Altura

A quirk I had discovered in the past few weeks was that, time, if you let it, muffled the effect of many things as it went by. A few weeks had passed since the contest and the duchy had changed.

The Administrative Wing, Adventurers Guild and Ducal guard had all reached level 3, and along with the Qi gained from the opening of the spirit stone mine and other activities I had enough Qi to level up.

The handling of the mine had been tricky, but the villagers had acquiesced to the mining, moving away from the village, for a share in it. The villages had asked for one percent of the total income of the mines. I had agreed, and the deal had been signed.

The cultivator program was also coming along nicely, over seventy percent of the Archduchy’s constantly increasing population was now a cultivator and the number would only rise in the coming months.

The Medical Association had expanded into the Kingdom successfully, and not at all quietly. The Association had swept through the cities, healing anyone that could pay its measly fees, and caused a great many problems for the Kingdom. And a lot of benefit for the Arch duchy.

The Kingdom’s internal turmoil had increased in the past few weeks, and I couldn’t even blame my interference to it. The Association and the trades might have been conducive to the turmoil, but it was already there.

The duchies’ economic condition, from what I understood, was not good. The workforce was facing severe starvation over lack of wages, a starvation held at bay only by the duchies’ recent free food campaign. But the food could only last for so long. The food prices there were even higher than the Arch duchy’s, but the salaries remained in silvers. Why they did not just institute a wage increase was beyond me.

The King had asked that I supply food, and I had acquiesced, but I had warned him that the food prices from the Arch duchy would be high. The wages were high, after all. The Kingdom’s army was also faltering, a few battalions had deserted their posts to go home in an attempt to earn enough to feed their families.

The Sect was not fairing any better. A famine had hit its fields and the people were lacking in food. An envoy would be arriving from the Sect to ‘discuss bilateral relation’. I suspected I knew what they wanted. The Archduchy was now the food source of both the Arch duchy and the Sect. A rather convenient place.

The convoy had passed through the Eastern part of the Empire and would loop back in through the Valley. The Empress Astria had also expressed interests in furthering trade relations with the Arch duchy. Though the convoy had not passed through the Capital yet, the Empress had already heard of the goods.

The call had me furthering our own industrial efforts to increase production of the ‘rare and prized goods’ that the convoy was offering. The Confederacy and the Gorge had remained silent through all of this, the former out of anger and the latter through indifference.

A flurry of new organizations had been founded in the last few weeks, including the Judiciary, headed by our dear Norvithius who had finally been approved to begin his tenure, the Industrial research organization, the Defensive research organization, the City Planning organization, the Diplomatic organization and the Resources organization.

The first three were self-explanatory, and the fourth, headed by Kerrin would be where all future diplomatic relations would be considered. The last had been founded to divide and protect the resources of the duchy. The water reserves, despite my best efforts, remained limited and the Adventurer’s guild was the only reason we were still alive.

But this could not go on, a natural resource was needed. The only problem was, that the resource was not present. I had presented a task to search for groundwater, but to no avail. The precious resource remained lacking.

I had also progressed on the staff, with the System informing me that I could attempt to open the first seal. I hoped I would gain some information on magic, for I had halted on that front. But that was not the only good thing I had gained.

Aswelth and Lady Illiana had, after spending a lot of time together, decided to pursue a relationship. In secret, of course. But what was the point of being an Archduchess if I couldn’t get the best gossip from time to time? Besides, it wasn’t as if it was a secret. The tow were horribly obtuse, constantly adjusting schedules and coming out of each other’s houses. Did they really think the citizenry would not gossip about them? IN fact, that was all they seemed to do in this last week.

The rumors were abuzz about it. And I knew that several businesses were just waiting for an official announcement to start shilling their coincidentally new’ wedding items. But it did jump start the marriage mart in the city. A surprisingly large number of marriages had taken place in the last week alone, most of them sadly arranged.

I had prepared divorce laws. But I knew that they were unlikely to be used, cultures like this did not welcome things such as divorce and forcing them to do so wasn’t really helpful. But I could keep the option open for those that wanted it either way.

The search for a power source was a source of frustration. The results had been lackluster. The gems could indeed store power to a certain degree, but this degree was too little, and no gem I had encountered till now was satisfactory.

The task still stood, though, so there was still hope.

Xerte

Xerte sighed as the convoy exited the Valley’s capital city. Jasper and Elodia had, to his immense surprise, been helpful and polite. And if the noises coming from their shared tent were any indication, they were quite happy.

Elodia had even scored herself an apprenticeship with one of the Emerald adventurers, an older one that wished to pass on her craft. Apparently, she would be applying to the Adventurer’s Guild and coming with them to the Arch duchy. Xerte wondered what effect it would have on her relationship with Jasper. But by all indications, it would seem that he was wrong about her.

The convoy had made a humongous amount of profit from this journey, a value he was told was not less than a million gold. The stuff the Archduchess had mixed into the wares had caused a stir among the Empire’s nobility and among the Valley.

The fact that they had gained the items for free might have had something to with the enormous amount of profit. The cost of building all of these items was sure to be large, but that was for later, now they revealed in their success.

The Valley was quite different from the Arch duchy, for one it was nearly completely covered by flowers and for the other, it had a certain stillness to it. The two nations had similar laws regarding equality and peace, but the similarities ended there. The Valley was all about doing a set amount of work. The average citizen chose the work they did from a list present ed to them and did it every day. The work would not change after that, and neither would the pay.

The few that aspired for more could do it, but it was rare for them to do so. The citizens, for the most part, spent their days in idleness and comparative luxury. But Xerte was not here to comment on the Valley’s political structure, he was here to trade. And trade they did, the convoy passed through the rest of the Valley, not even encountering a noble.

The citizenry was rich enough to make up the lack, however, but the lack of nobles troubled him. The Empire and the Kingdom had significant reactions to their presence, with the nobles of the land going out of their way to either oppose or assist them, but the Valley’s peers were just indifferent.

As if the convoy did not matter to them. Xerte supposed that could be true, the Valley had never cared for trade before and might not care even now. The trade was after all arranged by the Archduchess.

The convoy now reentered the Empire, from the west, this time. The first city they came across was Elatia, a mountainous winter home of the imperial family that had a rather large city built around it. And it had a surprise waiting for them.

A surprise in the shape of a very large military convoy, headed by none other than Empress Astria, a Tree and ruler of the Dark Empire, herself. What, oh what, had they just gotten into? And why had they just gotten into it? Could it not, for once, avoid them so that they may pass in peace?