Yngvild and the Forest of Dreams

Resolutions

Erik briefed us on the local situation. Beretha was the main city in the Kingdom of Salicia, which was bordered to the West and South by the Kingdom of Cottalem. We already knew that Cottalem had been trying to start a war, which was why the Board of Trade had embargoed selling iron and coal to them.

The King of Salicia was an old man, and the succession wasn't certain. He'd had two sons and a daughter. Both of the sons had died in the last few years, although the elder had two young daughters. The daughter was married to a Skyssian, and the Board of Trade thought he might be a good candidate for King. The locals had a couple of other candidates in mind, including a nephew of the King and another major noble.

The previous King of Cottalem had been married to the sister of the current King, and so their new King was claiming that he ought to inherit Salicia when his uncle died. This was muddied by allegations that the Salicians had been implicated in the killing of one of the princes.

The local Board of Trade agents had been busy working out who the key protagonists were in stirring up the war. They'd narrowed it down to a couple of key people that we needed to visit and persuade them to talk it down. If we couldn't persuade them to do that then other methods were authorised to resolve the situation.

'So we're hired killers now.' Noren said.
'Not if they see sense.' I said. 'I'm not going to kill anyone just because someone else has told me to.'
'Good girl' Jafnadr said.
'So who is our first target then?'
'Which do you prefer, the Earl of Beretha, or the King's nephew?' I said.
'Well the nephew has a genuine claim, so the Earl needs persuading first.'
'Have you had any ideas on how we go about it?'
'Walk up to the front door of the Earl's house, ask for an audience, and then tell him to talk it down or he doesn't have a Kingdom, or an Earldom.' Noren said.
'That sounds obvious, but how will we make it work?'
'Well we get a paper from the local agents, and we tell him its an official visit, which it is.'
'What if he's busy, or away or something?'
'Well we either make an appointment and go back later, or we find out where he's gone and follow him. Eventually we'll catch up with him.'
'And when we do see him, how are we going to persuade him?'
'I thought you might be able to charm him, just like you dealt with the Board of Trade agent on the Thunderbird.'
'I can't think of anything better, so it's worth a try.' I said.

We put all our battle gear on before going downstairs from the upper floor of the Board of Trade office that we had been offered. Erik gave us the paperwork we asked him for.

'Jafnadr, is there any way you can hide our battle gear in the same way that you make yourself look inconspicuous?'

'You don't need me to do it. You should both be able to do that yourself just by concentrating on it. People see you as you want to be seen.'

'Noren, remember you've mentioned that we ought to be able to change what we look like?' I said.
'Of course, that's how I dealt with the bear in the forest.'
'I thought I'd imagined it that you'd got larger.'
'Thanks.'
'Well, Jafnadr has just suggested that we could look unarmed if we wanted to.'
'Interesting. Did she offer any sugggestions on how to do that?'
'We concentrate on how we want people to see us.'