Chapter 8: The Greed of Men
After a good meal, Arran started asking Brightblade about the situation and what her plan was because they knew that even with their increased power there was no way they could win an all-out war against the Darian empire, and even if they could, the Blightspawn would soon follow and with their much-weakened forces they would be lambs to the slaughter.
They needed to somehow broker peace with the Darians and work together against the Blightspawn, and in an ideal world that would be the obvious conclusion for everyone, but the chances of that were ridiculously low.
He had seen how different factions fought each other for power and greed both inside the Darian empire and in the nine valleys. If they could not even rally the nine valleys together against the Darians in a true alliance how could they expect to broker an alliance with the Darians that hated the mages and despised all foreigners and even fought each other, forming different factions while knowing full well the threat the Blightspawn posed.
Though Arran had seen the Darians and the mages fighting side by side in the dream Panurge showed him, he could only suspect they only did so in the face of complete annihilation, and even that accomplished nothing in the end. He had seen all the people that he had ever known lose their lives against the invaders and hated the feeling of helplessness.
Even with his newfound strength, he knew he could not stop that outcome from becoming a reality. They could tell the Matriarch about his mission into the Darian empire and all he had witnessed and that might bring some unity in the nine valleys, but it was just as likely it would create more division with people either choosing to flee or even betray the Valleys to the Darians, and that would make Arran a target.
The Darians would stop at nothing to kill him and the mages would want to capture him for the bloodlines he possesses, and it would even attract the attention of the Academy. He remembered how even Crassus feared them, and knew he was still too weak. His enemies had millennia to build up their strength but he had no such luxury. Even with the increased clarity, the Sage's bloodline brought him, he saw no obvious solution to his problems. All he ever wanted was to live in peace and build a family of his own, but ever since he took the test in the Academy to become a mage his life had become a constant struggle for survival with no end in sight. He had hoped to gain enough power to protect himself and his friends but the more he saw of the world, the more he realized how powerless he truly was.
He hated this feeling and hated the world for being such a cruel place, and most of all he hated the greed of men. The war against the Darians was still in its early phase with mostly common soldiers lead by Rangers fighting for now against the Valleys. The peace the mages enjoyed until now had made them soft, and this war would also serve to make the survivors strong. At first Arran wanted to join the war and knew he could decimate the Darian soldiers and Rangers alike in days but doing so would only result in accelerating the war and might even unite the Darian factions against them.
The best thing he could do for now was to keep increasing his strength and see how things developed. He had the token Brightblade gave him and if he was needed she could let him know. And thus he went back into the formation barrier after getting some more spells from Brightblade to learn.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone