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Scourge of Scorpions: The Diamond War

Radilo

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OOC: Sorry for my long absents, grad school applications have dragged on far past my liking. IC:

Knýtlingsfort, OLR.

Had things not been turning out such a profit Dwbeque would have been more pissed about the the ongoing interference of whom he and the other executives referred to as "hooligans." Partisans were something he was use to back home; the communists were known to protest or strike at the drop of a hat. In Radilo, though, they didn't have guns and were kept on a tight leash by their bosses in Nouveau Port. Of course they didn't have as much to bitch-a-mount; workers in Radilo had it pretty good: high wages, full unionization, great benefits, even imported "exotic white" hookers paid for by the company. Workers up north had to be content with whatever wages and benefits the "hooligans" could get for them.

Because of this, it was to LP's advantage that every piece of gem-quality carbon that the Himyari soil could offer had already sucked up--they didn't have pay the costs to employ Radilan workers. This, in turn, made putting up with partisans worth the investment and frustration.

His intercom light came on.

"What is it?"

"Sir, they tied up another mine."

"Which one?"

"A small one outside Viewhawk."

"Shit. Why?"

"Same reasons as before, sir."

"Has Viewhawk itself been re-opened."

"Ought be by tomorrow, sir."

"Alright, thank you. Keep me updated."

"Yes, sir."

Dwbeque grunted. He took out a bottle of whiskey and a glass from his desk drawer. He poured himself a drink. He preferred it with ice, but he lacked the desire to stand up and get some out of the small freezer in his office.
 

Rheinbund

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"How are things going in Buxtehude?" Minister for Foreign Affairs Neubauer asked Farnbach, the Staatshauptdirektor of the Staatsschutz.
"The Rigpa and his entourage have settled quietly. As far as we can see, the Rigpa is enjoying his house, garden and beach, and also Buxtehude and its nature. They regularly get visitors, but of course that is logical given the Rigpa's unofficial position and Viereskogg's official position. And of course they also get private visits from Oelar. For instance people who got convicted for murder," Farnbach said.
"Eh, what? Please explain," the Minister asked.
Geijer,” Farnbach said. “His wife became part of the Rigpa’s entourage to become his cook. Recently he was charged with murder and convicted to life imprisonment, but apparently the prisons in Oelar have some leaks.”
“What did you do with him?”
“To be very honest, Herr Minister, Oelar is a powder-barrel. You know that. Geijer’s conviction could very well have been a way to get rid of a political rival. If we catch him here and hand him over to the authorities in Oelar, we might get problems with the faction Geijer belongs to. And both you yourself and Minister Kögler indicated that you want to keep Eiffelland out of the political struggles in Oelar. Therefore, we only followed him from the airport to Buxtehude and back. Of course we didn’t know what happened inside the Rigpa’s house, because we didn’t install any listening devices in the house.”
“Well, we discussed that. Indeed it was tempting to do so, and I favoured it as well, but the King has spoken. According to him, it is really impolite to bug a naive old man who is enjoying our hospitality and spending the days of his retirement here. When it comes to the Rigpa, I agree with the King, but indeed it would be interesting to know what his entourage is doing. Especially the Prime Minister. But, we can always try to work with directional microphones when really needed. And we can always try to listen to the Rigpa’s entourage when they are outside the house,” Neubauer said.
“Indeed, you are right. And I doubt whether they would figure out that we do so,” Farnbach grinned. He knew his men.

Like the people from the Königlicher Garde, the secret agents from the Staatsschutz were masters in disguise. Not in the way of the Inspector Clouseau character from that Guianan movie sequence about a police officer from the Sûreté in Valmy. Much more professional. Piece by piece, Eiffelland’s secret agents could compete with professional illusionists with their disguises. You saw a stinking homeless man singing drunk songs in a porch, but in fact that drunk homeless man was waiting for someone to arrive, and when that someone arrived, the drunk homeless man jumped up from the floor, grabbed that someone and pushed him into a waiting car within a few seconds and without any sign of coordination problems, and even the gin bottle which was part of the disguise wasn’t forgotten.
But of course there were no homeless drunkards in Buxtehude. That small beach town near Bad Hersfeld was too rich for that. Around the same time the Rigpa arrived in Buxtehude, some older couples arrived there as well, but for something else than enjoying their retirements. Furthermore, when the people from the Rigpa’s entourage went into town, there was always someone who listened to their conversation. But never the same man, at least it never appeared to be the same man. Sometimes he was a business traveler, sometimes an older man visiting his brother, sometimes a student with his girlfriend, sometimes a deliverer, sometimes … The disguises were innumerous but always adequate. And of course it was often a different person.
So the Staatsschutz knew quite well what was happening in Buxtehude, although the first task of those secret agents was to ensure the safety of the Rigpa’s entourage.
And indeed, the Staatsschutz knew that Geijer had visited the Rigpa’s house. They also knew why, and they didn’t need much fantasy to figure out what happened with a probability bordering certainty. They didn’t need bugging devices for that.

“It is official that Franken is very much involved in Oelar, not only because of the mining business. You also told me that the Radileans recently involved themselves into the mining business in Oelar. Neither the Franken nor the Radileans never informed us about their actions there, so we cannot take sides in the Oelarian affairs,” Neubauer said. “But I must say that it is important to me that Buxtehude remains a quiet little beach town. We certainly must keep the violent part of the Oelarian affairs away from there, and preferably also outside Eiffelland.”
“We can manage at this moment, but we need more intelligence from Oelar. The Rigpa won’t be shot, but if Geijer is here, he might be a target. Viereskogg himself might be a target as well. I want to know more about what’s happening in Oelar,” Farnbach said.
“I thought you already had some people there.”
“No, not yet. First I want to ask the Franken if they can keep their eyes open. Of course we can inform them about what’s happening here in Buxtehude as well.”
“I have to discuss that with Minister Kögler, and maybe also with the Chancellor. Wait with doing so until I know more from them,” the Minister said.
 
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Same day
Trier, Eiffelland


Of course the embassy in Trier was amongst the largest diplomatic missions of the Franconians. Indeed, relative to Eiffelland’s international clout the embassy’s size made more sense than the proportions of embassy to Oelar. However, Eiffelland had caused Franken much less trouble throughout the past decades than her northern neighbour. There was a security department, too, which was a cover for Franken’s spooks. Their work focused more on coordinating intelligence efforts in the less EDF-friendly countries nearby than prying on the Eiffellanders themselves. That would have been an insult to their spooks’ talent.

Unless they were assigned field service jobs abroad, agents stationed in Eiffelland had a pretty calm and easy work. From Nürnberg they had received word to show restraint when supervising the Rigpa’s home in Buxtehude. Instead of deploying a large squad to Buxtehude, the Landesnachrichtendienst (LND) and its smaller sibling services concentrated on checking the flight lists from and to Eiffelland as well as tapping a couple of banking accounts. Due to agreements on cross-border law enforcement it wasn’t that difficult to achieve without stirring the Eiffellanders too much.

Two days later

In his opinion Nürnberg should have told Trier about its interest in all things Oelarian earlier, but the big shots in the capital tended to behave in curious ways, Chief of Security and supreme spook Hannes Volland decided. Only this morning Johannes Paul Stephanson, cabinet minister and Head of the State Chancellery, had arrived in Trier. He was (also) in charge of running the daily business of the Reichssicherheitsrat, which was the body coordinating all security and defence agencies of Franken. Volland and Stephanson were supposed to explain Franken’s agenda to their Germanic allies in the afternoon.

Both civil servants and their small entourage were politely received by their Eiffellander hosts a few hours later. After the usual exchange of pleasantries, Stephanson began to explain: “We haven’t been sure what to make of the Prime Minister’s exile community up to now. Only little by little we have been able to uncover the connections he continues to maintain to Oelar. You see, our northern neighbour country continues to be an enigma. In the course of several centuries of interactions we have understood only so much about them. Their behaviour seems erratic, even illogical to ‘enlightened’ societies. While we don’t have any aspirations to go beyond being a concerned friend of Oelar, you will understand it takes some effort to keep track of their actions and influence them to spare our northern borders from trouble. That is why we have a relatively high presence of intelligence personnel and are deeply involved in Oelar. Out of our deepest respect for our countries’ age-old friendship and for your sovereign decision to entertain the Rigpa, we have kept a very low profile in Buxtehude. We have extracted only the most vital pieces of information on the Rigpa’s court-in-exile, so to say.”

Hannes Volland wasn’t sure whether Stephanson was to be called a fool to play with open cards or a genius. Franken’s and Eiffelland’s long and fruitful friendship was an argument in favour of the latter. Unless you’re in very deep distress yourself, you didn’t blatantly lie into your ally’s face.​
 

Rheinbund

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The Staatsschutz was Eiffelland’s only secret service. It operated both inside and outside Eiffelland. Furthermore, it contained Eiffelland’s paramilitary branch. Complicated arrestments were carried out by the Staatsschutz. The fact that Eiffelland had only one secret service made one thing easy: No formal handovers were needed when somebody followed inside Eiffelland left the country; the team following him just continued to follow him outside Eiffelland. The same was valid for a person followed outside the country: If he entered Eiffelland, the group following him continued to follow him without the need of a formal handover. Of course superiors were informed, but the lines were short.
This organisational structure had, however, a disadvantage on the political level. The Minister for Internal Affairs was responsible for what the Staatsschutz did inside Eiffelland, and the Minister for Foreign Affairs was responsible for what the Staatsschutz did outside Eiffelland. Because of this, also the Chancellor had been made responsible. When the relations inside the coalition were strained, like in the previous cabinet, this sometimes led to problems. Also because the Chancellor and the Minister for Foreign Affairs were by tradition always from different parties. Luckily, the relations between the current coalition parties were good.

This combined responsibility led to the fact that Minister Johannes Paul Stephanson and Hannes Volland were facing the Chancellor, two Eiffellandian Ministers and the Staatshauptdirektor des Staatsschutzes Michael Farnbach.

“Thank you for your explanation, Minister Stephanson,” Minister for Foreign Affairs Rudolph Kögler said. “Oelar is a country that continues to amaze us. Of course we have an overview of what happens there, but we will never understand why the things happen like they happen, because, like you say it, the Oelarians’ behaviour is far away from what we consider ‘normal’. Because you are closer to Oelar, you know more details about the country, and you have a more direct interest in it. If needed, we are there to help you.”

“Vice-Chancellor Kögler, Minister Neubauer and I had the luck to observe the Rigpa and his entourage when we were at the dinner the King had organised for them during their stay in Trier,” Chancellor Matthias Graf von Seydewitz said. “I understand very well why the Rigpa wants to hand his powers over and enjoy a certain retirement in a more comfortable climate than in Oelar. The man is over 80 years old. But I also have the impression that the Rigpa’s entourage was not really happy with its relocation to a small town far away from home. I understand why in the case of Robert Petursson Viereskog and his girlfriend: Viereskog had clearly been caught in a trap that had been set up to remove a rival from the stage. Our King phrased it in a nice way: It is a pity that a golden cage shines too much to see from the outside that it is a cage. Only when you’re in it, the gold can’t hide any more that you’re in a cage. Officially, Viereskog has the power, but in fact, he has nothing. Viereskog’s girlfriend followed him like a faithful wife would follow her husband in good but also in bad times. I recently learned that Katja Benjaminsdatter Geijer’s husband had been convicted for murder, so I can understand why she isn’t happy. I don’t know anything about Gretchen Seumasdatter Gunn and Kaia Josefsdatter Ulfvan, but I have the impression that they have been removed from active life as well. The only one who voluntarily moved to Buxtehude is the Rigpa himself. I don’t know how the others feel under this.”

“Our largest concern,” Minister for Internal Affairs Neubauer continued, “is that Buxtehude remains a nice and cosy town. We realise that we won’t be able to teach the Oelarians a less violent way of solving disputes, but if they insist on molesting and shooting each other, then not in Buxtehude. Also because we consider the Rigpa and his entourage guests of the Eiffellandian Government, and then it is a matter of honour to us that they are not murdered or molested here in Eiffelland. Per ‘Royal Decree’, we are not allowed to install bugging devices inside the Rigpa’s house, but we have a close safety ring around it. Furthermore, the Rigpa and his entourage are monitored when they go out, with the first aim their safety. Of course we often hear something, but we haven’t done much with that information yet. By the way, Oelar’s prisons seem to be a bit leaky: Geijer managed to visit his wife here in Eiffelland, despite his conviction. We let him pass, because we have the impression that his conviction contains an important political part in which we considered it better not to get involved without some more information.”

“And we would like to have that information from you,” the Chancellor took over again. “We want to prevent that we carry out something that hampers your position in Oelar. Furthermore, it is in our interest to know if anybody is developing plans for carrying out an assault here in Eiffelland. We don’t expect an assault on the Rigpa; he is still too popular. We don’t expect an assault on one of the women in his entourage, either; they don’t have an important role to play in Oelar. But Viereskog would be a likely candidate. He represents one of the factions ringing for power in Oelar. And then maybe people would try to hurt him through his girlfriend. Summa summarum, I think it would be wise if we regularly discuss our plans and actions regarding Oelar and the Rigpa cum suis here in Eiffelland, and share information.”

OOC: Please excuse the delay. I was busy last week. Working in a company with 80% women has its disadvantages.
 
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"Thank you, too, for highlighting all aspects so carefully, meine Herrn. We fully understand your concerns to keep Buxtehude a clean and calm beach town," Johannes Paul Stephanson replied politely, "Indeed, there's no reason why we shouldn't exchange intelligence on Oelar. After all, we are all in this together, as EDF allies. It would save us some trouble and lead to more efficient information gathering, I daresay. Unless something grave happens, you will be informed via our LND's liaison officer to the Staatsschutz."

Hannes Volland cast the Minister a commendatory look. He wasn't just a pen-pusher and career-focused guy from the capital.

"For a start, Gentlemen, please don't hesitate to ask me. I'm authorised to provide you with a literal basic supply of intelligence on Oelar. You may have heard about both Radilean and Franconian companies competing over mines in Oelar. Between Franken and Radilo this will not have any political implications. Politically His Majesty's Government is merely keen on keeping Oelar in the hands of the liberal-conservative faction, the Alvitrs," Minister Stephanson continued after taking a large sip from his cup of tea.​
 

Rheinbund

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"OK, then also our focus should be on keeping Oelar in the hands of the Alvitrs. We will provide you with information on who is visiting the Rigpa and his companions, and will try to find out what is discussed there. We will also inform you about Viereskog's travels, and whichever other information is important to you. We will also need to extend our who-is-who in Oelarian politics," the Chancellor said.
 
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“I believe we can be of some help in that regard,” Minister Stephanson remarked smilingly, “As a rule of thumb you have to keep in mind that Oelarian politics are similar to classic Scano-Germanic politics, but also so very different. Herr Geosohn, would you open the file on Oelar’s factions, please?” One of the State Chancellery Minister’s aides turned on a fancy looking notebook and opened the requested file. Via the room’s video projector a graphic was displayed on one of the walls.

Stephanson started explaining it: “In the middle you can see the Alvitr faction, whose heir apparent I. Christian Alvitr continues to run the show in the capital in his capacity as the regent for the incumbent Rigpa and the Rigpa’s designated successor. Due to their relatively centre-right political point of view Franken chose to support them. On the very right you find the faction of the Eirs, who aren’t particularly happy the Alvtirs reached out to us for assistance. If we were on the Eirs’ side, it would be vice-versa, of course. Why do we root for the Alvtirs? They are less trigger-happy than the Eirs and more prone to look to Germania for inspiration how to run their country in a modern fashion. There’s business and cultural gains in it for us. Furthermore, we believe the Alvtirs are the best to ensure stability in Oelar. On the left you see the equivalent to the socialist-communist wing in Oelar. Much to our own surprise we recently learned they are open to realpolitik considerations. They could be an interesting pawn.”

“Thank you so far, Herr Stephanson,” Kanzler Graf Seyedewitz replied, “But please do tell us why there’s a small box labeled ‘Knýtling’ included in the graphic? Isn’t this your royal house’s name?” Thus Johannes Paul Stephanson clarified the role of the House of Knýtling in Oelar. “In a nutshell, the Rigpa reinvested the House of Knýtling’s heir apparent, i.e. Duke of Schlesnitz, in the Great Council. Historically the role of Markgraf von Oberschlesnitz was assumed by Heinrich V, first Knýtling Emperor, in the second half of the 15th century. In this capacity the respective Duke of Schlesnitz holds nominal lordship over the south east of Oelar. His Majesty’s Government did advocate accepting honour, as it’s a useful post.”​
 

Rheinbund

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"Thank you for this explanation," Minister Kögler said. "I think we would have supported the Alvitrs as well. We ourselves have the impression that not only political considerations but also clans determine the political spectrum in Oelar. Could you also explain us more about that? What is the position of Viereskog in the whole scheme? And what is the position of Geijer? When can those people become dangerous to the stability of Oelar?"
 
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Minister Stephanson nodded. “Blood is thicker than water, isn’t? You are right; the clans are another key factor in the game of thrones in Oelar. The designated heir to the Rigpa is his grandnephew of Clan Gunn, while the Alvitrs want to have their fair share of power, too. On the way to and during the conclave which decided upon the successor we had put our bets on the Alvitrs to win the princely throne. The non-aligned ones and/or the clerical princes within the Great Council were quite impressed by the imposing nature of the Eirs and Viereskog. That’s how the present compromise came about. The Gunns retain the rigpa throne; the Alvitrs call the shots, whilst Viereskog takes over as prime minister.”

He took a sip from his glass of water. “How powerful is Viereskog? He better be not underestimated and we would prefer him to enjoy Eiffelland ad infinitum instead of causing mischief in Oelar. Unless my memory betrays me, he is a nephew or otherwise close relation to the Air Commander Lord Eir. The Prime Minister is pretty furious Regent Christian Alvitr forced him to relocate his base outside of Oelar. I surmise he is beginning to regret the compromise he accepted. What about Geijer? Well, he is an excellent scholar and very knowledgeable in Scano-Germanian history. What’s more, he has got a sharp mind. During former Foreign Minister Margarethe Alvitr’s trip to Franken he tried to convince us of the merits of the more conservative faction. Despite his disreputable behaviour, i.e. a sexual assault against Margarethe Alvitr according to our informants, he has the potential to become the conservatives’ spiritus rector once more. He is in favour of the church continuing to hold sway over the education facilities of his home country.”
 

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"Very well," Chancellor Graf von Seydewitz said. "It is tradition that the Prime-Minister stays with the Rigpa. So as long as the Rigpa stays alive, Viereskog has to stay in Eiffelland. In the meantime, we need to think something out that is interesting enough for a 23 year old man to stay here. Or we need to set something up so that Viereskog cannot return to Oelar any more. The same to Geijer. We know that he has been convicted in Oelar. The next time he visits his wife, we could treat him as an escaped prisoner and send him back to Oelar, but then he has to be sent to a prison out of which it is less easy to escape."
 
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"Excellent -", Minister Stephanson smiled broadly, "I'm delighted to see we're on the same wavelength as to Oelar's various actors. Is there anything more you would like to discuss, Herr Kanzler? I don't want to seem impolite, but I'd now be ready and willing to try out the highly-priced cuisine of Trier."
 

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"Well, I think we have discussed everything out, Herr Minister," the Chancellor said, also smiling. "I can assure you that Trier has a lot to offer with regards to culinary experiences. Do you want to choose something yourself, or do you want my secretary to order some seats? The restaurants are not my specialty, but surely Minister Kögler can give you some tips."

OOC: FYI, a little blooper from my side, the Kanzleramt is Schloss Bellevue. I know, IRL the German President resides there, but I decided to put the King into Schloss Charlottenburg (also because I don't have good picture material of the Berliner Stadtschloss) and give the Chancellor Schloss Bellevue as residence and office.
 

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Yungdrung Gutsak, OLR. When Prime Minister Viereskog was taken out of his induced coma, he survived his mysterious illness to awake to a different world. Someone - it was still unknown - had poisoned Margarethe Hjovarthursdatter Alvitr by cutting her cocaine with Drano, and they found her pale face covered in blood from a nosebleed. Her brother Isleifur, the lord protector, had taken Viereskog into his own home to take care of him, curiously. It was his first time really meeting Isleifur, whom he had admired from afar in the university before becoming his political rival. The capital was in crisis mode; apparently ISRA was on the cusp of declaring Knytlingsfort an autonomous socialist statelet, and had at least on paper nationalized the Eir-owned mines. What would Lord Eir do? What would the Franconians do? What would the ISRA radicals, by whom all arbitration efforts had been ignored, do? The shooting was set to begin any day, everyone said. Thorlakur was enjoying a quiet retirement in Eiffelland, and was becoming increasingly difficult to contact.

Isleifur, in a black turtleneck, stared sadly at the window at some red-shouldered hawks flying high above the capital. "You woke up just in time, prime minister."
 
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At least they weren't surprised. Prinzregent Jakob von Franken was moved when he learned about Alvitr's untimely death from the Foreign Minister a few days ago. As there was no police force in the classic sense, there was little hope her murder case would be solved the classic way. For the time being Prince Sebastian's study plans would be maintained, but the Royal Guards and Landeskriminalamt did step up personal protection measures for the soon beginning studies of Franken's second-in-line.

It turned out the so-called socialists were more money-hungry than they were supposed to be, ideologically-wise. Wasn't socialism about overcoming the greed for capitalist items? True, they had handed over actual operations to FRO, i.e. Fritz Lessing, who was in turn influenced by Franconian spook Lisa Frauburg. Yet their miners weren't quite as industrious and reliable as you would desire. Graf Beaumont von Miltenberg and the Prince Regent agreed to increase Frauburg's operational budget, but to keep her focused on Knýtlingsfort. The earl himself would travel to Oelar's capital to sort out the mess, bringing the vanguard of Prince Sebastian's entourage with him.​
 

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*

Knýtlingsfort, OLR. Unusually fierce spring snowstorms had disrupted rail travel, isolating the capital of Olmolungring and cutting it off from the country's principal industrial center. Even hockey games had been cancelled. Like dandelions sprouting up in a neglected Franconian garden, the old yellow-and-red flag of the province was replacing the white national banner on buildings in the city.

Filip Jónstyrsson Gutkind had taken leave from the Capitollium and resigned as Transport Minister upon being sworn in as president of what ISRA was presumptively styling the "Knýtlingsfort Republic". The comatose prime minister, presumably, did not notice.

The snowstorms had stopped the fighting in the hills with Dead-Eye's men, which had been fierce when Gutkind came to take over the city in mid-March. But the snowstorms had given ISRA time to retrench and solidify their control over the city. Many of the Eir militiamen stranded in the city had been rounded up and imprisoned in requisitioned OEC warehouses. Others had disappeared into the slums along with the suddenly invisible cloaked Swordbrothers. It had become a city of sandbags and air-defense turrets.

Yungdrung Gutsak, OLR. "The paramount thing, come springtime, is to avoid civil war," Prime Minister Viereskog was telling the lord protector. "And then," he added, looking at his Foreign Minister, Niels Niklausson Roerich, "to restore some order in the South to keep our economy functioning."

*
 

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Yungdrung Gutsak, OLR. Alasdair Symeon heard something in the hallway. It was an old building with creaky wooden stairs. He looked through the peephole, into the yellow light. In his pocket he felt the heaviness of his gun. Then, like an instant eclipse, a blue eye. The door handle turned with a flick of the other's wrist, and Niels Roerich was pushing him further into his apartment with his door.

"Chairman, we have work to do."

In the space of an hour, the ISRA party leader and the foreign minister had agreed to send a request to the Franconians to bring the matter before the Council of Nations.
 
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"Minister, your colleague from Oelar is on black line 11," the Foreign Minister's personal assistant announced, "May I put him through?" "Please do so, Miss Josefsen," Graf Robert Beaumont von Miltenberg retorted. In the next ten minutes Niels Roerich explained to the earl why Franken ought to forward this matter to the Council of Nations. "What do you think you could gain from a CoN hosted debate, Niels? On the one hand it's a pretty good way to hurl insults at your insults without major diplomatic damage, on the other hand the practical results will be little to nothing. Do you want to use the stage of the CoN to legitimize any choice of ours as a mediator for your conflict?" The Foreign Minister was reluctant to add another not-so-nice fact explicitly, as he thought Roerich would be able to figure it himself. In the end of the day Franken would only allow a mediator of her choice. Furthermore, Graf Beaumont von Miltenberg was glad Eiffelland and Lorraine were the main powers behind the operation against Solaren. Compared to another hissy fit of the crazy theocracy Oelar was far more relevant to Franconian politics.
 

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Yungdrung Gutsak, OLR. "We couldn't allow Derjiste to 'mediate'. I counter-offered Franconian mediation to Symeon, expecting him to decline. But he outmaneuvered me. He knows that if Isleifur and I look like we are insisting on your mediation, we will not only piss the prime minister off, we will lose the support of the people. A meeting in Eiffelland under the auspices of the Council of Nations, maybe..." Roerich trailed off, the frustration and tiredness evident in his voice.

Yungdrung Gutsak, OLR. "Resolved: the the patronymic is a relic of a patriarchal society. All in favor of the reformed orthography?" Hands raised across the People's Committee to approve Svava Gunn's proposal. An experiment in democracy called the 'Capitollium Republic' was taking place under the red ISRA banners, and the excitement in the room was palpable.
 

Gunnland

FTR
Joined
Nov 1, 2006
Messages
2,035
Location
Virginia, USA
Capital
Windhaven, Gunnland
Trier, Eiffelland. "My Lord, the country is on the brink of civil war. The socialists have grown in strength and audacity in the south. Lord Eir has turned outlaw in prosecuting a war against them. My uncle and the Abbot Mimir will not quell the fighting in the south without your word. And Isleifur cannot rest on the strength of the Einherjar, who threaten to defect to the Eirs at any moment!" Robert Viereskog was reciting this plea in his head as he opened the door of the black FMW with Rik Geijer at the wheel. "Rik, it is crazy out there."

He turned to Geijer, only to see his face swollen and teary, and his jaw set like stone. "This is the testament, Prime Minister. Gretchen Seumasdatter is keeping it quiet until we land in Erlangen or Emyn Arnen and are safely on our way to Oelar. We are not driving to Buxtehude today, Rob. You see, the Lord Rigpa died in his sleep last night."

Knytlingsfort, OLR. Two green-uniformed SCO men marched a man with unkempt and graying blond hair into the jail that was formerly the O.S.M. religious school where Matteus Eir met Ella Koch. "Name, Comrade?" "Stoker, Gregor Samsonsson." "The charge is treason and conspiracy to murder Comrade Margarethe H. Alvitr," volunteered his captor.

As they marched him past the fences where the other political prisoners were being held, Stadhaldr Jebsdatter Eir muttered in disbelief. The socialists were even arresting their former leaders, now? She saw that it attracted the attention of her three new cellmates, the two Franconians, Fritz and Mike, and the woman Anna-Elizabeth. Stadhaldr had begun to doubt that Anna-Elizabeth was a Tagzig Oelarian by birth, as she had claimed.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2009
Messages
2,646
Location
Free State of Bavaria
Capital
Zittau
Nick
ErAn, Franken, ArEn
Nürnberg, Franken

The Foreign Minister of Franken tried to suppress a sigh. “While I appreciate your straightforwardness and your proposal to have us installed as a mediator, it would have been better and far less blatant to suggest Eiffelland in the first place. Eiffelland enjoys our confidence and would have been my first choice. I’ll see what I can do about it. Anyhow, Niels, please do remember we are aware that actively exercising the military option would aggravate affairs too much. However, considering the extraordinary geographic position of our two countries Franken has a most vital interest to use power of force as a matter of last resort. Do you have any further concerns?”

Yungdrung Gutsak, OLR.
Embassy of Franken


Worrying reports were incoming every half hour. The ISRA was busy rounding up Franconian and Oelarians in Knýtlingsfort. Apparently they had even managed to lay their hands on Elizabeth Frauburg, Valerian Poller’s most precious agent in Knýtlingsfort. While this wasn’t ideal, she could help the two top prominent guests of the ISRA, the boss of the Guttenberg Bank and the MD of FRO mining operations. To be better safe than sorry, Poller’s superiors assigned him two black op teams of the Landesnachrichtendienst. Combining them with his other assets and manpower he was to evaluate how to get the three VIPs out of the mess.

For starters, Valerian Poller, chief of security and top spook, deemed it was time to get into touch with this Symeon character himself.
 
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