Currently at the headquarters of Precision Shipping, Vera sat in the middle of the conference room, her chair turned away from the table. With a subtle smile on her face she looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows out onto the city. Even knowing that Nicholas was only back in Dorchester to deal with the kobald threat, it had been nice to be able to speak with him again.
She mentally reviewed the conversation she’d just had with her husband, and couldn’t help but chuckle. Apparently, Nero’s ability to perceive the flows occurring within the ether was just as impressive as she thought it would be.
Weeks ago, she’d seen him copy a rather complicated cleaning spell after watching her cast it a single time. While the young man didn’t realize how incredible that was, she surely did. At the time, she didn’t know the details of how he did it, but she had been able to make some deductions. And as usual, patience and planning served her well. ‘An absurd talent, already being forgotten by the leadership. And I’ve successfully aligned him with my house,’ she thought with some pride.
As she reveled in being proven right about her assumptions, she felt a ping from one of her aides, alerting her that her guests have arrived. Her smile vanished, and she turned away from the windows. All of her distracting thoughts were pushed aside for the moment, as she preferred to always enter a battle with a clear mind.
The conference room doors opened, and in walked Victoria Blackwood along with four aides, or perhaps councilors?
Vera stood up, gesturing lightly with one hand to the chairs opposite her position at the table. “Please take a seat. Tea or coffee is available if you’d like, and the table’s link is available to you if you require it. When you’re ready, we can begin.”
Using her keen perception, honed over years of brutal combat in the business arena, she evaluated her opponents.
Lord Blackwood was currently much more composed than the last time she’d seen her. Which made sense considering the woman’s head had been on the metaphorical chopping block at the time. But now, her robes were immaculate, proudly displaying her house's colors in vibrant shades of yellow and black. She was calm, composed, and her slight smile was the perfect example of a potential ally hoping for a productive meeting. Even her essence field seemed to radiate friendship and welcome. But, to Vera’s eyes, the woman was merely presenting a perfect front.
Her counselors, for it was obvious that that’s what they were, didn’t have nearly enough control over their expressions. It was clear that they were all wary of what might happen, and their essence fields were humming with their unease.
After pouring herself a cup of tea from the tray in the center of the table, Victoria Blackwood’s soft voice began the negotiations. “Since the arbitration meeting in the Hall of Leadership, I’ve had a chance to take a better look at Lord Walker’s portfolio. I hadn’t realized how much of Dorchester’s trade House Walker, and you, currently control. Your acquisition of Lord Bevin’s shipping concerns was a master-stroke. I fear we may not be able to live up to the standard pledge of a 20% price reduction through the preferred contracts, that is if you intend to apply them across all of Precision Shipping. At most, we’d be able to do 5% and not for 50 years, 10 would be a much more reasonable time-frame. After all, we are at war, while also in the middle of density shift. Our city needs to focus on the fights in front of us, not the balance sheet.”
Victoria Blackwood never raised her voice, she merely modulated her tone to convey her apology and a slight hint of disgust at Vera’s greed.
‘So, she’s opting to play as a director. Interesting,’ thought Vera, while raising one eyebrow in surprise. She hadn’t expected the new Lord Blackwood to be so direct, or to be the type of player willing to set the tone of the engagement. From what she’d learned of her opponent, the woman had won most of her previous battles by using deception and misdirection.
Though unexpected, it wasn’t a problem. There are ways to deal with directors. Simply force them to fight with themselves.
Staying silent, Vera calmly took a sip of her tea while locking eyes with her opponent. Seconds passed and the tension in the room seemed to build. Right as Lord Blackwood was about to speak again, Vera began talking.
“When someone stands in the Hall of Leadership, their words are treated as binding. You avoided execution, saved your House from its expected fall, and proclaimed your desire for friendship and alliance with House Walker in front of the entire council. Now you are here, subtly implying that Lord Walker was dishonest with his words, once again attempting to cast yourself as a victim. How very bold of you,” said Vera, while slightly smirking and keeping her tone light.
Victoria’s mouth snapped shut the moment Vera had started speaking. Her eyes narrowed at Vera’s reframing of her argument. She hadn’t expected the woman to be so shameless. It was obvious that Lord Walker had misrepresented his ‘transportation company’, it was more like a massive shipping concern spanning over half of Dorchester, with interests extending across the whole region. And now his proxy was sitting here, maintaining his deception without batting an eye. ‘Is she really not going to negotiate at all? I thought she was a more nuanced player than this?’ she thought.
Doubling-down on her earlier implication, Victoria said, “You can’t possibly expect the standard preferential contract terms to apply to the entirety of Precision shipping. If you were to abuse those terms, House Blackwood’s entire production and maintenance facilities will be doing nothing but attending to your needs. We wouldn’t be able to fulfill any of our current orders, and the resulting costs would have our doors closed within a year. You had to have run the numbers.”
Vera’s smirk didn’t falter. Her eyes ran across the pale councilors and settled on the woman sitting across from her. It was obvious that she had come here expecting to argue about the specific terms of the preferential contracts. In a way, she was right, it was impossible for them to actually adhere to the terms as they were presented. However, the woman had made a mistake by attempting to take that as a given. Victoria Blackwood had chosen the wrong argument. And if there was one thing Vera was good at, it was taking advantage of her opponent's mistakes.
“Of course I ran the numbers. I know exactly how many engineers, wagon-smiths, woodcarvers, and maintenance workers you have. I even know how many janitors are currently working at each of your 7 facilities. If I were to temporarily send my maintenance staff on vacation, I could fill your entire production capacity for the next 100 years while still running at a profit. I could just keep ordering wagons and repairs until you failed to meet the demand. I could even use my facilities to take over the contracts that you would be defaulting on. Keep in mind, I wasn’t the one to agree to preferential contracts in front of the leadership council, I’d just be abiding by them. Without having stated specific terms, the standard was assumed. You agreed that the details would be discussed at a later date, not that they’d be negotiated,” said Vera, again not making any demands, still letting her opponent’s own words act as the debate’s counter-point.
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Clenching her teeth, Victoria replied, “I said before that I would prefer to be a friend to House Walker. This is not how House Blackwood treats its friends. I believe that there -”
Vera’s voice cut through room like a sword, cleanly interrupting what Victoria was saying. “Friends don’t come into other people’s houses and cast aspersions on their host’s honor. They live up to their word, or at the very least apologize for not being able to. House Walker has done nothing against House Blackwood. Have I said anything that is untrue, or should Lord Walker be held accountable for your misunderstanding of the situation?”
Victoria glared across the table. Had this been any other situation, she’d be asking for a duel to settle the matter. However, there was no way to frame it. Vera hadn’t said anything insulting, or even remotely questionable. In fact, she’d only stated facts while not making a single demand. Not to mention that she’d be impugning her own words if she presented a formal challenge. It was both humiliating, and infuriating.
“No. However, I will not beggar my house to save it,” said Victoria, drawing a line in the sand. Hopefully, Vera would push it, and they could settle this in the arena.
Vera’s smile was chilling, as she replied, “There is no need for House Blackwood to fall. House Walker is more than happy to work with you to see that your pledge is honored and that your house can rise alongside it. House Walker desires friendship as much as you do. Perhaps I can offer some suggestions that will be more palatable to you.”
Lord Blackwood didn’t like where this was going, but she really didn’t have much choice in the matter.
“Please do,” she replied, her nails digging into her palm to hide her rage at the situation she found herself in.
With a patient smile, Vera started dictating the terms she had always known her opponent would eventually find herself agreeing to…
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Nero chewed on a delightful meat cube, possibly made out of some weird animal he was incapable of identifying. Unlike the food he’d grown used to at the center, the offerings at the buffet table were rather odd.
All around him, elites were sitting at folding tables, discussing the upcoming battles, and how command should deploy Dorchester’s forces. Instead of boasting of their prospective body count and other types of typical alpha behavior, all Nero saw was a bunch of dorks discussing optimal combat strategies and expressing concern over the city’s resource allocations.
After a few minutes of listening to the debates, Nero decidedly ignored them. In his opinion, they were ‘soldiering’ wrong, and it was annoying.
Where was the overconfident asshole bragging about how many kobalds he would kill? Why wasn’t anyone demanding better pay, or griping about an annoying superior officer that had it out for them?
Fed up, Nero focused on the weird, but surprisingly tasty food. He also took the opportunity to look at what Cathleen had sent him.
At first glance, her ping was short, but sweet. It had the Thought-hub equivalent to a link, one which provided a lecture series that he could watch in his head. It was a comprehensive look at kobalds, and their many varieties. It touched on their reproductive habits, societal goals, notable characteristics, and their historical relation to humans.
After taking a closer look, Nero frowned in annoyance. In total, it was months of video lectures that Nero would probably never have a chance to actually sit down and watch. ‘What the hell am I supposed to do with this? Does she expect me to download it into my brain or something?’ he wondered.
Luckily, there was another section that provided a series of attached summaries for each lecture. By perusing them, he was at least able to get a general idea of what kobalds actually were, and what he should expect when he eventually fought them.
Looking at the pictures of the different types of kobalds, Nero felt like any studying he managed to get done in the short term would turn out to be pointless.
Depending on the type of kobald, they could be anywhere between three and seven feet tall. Some of them resembled hyena-shaped children. Others looked like giant crocodile men. There were even some that looked like pot-bellied midgets with chicken heads. The entire introduction to the species was pointless. However, he had to admit that it was at least interesting.
Deciding that general knowledge wasn’t going to be very helpful, he closed out the ping and went to see what the news section of the Thought-hub had to say. Hopefully, this world’s freakish perspective on governmental information sharing would apply to the current crisis they were facing.
He wasn’t disappointed. On one of the news feeds, he was able to see actual footage of the soldiers fighting the kobalds. He even got, what he hoped, was a good summary of what had happened since the beginning of the hostilities.
The feed he chose was titled ‘The Mountain Conflict: What we know so far’, and it explained how the initial forces attempting to open the mountain city ran into kobald scouting parties. After several initial battles, the mountain gate was reinforced, and the focus turned to closing off all the exits out of the mountain. The next step would be the offensive into the mountain to clear them out.
It was all presented in a very patriotic fashion, praising the might of Dorchester’s forces, and promoting the ideal that humans would never give up in the face of annihilation. It wasn’t even really rhetoric, it was just a series of facts about what the kobald’s society wanted, and how if humans wanted to survive, they had to fight. All in all, it was both informative, and inspiring.
The kobalds were like settlers looking to eventually become terraformers. When their society got advanced enough, their universal desire is always to change the local landscape to be like one of the elemental planes. Letting them run rampant would cause a local portion of reality to overlap with whatever plane of existence the kobalds deemed their ‘home’.
Despite how informative the feed was, Nero didn’t understand most of the details concerning planar magic, and essence mirroring. There was even a section on ‘gates’ and ‘control zones’ that went completely over his head. But the visuals were what really drew his attention.
Nero’s jaw dropped as images of the reinforced mountain gate were projected directly into his head. Massive shields hovered over stone walls, while giant spheres of essence lit up the cavernous tunnel leading into the mountain. He watched the soldiers beat back hordes of kobalds who were throwing themselves at the blockade, their hissing death-throes were painful to listen to.
Unlike monsters, the kobalds didn’t disappear when they were killed. He saw images of wagons filled with piles of bodies being pulled out of the mountain. To Nero, it looked like a caravan of nightmares.
From what he could tell, these kobalds were of the shorter variety. At most, they were 4ft tall, and resembled fantasy goblins crossed with a gecko. They didn’t look very dragon-like. If anything, they were kind of cute if you ignored the murderous rage in their eyes.
However, in some of the records from the battle, he could see taller kobalds directing the cannon-fodder. Although, they were robed, so he wasn’t able to see much.
For the moment, it didn’t look like combat magic was being used at all. There wasn’t even much ability usage that he could see. The kobalds seemed to be relying on their numbers to just overwhelm the soldier’s defenses.
Nero had lost his appetite, and subsequently pushed his plate a toward the center of the table.
At least it looked like the kobalds weren’t open to any peace talks. Nero hadn’t realized how reassuring it felt to see that they were actually deserving of what was coming for them. Maybe it was just a function of being in a fantasy world, but the fact that the enemy was so clearly hostile was great for his conscience.
Before he knew it, his time was up, and the sergeants started yelling at them to form-up outside the building.
‘I guess I’m not gonna have time for that shower. Even if no one else is gonna be a bloodthirsty maniac, I certainly am. If it weren’t for these lizards I’d have been relaxing in the encampment, catching up on my reading and finally getting to my mission packet. I’m totally gonna go all murder-hobo on the little bastards,’ he promised himself.