In a lavishly decorated room, a group of people held a discussion.

“It sure is a rare honour to be able to welcome such decorated guests into my humble abode. What do I owe this uh … well, honour … to?” a fat flabby man of advanced age started the conversation barely able to contain the drool from spilling with every word he uttered.

“Governor Seillju,” a finely dressed and beautifully decorated woman in her prime answered the disgusting figure, “we are most pleased, having been granted an audience on such short notice. Our organisation is about to purchase a few settlements in the closer vicinity and is in great need of help with making the right decision. Thus, we decided to visit the most promising ones directly and have their governors pitch the advantages of their domain in an attempt to ease our decision-making!”

“Oh, I would never dare to praise my territories in the presence of such an esteemed guest, as Miss Hifason. I govern over only a few villages of little value. Most of my subjects are simple farmers and workers. Half of the population lives in poverty and crime, and even those who get by are poor when compared to the territories of my neighbours. This humble governor would advise The Coldenei to seek other places for their noble cause!” Governor Seillju diligently answered the request, unable to hide his ulterior motives.

“Oh … This is wonderful! As Mr Seillju knows our organisation seeks the betterment of humankind. Territories like this one; that, despite the best efforts of powerful and intelligent administrators, are seemingly unable to find their place in the world, are exactly what we are searching for. We are constantly developing new and ingenious ways to prevent strive and bring harmony to the world. And one of our laboratories just found a method that could bring about a never-ending era of harmony. We are searching for cities just as awful as this one to finally test this method under natural circumstances!” the beauty, named Hifason, deliberated.

Partway through this explanation, the governor started to exude gulps and exclamations of mental pain but in the end, managed to get an appropriate response out.

“I am looking forward to hearing about your decision!” after claiming this the two parties said their goodbyes and a group of five left the room.

As the visitors finally got out of earshot one of the remaining people complained about the audacity of their visitors “How dare they act so high and mighty in someone else’s home!”

“My dear Del Efmac, you should really catch up on international politics. The Coldenei is currently more influential than any nation in the intermediate neighbourhood! There is even a saying of sorts, gaining prominence of late: if you do not want to starve be nice to your subjects and don’t anger The Coldenei,” a woman explained to the man.

“Even so they could at least show common courtesy, it’s not like this city is the worst in the nation! Besides, there is close to no corruption here!” Del Efmac tried to defend his opinion.

“That may be as it is, but they don’t care about corruption as much as they would like everyone to believe. What they really care about is inept administration. And I fear they do not hold any of the governors in the closer vicinity in high regards!” the woman beat down his hopes, while also putting the situation in perspective.

“Well it doesn’t matter anymore, they will do as they please and we can do nought about it!” the only person, other than the governor and the guards, yet to speak chimed in.

After this, the governor ended the post-visit conference and retreated to his private quarters.

 

---

A young woman left Governor Seillju’s private quarters, walking through the corridors until arriving in another big bedroom.

“That was quick!” came the greeting from the slightly older of the 2 women inside.

“Yeah, something must have happened today, he seemed distracted and didn’t pay me any attention!” The first one explained.

“You should be happy, that he left you alone!” the third woman chimed in.

“But if he does not notice my presence, I won’t get any presents from him, and he may throw me out!” the arriving woman lamented.

“Delphy, if you do not like it here you are free to leave, nothing is holding you here!” the older woman advised, “And Terra don’t fret, he never chased any of his wives away!” she continued addressing the newly arrived woman.

“Btw Senly, how long have you been married to him?” Terra addressed the wise woman.

“How should I know? … Maybe 50 years or so?” the woman looking to be in her 30s answered, inducing a laughing fit in the other two women.

 

---

“Miss Hifason, I am most delighted to see you following my invitation!” the old woman on the throne greeted the negotiator of the Coldenei.

“I came as soon as I heard of your dilemma, Queen Kario!” the younger woman replied with a bow.

“If only my bones would allow me to reciprocate such courtesy in kind, but on top of asking for a lot of food, I must also ask forgiveness for my rudeness” the queen started the negotiations with a gentle smile.

“I cannot forgive something I do not feel insulted by! On the other hand, I would need to know how much food you’d like to purchase!” Miss Hifason refuted the words of the queen with a nod akin to the most subtle of bows and a calculated smile.

“Sadly one of our silos burned down thus we will gladly take any grain you are willing to spare!” the queen claimed with a pained expression.

“It seems today is the queen's lucky day, I have been given the authority to trade in one of our most valuable items. It currently holds 80,000 units of grain and a production capacity of 40,000 units ... each year!” the negotiator threw out her bait.

“I know that The Coldenei produces a lot of food but until now I did not know how they were able to do so with no arable land to their name! But as nice as the offer may seem there are still a few problems aren’t there?” the queen denied the negotiator an easy win.

“Of course! The units I spoke of are naturally what one standard human will need for one year to be able to sustain themselves in a well-off manner. The store contains purely grain. The storage capacity is about 100,000 units. While production is currently set to grain and produces 20,000 units every 6 months setting the device to other kinds of food reduces the efficiency drastically due to it being fine-tuned to the grain it currently produces. The next harvest is set to 58 days in the future. The stored grain, as well as the produced ones, are fully capable of being used for bread, beer and most other products commonly made out of grain” the negotiator listed off all the details inherent to the item she was offering “and should there ever be a problem with the offered item The Coldenei will repair it free of charge!”

“These conditions sound too good. Surely The Coldenei to offer something so valuable, without having something in mind they want in return!” the queen continued to express her worries.

“That is true indeed. The Coldenei does not, however, want a lot of lands, we only want the two border cities Akros and Pefis while the surrounding villages and towns shall remain in the queen's hands!” Miss Hifason finally gave in and described her conditions.

“Giving away a few cities is not a problem, but not having these cities to collect the taxes of the surrounding regions will lead to a massive increase in our administrative expense!” the queen showed her experience with negotiations by stating a problem and being silent until the other party offered a solution.

“Our administrators came up with a solution for this. They are willing to indefinitely collect the taxes in your stead and send them over to the Queen’s capital in return for the pledge to have the queen continue to defend these 2 cities for a period of 5 years!” the negotiator showed that she did not come unprepared for such tactics.

“I presume you already set up the contract?” the queen questioned.

“Of course, but it is a very flexible one, so the Queen can rest assured and think about the offer!” Miss Hifason stated with the slightest of smiles on her lips.

“There will be no need to think much! Only one question must be answered before I agree!”

“Of course!” the negotiator fell right into the trap set by the queen.

“How did you decide on which cities you want to procure?” the Queen inquired.

“We visited all the cities that were of proper size and chose the most corrupt ones!” realizing her mistake she answered truthfully, with a less than pleased expression.

“Then you should have a lot of info about corruption in the cities you are not trying to take over and since such info is of little value to you I expect it as a bonus!” the gentle smile now all but forgotten while the queen showed a shrewd smile.

 

---

The next time the Coldenei visited the city they came as the new owners.

One of their first actions as a new administration was putting the worst people they could find before the populace for them to judge. Del Efmac was deemed the most corrupt; Governor Seillju was deemed the administrator with the greatest ineptitude and the brother of the aforementioned governor was condemned for most inappropriate behaviour.

“Any crime committed on these 3 ... things will be summarily forgiven. But if any of them still lives in 3 weeks’ time all their faults and crimes will be annulled!” the new administrator of the city declared, while the 3 convicts were tied up in front of the crowd:

Almost as soon as the delicately dressed person finished their speech some individuals from among the crowd started to rush up to beat up the previous governor’s brother. They did so while cursing him for all the filthy deeds he did.

The next day one of the convicts was groaning in pain as a pitiless pedestrian woke them up. Another hung motionless on their rack. While the fat and ugly governor seemed almost refreshed despite being covered in cuts and bruises.

After a few more hours Senly came by to look after her husband.

“Hey dear, beautiful day isn’t it” came the cheerful greeting from the fat man who was currently being beaten by a few youngsters.
“You must have really hated this job!” the wise woman replied while shaking her head and shooing the youngsters away.

“Whoever decided to reward military service with administrative work deserves a cruel, prolonged, and painful death!” declared the man while laughing.

“Whatever! As your only remaining wife, I came here to make sure you will be able to survive this short term of torture!”

“Aren’t you underestimating me a little too much!” he frowned, looking down on himself, “Looking like this does not mean that I neglected my training. I just took another path. Instead of that old boring one, everyone prefers. And before you reprimand me, it was close to the only thing keeping me sane while doing this horrendously boring … job I suppose!” he ended after his wife only reacted by arching a brow.

“Fine, but you should at least pretend as if you cared about him!” Senly demanded while pointing at the corpse of his brother. Said brother was looking closer to a porcupine than a human with all those sticks reaching out of his body.

“Why should I, if I had had the authority to touch him I would have done worse to him!” proclaiming thus he let out a grunt of annoyance before continuing to voice the question burning in him “By the way, why did you decide to stay instead of leaving town. The way Delphy and Terra did?”

“Terra is a terrified child and Delphy an opportunistic girl, I am neither as young nor as weak as them!” she declared as if that would explain everything.

“I’m saying it is time to stop pretending as if this is still working,” he said while motioning at the tho of them with his tied hands and triple chin “I mean who are we even trying to convince at this point?”

“As hard as you may find to believe it, there was a time when I really loved you!” Senly declared with a distant look. Sadness, happiness and nostalgia became visible in her stone-cold face which had been devoid of any emotion until just a heartbeat prior.

But as fast as these emotions came welling up, they were supressed. Before anyone could ever hope to notice.

“Meaning you stay with me out of a misguided feeling of nostalgia? Even for you, that is a weak justification. And don’t claim you were hoping for these feelings to re-emerge, such naivety ceased to fit you long ago!” The man demanded in an accusatory voice.

“Of course not, but despite what you may think most people die young and I am not willing to constantly search for new social contacts! Or to put it simply the pros of this arrangement continue to outweigh the cons and if you have the least shred of decency left in you, you will survive these few days and continue to entertain me!” his wife aggressively explanation.

As soon as she finished these words she went to the corrupt official and broke his spine with a soft touch to his back. Hearing the sound of cracking bones soothed her nerves tremendously.

 

---

The great revenge, as many citizens came to call the event, resulted in one man being butchered by a hateful mob, one man dying of dehydration and one man leaving the city, most delighted to have gotten rid of his burden and responsibility.

Nobody paid attention to the fat man leaving with his beautiful wife.

A few months after the great revenge the masses were appeased, and every last person was as happy as possible while taking their situation into account.

Asking a Coldenei-official would bring to light that this happiness and peace was not solely a result of the administrative change but an effect of special items the Coldenei installed in all 5 of the cities they bought from 3 different nations. But what nobody knew is that these items were messing with the minds of the citizens in the most abhorrent way.