“Obviously, I know that, but if you are all pushing yourselves to the brink every day, then what do you think will happen when something does go wrong? We are going to be attacked at some point. A nest will be infiltrated, our defences will get tested, golgari will sneak in and destroy our brood, the Legion comes back and besieges a new nest. It WILL happen. Nothing goes right all the time. And when it does happen, what state are you going to be in? Is every single one of you going to be down here? Pushing on the front lines? Dragging the Colony to the brink of exhaustion?”
I stare at them all.
“It’s difficult, but you have to walk the fine line between going hard, fighting for our future, and holding something in reserve for when things go wrong.”
My words seem to resonate with the group as their antennae waver through the air in slow, thoughtful circles.
“Anyways,” I sigh. “What we really need to do right now is work out exactly what we’re going to do to defend ourselves against this attack from the nearby City of Orpule. If we lose, then the territory we’ve gained will be gone almost as soon as we took it!”
A discussion erupts amongst everyone, and I can tell that Vibrant in particular is talking at a million miles an hour. After a bit of back and forth, it’s Wills who puts forth an interesting suggestion.
“If I’m not mistaken,” she leads with, “this war of conquest is for control of a demon city, right?”
“I believe so,” I confirm.
“Then, if we win, don’t we gain control of their city? Orpule?”
“Ah… maybe? I mean, I guess that sounds, right?”
“So… isn’t this a way that we can gain more territory and control? Rather than just running at cities and rolling over them like we did here… we can use this… formal war, as our mechanism to gain more territory.”
I think for a minute.
“That sounds… smart?”
Just you wait, third stratum. The ants are marching in.