Chapter 74: Interlude 9. Klaus Has No Time To Scry

Klaus sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose irritably. He honestly thought there is more time to prepare for this visit. Much more, in fact. The realities of travel between Kraut and Champagne involved a choice between going by sea, using one of the mountain passes, or braving Ashenvale. First was complicated due to Sultanate and their currently... interesting interactions with Champagne, second was long and arduous, and third was far too inconvenient and dangerous at the moment to really think a king would care for it. No, Klaus was betting on a ship crossing through Mittelzea, and then a long slow travel from the far south of Kraut all the way to northern provinces where Berlinger was. Maybe count Gillespie himself would fancy himself hardier than the king and try to arrive early via mountain passes.

Yesterday's conversation crossed out all of his estimations AND in the same time made him panic a bit. Internally. Airship? As in, taking a gods-bedamned ship, and putting it up into the air? Just... how. WHY? And the estimation of just... "We'll be coming over next week, prepare the papers." - what was even up with THAT? Just... fly over the mountains, just like that? An, 'overnight trip', as Hiram put it? At his most conservative calculations, they had reasons to believe that flying thing of theirs to be capable of maintaining consistent twenty five leagues per hour. Which, honestly, was way beyond anything that could be squeezed out of horses, even if you treated them as disposable and run them flat out until they collapse. Knowing lady Gillespie's works (Klaus winced, casting his glance over the wall opposite to his scheming board. The assortment of shelves there held samples of everything new the girl put out on sale. For most nobles in question, the number of new products they introduced in their lifetime could be easily fit on his table. In her case? He would be summoning a carpenter next week for yet another shelving addition. Because having three rows of shelves two touse long was apparently about to be exceeded. Which was absolutely ridiculous.), this airship of hers would actually hilariously outperform his expectations. She had this annoying habit of being consistently MORE than he believed possible.

That... actually was very alarming, Klaus mused, as the idea percolated. The concept of someone consistently outplaying his wildest fantasies? Yowch. How does one even outwit an opponent like that if your own imagination just plain is not enough to envision their move? Aaactually, it's not quite right. There IS one specific consistency in all this. All of the responses have the common trait of introducing something new. Which means that to counter that, one would need allies that oppose new. Conservatives were never in short supply in any kingdom, thankfully, there's always a bunch of people pining for 'good old days'. The problem was that just a bunch of old fossils blabbing about how things were better when they were young is not going to impress anyone. He needed to drum up more tangible support.

Invigorated by the idea, Klaus hollered down the corridor, alarming a couple of clerks. They jumped into frenzied action, pulling up dossiers on all the high nobles that Klaus knew to be invested in manufacturing. The way Alyssa is going about it, it is only a matter of time before her profits cut into someone else's, and Klaus was determined to find out people most likely to be affected first and approach them while they still had the influence to alert them to the insidious threat. No doubt, some of them will elect to approach lady Gillespie to partake of new ideas instead of heeding him, but he felt that a majority of producers quite liked their established niches and were not keen on testing the mercies of an open market. Protecting one's monopoly was, after all, a concern pretty much every noble agreed with. If it is at all possible to control the supply of something, it is better to do it, for if not, surely someone else will overtake that particular craft.

He glanced towards the flowerbox and shook his head resolutely. While it would be nice to indulge in his usual scrying attempt, the mountain of papers to scan through and hammer out some kind of plan was far too daunting to put it off in the scant few days that remained before contact. In all honesty, he would rather not show his face at all, but Alphonse insisted on him being present as the one responsible for security on the Kraut side. Speaking of which, he's yet to see what the trade agreement is all about. It's obviously the sale of a pittance of ripple steel at extortionate prices, that much he already figured out, but it would behoove him to know the exact details... Zi vil vi fil!?She wants how much!?

Klaus felt his hairs raise as he scanned through the document. How MUCH ripple steel? For how much? But... how... this... Oh gods and stars, this is a disaster. If Gillespies have a method of making ripple steel THAT cheap that they could sell it by quintals at a price... He'd think it was a swindle, but his agents had bought a number of trinkets milled out of ripple steel already, and it was very much a real deal. And... tar roads? He had his people infiltrate road crew, but the method they reported back was so primitively simple that Klaus elected to disbelieve. There has to be some kind of secret last step or spell or hidden enchantment on the tools or... something. Because if it was really just gravel and tar, someone would have figured it out before. A path through Ashenvale? Is that even... Bah, no. It's Gillespie offering it. Preposterous as it may be, it IS her schtick to casually pull off the impossible and make it look easy. If she claims the road is possible then she likely has some idea on how to make it possible. Maybe that tar is the key to it. Or something he didn't think about. But... He is NOT ready! Kraut merchants are NOT ready. Everyone is prepared for long and complicated sea routes through the souths of respective countries. If Gillespie's blistering pace holds up, there will be a highway connecting the heartlands within two months, tops. That'll change everything about the mercantile landscape in Kraut. His agents would lose relevance, the marginalized rivals would suddenly find themselves indispensable, and worst of all - no time at all to reshuffle anything to let him keep the people in vital spots. A huge setback if it comes through.

Klaus groaned. As much as he would love to give his kingdom the trade, the questions of security stood first, and he just was not ready to deal with such a rapid change among merchants. He would lose control over the mercantile sector, and it would take years to wrestle his people back into new positions of importance. Verwaand had really shat in the soup there, much to his chagrin. The idiotic murder of Baumhoff polarized the merchant community and despite his best efforts, no deescalation was in sight. He worked with what he could, but... Naturally, he supported the faction that had more influence. Which meant southern sea traders. Who tacitly approved of Baumhoff murder. Much to the disgust of northern land traders, who banded together behind late Baumhoff initially and quite rightfully felt the murder was a travesty. Klaus agreed, but what was done was done, and his agents had ingratiated themselves with the sea traders and marginalized land traders to do so.

He briefly entertained the idea of finding some relative of Baumhoff to prop them up and present them to land trading alliance, after thoroughly indoctrinating them to promote moderation and reconciliation, but basic investigation revealed that the only living relative, aka daughter was... lady Gillespie's maid. He could possibly order the kidnapping, but there was just no good way to present a maid as a merchant, not without long and extensive reinvention of character with appropriate business ventures and... Yeah. Suffice to say it would be a project several years long at best, and that is not even taking into account the fact that Gillespie would push VERY hard to recover her maid. He had it on good authority that maid was also a lover... Which meant the whole plan was a no-go. Not without having some kind of influence over Gillespie first, which would make the whole mercantile sector issue superficial to begin with... Circles within circles, bah. Why does life have to be so complicated lately?

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