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That had been a much more difficult meeting than this current one. Understandably, none of the Rainlord families had seemed especially eager to lend him such a large sum of money, but in the end, they did agree to help--and to the collective tune of twenty-five million troa, no less.

Hector had to credit Garovel with the victory on that one. The reaper had been able to reframe their "loans" as "investments"--which was true, Hector supposed. He fully intended to pay them back.

Assuming this bank didn't blow up in his face, that was.

Oh god, what if it blew up in his face?

One more thing he didn't want to think about.

Hector's current meeting with the Rainlords seemed like it was nearing its end until a new subject was brought up.

'Before we adjourn, there is one more matter that I would like to discuss,' said Sentsia, looking straight at Hector. 'Since it seems that we will be staying at Warrenhold for the foreseeable future, I would like it if we could organize a more rigorous training and education system for the children here.'

Hector's brow receded.

'I have been concerned about that as well,' said Axiolis. 'As I understand it, each of the families have taken on the rather burdensome task of homeschooling all of our own children, and I fear that is not the most efficient use of our available talent.'

'You might be right,' said Iziol. 'Perhaps we should appoint instructors for all of the families and organize a formal schedule.'

'That is what I was thinking,' said Sentsia. 'This is a serious matter. The children's education is perhaps more important now than it has ever been.'

'I agree,' said Axiolis.

'Indeed,' said Yovess.

'Perhaps we should also be searching for highly-qualified teachers to hire during these mission deployments,' said Sentsia.