PeaceMaker

"The first topic for the meeting today would be on updates with the kingdom," Boris began as he lifted up a sheet of paper Kalmin had prepared ahead of time with the lists of topics. 

He looked up at the councils around the table. "I'll start backward this time," he commented, turning to the left-hand side of the table, "council advisors twos will go first then the council members 1s would go second and finally we'll hear a word from Adia."

The members on the left-hand side flinched slightly and sat up straight in their seats. 

Boris never did their side first. He always went in order with the advisor 1s first to give their updates on the situation before moving on to advisors two to give their updates in the situation but ever since he had been doing it that way, he had noticed a few things. 

Advisor 2s seemed to be piggybacking off what advisors 1 mentioned. As they all have two people on their job, it wouldn't be off for them to have the same result but at the end of last week, Boris had intentionally given similar jobs to each advisor to see which ones can explain their jobs correctly as they did it. 

The best way to do that is to make sure advisor 2s don't have anything to piggyback on and to go in random order. It puts them on edge. 

'True characters show when they're on edge,' Boris thought to himself as he looked up at Hendrickson. "Why don't you start, Earl Hendrickson. I suppose there would have been a lot of advancements especially in the construction field."

Hendrickson flinched slightly and sat up straight, emotions wiping off his face. "W-well yes, there has, your highness."

"Wonderful. Please tell me then," Boris smiled, leaning back in his seat.

"Well for one, most of the buildings on the middle layer of the palace has been fixed," Hendrickson began, "I visited some nobles-"

"Wasn't your job to ensure the progress of buildings behind the second wall?" Boris asked, locking eyes with Hendrickson, "I myself could check the process of the people living between the kingdom gates to the first wall as they are mostly nobles and such. Their families weren't harmed as much as the people of the kingdom were. There's quite a small number of people in that area afterall, they're only about 35% of the population so I'm not that worried about them."

Hendrickson paused for a moment before continuing. "Well yes, that is true. Most of the progress for the civilians living in the common land has been good too. There was a lot of wreckage that was able to be fixed this week."

"Wreckage where?" Boris asked, his head tilting to the side as he observed Hendrickson.

"I- well there was…"

"Arthur, mind bringing the map here," Boris asked, turning to a man on the right-hand side.

The man stood up immediately and walked towards the small stable off to the corner of the room upon which the large map rested on. He carefully wrapped it up and then carried it from the small table to the meeting table, standing at the side as he awaited further instructions. 

"Put it in the middle of the table please," Boris directed to which Arthur moved immediately, placing the map on the table and rolling it out. "Great, now can you please give a short introduction about the geography of the land and where Hendrickson was supposed to work on?"

Arthur nodded his head and walked to another corner of the room where he pulled out a tall, large board in which a scroll stayed attached at the top by some ropes. He untied the ropes and the scroll rolled down. Then he pinned down the one side of the paper to the iron rod on one side of the board and then walked over to the other side where he proceeded to pin down the other side.

He looked up at Boris and then picking up the long thin rod that sat in a crevice that ran across the thick top width of the board, he pointed to an area on the paper. 

It was a map. 

"This is a more expanded version of the map on the table that shows the three kingdoms within the Aucacia Empire. This is the Sonastu Kingdom, the western kingdom in the Aucacia Empire ruled by Theodore Aarvi, Dominic's brother, this is Aucacia in itself, ruled by Emperor Levi, in the middle of the Sonastu and Avrevia, the eastern kingdom, previously ruled by King Aurelius and soon to be ruled by Dominic," Arthur began, using the rod to point to each kingdom, "In Avrevia, there are 2 walls and one gate, an outer wall to separate it from Aucacia and Avrevia from mixing, an inner one to separate the civilians from the nobles and then the palace gates to separate the nobles from the palace."

Boris nodded his head, signally Arthur to continue.

"In the invasion last year, the people had skillfully snuck into the inner wall and then into the gates of the palace where they had waited until they got the chance to ambush. When they did, they had left behind a major army in the main kingdom, inside of the outer wall that began to attack the civilians and damage their houses, kill them and so on while the others in the palace began to do the same," Arthur explained, "as the nobility have their mansions and such in the inner wall while their land is in the outer wall, they didn't lose as much as the civilians did whose homes and lands were in the outer wall."

"Yes. Hendrickson, your job was to go to the outer wall and fix the damages," Boris interrupted, "I suppose you took advantage of the fact that you knew the palace itself was on a hill and could see far into the kingdom, but not see closely and therefore chose to not get any work done this week but to spend time in the inner walls."

"Of course not! Your highness, I would never lay off on such an important job," Hendrickson yelled, his eyebrows furrowing in anger and anxiety.

"Really?" Boris muttered, his head cocking to the side. He swiveled in the chair to face Adia and nodded his head in the direction of Hendrickson." Adia, can you confirm his words?"

"Of course your highness," Adia smiled. She waited for the council members to direct their attention onto her before beginning. "I come from the outer wall myself so I'm well versed in the area there."

She stood up from her seat and walked over to Arthur, passing by Hendrickson's seat. She looked up at Arthur and glanced at the rod in his hand and then back to him. "May I?"

He nodded and handed the stick to her, stepping aside so she could get to the board. Instead, she turned to the table and pulled the rod, lengthening it. Then once it was the longest it could go, she brought it down slowly on the map on the table, pointing at an area in the outer wall. 

"Here is the center city of the outer wall. It faces the inner wall and is an area where most of the trading happens in this kingdom. This is where I live. This is also the area that Construction Advisor Hendrickson, was supposed to be making the most progress on," Adia smiled, looking down at Hendrickson for a moment before continuing. "If I'd have to measure I would say about 58 percent of that area was fixed thanks to the help from Hendrickson while the other 42 percent was the works of the civilians themselves who wanted to get back to work immediately in order to earn money."

Adia hit the map with the rod, causing most of the council members to flinch. "Of that 42 percent, I funded 26 percent of their fixing."

Hendrickson shifted slightly in his seat. 

"Of course, that's not the only area we'd be talking about if we mention the vast outer wall. There were also many cities and villages in which I visited on my way to get more men to work for the kingdom army this past week and to feed the starving civilians," Adia continued, "It would be a lie to say that there was no work done in those areas, because in fact, there were."

Just when a slight sigh of relief started to leave Hendrickson's lips, it was snapped back in by the sound of the rod hitting the table. 

"However, it was not enough," Adia commented.

She walked back to Arthur, and handed the stick to him then walked back to her seat and sat down. 

"The invasion happened about a year ago and since then, the kingdom has worked to make sure that each week, a city or village in the outer wall is fixed. There are 30 cities and villages total in this kingdom meaning each week, one village or city should have been fixed," she continued, "that plan went well at the beginning, of course, we were able to mix many of the cities in the kingdom. Half of them by the time we almost reached the halfway mark for the year. But then if we were getting all that work done, why do we still have 10 major cities closer to the outer wall, still unfinished?"

Hendrickson flinched as Adia made eye contact with him. 

"Not to be arrogant or rude but last time I checked, there were 52 weeks in a year and one city fixed each week. It's been a year but we only have 66 percent of the cities fixed. The remaining 34 percent being the cities closer to the outer wall and further from the kingdom's view," Adia muttered. "Given the resources given to you each week, that I do my own part in scavenging and the kingdom tries to scrape up funding for, we should have long since reached the 90 percent mark."

"So my question to you is," Boris leaned in, "where is the money going to Hendrickson?"