Blood Shaper

Book 3: Chapter 29

A knock on his office door had Kay looking up from the report he'd received from Cyrus, Avalon's new treasurer. Most of it covered things they'd already discussed, but some of the items about market prices for the parts of various monsters that had shown up or might show up in the region were interesting, and the next section contained various ways other nations and cities had balanced using those monsters as sources of income against the fact that people could just hire adventurers. Some of the ways other places had set themselves up to profit weren't applicable to Avalon, and Kay had been reading through Cyrus' recommendations.

"Come in."

Ahthia strolled through the door and hopped into a seat. "It took me a little while, but I've gotten some information about Noble Titles and people taking them."

How?" Kay asked with a frown, "I asked about it yesterday. I was expecting you to have to source books and get back to me."

Ahthia scoffed and waved her hand dismissively, "The day you told me what you wanted me doing, I went and grabbed some of the treasury and started ordering books that I thought would be helpful. All three trade caravans that have come since then have had books I ordered on them. I put out orders for books related to Noble Titles as part of my very first order." She smiled self-assuredly. "I plan to be very good at my job."

Kay chuckled and shook his head, "Well, it sounds like you already are. What did you find?"

She pulled out a sheet of paper from her long sleeve and started reading off of it. "To summarize, you won't have to worry about challenges to duels for your Title once Avalon becomes a city and you become a Lord. Technically they can still happen once you reach that level, but according to the information I found, the person challenging has to be another noble of the same level or higher that you've insulted somehow, and they have to put up equal collateral. From the sound of it, most nobles don't want to take the risk."

"Why could some random guy come up and challenge me then? From the sound of it, he's descended from someone with a Noble Title, but he doesn't have his own."

"Hereditary nobility gets a little weird when you add in Noble Titles to the mix, but he could challenge you because you're a Mayor. There wasn't a lot of information about it, most of the books I've gotten so far are mostly about Lords, but apparently, Mayors don't have some kind of protection that Lords and higher do. There were only two sentences about that topic that I've been able to find, so I don't know what those protections are or anything else about them."

Kay laid his chin on his palm as he looked down at her paper. "Interesting. That's something else we need to find out about."

"Already on the list," Ahthia pulled out a different piece of paper from her other sleeve and smacked it down on the table with a grin, "I brought it along so we could compare ideas."

"I love having competent subordinates."

Ahthia laughed, "Right? Speaking of, I need to start hiring some subordinates of my own."

Kay flapped his free hand at the door, "Talk to Cyrus and Amanda. As long as it isn't a big problem, I really don't need to get involved personally."

"You're starting to really become a leader," She responded with a smile.

He let out a singular humorless laugh, "I hope so; I'm clawing my way there every day."

"Well, you're doing good. Keep it up."

That time Kay laughed for real. "Thanks." He pointed at the first piece of paper she'd pulled out, "What else is there?"

"The reason that Eleniah and I only really knew about just straight up killing someone for their title is that it's the most common way that titles get passed along when the original holder of the title is unwilling. The challenging thing almost never comes up as far as I've found. There's some fragmented information I've found about a higher noble that you've sworn allegiance to being able to take titles away, but that's not something we need to worry about. Thankfully, the one we do need to be worried about comes with some stipulations that are manageable."

"So someone can't literally just kill me and take my title."

"Exactly. They have to have some kind of claim to usurp your title with. They could be leading a popular rebellion, taking back land that was stolen from them in some way, or be some kind of other noble that's at war with you, and then if they personally killed you, they could take your Noble Title or Titles. But they have to have a legitimate reason to take any titles. Otherwise, you just die, and the title is gone forever."

Kay nodded slowly, "So as long as I'm a good ruler and don't make poor political choices, I should be alright. Sounds like a system to week out bad leaders from having Noble Titles."

"Those three are the only types of claims I've discovered that have any real historical basis behind them," She told him seriously, "There could always be others."

"True." Kay stared into space as his thoughts drifted onto another topic, "I wonder why the System made it this way…"

Ahthia shook her head and shrugged, "I have no idea. I'm willing to accept that the System is a thing and seems to have an actual will, but trying to decipher that?" She shook her head again, "Not my kind of research."

Kay chuckled and reached out with his free hand to grab the other list. "That's fine with me. On the topic of the research you can do, good job on this. Keep your eye out for more claims people might be able to leverage against me, but I don't think this is a priority topic anymore. At least the people trying to take my title thing. Both challenges and usurpations can be dealt with by just being stronger than the other person, and getting stronger is the number one thing on my list right now." He narrowed his eyes in annoyance, "Not that I'm getting anywhere at the moment."

"Still having trouble with that new skill?" She asked.

"Yes," Kay let out an aggravated sigh. "I feel like it's right there, just out of reach. I'm really close! But I'm still missing something."

"Have you tried meditating on it?"

"Huh?"

"Meditation. It can help with a lot of different problems. Even just clearing your mind and letting yourself be mentally reset can help, and that's the basis of meditation."

"… I've never been someone who meditates, but it won't hurt to try, I guess?" After a moment, Kay shook himself and turned back to the topic at hand, "Anyway, what else do you think we need to look into?"

After going over the list of research topics he and Ahthia thought were important in the short term and long term and settling on a list of priorities, Ahthia took off back to her slowly growing domain of books. Kay made both a mental and an actual note to make sure a governmental archive was added to the plans for the palace. He'd given up on calling it anything else since everyone else insisted on using that term, but he wasn't backing down on making it as much a government building as it would be a fancy residence for him.

"Sir?" Amanda stepped into the room and paused by the door, "Do you have a moment?"

"Yeah, what's up?"

"We've been discussing some of the policies you and Mr. Aventi have decided to start implementing with both the members of Avalon's citizenry who are starting businesses and the small number of the traveling merchants and new arrivals that are trying to spread their businesses here, and there's been some pushback. Our own people aren't really giving us any problems, but some of the new arrivals think that just because we're a new settlement, they can throw their supposed weight around and ignore our rules." Her glasses slipped forward a little on her nose as she wrinkled it in distaste. "I tried to explain why they wouldn't succeed in trying to dictate to us, but they insisted that I was just a secretary and couldn't tell them what to do."

"We'll come back to that last bit in a moment since it's something I was already planning on bringing up with you later. For now, which of the policies that we're starting to implement are they arguing with?"

She looked down at the clipboard in her arms. "There are a limited number of outsiders looking to do business in Avalon this early in our development, so we have a limited number of complaints so far."

"That's why we're doing things early. Once there are more people living here, changing things will be even harder."

"I know that," She told him with a roll of her eyes, "But apparently, the kind of people that travel out into the wilderness after hearing about a new settlement popping up don't."

"I mean, are most new settlements in the wilderness anywhere near as organized as we are this early in their development?"

"I don't think so. I'm not saying that I don't understand what these people are trying to do, I get that they're here to try and rip us off and run with the money they get, but that doesn't mean I have to like it or let them get away with it."

Kay grinned at her, "Good. That's exactly what I want to hear."

She gave him an arch look, "Are you trying to test me?"

"More like confirming the decision I already made." He waved a hand at her, "Tell me about the complaints."

"Two of the traveling merchants that are here are bitching about taxes. They're saying they won't come back if we really are going to be charging them taxes in the future."

"We aren't going to actually charge them taxes; we have no way of enforcing that. Once we get the system set up, they'll have to purchase licenses to sell in our territory."

"They're saying that no one else does that and that it's just a disguise for us charging them taxes when they aren't our citizens."

Kay scoffed, "If no one else is doing it, then shame on them. I'm not letting go of a good idea just because we're the only ones doing it. And of course, it is! If we charge taxes to our citizens who set up stationery businesses in our territory and not the traveling merchants who don't live here, it just makes it easier for the traveling merchants to profit by undercutting our own people. I'm not going to kneecap our own people to make outsiders happy. Ignore that one. What's next?"

She looked down at her clipboard, "One merchant who sells weapons didn't allow us to inspect his goods, claims it's an insult, and he won't be coming back."

"Was he trying to sell crappy products at high prices?"

"Yes."

Kay rolled his eyes. "That's why we're going to inspect people's products. I can and will steal good ideas from my own world and this one, and letting people sell shitty products, cook food in terrible conditions, or scam people in our territory is a bad idea. So doing the opposite is a good idea." He sighed and stared Amanda in the eyes, "Why are you bringing me stupid complaints that you already know the answers to?"

"Because the people making the complaints think that we're a normal young village and have to rely on outside merchants for goods. All of the ones that are making the complaints showed up after our last trade caravan came back, so none of them seem to realize that we can just send out a group to go buy things in Tumbling Rapids if we need to."

"Then they're idiots."

"Well," Amanda pursed her lips and shrugged slightly, "To be fair, we have an unusually high number of strong Combat Classes for a village our age and size. Normally a village with our population would need to keep anyone that could defend a caravan closer to home to deal with threats to the village itself."

"Which we don't."

She nodded, "Exactly. Avalon is an outlier in more than one way." She shrugged again, "And the people making complaints aren't getting that and think they can use the threat of not coming back to make you fall in line. It's why they're insisting on dealing with you and not your secretary." She rolled her eyes, "They think that someone working in what is basically a servant's position won't be able to understand their threats and want to make them directly to you."

"Well, they can fuck off. Especially since you aren't my secretary anymore."

"What?" She jerked back.

"Like I've said before, you're an actual member of our tiny government, and you need a new title." He pointed at her with a dramatic flourish. "Congratulations, you're officially Prime Minister of Avalon."

"I… Prime Minister?"

"I'm stealing from the British from back when they were an actual monarchy, and the prime minister was literally that, the king's first minister. You're in charge of dealing with all the minutia of running a government that the king, or Mayor, in this case, isn't going to get involved in. Like idiotic complaints from merchants who think they have more weight to heft around than they actually do. If any of the other Ministers, that's what we're calling everyone now, have problems, they go to you first, and then you bring it to me if needed." He sat back in his chair with a shrug, "That's what we were doing already, but now we're making it official."

She stared at him for a moment. Slowly she started to nod, "Prime Minister. That's a nice and official-sounding job title." She straightened her posture to a point beyond her already impeccable poise. "I accept."

"Good. Go make those complaints go away so I can get back to training." He waved his hand towards the door.

"You have a meeting before that." She corrected him.

"I do? I didn't hear anything about that."

"Well, now that I'm free to solely handle the duties I was already taking care of, I can get you a real secretary who can handle your schedule. You need to meet with the most recent suggested person from the Adventurer's Guild."

"Another one showed up already?"

"He was here yesterday. The other man that came in at the same time as the idiot who challenged you?"

Kay frowned as he tried to remember. "… Oh, that dark-haired human guy who said he wasn't with the elven moron?"

"Yes, him. We checked with the Adventurer's Guild, and he really is one of the people they found and sent to us. He ended up running into the idiot on the road, and they traveled together for safety. The Spymaster was there while he was questioned, and he had no idea the idiot was going to do that."

"I guess I will have to meet with him then. Speaking of the idiot, what's up with him? Do we even know his name?"

"No, we don't. He woke up this morning and has continuously been raving about how we're all traitors to the Concord, and he's going to have us all executed. He's ignored every attempt to explain that we're not part of the Concord and won't tell us anything about himself."

"I'd think a self-obsessed idiot like that would be calling out his name and noble lineage every other sentence."

Amanda shrugged wordlessly.

"Whatever. Send in the other guy whenever he's free."

"He should be up shortly then. I don't think he's doing anything but waiting to talk to you." Amanda headed for the door.

"What position is he being recommended for?" Kay asked before she left.

"Head of the military. He's a tier three Soldier."

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