Anything can be changed in the moment. It almost never is, most people can be predicted with a tedious exactness, but every now and then they’ll still surprise you.
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Prince Orren was not currently on Veor. He had not been for several months, since shortly after his infamous falling out with King Farshen. The king had flown into a fury and tried to strangle the prince, after which the prince and princess hastily departed, leaving their father alone.
In hindsight, that was the worst option for them to have taken. Instead of being present to counteract King Farshen's growing instability, the loss of both his children in such close proximity to his wife shattered him completely. His ruling policies went from strict to unhinged, with new laws made up sometimes daily and new penalties imposed regularly.
The onset of the coming plague did nothing to alleviate the situation. What started out as a few isolated instances of bizarre sickness would quickly go citywide, and then continent-wide. It would be notable by Solaria, but take a few months to fully spread and nearly two years before it finally died out.
Jair had tried his hand at curing the plague a time or two in the past, but it turned out not to be a plague at all. It was an insidious magical curse which could be transmitted from person to person and could only be removed by means of allowing it to run its course without ever coming in contact with another person who still carried it. The more people in close proximity, the more it reinforced itself and things grew rapidly from dangerous to deadly.
Of course, the fact that Veor hadn’t quarantined itself yet meant that this would not remain their problem, but would become a global problem, and even a lunar problem. Thankfully, the curse did contain a minor proximity trigger. People further away from Veor tended to recover more quickly and with less chance of fatality.
Wherever it came from, it had originated well before Jair ever began looping, making the source impossible to track down. None of the earliest carriers he could find had anything in common enough to point to anyone or anywhere specific.
Regardless. King Farshen's descent into madness was far enough advanced that no intervention Jair tried in the past had been of any use. Short of killing the man, but that seemed a bit drastic even for him.
The problem was that King Farshen's incapacity let Sekir easily gain a foothold and from there Veor was easy pickings.
Without the king, Sekir's conquest would be even easier. He located the princess, installed her as a puppet queen, and ruled as her advisor.
While King Farshen's policies made the country tense and increasingly impoverished, Sekir’s would destroy it completely.
Sekir had a mad vision of uniting the entire southern half of the Almas ingaldria back into a single continent. The plan sounded perfectly feasible from a physical standpoint. Almas, and Veor in particular, had an abundance of rock, sand, and such mineral resources available.
What Almas did not have, in the plan’s lethal drawback, was a way to fight back when the seascourge noticed what Sekir was doing. Seascourge did not like having their channels infringed upon and filling in a land bridge would draw their ire like nothing else.
Veor would quickly become a second Death Lake, unless Jair put a stop to it well in advance.
Having been fully focused on the immediate problem of Raina’s dragon, it had taken Larenok's suggestion that he use his new soul fire power to heal the king before he even thought of it as a way to accomplish the long-term stability of Veor.
He doubted it would be as easy as Larenok imagined; even if the king retained sanity and maintained stability, Sekir’s ambitions were such that, though he’d refused to take credit for the plague/curse, Jair had no doubt he could unleash something even worse upon Veor to get what he wanted.
Reuniting the royal family would make it easier to protect Veor… but not easy.
The economic problems facing Veor were generally invisible to the students at the Mageblade Institute, due to their particular strata not being as affected as the others. Sure, their parents would grumble about increases in regulation and new fees and bureaucracy, but for the most part that could all be handled without truly harming their position.
The people most directly affected by the king’s erratic commands, merchants and manufacturers in the twin trade cities, would grumble and struggle. They had the necessary buffer to survive it, but there would be a lot of stock changing hands and a lot of backbiting as friendly rivalries turned bitter in Veor’s increasingly ruinous economy.
Those families closer to the edge, people desperate for advancement and notice, such as the sort of aspiring hanger-on that Jair had pretended to be for so many years, would find their positions threatened with complete dissolution. Having additional support staff and apprentice trainees would become a major liability rather than a benefit. It was among these that the eventual rebellion would find easiest purchase.
Most people would survive, if barely. Until the plague reached its peak. Currently no more than a few hundred scattered instances, but within half a year it would become the breaking point. People already pushed to the edge, surviving Farshen's mindless outbursts with their utmost effort, once their families fractured and friends started dying…
It was almost as though the king’s own fear and paranoia were transmitted throughout his kingdom. Every little division became cause for anger and hatred. People divided along every conceivable line, and at every opportunity hundreds fled Veor entirely.
Those who stubbornly remained behind grew gradually more and more embittered and suspicious, but Veor’s mana oases were too valuable a resource to abandon. For every person who fled seeking salvation in another land, eager replacements came flooding in unaware of the true danger of the plague.
After all, those who’d had it in other continents or on the moons found the ‘Veor Plague’ to be mildly unpleasant and lingering, but nothing deadly. Worth fighting through, certainly. All these weak Veori, so quick to run away.
What they didn’t know would kill them. Underestimating the plague, ignoring basic precautions, their presence only turned a moderate disaster into a major one.
Amid all the chaos, Sekir's insidious power grab was seen as a mercy. The Veori people would celebrate, taxation and regulatory restrictions would be lifted, the last remnants of the plague isolated and quarantined until they died out.
Life would return to normal, and the continent’s efforts redirected to another form of their sure destruction.
Or so it would have been.
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"Who are you?" King Farshen straightened, blankets sliding off his suddenly-dignified form as he surveyed his room. Everything about his posture now screamed command, to the point that his presence felt dissonant against the paranoia-fueled sickbed. "And where am I?"
"We are in your chambers, your Majesty. I am Jair Welburne, Phoenix Healer, Dragonslayer, et al. I came here at your request because you had something of a breakdown following the death of your wife."
“My… wife…" Farshen's voice turned dull, his gaze distant. "My Olina. She's… yes. She's gone." There was a half broken note in his voice, as though he were about to fall apart all over again.
"How much do you remember after your wife departed?" Jair subtly moved his hand to where he could better position Maelstrom for immediate stabbing, in case he needed to utilize darkflame a few more times throughout this conversation.
Farshen's gaze sharpened as he turned to Jair. "Who are you? Where have you brought me? Whatever it is you hope to learn, you won't find it. My secrets will die with me."
"You're not my prisoner. If I wanted your secrets this isn’t how I’d go about it. This is your palace. You ordered it redecorated, but if you look at the architecture, you'll see it’s the same room."
Farshen's eyes darted around, taking in the shape of the pillars, the corner pieces, the moulding and furniture, and his attention relaxed a bit. "You're right," he murmured. "If you were going to kidnap me and fake my palace, you would have tried to match it rather than change it so drastically." He gave a short humorless laugh. "So I really did lose it. I'm not surprised. I do wish it were otherwise." Again, his eyes came up to meet Jair's. "I haven't… hurt anyone, have I?"
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Well. "You tried to murder your son." A bit blunt perhaps, but he did ask.
Farshen's hands clenched in his pile of blankets. Grief and remorse filled his eyes. "Attacked… Oh my poor Orren. What have I done?"
"He is alive,” Jair assured him. “He fled to northern Almas and is currently in hiding, but I can retrieve him. If you will give me your word that you have no intention of harming him."
"Of course not!" Farshen burst out, eyes fierce. "I would never hurt my son. I do not know what madness overtook me, but I would sooner burn this whole palace to the ground than harm a hair on Orren's head." Again, his voice broke, the faintest hint of a tear before he mastered himself. "You may bring him to me without fear. I swear upon my soul and the soul of Veor, Orren has nothing to fear from me now."
"I will see to it that your message is relayed. Now, if you have indeed been unaware of your actions this past year, I would highly recommend that you revisit your legal and financial edicts and ensure that those which remain in effect are those which you truly desire to continue."
"Oh no. And it’s been a year?"
"Indeed. Your little meltdown has been going on for quite some time now, and was not poised to end any time soon. You're very fortunate that your loyal subjects were able to get in touch with me, or you may have driven Veor to the edge of disaster."
Farshen's eyes narrowed slightly. "I still do not know you. Every time I start to think you might be trustworthy, you come out with some arrogant claim as though you’re the most important person I’ll ever meet. Who do you think you are?"
"The most important person you'll ever meet." Jair grinned. "I could have killed you, you know. Still can. Anytime I want. So, keep that in mind. If you ever have the inclination to, say, become a violent dictator, just remember that you may be at the top of this little continent, but your power is limited."
"Is that little speech supposed to make me trust you more? I'm not sure I want you anywhere near my son."
"Very wise. I wouldn't want me near my son either. But, unfortunately for you, I am the only person who knows Orren’s current whereabouts. He has told no one else, nor shall he for a very long time. It does take rather a while for news to travel this far."
King Farshen took a long breath, as though to postpone asking, then the question came out in a rush. “And Fahla? I didn’t…”
“She decided the time had come to pursue her dreams of becoming an adventurer, paid for a class augment, and went to try her luck in the northern dungeons.”
“My daughter always was untameable,” he murmured, and sat back in his pillows. “There was no…?”
“You didn’t hurt her, no.”
“I’m glad. But Orren… I don’t know if I can forgive myself.”
“That’s between the two of you. My job here is done.” Jair pointed to the stack of royal edicts. “You might want to glance through those before too much longer. Veor’s current economic trajectory is not a stable one, and the growing plague will only make things worse. You do not want your people to be desperate when it reaches critical.”
With that, Jair slid his thumb against Maelstrom’s blade. He had just enough time to see King Farshen’s look of utter astonishment as Jair burned away in black fire.
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King Farshen groaned and leaned his forehead against his fist. Perhaps it would've been better if that Welburne fellow had stabbed him after all. Dying had to be easier than dealing with the fallout of whatever his grief-maddened self had been doing this whole time.
Following his dark visitor’s suggestion, he’d taken down his royal edict log to verify whether any of the man's claims were true, and found to his immense displeasure that they were.
He could see vague justifications for a few of these policies at a stretch, but most of them were sheer nonsense. It was as though he’d been lashing out at the entire country, trying to punish all of Veor for his own carelessness.
Really, he couldn't even credit half the things as being valid. Why on earth would he have added a 50% tax on outgoing sandfish exports?
Sandfish were the one resource Veor had most in abundance. There was absolutely no need to stockpile them. It wasn't like they could even create an artificial scarcity, since sandfish was valued precisely because it was cheap, not because it was particularly exotic or desirable. Nuprima people seem to like it a lot, but Nuprima people were strange anyway.
He pulled a clean sheet of paper towards himself and began writing out a countermand edict, outlining the new storage percentage for Veori exports and drafting a one time reimbursement directive for those who'd been negatively impacted by the initial taxation.
King Farshen was sitting at his desk when the messenger arrived.
He'd already written out four withdrawal decrees in the past three hours, and would surely have written several more if not for the interruption.
The messenger stood waiting by the door, looking as uncomfortable as if he’d never been in the king’s presence before.
Farshen restrained his impatience with the man’s hesitance. "You may speak."
"Yes, thank you, your majesty. I’m here to inform you that the participants of your Mount Ryenzo mission have returned with their report. The mountain seems abandoned, but the Draconis Mercurios are searching the area for something unknown and unrelated. None of the other dragons enter the mountain or try to stop those leaving it.”
“Mount Ryenzo mission?” He glanced over the stack of orders yet to be gone through and restrained his inclination to grimace. What had he been doing?
“The warriors commissioned by royal decree from throughout Veor,” the messenger said, as though explaining his own orders to him was normal and expected behavior. “They have brought back an entire load of priceless jewels, magical constructs of unknown make and purpose, and several statues of what appear to be solid precious metals. Gold, silversteel, mithriline. It even has one statue that seems to be a solid ruby.”
“That sounds valuable. Won’t the Draconis come for it?”
“None of the dragons showed any inclination to do so, your majesty, but we cannot wholly predict their actions.”
Farshen sighed, lightly enough that the messenger wouldn’t notice. “So we have brought, what?”
“The royal archivist is cataloging all of it now, but some of the independent mercenaries are grumbling about their share being confiscated." The messenger said it with such extreme carefulness that Farshen's frown deepened. It was as though the man thought he would explode with fury any moment, and had to be handled like a tempestuous child.
"Do these mercenaries have a spokesperson?"
"They are all independently contracted, but they claim to working for a Jair Welburne through his representative Dalin Larenok."
King Farshen slammed his pen down onto the desk so hard it snapped. "Welburne? He’s involved in this?"
The messenger stiffened, panic in his eyes. "You know this Welburne? Is he an important man? Should I have—"
"No, no." King Farshen waved away the man's concerns. "He only came to my attention today. It is no failure of yours not to have heard of him. I'm merely surprised by how far his machinations could reach."
"Machinations, my lord?"
"Not your concern, messenger. Send this Larenok in, if he is the representative. If not, send word to Welburne that I wish to speak with him again."
"Yes, my lord. Welburne does not have any listed residence within the city, he is a scholarship student at the Astralla Mageblade Institute, but after the dragon attack closed it—"
King Farshen blinked, maintaining his posture only through years of training. "...Dragon attack?"
"Y-yes, my lord," the messenger stuttered. "Ryenzo Draconis, she destroyed half the Institute, kidnapped Raina Serin, and then disappeared a week ago."
"Raina! Isn’t she the girl who used to run about with Orren during our budget meetings?"
"I wouldn't know, sir. Ryenzo's attack on the Institute is what prompted you to send the investigation team to Mount Ryenzo. They still haven't found the dragon, but Miss Serin has returned safely to her father's house by unknown means. Yesterday afternoon he called off all the search parties he was organizing to send after her."
King Farshen leaned back in his chair and folded his hands atop the desk in front of him. "Then we’d better set up a standing order for a dragon translator. Looks like I'm going to have to negotiate with the Mercurios come Terlunia."
"No need, sir. One of the independent mercenaries is Kryr-Anarkin, a celebrated draconic translator. His negotiating skills are celebrated across—"
King Farshen raised a hand. "I am familiar with him. Excellent. Send him in as well. Is that all?"
"No, my lord," the messenger said, looking vaguely disturbed. "There is one other matter. One of your counselors has unexpectedly taken ill, Sir Nide, and requests your presence at once. I told him that you are not to be ordered about, but he insisted I deliver the message. Since you seem…" the messenger blushed, stuttered, and looked away before continuing, "well-inclined today, your majesty, I hope you do not find it impertinent for me to relay this request."
"You are doing your job. If you're doing a job for impertinent people, that does not mean anything against you. I commend your honesty and dedication to your task. Please tell Eshindre that he is welcome to attend me at dinner. Also inform the kitchen they'll be having another guest for dinner. Don't forget, send in Larenok and Kryr-Anarkin. That is all. Thank you. You're dismissed."
The messenger bowed deeply, looking as relieved as though he had been pardoned from a certain execution. He turned to go, turned back and bowed a second time with a, "Thank you, my lord,” before he left properly.
It wasn't even lunchtime and he was already ready for bed. But, no rest for the royal. King Farshen had a lot to do and not much time to do it in.
He picked up his broken pen, flicked his hand to activate his repair spell, and slid a new ink cartridge into it before returning to his blank sheet of paper.
On this, the twenty-first day of Xulok…
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