Interim
Mercury POV(winter of 296 AA)
Mercury had never particularly liked going to the opera. He did not hate it, but neither did he find it all that interesting. Half of the shows were outright lies anyway, and the other half were fictional stories.
Nevertheless, there he was, sitting in his own private balcony and feigning interest in the newest play by a famous playwright that had decided to make his debut in the Albion province with this particular piece. Seated around him were various lords and ladies of importance, but the honour spot to his right was occupied by Ilumëo.
It was for their sake that he was here in the first place, because it was expected of him as the acting archduke to mingle at events such as this. It made him glad that no city in his own province was large enough for a play like this to be set up, as that meant that he had never needed to attend one when he had been there.
Around him, people started to laugh, and he joined in immediately, despite not really finding the play all that funny. It was a tragicomedy by the name of Amphitryon, which was also the name of its main character, and it could loosely be translated to harassing either side.
So far, just by half-heartedly following the events in the acts and knowing how plays like this usually turned out, Mercury had been able to predict most of the major points of the play with pinpoint accuracy. It helped greatly that the author seemed to use the same strategies and overall plot points over and over again, though never in direct succession.
You had to have seen quite a few of his plays before you started to notice the recurring trends, but Mercury had seen a lot in his time, so it had been many years since the playwright had last surprised him.
It took another hour and a half before the play's final act finally ended. It was time which could have otherwise been spent…actually, Mercury did not have much to do these days, beside paperwork, that is. With the complete wipeout of the last remnants of the Grey Organization, the mopping up of the snow-golems in the north and the wonderfully silent strategy that Aiedail had recently taken, there was not all that much that stirred in Alagaësia.
Yes, Rhunön had been taken some months ago, but other than the ones that he had assigned to watch her, and Ilumëo of course, no one knew of that detail, and he was not quick to disclose it either. This time of peace and quiet was just what the peoples of Alagaësia needed to settle down and become complacent.
It would take many years, centuries with the elves, before they started to think of themselves as Alliance citizens, but their dependence on Alliance trade and goods would come much sooner, and with that came a general unwillingness to cut off their only supply of those wares.
Already, many of the nobles and other wealthy people had taken quite a liking to some of the spices that were brought in from all across the Alliance's provinces, and the common people had seemed to like some of the simpler cuisines as well.
It was a trend that occurred over and over again every time that a new province was made, one way or the other. Exotic foreign goods would at first simply be symbols of status and wealth for the nobles, but soon enough the goods became so common that the residents could not imagine living without them.
Quite a few playwrights had written comedies about how Mercury had beaten populations with one hand and then bribed them with spices, luxuries and bread with the other hand. At those, he had actually laughed quite hard, though mostly because he thought it funny how right the playwrights were.
"I must admit that it was quite a strange play, my lord. Mixing tragedy and comedy is unheard of in Alagaësia", Duke Wisery of Dras-Leona said as they began to leave the balcony, "are all plays in the Alliance like this?"
"Not all of them, but some are", Mercury answered eloquently, as if he actually cared about such things when his everyday work entailed far greater farces and tragedies than the theatres could ever hope to put on, "aside from the strange combination of tragedy and comedy, did you find it to your liking, your Grace?"
"It was bemusing, yet serious. I am in disarray as to what to think of it", Duke Wisery answered politely and avoided thereby taking any sides until a general consensus was made.
The action only emphasized what Mercury already knew; each and every one of the lords and ladies present were politicians first and foremost. They would play along and laugh at your jokes as long as they gained something from being in your good graces, but you should never forget that they were not your friends.
In a way, Mercury actually liked Earl Karl of Carvahall much better than these people, because the earl at least showed some real loyalty and commitment to his cause. That the earl's chosen cause was to kill Mercury was an unimportant matter.
Ilumëo's grandfather had once jokingly told him that he only liked two general types of people; the people that tried to keep him alive and the people that tried to kill him. In a sense, Mercury supposed that there had been quite a lot of truth in that statement.
He spent the rest of the night socializing with one important and extremely pompous noble after another, during which they finally managed to agree that the play was in fact quite a good one. He also introduced the playwright and lead actors to some of the nobles that had shown interest in talking with them, as well as refused more than a few not so subtle offers of marrying their young daughters by pointing out that he was already married.
At least his sham of a marriage was good for one thing; preventing more. As he finally began his trek home, Mercury mused upon when his wife might finally lay down and die. She would turn 64 this year, so her time had to be nearing, but so far, she had seemed far too stubborn to give up and let death catch her.
He could not deny that it would be beneficial for him if she died before his endgame began to play out, but not to the degree that he would do anything to hasten her demise.
"A cobber star for your thoughts", Ilumëo said as she walked beside him.
"I was thinking of offing my wife", Mercury answered her with an unconcerned shrug, "ultimately decided that it was not worth the trouble".
"Good, I actually like your wife", Ilumëo commented.
"You do?", Mercury said surprised.
"Yeah, she knows a good baker and has an excellent taste in ballroom dresses. She was also the one that got me talking to Kolrka", Ilumëo elaborated, "it would have been a shame to have to arrange her death".
"Hmm, you learn something every day", Mercury commented, "so, aside from the obvious, what did you think of them?"
Ilumëo took a moment to think about her answer, before she finally said, "I was surprised when the mentioning of your marriage only caused them to ask whether you had any sons that their daughters could marry instead".
"Yeah, sycophants are like that", Mercury nodded, "then again, these nobles have not had the experience of decades of rumours and stories about me that the nobles that you are familiar with have had, so it is not exactly surprising that they try the same tactics that I am infamous for rejecting".
"Well, this is my first time forcibly making a province, so it is all new to me", Ilumëo said, before she noticed that this was where their paths split, "I will head off to bed. Have a good night, and do not stay up too long. You still have some meetings in the morning".
"There is no need to remind me of it", Mercury said while rolling his eyes. As if he could forget the tonnes of paperwork and boring meetings that he had to do every day, "good night to you as well".
With that, they parted. Ilumëo went to sleep in her quarters, while Mercury went to his office to work on some paperwork until the moon had passed halfway across the night sky. It was only then that he went to get a few hours of rest, before he rose a few hours before sunrise.
He had breakfast with an entrepreneur that specialized in setting up branches of existing companies in new provinces. After breakfast, he went to his office and ordered a pot of tea to be brought to him, while he waited for Ilumëo to arrive with the morning's news.
"First order of business today; the status of the reformed dragon riders", Ilumëo read from her folder, "according to the supervisor in charge, a Hans of House Gruber, he has had little to no progress with some of the older riders, but the younglings seem to be more acceptable to their new surroundings and the new teachings".
"Of course they are", Mercury snorted ,"they had already been plucked away from their homes to go to Estildirin to train, so being transferred to another strange place is hardly new for them, and considering that they did not yet know what they were going to be taught anyway, they are naturally more acceptable than the ones that have already been taught".
For obvious reasons, Mercury could not allow the dragon rider order to remain seated in Estildirin, so he had moved their headquarters to a small former island nation, which was far away from everything, so that even if the dragon riders decided to revolt, their revolt would be localized and easily contained.
It was there that the new dragon rider order would be instructed in much the same way that the old one had been, only in shorter time and with a less expansive curriculum that now also boasted lessons in the history, law and traditions of the Alliance and a superficial overview of its provinces and their cultures.
The cuts in their education had been necessary if he was to prove to the Tribunal that the dragon riders could be cost-efficient and reliable in doing their new jobs, as it was very plausible that the Tribunal would lose patience with the entire project if the training of each rider would take several decades.
"There have also been a few incidents with the dragons eating some of the locals' farm animals", Ilumëo continued, "the supervisor is asking how he should address the problem".
"Refund the locals and put the dragons responsible under house arrest for a few days", Mercury said the first thoughts that came to mind, which the supervisor should have already known, "why is he even bothering me with these questions?"
"Well, as I understand it, it seems that he fears that trying to lock them up will be of no use", Ilumëo answered, "he tried the same approach as you suggest with the first to do it, but some of the older dragons became quite agitated about it".
"They are prideful beings", Mercury stated, "but if they break the laws, then they will be punished in the same way that any other citizen of the Alliance is punished. Oh, and if the dragons continue believing that they are above the law, make sure to let their next history lesson be about what happened to the old church of Artaxia. You know, the one that also thought that they were above the law".
"I will make sure to let the supervisor know", Ilumëo noted and scribbled it down in her folder, "next on the agenda is…oh, another dragon matter. It seems like there have been no new breakings of the guidelines for the dragons still under house arrest in this month, which makes it a year and four months since the last incident".
"Well, at least some of the dragons are behaving", Mercury commented dryly.
The dragons that were still kept under house arrest in Ilirea were a mixture of those that still had riders, those that no longer had and those that never had had any to begin with. Their primary reason for remaining incarcerated was that they refused to make a vow in the Ancient language to not try and undermine the Alliance in any way or otherwise assist those that might try to. Though in the case of the ones that still had riders, it was also required for the rider to make the same oaths.
To avoid letting the dragons suffer unnecessarily much due to not being able to fly, a number of guidelines for good behaviour had been made, which among others provided dragons with a record of prolonged good behaviour with the privilege of getting to fly for a few hours each day.
The dragons had to make extensive vows to come back at the specified time and not try to aid any rebels that might come by in any way, and each dragon was always followed by a pair of Knight-Wings as an extra precaution, but as long as they behaved, they were allowed to continue the recreational activity.
The guidelines also helped to show the dragons that with continued good behaviour came increasing levels of personal freedom, which had among other things resulted in a drastic increase of those willing to take the vows.
Mercury would rather see that none of them were imprisoned at all, as they were no good to him there…well, one of them was, but he had other plans for that one than letting him go just like that. Besides, keeping them locked up took away resources from other projects that he could have been funding, so it really was in his best interest to get rid of them all.
"Third matter of the day…Mushu's body have been found", Ilumëo said shocked, "there appears to be no signs of his death not being natural, and those that found the body said that it looked like he had simply curled up in a remote corner of the castle and taken a nap".
"It was about his time to go anyway, so I am not surprised that this is what happened to him", Mercury commented, "what is next on the agenda?"
"…The Isenberg Fares would once again like to have your challenge for the fare three years from now, my lord", Ilumëo said a little more briskly, "as well as remind you that your standing invitation to speak at this year's fare is still in effect".
"Hmm, I will have to think on that", Mercury said thoughtfully, "but you can tell them that I will not have time to attend this year as well".
"I will send them the message after you figure out your next challenge", Ilumëo said and scribbled it down, "now, I believe that this should be most of today's news, but unfortunately, I hear the bells ringing, and you should be in a meeting right now".
"I guess that there is no way around it", Mercury chuckled and rose from his chair, before exiting the office with her in two.
As they walked, they discussed the strategies and important stances that they had to maintain, while also discussing what stances they could make appear just as important to their opponents, so that when they eventually had to concede on something, it would look like they were conceding a more valuable stance to them than they actually were.
The coming meeting would be the last in a series of meetings concerning the minting rights of the three most populated provinces of Alagaësia, as it had already been determined that neither Coldharbour, The Brownlands nor Latveria had the population density necessary to even consider minting their own coins.
The main issue of the meetings, and the reason for why the archdukes of both Lav Fjäll and Bedegraine and their advisors and followers had been brought in as well, was whether or not the minting should be centralized in just one province, instead of spreading it out into smaller more vulnerable constructs.
Since each former nation of Alagaësia had once printed their own coins, all of the provinces technically had the capacity to do the job, but because sole minting rights also meant a lot of lucrative jobs for the province that it was given to, all three provinces would fight with teeth and nails to get them.
Mercury would be there to represent the interest of the province of Albion in this matter, as he was still the acting archduke of the province, which made his position in today's meeting a little more precarious, as he would also be overlooking the proceedings as an effect of his other job as the lord commander.
In the end, the meeting lasted far longer than the four hours that had been allocated to settling it, but there was no way that they could simply break it up without a tangible result. At one point, the delegations had begun shouting insults across the table that were old enough for Mercury to remember them from back when he had still been living in Alagaësia.
It was at that point that he broke them up for lunch, which also let the parties cool down considerably, and when they rejoined afterwards, everyone was in a much less hostile mood. In the end, after mindboggling amounts of concessions and various deals that were first proposed and then later retracted again, it was decided that the province of Lav Fjäll would get sole minting rights.
Mercury was not all that distraught about it not being his province that had gotten the minting rights, as he knew that the dwarves had always been good with works such as this one, so they would definitely be more than qualified for the job, and he had managed to gain a few important concessions regarding coal and ore rights on the border between Old Surda and the Beor-Mountains.
Then again, he knew that he would be abdicating his position as the acting archduke in a year or so if things continued to remain as calm as they had been, so perhaps his investment in the matter was not as big as it could have been.
"If I asked you to define work, as in mechanical work, how would you go about it?", Mercury asked out of the blue a while after they had gotten back to his office.
Ilumëo was quiet for a while, before she finally answered, "well, I guess that I would say that work is how much energy you put into something to make it do whatever you want it to".
"Would holding a weight lifted above the ground count as work as well then?", Mercury questioned.
"Yeah?", Ilumëo said cautiously, likely already suspecting that it was a trap question.
"Then if I were to put the weight down on a table, would the table then also be performing work?", Mercury continued, "and what of the ground that the table stands on? That holds both the table and the weight up, so would it also be performing work on everything above the surface, and in that case, would the layer of dirt below the top one then be performing even more work?"
"But the ground and the table are solid objects, so they obviously do not need to expend energy to keep the weight up in the same way that a living being would", Ilumëo argued.
"So, by that definition, you end up concluding that only living beings can perform work, meaning that if the wind picked up this piece of paper and flew it to the other side of my office, it would not be the same work as if I did the exact same thing?", Mercury pointed out.
"…What is the point of this conversation?", Ilumëo apparently finally grew tired of indulging him.
"I think that it shall be the challenge that I will give to the Isenberg Fares", Mercury answered, "I want them to define a universal concept of mechanical work, where the same conundrums that I just gave you must be answered".
"I will include it with your respectful declination of their invitation this year", Ilumëo noted with a tired sigh, "and by the way, remember how Earl Atanalcar dropped contact with us a little over a year ago, but then picked it up a few months later?"
"Yes, what about it?", Mercury asked.
"I have just read through a personal message from him, wherein he expresses his wish for your agreement to be terminated. Permanently", Ilumëo answered.
"And why does he think that I would let my pawn go just because he asks it of me?", Mercury said with a raised eyebrow.
"He says that he knows about Project Faust", Ilumëo bluntly said.
"…He knows…about Faust?", Mercury said in shock, "how?"
"His message does not specify how he discovered it, but it does specify that he KNOWS", Ilumëo said concerned.
Mercury took a deep breath to calm his immediate annoyance at the entire situation, before he looked Ilumëo directly in the eyes and said, "from now on, I want you to put everything on a lower priority and focus on finding out how a simple earl from a province thousands of km away from the only place that ever dealt with the project, an earl that we have kept tabs on no less, has managed to find out about a project that was supposed to have been completely buried three and a half centuries ago".
He had not meant to switch over to the dökkálfar language at the end, but the entire situation just seemed so outlandish that it had just happened. It was hard enough for historians to find records of official projects from that time, but that particular project had not only been kept completely off the books at the time, but he had also had Naina wipe any trace of its existence away after he had been done with it.
"Should I also make arrangements to have the earl silenced after we uncover and counter what security measures that he might have put in place?", Ilumëo wanted to know.
"No, doing that would only draw more attention to the matter than I am comfortable with dealing with at the moment", Mercury denied her request, "had he discovered the matter a decade or so ago, then I might have given you the order to respond accordingly, but with the endgame almost at hand, his interference with my plans will be limited at best. Focus your efforts at finding the source and plugging it, so that no one else learns of the project".
"I will", Ilumëo promised.
They continued on working with their individual works after that, with no new strange occurrences happening that day, but at the end of the day, Mercury kept her back because a thought had struck him and refused to let him go ever since the matter with Project Faust.
"Ilumëo, do you enjoy the relative peace and quiet that have been over this last year?", Mercury wanted to know.
"Besides your special little assignments, yes, I would say that I have enjoyed this peaceful time", Ilumëo answered.
It was as Mercury had expected, but in order to make it last, he first had to make it worse, "good, begin the next phase".
There will be blood...