Discordant Note | TBATE

Chapter 79: Planning to Cooperate

Toren Daen

The next morning, the entire Unblooded Party–plus the additions of myself and Sevren–were looking down at the map Dima had drawn.

Alandra pointed at a certain spot on the map. "I've been able to pinpoint the teams to these locations," she said, blinking slightly.

The auburn-haired sentry looked as tired as she did yesterday, but the shadows in her eyes didn't seem as dark. Her cheeks were hollow, but I had hope that would change soon. We'd all eaten our fill yesterday, but the Unblooded Party wasn't back to peak shape.

But they were getting there.

"I'm not good at drawing, so Dima had to help me with this," Alandra said, rambling slightly, still clearly tired.

Jared snickered, earning himself a piercing glare. "Shut up, Jared," the sentry said.

"I didn't say anything!"

"You were thinking too loud."

Jared opened his mouth to retort, but closed it after a moment, smirking slightly. I raised a brow. Had he goaded her on purpose?

"Anyway," she said, stressing the word. A bit of the fire had returned to her eyes, which flared whenever they passed over Jared. "I was able to narrow down the larger mana clusters of mages to these buildings. They're not too far from each other, and both are 'skyscrapers,' to use Toren's wording." She paused. "It'd be pretty easy to reach them, especially with Toren's abilities. But what to do when we get there?" Alandra asked, looking up with a furrowed brow.

Darrin spoke up next. "Well, we want to get everyone out of this zone alive, so that's where we start. We've got Toren now," he said, giving me a nod, "So we have a good chance of moving past most of the undead guarding our way. That's a good carrot."

Sevren interjected next. "I haven't been in this zone long, but I've been an ascender long enough to know that groups hate cooperating any more than is necessary. It takes away glory for oneself; sharing the credit," the white-haired ascender said, his arms crossed.

I frowned. "This is a life or death situation, though," I said, looking at the Denoir heir. "I don't know how long these teams have been here, but they're sure to be running out of supplies. If we point out to them that I can help them–"

"You expect too much," Sevren interrupted, shaking his head. "Ascenders are a stubborn lot. If it's a pass on glory or even a relic... They won't follow easily, even if it's to save their own skins."

My train of thought shifted to The Beginning After the End once more. I remembered Arthur's first convergence zone, where he interacted with Caera properly for the first time. The way all the teams kept their distance when not in battle with carallians, separating into pods of twos and threes...

They'd only unified because of the absurdity that was Arthur. Would we be able to pull off anything similar?

Darrin cleared his throat, drawing our attention back to the green-eyed striker. "Unfortunately, Toren, Highlord Denoir is probably right. We'll need more than basic altruism to convince these people to work with us. We have the carrot: food and an escape route. We need a stick."

"I'm not Highlord yet, Ordin," Sevren countered smoothly. "It's just Lord for now."

"Lord Denoir, then," Darrin said, seeming unphased by the soft rebuke. "But our point still stands."

"Perhaps we could play them off each other?" Dima offered, his scrutinizing pale blue eyes looking at the map. "Offer alliances to each of the other teams, using food and safe passage as guarantees? They'd be reluctant to turn us down if we made a point that the offer would only be valid for one team. If they didn't take it, the others might, leaving them utterly alone in the zone."