“Sometimes all it took to cause mayhem was just the right people doing the right thing at the right time.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.
“Greetings, Honored Ones from the homeland, and my gratitude for your willingness to make time to meet with this lowly servant,” intoned the local agent as she prostrated herself with her forehead against the floor’s carpeting before Aideen’s trio. The local agent was an older human woman who looked to be in her forties or so with the typical olive complexion of the northern people.
“Rise, please,” said Aideen with a frown. “And please do not use that manner of address for yourself while we’re in private, at least. I’m not sure what the local customs are like but we definitely have no such habit back home.”
“Understood. My apologies… Milady,” said the local contact as the woman raised her face. The woman had a rather gaunt face with a prominent nose and a sort of thinness to her that would have made Aideen thought the woman had elven heritage had she not known otherwise. Most prominent of the woman’s features were her eyes, however, which had a sharp look to them not unlike a bird of prey. “This one is Aziza Lambas, the current one in charge of our operations here in the Khanate.”
“Well met, then Aziza,” noted Aideen as she sat cross-legged on one of the cushions laid on the carpeted floor. Much like most of the northern region, the local custom was to sit directly on the floor, with wealthier people at most adding cushions directly laid on the floor to that. “In your missive you mentioned that you wished to meet with us to discuss the future of this land? What do you mean by that?”
“I believe Miladies must have witnessed the state of this land with your own eyes on the trip to Abuda, have you not?” asked Aziza in turn, to which Aideen, Kino, and Eilonwy answered with nods and frowns. “This nation is long overdue for change, yet the current regime clung to its power with all the stubbornness of a rigid corpse. The people on their own are far too weak to enact change on their own, so we wished to request your aid in the matter.”
“It’s gotten that bad, huh? I guess it’s hard to argue against that considering what we saw on the way over,” muttered Eilonwy thoughtfully. Generally the Lichdom’s agents kept themselves from meddling with local politics, but the later generations, while loyal to the Lichdom, were born and raised elsewhere after all. They often had strong sentiments for the land they grew up in, so incidents where they ended up lending a helping hand to shift their birthplace to a better direction was far from uncommon. “You are not planning on taking over, no? You know we do not like the idea of that. It’d be disastrous for our reputation if such a thing happened and then got found out.”
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“No, not at all, Milady,” replied Aziza with a shake of her head. “There are already several… parties that are all too aware of the situation here and wished to nudge things over, and my trading house has been cooperating with one of them, namely people we believe are likely Caracanese agents. They likely wished to install a new regime which would be more friendly to Caracan, if not take over the region directly. We honestly would not complain about either result.”
“Makes sense. Nobody likes a neighbor like the current Khanate, so it doesn’t surprise me that their neighbors had taken steps to rectify the issue,” said Aideen with a nod. While the Sultan of Caracan was an open-minded and generally kind person, he was after all a ruler, and it would be a foolish ruler to not deal with the Khanate when they bordered their lands. “So what do you have in mind? The people are, as you said, too weak to force a change by themselves. Even if they received weapons from outside they likely lacked the will to go through with it unless something drastic happened to the situation.”
“It is as you said, Milady,” admitted Aziza. “Even if we pitted the whole of the peasantry against the Khan, it is doubtful that they would be able to win, and even if they would, the price they paid would be far too great. Instead, we thought of fomenting discord from within. The Khan has three sons and especially doted on the youngest, but tradition dictates that the eldest should be the heir. There have been many conflicts between groups supporting the first and third princes to date.”
“And the official heir is which one?” asked Kino who quickly caught on to the implication of Aziza’s words.
“It is undecided as of yet. The Khan himself is not yet sixty and is healthy, so he felt no urgency in designating an heir at the moment. He probably wished to maneuver the situation so that his favorite son could be heir over the next few years,” noted Aziza. “I believe Miladies could guess what would happen should the Khan… perish unexpectedly.”
“Incite a civil war and then have the people rebel and clean up the winner, huh? I guess that would indeed get things done easier,” said Aideen with a nod. “That said, why wait for us? If all that’s needed is an assassination I don’t think your cooperators from abroad would be lacking, wouldn’t they?”
“The Khan is a very paranoid person, probably because he himself rose to his position after his father’s untimely death by assassination,” explained Aziza with a shake of her head. “He is very well-guarded against most assassination attempts, that even our… collaborators were left without recourse unless they were to make use of the services of one of their best mages. Such mages were a known quantity and would pretty much declare their involvement, however. On the other hand…”
“We aren’t as much a known quantity here in the north, I got what you mean,” nodded Aideen. “Kino, Eilonwy, I’ll leave this one to the two of you. Discuss amongst yourself how you would approach this and handle the matter. I’m curious to see what method you two would come up with.”
“Understood, Miss Aideen,” replied Kino. “What about yourself?”
“I’ll be going out at night, doing my usual.”