Hey, I found internet, though it is not exactly close to where I am staying, which is why I am only uploading now.
Gaining is easy, keeping takes work
Ilumëo POV(two and a half months after the battle)
"Let me start off by telling you that we very much appreciate you giving us this opportunity, my lord. We at The Report know that you lead a very active life, and therefore have had to deny several of our requests for interviews in the past", said a human male, in his late twenties with sleek black hair, gangly slim fingers that held a notepad and a pen, and a pair of cunning green eyes.
"It is my pleasure, Mr Carian", Mercury replied easily with a reassuring smile from his position behind his desk, "The Report has always held my interest".
Mr Carian, as Ilumëo was painfully aware, was a reporter from the newspaper The Report, which issued a weekly edition that covered everything from the big happenings in the Alliance to the regional news of the province that it was being issued in.
It had offices in virtually every province of the Alliance, with a few notable exceptions being Coldharbour and the jungle province of Dimholt, and was generally viewed as the main supplier of news to the commoners of the Alliance.
The Report had started its life as Mercury sending back and publishing his reports on what was happening in his various campaigns, which was also why it was named as such, but it had soon grown to be a corporation on its own, which sent journalist all across the globe to uncover stories that were not being published by themselves.
A mere mentioning in the paper's interstate section could in terms of fame, or infamy, be quite literally compared to having won a major sports tournament, simply because the interstate section was a section that was published in the same way in every branch office of The Report.
The Report had, as either an unknown or a planned side-effect, Ilumëo knew not which when it came to guessing just how far into the future Mercury planned when he set such motions into action, skyrocketed the literacy of the common populace, whom all eagerly wanted to learn what news were happening across the Alliance.
In fact, Ilumëo did not believe that there was a single village in the entire Alliance, not counting the provinces that had no branch offices, which did not at least have one subscription for The Report, though in many of the smaller villages, the entire village banded together to make the subscription.
The thing that made it possible for the newspaper to coordinate such efforts over such long distances on a weekly basis was the Postal- and Scrying Network, or PSN, which had offices in every major town or city across the Alliance.
The postal- and scrying offices were, as the name suggested, the local offices that took care of the postal and scrying services of the Alliance. They were all government owned and if you paid the fee, you could have them send packages or letters across the world for you, or if you paid an extra fee, you could have them scry the contents of your letter to another office, which would then deliver the message manually, and if you paid a really hefty extra sum of gold, then you could even get them to teleport any package or letter to another office for express delivery.
The cost of having your letter scryed was significantly cheaper than having it teleported, but the price still depended solely on the amount of words in your letter, so most people that used the scrying service tended to be rather brief and to the point. The teleporting services on the other hand, were priced solely on the mass of your package, as that particular detail corresponded directly to how much energy it would take to teleport it.
Though the possibility of teleporting and scrying directly to the other offices technically existed, the trouble that it would take for the mages employed at the local offices to manually visit every local office in the entire Alliance in order to be able to safely teleport packages to them, or having a pair of mirrors linked between each of the hundreds of local offices for scrying, made the venture all but impossible.
Instead of this, interprovincial hubs of sorts had been created, so that the local offices forwarded their messages and letters to their hub, which would then either send the items to one of its designated offices or to the hub responsible for the office in question, which would then forward the package or letter from there.
The concept of the PSN was also one of Mercury's earlier inventions, literally dating it back hundreds of years, and if you believed common folklore about why Mercury had created it in the first place, it was because he had at one time found himself in need of sending an urgent message to one of his supreme commanders, but no mage in his army had the necessary experience to scry any of the supreme commander's aides, so he had created it to make sure that something like that never happened again.
Ilumëo knew better though, as the PSN had absolutely nothing to do with military affairs, and were likely intended from the start to never have been responsible for such. The explanation that she found far more likely was that Mercury had simply wanted to bind the Alliance closer together and had fused the existing elements of different worlds to do so.
It was after all, hardly the first time that Mercury had taken a spell, or even an entire branch of magic, and used it to solve mundane problems in a way that had quite literally taken all of the mysticism out of the magic, so much so in fact, that commoners would not even consider that it was magic anymore, but simply another part of daily life.
Anyway, Ilumëo was letting her mind drift again. Not that she actually had much to do during this interview, as she was simply expected to stand at her spot at Mercury's side and remain quiet unless spoken to. The other two occupants were just finishing with the pleasantries that always came before the actual interview.
"So, down to business then", Mr Carian said as he moved his pen to the notepad, "shall we start off with the lethrblaka in the room?"
"I would prefer that you not use that expression, as several of the lethrblaka race find it offensive, but yes, let us start with the obvious", Mercury responded calmly, while still smiling his reassuring smile.
"Noted", Mr Carian said as he scribbled something down on the notepad, "it has been confirmed by numerous sources that you, your lordship, was directly responsible for the explosion that killed off nearly a quarter of a million people in your latest victory. Can you confirm this?"
"I can confirm that it was I that ordered the preparations for the explosion to be made and ultimately gave the order to set if off", Mercury answered easily.
"Then I am sure that our readers would love to understand how you orchestrated such an action", the reporter said eagerly, "surely, the public has a right to know of a discovery of this magnitude. Was it an invention of your own, or did you confiscate another person's work?"
"Mr Carian", Mercury said with a far more eerie smile than before, "surely you know better than to ask me about matters of military confidentiality, as you know that I cannot divulge any such information at the current time".
Well, technically, as the lord commander of ALL of the Alliance's military affairs, Mercury could pretty much do whatever he wanted with such information, but Ilumëo saw no point in divulging that particular detail.
"Of course, I understand", Mr Carian said with a shrug, likely having already anticipated that the likelihood of getting an answer was slim at best, before he ploughed on, "then what are your thoughts on that many people are beginning to refer to the battle as an outright massacre?"
"I believe that it was your field reporter that started the reference in his description of it", Mercury commented with an unconcerned shrug, as if the matter of whether he had orchestrated a massacre, did not overly interest him, "other than that, I have little thoughts concerning it".
"You mean to say that you do not deny that the battle was a one-sided massacre then?", the reporter asked eagerly as his pen flew across the notepad, "enemy death toll ranges around a quarter of a million, nearly their entire army, while your own side hardly suffered any losses. Many of my readers would call that a massacre?"
"Those that would have obviously never been in a battle", Mercury answered matter-of-factly, and though the reporter did not see it, Ilumëo recognized the glint in her lord's eyes, and it was not something that she ever wished to have directed upon herself, "before you call that particular battle a massacre and insinuate that I should somehow feel ashamed of it, let me ask you a question, Mr Carian.
During what part of the battle did I, or any of my men, do anything that should make us feel ashamed? Is your reasoning for the 'massacre' labelling that not enough of my own troops died during the battle to consider it a fair fight, and if so, would you then like to be the one to tell the families of those people that their fathers, brothers, sons, mothers, sisters or daughters had to die simply to make the fight seem fair?"
Mercury let the questions hang in the air, obviously not willing to go on before Mr Carian had given an answer, and as time ticked by, a slightly shameful Mr Carian said, "…well, no, of course no one wants to inflict additional deaths, but even you have to admit that a quarter of a million enemy casualties is a pretty high death toll".
"Yes, I admit that it is regrettable that the enemy force numbered in such numbers, but I gave them ample opportunity to surrender both before and after the battle, and the lives of those that did were spared, so in the end, every life lost was because that person chose fight over flight", Mercury reasoned, "as you said so yourself, they were enemies, and therefore treated in the same manner that Alliance protocol dictate that all enemies of the state should be treated".
"Well, I suppose that if you put it that way…", the reporter said hesitantly, as Ilumëo noticed what she presumed to be him scratching over old entries on his notepad, "then should we move on to other topics then?"
"As you wish, it is after all your interview", Mercury said with a gesture of his hand.
"It is my understanding that many members of the Tribunal were most surprised when you named a local, an elf called Lord Däthedr to be exact, as the archduke of Bedegraine", Mr Carian said, "could you inform the readers of your reasoning for this decision, and whether or not you believe that the Tribunal will approve of your decision?"
"My reasons for choosing that particular individual were many, but the most prominent one that I care to note is that I believe that with his help, the transition phase for the inhabitants will go much smoother than with a foreigner with little understanding of their customs at the helm", Mercury elaborated, "whether the Tribunal ends up agreeing with my decision is entirely up to them to decide upon when the province in question has been stabilized".
Since Mercury was the lord commander, his position technically allowed him to instate any and all governors to the provinces that were for some reason considered unstable enough to warrant his attention.
It did not however mean that he had the final say in the matter, as the Tribunal could revoke any archduke from office by a two thirds majority vote from the moment that the province had been stabilized, though the process of revoking an archduke firstly needed another vote to determine whether there was even grounds for complaint in the ruler's conduct that would legitimize casting a vote on whether he or she should be replaced with another.
Essentially, this meant that as long as the people that Mercury brought in to act as temporary archdukes were competent and provided reasonable results, they were more often than not allowed to stay in office.
"Even so, you still brought in an Dalaxian to be archduke of Lav Fjäll, and an Alalëan for the far eastern province of Latveria, not to mention that you have yet to decide upon an archduke for the Albion province", Mr Carian commented.
"My reasoning for my choices in the former two provinces are the same as for the province of Bedegraine, but I do not believe that complete cultural understanding from the very start will be as important to govern those provinces as it is for the province of Bedegraine", Mercury reasoned, "and as for the province of Albion, I will be running my operations from here and will therefore be the acting archduke, though purely temporarily of course, as no person is allowed to be archduke of more than one province at any given time".
"Interesting", Mr Carian said as he continued to scribble, "then if you do not mind me asking, as acting archduke, what are your further plans for assimilating the province of Albion into the Alliance?"
The interview continued on for another hour or so, during which refreshments were brought up by a servant, before Mr Carian finally finished the last of his questions, with a bit of prodding from Ilumëo about how Mercury's next appointment was due soon.
His next appointment was a surveyor contracted to examine just how much damage had actually been done to the former nations of Alagaësia, along with projections on what absolutely had to be rebuilt and what needed to be built in the near future.
That particular meeting extended well past the hour and a half that Ilumëo had allotted to Mr Carian's interview, and they had to break for lunch in the middle of it, before they resumed immediately afterwards. Sometimes, others would come in to provide expertise on certain topics or others, but they were all excused once their function had been served.
Another two hours after the lunch break, there was only one topic remaining on their quite extensive list; the construction of proper public roads, complete with garrisons spread out over them to ward off bandits, between the cities of Albion and its neighbouring provinces.
It was generally considered custom that whenever a new province was created, its public transportation would be improved and expanded as necessary to keep up with the road-system of the rest of the Alliance, which were mostly copied from the original roads in the province of Damocles, though a few improvements had been made over the years.
The Alliance quite extensive efforts at keeping up proper ways of travelling between its provinces and cities were fuelled mostly because the tariffs on interprovincial trading were such a large part of its economy that it would likely collapse if trading became impossible.
The threat of such an economic collapse was why the navies of the Alliance hunted any pirates or sea-creatures that could possibly endanger trade-routes with a fervour usually reserved for dealing with traitors and deserters, and why the second-most important task of the provincial guards was to keep bandits away from the roads at all costs, with the most important simply being to make sure that the province's people were generally safe and secure.
"The construction of most of the major roads and their garrisons should be accomplished within schedule and be ready for use seven years from now", the surveyor said as he pointed to the map showing the planned roads that would form the backbone of the entire road-system, "we were initially concerned over some areas in the forest of Du Weldenvarden in the Bedegraine province, but experts brought in from the Dimholt province assure me that the forest should not give any delays beyond what we have already planned for".
The major roads formed a rough circle at the edges of the Hadarac-desert, which then had arms that extended out into the surrounding countryside, except in the Albion province, where another major road was planned to run down from Ceunon and then mostly follow the Spine all the way down to Feinster.
"You said 'most of the roads', meaning that there are problems elsewhere", Mercury commented.
"Yes, my lord, if you would direct your attention to the Lav Fjäll province, specifically the area between the Beor Mountains and the Hadarac-desert, where we have encountered certain obstacles in both the wildlife and the terrain that could set the project back by at least another year, if not two", the surveyor said apologetically.
"That is an issue that needs to be addressed as soon as possible", Mercury stated as he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, "say, Ilumëo, when would I have the time to make a trip there?"
Ilumëo checked her folder for any major appointments in the near future, before she answered, "assuming that you also squeeze in an official meeting with Archduke Calares, I can free up three weeks for both the travelling and your other duties in three weeks' time".
"Good, close enough that it is still better than sending someone in my place. Let it be so then", Mercury nodded, before he directed his gaze back towards the other occupant of the room, "are there any other areas that needs my attention?"
"Not as long as you remain convinced that Estildirin should only be given roads up to where the Edda-river ends", the surveyor answered.
"It shall remain so", Mercury confirmed, "spanning a single long road across the entirety of The Brownlands simply to connect two cities is not worth the cost of building the road, let alone the manpower that it takes to safeguard it. Trade between the two provinces must simply remain on the waterway, as it has been until now".
After that was settled, the meeting was officially done and the two men shook hands and parted. Loivissa handed Mercury the reports for today, of which there were quite a few, before she went to check up on her own aides and inform them that they should begin preparations for Mercury's impending trip, but that they should do so quietly, as a large entourage would draw more attention than a small one would. Besides, Ilumëo's lord never had liked travelling in long caravans.
After that, she returned to his office to find him in the midst of reading a report on the Damoclean Democracy Trial. In short, it was a trial to test the effects of whether it would be beneficial, or possible at all, to utilize the Tribunal system on a provincial scale.
The trial was set to run for 50 years, with Mercury just having received the report for the 43rd year. Surveys of general population satisfaction, economic growth, public building projects and many many other factors were all being monitored and compiled into an annual report, and when the experiment was up in seven years' time, another three years was scheduled just to make heads and tails of the data gathered, before the Tribunal would finally make a decision on whether the system should be implemented in other provinces as well.
Though the overall government technically was elected every five years, it was the local lords and ladies of the countryside that held most of the local power and responsibility for making sure that their subjects upheld the law, so for the common people, not much had really changed.
As Mercury kept going through today's reports, Ilumëo started skimming through the issues for tomorrow. There were many that requested Mercury's time, and even more reports that simple wanted to be read, and it was a part of Ilumëo's job to choose which of them should reach Mercury's desk and which she could delegate to others.
A report on the debarkation of the new settlers caught her interest. A brief skimming showed that it had an unfortunate low number of smiths as opposed to what they needed, so she earmarked it for Mercury's desk.
The 'settlers' that the report spoke of where actually part of the creation of any new province, as the province in question had more often than not been won by blood, and so, the population of the province tended to be somewhat thinned out…and often rather angry about it.
Mercury's solution to this problem was to bring settlers in to colonize the provinces, thereby repopulating certain resources that had been drained and also fastening the assimilation process. The settlers also served to act as a source to draw fresh and willing recruits from to replenish the provincial guards, as the locals were sometimes not too fond of joining said Guard.
The settlers also served a fourth, less official, purpose, as they were always recruited from the beggars and poor in the Alliance cities. Essentially, before any major campaign was ever commenced, offers of apprenticeships to various crafts were circulated around, along with offers of land to plough and a small fund to start off by.
The poor, and even some regular commoners, clamoured for the spots on the transport ships, especially the lucrative craftsman spots, despite the inherent danger that lay in volunteering to be a settler, as there had often been numerous persecutions of the settlers at the start of any assimilation.
It was why the lower classes were being brought in for the job, as the regular craftsmen and merchants rarely felt up for the task of risking their perfectly good existence to try their luck somewhere else, where the local inhabitants could rise up against you at any given time.
Using the poor for the job also essentially solved the Alliance's problem about what to do with them, as they were now simply being shipped to another place where they could do something useful with their lives, but after this campaign was over, there would be no more lands to send settlers to and a new method would have to be developed for dealing with them.
Oh well, not our problem, Ilumëo shrugged and simply reached for the next report.
A flutter in her stomach was her only warning before she dropped everything and sprinted towards the window, which she swiftly proceeded to puke out from and down upon the tile-roof of the lower buildings.
"Are you okay?", she heard Mercury's voice from behind her as she retched once again.
"Yeah, I am sorry that you had to see that", Ilumëo apologized as she wiped her mouth, before noticing the waterskin that Mercury held out to her. She truly was sorry that he had had to witness it, as she had been fairly consistent in only doing it doing early in the morning hours until now.
"How long?", Mercury wanted to know, as she gurgled with the water from the waterskin.
"Since about a month before the battle", Ilumëo answered truthfully, "I did not want to bother you with it yet because it would not impede upon my duties for another while".
"Well, it is not like it is the first time that this has happened to me", Mercury commented, before seemingly changing topics entirely, "so, when is the wedding?"
The wedding? Oh, right, I should probably tell the father of it, Ilumëo mused, before she turned to Mercury and wryly said, "I have not exactly told him about it yet, so…"
"Alright, bring him here and I shall wed you two right now. I do have the authority to do so", Mercury offered half-jokingly, "unless of course you want an actual wedding with a party and everything, in which case, I could leave you behind to plan it while I am away on my visit to Lav Fjäll".
"It is probably best that you do", Ilumëo responded with a smile, "but that reminds me that one of the new reports concerns a rumour that a new group has sprung up with the sole intent of killing you. I put it in the folder to be delegated to Supreme Commander Varion, but thought that you should be aware of it because of your trip".
"Noted, and I approve of your decision", Mercury shrugged unconcerned, "remember to tell Varion that this group is simply the last of many with that purpose, and that he should not be overly concerned with them. Giving them publicity will only worsen the situation".
"I understand, but do you want me to use those exact words or am I allowed to rephrase them when I discuss the matter with Supreme Commander Varion?", Ilumëo asked.
"Do as you see fit to get the job done", Mercury waved it off, "though while we are at the subject, what of the other project?"
"It is keeping up with schedule and should arrive in half a year", Ilumëo answered, knowing exactly to which of his many projects that he was referring to, before she added as an afterthought, "about the same time that I am due, actually".
"Oh, well, then I suppose that I shall have to do without you then", Mercury commented, "though you will need to select one of your aides to keep up with most of your duties during that period, with the exceptions being the more classified of your assignments, which I will take over until you can return to duty".
"Yes, of course", Ilumëo agreed instantly, having already begun her examination of which one would suit the job best in her own absence, Lily will likely make a good choice, but she has an awfully hard time keeping secrets form Jorn, so perhaps not? Then Kanra maybe?
Ilumëo was torn out of her musings when she saw a small trail of blood make its way down from Mercury's nostril and towards his lips. He obviously had not discovered it yet.
"You are bleeding", she pointed out as she nodded towards the spot.
"I am?", Mercury asked as he brought his hand up to wipe the area, which indeed revealed the red blood on his fingers, making him absentmindedly muse, "indeed, I am".
"Is it?", Ilumëo asked in clear reference to Mercury as to what she meant. She hoped that it was not.
"I am afraid so", Mercury confirmed her fears, "the time is fast approaching now".
"When?", Ilumëo asked, already dreading the answer.
"I think that I can hold it off for long enough to finalize certain key aspects, but it will be before my endgame comes to fruition, of that, I am absolutely sure", he answered her, showing far less trepidation at the prospect of it than Ilumëo was.
"…I see", Ilumëo said unnerved at the prospect, "if you would excuse me, I have to tell someone that he is going to be a father", before she hurried out of the room.
She did not know whether it was the pregnancy enhancing and twisting her emotions, but she simply could not deal with that right now, so she continued to look for the father of her child. For some reason, his reaction to her news was far less daunting to her than having to concentrate on the state of her lord right now.
Uhh, the mystery continues...
In a related note, I originally wrote this chapter both as a prelude to certain elements of the main plot and subplots, and to show that this is when the real work to conquer and keep new land begins(hence the title).