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  Esstrey looks to the devastated pace, all of her enemies within Faerune are dead, yet she doesn't feel any safer. The moment she brought Mazurians to this nd, an unstoppable of events was set in motion. She looks away from the pace to the gate between worlds not far away, Krenkov's men are seg it, as there's no telling how many e will spit out. She thinks of her future pns again, is there truly no other way? Diplomacy perhaps? No, history has shown the core worlds aren't the type to do diplomacy when even a sihing warranting their attention is involved. Digging in and staying on the defe would buy time for sure, and lots of it, but it would only be a matter of time until one of them decides to go on an offensive, and they would lose the initiative. Scorched earth perhaps? No, while gates be destroyed, they reappear elsewhere near instantly, and that elsewhere would be out of their sight. If it's beyond their borders, they might quer the whole world befoing after Malencia.

  It would really have to be an offensive, a decapitating strike so hard it would have to scare even the core worlds into caution. Even the full force of earth wasn't able to hold against all of them, but if Esstrey make Malencia more trouble than it's worth...

  They need a target, if they attack a core world solely based on strategid tactical advahey would win, but it wouldn't achieve the needed results. If Malencia is seen as truly uable, it will be crushed. There is one core world which meets all the specifications, meets all the justifications. [Melthazar's Heavenly Body], a p home to the padin order that was so actively bag Faeruhey had more overt is in the region for a while now, arey doubts that the other core worlds don't know that. The p is also home to Melthazar himself, a being that ranks pretty high on the 'most powerful existences' chart. It rules that world, and many other worlds subjugated by it, which further strengthens it. A god representing light, something that is ideologically opposed to Malencia, and one of the biggest reasons diplomacy is off the table.

  She thinks ba the other time she killed gods, it was a fluke, a stroke of good fortune, but that does make it possible. Melthazar is aence far strohan all the gods of Brynya bined ever were by far, but they be killed, they be beaten. It would take a lot, but it's certainly possible.

  "dell, how long do you believe you could hold out ohazar's backyard if you had every ventional advantage and many of our unventional advantages?" dell looks at Esstrey in surprise, he's dealt with her long enough to no longer be surprised at paltry things, but to invade a core world...

  "Two weeks at the lo, but sidering the respohey would muster, we would likely be thrown out within two days." Esstrey nods, those are good odds... good enough at least. She doesn't o win against The Order of Melthazar after all, just Melthazar himself.

  "In the event of a retreat, what do you think of the odds of being able to pull out?"

  "Our forces would most likely be rather intact, the demons are the most hated by The Order of Melthazar, and the difficulty to truly kill a demon makes them an ideal rear-guard. However, I don't believe we would have anything to retreat to, the ce of Brynya being attacked while we are away is... high. If I was a general on another p and near a portal, I certainly wouldn't miss the ce to hit a dangerous and valuable foe like us. We might be able to withstand attacks from a few minor ps, but we are looking at an interpary terinvasion poised to strike us when it hurts the most."

  "I see, then we'll just have to decre war on all worlds at the same time I suppose, infiltrate every world and every portal with small groups of Mazurians, and have them cause as much chaos as possible, that should buy plenty of time to hold a coordinated effort at bay, perhaps even indefinitely sidering the nature of Mazurians." dell is asto the cold and easy way Esstrey speaks about starting a war with everyone, almost as if they are just a side-show.

  "M'dy, that... that would destroy us in the long-term on so many levels, we would just be deying aable demise at that point, what is really your pn?" He knows Esstrey well enough that she always has a pn, always a tingency.

  "If we succeed iihazar properly, they might stay away...but I don't think that's the answer you are looking for. No, I have a pn, ohat I would rather not implement, because it's rather risky. I'll write up a letter to the Mazurian officers, ahem to prepare for iion. They should go nuts as much as they , and do their best to inspire terror in people deserving of the Mazurian race, to guarantee victory we o decre on everyone. Only madmen and people with a ce of winning would do so, and we must be believed to be the tter. Fear will be our ally, it will keep them all at bay, fear of things getting worse, fear of losing." Psychological warfare on a scale of thousands of ps, true, if Malencia could be feared for it, it's unlikely anyone would dare to take a vanguard position against them, especially if Malencia is everywhere already thanks to the Mazurians.

  "It's... we'll be itting the greatest atrocity... atrocities in history... probably ever. Trillions will die, quadrillions will face dispt if the pgue was unleashed on everyone under uidahe scale of this operation, all for... for a decoy." dell feels sick, he has done some horrible stuff under Esstrey, but...

  "A decoy to distract every world all at once, and a decoy that will make sure that not just Melthazar, but no core world carelessly meddles in the affairs of other worlds again. I'm sure you have heard it many times already, a long peace established in a flood of blood, ohat would usually end in failure, but my people had succeeded. They were backed by a bomb that was capable of wiping out cities on its own, and they had thousands of these bombs. Peace at the barrel of a gun, but a gun that is never used isn't feared as much as ohat has fired before." Esstrey puts her dell's shoulder, and for once tact with her doesn't feel like an attempt at intimidation, but like sotion. They really are not so different in the end.

  "If an afterlife is real, we will burn in hell for eternity, even knowing the iions, no one would five us for this."

  "I'm ting on it." Esstrey doesn't mention which of those two situations she's ting on, the slight sadness in her voice makes him too scared to ask as well, no one would want the ao that.

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