Nero Walker, Book 4 Ch.65 (296)

Even though the room he’d chosen for the meeting wasn’t all that impressive, it would serve his purpose well enough.

With his fingers steepled in front of his chin, Former Evaluator Quincy leaned back in his chair in thought. Lacking anything urgent to do, he waited patiently for the remaining members of his party to appear.

Two of his team of former evaluators had already arrived and were seated alongside him. As usual, Mortem was making no effort to hide his impatience. The scowl on his face made it clear that he was both unabashedly unhappy and quite thoroughly bored out of his mind. Yarborrow on the other hand was being her typically productive self and was currently focused entirely on what she was doing on her link.

She’d been working hard, managing multiple groups across the city. If anybody bothered to ask, Quincy would be the first to admit that the speed with which she’d created her network of informants and agents was impressive. Her dedication to her self-assigned duty was as unquestionable as it was wasted.

‘If I’m right, she’s not going to be happy,’ he thought to himself.

While she was busy doing whatever it was she was doing, Mortem had apparently reached the end of his patience.

Ruining the comfortable silence of the room, he asked out of nowhere, “Why are we even meeting? Can’t we continue to just use our connection for our updates? I don’t want to miss out on arranging that meeting between those hunter teams I’ve been monitoring.”

Ignoring the sound of Yarbarrow chuckling, Quincy replied, “No. We can’t. It’s time for us to make some decisions, and it’s best if we’re all together when we do.”

Mortem, not taking the hint to shut up and wait replied, “Sure, but why? It’s not like we’re going to disagree with you. We’ll just end up doing whatever you think is best like we always do. Or are you planning to shift our organizational structure into something more like a council? If so, I’d like to propose a vote on the subject of banning formal meetings as the first matter on the agenda.”

While Yarbarrow continued chuckling, Quincy rolled his eyes and ignored him.

Luckily, before Mortem could continue his creative complaining, the last members of their team finally arrived. Vaxas opened the door and right behind him came Idrius.

The moment Idrius walked in, Quincy locked eyes with her. The expression on his face made it clear that he wanted to know what she’d discovered.

Silently acknowledging his unasked question, Idrius took her seat at the table while reporting, “It’s confirmed.”

While no one other than Quincy knew what she was referring to, neither Vaxas nor Yarbarrow were impatient enough to mention it. Mortem, however, immediately leaned over the table and demanded, “What’s confirmed? What did Quincy have you doing? It’s not another assassination attempt, is it?”

After sighing heavily at the news, Quincy straightened up in his seat and flexed his essence, taking control of the room’s ether. Ever since they’d begun working together back at the Royal Academy, it had been the signal for them to get serious. While it wasn’t all that subtle, it did force everyone in the room to pay attention to him.

Idrius shot back to her feet, placing her hands behind her back as if she were preparing to make a formal report. To his left, Yarbarrow dropped her connection to her link while across from her Mortem visibly restrained himself. Vaxas, even though he’d just recently arrived, looked as calm as he always did.

Without having to be asked, Idrius began explaining what she’d discovered, beginning with what Quincy had tasked her with finding out; her task being to discover how the nobles were reacting to their Lord’s display of power in the upper city.

She started with a simple summary of how each of the major heads of house have chosen to interpret recent events, specifically those events that occurred in the mountain city’s throne room. She then went on to explain how Quincy had asked her to observe the Council of Leadership to get an idea of what was coming. But when she began narrating what went on during their emergency meeting, Yarbarrow interrupted her.

Leaning forward in her chair, Yarbarrow asked, “Wait, did they actually discuss this in the council hall? I would have assumed they wouldn’t want something like this on the formal record.”

Showing a rare smile, Vaxas was the one to respond. “No, they’ll probably enter it into the record more diplomatically in a day or two. What you’re hearing is what they discussed in a private meeting in preparation for their upcoming public display.” Shaking his head slowly in amusement, he added, “Idrius was able to figure out where they were meeting and managed to be in the room with them when they met.”

While both Quincy and Yarbarrow were surprised, Mortem was shocked.

“You’re not serious?!? How in the hells below did you manage that?” he asked, obviously in disbelief.

Idrius shrugged as if it hadn’t been all that difficult. “The nobles here rely too heavily on their privacy shields. And it didn’t occur to them to sweep the room for hidden observers before they began. I’ve been doing it for weeks. How do you think I’ve been able to get so much intelligence on their current games?” she asked somewhat sarcastically.

Quincy retook control of the room by stating loudly and firmly, “That’s enough. Thank you Idrius.”

Nodding in acceptance of the praise, she retook her seat.

Standing up to indicate that he was now running the meeting, Quincy crossed his arms while rubbing his chin with his right hand in thought. “Well, that’s that then. They’re officially going to label Lord Walker as an extraordinary force. He’ll either have to sit back and observe the rest of the war, or petition them to allow him to combat the density shift’s upcoming beast waves.”

Mortem scoffed before mumbling, “As if he’ll stick around for that.”

While the rest of the room silently agreed with him, Quincy said, “You’re right, he won’t. It’ll be a year before they get bad enough for them to agree to let him fight. According to Lady Verena, he’s already expressed his desire to move on from Dorchester. She mentioned that he might be heading toward the dwarven lands or choosing some other city to visit to avoid being summoned to the capital.”

Yarbarrow, sounding more than a little annoyed, said, “But we’re not ready! I’m not ready! The Adventurer Society hasn’t been sufficiently structured yet. Without oversight, who knows how it will grow! Are we planning to split up? I suppose I could stay here to handle things, but without everyone’s aid it will be difficult.”

Gesturing for her to calm down, Quincy replied, “Don’t worry. I doubt Lord Walker will be leaving immediately. That said, our plans will have to be accelerated.”

Mortem said, “I see. That’s why you called us all here. We’re rejoining him.”

Quincy replied with a nod. “Yes. I suspected that the local powers would react poorly to Lord Walker’s recent achievements. And it seems that I was correct in that assumption. There is no point in remaining in the background. We won’t be in the city long enough for them to forget about us. So, all of us need to present ourselves publicly so that we’re considered part of House Walker. The plan for running our games from the shadows needs to be abandoned.”

Yarbarrow asked, “And the Adventure Society?”

Quincy shrugged, “You’ll just have to set up whatever you can in the time you have left. You’ve already gotten enough people involved that the locals should be able to handle its development themselves. When we leave, just be sure to leave them a communication route to the capital. Things from there will have to depend on fate.”

—--

Nero’s impromptu heart-to-heart with William the Wacko, otherwise known as William the Simple, led to some rather interesting developments. The most unbelievable of which was another public lecture by House Walker’s venerable Lord and Saviour, the good lord Walker.

With more and more people being pulled from the fighting, not everyone was taking the opportunity to meditate on their experiences. For some reason, many of them decided to join the conversation and hear more about how Nero saw the world. Which was great for him, because he was never shy about expressing his opinion.

“The entire nobility system you have here doesn’t work at all how it should. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying it’s bad. If anything, I’m saying the opposite… kind of. What I am saying is that class systems like the one you have are supposed to oppress the people at the bottom. It’s supposed to suck to be a commoner. That’s like the whole point of them!” Nero declared as if it were obvious.

One of the Wackos who’d taken a seat nearby asked, “Are you sure? Because that doesn’t sound right.”

Nero replied with an enthusiastic nod. “I know it doesn’t. It’s NOT right. That’s what’s so unbelievable about how you all run things here. If I weren’t sure the translation magic was working properly, I’d swear that I was misunderstanding something. I mean, nobles acting noble sounds insane, am I right? But here we are, living in a world where the people in charge are acting more like industry-conscious CEO’s than dictators. Sure they’re still competing with each other and playing politics, but it’s not nearly as bad as it should be. If nobles were actually acting like you’d expect them to then they should be exploiting the masses for personal profit and using their influence to stay in power. I mean, haven’t these idiots ever heard of nepotism?”

The 15 or 20 people sitting in a circle in front of him all looked at him like he imparting the wisdom of the ages.

He wasn’t entirely sure how they’d gotten started on the subject of nobility, but he was sure the initial conversation had at one point been about the economy. Up until now, he hadn’t had the chance to speak with too many normal people, most of his knowledge having come from Vera and Nick, along with a few career military people during elite training. So, after seeing how much he could gain from hearing William’s perspective, he took advantage of the fact that more Wackos had shown up.

His relatively new policy of taking things as they are made him look at things with fresh eyes. And getting the feel for the city from the perspective of the common man was just what he needed. So, with every new person who joined the conversation, he began asking them about their lives. Which inevitably led to him learning more about how they and their families made their livings.

Of course, he did take the opportunity to offer his perspective whenever he could. Especially since the way their society functioned was so improbable. Luckily, by this point, he was no longer fighting it. Now, he was embracing it.

The nobles here really did base their entire existence around being the best ‘noble’ they could be. They ran their houses like business conglomerates, firing their underperforming members and actively seeking mergers with other houses for future profit. The old trope of nobles not marrying for love was taken to an extreme here. In fact, so much about their society was a literal interpretation of so many cliches that he was having trouble recognizing them all. But, when it came down to it, commoners lived very different lives than the nobles, having almost no responsibilities other than to try and not die, and even that was more like a polite request from the management.

From a certain point of view, Nero understood how being a commoner naturally led to really slow leveling speeds. Without that impetus to improve, what was the point of pushing themselves to be better?

If he were in the mood to be pessimistic, he might wonder if it was a diabolical conspiracy to treat the commoners so well that they never become too powerful to control. But, the system in place seemed to have hundreds of ways for commoners to become nobles if they really wanted to, and there was no level at which a person became too powerful for the system in place to categorize them.

On and on their conversation went, with the topics he and the Wackos were discussing answering a lot of the questions he hadn’t even thought of asking. Like, how insular actually were the cities throughout the kingdom?

The answer - not that insular.

Apparently, people travel between cities all the time. With the most common reason for people leaving a city being that they leveled high enough to ‘need’ a change. Nero had heard that before, but he hadn’t understood it. Now, after hearing an explanation from some common people he could relate to rather than another lecture from Nick, he finally was able to wrap his head around how it all worked.

People could head to a new city, get a new citizenship, and start a new life without even a bit of trouble. If they want to start their own house, they just need to work their way up through the established systems. The local centers will even help them! But, if they ended up over-leveling the city and feeling stuck, all they had to do was head to another city and try again. There were so many cities, all with varying levels and opportunities that a person could level all the way to a hundred without being forced into any particular direction. And if a person did start getting near level 100 and didn’t end up having the opportunity to be a noble, then they were actively trying to avoid it.

Even though it sounded crazy to Nero, it was explained to him that cities received bonuses from the capital based on how many new houses they fostered!

“Hold up!” Nero nearly shouted before palming his eyes as if what he’d just heard had hurt his head.

Dropping his hands so he could glare at the woman who’d just been talking, he said, “So, you’re telling me that each city has its own culture, and not every city works the same way Dorchester does? How in the hell does that happen? Aren’t you all one kingdom? And when you say they ‘work’ differently, what do you mean? Like… give me an example or something.”

Before the woman had a chance to reply, a man from the other side of the circle declared loudly, “I grew up in Macroom, which is a fair bit East of Dorchester. Their council of leadership doesn’t have a leadership rank and is always 120 members strong. Also, the position of city lord isn’t hereditary. They got special dispensation for their local government from the capital when the city was founded. Lots of things there are different than here. You may not believe it, but their Merchant Hall requires sponsorship from a local noble to even participate.”

Amid some shocks and gasps, Nero heard someone shout, “No, they don’t. They can’t, right? I’m almost positive that’s illegal.”

The man from Macroom replied, “It’s not! As long as the city follows the kingdom’s accords, they can do whatever they want. And the accords aren’t all that strict with a lot of things. You think the king would let them do it if he wasn’t alright with it?”

Another Wacko spoke up in a voice somewhere between a shout and and a screech, “Ikishipa near the Strates border with the Machiki plains requires their citizens to wear masks when they leave the house!”

In response, the woman next to her replied, “Yeah, but that’s only because they all follow Pishta there.”

Luckily for Nero, he didn’t have to ask the question, because someone else did. “Which god is Pishta again?”

The woman replied, “One of the shadow gods from the Northeast I think. The city was founded by her followers from Pharkanion. Ikishipa is in a region with a lot of rain, so there is a lot of cloud cover. I think the whole mask thing started because Pishta followers focus on essence reading above facial expressions. They believe that people’s faces are the real masks.”

The woman who brought up the topic in the first place shouted, “Why they do it isn’t the point. The point is that it's weird!”

Nero found himself nodding in agreement, despite somewhat understanding how a culture could believe that.

The conversation branched off from there, with more and more random topics being brought up one after another. All said, Nero learned more in the hour he listened to them than in the entire time he’d spent learning from Nick and Vera.

More cities than he could remember were mentioned, with more random factoids thrown out than anyone without an eidetic memory could possibly retain. If he hadn’t believed that the kingdom was large before, now he was beginning to truly get an idea of how big it actually was. Just imagining that each of the cities being mentioned were filled with millions upon millions of people was blowing his mind. And most of the cities they were talking about were considered ‘nearby’ by these lunatics' standards.

“Wait a second. Theoretically, if someone were to travel from one end of the kingdom on foot all the way to the other side… how long would it take them?” Nero asked, somewhat dreading the answer.

A round of arguments immediately started, with people debating the average walking speed a person could maintain vs. the distance to be traveled. To Nero, it sounded more like a group of nerds trying to solve a math problem involving competing trains at variable speeds than a simple question. Some of the more intellectually inclined members of their conversation circle even tried to estimate how often a person would be forced to stop due to inclement weather and beast attacks. Eventually, the consensus started narrowing down to multiple years all the way up to several decades.

The more he heard, the more Nero’s sense of adventure was stoked like a grill on game day. The thought of so many different cultures out there for him to see and experience was exhilarating.

The group continued their argument while he remained lost in thought. Feeling something happening with his senses, he noticed a disturbance in the ether a bit to his left. Idly wondering what it was, he glanced over at the lines of Wackos sitting down and meditating. Realizing that someone had just leveled, Nero couldn’t help but wonder how anybody in this wild and crazy world was struggling to grow.

‘All it takes is putting yourself out there. It’s not that hard,’ he thought to himself.

Mentally chuckling at the realization that he was truly and utterly embracing the spiritual cliches and no longer surprised at how many he was coming across, he resumed listening to the conversation that had gone on without him.

“Lord Walker!” a voice echoed across the cavern loud enough to cause everyone to go silent and turn their head toward whoever was shouting.

Nero looked over to see Cathleen, Angelton, and the leaders of their little war party staring at him. They were likely a basketball court or two away from where he was standing but still recognizable from this distance. And based on their body language, they were waiting for him to come over and talk with them. Behind them, he could see that the fighting was finally finished and the cleanup was all that was left to get done.

Rather than come when called like a scrub, Nero infused a little essence into his voice and yelled back, “What?”

After a few seconds of silence, Nero was pretty sure it was Cathleen who replied just as loudly, “Your Link!”

Frowning in confusion, Nero was about to reply, “What about my link?” when he realized that someone was trying to ping him.

‘Right… my link,’ he thought to himself while mentally reaching out to it to see who was calling.

Recognizing Cathleen’s presence waiting for him to answer, Nero braced himself for a sternly worded reminder about how important Links were and likely a bit of a chiding over the responsibilities he was neglecting.

*Chapter Title: Embracing the crazy.

*Spoiler: There is something truly freeing about going with the flow.  It's likely why everybody does it.  Having a contrary opinion is hard.  That's why it's something only young people do... they're the only ones with the required energy to care enough.  As people get older, they stop having such strong opinions about things that contradict the local norms.  It's just easier to agree with the people around you than to fight over every little thing.  Of course, that doesn't always work out on a macro level.  But that's interesting in its own way.  It's funny to see people arguing with someone from a completely different region demanding that they conform to what's 'obvious' because everybody should think like they do.  You'd think it would be contradictory to have people without a personal will fighting with each other, but its so damned common its hilarious.  It's like watching two completely different streams meeting up and having to come together to form a river... that's how you get rapids.  Have a drowned this metaphor enough?  I think I have.  But I'm sure you get my point.