[Agningas] The Prince Must Be Found

The last vestige of what was once Amokolia's vast mainland kingdom - a mirage of fleeting glory that once stretched all the way to the Batavian lands. The people seethe and dream of what once was.
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Tokaray al-Osman
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[Agningas] The Prince Must Be Found

Post by Tokaray al-Osman »

Jacob-La-Ville, Agningas, the Northern March, Elwynn

The town did not have an airship tower, so why was the Conducator surprised that it did not have a decent hotel to its name either.

The Honeymoon Suite of the Bluebell Inn, Jacob-La-Ville, was Daniel's current, regrettable, abode. The cornflower blue wallpaper was a lighter shade in one square patch under a hanging nail, where presumably a hurriedly removed portrait had once hung. The Conducator was not a betting man but he was thinking that it could either have been a piece intended to stimulate the passion of the room's normal clientèle (the place was sufficiently seedy that he doubted that many were actual newly weds) or else it was some portrait of an individual presently out of favour with the regime. A betting man would have considered Jacobus the likely candidate in those circumstances. He felt slightly queasy at the thought of a green moustache following on so soon from his contemplation of squalid arousal.

Disdainfully he picked up a lilac cushion from the bed, it had frilly edging and floral patterns, and contemptuously threw it into one corner. If he had known that the hotel staff were going to go to the bother of removing awkward portraits he would have asked them to remove the landscape painting of frolicking cherubs and nymphs - were it not for the one who had been vigorously accosted by a satyr the whole scene would have been tiresomely twee.

The bad taste of the common people never ceased to amaze him.

Nor did the bad judgement of the great and the good.

Natopia, contrary to reason, had expanded the powers of its absentee Prime Minister, a certain Nathaniel Andre Utas Ayreon-Dariolin. It was if the universe was in a competition with itself to heap ever greater powers and responsibilities upon its single most unsuited component.

It could not be permitted. The Prince's obligation to the Motherland must come first and foremost. An absentee sovereign would be unconscionable. A communiqué to Natopia would be drafted to congratulate the Chancellor on his sublime judgement but to regretfully note that, in view of the unhealthy interest the Demon Queen of Jingdao had taken in their mutual friend and the increased capacity of the Tegong to project its power over long distances, it would be impossible to permit the Prince to travel outside of continental Benacia. Especially in view of his 'condition', delicately and euphemistically expressed.

The Prince would have heard by now of the appointment and, judging by the diary entries reported by the Panopticon, could well decide on impulse to make a dash for some frivolous adventure, as befitted his short attention span and indiscipline. Löjtnant Frederik Anders (UIC) had been assigned to his bodyguard to gain his affections and prevent any wanderings, by any means necessary (The Conducator remembered the pained expression on the Löjtnant's face when he had been told what was expected of him but knew, as Frederik removed his wedding ring, that he would do his duty in regards to serving the Prince when required).

If that failed, the Prince might still make a dash for the Amokolian border. Precautions would have to be made against that. The armed Neighbourhood Watch Groups in Bjorngard, funded by the State, had been instructed to turn back any convoys heading towards the border. Just in case the Prince's retinue had moved on in the meantime, similar instructions had been passed to the Village Militias in the backwoods regions of Agningas.

Moreover, His Serenity's Ship, the Liberator, still hung, light as a gossamer feather, over Jacob-Le-Ville. It's under-slung 105mm gatling guns covering the whole settlement in their respective fields of fire. If all else failed it could be sent to fetch the Prince back.

And if it could not fetch him back, the 'city-killer' munition it carried would have to be relied upon to make any implied act of abdication a permanent reality.

His Imperial Magnificence Aurangzeb II Steffki, Kaiser of the Imperial Republic of Shireroth, Thane of the Shirelands, Keeper of the Apollo Legacy, Wielder of the Sword of Vengeance, Grand Master of the Orders of the Dragon, Griffin, Phoenix, and Chimera, Sovereign of the Golden Mango Throne.
Dr Tokaray al-Osman KBH, Commissioner of the Chamber of the Crypteia, Emir of Jadid Khaz Modan, Annexer of Yardistan

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