5
You know how the prisons in Ortfast tend to languish, you say sympathetically, and you know that he gets paid precious little for a man of his stature. Fortunately you also find yourself in a position to make this right after a fashion. Tell you what, you place a hand on his shoulder, how about you make certain investments and maybe then he would find himself more amenable to the provision of some of his condemned and derelicts?
The warden looks uncomfortable, but you are quite correct. He used to be paid far more before he was removed from command even before the regime change - said change didn't directly affect him in any way apart from making it terribly unlikely he would be promoted back up. You see the memory of prestige in his eyes.
He is hesitant at the notion of bribery, but seems flattered at being considered worth bribing. You cajole him into accepting - it's just a temporary arrangement, you say, he can stop anytime he wants, it won't be too many prisoners. Of course, by the time these become a problem he will be too far gone down the rabbit hole. You simply solve too many problems to be comfortably refused.
258 S.I., the Middle of Fall
It is going to cost a bit to keep getting these prisoners, but the warden comes through and you find yourself lunch perhaps twice a week - half a prisoner at a time, more if you're especially famished. The prisoners don't strike you as terribly nutritious, being almost universally men and occasionally women of poor lifestyles, but you suppose you won't complain about human flesh when it's delivered to your doorstep.
6
Assante appears to have convinced the Queen at last to mount a much larger expedition to the Utterdark Caves, working from your information and Assante's own gnomish insight. It's as strange an entourage as you've ever seen, and Assante himself appears to have built some kind of strange invention to help them.
Furthermore, the Queen has been engaging in some talks with Jovanast, seemingly about the pirate menace presented by the Free Isles to Jovanastian shipping. They agree on a resolution about joint patrols of the western shipping routes. All very dull, you feel. No name for your son appears to be forthcoming, but the serving staff have taken to calling him Nubby, making light of a strange-looking but seemingly harmless allergy he seems to have developed but which promptly subsided.
In the middle of this lack of excitement you are invited to the Vesperlund Embassy by Princess Annika, blissfully late in the evening. She seems to be rather bored at the moment, and was wondering if you'd like to go on a hunt over in the eastern foothills, there's a minor noble there, Lady Something-or-other, she invited her and her retinue along. Apparently the woods there have excellent game.
A) Yes, but only if we hunt at night. It's an Ortfast tradition, don't you know.
B) You're not at all certain you're up for traveling right now, but you go ahead and have fun!
C) Let's take the Queen along, make it a royal nocturnal hunt! Just like they used to do in the Old Days.
D) Sorry, you can't go, but you could ask the Queen to come along instead! She's been just as bored as the Princess, surely.
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Topic: SPAMMASTER: Spymistress Kalja the Bewitched (Read 36846 times)