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Arc F1.9 | Chapter 11: The Mess I Inherited

There was a proverb like that from… somewhere. Dion, maybe—and that would explain why he had no recollection of the exact words or source, relations with Dion being what they were. At some point, relations between their two nation would likely shift, just as the relations between Dion and Baalphoria had shifted. Such was the way of the world, even if it was often a slow and painful thing.The fact that Dion had been their oppressor for so long, of course, was the problem. Remnants of that suppression still existed throughout Lüshan, within art and architecture, within history and the memories of their oldest citizens. Yanswt publications still came out regularly, advising those Lüshanians who went travelling abroad to interact with anyone of Dionese descent. Programs for xpherns were distributed by the more ardent of Dion haters, these programs scanning food and items purchased in other nations, making sure no Dionese hands ever touched them—no single shred of Dionese culture or ingredient originating there or within thoughts that could even passingly lead back to their most hated neighbour, either.

It was quite an impressive program, according to Emilia, who had installed it onto her own xphern out of curiosity.

she had laughed, her eyes crinkling into happy little lines that were as infectious now as they had been when he first met that sweet little girl his friend had adopted,

So, no; hatred for Dion was still a ripe fruit within their nation. Thus, for the time being, Dion and Lüshan were unlikely to find themselves with anyone more than Emilia shifting easily between their nations, happily making friends within each of their borders. Perhaps one day, her heart and ability to make friends with almost anyone might be able to bridge the divide between their nations—and what a strange thing, to potentially be left relying on a Baalphorian to act as peacemaker between them—but for now, there was no peace, only silence.

Dion and Baalphoria, of course, had a very different relationship. They had never been overlord and captive; rather, they had always been more each seeking to swipe up as much territory as they could before the other. Baalphoria took the Grey Sands, pressed their influence into a handful of southern Free Colonies as well—Seer’ik’tine, Zironia, another little one that was smushed between Zironia and the sea and Chinsata. Had Baalphoria been able to gain any influence in Chinsata, they likely would have extended even further south as well—into Mitine Dyn as well.

Even the Baalphorian government, it seemed, had its limits.

To be privy to the conversations that occurred regarding just how much the Baalphorian government was willing to tolerate, all in the name of expanding their empire: three hundred years ago, back when the last Colonial War broke out; in the decades surrounding it, when smaller conflicts with the Grey Sands and then Dion—and occasionally both—raged; then, in the hundreds of years beforehand, when Baalphoria had been insistent on capturing the Grey Sands, only to be left failing over and over again.

It was such an thing, for Baalphoria to have been so… obsessed with gaining control of the Grey Sands. No one really seemed to know why—not with any real confidence, anyways. As with many things in their world, cracked apart by myths and information losses and governments who would sooner burn every citizen alive than cooperate with half of their neighbours.

Baalphoria had wanted the Grey Sands so badly because had determined that nations on the southern continent, passed even Chinsata’s rancid existence, had been planning —something that, over a millennium later, had yet to occur.

the Grey Sands were a barrier of sand and human lives between Baalphorians and any incoming conflict—not that anyone spoke in such terms anymore, outside of purists. At least, that’s what he’d heard, anyways. As someone who only visited Baalphoria occasionally, and wasn’t allowed into more than a few meetings on training and military spending and alliances, Wander really didn’t know too much about how the government spoke when he wasn’t observing them—and Miles? Miles was the sort of person to flood someone’s office—or blow it up, with or without the person in it—if they spoke like that around him. In other words? The man’s vehemence was some mixture of endearing and psychotic and placating—he did have to regularly work with people who had abhorrent beliefs, after all.

That was another proverb that have been from Norvel? That seemed right, although the original was likely something more menacing. Something like

Same general energy; very different messages.

Behind him, the of another message coming through for him, sent through the pneumatic tubes that had long——ago been installed between a number of the oldest nations on the continent, sounded. It wasn’t the first, and Wander wanted to check the messages. It would be helpful to know how much of the situation was known outside of Falmíer, despite how little time had passed.

It was possible that, already, at least a few people knew quite a bit about the situation.

Several years ago, when he had risen to become Chief Drinarna and realized how much dissent had been rising within the government, Wander had placed someone he trusted within the communications department. Poor girl had effectively been stuck living there, working her way up the ladder, making sure the corrupt faction that lived there thought her loyal to them along, making sure that when this day came, the entire xphern network wouldn’t be taken down, while the aethernet hubs would be left as they were—a small blind spot within all of that faction’s planning. Assuming she had succeeded, foreign xpherns and the few Baalphorians in the city should have still be able to communicate; thus, might have been able to reach people outside the city and let them know what was happening.

The problem was that Wander himself didn’t know what was happening.

had happened, but for the Office of the Chief Drinarna no view of the city. The entire thing could be burning, and he wouldn’t know. In theory, someone would come let him know; in practice, so many of the people working for the government were part of one faction or another that tensions were a single breath away from exploding. Wander couldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to risk their life trying to reach him.

All this meant that the conflict could be nothing more than factions stomping about up here, far above the general populace, and no one outside of this hanging fortress knew that anything was amiss.

Wander rather wished he’d told outside of his inner circle what was happening because that inner circle was generally stuck within the various stands.

Of course, that was part of the difficulty with what was happening: very few people could be trusted, the fact that one of his closest friends had turned out to be heading one of the factions seeking to get rid of him was proof enough of that.

Small mercies: Wander had realized Officer Majörniel was acting against him revealing his own awareness of those plots to his once-friend. Most of the factions and their griefs towards the government had actually originated with his predecessor. While a few factions had fizzled out under his leadership, many more held so many decades—centuries, even—of animosity within themselves that lessening their frustrations with had turned out to be impossible. He had tried to soothe some of their issues; it hadn’t been enough—not in the few years he’d been given to try, anyways.

Really, the people who had led their nation and the Drinarna before him really had set him up for failure. It did explain why his predecessor had been ignoring the human trafficking, however: he had been trying to buy himself more time, those government workers and Drinarna who had been involved in the trafficking ring perfectly happy to kill the old man, if he dared fight back. Now, Wander had inherited that man’s mess. It was rather unfair!

Regardless of his ire at those who had come before him, this had set Wander up to his current predicament: sitting in his office, pretending he was unaware was amiss, both in the general sense of not knowing people were acting against him and in the sense that he was having to act as though everything was fine.

Another message into existence behind him, and yeah, clearly knew what was happening and was trying to get hold of him. Unfortunately, Majörniel wouldn’t leave—was his babysitter, clearly. Fortunately, Wander had never been stupid enough to share information about the ancient pneumatic tubes with the man—hadn’t shared it with anyone, as was the norm, another nation’s leader having told him of them after he had the job of Chief Drinarna forced on him.

Had whoever was messaging him been forced to share knowledge of their existence with someone? With Miles, perhaps, Baalphoria having never learned of their emergency communication network?

There had been times when Wander had considered telling Miles about the situation and the civil war brewing within Lüshan, but increasingly, he had found himself with Majörniel as his inescapable shadow, trailing after him because there had been against his life.

Didn’t Wander know his life was in danger, and he could therefore never be left alone with

Seriously, had he still been married, Wander wasn’t convinced wouldn’t have been chaperoning his marital bed as well. Luckily, his wife was no longer part of his life—miserable woman whose only contribution to his life had been their beautiful, if extremely moody, daughter. Unluckily, his wife was bitter about so much and he had come to suspect she had joined another faction shortly before she’d requested a transfer to another city—something that was rarely done and had resulting in her effectively never seeing her child again.

Cameron had visited her mother only once, over a decade ago, when Miles and Emilia had been going to the city where the woman now lived. Wander had stayed back, unwilling to step into his wife’s new home, out of a deference for allowing her that space—toxic as the woman was, he didn’t want to further antagonize her by stepping foot into her new

No one had ever spoken about what happened on that trip—although his ex-wife had claimed the visit had been —but Cameron had never wanted to go back, and something in her relationship with Emilia had changed. Not something for the better or for the worse; instead, if Wander had to claim her understood the minds of young women, he would say that they still didn’t like one another, but had managed to forge more of an understanding of one another.

Knowing Emilia, that girl probably saw something in Cameron and her mother’s relationship—an always strained, always criticism-ridden thing—and told Cameron what he himself could never do, unable to push himself between his daughter and her mother: that Cameron should stop talking to the bitch. Emilia didn’t mince words, and Wander have encouraged Miles to take Cameron with him just so the little silverstrain could see the way his ex behaved and tell his daughter to cut her off.

It was a little manipulative, but Wander had no regrets. Cameron was happier for being free of that woman. That woman had always picked up her xphern when her child called every week, Cameron intent to update her on her life. She had listened, criticized, left Cameron blinking back tears when she was small, left her clenching her jaw tight once she was a teenager.

Cameron had stopped calling after that visit that had been . Wander’s ex-wife had never contacted them again.

Bitch—and the fact that even back when they first separated, decades ago, she had been joining up with a faction that was seeking to overthrow the status quo of their government? That she had been pushing even harder for since he had become Chief Drinarna?

It was going to become a problem, he was sure. Looking back… she had been perhaps happy to request she be transferred to another city. Now, Wander could see it for what it was: an operative of a faction using her divorce as an opportunity to break free of Falmíer, all in order to spread their views further. Knowing his ex-wife—who had been so soft and kind in public and an abusive bitch in private—Wander had no doubt an entire army of supporters now existed in that city, strategically placed between Falmíer and their eastern border, where any international support their could get would come from.

Not that they were likely to receive much support from their international allies, most of their alliances based around cooperating with conflicts that come from within. The problem was that there was a precedent for alliances that allowed for support during civil conflicts being abused. People in power, corrupt and unwanted by the majority of their populace, pulled on their alliances to hold their power. Foreign governments claimed they were and took down governments they didn’t like, all under the guise of

So, provisions generally stated that foreign governments couldn’t interfere in civil conflicts. It was such an intense provision that it was yet another reason why Wander had never told Miles or Zitra’za what was happening, lest they feel as though by simply advising him they were violating their alliances—something that could cost any one of them their jobs, and with all of them in precarious positions…

No, his friends hadn’t deserved to be dragged into this. They were at least partially dragged in now, more and more messages coming in because they were trying to make sure he was okay—or perhaps were trying to give him some bit of information.

As long as Majörniel was there, however, occasionally frowning and glancing in the direction of the sound of messages dropping was coming from, there was nothing that Wander could do but sit there and hope that, eventually, he would at least be allowed to pee!

With the xphern network down—it had been hard to cover that up, when he’d been trying to figure out where his daughter had gotten off to—Majörniel had decided to put him into an

Wander, however, needed to pee, and enough was enough! He was the one in charge here, and as much as he had been hoping that whatever was happening would resolve itself—was just a blip in the xphern transmission network or someone accidentally fucking the system that managed it up, as happened from time to time—he wasn’t about to be forced to continue sitting there until he pissed himself!