Dom felt for Penthesilea, he understood why Ling Tong and Andrew had brought her back. If other Heroes and their families had been reunited, such as Sun Ce who in the eyes of his wife had been brought back from the dead, then Penthesilea had the chance to see her sister again. However using a rare family Cube on her would potentially be a waste, and the luck of the daily spawns was very small. However, their was still a chance and after she had settled, then she may have some hope again. Dom felt she would be a great deputy to Tomyris, who had once gone through some horrible losses of her own. Dom could also imagine the terrible damage the two of them could cause together in Noctus and the hidden Western front.
"System, did we get any other Heroes or Elite Villagers with these arrivals?" Dom asked, wondering if any of Pericles friends had arrived.
[Yes]
Dom was stunned by the response, not that the answer was that some had come, but that the answer was just the word yes. He wondered if he had annoyed the System, but then remembered it was a game and unlikely.
"Can you tell me who arrived?" Dom asked, feeling that would be enough of a question to get the response he wanted.
[Yes]
"Please can you list them for me and show me." Dom asked, realising that he had been asking closed questions and the system had decided to be unhelpful for some reason.
[Yes, would you like to see the list?]
"Yes?" Dom replied, trying to not over complicate this back and forth.
[Agariste - Grade E Civilian Hero - Wife of Xanthippus
Amytis - Grade E Civilian Hero - Wife of Megabyzus
Elite Villager - Anaxagoras - Philosopher - Hoplite
Elite Villager - Sophocles - Playwright - Hoplite
Elite Villager - Phidias - Sculptor - Hoplite]
Dom was surprised by the arrival of Amytis, as she was not at the Battle of Plataea or Mycale, and similar to Megabyzus, he knew nothing of her before the Battle. He was happy she had arrived though, as it meant that the families of some of the other new Heroes may have arrived, even if they weren't Heroes or Elite Villagers. He knew that they had aimed to take them in advance, but this was a positive sign. He was also happy to see that Agariste was also a Hero like he suspected, and expected she would soon join Crassus and the Commercial side of Riverside if she wished to get involved.
The three Elite Villagers were a nice surprise, Dom expected they were much younger versions of themselves that were famous in history, but they were part of Pericles inner circle and most likely had fought alongside Dom over the last couple of days. The three of them were mainly aimed towards Arts, however Dom wouldn't complain at additional experts being able to increase the culture aspect of the Kingdom. One of the few things he had learnt from City Building Games was that all of the different aspects were important for success, with citizen happiness being the top one.
"Welcome all of you, tonight we will celebrate your arrival and discuss some of our planned next steps. If you have any questions, please do ask them." Dom welcomed them, the room silent as he spoke as the newcomers watched on with some level of nerve at the massive change in their situation, regardless of their situation of joining. Pausanias, Nicomedes and Xanthippus were nervous on if they had made the correct massive decision. Whilst the Persians were less nervous about that as return defeated wouldn't have been great for them, but more worried about how they would be treated in the future as they were all from Elite Families in Persia to reach their current ranks. "We will have houses prepared for you, and hopefully have you reunited with any family that have disembarked this evening."
"Can you explain the situation of Riverside?" Xanthippus asked, after Pausanias whispered something to him, the two of them knowing each other but having been on different sides of the same alliance. Whilst everyone had been talking earlier, Dom had explained the arrival of Plataea to Shang Yang, so the Prime Minister decided he would answer the question.
"I will explain the geography of our Kingdom, which will be founded officially in the coming days as the Lazarus Kingdom. Lord Lazarus is our Leader, which we have a hierarchy of command, everyone's voice is taken in to consideration. I am confident you will all find a role here, as everyone else who has arrived has as well."
"I will go and get the map." Xun Yu stated from beside Shang Yang as he shouted some orders to one of the guards. They waited for a few minutes, before a large table was brought in with a map of the Lazarus Kingdom on it. Dom explained to Xun Yu the new Cities locations as agreed earlier and he placed some markers on it as Shang Yang thanked him and continued.
"The Lazarus Kingdom is quite large for our relatively youthful age. It is split in half by the Calm River, which runs from the Shimmering Sea to the East and directly West through the middle, before heading north at Mount Calm River towards the Tongpai Lake." Shang Yang explained as he thought for a second. "If we split the Kingdom in to lines, then the most North is Tongpai Lake and the Mountain Pass, we are defended by the northern fork of the Calm River, the Tongpai Lake and the Mountain Pass from anyone to the north of us. The City of Renatus sits on Tongpai Lake, whilst the new arrival of Megara will now sit at the south of the Mountain Pass. We have a Military force placed there as well as a naval presence on the lake."
"Megara?" Xanthippus asked, some confusion on all of their faces at the name of the recognisable city. Megara was a large City and provided the fourth highest number of troops to the Greek Alliance in the Battle of Plataea.
"That is correct, there will be more surprises, but I expect that will be the Megara you know." Shang Yang replied as he continued. "Below this line is Mount Calm River, where the City of Noctus resides, this is a Military City that is hidden under the Mountain. Beside that is the Silver Forest that covers most of the land east of the Mountain towards the coast, apart from the plains that fill the gaps in between. The Line below this is the Capital Riverside where we are now, with Tranquillity to our East and Serenity further to our East on the coast."
"Six Towns is quite a large number." Nicomedes replied, seemingly slightly impressed by the information so far.
"It is, but the land it covers is much larger than the number of Towns can realistically cover. There is a lot of space for smaller settlements between them." Shang Yang replied in agreement, before continuing. "We then have the Calm River as already described. Beneath the Calm River is the City of Eruthos to the East, which is a Military City to protect us from the unknown west and the City of Plataea which has just arrived and is where Arimnestos has come from. On the East coast is the City of Jia, which is the sister of Serenity."
"Plataea has arrived then?" Arimnestos asked with some relaxation in his voice, as if that was his one worry.
"That is our understanding, but scouts have been sent to confirm and calm the populace." Shang Yang explained, before continuing. "Beneath these we have the Red Hare Valley and the Red Woods which spreads once again to near the coast. Beneath those we have the Infinity Plains where the Cities of Oeum sits in the centre. A path between itself and Plataea will be constructed through the forest as a key transport hub from south to North."
"Oeum as in the home of the Skiritae?" Pausanias asked, which received a nod from Andrew who was beside him, as Andrew had made the purchase himself. Pausanias nodded as if he was happy with the news, as the Skiritae were excellent Warriors who had fought alongside the Spartans since it's formation.
"Beneath the Infinity Plains are the cities of Vindicta which is south of the Red Hare Valley and similar to Eruthros. Vindicta currently houses the majority of our forces as we have an enemy to the south called the Papaver. We then have Futurus which is central on the southern coast and Elpis which is to the East Coast. Beneath them is the Shimmering Sea which covers all of the Kingdom from the North East to South West." Shang Yang continued, before looking at the map and shaking his head. "We need to expand this to the Shimmering Sea, as we now also have two Islands. The Island of Kos and the Island of Nicyros. Kos is to the East of the shimmering Sea, whilst Nicyros is to the East of Jia. The Four cities of Serenity, Kos, Nicyros and Jia form a central defensive hub and mean that with our navy, we control the whole of this route for anyone to the north or south of us."
"Are all of these Towns the size of Riverside?" Masistius asked, knowing that a Kingdom with this many major cities could rival the Greek Alliance and much more.
"No, Riverside is the biggest, followed by Jia and then Renatus, Tranquillity and Serenity from our original Cities." Shang Yang explained, "I expect that Plataea will become the third largest, with Megara being in the top six. The cities of Eruthros, Vindicta, Futurus and Elpis and are all new cities, however we have a large number of the San people migrating to us in the coming week. Noctus is purposefully small but it's purposes are different."
"What about the size of the population?" Megabyzus asked, the future governor part of him working at this moment.
"Unknown until we have done some fresh calculations with the arrivals of the new Cities, as well as the migration plans that Lord Crassus had put in to place." Xun Yu replied this time, looking at his own notes. "I would expect we are close to twenty five thousand Civilians and possibly six thousand Warriors. I have no idea on the Navy but I would expect we have a couple of thousand in that as well."
"I would say so." Zhou Yu agreed, "Our fleet will need recalculating as a the Trireme normally house two hundred men, the Quinquereme around three hundred. We also have some Bireme that have around one hundred and twenty on it's crew and that is just our Sea fleets. Our River fleet is just as large, with different ship types. The Mengchong and Doujian hold much smaller crews of around forty to twenty depending on the ship, whilst our River flagship Louchuan has around two hundred, but the Louchuan is very much a platform that owns the lake, rather than a battleship such as the Quinquereme."
"You are talking close to six, maybe seven thousand naval crew members is they are all fully crewed." Artemisia stated, causing a lot of mouths to drop open at the number.
"Then the Civilian population needs to increase to support that many Warriors." Nicomedes stated seriously, "I also worry about Loyalty, as Warriors need something to fight for. You are their Lord, but what about their families and their homes."
"We will need to check, but I suspect a large number of families will have arrived as well which could swell our numbers. But, I do agree. This is something we have been working on." Xun Yu agreed, whilst Dom listened. It was clear that these newcomers wanted the picture so they could see where they could support and Dom felt relieved.
As they were talking, the doors opened as Subutai walked in, beside him was Zhao Yun, Tomoe and Liao Hua. Dom new that Subutai was due back, but was surprised to see his three southern Generals with him. Behind them were a few guards who were carrying a small box, which Liao Hua grabbed from them and carried on his shoulder. The sight of the four of them, all armoured and still carrying their weapons caused some nerves for the newcomers, whilst Dom and those from Riverside all looked happy at their arrival.
"Sorry for the delay, I bring both great news, as well as some bad news." Subutai stated, as he turned and looked towards the new Generals that were all sat down. He paused for a second, before turning to Liao Hua. "Open the box."