“Best laid plans and all that,” Bartholomew said while falling into a chair.

The recently ascended god Ni’Bish adjusted his leafy hair, “Well it seems to be working out on my side. I know things aren’t completely as planned, but he seems capable right now, and I’m not sure that Max could ask for a better outcome than pissing everyone off.”

“True, we just weren’t expecting anyone to be watching yet and so this is turning into a thorny mess.”

“Well, you know who we should bring in if this is going to be a mess?”

“Who?”

“Stephine!” Ni’Bish smirked.

“Nope! We are not letting her in on this. She will mess everything up.”

“Hear me out. Don’t let her know what we are planning, only let her see that we care. She will help in her own way as she tries to figure it out.”

“That is courting disaster. She is the goddess of poetry and unrequited love. She will end up sending someone that latches on to him and never lets go. Or worse what if she falls for him?”

“I understand, but when has she ever put someone into play that can’t be found useful? That’s how her pawns always work. They find someone to fall in love with and become useful thinking that is all they have to do.”

“Well, what if he falls in love with the one she sends?”

“That would mess things up a bit. But, honestly when was the last time that happened? Besides the man is so focused on finding Lannah right now it is unlikely to work.”

Bartholomew set up and chuckled a little. “She might end up blessing Lannah if he finds out that she was using skills on him. He doesn’t seem to like that much.”

“Oh now that would be funny, but I am more afraid if we tell her she would send someone to fall in love with you barmaid. That would make a better poem.”

“Good point it would, and I am not ready for that to happen. So other than Stephine who could we bring into play to keep things on track?”

Ni'bish sent the roots that made his right foot into the ground and started to tap. “What about your old champion? Do you think he would have anyone that could help?”

Bartholomew steepled his fingers and thought for a moment. “I guess we could see if there was anyone he could send. He doesn’t know the plan but isn’t on their side. Anyone that Eric would send would help protect him. After all, if the god of fist fights and fences didn’t have someone that could soak up damage I don’t know who on our side would.”

“Wish we could bust Sam out now.”

“Yeah, me too. But that would mess up all of Max’s plans and call attention to what we are doing now.”

“True. We could ask Vianola to send someone. I am sure they would be helpful and could aid in the plans.”

“Humm, Vianola has been helpful in the past and she isn’t aligned with the current Pantheon. We would do well if she sent a Druid but she might just send a gardener to mess with me. Some of the Bards haven’t been the nicest with their songs of late.”

“Would she hold that against you? I always thought she was above everything.”

Bartholomew started to grin. “Well, normally she would be but let's just say there was a song a few years ago that talked about her flowers being dried and shriveled and that her melons were empty.”

Ni'bish grimaced, “Yeah that would do it to any woman and especially the goddess of perfume and gardens.”

The two gods settled in a few minutes of silence, each caught in their own thoughts. Ni'bish was pushing both his feet down into the ground now and had used roots to build himself a chair. Bartholomew paced around the room until he found himself in front of a series of snow globes. He slowly started to pick them up one by one, shaking them and putting them down.

The god of bards turned to look at his old friend. “When plans don’t go right I have always found it is best to muddy the waters as best I can.”

The god of the talking trees started a laugh that sounded like wooden windchimes and rustling branches. “Max hates it when you do that to his plans. He likes to know everything that happens and is happening. If you go and muddy the waters won’t it mess things up more?”

Barth poured himself a large V-shaped mug of a pale hoppy beer. “Yeah, sure, he might not like it when the waters get muddy but most of his plans work better when things get messy.”

“But, isn’t that when he is around to make the changes needed and not when they are just playing out?” Ni'bish asked with a bit of worry.

“Sometimes, but I think he likely took into account that I would be the one running the operation and so would know that I would end up doing something like this. It’s not the first time that his plans would have included the idea that I would do something to help them along.” Barth said as he downed his mug.

“When was the last time that happened?”

“It was a while ago. Max has been gone for a thousand years now so it had to be a while ago.”

“I know how long he was gone. I have been waiting in that spot for over 700 years to get my part moving. But, when was the last time that he counted on you to add something into the mix and wasn’t directly there to account for it?”

“Had to have been back in the war. There was this time that he sent me to be a diversion and told me just not to be seen. I dumped around 10000 of my class coins on the campuses. It was great fun and worked perfectly as Pramsu’s best source of power fell out from under him. That one blow almost changed the whole war.”

“Oh, I remember that. I was with Max when that happened. He was about to send me to move a forest when you did that. That was when he ended up actively taking sides. He sent the forest I was going to move into that city as well. I was going to block a pass but ended up using the forest to protect your new bards. He didn’t take into account how muddy you were going to make the waters that day.”

Barth was walking back and forth. He was mulling over how to keep things on track. The god of war was in play much too soon, and he was openly using the forces of the dark ones to attack. Things were going too fast, and the plans weren’t ready. In addition to that, there were two goddesses that he had never seen before, and they were playing with things as well.

“No, what I did wrong that day was I put everything into one play. Max’s plans tend to be self-correcting if given enough material and time. It would be better if we could confirm that Sam knew what was going on but he is being watched. I am going to see what all we can get in play. He wasn’t the god of seasons and harvest for nothing.”

“So who all are you going to try to get to send in?”

“I think Eric, Stephine, Vianola, and Winter.”

“Winter? She never liked Max. If she figures out what is going on she would try to mess it all up just to spite him.”

Barth smiled and poured himself another and started to shake his head. “No, it’s not that Winter never liked Max. No no no. It’s that before your time she was Stephine’s champion and latched onto Max. Even without knowing where he is she is likely pining over him. Might be why my parties have been better over the past thousand years.”

“Well if you are going to muddy the waters like this I should see if I can send him a protector. The one that Eric sends might be a sponge but he will still need someone to fill the damage-dealing roll. I might can force one of the seeds to move faster.”

“No don’t worry about the damage dealer, if you are going to do anything stay in the shadows and help his first Thicket to grow. That will be near where most of it comes together. If he needs more help then he might need you to directly interfere. When you do you can claim that it is to protect your seeds which should get you a pass the first time.”

Ni'bish started to pull his roots back. There wasn’t much for him to get them into here in Barth’s brewery, but he felt it had been nice to hold on to something while talking. “I will go and keep an eye on everything. I hope you are right about the plans.”

Bartholomew started reaching out to the ones they had talked about. For some, he would have to nudge along, and for others, he would have to trade favors, but Max’s plan would work. It had to. It was the only hope they had to beat back the Dark Ones and root out the traitors. He just hoped that he wouldn’t be too mad when he got back and saw the added mess that was needed to nudge things along.

* * *