True victory in a colony-sim great realm is never approved on a muddy battlefield.
It’s ratified in the town counting houses, registered on the mercantile exchange. Then he etched into the technological progression tree of the test model console.
Three days after the collapse of the Ironfang Legion, the Great Hall of the Citadel Keep in Haven-Hold was transformed into a bustling, lit up center of land-wide finance.
Long telegraph cables ran through the leaded-glass windows, connected to four high-speed printing ticker receivers clattering rhythmically against oak stone stands.
Lady Penelope Haze sat at the head of the long dark wood conference table. She was flanked by Duchess Rowena Wintermere and Lady Millicent Croft.
Before them lay the captured commercial ledgers, bond debentures, and coal-mining concessions of the Grand Aether-Coal Trade ring of Maras.
“The forced payout is complete, Giles,” Penelope announced, stamping a heavy brass seal onto a thick stack of parchment writs. “When the news of Harrowgate’s capture and the total destruction of the Ironfang Legion reached the Royal Mercantile Exchange in Highmarch, Trade ring stock plummeted from eighty gold crowns to zero in forty-five minutes.”
Penelope looked up, her green eyes flashing with brilliant, hungry satisfaction.
