Ashes of the Phoenix

[Daracnia]

MacFarlane's Stead
13 miles northeast of Asheton
Ashe

The sun rode high over the rolling plains of Ashe County, bathing the picturesque prairie in an unseasonable heat. Winter had never really taken hold in the region as was often the case - a welcome fact for the ranchers in the area who relished the opportunity to graze their herds year-round. There would be plenty of good meat for sale this year in Asheton. Much of it would find its way to Greycastle and beyond as Ashe beef was prized throughout all the provinces of former Daracnia. Indeed, Ashe ranchers considered their cuts the finest in Europe, and there were those the world over who heartily agreed over their porterhouses and rib-eyes.

The happiness of the ranchers did not extend, however, to those unlucky enough to call themselves farmers. The rains had not come this year in the form of the towering thunderheads many found so iconic, and the drought had not sustained the crops of many a tiller of soil. Across the region, wells ran dry as they strained to support the thirst of the corn or wheat that so may depended upon. It was for exactly that reason that James MacFarlane toiled, sweat pouring off his brow, in a hole some twenty or thirty feet deep. Subsistence farming had not afforded the fifth-generation wheat farmer the luxury of a gas-powered drilling rig like any rancher would own, and the similar plight of many of his neighbors left no additional manpower, so MacFarlane had dug this well alone for several days. He shoveled earth into a metal pail, climbing the ladder which was fastened to the top of the well by a couple of stakes and hauling it up via the attached rope every couple of minutes. It was back-breaking work, especially alone, but the monotony of the task and the quiet of the field afforded him plenty of opportunity for thought. As he dug, he thought back on old times.

When he had been small, his father had taken him to Greycastle. A veteran of the Great Southern War, the man had always been a staunch patriot and had wanted his son to see the place where former Prime Minister and father of the Daracnian republic Dorian Lyndham had shaped the nation into a land of freedom and prosperity. "Look at it son," he had said of the old stone fortress from which the former capital drew its name. "That's the place where great men make sure that people like you and me can stay safe and free." The awe in his voice had left a deep impression on young James. It had nearly killed the old man when Lyndham was laid low so many years ago by a terrorist's bomb in Capitollium. "That's the end of it," he had said with the tone of a man who had lost a very dear friend. And when the republic was finally shattered several years later in the wake of the Eighty Days War, he let go and died barely three months later. His father had always said his life belonged to his country, and when the nation collapsed that life simply withered away.

Water bubbled out of the hole just made by his shovel, bringing James out of his melancholy reverie. He laughed at the sight of it and clambered up the ladder out of the well. By the time he had rigged up the drilling spike, a heavy piece of pointed steel which was used to pierce deeper into the water table, the ground at the bottom had thoroughly become mud. Pulling the quick release, the spike dropped thirty feet to the bottom of the hole and drove itself into the muddy ground. Water immediately bubbled up around the five-foot spike now embedded to the hilt in the well bottom, and James seized the line connected to a rig of pulleys by which he would pull it out. Hand over hand, he hauled the heavy spike out of the earth and back into position. He was again rigging the quick release when he noticed something out of the ordinary. He reached out his hand and wiped it down the side of the spike. His breath caught in his throat. What coated his hand was not simply mud as he had expected.

It was oil.

 

[Daracnia]

OOC: Post deleted as obsolete.

 

[Daracnia]

Springvale
Federation of Westmorland

Alexander Falstadt clutched his coat tightly around himself as he walked directly into the biting north wind on Vestgard Avenue through the capital district of Springvale. Vestgard, he mused bitterly. How the mighty have fallen. Once, the entirety of what was now called Westmorland went by that name before the first Kingdom of Daracnia sent its settlers into the mountains west of the River Falle, itself now named for the man who brought that empire to its knees. Two hundred years ago, they had poured in out of the east, seeking at first religious and personal freedoms rarely found in the oppressive kingdom. Then fifty years later it was the lure of gold found in mountainous valleys. Little by little, her rich culture was overwritten by the growing political weight of the Daracnian population. Now, Vestgard was only a minor street on the south side of the capital of the Federation of Westmorland, Springvale, itself a bastardization by the Daracnians who could not learn to pronounce her true name, Vikfyodjur.

"Papers, please," barked a gruff voice in front of him. Alexander raised his gaze. He had come across a makeshift security checkpoint staffed by a squad of peacekeepers in urban fatigues wielding assault rifles and one manning the .50 caliber machine-gun atop a humvee. Concrete barriers and barbed wire funneled both pedestrian and vehicular traffic on the wide avenue through relatively small apertures. "Papers," the sergeant repeated.

Alexander grunted in assent and produced his identification immediately. It had been almost two years since Greycastle had consented to send peacekeepers to Westmorland. Since that time, life in Springvale had been like living in occupied territory. While he had adapted quickly to the realities of life under martial law, Falstadt regarded each security checkpoint, impromptu vehicle search, and pat down not only as a violation of liberty but as a personal affront. Still, he knew better than to voice his dissatisfaction in the presence of a dozen armed peacekeepers.

The sergeant examined the ID and then searched Alexander’s face. He studied the ID again and then went back to his face. Back to the ID. And the face. ID. Face. Just as Falstadt thought he might be denied passage, the sergeant handed him back his identification and waved him through the checkpoint. On the other side of the barrier, Alexander turned his head and spat into the street.

A few blocks later as he topped a small rise, he could see all the way up Vestgard Avenue to the Citadel. The sight of the fifteenth-century fortress filled him with a pained sense of nationalism. "Vikfyodjur, jewel of the mountains, may she shine until the breaking of the earth," Alexander muttered to himself the words of an epic of Sigurd, the great poet of twelfth-century Vestgard, as he turned off the street and into a tight alley. The walls of the buildings to either side brought him instant relief from the cutting north wind, but he could hear it howling over the rooftops three stories above his head. At the end of the alley, there was a wooden sign painted with a crude image of a man protecting a ewe from a wolf.

As he pushed open the door to the Wolf and Shepherd, warm air washed over him, and he loosened his hold on the heavy woolen overcoat. A fire crackled merrily in the large stone fireplace, and several people were gathered around a large table in front of it, most with glasses of ale in front of them. Except for this group, the tavern was empty save for the barkeep. As Falstadt approached the table a large man with blond hair and soft features stood and raised his glass to the newcomer, a smile that could almost be called a smirk spreading over his face.

"The guest of honor arrives at last! Were you lost, Alex? Magnus very nearly organized a search party," he said half-jokingly as he tossed back the last quarter of a pint before bellowing for another round to the general approval of the small gathering.

"I see you felt no compunction starting without me, Sig. Or could it be that I’ve thrown in with a bunch of alcoholics?"

Sig threw his head back and laughed. "Could be," he said as he reached across the table with his right hand and grasped the top of Alexander’s right shoulder as the latecomer mirrored the gesture in the traditional Vestgarder greeting. "Or it could be that my friend was once again lost in his studies. Was it Sigurd or Herleif this time?"

Now it was Alexander’s turn to laugh. Sigmund and he had grown up together. While his friend was always more apt to be found outdoors with a lady on his arm, Alex could generally be found in the library, his head buried in some ancient tome. "It was Asmund, actually. The Epic of Torvold Rangor."

"Ah, of course! Asmund," said Sig with no small amount of sarcasm. He turned to the rest of the table and pounded his empty mug on the wood like a gavel. "Since everybody’s here, let’s get this show on the road," he bellowed before taking his seat. All eyes went to Alexander.

"Well then," he spoke in a suddenly tremulous voice – Alex had never been very good at public speaking, "as president, I declare the first meeting of the Vestgard Student Congress officially open."

Several of the students pounded on the table. Some hooted and whistled. A few clapped, and one or two remained silent. None realized what had been just been set in motion.

 

[Daracnia]

Lyndham City

While Alexander Falstadt convened his student congress in a tavern far to the north, Frederick Logan's car wound through Lyndham City's sprawling downtown commercial district. Looking up through the sunroof of his luxury sedan, the CEO of Parker Fulcrum Group, Inc. could see the tops of the steel and glass skyscrapers glistening in the sunlight like an ocean set on its side and understood why the metropolis was sometimes referred to as the "Crystal City." Sublime. This was a city of giants – where the great and the good came to do battle, and Logan was king of all. One by one, he had subjugated his rivals with buyouts and takeovers, dismantling redundant assets and amassing an enormous personal fortune by following the creed "Divide, conquer, and divide." Through deft political maneuvering and by lining more than a handful of pockets with freemarks, he once had the ear of Daracnia's most influential policymakers. Now his reach was largely relegated to Lyndham City, the house that Logan built.

His driver came to a halt at the base of the most daunting edifice of them all, 10 Brighton Place, the 127-floor international headquarters of Parker Fulcrum Group. The chauffer opened the rear door of the luxurious Eiffellandian Audi, and Logan stepped out onto the curb. Two private security guards immediately sprang to his sides, but that did not stop a vagrant shuffling past from accosting him.

"Spare freemark, sir?" he begged in broken English with a thick Kassiopeian accent, eyes downcast, "I no eat three days."

Logan did not even break stride as he pushed past the dark complexioned man and into the motorized revolving door which let in to the atrium. One of the guards brandished his retractable baton, and the vagrant shrank away muttering to himself something indiscernible.

As he stepped onto the executive high-speed elevator, the CEO reflected that it was precisely because of people like the vagrant outside that PFG had maintained its footing following the Eighty Days War. Massive international marketing campaigns paid for by the Lyndham City Chamber of Commerce drew thousands of immigrants each year to the metropolis, most from lesser developed economies. The ads painted the city as a land of opportunity where luxury and employment were readily attainable. The reality, though Logan in his ivory tower deluded himself into believing otherwise, was strikingly different.

Once they arrived in the bustling harbor, immigrants were almost immediately presented with a choice: They could join the privatized military or police forces which were increasingly the same outfit, earning a paycheck by enforcing the somewhat draconian laws of the city, or they could scramble for jobs, many of which were as least as dangerous as military duty and almost all of which were meagerly compensated. Either way, they would be second-class citizens at best. Those opting to join the rank and file of public servants (if they could indeed be considered such) would be placed in segregated units and expected to police equally segregated neighborhoods, but at least they would eat and live respectably. Those choosing the alternative eked out their existence in crowded apartment buildings working twelve to fourteen hour days for wages just high enough to keep them fed, clothed, sheltered, and working. Still, an utter lack of job security and welfare forced many onto the streets where a shortage of charitable foundations often meant death from exposure, illness, or starvation. Such was life in the Crystal City.

Logan stepped off the elevator at the 120th floor, the third executive level. Everything above that level was strictly for tourists, though the trade had fallen off sharply following the Great Riot. A minute later, he pushed open the large double-doors of a conference room in which were gathered the many representatives of various departments and subsidiaries of Parker Fulcrum Group.

"… and thus we expect to hold exclusive rights by the end of the quarter," a man in wire-rimmed glasses was concluding as every head turned to observe the most powerful man in the city.

"You'll excuse my tardiness," Logan said as he walked the length of the expansive table to a high-backed, well-cushioned chair at the head. "I trust Sheila will bring me up to speed once we're done here," he said with a glance at his assistant, seated behind him and typing furiously on a small laptop computer, "You were saying?" He motioned for Jonathan Pettigrew, President of GlobEx Shipping, one of PFG's many subsidiaries, to continue.

"I was just saying that we expect to land an exclusive contract with a highly esteemed Warreic publisher, Havok! Comics, by the end of the fiscal quarter. We're leveraging their interest in partnering with Wilmart to get it done. I think it's all but a sure thing," he finished with a self-satisfied grin.

"Excellent work, Jon. That's good for, what, ten, maybe fifteen million this year?" the sarcasm in Logan's voice was understated but impossible to miss. "Keep it up and we can all retire early." Sycophantic laughter permeated the board room as Pettigrew blushed, cleaning the lenses of his glasses with nervous energy.

"I'm not interested in this mark-by-mark stuff. There's a pretty big fish out there right now, and I want to be sure we're the ones to land it. Where are we on the Ashe question?"

Silence. Logan surveyed the room with cold brown eyes. After a long moment, a woman seated immediately to his right cleared her throat. A slight movement of Logan's hand told her to speak.

"Well, sir, initial estimates put the MacFarlane Oilfield at somewhere between one and two billion barrels though the geography of the region makes it hard to pinpoint. Several of our geologists believe it might be closer to five billion." A general murmur went up at the figure. Logan held up his hand, and silence fell again.

"Please continue, Laura."

"Thank you, sir," she resumed, "We've been in contact with James MacFarlane and several of his neighbors since the discovery. We can't get any of them to budge. We know that MacFarlane himself has been contacted directly by the Minister of the Interior in Greycastle, several small drilling outfits out of Galatyn, the Bureau of Mineral Retrieval and Refinement of the Industrial Directorate of Osthaven, and our old friends at Southside Mining to name a few. Asheton's still leaning on its citizens not to cut any deals until the next legislative session can hammer out a few regulations, but I think if we wait until then to move on this it'll be too late."

Logan nodded. "Thank you, Laura," he said warmly to his COO before casting a hard look around the conference room and continuing in a harsh tone, "I will not lose this contract, people. This is Parker Fulcrum. There are no impossibilities around here. We're going to throw everything we've got at this problem until we break it wide open. I want to find our opponents' weak points and hammer away until they fall out of the picture. We're going to learn everything we can about James MacFarlane – we need some leverage on that man. Find some dirt, a sick relative, anything. I cannot stress highly enough how important this is. Get it done." A look was all it took to make the assembly understand that the meeting was over. One-by-one, the executives of the largest company in the city filed out of the room like schoolchildren leaving the principal's office.

As his board left, Frederick Logan stood and wandered toward the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out over the city and across the harbor. If he could control the flow of oil through Daracnia, he could rebuild it in his image. With that much oil at his fingertips, he could buy up the entire harbor – PFG already owned a decent percentage. Once he controlled the busiest warm water port in former Daracnia, he could make the other provinces dance however he liked. All it would take was to cut them off from their sole means of exportation and they would choke on their own surpluses until they accepted whatever terms he deemed appropriate. He could literally come to own the entire nation. The prospect was so dauntingly attractive that Logan could not suppress a wistful sigh.

"Sublime," he whispered.