullshit. The wealth they'd brought back wasn't simple coinage. And despite his overactive imagination and poor humor today, none of those sitting at the table were Scrooge McDuck. They didn't dive into pools of ill-gotten gold for enjoyment. This wasn't about coinage and the hoarding thereof. It was about power, plain and simple. The power to keep your people safe and the power to do it with fewer lives paid.

That was indeed a reason worthy to get worked up about. The power to break through a tier. It was a deadly attractive thing.

Even if the 'opportunity' wasn't quite as potent as most outsiders thought. Adding 10 pounds of muscle to a gladiator wouldn't automatically make him win a fight. It was skill that mattered! The skill to make the most use of the muscles they had. That is what won fights and simply eating powerful foods wouldn't, couldn't supply that skill. It came through study and practice. But what if a man had the skill already?

After five years of work, not counting the seven before that studying, there were more than a few men and women waiting in the wings with more skill than power. Giving them a helping hand to grow in power to match their skill would be like adding NOS to a racer. Eating the Tier 3 meat they'd brought back could save the eater months of magical exercises and possibly more than that. Some guardians had plateaued fairly early. Many of them unable to even reach high tier 2 and despite a good deal of study there weren't any concrete reasons why. Maybe the path they were following wasn't good enough. Maybe they weren't a good match for that path. Maybe they weren't putting in enough effort. Too many maybes and nothing to differentiate between them.

But there was one thing everyone did know. Lack of direction, lack of effort, lack of fit, lack of brains. All of that could be worked through with sufficient doping. Timothy sighed quietly. Much like other things that everyone knew, it was never that simple. Nothing in life came for free, and he didn't think other people risking their lives was the only cost that would need to be paid. Sooner or later they would find the catch to this shortcut. A catch beyond the time they would require to purify the foreign intent. But until then everyone was buying, and few indeed were selling.

"-two holds already have more tier 3's than the rest of us combined! How about you share the wealth a bit!" That bit caught Timothy's attention and he wasn't amused.

"Marco!" He barked. Surprising a small jump out of the man. He didn't think it was worth that much of reaction, but it was the first time he'd spoken since the meeting started so maybe. Alone among those sitting here (Marco, Father of Echo, his flunky Granite, one of many earth mages who fought among themselves for the Father of Geomancy title, Elanor Mother of the Commanding Voice, her adjutant Charles, not father of anything but a straight-up bad mo-fo who'd made his name kicking ass and chewing bubblegum since the change, Mike for the Blood Brothers, Oscar for Paradise, Arthur and Regi) Timothy didn't have much use for the meat. Oh he wanted the bones for enchanting and the blood to maintain the alienation ritual but both of those desires would happen anyway. And without all this fuss.

The blood was an obvious need that shouldn't need explaining. Keeping the suppression field in effect wasn't exactly a hard sell.

Most of the bones would come to him as well, one way or the other. Either for him to use for his own spellwork or as commissions to enchant them for someone else. Either way, he didn't need to fight for them. One of the sideline benefits of his path. He would occasionally poach a body for study, but with an anti-rot enchantment that wouldn't cost anyone anything but a little time. They'd get the meat for eating when he was done with it.

There were some strong advantages to it as well. Not fighting over the same set of scraps made him fairly popular. It was always that way. Much easier to live in peace, or even unity, with someone when you weren't fighting over the same resources.

It also gave his words a certain amount of weight in this discussion. Or at least he hoped it would. Since he wouldn't directly benefit from monopolizing the loot there was no reason to attempt to cheat anyone. "Argue whose dick is bigger all you want. No one achieves Tier 3 without a solid path to follow and hundreds of fights under their belt. I'll ignore the path bit for now because that's on you. But for the rest, if Runehold and Paradise have more Tier 3's it's because our people have been in more fights. Because we sent support and help where ever it was asked. Including your hold! We've fought and bled for those skills and you don't get to accuse us of monopolizing resources. Not when you asked us for help. Anything we harvested from those fights we shared out fairly and this fight will not be any different!"

Some shame darkened his cheeks, but it fought with anger and it didn't look like shame was winning. Past help wasn't the same as current needs. Regi broke in before anger could make a victory lap. "It will be shared out fairly and in doing so save your hold." He stared at the man for a moment, before his eyes skipped over to the other side of the table. "And your's Elanor. Don't forget that we have to repeat our victory at least another 10 times. And 10 is being wildly optimistic. Even this 'peerless' victory cost us thirty-one lives. Let's say we get some of the kinks worked out,"

Timothy noted that he didn't mention what those kinks were. Smart considering at least 10 of those lives were lost to fellow humans. Accidentally, Timothy didn't doubt it, but the family's of the deceased wouldn't gain any comfort from learning it was a misaimed spell rather than a beast's horns, claws or teeth.

"if we manage to keep the casualties under twenty in each fight I'd ban the lot of us from the casino if we had one. Even with that, we'd still lose around 200 casualties from our combined force of 500. Runehold cannot swallow those kinds of losses. Can any of you?"

He glanced around, daring anyone to disagree.

"No" Elanor sighed. "We can't, that's why we are all so desperate for those bodies. With the tier 3 meat, we might have a few more survive."

Marco looked mutinous, but Granite placed a restraining hand on his arm. Their eye contact lingered for a few moments before he grimaced and agreed. "No, we can't handle those losses either. But what choice do we have? Delaying will just make those losses worse! Thirty deaths vs suppressed enemies, how many more if they weren't so heavily weakened?"

Regi nodded along, "Agreed! We can't afford to wait. Nor can we afford to rush ahead. Neither will work. When you have a binary set of bad choices it's time to take another look around. Few things in life are only one or the other. And like many emergencies, this can be a tragedy or an opportunity. I believe the opportunity lies in those tier 3 bodies."

Elanor broke in, the ghost of a frown visible on her elegant features. "If I thought it would work I wouldn't mind paying for mercenaries from other holds. It won't. There's no real way to make them put in the effort after they get the payment. And no way in hell that they'd move before they were paid. We'd pay out the loot, and lose the opportunity to improve ourselves, and still end up dealing with casualties. Heavy casualties in time."

"You're halfway there. You're right though, paying directly won't do it. They would rightly demand a very high price to get involved and that would bone us in the long run for all the reasons you said and probably a few more besides. But what if we don't pay for mercenaries, but instead allow volunteers to join us?"

They gaped at him for a moment, Timothy included. Marco found his voice first "Why the hell would they do that? Risk their life for no reason?"

"They wouldn't of course. No one would. That's why we have to give them a reason. And we have to sell it as business as usual, not something we did just to attract them." His smile was decidedly crooked, reminding Timothy of a happy cat sitting next to an empty canary cage. "We distribute the loot based on contributions and make those who fought with us rich. We let them throw the money, and just as important the prestige it brings, around. The true bait is in offering the same benefits that we always give to our hunter teams. They risk themselves every day on the hunt, all without orders or coercion. The desire to live well and the wealth that that requires drives them on. Everyone worth giving a damn about has some kind of ambition. Whether for status or just the strength to keep their families fed and safe. Those desires drive them forward far better than orders ever could."

He paused for a quick drink of water, enjoying no doubt, Timothy thought, the way they were all hanging on his words.

"Then you have this situation. We pushed them into this. Spending our prestige to-" he paused, searching for a word, "-encourage them to go out and fight. And our prestige is high enough that they turned out in droves. But while prestigious is not strictly a currency, neither is it endless. There are limits. And asking again and again for volunteers will find those limits quickly. They have families to feed and their own growth to think about. On the other hand, if we make sure they benefit greatly from answering our call? They'll jump all over themselves to join the next fight. Not to mention answer our call the next time an emergency crops up. And more importantly, they will bring others from distant holds to join in! Think of it. Even with splitting the loot up among 500 plus people, we brought back more wealth than any of our holds has ever seen”

He paused, hesitating for a moment then drove on. "That is why we are going to give up our share of the loot this time. Not for nothing. But to prime the pump and purchase prestige."

He kept driving over the top of a few muttered complaints and denials. "We don't need to bogart the loot. Face it, no one at this table really needs the tier 3 meat personally. We are all tier 3 already or we wouldn’t be at this table! All we would do with it is give it out to those with the most potential."

Or the ones who kissed their ass the most, Timothy thought. But he thought it quietly.

"You don't need to expend your prestige to accomplish this. Those with potential will have put in good performances out there. If they haven't then they’re the wrong ones to focus on anyway. Let them accomplish their growth in power through their own efforts, and at their own expense. Our people want to get stronger! We don't need to buy magically potent meat and force-feed it to them. We only need to show them a path to acquiring it and get out of the way!"

Timothy found himself nodding along with the rest of the table. Damn him but Regi had that spark. The lemons they'd been handed just turned into a meringue. Hell, Arthur looked like his child just got first place in a spelling bee, he was so damn proud. It almost left a bad taste in Timothy's mouth. Like good politicians everywhere he'd hit a half dozen birds with one stone. He'd stopped the bandit-like grab for the loot. He was establishing a method for holds to work together and Timothy didn't think for a moment it was going to be a short-term thing. No, this was the framework of a working partnership up and down the river. One that would neatly sidestep any obstinate Pathfinders. Who could deny their people a chance to get stronger? The bad taste lingered though. Even if it was a good idea Timothy didn't particularly care for being managed. Even by a brother he knew had all of their best interests at heart.

"Alright Brotherhood, you've sold us on the car." Marco grumbled, "Now how are we going to trick it out? It's all well and good to say we divide the spoils by contribution, but there are a hundred ways to screw that up and maybe none that do it right."

That...unfortunately was also true. He carefully suppressed a smile. He didn't want Regi to get too lonely up on that soapbox. It was good for him when other people reminded him of the practical realities. Then again, he stared past Regi's poker face and at his slightly less well-controlled aura. It pulsed consistent with his breathing but with a comfortable overtone. Not something he expected to see in someone suffering a setback. In fact… Fuck! He was happy about the interruption! Timothy turned it over in his head for a minute or so. Trying to figure out why. A fairly involved conversation about soul-bound contribution chips and recording the resentment aura a fresh kill gave off finally keyed him in. When people participate in a decision it wasn't someone else's idea anymore. They were part of the decision and would fight others down the line to support it. Damn him but it was a good idea. Bad taste or no, he threw in his own two cents into the discussion.

"Use the truth stage when in doubt about an evaluation."

Enforced truth wasn't everything. People could beat it in a number of ways, from saying factually true but misleading statements to believing their own bullshit, but the second took a megalomaniac and the first could be avoided by keeping the statements short, simple and direct.

Timothy held in a sigh. Forced sincerity wasn't the same thing as forced alacrity. He wondered if even a god could make these meetings not take forever and a half.

The human condition his old English teacher loved to harp on was merely another kind of hell.

An eternity of meetings!

It was all well and good to get more troops lined up for that next fight… but he had to get the spells prepped and charged as well. Even if they delayed it a bit to let the rumors of wealth spread he still needed to spend a significant amount of time on preparations. Time he was already wasting on this fucking meeting! It wasn't that he didn't care about the results, they would not be going away and he very much hoped they got it right, but what did he know about setting any of that up? Between Regi and Arthur, Timothy trusted they would figure something equitable out.

That left Timothy sitting here faking interest and wishing he could smash his head in on the table. Now if only he could set up an illusion of himself to sit up and pretend he was listening… wait a minute, he could!

He spent a moment listening, they were going back and forth over some additional tedious details. Things like reimbursement for consumables, additional contributions for behavior above and beyond what was expected, the difference between a high-tier combatant and a highly effective one. They weren’t always the same thing, Timothy acknowledged, but why the hell did it matter if they were going to record kills via aural resentment? So many tiny details! It was maddening and they had barely gotten started. It was critically important to work all that out, but so was a sewage system. That didn’t make either of them terribly interesting.

With a very delicate mental touch, he allowed his consciousness to slide out of the illusionary body double. He hadn’t had the time to take the cruise up to Riverdell Hold anyway, although for authenticity he’d made his double board the boat and take a nap in one of the cabins. Why not capitalize on the fortuitous circumstance to get some real work done?

Still, none of the people in that room were precisely unobservant. They wouldn’t still be alive if they were. He took a moment to practice. Sliding the pool's focal point to show his doubles face he made it casually nod at a point Marco was making.

Perfect! It looked decently authentic. Just give it a bit, nodding here or there, and then ‘he’ would fall asleep. They’d bitch him out for it later, but they’d bitch him out for snoozing, not for leaving the meeting. Sometimes giving people something minor to find issues with would make them stop looking deeper.

Most of the time in Timothy’s experience.

Now, he lifted his hands above his head, popping his back in the process, to get some real work done!