State of the Realm

  Chapter 217

  The day began, as it often did now, with me pretending I needed to keep a schedule. There was no biological reason to, but it made me feel a little less alien when dealing with the living folk of the valley. I was dressed up as the mayor at a table in the upper loft of the guild hall. Henry was with me, already going through reports.

  Dawn arrived first, with her usual crisp efficiency, still smelling faintly of leather oil. She’d been overseeing getting a few new visitors settled into the guild’s dorms. The new people coming in was just a trickle, but a positive development none the less.

  More slowly Icarus Emberheart, Reolus Oldbuck, Shael Bloom Phalanges, Kabenla Narh Clavicle, Brun Shale, Jeffery Allen Clavicle, and Roksolana Gun Clavicle all found their way to the table. It wasn’t a properly representative group, but they were the ones interested in turning up today and I made my peace with that. They in turn seemed to be doing their best to look like an administrative council rather than the hodgepodge they were.

  Chris was notably absent. Odd, since normally telling him not to be somewhere was a surefire way to make him appear. I could have checked what he was doing. Instead, I decided I didn’t want to know.

  “Right,” I said, planting my elbows on the table. “What’s on fire?”

  “Nothing, thankfully,” Dawn replied, tapping the edge of the ledger.

  “New recruit training is… going. And some of the fleshie—” she corrected herself, “—new residents are showing interest in the job board.”

  “Great,” I said, nodding.

  “The Lepusan resettlement continues. The humans on the farm seem content, with a few of them showing interest in the town,” Henry offered.

  “That weird little coyote woman, Melek, seems to be doing alright,” Brun offered. “Some of the merchants have been trading with her.”

  “She’s one of the ones who's been doing odd jobs,” Dawn added.

  “Oh, good. I was concerned,” I replied. I wasn’t sure what to make of her. She’d shown up with a cart full of oddities and bravado, but not much else. I’d done some trades with her to get samples of the local plants she’d brought but she hadn’t gotten much money out of it because I’d been trying to pay fairly.

  Reolus cleared his throat. “Speaking of trade, word from the new folks is that the Earl’s men are still coming. They haven’t reached full muster, however many that will be.”

  “Probably due to the Seekers,” Dawn muttered, folding her arms. “If the Earl’s putting coin into moving troops, it means he expects things to get worse.”

  That earned a low noise from Henry. He set down his ledger with a sharp little thunk. “Good. That means he’s not a fool. The Seekers’ methods escalate quickly.”

  “Ehm, lots of talk about white robes handing out pamphlets and asking pointed questions or saying nasty things about the La’Durin,” Reolus agreed.

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  “Wonderful,” I said dryly. “Soldiers, slavers, priests. All we’re missing now is a traveling circus.”

  “I heard there was one in Marston,” Reolus offered brightly, clearly pleased with himself.

  “Not helpful,” I said,

  “If it’s any consolation, the tavern’s doing brisk business,” Shale offered. “All the bone heads are cheating at cards again, but that’s practically tradition.”

  Kabenla snorted. “Better tradition than whining in the training grounds. The new ones keep asking for easier drills.”

  “They don’t have the benefits the Daggers did. We’ll have to adjust,” Dawn said with a shrug.

  The usual grumbling was about to circle back on itself when I decided to lob my own little grenade into the mix.

  “Oh, about that, I still need to think about how implement, but I’ve got a class change crystal now… kind of,” I offered. That got everyone's attention.

  “Elim came through, it's broken but I can fix that,” I explained.

  “Theres no way the Earl won’t take an interest if you start letting people use it,” Dawn pointed out.

  “Yeah, I know,” I agreed. I leaned back in the chair, fingers drumming the tabletop. The crystal had sat like a weight in my thoughts since Elim found it. A broken shard of possibility, humming faintly at the edge of my awareness.

  If I fixed it, if I let it loose, then anyone could change. Farmers, or really anyone, into fighters or rogues. Whatever they pleased really. It would draw people like moths to flame. And if I wasn’t careful that fire might just burn me too.

  I would be able to control who found out, for a while at least. Magically enforced NDA contracts were well within my abilities and I doubted anyone would balk at agreeing to one if it got them access. That didn’t solve the long term issue though, people would eventually find out.

  “Its going to take a little while to afford the upgrades but I should be able to limit its offerings to npc classes and increase the scope of what can be altered. Give people the ability to fix their builds,” I explained. “I might start with that, rather than heroic classes.”

  “Oh… that will probably still cause issues but… probably less,” Dawn said, brows knit like she wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the idea.

  Henry cleared his throat. “Limiting it to civilian or non-combat classes first would establish precedent. If you open with heroic classes, the expectation will never be undone, mistress.”

  “First impressions and all that,” Reolus chimed in, leaning back with his hands folded behind his head. “Still, whether you whisper it or shout it, word will spread faster than I can make up a bawdy limerick. And unlike my limericks, people will actually care.”

  Shael gave a sly little smile. “Maybe that’s the point. Let it spread. Nothing draws settlers faster than the promise of a second chance. A little rumor here, a hushed deal there. Half the valley would be begging to get in before the Earl even sharpened his quill.”

  “That’s exactly why it’s dangerous,” Dawn snapped.

  “It is, if we’re the only ones who have one,” I agreed.

  Everyone nodded, but Henry’s eyes snapped to me, brows up. He’d caught the meaning first and I grinned at him with too sharp teeth. An easy way to avoid chaos at home would be to introduce it elsewhere first.

  Reolus noticed the exchange sat up straighter, catching on. “Not the only ones? Then who, mistress? Nobles? Guilds? Someone across the border?”

  I didn’t answer. Mostly because I didn’t actually have a plan yet. Everyone looked at me for a long moment then a collective groan went up. It seemed they knew me too well.

  Nobody was in the mood to discuss much of anything after that and none of the remaining issues were pressing, so everyone but Henry left.

  “I do believe you’ll be the sec-second death of them,” Henry said with a chuckle. “From frus-frustration.”

  “I’ll figure it out,” I said, sounding plaintive even to my own ears.

  “Certainly,” Henry said, laughing. I threw a wad of paper at him and he didn’t even do me the favor of dodging. It bounced off his chest anticlimactically.

  He went back to his work without further comment while I indulged in a few moments of pouting. I got over it, though, and forced myself to start thinking about what exactly I was going to do. When I’d first asked Elim to get the crystal, I hadn’t really considered how long it might take, and after the first few weeks I’d gone numb to the whole matter.

  It had become a vague future possibility, easy to ignore. Now it was a very real and present problem, and that inattention was biting me thoroughly on the tail.

  Elim would be back soon, and I suspected he’d have opinions about how to use the crystal. By the time he walked through the gates, I needed to be ready to at least pretend I knew what I was doing.