The meeting happened in the marketplace hall.
All of it cleared of stalls for the occasion, tables pulled together at the center, chairs arranged around them. Eryndor's council on one side. The Elven Elder Elfaine on the other, which had required Elficia to facilitate because the Elder did not simply walk into human settlements, but had made an exception for this specific occasion and wanted everyone to understand that.
Theron at the end of the table with Bram and Halvik behind him.
Jackal, the beastfolk representative, a wolf-type with the composed bearing of someone who had survived four months of plague and drought and had arrived here with exactly nothing left to lose and had decided that made negotiation easier.
I sat at the head of the table.
Elder Elfaine spoke first.
"The elven people established connection with Eryndor before either of your races made contact." She said. It landed with the pleasant precision of someone saying something they had been preparing to say. "Elficia and Elfaren have been residents for months. The Aphrodesia arrangement predates any current discussion. I want that noted."
Theron looked at her.
"We entered human territory voluntarily." He said. "For the first time in recorded history. I would say that represents a significant commitment."
"Commitment noted." Elder Elfaine said. "The elves were first."
"The elves were first to a connection that already existed because one of your people was already living here." Theron said. "That's proximity, not priority."
"Leigh came to our territory personally." Elder Elfaine said. The tone of someone producing a final argument. "He sought us out. We did not come to him."
Jackal had been quiet through this.
"Our people are dying." He said. Flat. Without performance. "I don't particularly care who arrived first."
Silence.
Elder Elfaine looked at Jackal.
Theron looked at Jackal.
Something in the room recalibrated.
I looked at all three of them.
I had sat in boardrooms with shareholders who behaved exactly like this. The territorial assertions. The positioning for precedence. The particular energy of entities with different interests trying to establish their relative importance before the actual business began. The beastfolk representative cutting through it with a single statement of fact was also familiar. There was always one person in the room who had run out of patience for the performance.
"The council." I said.
Everyone looked at me.
"Eryndor has one." I said. "It's getting a second. One representative from each race. Elder Elfaine for the elves. Theron for the dwarves. Jackal for the beastfolk." I looked at Aquen, Elder Elka, and Favio. "Eryndor's existing council remains. Matters concerning your territories go through your representative to this table. Matters concerning Eryndor go through ours. Decisions that affect both get discussed at this table with everyone present."
"A joint council." Elder Elfaine said.
"Yes." I said.
"With equal standing." Theron said.
"With standing proportional to what each party brings to the table and what they're responsible for." I said. "Which changes over time. Nobody is first. Nobody outranks the others. The council functions or it doesn't and if it doesn't I dissolve it and handle things individually which is slower and less efficient for everyone."
Jackal looked at me.
"You've done this before." He said. "Run something like this."
"Something like it." I said.
He nodded once. The nod of someone filing away information.
Elder Elfaine looked at Theron. Theron looked at Elder Elfaine. The particular look of two parties who had been competing for position and had simultaneously realized the position they were competing for had just been made irrelevant.
"Fine." Elder Elfaine said.
"Agreed." Theron said.
"Let's talk about the actual problems." Jackal said.
•••••••
The housing came next.
Not the original residential zone. That stayed behind its walls, the inner perimeter I had built when Eryndor had been twenty people, the space that belonged to the residents who had been here since before anyone outside the mountain ranges knew Eryndor existed.
The Seaphero residents had been absorbed into that inner zone when they arrived, which I had done without much deliberation at the time and which I did not revise now. They had rebuilt Eryndor alongside the original residents. They had fought demons on the beach with farming tools. They were residents in the full sense.
What the new arrivals got was different.
I built the outer residential zone in the expanded territory, outside the inner wall but inside the settlement's main barrier. Stone construction, the same quality as the inner zone's houses, the same heating systems and faucets and lamp post connections. But leased, not given.
Monthly rent. Rates set by the council. Renewable annually.
Theron looked at the lease terms when Aquen presented them.
"Reasonable." He said. "For the quality."
"The brewery is under the same arrangement." I said. "Commercial lease. Separate from residential."
He looked at the brewery I had built in the southeastern corner of the expanded territory, temperature-controlled, the equipment specifications he had given me built in before the dwarven brewers had arrived. He had walked through it twice on the day it was finished and said nothing, which from Theron meant it had met expectations.
"The Glowfruit wine contract." He said.
"Half of production stays in Eryndor." I said. "Distribution rights for the other half are yours. Sell it, keep it, trade it. Your choice."
"You anticipated we'd want it for ourselves." He said.
"I anticipated correctly." I said.
He looked at the contract.
"The brewers we're bringing from the territory." He said. "Eighteen days travel. Forty additional. They'll need housing."
"The outer zone has capacity." I said. "Lease agreements ready when they arrive."
He signed the contract.
•••••••
The beastfolk territory took a different kind of work.
I went there with Jackal on the fourth day after the council meeting. Teleported to the edge of their agricultural lands and walked the rest because I needed to see the full scope of it before deciding on the approach.
It was worse than the reports had suggested.
The contamination had settled deep into the soil, the demonic mana creating the particular combination of conditions that turned productive land into something that looked like land but functioned like stone. The drought had followed the contamination the way drought always followed sustained mana disruption in agricultural territory. The wells had gone bad after that.
The plague was in the livestock that remained, the weakened animals carrying what weakened animals carried when their environment had stopped supporting them.
I placed purifying stones across the territory in a grid, spacing them for maximum coverage, the same equation I had built for Eryndor's forest adapted for open agricultural land at scale. Then I used the wide-range rain spell, the mana cost significant but manageable, pushing clean water through the territory in a sustained pass that soaked the soil and flushed the contamination toward the outer edges where the purifying stones would catch it.
The soil changed color when the contamination left it.
Jackal stood beside me and watched it happen.
He didn't say anything for a long time.
"How long before it's workable." He said.
"Two weeks for the soil." I said. "The wells need individual treatment. Another week after that."
"And the livestock." He said.
"Elficia." I said. "I'll send her with the herb preparation. It won't save the ones that are too far gone but it will stabilize the ones that can still recover."
He looked at the territory. At the vast agricultural land that had been dying for four months and was now, visibly and measurably, beginning to reverse.
"The contract." He said.
"Eryndor expands its crop operation into your territory." I said. "Designated plots, agreed in advance. Your people work them, paid at the same rate as Eryndor's farm workers. I pay rent on the plots I use. Produce splits sixty-forty, Eryndor's favor, until the territory's own agricultural output recovers. Then we renegotiate."
"And what do we get beyond the payment." He said.
"Access to Eryndor's market." I said. "Eryndor's purifying stone maintenance on your territory ongoing. Elficia's herbalist services for the recovery period." I paused. "And a council seat that means when the demon lord eventually points something at the beastfolk territory, I hear about it before it becomes a crisis."
Jackal looked at me.
"You're building something." He said. "This isn't just a settlement."
"I'm building what needs building." I said.
He signed the contract on the ride back.