“Is that the mechanic, Junior? She’s a bit smaller than I imagined,” Cedric said, huffing as he leaned down to grab the bricks sloshing around in the water. “Can’t imagine those arms doing much lifting.”
“Ah, no, Da, I think this is the new queen of the kingdom. The one that had Jarva running for the shores, or so they say.”
Cedric’s head turned. “That so?”
Momo blushed, trying to stand as straight and royally as possible. Her posture was still terrible, a relic of her art student days. She ended up looking like a bent ruler.
“Hm. She’s a bit tiny for a queen, too,” Cedric said after a moment of analysis.
“I wasn’t aware the position had a height requirement,” Momo mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Nothing, sir,” Momo said with a bow. Clearly, her new status didn’t hold much weight here – or anywhere on the continent. But that was nothing she wasn’t used to. “My military advisor, Sumire, told me that she contacted you to be a sponsor for my campaign event here in Refuge’s End.”
“Ah, right. The pirate lady. She was charming to talk to via pigeon. Pretty handwriting.”
Pretty in many ways, Momo thought, making herself blush. Not the time, Momo.
“Ms. Sumire promised you’d fix our bridge in exchange for security at your event,” Junior said, talking like a little businessman. Grimli had a point about child labor. “If you have no security, the people will probably shiv you to death. They’re nice people, well-meaning, but they really don’t like public officials.”
“She promised that?” Momo said, frowning. Sumire failed to mention that. “I’d be really happy to fix your bridge, but the campaign event is in a few hours. I don’t think we can manage the construction in time.”
“Sure you can,” Junior said with a nod. “Because you’ll have to. Don’t want to die at your debut event, right?”
The forest spirit giggled, then walked away towards the bridge.
“Got passports to stamp. Don’t worry about moving Da while you’re renovating – a skyscraper could fall on him and he’d just whine about the inconvenience.”
Momo looked at Cedric and sighed. He was already fast asleep.
—
The clock tower in the center of the town donged. The clock had struck three – leaving Momo with only two hours remaining until her campaign event.
“Crap,” she sighed, looking at the parchment in her hands. “Help me out here, courier.”
By Radu’s advice, she was sifting through pages of instructional documents she had never bothered to read about the Ruler System. She gained access to it after ascending the throne in Nam’Dal, but quickly shifted the responsibility onto Viktor Mole as soon as he ambled into town.
As it turned out, Momo had become a more confident public speaker – but not more confident in general. She could reliably get a few sentences out of her mouth at any given time, but running an entire city? What if she made a mistake and someone got upset? What if people said mean things about her in the press?
It was all too much pressure.
So the responsibility for Nam’Dal went to Viktor.
And the responsibility of ruling Jarvirium to Excalibur.
And the responsibility of her army to Sumire.
And the responsibility of pretty much everything else to Dusk.
This is becoming a pattern in my life, she thought grimly.
She looked down at the paper and took a deep breath in. I’m not stupid, she reminded herself. I can do something as simple as industrial bridge engineering.
From the little that she studied it before, she knew the Ruler System could be used to shift funds around her holdings. Now that she was the queen, she theoretically owned all of Jarva’s former holdings. Emphasis on the theoretically. For each holding within the queendom, a small meter – kind of like a speedometer – displayed her control rating in that holding. If it was too low, she couldn’t access any of its funds or materials.
Refuge’s End – De Jure Holding
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Control Rating: 3%
* 3% from neutral association with Cedric and Junior Mogli
* -97% from negative association with everyone else
* 100% of the residents are still living under the doctrine of King Jarva. Due to Kyros’s [Brainwash] Area of Effect spell over all of Jarva’s holdings, residents are initially predisposed to hate you, even if they didn’t like Jarva much.
You can improve this rating either through Approval or Fear.
[Brainwash]? Great. Momo sighed. I didn’t know that gods themselves could use skills. That must be part of the God System. Maybe I can get Valerica to cast a few Area of Effect spells of her own to dilute the effects.
But she had zero idea how to get in contact with Valerica right now – plus, she was busy with her God Onboarding, or whatever. So that left Momo to her own devices. Either Approval, or Fear.
“Definitely not fear,” she mumbled. “I just want everyone to like me.”
So, her default solution – self-defense against crazy townspeople people – was out. She would need the moglis as bodyguards, and to do that, she’d need to fix their bridge. Somehow.
Her eyes brightened. The undead contingent.
“Dusk,” she patted the napping oncilla on the head. “Go get my skeletons.”
—
By Sumire’s request (demand), a team of about thirty-two skeletons had followed Momo from Jarvirium. She had instructed them to stay as far back as possible to avoid scaring off any undead-wary townspeople, but they could move quickly to make up the distance.
Especially when Mob Boss Dusk was involved.
They waded in through the river, floating like a bunch of loosely connected limbs. Momo didn’t want them to enter through the city – she wasn’t so sure the residents would be receptive to three dozen royal skeletons marching by their postal offices – so the water was the only reasonable entry point.
“Is this some kind of bribery?” Cedric asked, picking up one of the skeletons by the collarbone. “I usually don’t eat things without some meat on them, but I can always go for a chew toy.”
Momo waved her hands frantically. “No, no. They’re not snacks. They’re going to fix your bridge.”
“Oh,” he said, sounding mildly disappointed. “That’s fine, I guess. Explains all the new bricks that fell on my head.”
After much – eurgh – reading, Momo had realized one crucial thing about the Ruler System. While she couldn’t take resources out of towns that she had no control over, she could rush money and resources into them. Just as the system had used magic to construct rooms back in Nam’Dal, it could seamlessly transport resources from Jarvirium into Refuge’s End.
Standing in front of her modest undead force, Momo planted her hands on her hips.
Fake it ‘till you make it, she thought.
“My skele-helpers, here’s the plan,” she said as loudly as she could muster. “Following the recipe for a Town Bridge Renovation I found in the Ruler Guide, we’re going to outline the section of the bridge that Cedric always hits his head on and increase the height of it by six feet. Then we’ll install a set of stairs over that portion so people can still climb safely.”
She peeled out the recipe from the courier pages, placing it in front of Dusk. Momo had nominated her to be the resident Cat-Construction Supervisor. Momo had no doubts – the feline was more than up for the job. In absence of her friend Lizard Eater, Dusk had been dying for a chance to relieve her boredom.
Town Bridge Renovation
Materials Required:
* Stone: 300 units
* Timber: 200 units
* Mortar: 50 units
* Iron: 50 units
* Rope and Cables: 100 meters
* Gravel and Sand: 100 units
* Limestone: 100 units
* Earth and Clay: 100 units
All materials have been acquired by shifting resources from Jarvirium→Refuge’s End. Please restock appropriately.
“You have two hours,” Momo said, giving Dusk an affectionate scratch on the chin. “Remember what Valerica taught us about undead employee management – no breaks, and no mercy.”
–
The renovation came in 30 minutes ahead of schedule.
Momo had accidentally shifted more resources than necessary onto the project, resulting in a Town Bridge Renovation++, including a magical escalator, multiple benches, trash cans, and a shady booth for passport stamping.
Junior was overjoyed.
“No more full-body sunburns,” he cooed, staring gleefully at the umbrella now overlooking his border control stand. “We can tell the doctor I’m no longer at risk for OMD.”
“OMD?” Momo asked, too curious to be polite.
“Overheated Mogli Disease,” Cedric said. “Moglis aren’t supposed to stand out in the sun too long. We’re forest spirits, not sunray-resistant beach dwellers.”
Cedric raised his head experimentally, and found that he could swing it around without a single collision with the bridge. The pedestrians didn’t seem to mind the introduction of the stairs either; the other new perks, like the benches and the new tide pool, seemed to make up for it.
The town bell sounded again. It was nearing five o’ clock.
“Alright, Ms. Momo,” Junior said, crossing his arms. “You’ve more than earned our help. We’ll make sure you survive your first campaign event. You won’t even have to pay us or nothing.”
Pay them? Momo stared at him, speechless. This entirely avoidable renovation just cost me 4,000 gold.
After a moment, she found her voice again.
“Thanks, Junior.”
–
Fireflies zipped around the tents, providing a faint source of illumination on the moon-bathed campgrounds. In the middle of the field, in a rare tent-free oasis, was a small, makeshift stage. Momo stepped lightly around it in her clogs, careful not to impale herself on an exposed nail.
Cedric and Junior put up a fence around the stage, barring the pitchfork-wielding crowds from getting too close. They screamed profanities just the same, but Cedric threatened their visa status in the town if they were to actually try an attack.
“This feels wrong,” Momo whispered to Radu as they gazed out at the agitated masses. “Why are we siding with the immigration police?”
“And with child labor,” Grimli reminded them.
“Stop it. It’s a family business. It’s different,” Momo mumbled. “Well – whatever. We’ll sort out the sketchy visa situation after they don’t want to kill us anymore.”
“Fine by me,” Radu said. “It’s your rules now, Queen.”
Momo nodded – and that’s when the idea came to her. She grinned.
She knew how she was going to win them over.