The audience with the Dranii ambassador was held in the throne room, and, to project as much of an imposing aura as possible as queen, I brought Myra into the throne room with me, and judging from the ambassador's reaction to her when he entered the throne room her presence more than achieved the desired effect.
"Ambassador Wilhelm, I trust we will be able to have a productive discussion."
"I came here with every intention of us having a productive discussion."
"Good, then I won't be withholding anything during this discussion."
"I hope you don't."
"I know that you've been acting as an intermediary between the nobles and Volstaff."
"I see."
"Now that I am queen Volstaff's plan to take over this kingdom is dead, understood?"
"Have you summoned me to inform me of your intention to retaliate against us?"
"No, I summoned you to make you an offer."
"I'm listening."
"Help me punish Volstaff for what they've done to my kingdom."
"What did you have in mind?"
"Our belief is that when Volstaff learns of Esmeralda's removal from power they'll believe that I'm going to need time to consolidate the kingdom's forces and that this will be the perfect window of opportunity for them to launch an invasion and bring their plan to a successful conclusion."
"Do you want us to dissuade them from launching an invasion?"
"On the contrary, I want you to persuade them to invade us and to persuade them to move their troops through the mountain pass where we plan to meet them."
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"You believe that you can win?"
"With her," I said, looking over at Myra, "there can be no other outcome."
"And what would we be getting out of all of this?"
"After we've routed Volstaff's army they will be considerably weakened, and you'd be free to take advantage of that any way you want, and we don't send word to the other kingdoms of your role in the proliferation of Histra."
"It's a tempting offer, very tempting."
"It comes with conditions, the main one being that you must turn over to me the nobles' wealth that you've been storing for them in your banks."
"That will take some time to arrange."
"No it won't, we have all the exact figures, VanBilt was kind enough to furnish them for us."
"Anything else?"
"Scrap the debt that we owe you."
"I'm sorry, but we have financial obligations of our own that are contingent upon the terms that were negotiated when we took you on as a debtor state."
"Is there room for us to negotiate a mitigation of our debt?"
"What's your offer?"
"Refugees; I will take in all of the dwarven refugees that you have in your kingdom, if you'll agree to expunge forty percent of our debt."
"Thirty percent."
"Fine," I responded immediately.
"Nobody from any other kingdom is to learn of any of this."
"This plan doesn't work for you unless you have complete deniability, so you can count on us to exercise absolute discretion."
"When all is said and done, I hope our two kingdoms are able to have a warm and mutually beneficial relationship."
"I plan to pursue such a relationship, and I'm glad to hear that I'll have you for an ally in that pursuit."
Following the conclusion of our discussion the ambassador returned to his embassy, which had been placed under the City Guard's watch while he had been at the palace and would remain so until after our battle with Volstaff, Myra returned outside and Ferland and I repaired to my study to go over what we had managed to achieve in the audience with the Dranii ambassador.
"That went very smoothly," I said to Ferland.
"I told you, with Dranii if you make them an attractive offer their cooperation is all but guaranteed."
"You were right about the dwarves, his whole face lit up when I brought up the idea of us taking them in."
"That's because they're desperate to get rid of them, all of the kingdoms are."
"Why is that? The dwarves are the most industrious race there is."
"That's the problem, everywhere they go they do really well and it's not long before the locals come to resent them, when that happens they're forced to leave and wherever it is that they go to next the same thing happens all over again. It'll happen here as well, we're going to need to be prepared for it."
"We will be."