kingdoms_of_auradon | If We All Can Do Our Part (Reply)

Ben's Speech

Ben passed word that he wanted to speak with everyone, to get a sense of who was still here, and to discuss some things. He made sure the message sent around was as politely worded as possible. Mal followed it up with assurances that it was still mandatory to attend. And so word spread.

The meeting happened about one in the afternoon, in one of the boardrooms of the castle. A lovely spread was laid out. Mallia provided the food: fresh fruit, over-sized berries, hand pies, cookies, and mini cheese quiches. Sylvando worked with her to make sure everything was set out elegantly but practically. There were also pitchers of ice water, bottles of room temperature water for those who preferred that. Some of those bottles had a faint glow to them, filled with magic by Mallia. There was also chilled juice and some hot tea. And of course, since Mal was there, there was coffee. Regular or thick burnt dark sludge. There were elegant looking cups of the proper types for every drink option as well as plates, utensils, and cloth napkins.

Ben stood at the head of the table with Mal, waiting for everyone to gather their food and drinks and find seats. Once everyone was more or less settled, he began.

"Thank you, everyone, for coming. I appreciate it, and I'll try not to take too much of your time. To start, there may be some difficulties with cell service for a little bit, Ian has been hard at work trying to reconstruct what had been done to allow some data to go through to the Isle, hopefully we will soon be able to communicate with the Isle via the network. But there will be some rough patches while they work on that. Anyone who wants to help them with this, please feel free to reach out to them or to us, at any time," Ben said nodding to Ian when Ian was mentioned and to Mal when he said "us".

"That was the easy part. This part is harder to say. We have two major problems facing us right now," he said, face serious, posture a bit stiffer than usual. "One is food. Many of you may have noticed that the kitchens at the school, the castle, and even the places in the museum district have been all but tapped out. The only reason we haven't all starved is because Mallia has stepped up and has taken it upon herself to make sure that we all get at least one good meal a day in. But the food she creates can't be saved or preserved for later. And we've just had a reminder that the magic that brings people here is unstable. We need a better solution. And even if Mallia were staying forever, it is not fair to her to put this all on her shoulders every day. And the food she makes cannot go to the Isle and survive. So we need a better solution. Mallia and Mal are going to start experimenting with magical food, to see if an answer can be found. If anyone has any ideas please join them at the end of these announcements. I know some of you were working on planting, if anything is ready to harvest, please let me know so we can keep track of what we have."

He took a deep breath. "And that leads to the other issue. I've grown up with Auradon Winters all my life and this one... we're in for a very rough Winter, and it will be starting soon. We need to close down the museum district and I need to ask everyone who is living out there to move back to the dorms until the Spring. I'm sorry, but we can't risk anyone getting cut off with no access to food. On a related note... we are going to make one more trip to the Isle, soon, to bring whatever we can gather for them. We have the dorm and the castle, both of which are warm insulated buildings. They don't. So while we can make more warm clothes for ourselves after, whatever we can spare we should share. As soon as those working on magical food have made enough we will make the trip, possibly sooner if the storms give us no other choice. We may have warm buildings here, but even so, even in Auradon... the cold's going to bother us anyway."

He gave a sigh. "That's about it. Mal and I will probably be moving back into the dorms ourselves, along with Jordan, to keep everyone together. If you know anyone who is in Auradon... even if they've been hiding for fear of being sent to the Isle, please bring them to the dorms. For their own safety. Alright. Does anyone have questions?"