Copper is the most valuable metal on the Hume continent. Coins of all countries were minted of it, and in many, monetary trade had even outweighed bartering. The reliance on the metal was immeasurable; so many great nations relied on deep copper pockets to maintain their status.
A greatest amongst them would inevitably be Nulick, a land known to export nothing but coin. Their grasslands lay unblemished and beautiful, for they imported their wheat. Their forests were virgin and untrodden, as lumber could bought by the barge.
Their citizens could grow fat and content, so long as the smoke billowing from the three mints continued to flow. As long as those print hammers struck coin day after day, the many copper mines dotting the small valley could feed them.
An ancestor of the now Shah Viruta IX, once requested a great thinker to calculate for how long they would be able to maintain this lifestyle. It took him a day of careful calculations and measurements, but he eventually concluded the known mines could not deplete for another thousand years.
This put any fears, long to rest.
For far too long.
“What am I looking at?” Shah Viruta IX asked Third, looking between him and the small screen of the tablet Third had presented.
“These are two of the copper mines your nation hasn’t found.” Third bluntly stated, moving his finger to scroll between the rocky outcroppings on the small screen. “And there’s a few more. If we can make a deal.”
The Shah shifted in his chair, straightening as his eyes narrowed to meet Thirds. “If those are real, what number could ever equal them?”
The Shah was an opulent fool, but he wasn’t unintelligent. He watched the helicopters land and felt the wave of anxious dread as he watched humans’ step from aboard. He knew he was facing something extremely dangerous, so he couldn’t fathom what deal Third could be after.
“It’s simple. Hear-out the group you least expect in these next few weeks.” Third laid out the words slowly with a half-smile.
“What?” Shah Viruta’s words came without thought. Again double-taking between the tablet and Third with a baffled expression across his face. “How will-”
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“Ah, shoot.” Third muttered as if coming to the same conclusion suddenly. “Right, also there’s a sandy hillside between your border and Count Ruker’s to the southeast. I’d like permission to mine it for Lithium.”
“Leon Ruker?” The Shah asked, finally understanding a piece of the conversation. So was this what Third was truly after, the Shah couldn’t help but scratch his head internally. “Very well, if the land is out of sight and near Leon’s, you can do as you please.”
Truly he could only care if his own vista was interrupted, land far on the border of another was not a concern.
“Perfect!” Third exclaimed with a clap of his hands. Rising without another thought he plucked the tablet from atop the table and fiddled with a few settings eventually tapping in a long sequence of numbers before returning it to the table. “I’ll leave you this as a parting gift. If the screen stops working, put it face-down in sunlight for a day.”
“You…” The Shah begins to refute, but the image on the screen cut his words at the source. Zoomed much further than the previous image had been, for the first time in his life, the Shah saw the entirety of his ancestor’s land depicted in pixel-perfect detail.
His jaw slacked as his sight soared through familiar dense forests with a flick of his finger. Before he knew it, the time too had flown; and he was left alone with the simple A&R emblazoned tablet.
For safety reasons, the map was locked such that it couldn’t move past the Shah’s borders but it’s value still couldn’t be understated.
“Give word to Marshal Yiunis, he’s not to turn away any visitors.” The Shah commanded after remembering the previous terms once he’d growing dizzy from the tablet.
“Eminence?” The guard asked in surprise, typically it’d be a miracle if the man saw two visitors in a week; yet now he was so gracious a host?
“And call for Gias Kurosis, I’d like to know everything he can tell me about the Ruker County.”
“Right away.” The guard assured him with a stiff bow before dashing off to execute the orders.
The Shah patiently waited a moment before eventually relenting back to his endless interest in the small tablet screen. He tried zooming as far as he could and again found himself in shock at the detail. He could see the hairs on the head of a horse frozen in time. He could see individual leaves trapped frozen in the wind.
It reminded him of the first time he’d climbed the bell-tower with his grandfather, that moment where the world became so small as the empty-ness of the land was unveiled beyond the small hills that’d been mountains to the young boy.
His finger, while scrolling at random and landing on a small summer-cottage he occasionally rested at, paused. Again, in such a short span of time his heart stuttered. He could truly see everything, and only now did that truth fully resolve in his mind. That fear he felt as the single helicopter landed, spread once again.
Days later, just as the memory of Third’s words became distant in the very rear of the Shah’s mind, three tribals leaders hailing from the wasteland arrived in a large horseless carriage requesting a trade deal.