9. Petty Politics

The audience was scheduled to last all day, but we took a break after the first three hours, which is when I issued the quest to Phil and Laurant to apprehend as many of the listed spies as they could. Even as canon characters, they couldn’t issue quests on their own, but they could share active quests the same as anyone, and they said the notebook I gave them was able to generate dozens of PVP quests simply by reading it. They went to spread the good word to their respective underlings, while I got back to work dealing with the petty squabbles my subjects thought I needed to intervene in.

To be fair, some of them were legitimate concerns. Some families came asking for alms, which I immediately distributed after using [Noble Insight] to confirm their hardship. That ability was useful, I was coming to find. I probably would have given those families coin whether I could confirm they were telling the truth or not, but I wouldn’t have been able to spot the false beggar who neither lived in my land, nor required my aid.

I denounced him for the fraud that he was, and a number of my subjects began shouting out the conflicting stories that they had been fed by this same man over the last fortnight. Some of the Travelers even joined in. The beggar simply shrugged.

“It was time to leave anyway. Good tidings to you, My Lord, from the Beggar’s Court,” he said, and he ran off before I could question him further. He had technically committed a crime, as begging under false pretext was illegal, but it was rarely prosecuted, and my deputies had other concerns at the moment.

Over the course of the day I received updates on the spy hunt. More than a dozen had been captured during the second break, when the crowd had dispersed and my followers had deemed it safe to move. This had, of course, caused many of the other spies with active quests to vacate the area immediately. A few of the spies fought to the death, but the majority surrendered when they were told that they were wanted for questioning.

The arrests caused a bit of a disturbance, but nobody was harmed aside from the spies who put up a struggle, to my great relief. I announced a slightly longer than scheduled break, assuring everyone that my constabulary had everything under control. Then we resumed.

Most of the more contentious petitioners were arguing with me about taxes. Which was frustrating, as I had suspended taxation for all of my residents until the completion of the audit and a new assessment of the holdings of the shire’s residents could be conducted. In fact, it was that second matter which concerned them; they were attempting to convince me to lower the assessor’s evaluation of their property (and thus their taxes). Despite the many times and many ways in which I informed them that I intended to have nothing to do with that matter, they continued to bring it up.

A few claimed bias from the evaluator, whom I had brought in from the capitol. I was uncertain what she was supposed to be biased against, but once the claim was made I promised to investigate it personally if they would just shut up and let the matter rest!

After the third break, we reached the end of the agenda, and I announced that I would, for the next hour, accept petitions from Travelers, to be chosen by lottery. This had been expected, of course, and the first petitioner stepped forward through the soap-bubble of the event threshold.

“Hello, um, your lordship or whatever,” he said awkwardly. “I’m just wondering if it’s true whether or not you’ve got anything to do with unlocking new starting zones and races.”

“While it’s true that the goblin Travelers first appeared on my lands, and that for that to have happened someone must have opened one of the lost Gates of TirNiki, I truly have no idea how this event occurred,” I lied seamlessly. “I am, however, pleased to include the local goblin tribe in my list of subjects, as they have both accepted one of the eight gods into their hearts, rejecting the Adversary, and also signaled that they are willing to follow the laws and customs of Yuikon. As long as those two matters remain true, they will remain welcome in my lands.

“Further, I should hope that the unlocking of the Drow Travelers in the Deepdark proves that I am not the only factor of change present in this world. The Drow Gate was obviously opened by none other than Gyudue of the Darkest Night, who must have been harvesting Dungeon Cores in secret while he posed as the final boss of Gemos Caverns.

“I would like to take an opportunity to say this to the Drow Travelers. If you find your way to the surface, and come to my lands, then you must follow the customs and laws of Yuikon. Active worship, proselytizing, or advancing the agenda of the Adversary will be prosecuted. You may be asked to swear by Thedum that you do not worship her, and you may be arrested if you are unable to do so. I am sorry, but the same is true of all occupants of Yuikon. Myself included. I swear by Thedum that I do not worship the adversary. That is all it takes.”

“So, like, there’s no freedom of religion?” he asked.

“Not where the goddess of chaos, lies, decay and destruction is involved,” I answered. “Yuikon has been lax in its vigilance against the worship of the Adversary, in my opinion, but her cultists are not welcome here. Your time is up. Next petitioner.”

The next petitioner had questions about the upcoming Battlegrounds and whether they would still be happening after my setback. I pulled up the schedule that I had made in accordance with the wishes of those who had scored the highest bid on five of my dungeon cores dedicated to the task. It was midweek on Earth, and the first of the scheduled battlegrounds were to begin on their ‘Saturday’ and occur periodically from then on for the rest of their weekend.

Daemon insisted on specifying the sponsor of the first weekend was “Teslamegacorp,” and assured everyone that the list that had been posted on the forums remained accurate.

The third petitioner bluntly asked me about my setback. I sighed, debating how much to share.

“I was cursed by the Gray Man. I knew in advanced that the next time that I died this would happen. I find it extremely frustrating to be forced to start over from scratch, but I will persevere. Further, my revival has cleansed me of [the Gray Man’s Touch]. This has also removed my ability to spread [Through the Valley of the Shadow]. I believe that if you find the Gray Man, you will be able to petition him for that particular combination of boon and bane yourself, but if anyone came here to ask me for it, I am no longer able to oblige.”

“So what happens if you die now?” he prodded.

“I get annoyed with whoever is responsible,” I answered. “Next petitioner.”

A number of sensitive topics came up, and I tried to give the official version that was publicly available whenever possible. A few times I took the opportunity to spread disinformation when it would benefit me to do so, and I also corrected rumors that were widely off-base. I took petitions on locations to build or bust dungeons, as well as to destroy lairs and possibly create a new entrance to the Deadlands, such as the portal which remained open still in the former Poison Grove in Verindale.

I suffered twelve Guild invites. The first few of which I politely declined, but as the invitations continued to come and grow more insistent, I became more annoyed and pointed with my replies.

Eventually, I called the audience to an end, and I retreated back into the temple of Thedum, where I rested on one of the pews while my bodyguards blocked the entrance.

“Don’t get too comfortable, your day isn’t over yet,” Tarisha reminded me, to which I groaned loudly.

“Tell them I don’t freaking care anymore,” I said.

“You need the pros on your side if you’re going to help your brother claim the throne,” she reminded me.

“Do I?” I asked. I wasn’t entirely convinced. But it wouldn’t hurt to have them, and it certainly had helped today to have high level muscle that was available at a moment’s notice. I sighed. “Okay. Send them in. I’ll put my regal face back on, I promise.”

Twelve Travelers, all leveled between 180 and 200, came into the temple. If they hadn’t been willing to meet me inside, then I would have grown suspicious, so it was well that everyone who had wanted to join this little meeting had managed.

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“So, how much of what you just said out there is bullshit?” the old rogue from asked.

“If you’re worried about battlegrounds, I was telling the absolute truth. They’re all scheduled. All you have to do is wait and be in my world when they start,” I assured him.

“Oh, I believe you on that,” he said. “What I don’t believe is that you can’t issue targeted PVP quests at a moment’s notice. How extensive is that ability? Does the other party have to have negative rep with you? Is that how the quests are targeted? Or is it a combination of that and proximity?”

“No comment, next question,” I said wearily.

“I’ve been wondering why you quit ,” Aroha of asked. Aroha had been my guardian through the event in the Poison Grove, which had led to the spawning of a worldboss and the opening of a portal to the Deadlands.

I considered how to answer that one. Why had I quit? I had a list of reasons. They were ultimately responsible for me losing my [Spellblade] class, as the fighting style I had developed under their tutelage was ultimately what had led to my initial class being deemed unbalanced. They had loaded it up with different spells and triggers for the spells which had made combat easy for me to carry out. Activating my abilities had come naturally.

They still came naturally, but I was more limited by my resources now. Before I had been activating my abilities perfectly as they had come off cooldown. I had been performing my spells perfectly every time. I had …

I had been fighting like I was some sort of machine. Perfectly.

I wondered when that had started happening. I thought back to my first time fighting a slime, when I had been nervous and afraid of dying because I’d never done it before and didn’t know what would happen. How I had cried the first time I saw one of my Traveler friends die, despite having certain knowledge that they would return from the experience. Minus one level, but otherwise no worse for wear.

Then I had gotten a bunch of abilities, and a bunch of different ways to trigger them. I had learned all of their cooldowns, and how to time them together perfectly. And I had done exactly that, even before I’d optimized my HUD to display them.

I shook my head, because that wasn’t the question. Why had I quit ?

“I needed time alone,” I answered. “I plan on rejoining them eventually. If they’ll have me back.”

“We will,” Daemon assured me. “Our guildleader is impatiently waiting for you to decide that your walkabout is over and come home.”

“I have one, Young Lord,” Joon-Ho, of said. “Who is the Gray Man, and how do we avenge this outrage that he has inflicted upon you?”

“He is my great-uncle, Auroras,” I answered. “And you don’t. I will not be part of anyone killing my family. Whoever strikes him down will be to me as bad as those who have assassinated my other uncles. They shall be as bad as the kingslayer in my eyes.”

“It is complicated when such matters involve family,” Joon-Ho said. “At least you are not permanently removed from this world.”

“I am growing tired of that reminder,” I said. “Starting over is frustrating enough without everyone constantly rubbing my nose in it.”

“I apologize. I will let the others speak now,” Joon-ho said.

“I am wondering about matters of the succession,” Cedric, the representative from , said. “You have declared an official stance, and as your allies we have naturally fallen in line with it. But how do we best go about putting an infant on the throne? How will he rule when he is but a child?”

“Rain the second will, of course, not be making decisions of state until after his fifteenth birthday,” I said, answering the second question first. “In the interim the nation will be governed by my mother, the princess Analise, who will be risen to the Queen Mother. It will be the first time in two centuries that Yuikon was openly ruled by a woman, but because Rain will officially be head of state, it will not trigger the prophesy. Or at least it didn’t the last time a Queen Mother ruled on behalf of their son.”

“I am sorry, the prophesy?” the representative of inquired.

“Oh, I guess you might not know. Yeah, there’s an old prophesy. Any woman who takes the throne will go mad, open the gates to the seventh hell, and bring forth the demons that reside there. And, um, it’s sort of come true. Twice. The going mad part. I don’t remember the name, but there’s a demon responsible for the whole thing. The church stopped both of the queens before they got to the demon-summoning bit. But we’ve had female regents before and it’s been fine, so I’m not worried about my mother at all,” I assured them. “It’s not illegal for a woman to rule or anything. It’s just that they all know about the curse, and they take it pretty seriously. I guess they can feel it or something? I don’t know, I’m not a girl, so it never affected me one way or the other, even when I was in line for the throne.”

“Huh. And here I always thought it was simple bigotry,” Cedric admitted.

“Like I said, I don’t really know. If my mother or my aunt were willing to inherit, that would completely change the dynamic of everything,” I informed them. “At least, as long as they were able to swear to Thedum that they had nothing to do with the assassinations. If Storm could do that then he’d be on the throne already no matter what Auroras tried to do to stop him. But if we had a queen, the church and the people would question every decision that they made and whether it was a sign of oncoming madness or not. I guess if there was absolutely no male left in the line of succession, a queen would come forward, but she’d probably be very unpopular and everyone would pressure her to abdicate as soon as she had a son.”

“So it is bigotry,” Cedric concluded.

“Yeah, I guess,” I admitted. “It’s always been that way so I never thought about it.”

“Can we use that?” the old rogue from asked. His name was Kael, and I probably should have bothered to remember it before now. “I mean, the threat of a female heir to put pressure on them? Can we have Princess Analise say ‘It’s either me or my son?’”

“I don’t think it would be a good move,” I argued.

“So then, what can we do, as Travelers, to influence the succession?” Kael asked.

“If I knew that I would have told you before now,” I said, trying not to snap at him. “Honestly, I can use all the help I can get. It’s bad enough that I have spies running rampant through my lands and--”

I paused for a moment, then tried very hard not to smack my forehead. “You can spy for me.”

The Travelers looked at each other, then back at me.

“We can try. But I’m not certain how successful we’ll be,” Aroha informed me. “You didn’t generate a quest just now, in case you’re wondering.”

I leaned back, unwilling to go back out to my throne to use its quest writing feature for this. Instead I sort of snapped at it again to make it pay attention. I sensed it, a sort of weight on my shoulders, and I realized then that it had always been there.

“I, Earl Hail Jeoran, issue this quest to my most trusted of Traveler allies,” I stated. “I ask you to be my eyes and ears. I ask you to watch from the shadows, and hide in plain sight, as you gather information about Storm Teoran and other threats to the lawful succession of my younger brother, or one of the other heirs should they have the stronger claim and be able to prove their innocence. Use whatever means you deem necessary short of violence against an otherwise innocent Native. If you do uncover evidence of crimes during your activities, I ask that you turn over the evidence to the City Watch or other authority. You may report to …”

I sighed. I had to go back out to my throne after all.

“Tarisha, I need a spymaster. Who should I pick.”

Without hesitation, Tarisha pointed towards Cedric Ravenshadow.

“Why him?” I inquired.

“I work in corporate security,” Cedric explained. “Espionage and counterespionage are right up my wheelhouse.”

“Congratulations, Cedric. You’re about to become canon,” I informed him. He could not have looked more pleased.

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