It wasn’t long before the others woke up as well and we gathered in the office. Initially, all of them reflexively looked at the table Lilana’s body had laid on just a few hours prior. I had put a table cloth over it by that point, however, as the stain was distracting me. Though looking around the room now wasn’t much better, with gloomy faces looking back at me and Tomar conspicuously missing, because he naturally couldn’t be sitting in his usual spot.

“Alright...” I started. “I’d rather not, but we need to talk about Arax and what we’ll do. As you know, the original plan was to kill her if possible, or try to make a new deal if necessary. Now, technically we’re still on track... despite what happened. We do have a deal. However, I realized later that we might not actually be able to make use of it, even if we wanted to. The second we go there to make another delivery, Arax will see that I’m still here...”

‘Oh... that’s right...’ Tomar said in my mind.

“But my uncle made the deliveries together with my mother before, didn’t he?” Berla said. “Couldn’t someone else do it?”

“The rule is that the leader needs to be there, maybe to read their minds, or whatever it is Arax is doing. But let’s say that you were to go for example, then we would have to assume that she could read from you that I’m alive.”

Hayla had told us that Arax supposedly always knew what was going on in town, and whether there were potential problems. I thought that this was either just a myth, or that she might have spies in town somehow. Now that we knew more about her, however, I figured she was probably getting the information directly from the people who made the deliveries. Though I was still unclear on how exactly these senses worked.

“And you think she will attack you again...” Berla said.

“I’d say it depends... She actually said she was tired of this deal, but she still kept it up, only adding the rule that we would have to hand over our scripts. She presumably figured Tomar would be enough, so she killed me and Lilana... as a warning and because she knew I wouldn’t stop trying to get rid of her. If the scripts are very important to her, she might take the risk and let us live, but... I’m not hopeful. If Tomar and I were gone, it would become more difficult to develop new scripts, because I don’t think Ria is quite there yet, and then the deal would soon get broken anyway. Especially if the opposition seizes that chance to get to the top. And assuming that Arax doesn’t actually want the deal anymore, she would win either way.”

“But then... in two weeks...!” Berla said with wide eyes, realizing what I was implying.

“Yea,” I said in confirmation.

The deliveries happened in two week intervals, which meant that we had less than sixteen days until the next one. If we went there, there would be a high risk of her killing me and Tomar this time, and if we didn’t go, we would be breaking the deal.

“There’s another problem,” I said. “Even if we assume that we would survive, we’d have to give her scripts. The question is, what does such a beast want with them? If they’re valuable enough for her to make a deal, it can’t be good, right?”

“Probably not,” Reurig said. “What about the sacrifices...?”

This point was one that naturally bothered all of us, but Reurig in particular. He had stayed in Alarna for so long because, despite its flaws, he thought there were at least no category tens here who demanded sacrifices from the humans in their territory. Based on the deal, we would have to turn over anyone who died or was to be killed though. This ensured that Arax got a regular supply of humans, while not digging into the population unnecessarily.

“That’s yet another point... We would have to start sacrificing people. However, if we assume that we might not survive the next delivery, and that the deal will be over right after, I’m thinking that I’d rather not sacrifice anyone.”

“I understand that,” Berla said, “ but... she might not kill you. If we don't sacrifice anyone though, we’ll break the deal as well.”

“You’re right. Going by the numbers, it would be best to play along for now. To not tell anyone, to give her what she wants, make sacrifices, and hope she doesn’t kill us on the next delivery. That’s the only path where everyone has a chance for survival. However... she explicitly killed us because she knew I wouldn’t just play along. She doesn’t accept that, which makes a lot of sense from her perspective.”

Letting someone live you know will rebel against you is something a human might do, and we have already done so, but if you approached that problem with raw rationality, getting rid of them was a no-brainer.

“I honestly wouldn’t rate our chances for survival very high. So—” I continued, when Riala suddenly interrupted me.

“Stop talking about dying!” she yelled and looked at me in anger. “I don’t want you to die again!”

“Ria... We’re just going over the options for—”

“No! Dying is not an option!” she said adamantly.

I stared at her for a moment, as I realized that all of this was leaving marks on her as well. No matter how strong she seemed most of the time, she was a little girl, and she had already seen and experienced way more crap than she should have at that age. Seeing me and Lilana lying dead in this very office just a few hours ago couldn’t have been easy, and us talking about me and Tomar potentially being next wasn’t going over well. And yet, even though none of this good, I had to laugh despite myself, as I watched Riala put her foot down.

“Heh... Hahaha.”

‘Uhm... Miles?’ Tomar said, while the others looked at me perplexed.

“I’m sorry... Hah... I’m not sure where that came from...” I said. “You’re absolutely right, Ria. Dying is not an option... I’ll just mention that one more time, and then we’ll come to my actual proposal. Okay?”

“Okay,” she said, looking at me with a bit of suspicion.

“Thank you. So, if we assume that Tomar and I are likely to die sooner or later, no matter which of these paths we take, and that everything will only get worse from there, should we bother with any of this? If the outcome will essentially be the same... shouldn’t we look for a different way?”

“Do you have an actual plan...?” Berla asked.

“It would be a stretch to call it a plan just yet... but I have a few ideas. I want to find a way to kill Arax within the next two weeks.”

Apparently they hadn’t expected this response, because nobody said a word, and instead only stared at me with unbelieving eyes for a moment. Until Berla broke the silence.

“Kill her?” she said angrily. “She just killed you and Lilana! And you’re already thinking about fighting her again?”

“I know, I know... But remember, last time we didn’t know what we were dealing with. That has changed. We have ways to try to deal with fast opponents, I have very plausible theories on what went wrong with the water scripts, and we have two weeks to test a few things and get even better. Trust me. Unless I’m completely wrong, our chances for beating her might not actually be all that bad. And if we accomplished that... it would truly be the beginning of a new era.”

“You sound like you did back in Cerus right now...” she said. “No plan, but full of confidence.”

“Heh. I guess... But see where that got us,” I said, spreading my arms wide and looking around the former High Priest’s office.

“If you believe you can do it,” Reurig said, “I’m for it. It needs to end... These beasts must be stopped.”

‘I’m looking forward to hearing your theories,’ Tomar said happily.

I nodded at their positive responses.

“Ugh... alright,” Berla said. “But if you’re not absolutely sure in two weeks, you’re going to come up with something else, okay? You promised.”

“Yes, I will,” I said, a smile on my face.

I didn’t have a plan C, and I actually had my doubts that I would be able to come up with something in the short amount of time between not finding a way to kill her and the next delivery, but I assumed Berla knew that as well.

“There is one more thing I want to talk about. I thought about what you said last night.”

“What I said?” she asked.

“About telling the citizens the truth.”

“Wait, the truth?” Reurig asked incredulously. “About Arax? The town would fall into panic!”

“It’s possible, yes.”

“But then why? Say what you will about this whole thing, but as long as they don’t know, they’re at least able to live peaceful lives! Maybe they would never need to know about these beasts!”

“You’re right... but they’re also living a lie, and they could all be killed any minute, without warning. If our paths lead us to a point where the deal is no longer sustainable and they’ll learn about it anyway, don’t you think it would be better if we told them ourselves? Ahead of time?”

“But...”

“I know. Ignorance is bliss... They could keep living their lives as they have, until the day Arax decides to come here. Maybe some would even prefer that option, but we wanted to give them freedom, right? Not just in being able to take a step outside, or choose their jobs, but true freedom, to go wherever and do whatever they want. How are they supposed to make such decisions if they don’t even know what is going on around them? The thing is, we thought Alarna would be safe, but did you ever ask yourself what would happen if a category ten beast decided to set up camp here?”

“What...?”

“Imagine Arax didn’t exist, and that Alarna would flourish under the new leadership. Over time, more people would surely move here, and other towns might even slowly disappear. At some point, a category ten might realize that this is a nice spot, with a lot of humans, and it might want to make this its new territory. It might stroll into town and start killing people until everyone falls in line, like all the other towns did. Have you considered this possibility?”

Reurig’s eyes widened. “No... I didn’t...”

“I always figured it would be just a matter of time, and I hoped we would be ready once it happened. In a way, the current situation might be better though. Instead of getting surprised by it, we know what we’re dealing with, and we have a clear deadline. We can prepare, we can learn, and we can also give the citizens a chance to decide for themselves what they want to do. Also, even if we defeat Arax, she might not be the last category ten to threaten this town. I believe it’s time that the citizens learn about the world they live in.”

“I don’t know...” he said.

“You’re right in saying that this could scare some of them, but I’m not actually proposing telling them the full truth. They don’t need to know that this has already been going on for a long time. Or that their dead loved ones were likely fed to a beast... I have a story in mind that will be a little easier to digest, which will also let us do something else that is important to me.”

“What is that...?” Reurig asked.

“Giving Lilana a legacy.”