« Back
Generated:
Post last updated:
till someone mixed a powder
cheliax might not exist but taldor is still taldor
Permalink Mark Unread

Co-Empress Eutropia Stavia Porphyrogene, heir to Taldor by virtue of theoretically being full and co-equal ruler of it right now (which will buy you a drink, at the right taverns, and not much else), wears the second-fanciest headband in Taldor. Unfortunately, she spends all of her time in public, so her best headband is Splendor, the kind of Splendor headband that the world's best sorcerers scrape up the money to afford and lesser spellcasters stare at, their greedy hearts full of envy, and so all plans she makes she makes well below her potential intellect-if-she-had-fifteen-minutes-not-in-public, and even further below her potential intellect-if-she-could-prioritize-like-a-sane-person.

She's currently storming towards her father's quarters. This is not particularly unusual; they are well known to not get along, among the circles that know things, over Eugenius Stavianus being an unholy combination of eel, contract devil, and Maelstrom fiend, and Eutropia being both actually Good (a rarity in Taldor, maintained by those who maintain it by regularly hunting deadly monsters) and a political radical prepared to say in public that maybe Andoran isn't all bad, piracy aside. (Eugenius, meanwhile, is well known as a ruthless and cunning politician actually capable of accomplishing things in spite of the fact that the office of Emperor was stripped of practically all actual power when Aroden died, who nonetheless smiles on his wayward daughter in spite of her childish enthusiasms.)

Permalink Mark Unread

"What happened to the treasury? And why do half of our estates suddenly have new mortgages?"

Permalink Mark Unread

The wearer of the absolute fanciest hat in Taldor, which does Charisma, Intelligence, Wisdom and six other things besides, turns to his daughter.

"So, Eutropia. What's the most important thing that just happened?"

Permalink Mark Unread

"The vast majority of the population of Cheliax being saved from Hell. Where's the treasury."

Permalink Mark Unread

"No, Eutropia, that's important for other people, not us. Try again. What's the most important thing that just happened?"

Permalink Mark Unread
Permalink Mark Unread

"Eutropia, dearest, what exactly are you going to do differently because the population of Cheliax is not damned? Will you stop killing monsters? Well, no, they'll still need to be killed. Will you stop trying to take power? No, no, you are Iomedaean and Iomedae's oath is 'one to save would be enough and one unsaved would be too late.' Do you think I'm working late because a million men aren't damned? Another million will be, eventually. Words of wisdom, darling, if you keep caring about things totally meaningless to your life you won't be able to keep it."

Permalink Mark Unread

"You asked. I assume you have similarly glib answers to 'Cyprian is free to conquer Taldor,' 'every weapon we own and the entire concept of armor is obsolete', and 'the Worldwound is now under control?'"

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh yes! Quite a good one about Cyprian, really, shame I can't share it now. No, dearest, you're about to have the fancy hat."

Permalink Mark Unread

Her heart drops out of her chest. "Funny, I don't see any bags of holding on your belt."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Under the scroll of teleport in my desk."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Are you joking?"

Permalink Mark Unread

“Do I ever do anything else?”

Permalink Mark Unread

“Well, you appear to have spent practically everything we have!”

Permalink Mark Unread

“There’s new loans, we’ll get it back in no time.”

Permalink Mark Unread

Why? What on?”

Permalink Mark Unread

“You’ve seen the Reclamation rifles, haven’t you?”

Permalink Mark Unread

"I own one." And it didn't cost more than a minor magic item, considering they're useless without the ammunition until someone invents a spell for it.

Permalink Mark Unread

“You’ve seen the Alkenstar rifles?”

Permalink Mark Unread

 

"I haven't."

Permalink Mark Unread

"Oh, they're rubbish; hand-loaded like crossbows with a tenth the speed. I hear there's one man in Alkenstar who can fire three rounds a minute and he can't hit air at five hundred feet."

Permalink Mark Unread

She is not going to give him the satisfaction of providing him with a line he can puncture.

Permalink Mark Unread

“That’s why I hired fifty of their master gunsmiths and gave them a dozen Reclamation rifles to copy. What’s it Freedom says, ‘Invention is the business of free people, defending free countries?’ In turns out that, in fact, one out of two will do.”

Permalink Mark Unread

“And did they get it?” Lastwall has the first rifles, but if Taldor has the second and not just Taldor but the Emperor -

Permalink Mark Unread

“Oh no, they cursed me and told me it was inevitable and said I’d bring Abadar’s wrath down on them, since I clearly stole his divine prototype of all firearms from the First Vault. Their apprentices pulled it off, though, most of the way. The new Taldor rifles give off enough smoke to hide an army and have trouble going through both sides of a suit of full plate at a thousand yards.”

Permalink Mark Unread

In other words they’re the second deadliest weapon on the face of the planet. “That explains where all our money went."

Permalink Mark Unread

"That doesn't explain why you're retiring."

Permalink Mark Unread

“Well, I could hardly stick around! I’ll be Chaotic Evil. No, it’ll have to be a monastery for me, and long, long hours serving the poor and hungry to make it back to the Maelstrom.” He sounds like he’s looking forwards to it.

Permalink Mark Unread

Another one of those leaps of logic that were fifty percent the crown and fifty percent Eugenius being Eugenius. “You could -” and then she realized where it was going.

Permalink Mark Unread

“Two words too slow,” he says. “Oh yes. The Ulfs will all have them in a week, and then there’s going to be all the tedious negotiation and all the tedious blood.”

Permalink Mark Unread

“Or.”

Permalink Mark Unread

"Ah, youth."

Permalink Mark Unread
Permalink Mark Unread

 

“I thought you’d given up on the Empire.”

Permalink Mark Unread

“Of course you did! I had. I told you. I don’t care about things completely meaningless to my life.”

Permalink Mark Unread

“So I see.”

Permalink Mark Unread

“Know what hands you have to fold, darling. And which you don’t.”

Permalink Mark Unread
Permalink Mark Unread
Permalink Mark Unread

 

Then stone and javelin proved as vain

   As old-time tooth and nail;

Till, spurred anew by fear and pain,

   Man fashioned coats of mail.

Then was there safety for the rich

   And danger for the poor,

Till someone mixed a powder which

   Redressed the scale once more.

- Rudyard Kipling, “The Benefactors.”

Permalink Mark Unread
Permalink Mark Unread