[hider=][quote=@Dyelli Beybi][indent]"Gentlemen," she addressed the group, "There are divers opinions in this room over the right course of action, though it seems the two most favoured are to march against my Cousin on the South coast or to march on this silver mine.  Mister Krasimir, Colonel van der Szaalm, I appreciate that I am not one with the wisdom to make this decision, but I pray I am able to discern wisdom when I hear it.  Kindly, could you please put your best case forward for your course of action and I will decide from that."[noparse][sic][/noparse][/indent][/quote][/hider][table][row][/row][row][cell][center][color=2e2c2c]____________________________________________[/color]
[url=https://www.roleplayerguild.com/posts/5588024][img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/617914243760783381/1335308407477108848/image.png?ex=679fb25d&is=679e60dd&hm=82999d3a59f885d1573bee74bdb416c82b415942d26e79fe348d4141830fc5ae&[/img][/url][/center][/cell][cell][center][justify][color=cfbcae]𝕽evel as they may in all their pointed improprieties—those among them who glowered and grumbled and bickered—no man graced those chairs with his highfalutin bottom who did not raise it at the sight of Ariana. Those still spitefully wearing their caps now hurried to strip bare their scalps in deference. While those who had first refused to bow—now they bent lower than anyone. Szaalm, for his part, only had to stand and face the door, all other courtesies already attended to. But while his breast and his toes and his long, beaklike nose faced fully the parlor doors, his eyes skewed. Wandered. He noted well which among them only deigned to decorum when arrived a figure from whom they sought to profit; who respected the chain of command, and really the whole orderliness of things, only when it fitted their—[i]sensibilities[/i]. The hypocrites who would be trouble sooner than late. Aye, Szaalm too did not yet trust the general of the two thousand, who might yet decide to cut their throats in the night, ending the rebellion overnight and very nearly without bloodshed, to much reward and commendation from his masters—neither did he trust the moneylender, who at any hour might deem their cause too risky to his assets, too costly of an investment, and accordingly withdraw—both of these, by Szaalm's estimation, being utterly without heartsblood, uncolored by cause or principle—but any man who did not doff and bow as a captain did not [i]deserve[/i] those same doffs and bows when he made fieldmarshal.

So Ariana's ear was all that time pressed to the keyhole. Szaalm smothered his first instinct, one of deep amusement; assuming of it some girlish need to know what[/color][/justify][/center][/cell][/row][/table][justify][indent][color=cfbcae]her subordinates said about her when they thought they went unheard. A girl, aye, that she was, but still in bearing, if not yet in standing, a queen; moreover, a queen of so few years and yet already twice-betrayed. The first knife from her cousin and the next, more tragic still, from her first and only sister; both slavering and snapping for the younger's righteous place upon the throne (though only one of them bedding elves and false idols, for the time). Indeed. Upon a moment's reflection, their positions swapped, Szaalm had to reckon himself just as generous as she with his suspicions.

Ere long only he and Ariana remained standing—they, and that detestable cultist, who called himself Krasimir and yet grinned with Skotinódasos's lips, wheedled with Skotinódasos's tongue. Like a bad dream was that man: two hundred miles away and yet never ceasing in his hauntings, his specters numerous and widespread across the camps. His words somehow wriggling as damp and fresh against the ear as grave-worms drilling the skulls of the enviable dead.

"Arrogance, Your Majesty, may wear many masks," Szaalm said, when at last his turn had come, though not before a long and choosy pause, "but I warn thee 'tis a beast of a single face—ever the same sin, only cladded at times in different coats. The arrogance—for instance—whereof a man might make camp many leagues from the rest of the army, beyond the reach of his commanding officers, that he may raze and plunder with impunity—and yet presume to leave his toadies at the war table, that he still get his say—why, 'twould be the very arrogance which may yet compel him to take the rest of us for fools. Kith and foe alike.

"Our foes. So as I attempt to understand them—anticipate their needs, their nature—they do unto us the same, for 'tis the very character of war. And as not all our foes are idle, glutted—[i]halfwit[/i] aristocrats, some in their musings may chance upon the thought that we are scarce of powder. Scarce of men and horse, and in fact a great many things aft the battle. Their most prudent wilt then have cause to ponder: 'Whither go those churlish rebels, to seize what needest they? And by what means, and for what aims?'—just the same as thy council hath hither bandied. The mines, agreed, may be the soonest course—but the soonest course wilt they first suspect.

"In brief, ma'am," Szaalm said, taking another moment's silence to construct his closing argument most cautiously: "methinks it an error most grave to underestimate Voron, or his satellites. For they may yet be wise enough to reason our deficiencies; and, thereof, to conceive of our plans to satisfy them. Take their powder, and aught else we may need, aye; aye, enrich ourselves and harry the enemy in one stroke; but be we wise as well as needy, we must beware a place mayhap already guarded, [i]ergo,[/i] a wolf-trap placed and baited."[/color][/indent][/justify]