Valkyrie's Shadow

Stone and Blood: Act 1, Chapter 7

Stone and Blood: Act 1, Chapter 7

Chapter 7

As Florine declined to take a break for dinner, their wagon followed the road north to the farming villages, going through the citadel area and over the dam. Ludmila informed the manor staff of their plans along the way. When they entered the shadow of the valley’s western wall, she glanced at Florine in her light summer dress.

“Did Lady Shalltear ever grant you an Endure Elements item?” Ludmila asked.

“Yes, I still have mine from when I was working with the northern tribes,” Florine answered. “Why?”

“I was just making sure,” Ludmila replied. “The highlands can be quite chilly at night, even during the summer.”

When they came within a few hundred metres of the first farming village, the wagon slowed. The Ministry of Transportation mandated the maximum allowed speed for vehicles near residential areas to be twenty kilometres per hour, but Ludmila wasn’t sure how the Soul Eaters knew how fast twenty kilometres per hour was. Florine looked up at the village walls as they followed the highway through the ‘slot’ running through the centre.

“If you’re so adamant about not developing your demesne,” she said. “Then why clear this strip of farmland?”

Ludmila’s back pressed into her seat as the wagon returned to its ‘highway’ speed. It seemed that her friend didn’t get it yet.

“I’m not adamant about not developing my demesne,” Ludmila replied. “My perception and thinking just lead to a different set of priorities. When a Noble of Re-Estize or Baharuth is granted land to manage, they follow a certain paradigm demanding that the land be made ‘economically viable’. In a forested highland territory such as my own, it would be exporting timber to market for capital to exchange for everything that they can’t yet produce.”

“If I recall correctly, that’s what House Zahradnik did.”

“That’s correct,” Ludmila said. “I suppose you could say that we came into the picture during an expansionary phase of Re-Estize’s development, so our contract with House Vaiself came with strong expectations of economic returns. It’s frightening, now that I think about it.”

“What is?”

“The entire economic ‘system’, for lack of a better way to define it. It’s built on concepts that attempt to attach artificial notions of ‘value’ to everything, yet our entire society is built upon it.”

It was often said that a solid foundation was required to build anything that would last, but, in this case, the foundation was merely a fallacious concept with no intrinsic value.

“How are our notions of value artificial?” Florine asked, “I know that I can always exchange one thing for another.”

“Are you sure about that? Does the notion of ‘profit’ hold any intrinsic value?”

The tiniest of furrows creased Florine’s brow.

“Humour me, please,” Ludmila said.

“Well, ‘profit’ means taking advantage of differences in acceptable prices between one party and another,” Florine said. “With money as a medium of exchange, people can figure out how those differences translate into goods and services.”

“So what drives how much profit one makes?”

“The difference in price for whatever one is trading, which is determined by supply and demand.”

“Then, in effect, price is something determined by people.”

“Yes.”

Ludmila nodded. This much was common sense – one didn’t have to be a Merchant to understand the basic idea of why things were cheap or expensive. The problem was what followed.

“With this in mind,” Ludmila said, “can you see why I say that the foundation of our economic system is merely a concept with no intrinsic value?”

“Not really…”

“The intrinsic value of ‘profit’ is based on something that people come up with. I made so much gold.I turned a fifty per cent profit. I’m sure that, as a Merchant, you’ve heard and seen this far more than I have.”

“Naturally,” Florine replied, “but even if a gold coin has no intrinsic value beyond its content, people still accept those profits that they turn because they come in the form of money. As I mentioned, it’s a medium of exchange.”

“I can’t deny the utility of money as a medium of exchange,” Ludmila said. “But that’s the problem I’m getting at. Well, maybe it is…?”

She fell silent for a moment, collecting her thoughts as they passed the next village. It was something that she had always felt, but hadn’t grasped more solidly until the development of her demesne under the Sorcerous Kingdom was well underway. If she had just been a regular Druid or Ranger who actively resisted the advance of ‘civilisation’ – the so-called hermit or wilderness renegade – Ludmila would have never been exposed to the intricate workings of the monstrosity that they faced. Conversely, most people who worked within the system didn’t seem to realise that they were being encouraged to do so, didn’t care, or actively embraced it.

“For simplicity’s sake,” Ludmila said, “when a trade caravan makes a ten per cent profit on their route, what happens?”

“I would probably bring in the caravan leader for a performance review,” Florine said.

Ludmila blinked silently at her friend’s answer.

“Ten per cent is terrible,” Florine’s lip twitched. “Unless the route is remarkably short, it most likely wouldn’t cover the logistical costs of the venture.”

“Alright, so what would be acceptable for the average trade route?”

“Hmm…a three-week trip between here and Arwintar probably brings in a three hundred per cent profit after covering operational overhead if it’s shipping timber.”

“…three hundred per cent?”

“It should be somewhere around there. Of course, we’ve been shipping goods that are harvested and processed cheaply in the Sorcerous Kingdom. They’re delivered to Liane’s border town via container and then moved from there the old-fashioned way.”

She resisted the urge to shake her head. Merchants were expected to maximise their gains, but, every time her friends described their activities and mentioned their gains, the numbers beggared belief. Still, it served to emphasise the point that she was trying to make.

“So you walk away with this three hundred per cent profit – presumably in trade currency – but that currency doesn’t realise its ‘value’ until you use it, yes?”

“Yes, you could say that,” Florine replied.

“And you’ve essentially obtained four trees’ worth of currency, which you use for various things. Purchasing more inventory, ‘growing’ your business, investment, luxuries, and so on.”

“For the most part.”

“Now this might sound strange,” Ludmila said, “but did you actually turn one tree into four?”

“Of course not.”

“And when you go out and utilise your profits, do commodities simply manifest out of nothing to satisfy your demand for them in quantities that match your profits?”

“Again, of course not. Not usually, at any rate.”

“And do the end products of the lumber trade re-enter the market with their full intrinsic value, if at all?”

“Sometimes, furniture and the like is resold,” Florine said. “Most products end up wearing out and breaking or needing to be repaired. That includes housing.”

“So the entire market is like this,” Ludmila said. “Commodities are usually consumed. People ply their trade in order to meet their needs and perhaps afford some luxuries. Naturally, most people are driven to make more to ‘earn’ a better quality of life for themselves and their families.”

“I don’t see a problem with that…”

Their carriage stopped at the windbreak halfway between the second and third villages. Ludmila disembarked and led Florine along the edge of the field and up the broad terraces.

“The problem is that all of that ‘economic manoeuvring’ is artificially induced,” Ludmila said. “All living things naturally seek out what is desirable, but most living things live within the limits of what their territory can provide. Commerce is not inherently bad, but it facilitates certain things that exist outside of ‘reality’, such as the notion of profit.”

“I’m not sure that I follow,” Florine produced a shawl from her Infinite Haversack and wrapped it around her shoulders. “As far as I can tell, my profits can be used to purchase real things, so how can those profits exist outside of reality?”

“Maybe ‘reality’ is a poor choice of words,” Ludmila said. “But many of the concepts that have been developed out of commerce are not real, per se. They’re only suggestions, at best. The value of a gold coin is merely the suggestion of what it may be able to get you. Whether you can get those things or not depends entirely on whether they’re available to be purchased. Similarly, profits must be realised or they mean nothing.

“When one realises profits, all sorts of ‘suggestions’ are dangled before them. To those who don’t really think about what’s going on, they’re treated as promises. They follow this promise of ‘good things’ and pursue more profits, dragging all of the people that they deal with or have any influence over along with them. The people that they trade with are given access to a slice of those profits, and the people that see them succeed are offered a model of success. Everyone becomes a willing and eager participant in a system built on subjective notions of value and the only limit on that participation is the economic viability of any given activity.”

“I can’t claim that notions of economic value aren’t subjective,” Florine said, “but, at the same time, economic value is real.”

“The only moment it becomes real is if two people agree upon a certain value and a transaction is made,” Ludmila replied. “And the worst part is that the agreed-upon value can and does supplant the true value of any given thing, creating a new hierarchy of value that is detached from reality.”

“I still can’t grasp what you mean by ‘reality’,” Florine said. “What is ‘true value’?”

Ludmila eyed the clean divide between the trees and the fields, and then her gaze went further into the trees.

“It is what it is,” Ludmila said. “Literally. These trees that we’re walking past – are they worth anything to a Merchant?”

“Yes,” Florine said.

“What if the woodcutters with the right to log this forest don’t cut the trees down to sell to him? Are they worth anything to the Merchant, then?”

“…no.”

“So it stands to reason that, to everyone who trades with this Merchant, these uncut trees are also worth nothing.”

“Well, he can’t trade it, so that would be correct.”

“Then would it be fair to say that, in this example, these trees do not exist as far as the market is concerned?”

Florine’s brows knit together at her question.

“…as far as the market is concerned, it’s not accessible and thus does not exist to the market as a transactable commodity.”

“Yet these nonexistent trees obviously exist,” Ludmila held out her hands and shrugged. “That’s the way almost everyone raised under our economic system thinks. There is what exists in the market, and then there are the ‘nonexistent’ things that are outside of the market, waiting to be brought into existence. Does this not sound utterly mad to you? It’s the same madness which makes people think that the wilderness is ‘unclaimed’ and that notion somehow gives them the right to exploit it.

“The denizens of these woods also become commodities. Those that cannot be commoditised become undesirables and are driven away or killed. What we consider pioneers are considered invaders in the areas that they attempt to expand into. And what fuels their efforts is this.”

She pulled out a gold coin from one of her pouches, eyeing it balefully.

“It is said that money is the root of all evil, and people can provide any number of cases where the ‘need’ for it leads to evil acts. But the greatest evil of all is something that barely anyone notices: the idea that one can detach anything from its intrinsic value and impose a new, subjective value upon it. Upon that lie, an incomprehensibly complex set of systems, ideologies and beliefs has been founded. At the end of the long line of transactions that are taken for granted lies this.”

Ludmila swept an arm out toward the wooded valley slopes and the unseen highlands beyond.

“Something that exists in reality, yet does not exist in the eyes of the market. Thus, what it was before doesn’t matter to the market and its participants because it never existed in the first place. ‘Value’ is attached to what it could be and people are thus encouraged to extract that value. The reason why that value exists doesn’t matter to the market’s participants so long as they can conduct their desired transactions. No matter how good or kind-hearted one is, the idea that the blood of hundreds might have been spilt just to acquire the materials for the nice footstool that they’re buying in Arwintar won’t ever cross their minds.”

“I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to look at a footstool the same way again,” Florine muttered. “So, to summarise, you want us to give up on money? Go back to bartering?”

“No, the notions encouraged by subjective valuations would still exist even if one relied on barter,” Ludmila said. “Money makes it easier to ‘transport’ value. It also abstracts everything and creates a comfortable sense of distance between a product and its source.”

“Then what?”

“Fundamentally, it would be how you perceive the world and thus think about any given thing, but that’s not a realistic request. Not one that can be fulfilled all at once, at any rate. Since you’ve been working with the Demihumans, I thought it would be easier for you to understand after being exposed to their views and their very different way of life.”

They came to the end of the windbreak where it joined the forests blanketing the steep valley walls. There, the stream that flowed through the middle of the windbreak cascaded down the rocks. Ludmila scanned the skies above.

“Are we supposed to climb this?” Florine asked.

“Nonna was supposed to join us,” Ludmila answered. “When she did, I figured she could cast a Fly spell on you.”

“But I don’t know how to fly…”

“It just comes to you when the spell is cast,” Ludmila said. “Something like a matter of will? Anyway…”

Florine let out a gasp as Ludmila came over and swept her off of her feet. She activated her hairpin and gently rose into the air. Her friend threw her arms around her neck in a panic.

“I’m not going to drop you,” Ludmila said.

“I don’t know how you expected me to react!” Florine trembled, “At least warn me about what you’re going to do.”

“That usually comes with thirty minutes’ worth of questions, reassurances, and mental preparation. It’s better to just get it over with.”

“You sound just like my mother,” Florine grumbled.

“Your mother flies?”

“No, it’s when she spoke to me about my first–argh! Why did you do that?”

“Do what?”

“You’re using your abilities on me,” Florine said. “Do you realise that the whole setup just now was likely the result of your persuasive ability? Having that long conversation and then abruptly changing the flow both mentally and physically unbalanced me. Even now, I’m…”

Florine let out a small sigh before falling silent. She refused to let go, instead hugging Ludmila more tightly.

“There’s no need to panic,” Ludmila said.

“I’m not panicking!” Florine replied, “Just don’t mind me.”

It was hard not to mind. She could hear things from quite a ways away, never mind the hammering heart within the breast pressed against her.

After a minute, they reached the top of the valley and Ludmila settled on an exposed outcropping at the top of the cascade. She took a few steps into the trees before setting Florine down. Her friend straightened her skirts before crossing her arms and giving Ludmila a reproachful look.

“What?” Ludmila asked.

“Nothing,” Florine answered. “My head’s just all muddled now. Do…do you think Lady Shalltear will…you know, with us, together…”

“I don’t doubt that she will,” Ludmila told her. “When, where, and how is entirely up to her, however, and I have no idea what her plans for you are.”

“Does she bite?”

“She bites me, at least,” Ludmila said. “If she does bite you, make sure you don’t bleed on her too much or things might get rough.”

Ludmila had been sent flying or broken in various ways more than a few times. She wasn’t sure whether it was because Lady Shalltear did it by accident or did it on purpose because Ludmila could sustain damage that a Human could not and would eventually regenerate anyway. Either way, she seemed to enjoy it.

“But won’t I turn into a Vampire if she bites me?”

Oh, that’s what she was worried about?

“People only turn into Vampires if they get drained dry. A little bloodletting won’t do much more than make you tired and Lady Shalltear won’t take so much that it affects your ability to work. Service to His Majesty is paramount, after all.”

“I see. Now that we’re back in the Sorcerous Kingdom, I’ve been getting nervous about it.”

“Well, she won’t kill you, at least. You’re more valuable to her alive.”

A black dot appeared in the skies over the valley, growing into the robed figure of Nonna. Ludmila used a magic light to signal their position and the Elder Lich floated down beside them a few minutes later.

“Anything new to report?” Ludmila asked.

“Little of note has changed,” Nonna answered in her dry monotone. “According to the postal officer that supervised the most recent delivery of supplies, they’ve been raising shelters out of locally procured materials.”

It appeared that even the administration was minimising contact with the refugees. She wondered whether that, too, was a result of the same sort of thinking that she was discussing with Florine. The administration was focused on productivity, so the refugees had become ‘invisible’ aside from the fact that they were a drain on productivity until someone came along and incorporated them into the economy. The reports didn’t even mention whether they were nocturnal or diurnal, which was why she settled on seeing them in the evening.

They followed the stream, walking roughly five hundred metres east before coming across the Death-series servitors patrolling the perimeter of the refugee area. Nothing could be seen from there, and they had to walk another two kilometres before Ludmila spotted signs of her guests through the trees.

It was another few hundred metres before the Orcs became aware of their approach. When they did, they didn’t immediately move to confront them, instead spreading out in the forest all around. Neither Florine nor Nonna seemed to be aware of their manoeuvring. Ludmila betrayed no sign of her noticing them, using the opportunity to gain an understanding of the other party.

The Demihumans were supposedly refugees who had been granted sanctuary in the Sorcerous Kingdom, but they were wary. Being surrounded by Undead patrols may have contributed a bit to that. Many held makeshift weapons – mostly clubs, quarterstaves and improvised spears – while those who appeared to be mystics looked like they were readying their spells. If they weren’t in their present situation, she was fairly certain that they were the type to deal with intruders swiftly and decisively.

A single thing stood out to her above everything else, however, and that was the fact that she had seen this race once before. They were the same type of Pig Beastman that had been driven over the ancient pass by the ‘Evil Star’. She later found that the powerful Fiend was the same Jaldabaoth that had gone to war with the Holy Kingdom of Roble with his tribal host drawn from the Abelion Hills.

“Stop where you are!” A male voice called out from in front of them, “Who are you? This is too soon for the next delivery of supplies.”

Shouldn’t it be ‘what are you here for’?

Ludmila glanced at Nonna, who was walking behind and to the left of her. Had she not come before this? Or did they have a hard time differentiating between various types of Undead?

Rustling in the brush preceded the appearance of Orcs all around them. Ludmila took one step forward.

“I am–”

“AAAAH!”

The shout of alarm was followed by general clamour as the Orcs reacted to Ludmila dropping her concealment. A rock flew through the trees to bounce off of her shoulder. She looked down at the spent missile with a frown.

It appeared that they didn’t have any hunters strong enough to detect her even in civilian garb. This was doubly strange since she had grown considerably weaker with her recent death, becoming not much stronger than she had been before she was deployed to the Draconic Kingdom. A Silver-ranked Ranger would have detected her without much effort.

Additionally, a Martial Art like Focus Battle Aura would have allowed the rock to bypass her damage reduction. The attack itself wasn’t strong enough to overcome the threshold of damage that it nullified. In the second or so that it took to analyse the brief series of events, she could only come to a single conclusion.

They were weak – about as weak as the civilian Beastmen that had migrated to the Draconic Kingdom. She examined a few of the others just to make sure, and her senses confirmed her initial assessment.

“I am Baroness Ludmila Zahradnik: your host.”

The male who called out to them peered at her, then Florine, then Nonna.

“You claim to be the Lord of this territory?”

The note of suspicion in his voice spoke volumes. Ludmila’s Ring of Nondetection prevented attempts at gathering information from her directly, and she had made no overt displays of strength. He didn’t believe that she was a ‘Human Lord’ because Lords were expected to be exceptionally strong specimens of one’s race and Ludmila appeared to be nothing more than a weak Human.

Lords being strong was a common perception in tribal societies, so it didn’t come as a surprise. However, the Orcs’ attitude towards her and Florine might serve as an indicator of how well the Orcs would get along with the generally weak Human citizens of the Sorcerous Kingdom.

“I do,” Ludmila replied.

The Orc exchanged a look with his fellows before taking a step forward himself.

“I am Dyel Gan Zu,” he said, “of the Gan Zu Tribe.”

His name almost sounded like three grunts strung together. The name of the tribe, however, felt familiar.

“The same Gan Zu Tribe led by Qrs Gan Zu?” She asked.

Dyel’s eyes widened in shock. Similarly-shocked voices rose from all around them. He came forward fast enough for most people to believe that they were being aggressively rushed, but Ludmila only stood and awaited his reaction.

“Where did you hear that name?!” He demanded, “Qrs Gan Zu is our Lord – my father!”

“I heard it from an Orc Lord who claimed to be Qrs Gan Zu,” Ludmila replied. “He was taller and far more massive than you are, and he wielded a war club.”

“That is the weapon he favoured,” Dyel said. “Where did you meet him? Under what circumstances?”

“He was bringing up the rear of several thousand other Orcs who were in turn being pursued over a mountain pass by Fiends. One that was referred to by another fleeing people who had arrived a few months previous as the ‘Evil Star’. I believe you may know him as ‘Jaldabaoth’.”

The voices from around them instantly hushed. Dyel seemed to shrink at the mention of the Fiend’s name. He took a step back, then another.

“So my father escaped that hell,” he said. “Escaped that hell and made it home to lead our tribe to safety.”

“He sounds like a good Lord,” Ludmila noted. “I can understand why you all reacted the way you did at the mention of his name.”

“What happened then?” Dyel asked, “Did the Sorcerer King drive Jaldabaoth away with his god-like powers?”

“No,” Ludmila shook her head. “It was the Royal Army that drove the Fiend away.”

Dyel’s gaze shifted to Nonna, then past her to the shadows of the forest beyond.

“I admit that the Undead warriors here are powerful,” Dyel said, “but they cannot be compared with Jaldabaoth’s might! ‘Evil Star’ is a name most apt for that Fiend, for he fell upon the annual gathering of the Abelion Hills’ greatest champions and they were as nothing to him. The mere sound of his voice could wrest away the free will of all who heard it. He referred to himself as ‘Demon Emperor’ – a being that stands even above the Demon Gods of Legend! To turn him away, one must be a god themselves.”

“Oh, my!” Florine’s shocked voice didn’t quite contain her mirth at Ludmila’s growing discomfort, “Which god led the Sorcerous Kingdom’s mighty host?”

?I’m going to do something to you later.?

Florine covered her mouth with her hand, shoulders shaking with barely-contained laughter. The Orcs leaned forward with anticipation discernible even through their bestial features, waiting to hear the name of the god who had repelled the scourge of the Holy Kingdom.

“…I make no claims to godhood,” Ludmila looked at a bush to the side, “but I did happen to drive Jaldabaoth away. Ah, but with a Rune–”

“Th-then my father,” Dyel’s voice grew hopeful at Ludmila’s admission. “What happened to him?”

“He attacked me after Jaldabaoth was driven away,” Ludmila said. “I encountered him at the top of a mountain pass.”

Dyel powerlessly slumped to the ground. Cries of dismay sounded from the growing audience.

“But his weapon was destroyed in the opening exchange,” she quickly added. “We were able to detain him and many of your people who were fleeing from the Fiends.”

The atmosphere around her instantly turned around. Dyel’s hopeful – at least she thought it should be a hopeful expression – returned. Ludmila turned to Nonna.

“Nonna,” she said, “can you find out where the Orcs that we captured last year went?”

“It will be done,” the Elder Lich replied.

Nonna raised a bony hand to the side of her skull. Ludmila scanned the elated Orcs around her. At least something positive had come out of that entire debacle.