The interlude passes slowly as the Arbiter has a tendency to enjoy his weekend evenings.
The taxation plan is implemented, with mixed results. While the tax system does begin to bring in more revenue than the preexisting system, the majority of the tax burden is placed upon the common land owners and the free artisans. While the grand nobility end up paying more per person, there are significantly less of them. As a result, more than 60 percent of the tax burden is placed upon the non=noble land owners and the free artisans. Another 30% is payed by the common peasants, as they are the most common class of all. The nobility manages to pay only the last 10% of the annual revenue. This leads to widespread discontent among the workers, craftsmen, farmers, and general populace. Most of the nobility rejoice at their decrease in taxation, and those who were increased, seem unperturbed if somewhat annoyed.
The change in taxation has also brought to light another issue: Slavery. Many large plantations and other industries have a decent number of slaves in addition to serfs. This means that those enterprises which use a high number of slaves and serfs are in effect not only getting free labor, but also tax cuts. A rush to purchase more slaves and employ serfs begins!
The water research goes quite well. The arbitrator and Yorboi spend weeks fine tuning a spell that will allow for water to be pulled out of the air. The spell itself works by having several triangles attuned to water ajoined to triangles attuned to air. Mana is fed into these ajoined triangles and they effectively separate air from water. The two energies are then fed into magic circles for their respective elements.
This spell is quite simple to operate, especially if the caster takes the time to inscribe the spell physically instead of trying to hold the image of the spell in their mind. On a humid day the amount of water produced is a constant flow for as long as the mage continues to supply mana. This brings great joy to the masses who line up to gather water from what they call The Mage's Fountain. However dry days can only produce a trickle of water and many mages worry that this spell won't be able to produce sufficient water during the hot dry droughts that originally drew concern for this issue.
The final issue was that of the goblin raiders. Erin travels east to hire some goblin mercenaries, and quickly finds some who would be willing to do the job. Locals in the area claim that the reason for the raids is the ungoing civil war between the goblin tribes. One side decided to begin raiding our lands for supplies and funds that would help them in the war. Quill is able to arrange a meeting with Chief Bonemunchers of the Marroweaters and discuss with him an alliance against the Riverbutt Clan. After some negotiation it became clear that this is an issue that would have to be brought before the council.
Lewald spends time looking at lines and trying to figure out how they work. After many tries they get a loose understanding and go to check with the Arbitrator on the intricacies of making a line do magic. Lewald finds the Arbitrator working with another elementalist Yorboi on a complex water producing spell and after much discussion and a bit of advice, Lewald and Yorboi end up having a fairly decent grasp on how to implement circles and lines somewhat effectively.
Nix spends time alone studying healing magic to improve human health.
Without an actual experiment its quite difficult for Nix to make any progress and is left with a theoretical idea that living in filth, drinking dirty water, and general lack of hygiene are all bad for health.
Lousette spends time in the poorer districts in an attempt to gain their support. However the poor districts were in complete disarray. Slaves and serfs were being sold in massive numbers. Families screamed as they were being separated to different buyers. Children were left orphaned on the street as no one wished to employ/buy them. Looting and crime, bordering on rioting, was common. There was no joy for the proletariat here, only suffering and pain.
Octavia spends most of the interlude with her daughter, almost completely insulated from the events occurring only a few districts away. Octavia, at a small tea party with a few neighboring women and their children, hears that almost all paid staff has been fired from the noble houses and replaced with a large multitude of slaves and serfs, which have no taxation and no pay. This saves nobles a lot of money, but doesn't increase their income, effectively creating huge tax cuts for them.
Several issues are on the docket for this season. The first is that of slavery and serfdom. Common peasants have high taxes and require pay, as a result, almost all of them have been put out of work and replaced with free labor. This never occurred in the previous system, as even slaves were taxed, requiring their owners to "pay" them the equivalent of that tax. Now commonfolk are put out of jobs and will soon have to sell themselves into slavery and serfdom just to survive. No action need be taken on this issue if the council finds this change in social structure acceptable.
The second issue will be brought to you by Quill, he will discuss the various options we have in the goblin dilemma. However we may wish to discuss this issue last as it is still ongoing.
Third, various foreign governments have made inquiries into our foreign policy. We are a new regime and have the ability to start anew with many of our neighbors. However, many have already been offended by our new tariffs. We may wish to establish a general base foreign policy that will guide us into the future. This includes trade, diplomacy, and military foreign policy.
The floor is open to discussion.