Blood Shaper

Amanda signed off on the last sheet of many in the pile of paperwork she was working on and handed it off to one of her many assistants without looking up. “Take this to the Treasury, please.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

Amanda was already working on the next stack. There was a lot of work to do in the aftermath of the very short war Avalon had found itself a part of, and Amanda was in the lead for how much her workload had increased. As the Prime Minister, it was her job to sign off on a large portion of the work the other Ministers had to do, which involved checking over each piece presented to her and making sure everything was workable. Planning to return the evacuated civilians to their homes, rebuilding the villages that had been damaged, restoring their fledgling road network, getting trade restarted, and more tasks beyond that passed through her office for her to prioritize, double check the execution of, and coordinate with the Treasury to ensure that everything stayed within budget.

She also had duties related to the terms of surrender being presented to the smaller factions that had broken off from the main army after the battle, though she wasn’t directly involved in any of it. Unsurprisingly, many of the nobles and leaders that had received secret orders to join up in order to test Avalon were among the people who decided they didn’t have to listen to the Crusader General anymore, which meant there needed to be extra work put into those specific terms. The terms given to the Crusader General and anyone who still recognized his authority were boilerplate, if you ignored the ones specifically for the Itarian Crusade and the Shatterplate Order, and she’d only needed a short time to go over them and formally agree with Ahthia. What was left after that was much more work.

Amanda immediately agreed with Ahthia’s point that trying to directly punish the other nations who’d decided to covertly prod at Avalon’s defenses was a poor idea, and her follow up to punish them in other ways to show that Avalon wasn’t a weakling to be picked on was a fantastic idea. The extra work came from tailoring each specific set of terms based on the recipient. Avalon didn’t want, and couldn’t afford, to keep anyone who didn’t agree to terms imprisoned while they waited for someone to pay a ransom for their release, so they needed the terms to be acceptable, while also helping to set up for the follow up blow. Nobles with control over useful trade routes would be made to reduce tariffs for trade from Avalon and in a few months or years Amanda would see to it that those trade routes were used to destabilize their national economy. Generals and other officers would have to give up secret training regimens, Class paths, ways to gain useful Skills, and more, to bolster Avalon’s military. Even mercenary groups would be punished by making them sign agreements to not work for certain groups or individuals, lowering their prospective incomes but also making prominent merchants and nobles from the countries who’d been naughty to scramble to find replacements.

And those were only the easily planned surface level schemes, there was so much more to work on in detail. If Amanda had her way, and she would, the backroom double-dealing nobles and politicians who’d decided to test Avalon would rue the day they made that decision and anyone else with similar thoughts would know to back off. It would take time, but with Isla’s help it would get done. The first step would be to locate who was involved, then find where their power came from. Amanda would be the official face, moving trade, making deals, and currying influence as Avalon’s Prime Minister, all of it helping Avalon as she went, but also tearing down their targets. At the same time Isla would strike from the shadows, with workers hired out from under businesses at inopportune moments, scandals and illegal acts coming to light suddenly, and even tragic accidents if necessary.

Eventually it would become obvious to the world that no one should fuck with her people. Of course, they would all probably think of it as not fucking with Kay’s people, but Amanda had chosen him as one of her people as much as everyone else in Avalon, and she’d make sure people didn’t fuck with him either. The ones that he couldn’t kill, she’d deal with politically, and the one’s that couldn’t be dealt with that way would get to meet some of the lovely people Isla was working so hard at training.

She finished with several more items that needed to be addressed and moved on to the last stack of paperwork that was physically on her desk at the moment. It took her mere seconds to read the title, then toss it in the “later” bin with several other documents that said basically the same thing. They were all either applications to work as Kay’s personal assistant, servant, majordomo, butler, maid, secretary, or other titles for basically the same job, or people wanting to know why the position hadn’t been filled yet. Annoyingly, that was one of the gaps that needed to be filled that was so much more complicated than it had originally seemed. Putting it simply, the person who would become Kay’s right hand in everything that Eleniah didn’t handle, because she’d complain otherwise, needed to be several cuts above every applicant they’d received and everyone Amanda has tried to personally recruit.

The problem had shown itself with Kay’s first persona servant. He’d been a nice older gentleman who was skilled and had good Skills for the position, but he’d had to step away for a family emergency. While that was a perfectly reasonable thing to take time off for, it wouldn’t fly with for someone who stood at the right hand of the Lord, and soon to be King, of Avalon. Perception was important at every level of society, but especially at the top. Kay’s assistant, maid, butler, whatever, needed to be someone at the absolute pinnacle of the job, but they also needed to always be present no matter the circumstances. Battle, inclement weather, family emergencies, or the end of the world, whoever stood next to Kay waiting to make sure his orders and whims were carried out needed to be there. Kay himself would probably disagree, but this was one of the things he was wrong about. It didn’t help that no one was hitting the target for how good they needed to be at the job. Ignoring the rest of it, the candidates were good but not exceptional. What was acceptable for the Mayor of a village or town wasn’t the same as what was reacquired for a King.

Seeing her subordinates had everything else handled for the moment, Amanda ended up grabbing the stack of applications back out of the box and going through them. Even if they didn’t meet the grade to get hired at the position they were aiming for, they could still be good employees for the palace or the government itself. It was too bad that none of Cindy’s butler’s contacts seemed to be panning out. She’d asked him to send work asking if anyone of his level was looking for work, but no one had responded positively yet. Amanda also regretted that he’d shown up and attached himself to Cindy instead of Kay, although she wasn’t ever going to say that. He was exactly what they were looking for, but he’d decided to swear life-long loyalty to Cindy. The man had just popped up out of the blue one day, following one of the more interesting Skills Amanda had heard of, “Find Worthy Service”. Apparently it directed someone with a Class based around serving others to the perfect person to swear oneself to. While it wasn’t perfect that the Skill’s target hadn’t been Kay, it wasn’t a bad thing that Cindy had a trustworthy butler, since she was definitely going to be a noble at some point in the future. No matter how much she whined about it, there was no way Avalon’s second Class Line Progenitor was going to be “just a normal person”.

Amanda didn’t need a Skill like Find Worthy Service like that herself, since she’d already found the leader she would follow till the end, but it would be an interesting thing to experience in her opinion. Just knowing that a place for you to use your Skills in a worthwhile way and having an internal sense leading you there. Maybe someone with a Skill like that would show up targeting Kay. It was worth hoping for. As competent as she was, Amanda would always be happy to have her workload reduced.

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At last, all the terms of surrender had been decided on, debated, changed where necessary, and signed. Most of the army sitting on Avalon’s doorstep would be leaving over the next few days. Anyone who hadn’t continued following Crusader General Stonegnawer, Kay had learned that the culture the dwarven man was from did family name’s first like what he remembered about Japan, was given separate terms of their own. Most of them had argued with the terms, trying to blame the Itarian Crusade and the Shatterplate Order for “misleading” them on the campaign against Kay. They claimed that they never would have come to Avalon at all if not for that and all punishments should go to those two organizations. Kay had told them he didn’t really care for the reasons why they’d attacked him and his people, only that they had. The options were to accept the generous terms Kay was giving them or they could go back to fighting. Only a few of them actually needed to be shown that Kay wasn’t bluffing. No one had died, but the holdouts quickly learned that Kay was perfectly willing to crush them if they didn’t sign.

The pair of idiots who demanded rewards for helping fight against the eldritch anomaly that had appeared needed a bit more convincing than the leaders trying to cover their own asses, but one minor noble with no real power or influence and the leader of one small mercenary group weren’t much trouble to handle. Neither of them died, but from the murmuring Kay overheard as he left, the mercenary company might not exists for much longer after the confrontation he’d had.

The Nelamian army that had attacked, led by King Glowl, had run from the battle while everyone else fought the eldritch creature, and there had been no point in hunting them down after the creature was driven off. Because of that there were no official surrenders terms from them, and Avalon was technically still at war with Nelam. Or maybe not, since there’d been no official declaration of war, but to Kay that mean nothing. A surprise attack meant war as much as a fancy piece of paper saying it. Kay knew that they’d have to deal with Nelam again in the future, but that would be the future. In the moment, there were more important things to handle.

“Everyone ready?” Kay asked, glancing from person to person in the meeting room. All of his Ministers, plus Eleniah, Meten, and Cindy sat around him. Once he’d confirmed that they were all prepared, he acknowledge the small flashing light in the corner of his eye.

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Quest Complete!

You have successfully defeated the attacking army, beating them to a standstill in only a single battle and forcing them to surrender. The unexpected arrival of an eldritch incursion changed what might have happened, but you were well on the way to victory before hand and your immediate action to solve the new problem shows your leadership skills and ability to adapt to new situations!

Rewards: Noble Title Updated to King, Avalon upgraded to Nation status, Noble Title bonuses for populace increased, Noble Title bonuses for populace strengthened

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“Huh.”

“What happened?” Cindy asked.

“Nothing, well, I mean the quest finished and I got the rewards, but the notification is, I don’t know it’s different some how. Like it’s changed it’s tone from super formal to a little more informal.”

“Analyzing the System and how it does things can come later!” Ahthia snapped, “We have things to do right now!”

Kay startled at the excitement and urgency in Ahthia’s suddenly loud voice. “What?”

“Your coronation! We have to plan your coronation!”

Kay groaned. “We don’t have to put that much thought into it, it’s just a ceremony. We’ll need-“

“Completely wrong.” Amanda cut him off, “This needs to be planned to the last detail. It’s the first big even we’ll have as a nation It needs to go perfectly on more than one level.”

Kay looked at the serious expressions on everyone’s faces, except for Cindy who looked like she was trying not to laugh at his misfortunes. Kay silently vowed revenge. “Can I make some of the decisions, at least?”

“Your requests will be considered.” Amanda replied.

Cindy snorted a laugh and looked away. Kay glared at her and her trembling shoulders.

“Can I have a simple crown? We don’t need-“

“Absolutely not. You may have a simple presence crown for day to day use, but the official crown and crown jewels of Avalon must meet the expectations of the people and those watching us from the outside.”

The trembling of Cindy's shoulders turned into full on shaking as she stood up and power walked out of the room. Everyone inside was at a high enough tier to hear her laughs through the door.

I’ll get you for this, Kay thought at her, I’ll get to control the ceremony where I’ll give you your own noble title! He looked at Amanda as she started marshaling the Ministers into a unified force to make sure his coronation went the way she wanted. Or maybe not. I’m definitely going to get you back though.