Valkyrie's Shadow

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 4, Chapter 4

The Tiger and the Dragon: Act 4, Chapter 4

Chapter 4

11th Day, Upper Wind Month, 1 CE, 1600 Hours

?Okay, now I’m starting to feel sorry for these guys.?

After reassuring Lady Delerose for the third time that the distribution of goods wouldn’t present them with any insurmountable challenges, Liane and Florine escaped before the palace staff realised that they would be dealing with Merchants for the next ninety-six hours straight or however long it would take for them to collapse from exhaustion.

They didn’t return to the palace, however. Instead, they walked up the street, turned the corner, used their Invisibility cloaks and returned to watch how things would play out from atop a nearby section of the wall. The way everything was going, however, the palace staff would face total annihilation by nightfall, which was only about four hours away.

“Y-you over there!” A terse voice rose from the street below, “Your men are supposed to be over here, not there!”

“Wait!” A Maid called out, “You’ve gone too far! Park over here!”

“Why are you unloading that one?” A footman said, “This one! This one!”

While the voices of the palace staff suggested a scene of utter chaos, things were as orderly as could be expected. This wasn’t because the Nobles were holding things together with their frantic instructions, but because the Merchants and labourers that they were attempting to order around were ignoring them as usual.

?Didn’t their parents ever tell them to just shut up and let people do their damn jobs? We didn’t say to do anything like this, did we??

?We didn’t.?

?Was there something dumb in the procedures we wrote out for them??

?No.?

According to the plan they had come up with, Merchants would enter and make their purchases at the office. Invoices would be drawn up and a form for their order issued. The cargo containers were basically miniature warehouses and they had been organised in such a way that the Merchants and their staff would understand how things worked at a glance. Once they were done loading their purchases, the wagons would be rolled out the back gate.

All the palace staff had to do was take each Merchant’s orders, make sure they didn’t make off with more than they had paid for and keep any potential altercations from escalating into violence. The Merchants knew how to do the rest. It was so simple that Liane thought it impossible to screw up. Apparently not.

?Y’know, all this is doing is making them look both impotent and incompetent. If they had just shut up and let the Merchants do their thing, they would’ve earned a bit of respect.?

?That’s easy for us to say, but…?

?How hard is it to understand that guys that’ve been handling cargo for longer than they’ve been alive know how to do their job better than them? I don’t loom over the shoulders of my craftsmen telling them how to carve out wagon axles. Do these jerks stand out in their territories all day telling their tenants how to plough the fields and chop down trees??

Florine raised an eyebrow at Liane as she fumed. Her friend was always so soft and fluffy; possessed of a reserve of patience that was probably larger than the rest of them combined.

?…probably not. It’s more an issue of control, isn’t it? The palace staff feel that they have to be on top of everything so they’re unnecessarily trying to assert their authority. It doesn’t help that the Merchants and Nobles in the Draconic Kingdom appear to have some sort of rivalry. Just seeing the Merchants doing their own thing probably drives the Nobles crazy.?

?Yeah, well, the Merchants are doing it right and the Nobles are doing it dumb. Are we gonna have to deal with this everywhere we go??

?The Queen might have a way to settle them down. As for the other cities, it may not be a problem at all.?

?Hmm…come to think of it, the reports from Blighthold should be in by now. Let’s check out how things are going up there.?

Their Shadow Demons flew them across the palace quarter, dropping them off on top of the northwestern tower of the royal palace. They deactivated their cloaks and made their way down the stairs. To Liane’s surprise, Ludmila’s general staff was gone. In their place were three Vampire Brides, who were seated around a table enjoying a cup of blood together.

“Oh yeah,” Liane said, “the general staff was moving today.”

“Lady Wagner,” the Vampire Brides rose from their seats and lowered their heads respectfully. “Lady Gagnier. Good evening.”

“You aren’t going to join the others wherever they went?” Liane asked.

“Those are the Royal Army’s accommodations,” the closest Vampire Bride said. “We’ve claimed this tower for the postal service. As far as Human structures go, it’s quite cosy.”

Undead were slowly spreading into the royal palace, but they were guests rather than invaders. If envoys from other places came to the capital, they would be in for a shock.

“The postal service…does that mean Frost Dragons will be landing here?”

“It depends on the demand for air freight,” the Vampire Bride replied. “Shadow Demons have been delivering parcels directly to your state room, but they’ll be processed here now.”

“That means we can send stuff back, too, right?”

“Of course. Since the air route only uses one Shadow Demon for the time being, heavy loads will have to be sent back by ship. No living cargo, please.”

“I see. Well, there isn’t much to send from here so I guess you’ll be pretty bored for a while. What’ve you been doing to pass the time?”

“Not much, to be honest. We’ll have plenty to do once we start work on the exclave, but, for now, we’re doing what little planning we can and visiting with the other people from the Sorcerous Kingdom.”

“It’s too bad you can’t go around the city yet…has anyone tried flirting with any of you?”

?Oh gods, Liane, are you trying to gloat over the Vampire Brides??

“We get some looks in the hallways,” the Vampire Bride said, “but the palace staff keep their distance. What are the laws concerning bloodletting here?”

“Uh, I don’t think they have any. Don’t go around nibbling on people just yet.”

Liane and Florine left the tower, stepping out into the orange glow of sunset. Down the hallway, a Death Knight was standing at the door across from their state room, so she figured it was where Ludmila’s general staff was being housed. The state room’s hall had already been converted into a war room and both of the Linum sisters were standing at the central table with several Elder Liches.

“Good evening, Lady Wagner; Lady Gagnier.”

“Heya,” Liane replied, then glanced over the Elder Liches around the table. “Where’d your babies go?”

“They’re in the solar with Rose and Tierre,” Wiluvien said. “The reception area of this state room has been converted for the Royal Army’s use. The solar and other living areas serve as quarters for the general staff.”

?You’re not going.?

?Aw, but I wanna see the babies.?

?We have work to do.?

Liane narrowed her eyes, pouting at Florine.

“How’s the war going?” Florine asked, “Anything for us to look at?”

“Yes, my lady,” Lluluvien said as Wiluvien went over to a nearby shelf. “Blighthold was secured before dawn today.”

Liane stepped up to the table, examining the changes on the map. Most of the Beastman forces north of Blighthold had disappeared, leaving a scattering of markers oriented in a southeasterly direction. The Undead army had crossed into the cultivated lands of the Draconic Kingdom, but they weren’t going very fast. Two ‘wings’ stretched out from the main force along the coast and the northwestern border.

“Guess the first battle only lasted a night,” Liane said. “But it looks like you have plenty more to deal with.”

Across the Seylan River, Beastman markers filled the countryside. The clanhold across the ford from Blighthold had vanished and several tribes appeared to be moving away from where it formerly was. Liane crossed her arms, raising a hand to her chin.

“So this is the strategy in action, huh…”

“It’s just the beginning,” Lluluvien said. “We’re doing more watching than chasing for now. There’s still a lot to learn about how they behave and what their limits are.”

“How are the Humans in the province acting?”

“So far, my lady, their reactions have mostly been as we’ve hoped. The presence of the Beastmen causes them to go into hiding. This makes it difficult for the Beastmen to hunt Humans since the Beastmen are trying to run from the Undead at the same time. We haven’t observed any cases of Humans being convinced to join the Beastmen against the Undead, but we’re worried that this may change once the next clan begins to organise itself against our advance.”

That would be quite the problem, but Liane wasn’t so sure that it could happen in their present situation. It didn’t seem likely that Humans would collaborate when they knew they could be eaten at any point.

Wiluvien returned to the table with a nondescript set of brown folders, placing them in front of Liane and Florine.

“My ladies, this is the information we’ve been able to collect so far about the condition of Blighthold and its nearby territories. Most of it is from the reconnaissance reports of the Royal Army. Some of it is from Miss Marchand. The rest is from what remains of the local…leadership.”

Florine reached out and picked up one of the folders. Liane leaned over to read with her. Going through everything took roughly an hour. What they found within left them with mixed feelings.

“Has Clara seen any of this yet?” Florine asked.

“Lady Corelyn has been studying in the palace archives since the audience this morning,” Wiluvien answered. “The Queen and the palace staff have been busy for most of the day, so the negotiations remain at the point that you’ve left them.”

“This is a kinda weird position to be in,” Liane said. “It’s not as bad as we thought it’d be, but it’s still annoying.”

Broadly speaking, Blighthold was ‘fine’. The details of ‘fine’, however, were decidedly strange.

According to the accounts of the citizens and what the Royal Army had observed, one’s survival hinged on their profession. The arrival of the Beastmen in the province exacted a tremendous toll on the population, but, after the initial slaughter, certain patterns had established themselves.

“More like horrifying,” Florine frowned. “They’re farming Humans!”

“Is it farming Humans or ranching Humans? They’re kinda free-range.”

Florine levelled a look at her. It was to be expected that she wouldn’t take anything the Beastmen did well.

The ‘farms’ that the Beastmen had set up usurped the usual agrarian organisation of provincial territories, turning rural villages into a self-managing and self-sustaining food supply. It was a dark and twisted – though understandable – version of how things were normally done under Human rule.

Those in primary industries enjoyed the highest survival rates. People that worked in food processing and distribution were similarly ‘safe’. Life sucked for everyone else, as they were an unproductive – according to the Beastmen – drain on resources and the most likely to be eaten.

If one extrapolated Beastman rule into the far future, it would be a land filled with Human slaves who produced food to feed both themselves and their masters. The former citizens’ sole purpose in life would be to maintain that status quo. On the plus side, there were no taxes.

“If Humans were doing all that work,” Liane asked, “what did the Beastmen plan on doing?”

“That is something we’ve been trying to puzzle out for the past few days,” Wiluvien said. “We know that they have vocations and social structures that seem analogous to our own, but the specifics are still unknown. There is a mountain of materials collected from their camps: Lady Zahradnik was wondering if you could take a look at them once you found the time.”

“I can do that,” Florine said. “There must be more to these Beastmen than enslaving and eating people.”

“Can we take this stuff with us?” Liane gestured to the folders on the table.

“Yes, they’re duplicates,” Wiluvien said. “Lady Zahradnik ensures that Queen Oriculus is regularly updated on our progress. “

Florine gathered the folders on the table, placing them into her Infinite Haversack.

“Is there anything we shouldn’t say?” She asked.

“My lady has been completely transparent and candid with the Queen thus far,” Wiluvien replied. “Just with the Queen, however. She’s been reserved around her courtiers and the rest of the palace staff for some reason.”

There were any number of reasons Ludmila might do that. One of them was that she was very wary of ‘civilian’ Nobles due to her past experiences. She knew that she couldn’t match them when it came to intrigue and court politics and she wasn’t very fond of how they made things – in her words – ‘unnecessarily convoluted’.

This didn’t mean that she distrusted the Draconic Kingdom’s nobility for explicit reasons, nor did it mean that she behaved in an antagonistic manner towards them. What it generally did mean was that the steadfast Frontier Noble instead chose to remain closed to all but the select few who had earned her trust. Rather than exposing any vulnerabilities or falling into various traps, she let her friends deal with the things they were good at.

While that was all well and good, it also meant that Ludmila collected little in the way of impressions and information that they could use beyond what her areas of expertise covered. The notable takeaway was that Queen Oriculus had somehow earned Ludmila’s trust or at least her respect.

Then again, Ludmila might have just chosen to be straightforward with the Queen because she believed that the Queen had a right to know what was going on in her own country. Given Queen Oriculus’ apparent capabilities, however, Liane doubted that it was as simple as that.

“I guess we’ll bring this over to Clara and see what she thinks,” Liane said. “There are some things in here that she might not agree with…”

Liane and Florine left the war room, heading to the southwestern annexe of the royal palace. Fortunately for the archives, the Beastmen saw little value in its content and the place was left relatively untouched. They walked down a long aisle of bookshelves until they reached a lounge area where Clara was curled up on a leather couch with a large tome in her hands. Towering stacks of reading materials were piled on the table nearby.

Liane plopped herself down at the end of the couch, pinching one of Clara’s toes and wiggling it around.

“Whatcha readin’?”

“Records of the previous occupation of Phelegia and the processes employed in the recovery of the city and surrounding lands.”

“That’s very Clara-ish,” Florine said. “What did you find out?”

“That the Draconic Kingdom is very different from Re-Estize or the Empire,” Clara said. “It should be obvious since the circumstances of this country are extraordinarily different, but the how and why of everything were beyond my imagination.”

Liane tilted her head sideways, trying to read the spine of the tome propped up on Clara’s knees. It was just a number.

“You’ve gone through eight volumes of this stuff?”

“Yes, I’m compiling notes and sending them to Lady Albedo to study, as well. I don’t think we can go much further than we already have until we have a good grasp of what this country actually is.”

“Much further as in expanding our operations to the other cities?” Liane asked, “Or some other thing.”

“Some other thing,” Clara answered. “The points of contact between our country and theirs are currently limited to commerce, basic diplomacy and security forces that can be summed up as ‘brute force’. If we’re to deepen our relationship with the Draconic Kingdom…well, that’s more Florine and Ludmila’s area of expertise. We’ll just have to keep doing what we’re doing until we come up with some better way of getting across to them.”

Clara gestured to the towers on the table.

“You two should take a look – you’ll see what I mean before long.”

“Before we immerse ourselves in that,” Florine produced the folders from the war room, “we have a report to deliver to the Queen. We’ll include all the raw data, but I’m sure she’d appreciate a summary before we dump everything on her.”

They moved over to sit around a nearby table. Taiya came out from one of the aisles, peeking at them over the stack of books in her hands.

“Shall I retrieve some refreshments, my lady?”

“This is our chance to catch up with all this eating we’ve been doing,” Liane said, “so let’s not.”

Taiya went to add her pile of books to the ones near the couch before coming back to stand attentively near Clara’s shoulder. Clara flipped through the folders, her eyes scanning back and forth over the pages.

“This Nedim Belik person,” her brow furrowed. “What is he?”

“Should be some sort of shadowy underworld boss?”

“But they appear to have taken control of Blighthold…”

“Well,” Liane counted off her fingers, “if the city administration is eaten, the military is eaten, the Nobles are eaten and the Guildmasters are eaten, it makes sense that whoever is left with a lot of influence ends up in charge, yeah?”

Liane’s eyes slid over to Florine.

?Whaddya think Clara’s gonna do??

Florine looked back at her.

?What do you think she’s going to do??

?Dunno, run over and chop off all of their heads??

?That’s silly. She has no right to do that. Not that she would without ample justification.?

“Well,” Clara set down the folder and moved on to the next, “if Ludmila gave them a pass for now…it looks like she wants to recruit them, as well.”

“You’re…you’re okay with that?” Liane asked.

“This isn’t our country,” Clara told her. “If what I’ve learned about the Draconic Kingdom’s laws is correct, this report does not indicate any activities that would be considered criminal in the Draconic Kingdom aside from the fact that they’ve taken control of the city. However, there are no precedents for the entire administrative establishment collapsing, even in occupations of cities in the past. It would be up to Queen Oriculus and her court to decide what to do about it.”

“But if the administration is nonexistent,” Liane said, “how can regulations and legislation be enforced? The militia they’ve scrounged up for the capital wouldn’t normally qualify for positions as officials, so I doubt the other cities will have fared any better.”

“We’ll just have to see what the Royal Court here comes up with,” Clara said. “Ludmila might have some conditional powers when it comes to our military operations here, but we have no right or authority to broadly impose in their domestic affairs. All we can do is keep doing what we’re doing and offer our assistance where we can.”

Even if they were asked for help, their hands were mostly tied. In an effort to ensure that the Undead servitors working in the Draconic Kingdom couldn’t be misused or implicated in attempts to sully the image of the Sorcerous Kingdom, strict lines had been drawn as to what they could and couldn’t do.

These measures were refined from the preexisting ones, using the experiences of the Death-series servitors leased out by the Baharuth Empire. While nothing eventful had occurred in their regular service thus far, the way that they were deployed illustrated the fears of the Empire’s civilian administration and its general populace. The Undead needed to be as far away as possible from realising those fears, as even accidents could incite undesirable reactions. This was especially true for prospective clients.

Marketing the Undead was a monumental challenge and promoting the Sorcerous Kingdom was just as difficult. They had a bad image by default and proving that it was undeserved in a world where people were a thousand times more likely to assume the worst of them made it next to impossible without some extraordinary event necessitating their intervention.

Clara’s approach put forward the idea that they could preempt the bad image by striking out and establishing a good one first. Through its representatives, the Sorcerous Kingdom would be able to put its best foot forward, presenting its positive aspects and the benefits of a relationship between it and prospective partners. The first steps would be entirely through trade with bits of cultural exchange mixed in. Diplomatic overtures would be made when they were considered viable and relevant.

They wouldn’t hide the fact that Undead beings dwelled in the Sorcerous Kingdom, nor that the Sorcerer King was one of them. Everything else would simply be the focus of attention. It was akin to slowly breaking in a horse, though Clara despised that analogy – especially when Liane asked when they would throw on the tack.

The Draconic Kingdom was the ideal place to test Clara’s methods: they were easy to access by water and would likely be open to strengthening their economy through trade. The ongoing challenges they were experiencing with their Beastman neighbours predisposed them to consider cheap and effective security options.

It was a process that was supposed to take years, but recent events had turned it into ‘now’. Everything had to be done immediately and they had to somehow manage a favourable outcome that would facilitate a beneficial, long-term relationship. For the time being, they appeared to have seized the initiative, but they couldn’t be sure what would happen once the Draconic Kingdom regained their footing.

“That’s true,” Liane said, “but, at the same time, I can’t help but think we’re giving up too much.”

“It might seem that way,” Florine said, “but I don’t think that's actually the case. Those who frame things in petty ways would think that, but you should be well aware of our objective here. The Draconic Kingdom must become a voice in favour of the Sorcerous Kingdom. That voice must be its own – they can’t be a mouthpiece for us, nor seen to be coerced into cooperation.”

“Being entirely dependent on us for survival probably screws with the idea that they’re some sort of ‘independent’ voice.”

“That’s something we’ll have to work on,” Clara told her. “No one expects that everything will go perfectly – especially with things as they are right now. What do you two think about Miss Marchand’s reports?”

Liane put her elbows on the table, cupping her chin in her hands.

“What’s there to think about? The Merchant Guild is an international organisation. They’ll go back to normal before long.”

“The question was more about how that will happen,” Clara said. “Think about all the accounts and records just sitting there and all of the potential avenues for abuse. We need to get staff from the capital to Blighthold so they can prevent things from falling apart even further.”

“At least the Beastmen ran off with their vault,” Liane smirked. “Gods know how many fingers would be pointed in every direction if it vanished in the city instead.”

“Only you could be thankful that other people got robbed,” Florine peered at her.

“But it’s true! Imagine if the Beastmen just left valuables lying around to be taken – it’d be a crazy mess. The Beastmen would just have to wait under the city walls for backstabbed meals to get tossed over.”

“The same could be said for people hoarding food,” Clara noted. “It would be even worse in their case. I think Queen Oriculus’ influence over her people is the true cause for public order being maintained even when everything is falling apart.”

“So you think she’s actually affecting the whole country?”

“It would be difficult to explain what’s going on otherwise. People will naturally rally together in extraordinary circumstances, but it takes something else entirely to sustain that sort of behaviour over the long term. It’s all too easy for the fabric of society to fray and unravel when a bad situation lasts for months and years.”

They all had a good taste of that back in Fassett County, but was it possible for a ruler to have that much influence over their people? Liane and her friends all had an effect on their subjects, but she didn’t think they would be able to hold things together under such adverse conditions. Well, maybe Ludmila would, but she was born and raised for that.

“Alright,” Liane said, “maybe we just sucked before, but why didn’t we see something like this in the Empire? That Bloody Emperor is supposed to be some supergenius prodigy, isn’t he?”

“But we did see it there,” Florine said.

Liane and Clara turned their heads to look at Florine, who was seated across the table.

“…where?” Liane asked.

“Um, everywhere? It just wasn’t as obvious since things are close to our culture’s version of ‘normal’ there. There are so many little horrible things happening in the Empire, but the citizens’ awareness just sort of slides right past it. In the Empire, everyone looks ‘up’ towards some vision that the imperial establishment has painted for them. They’re blind to the fact that they’re wading through all sorts of muck while they do so. Even if they see it happening right in front of them, there’s always some justification or excuse that they feel absolves them of any guilt or shame. They’re all just chasing after this dream of an ‘imperial future’.”

“I sorta get what you’re saying,” Liane said, “but, at the same time, I think people’d say that’s just how Humans normally are.”

“Hmm, how do I put it…”

Florine leaned back over her chair, stretching out her legs and staring at the stained-glass skylights of the royal archive.

“People can be like that if left to their own devices, but there’s something else nudging it along. Or maybe acting like a sort of ‘social current’ or ‘glue’. It’s like a more subtle version of that ‘Commander Syndrome’ that Ludmila described. You know, the one where soldiers won’t break unless their Commander breaks or the circumstances are so extraordinarily overwhelming that it shatters the effect. Anyway, there’s a sort of structure to that which also appears in normal life.”

Her hands came up, tracing a wide circle in the air.

“We do that too,” she said. “At least, we can. Out of the four of us, Ludmila does it the most. Maybe it’s because she’s a martial Noble with a very clear-cut way of ordering the world, but it’s also instinctive to her. She probably doesn’t know she’s doing it, but, when we visited Warden’s Vale, it was like bam – in your head, you instantly think ‘ah, this is Ludmila’s demesne’. Everything has structure and order and her subjects operate according to that order and structure in ways that make you think ‘ah, these are Ludmila’s people’.”

“That did come across very strongly,” Clara nodded, “but, hmm…the way everything is organised in Ludmila’s demesne is strongly influenced by the tenets of our faith. Her subjects are all part of the faithful, so you could say that they’re just operating according to our dogma. My people are like that as well, except the ‘flavour’ is different, I suppose.”

“It doesn’t necessarily have to be one thing or the other,” Florine said, “In fact, one thing reinforces another. Religion plays a key role in society, serving to guide and reinforce culture. You and Ludmila always talk about how there are lessons in your scriptures that you didn’t realise were there until recently. The ‘whole’ that your tenets combine into may be another one of those lessons.”

?Y’know, people always talk about how docile you are, but now you’re using religion as leverage in dealing with a zealot.?

?Why do you always have to…it’s not the religious part, it’s the practical side that I’m trying to apply.?

“So,” Clara said, “you’re saying that a Lord-class individual’s influence can be purposely directed to achieve broad ends within their following.”

“That’s right,” Florine said. “If we take everything we’ve seen of Lord-class individuals and try to fit them into ‘templates’, we can identify the established framework in every case and what the results are. Ludmila talks about how Skills and Abilities need to be developed and ‘activated’ in some way. This Ability is a ‘passive’ one that sort of brings that framework to life. In every case, there is an overall ‘image’ that comes with each Lord and their territory.”

“Then in Ludmila’s case, it’s the way she’s structured her demesne and its operations, which is reinforced by the tenets of our faith?”

“There’s probably more to it that we haven’t grasped,” Florine replied, “but something like that, yes. In the Empire, it’s the product of all the imperial institutions and propaganda coming together to fashion the image of a future where the Empire stands tall over its neighbours as a secure, prosperous and advanced nation. The most unsettling part is that it doesn’t have to be on purpose.”

Liane furrowed her brow, eyeing the streams of evening light that alternated with the shadows from the bookshelves.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that Lords and their people can get stuck in what they consider ‘normal’. Take Fassett County, for instance. The ‘normal’ there was horrible, yet it was constantly reinforced as ‘correct’. Generations went by and nothing got better – things just evolved according to the ‘character’ of the territory’s population.”

“We got a pretty good look at that place,” Liane said. “I thought we figured out the what and why of it.”

“We did,” Florine said, “but just like religion and order are used in Ludmila’s demesne, the ‘institutions’ that were entrenched in Fassett County could be seen as elements that reinforced the notions of ‘normal’ there. I know it’s difficult to prove, but I’m sure there’s something to it…”

“There might be,” Clara admitted. “Just like so many things that we’ve always considered ‘normal’ or ‘common’ sense, this might be one of them too. When did you start structuring your thoughts on this, Florine?”

“Yesterday? That probably sounds ridiculous, but after seeing what was going on in the Draconic Kingdom, I couldn’t help but think about it.”

“It’s not,” Clara said. “Anomalies that challenge our understanding of the world lead to new knowledge, after all. Queen Oriculus’ influence over her subjects was jarring enough to cause you to consider everything you knew that might be related to what might be going on.”

“So what’s the ‘framework’ that she uses, exactly?” Liane asked.

“‘At the centre of everything lies our Queen’.”

“Huh?”

“That’s what Lord Zoren said yesterday,” Florine straightened in her chair. “It’s literally that. Every city in every province is under her direct control. Every institution: the ministries, the military, the guilds; the entire aristocracy answers directly to her or at least close to it. She is above everything – even their conflicts and petty squabbles. We see her as a respectable sovereign, but her people absolutely adore her. She’s an idol to them: the very personification of the Draconic Kingdom. Without her, it can’t even be the Draconic Kingdom.”

Well, it’s a good thing we figured that out. Probably.

“So, uh…fanatics?” Liane asked, “They borderline worship her. Even royalists aren’t that crazy.”

“Sure,” Florine answered. “I’m not sure if there’s a better word for it. The takeaway is that we’re going to have to be very careful about how we deal with the Draconic Kingdom when it comes to its relationship with Queen Oriculus.”

“But we have no idea what’s gonna piss ‘em off.”

“I know,” Florine said. “But developing an understanding of those we deal with is a part of diplomacy. At least it’s something that we can still wrap our heads around – I’m sure there will be plenty of stranger things out there in the world.”