Valkyrie's Shadow

Empire in Chains: Act 1, Chapter 11

Empire in Chains: Act 1, Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Ludmila stepped forward, casting her gaze up at the crowd above.

“I am Baroness Ludmila Zahradnik, Noble of the Sorcerous Kingdom. By the arrival of winter, these lands – the entirety of the Upper Reaches and its encompassing ranges – will come under my jurisdiction. Amongst the Undead accompanying me are a few that you must recognize: they are the same as those in the army that swept away the invaders from the west.”

“And now you bring death here!”

At the Goblin crone’s accusatory tone, the Demihumans above tensed, clutching their bows and spears and axes.

“It is not death that I bring,” Ludmila said quietly, projecting her voice over the crowd, “but an invitation. I am not here to steal your lands and drive you away, but to welcome you to our great nation. The Sorcerous Kingdom is not a Human country, but one where all races are welcome to prosper under its dominion. As citizens, you will receive the grace and protection of His Majesty the Sorcerer King, Ainz Ooal Gown.”

“Name too long!” The large Troll bellowed, “Long! Weak! Cowardly! How long name protect?”

Ludmila narrowed her eyes, glaive appearing in hand. Behind her, the Death Knights and Death Warriors raised their blades.

Screeches of panic filled the air. Some Demihumans bolted back into their holes. Many others cowered where they were.

“Stupid Pfot!” The Goblin crone all but shrieked, “You not see death below? Goblin die – all die! How is weak?”

“If join, what do?”

Everyone turned their heads to the Ogre Sorcerer.

“If join, what do?” He repeated, “Join tribe? Ainz Ooal Gown, new chief?”

“For the time being,” Ludmila said, “most things will remain as they have in generations past. The tribes will continue to answer to their respective chiefs, and how your leaders are chosen will also remain the same. Great tribes like the Sun Rock Tribe are also fine. The highest chiefs will answer to my administration. Many things will be new to you, but you may take your time getting used to them. Most importantly, you must follow the rules that apply to this territory.”

“What rules?”

“There are many, but I don’t think that introducing them all at once would be prudent.”

The majority of the Sorcerous Kingdom’s laws were still those of Re-Estize, while a few additional ones had been enacted to accommodate the realities of a multiracial nation. These newer laws would be simple to adopt, but the remainder revolved around Human society and more structured forms of sedentary civilization.

“To begin with,” she said, “raiding fellow citizens for food, equipment and slaves is prohibited. Theft is punishable according to the law, and slavery is illegal.”

“Then how eat?” The crone asked.

“With the events of the summer,” Ludmila answered, “there should be plenty of territory and game available.”

“No!” The crone frowned, “How eat after? Troll eat Goblin. Ogre eat Goblin. Everything eat Goblin. If no eat Goblin, Goblin eat everything. All starve.”

The old crone appeared to be firmly grounded in practical wisdom – enough to ask one of the hardest questions right away.

Goblins were a fecund species. If nothing kept their population under control, overpopulation would become an issue. In fact, it was an issue for every race in the Sorcerous Kingdom. With food and safety well in hand, all populations within the nation would only grow. The Duchy of E-Rantel was relatively small: what would happen when they ran out of room?

The normal course of action was either migration or war. Excess populations would leave to find unclaimed lands to settle, or they would force others to vacate theirs. This behaviour did not just apply to Demihumans, but all living things.

Thus far, the Royal Court had not broached the topic. The Sorcerous Kingdom’s policies were also those of a benign and orderly nation, so their options for preemptive expansion were limited. Within two centuries, they would be facing a population crisis and the neighbouring nations would be well aware of it.

By then, Ludmila thought that the Empire would be receptive to Demihuman migration, but it was merely delaying the ultimate issue. With its current policies, the Sorcerous Kingdom’s prosperity would inevitably lead to unsustainable populations, even if they unified the entire world.

“Do you mean to say that Goblins are alright with being eaten?”

“No…?” The crone frowned, “No! But eat, must! No eat, bad!”

Ludmila scanned the teeming mass of Goblins above. They did not appear to disagree with the crone’s statement, but neither were they particularly pleased about it. It was simply a fact of Goblin life.

She had an inkling that their harsh reality could be softened somewhat once the tribes of the Upper Reaches started to participate in the local economy. This, however, did not provide an answer to the problem of overpopulation. Finding a true answer seemed beyond anyone’s imagination…or rather, the true answer already existed, but was not in line with the regular laws of the Sorcerous Kingdom.

“If your people understand its necessity,” Ludmila said, “then I can create a bylaw – a special rule – so that you may maintain the relationship between your peoples. However, you are still prohibited from raiding those that lie outside of this special dispensation. This includes raiding other nations. Slavery will also remain illegal.”

“And if attack?” The Ogre Sorcerer asked, “How then? Cloudstalkers come, cannot fight?”

“Just to be certain,” Ludmila replied, “these ‘cloudstalkers’ are felid Beastmen about twice my height?”

Several dozen heads nodded in response.

“In that case,” she smiled slightly, “I will inform them that you have become my subjects…that is if you intend on becoming my subjects.”

“You…cloudstalker chief?”

“I do not think they have chiefs. They do answer to me, however – the Krkonoše came to join me in the spring.”

A dull murmur filled the air. Pfot shifted his bulk and scowled down at her.

“And if death-worshippers come? Killing and burning?”

“Has something like that happened recently?”

“In summer,” the Goblin crone said. “After great battle. Many come, fleeing. Tell of death-worshippers from the south. Many Humans. Bright weapons. Bright magics. Bright beings fall from sky. All tribes across mountains killed and burned!”

Ludmila frowned at the account, and the memory of the tongue-tied ‘Bo’ and affable ‘Cid’ came to mind. The two Scripture members had come in advance of a Theocracy Army that had been dispatched to stop the Goblin Army in the Upper Reaches. It appeared that they hadn’t simply turned around to go home: they instead diverted to clean out the forests to the south of the Upper Reaches.

Pfot was, in essence, asking if she would fight for them even if the attackers were Humans – ‘death-worshippers’ who shared the same faith. She looked up at the massive Troll, holding his gaze with her own.

“If any foreign power infringes upon my territory with belligerent intent,” she said. “I will of course be obliged to answer in kind. It does not matter who they are.”

The three Demihuman leaders exchanged glances with one another, then looked down at her as one.

“Done,” the Ogre Sorcerer said.

“Done,” said the Goblin crone.

“Done,” grunted Pfot.

“Sun Rock Tribe follow you, Ludmila Zahradnik,” the old crone said. “We join the Sorcerous Kingdom of Ainz Ooal Gown.”

After accepting their oaths of fealty, Ludmila gave the Sun Rock Tribe until spring to spread the word of their new status as subjects of the Sorcerous Kingdom. Despite the dangers inherent to life in the wilderness, events and information flowed slowly when existential threats to the entirety of the Upper Reaches weren’t afoot. This slowness did not bother Ludmila in the slightest, as she knew winter to be a slow season in general and she was in no hurry to force change. It would probably drive the Elder Liches of the administration crazy, however.

Ludmila ordered the Elder Lich sergeant to bring its squadron to the construction camp to stand by for further orders, then flew up the barrier range to update the Krkonoše Rangers there on the status of the territories below. Looking over the Upper Reaches to the west, she mulled over what she would do next.

Bringing the Sun Rock Tribe under her had effectively taken care of a third of the highland basin, advancing her personal schedule ahead by nearly two months. The remainder of the Upper Reaches would be sparsely populated due to the advance of the Goblin Army, but news of refugees coming from the south meant that there would be more than expected. She wasn’t sure if the Royal Army’s reputation had spread to these newly-arrived Demihumans, but perhaps the promise of security would be enough to convince them to throw in their lot with the Sorcerous Kingdom.

She arrived back at the construction camp early in the morning. Most of the workers were already out and about, and the aromas of a hearty breakfast filled the air. Significant progress had been made in the past three days, with the workers’ longhouse approaching completion. The beginnings of warehouses had started to appear, and a miniature palisade had been raised around the alchemist’s workstation for some reason.

Ludmila poked her head inside, finding Pam watching over an array of alchemical equipment with a bowl of hot stew in hand.

“Good morning, Pam.”

The Apprentice Alchemist started, placing her breakfast on the table before performing a rough curtsey.

“L-Lady Zahradnik,” she said. “Good morning.”

“I will not get angry at you for eating breakfast during breakfast, you know.”

“You won’t?”

“I have to wonder what makes you think that I would.”

Pam picked up her bowl again, absently stirring it with a crust of bread.

“I…I don’t know what to think, my lady,” she looked down at her food. “I’m just a girl from the city: an orphan that had to grow up in the old slums. Nobles were always three whole worlds away – I definitely never imagined I’d be able to speak with one like this. You even remembered my name. The most I ever thought I would get was a ‘you, girl!’ or something like that.”

“Is that really what comes to mind when people think about Nobles?”

“Probably? Back before the Sorcerous Kingdom, a lot of the Nobles that owned manors in the city were like that. Not that I blame them: Nobles have their own things to do. Remembering every little person in E-Rantel isn’t one of them.”

Ludmila supposed that it was still that way. She certainly didn’t have the time or inclination to get the name background of every person that she passed in the street, but addressing people so rudely was not something she would do.

Pam appeared to take her silence a bit too seriously.

“Th-that might be for those city Nobles, yeah? It’s not as if commoners like us don't have strange ideas as well. More than once I had some silly dream about becoming the favourite of some aristocrat and living an easy life for a few years…after that, I’d use the connections I made to get a better job than carrying heavy crates back and forth all day. Not that I’m pretty enough for that. Just something poor girls in the city sometimes hope for. Everyone uses everyone y’know?”

Ludmila eyed the Apprentice’s necklace. A crystal pendant hung off of it, as did an emblem of Surshana. Perhaps she was a member of the faithful recently returned to the fold: followers of The Six were usually more mindful of who they shared themselves with. Beyond that, Pam was three or four years younger than Ludmila, which meant she was not yet considered an adult.

Then again, her life in the city was probably much harder than what those in rural areas experienced. Tenant agreements included enough land to support a household, though poor harvests or fluctuating prices for commodities affected everyone. Since ‘spares’ of tenant families who did not require extra hands were usually sent out into the world upon reaching adulthood – which was around fourteen for followers of The Four – food and shelter were not problems for most households in a normal situation.

Those who ended up in urban centres faced an uphill battle for survival. Orphans, spares, and those who migrated to try their luck in what they thought was a place of opportunity quickly discovered how hard it was to tap into the flows of wealth that coursed through a city or town’s streets. Shops only required so many apprentices; temples could only support so many acolytes; the wealthy only needed so many servants. Adventurers usually met some grim fate before reaching Silver Rank.

More often than not, a life of menial labour awaited the unestablished. It was not difficult to imagine why one would consider ‘shortcuts’ that they would not have if their lot in life had been better.

“I hope that you will treat yourself more preciously from now on,” Ludmila told her. “Becoming an Alchemist’s Apprentice is quite a step up from transporting crates.”

“It was just luck, I think,” Pam turned her gaze downwards. “I ran into some ridiculously pretty girl in the spring that could move things around like it was nothing. She helped me out for a day and that put me ahead enough to see if I could learn magic. I started figuring things out just in time for Miss LeNez to snap me up and whisk me off to Warden’s Vale.”

“It was not only luck,” Ludmila said. “If you did not have the capacity for magic in the first place, no amount of happenstance would have landed you in your current position. As a follower of The Six, you are not some insignificant orphan: you are an individual blessed with a valuable bloodline. Your future family will not have to live in the slums and struggle to survive.”

Ludmila left the Apprentice to her breakfast, going around the camp to inspect its progress. Watching the workers go back and forth, she wondered how many had the capacity for magic.

She still received dubious looks from her atelier staff when it came to the proposed ratio of magic casters in her demesne. Due to multiple factors, Re-Estize had a critically low number of magic casters, so the idea that they were rare had become normal thinking to the magical community. But how many people were like Pam, who was once in a situation where she could not explore her potential? How many never considered magic in the first place?

According to the knowledge of the local caster community, there were actually many magic casters who were not ‘professionals’. They did not pursue magical vocations or register at the Magician Guild. These non-professional magic casters treated magic as a supplemental skillset that improved their daily lives and the lives of those around them.

A few questions posed to the various tenants that had migrated to the vale showed this to be the case. There were people who used magic to improve food quality. They conjured spices, paper and other commodities that were hard to access in a farming village. If you had a particularly stubborn stain, a Clean spell was just a few doors away. A tub of cold well water became a warm bath with a wave of a hand. Warden’s Vale had Bohdan and Sophia, who saw to all of its needs, so Ludmila had never put much thought into increasing the village’s magic caster population in the past.

It was said that a professional magic caster with no particular aptitude could still eventually learn Second-tier magic. With Level 15 being what the average person was limited to in their lives, it was easy to see why that was. Professional magic casters lived fairly comfortable lives, which meant that they had the financial leeway to pursue side interests and hobbies. Third-tier magic required 15 Job Class Levels associated with the type of caster one was, so picking up even a single Job Class Level related to an unassociated side interest or hobby meant that one would become ‘stuck’ as Second-tier casters. First-tier magic was also a saturated ‘market’, so those who did not have wealthy patrons or apprenticeships would take side jobs to further their studies, exposing them to the risk of picking up multiple build-contaminating Job Class Levels.

To Ludmila, this suggested that her institutionalised approach to raising magic casters had a fair chance at attaining the desired demographics. Those who qualified to become professionals would receive the support that they needed to become Third-tier practitioners. Once individuals with aptitude were identified and caster bloodlines were cultivated, a decently-sized population of Fourth-tier magic casters was not implausible.

It was not something that would happen in a handful of generations, but with a limitless lifespan and access to resurrection magic, she could ensure that this vision became a reality in the millennia to come.