Elder Guanji, the most powerful individual in Volun, was unable to stop the destruction of Vormire Dungeon because he was forced to defend his charge. Leaving Volun while the Marryvalian scum festered in their keep would have been tantamount to murdering Ellisandra.
If a rival faction sends a tier 7 envoy, then their intent is clear: Show weakness, and you will die. It was a fact that had torn Guanji's heart in two, as he stood idly by and watched the dungeon collapse with his dear disciple inside. Vormire was an extremely high-income venture for the city, and its loss would cost the local economy dearly.
Only once the Marryvalians had left was Guanji able to blitz to Vormire, and finally dig through kilotons of rubble to find his disciple. Gareth was alive; there had never been any doubt about that, but his exact location had stumped the searchers for cycles. Everyone expected a lowly tier 1 to be on the first few floors. The fact that he had not just been on the sixth floor, but somehow managed to find himself in the dungeon's core room, had raised questions from people that Guanji could not brush off.
Prince Richard Shadow, it turns out, had been undercover, posing as one of the one hundred elites sent from Avrrest to reinforce the city against 'an unusual amount of Demonic and Darkling attacks'. The Vormire disaster caught his direct attention, and forced him to break his cover only to Guanji, who was then forced to tell him the truth about Gareth. Richard Shadow then fully blew his cover and acted as a royal representative to help manage the disaster.
Volun is a border marquee where imperial nobles send their best and brightest to train. Vormire used to be a honing blade to Volun's forge, taking freshly trained recruits and putting them through their paces. The dungeon itself had only contained about sixty people before its collapse. Yet, hundreds had called Vormire fortress home. The death count was...incalculable. Where once had been a thriving little fortress town, a rubble-filled sinkhole spanning ten miles now lay. Families of the lost, nobles mostly, scoured ceaselessly for the first few cycles, all the while baying for blood - for someone to blame.
Ten people saw Gareth being pulled from the deepest, most protected room in the Dungeon: Richard Shadow, High Prince and heir apparent to the Yun Cheng Empire. A mining demolition expert by the name of Junlun, to safely pick apart the rubble. Doctor Yondel Figg, a preeminent scientist, a genius biologist, and a miraculous healer. The three City Guard representatives, Commanders Mayne, Jock, and Sterling. The two heads of the Adventurers Guild, Pietrov Andaleer and Dimitri Chekov. Last, but never least, Gareth's two guardians and mentors...Guanji and Oliver.
Guanji immediately cloaked Gareth, managing to keep Gareth's identity concealed from everyone except Richard and Dr Figg. The latter immediately took charge of his care, green waves of pure healing magic pulsing from her hands and through his critically damaged body. By all accounts, he should have been dead, a fact that drew an uncomfortable amount of attention from his treating physician.
When Guanji tried to quietly abscond with the healing corpse, Figg stopped him dead by claiming the need to treat her patient personally. She was a leading scientist in the empire and a professor with tenure at the academy, never mind her tier 7 status; he couldn't afford to brush her off.
Under her directions, they safely moved Gareth to the local hospital, where he was immediately operated upon.
-
Normally, Gareth would have recovered from such wounds in a matter of weeks, but because Bastian siphoned so much vitality from him, it took him more than three weeks to regain consciousness.
When he awoke, he found himself somewhat…changed. It was like a new sense had opened in his hearing as, through the walls of the hospital, he started hearing faint whispers brushing against his ears, "Must survive...Ellie, Ellie...Leaves, need more leaves...Rebecca, heal Rebecca...Make Da proud...Fix it, gotta fix it..." on and on the whispers came, each seemingly taking a turn to whisper into his ears. Coupled with each whisper, he felt a faint pull in a specific direction, the direction of the thing they wanted most.
It was disorienting, but he was surprised to note that the whispers didn't unnerve him. He instinctively knew that these were the hopes, the dreams, the fears and everything in between of the people in the surrounding rooms. A sense of sonder bludgeoned Gareth. It was one thing to know other people were living their own lives, with their own wants and desires, but to hear those very dreams sent an invasive shiver down his spine. It was a huge invasion of privacy. If he had known these people on a personal level, he would have felt compelled to help them achieve those wants and desires. He neither wanted that responsibility nor the burden of such an intimate secret.
A blinking icon in the corner of his vision drew his attention, and he frantically opened the notification.
“What the hell is going on?” Gareth whispered to himself, 90% sure that he was tripping on shrooms.
Congratulations! You have successfully levelled Pact magic to Level 1
Trait:
- Whispers of the Will: Sense the True Motivations of those at your pact magic level and below.
Ability:
- Bind the tongue: At the cost of accumulated Fae karma (Minimum cost of 500pts Karma), you are able to enforce verbal contracts. If any party were to break their pact, they would take damage equal to the amount of karmic energy paid (minimum 500pts of soul damage) when the deal was struck.
Current Karma: 2 pts negative karma.
He was currently alone in the room. The hospital bed he was resting on was not as comfortable as the one he had at home, and the air smelled of healing herbs - which is to say it smelled unnervingly clinical. He hated hospitals. He hated doctors.
He immediately checked if there were windows in the room to escape through, and was relieved to see a large black-out curtain covering an equally large window through which he could jump if need be. Unfortunately, jumping didn't seem to be on the table in his immediate future, as he had a thick gypsum cast around his right leg and arm. His left was bandaged to near-inoperability, and each time he took a breath, he could feel some bones shifting in his chest. He was bedridden.
His chest was covered in tightly wrapped bandages, so he couldn't look at where a shattered core now rested in his dantian. He didn't see Perrywinkle, so he assumed that the worst had come to pass and she was dead. The core in his chest was unresponsive and sent shocks of stabbing pain through him each time he prodded it with his essence. He was fine and was being treated, he knew that on a conscious level, but a very real subconscious part of him had developed a deep phobia for hospitals, and doctors specifically. The medics at the healing tents of the arena were one thing, but an honest-to-god hospital? Hospitals charge exorbitant medical fees that cripple you financially for the next twenty years. Doctors are the executors of that debt, seeing how much extra they can put on top to secure their comfey holidays. This was a new world, with new opportunities and new dangers; he refused to be saddled with that debt; he refused to be tested upon; and he refused to be complicit in a system meant to begar people in need.
His left leg still worked, and he'd dealt with pain before, so he was determined to make his escape. He pinched the plain white hospital bed blanket in his crab claw-like bandaged left hand and threw the covers to the other side. He tensed his core to lift his uninjured left leg, which sent stabbing pain through his broken ribs and torn abdominal muscles. He pushed through the pain and managed to place his foot on the ground. Sitting up was a different monster entirely, and he was in the process of painstakingly edging himself upwards when the door to his room suddenly slid open. He froze; the doctor froze... then the doctor's eyes narrowed.
Seeing that he was caught, Gareth threw pain to the wind and rolled out of bed and onto his good leg, or at least tried to roll. With a surge of light green mana, he was gently but firmly pressed back into the damning embrace of the bed.
"Where do you think you are going, young man? You are to lie in that bed and recover! What if you had torn the stitches in your chest? Or the ones in your arm? Let us not forget the fact that your ribs are still broken! If you had punctured a lung in your idiocy, then I would have had to fix it! Think!" She scolded him in rapid-fire imperial common, a language that Gareth was familiar with but not yet fluent. He therefore only got about 80% of the ensuing rapid-fire rant, which ended with the fiery doctor glaring at him, her hands on her hips, and her nose stuck imperiously into the air. "Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"
Tall, slender, light on her feet, and with cheekbones that could cut diamonds. Blonde, with a not-too-slender face, and large oval eyes of the deepest forest green. She had the pointed ears of the Kreppinfay and milk-pale skin characteristic of an indoor lifestyle. She was attractive in a distant way, her eyes holding a level of intelligence and detachment that showed her apathy towards anything non-intellectual.
When he refused to respond, she took two quick steps towards him, "Well? I'm listening?! Where are you heading that is so important as to undo all my hard work?"
"Getting a glass of water..." His dry throat rasped and lied.
"Hm!" she huffed and went to the door to poke her head outside, asking someone just beyond for a glass of water. Then she returned to her standing position at the foot of his bed to glare at Gareth. He decided to open his senses slightly, trying to gauge her cultivation level. Not only did her skin glow with an ethereal green glow, but deep fissures of vibrant green spider-webbed across her face and disappeared beyond the collar of her robe. It meant that she was a powerful Elemental Core cultivator; at least tier 5, maybe tier 6. He was also surprised to note a sweet, earthy coffee taste percolating through the air, so she was obviously a Spirit cultivator as well, though weaker than her elemental path.
She just stood there, glaring at him. His one leg still hung off the bed, and when he saw that she had no intention of leaving, he begrudgingly, painfully lifted his leg back into the bed. The glass of water soon arrived in the hands of a young male nurse, who said nothing and hurried out when he saw the thunderous look on the as-yet unnamed doctor's face.
Gareth took a few sips from the tepid tap water and placed the mostly full glass on the stand beside the bed.
"Oh-I-see you were positively dying of thirst." Her words cracked through the air like a whip, then she finally let out a deep sigh through her nose and looked toward the heavens for patience. "I am Doctor Yondel Figg, your attending physician, and I am not leaving this room without some answers. What could have possibly possessed you to shove a broken dungeon core into your chest?"
Gareth didn't like being threatened. He didn't like being interrogated about his personal life. He especially didn't like being threatened and interrogated by doctors of all things. So he remained silent, his face giving nothing away, his blank blue eyes unflinchingly locked on her deep forest green orbs.
"I see..." she said at last, and huffed to herself, "I cannot force you to reveal the truth, but it is in your best interests to answer me because that core is actively killing you, draining your life away to try and fix itself. Every time we tried to remove it, your body would go into shock, indicating a dependency. If you don't tell me how you got that thing in your chest, we cannot remove it, and it will kill you."
Gareth dropped his eyes in thought, though not in surprise. He had seen the notification that Bastian was draining his life essence to heal himself. Considering that he had infinite life essence, he knew that he wouldn't die and that there was nothing to worry about. She didn't know that. She thought it was actively killing him. He couldn't correct her because she was a doctor, and he wouldn't trust her as far as he could throw her.
"I would like to speak with Elder Guanji." His throat rasped painfully.
"Hmf! Very well. Have it your way." She snarled slightly and left the room, though at no point had Gareth felt any hostility from the woman. While she was a spitfire, she at least didn't seem to want to hurt him.
Doktor Yondel Figg, a trusted member of the Volun elite, examined him and could not believe her findings. A horrifically cracked, but whole, dungeon core lay shattered, but mending, in his dantian. She reported, quite shakily, that it was leaking pure, refined mana into his meridians; pure mana, otherwise known as Qi. He could feel a connection to it, as if he could touch it, but she immediately forbade him for the same reason they hadn't cast any major healing spells on him: they didn't know what it would do. His body was in a fragile state, both magically and physically. The core was doing something to his body, and he was doing something to the core; neither Doctor Figg nor any of the professionals she consulted knew what that something was. All they could do was pump him full of vitamins, antibiotics, set his bones, bandage his wounds...and hope for the best while they conducted studies.
The word 'studies' had immediately set Gareth on edge, but he did acknowledge that he was in immense pain and needed treatment.
“It is evidently a Qi core; we have confirmed that much. But his physical and metaphysical physiology is just too fragile at the moment to conduct further testing.” Doctor Figg said and locked worried eyes with Gareth’s own. "Eyes are the windows to the soul, and your eyes are changing."
Gareth looked at his reflection through the hand mirror he'd been given, and was forced to agree. His sclera had become white as snow, absent any minor vein or red blemish. His iris, while keeping its pale blue colouration, now sported bright microscopic cerulean dots that seemed to make his eyes glow with potential. His lenses had lost that watery quality, now shining with the extreme lustre of a polished stone, his eyes like polished glass.
[Whispers of the Will] told him that Doctor Figg genuinely wanted to help him, but they also whispered of a hunger for knowledge that didn't allow him to trust her with his immortality secret fully. Therefore, the most she could do was recommend time. Time for Bastian’s shards to settle. Time for Gareth to heal.
Qi cultivation was extremely rare because it was so much easier to form an elemental core with mana from leaves and shells. Qi was the purest form of mana that could exist, removed of all elemental alignment - it was pure potential energy, waiting to be influenced. Highly reactive, the mana wanted to be joined with something, like an insistent toddler constantly reaching past its parent to the pack of sweets; the mana had to be carefully pried away from any external influence. Once separated, crafters could use crafting materials to enhance the potential of any item. Dragon scales increased the durability of any item, while crystals were a great conductor for Light attuned wands. Ingredients and materials formed the basis of every craft, and each craft could be enhanced through Qi cultivation and a crafter's Mastery tier.
This was why the most famous blacksmiths, builders, alchemists, and enchanters cultivated Qi. They could infuse their wants and desires into their creations, improving them beyond rational capability, and infuse any weapons with any element to bend the laws of reality.
The problem was that everyone involved knew it was a dungeon core, and not a Qi core. They didn't know what it meant. They didn't even know what a dungeon core was or could do, other than the fact that crushed dungeon core powder is a universally banned substance.
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Regardless, Gareth's meteoric rise in body cultivation slowed. His body was too strained to practice bladework or any martial art, nevermind cultivate. His mana network was being actively shaped and influenced by the introduction of a foreign core, so he couldn't even try to cast magic even if he wanted to. The core was doing something to his meridians, which hurt like a bitch, as if a creature with very sharp nails was painfully flaying the flesh deep inside his body. As if his entire body had been bathed in too much lactic acid, his muscles burned, cramped randomly, and every twitch sent a stab through his meridian system.
The only reason Gareth wasn't rejecting Bastian's core, like he had the Oni Brood mother's, was because it had been voluntary. In a world where souls, spirits, and intents had a physical effect on the world, consent mattered all the more. Lady Monokane had taken his consent when he had hit that Yes button. He had made his bed; now he had to lie in it. He'd opened that can of worms; now he had to eat it. He'd tied his own hangman's noose and was now dangling.
His meridians changed because of Bastian. Fact. Yet the how or what of the changes remained a mystery, even to Guanji. “In all the years that I have walked my Dao, I have never encountered anyone with a dungeon core as their own core. I can sense that it is scouring your meridians of impurities, which is to your favour, but it is leaving behind a substance that repels this one’s magical perception. The only comparison I can make, however loosely, is when we use spell scrolls to carve runescripts into meridians. Still, this technique is altogether different," his very wise master was forced to admit.
-
In the three months that followed, Gareth recovered enough to walk without crutches. He was allowed to walk, but any form of training was out the window. So he had more enjoyable dinners with Margrave and his family. Ivan’Tzar and his retinue would occasionally join them. When that happened, Gareth would play the role of servant to protect his identity as Protector. Ivan’Tzar proved to be a very respectable and polite guy, if a little rough around the edges. He was loud and boisterous, but listened more often than he spoke.
Gareth saw him in different settings as well, such as at the bicentennial ball or the Midnight battle against the Darklings. Each time he saw different aspects of the man: The enigmatic dancer who swept only Ellisandra around the dance floor. The warrior who would laughingly charge down Horde-beasts.
Gareth’s [Whisper of the Will] whispered in his ear that Ivan’Tzar’s motivations were to follow his father’s commands. The commands just so happened to be marrying Ellisandra. He had no real feelings for her…Yet. It was a political marriage, pure and simple. Ivan'Tzar couldn't care, while Ellisandra cared too much. She desired freedom above all, same as him, yet was anchored down by responsibility. A responsibility to her mother, her father, and her people. Her integrity would not allow her to shirk her responsibilities, regardless of her actual desires.
Ivan'Tzar, regardless, played the gentleman, for now, and while Gareth did tell Guanji and Ellisandra of the Poluski's motivations, the fact that he knew someone’s motivations opened a much larger can of worms. Though he managed to deflect that conversation to 'later'. Ivan’Tzar was honourable, as far as anyone could tell, and Ellisandra gave the all clear to marry him that coming Dawn.
Other than boy drama, he learned that being a Protector was an extremely covert profession, a lot like a spy, and felt he enjoyed it. He didn't have to make conversation with diplomats or curry favour. All he had to do was keep an eye on the guests at the events Ellisandra went to. Read some motivations, but other than some reputational damage, of which he had warned Ellisandra, no one had any overtly hostile intentions towards his charge. So, he spent that time learning.
At balls, auctions, and arena matches, he served drinks or acted as a servant. Though he never left his charge alone with non-family members. His constant presence would eventually be noticed, but for now, his cover was intact.
It would also be unfair to say that the family put him to work immediately, and that work ‘became his life’. After three weeks of bed rest, boredom was driving Gareth insane.
He wasn't allowed to cultivate, he didn't have movies or music to distract him, and he could only read so many books before wanting to get out. The healers, therefore, gave him a floating wheelchair, which Gareth totally didn't joyride up and down the hospital hallways.
Oliver's squire, a young, unlanded Lord Dontè, would take him to see arena matches every week. It was mandatory to prove that you were too injured to fight, and so not drop in arena ranking. It was also a chance to scout out the competition. Gareth realised very quickly that the easy times he’d had with his fights so far had been flukes. Some of the top tier 1s had a weapon slapped into their hands since they could walk, and you could tell. They seemed to dance around their enemies with expert, calculated movements, as if they could see what move their opponent would make before they could even think of it. Three steps ahead at all times. Gareth realised he had a lot of catching up to do.
Being forbidden from walking around was extremely frustrating to Gareth because it forced long periods of just sitting…and thinking. *Shudder* Gareth was suppressing some serious trauma, and sitting still for long periods of time forced that trauma to come to the fore, so he read books as a distraction and meditated, less on his past, and more on staying in the present. He mostly just spent time observing his mana channels as they underwent slow but fundamental changes.
It was honestly the closest he'd felt to a stable home in…an insanely long time. Going to an arena/stadium, cheering for athletic gods, knights, gladiators, and naumachia, along with thousands of fans. The event was all too similar to rugby matches, where tens of thousands of true-blood supporters screamed their voices raw for their team, while baying for the blood of their enemies. It was a fun distraction.
As soon as the healers proclaimed him fit to walk, though, he delved into work.
It was interesting. When watching these wealthy people interact with one another, Gareth became glad that he was never part of that society: the subtle barbs, the pettiness.
Don't get me wrong, I’ve seen plenty of pettiness on the streets of New-Joburg, but a bullet to the head often follows it.
These nobles’ currency was reputation…face. Power, tier, status, and money all bought reputation.
Balls were opportunities to gossip, build reputations, and flirt. Arena matches were an opportunity for families to settle disputes, outperform their competition, and build a reputation. Auctions were for power plays, direct reputational confrontations, calling bluffs, and showing off. Yet, the place where the real deals were struck was the teahouse. That was when Ellisandra stayed quiet, and Ellismera showed why she managed the household. It was a thing of beauty, watching her manoeuvre her opponents with a word, a smirk, or a frown. That was when Gareth realised why Ellisandra still had so much to learn.
Gareth’s shattered body was physically fine after the first month, but the strain on his meridians was the main reason why he couldn't do exercise, and he couldn't fight in the arena. He could barely train! The healers at least got him on a recovery program to help keep his limbs limber and somewhat fit.
These months were also spent on intellectual studies. Learning about the structure of the Yun Cheng Empire, a decentralised empire that highlights the autonomy of the states while still recognising the central capital as the seat of overarching authority. The empire faced multiple issues: inconsistent laws and policies; rivalries among states; cultural and political divergence; and communication and logistical issues.
The Poluski were only nominally part of the empire, being too far from the imperial capital, Avrrest, for them to truly integrate with its citizens. They lived as nomads around the Everwinter Pillar, fighting Titans that descended from the Pillar for food and materials. They were some hardy motherfuckers, and known for their Titanslayers! After having personally witnessed Ivan’tzar utterly dismantle a five-story-tall Mammoth, the name was well-earned.
Marryvale had a strong influence in the capital due to its enchanting experts and mineral exports. Though they were the third most powerful faction in the Yun Cheng empire, their almost blatant attack on Vormire had caused massive political backlash and condemnation. Lords and scions of lords are sent to Volun to receive the best frontier combat training, and many of those scions and lords were killed in the destruction of the dungeon.
The Ellis were weak right now, but still held prominent sway with the ancient families of Avrrest due to past deeds. They were sympathetic to the fact that the Ellis clan were destroyed trying, and succeeding, in repelling a planar intrusion. Only Ellisandra and Ellismera remain, but with a Protector like Guanji, a war hero like Margrave, and with a daughter soon to be married to Ivan’Tzar, the family's prospects were looking better. At least that's what Ellismera taught him in a rare one-on-one political lesson.
The empire claimed Wavestriders, but they operated on independent, floating cities that occasionally raided Marryvalian coasts. They were a largely independent nomadic civilisation that was not directly affiliated with the Yun Cheng empire, but still its largest producer of fish and Shells. Shells are similar to Leaves in that they are containers for elemental mana. Leviathan sushi, kraken calamari, and sea urchins of the purist umami made it an honour to dine with their pirate lords. An honour afforded to few. They used a currency similar to Leaves, but instead hoarded elemental shells, pearls, corals and crustaceans.
Kreppinfay elves kept to themselves but were the empire's largest silk textile exporter, responsible for most of the clothes around which central imperial fashion rotated. They had a deep cultural love for the Gloryhammer clan, especially their heavy metal drumming, often complemented by the Kreppinfay's heavy metal guitarists. Their queen, Demethys Bloodthistle, was cordial with the emperor but maintained a semi-isolationist position against the other imperial powers.
The Brekleyans are a warrior society that directly reports to the emperor. They hold a lot of sway because of their military might and the fact that the current emperor served with them in his youth. They are militaristic but not expansionists, keeping to their lands and fiercely protecting them. They live in a massive archipelago with islands as small as a shopping mall and some as big as Avrrest itself. They do not allow many visitors, but welcome traders and those seeking to join their elite dragon academy, where the finest dragon riders are trained. Strong, hardy, disciplined, and loyal, the dragon riders roam all across the Empire, keeping order and protecting its people. To be taken into their ranks as a non-Brekleyan is a massive honour. They are known for their dragons, which they fiercely guard and protect. They are on good terms with the Wavestriders, since Waverstriders are an offshoot of the Brekley clan who chose to move into the waves and tame krakens and leviathans, rather than dragons. Volun provides them with many luxury goods from the broader empire as well as meat, pelts, and beast parts.
The Cloud people are a mysterious bunch of beastkin, though they hate the term. They call the humid rainforests of the Thousand-Acre Woods their home, though few are permitted entry to their deep jungles. Little is known about them, other than that they are fierce advocates of natural conservation. They frequently clash with the materialistic Bong'odi people over natural exploitation, and the emperor has had to intercede more than a few times to negotiate a ceasefire.
The Gloryhammer clans supposedly forge the best automatons and weapons in the Empire, but rarely venture from their volcanic abode. They have an extremely good relationship with the Kreppinfay, and when they did venture from their hostile home, it was often in the company of Kreppinfay, travelling as a band of bards. They, as a species, have a near-fanatical love for Emperor Galain, though few know why this is.
The Fortress of Krell hosts some of the best mercenary companies on the branch, but people distrust them because of their close dealings with dangerous beasts and bloodline experimentation. It is strongly suspected that the man Gareth had seen in the dungeon had been a Krell mercenary, though he remains at large.
The Bong’Odi are the realm’s best alchemists. They produce a concoction called 'Everlast' which acts as ‘a pure, healthy, and safe' drug that can keep someone awake indefinitely. They are ruled by an Oligarchy of alchemist lords. Of course, Oliver shared that the concoction was basically liquid cocaine and highly addictive. Yet major caravan companies apparently fed it to their beasts of burden to decrease delivery time. Fuckin corpos, I can smell their rat-fuck nature already.
Finally, Avrrest. The imperial capital. Predominantly human, highly advanced in both magic and technology. A city that also relied on a city tree, this city was, in fact, more than six thousand years old. Which meant that the tree, a colossal network of intertwining vines supporting a vast galapagos of floating islands, held the lives of nearly a million people in its grasp. Highly populated, though not overpopulated, the city was affordable to live in, a trade hub for each of the factions to sell their goods, and the seat of power for the peak tier 9 Emperor Galain. A place of peace, cohabitation, and...at that point, Gareth had to put down the book because that just sounded too good to be true. He bet the writer, one Alexander Pommel, was biased and/or forced to write this dogshit, because Gareth just knew for a fact that any society that made a point of expressing how peaceful they were, probably had some secret police suppressing the dissenters in their society.
And I'd be right! Gareth yelled internally as he rose to make himself a cup of tea. Disgusted by the whole political affair. Which brought his latest point of discussion in Ellisandra's lessons to mind: Tax.
Everyone paid tax. That was a fact. The emperor was lenient about many things, but everyone had to contribute in goods or mana - and just then, Marryvale had taken out a big chunk of what Margrave used to pay that tax. Prince Richard appeared as a royal representative in response to the Vormire Disaster and helped negotiate a deal with Margrave to address the significant impact on their taxable income. The answer, the only viable solution that Margrave had, was to increase rift delving and cliff mining. Both were dangerous. Both were expensive, but they kept them in the black...for now.
The Volun people were angry. Tens of strong cultivators and aspiring heroes had died. Rumours abounded about who was responsible. Luckily, one of the best spymasters on the branch had a hand in this city. Guanji’s agents ‘let slip’ that Marryvale did it. While Gareth was at the arena with Dontè, they constantly heard people angrily discussing Marryvale’s involvement and their possible motivations. Tea shops stopped selling Maryvale tea; their signature tequila went undrunk; all Maryvale products plummeted in value. All except their enchantments. Unfortunately, those were too essential a resource to skimp on. But OTHERWISE people boycotted Maryvale.
Unfortunately, the slimy fucks had covered their tracks too well for Margrave to have any evidence and prosecute them. Everyone knew it. Curt Marryvale had been too blatant, too flagrant, for anyone to miss their involvement. But fair was fair. In a secret correspondence with General Gagan, Margrave got permission for Marryvale to experience their own ‘little accident’, as the Marryvalian ambassador called the Vormire collapse. The particulars were left up to him.
The only reason Gareth knew what his plans were was that Ellisandra was teaching him court intrigue and using this as a case study.
Firstly, they politely asked the Marryvale ambassador to leave his residence at the local embassy - a massive slap in the face. Then they heightened the taxes on all products sold to Maryvale, such as the Eversaturated Rice grown in the local rice fields: an extremely expensive commodity because it was only available in Volun’s particular environment. Many more luxury products were sanctioned, had their tariffs hiked, or were simply told to fuck off. Marryvale’s presence in the Volun and Ellis trade sphere plummeted. Then came all the covert operations.
Marryvale had an extremely large indentured servant population that worked on their crystal flats. Almost like a salt flat, as Gareth understood it, but the crystals that formed on these flats were due to high ambient Earth mana that crystallised on the extremely dry flats. This crystal was what made the Marryvale state the leading exporter of enchantments. Normal enchanters had to make their own crystals, an expensive and time-consuming process. Simply mining these crystals from the flats made each poor enchanter’s dream of crafting...a tempting reality. If they were born with a talent for enchanting, they would do anything to secure a steady supply of Brightquarts. Even sell off their conscience.
Margrave was going to sabotage the flats by funding rebel factions among the indentured servants. These servants were rightly angry. They were given a stipend to pay off their ‘debts’. Still, they would never actually make enough because they would be charged for equipment breakage, over-priced medical expenses to treat the crystals that would sometimes grow in their bodies, like an extremely painful mixture of cancer and gout. Horrible stuff. Margrave and his spy ring would smuggle weapons, potions, or information to rebel factions to give them a better chance of overthrowing their oppressors.
Now, they didn't want an active war with Marryvale, so that was as far as that operation was going to go. A little slap in the balls telling them to fuck off.