On the elevated platform of the municipal hall in New Silvermoon,
"Your Majesty, do you hear that? It's the wailing of the entire city..."
An elderly scholar, adjusting his glasses, stood at her side.
"I hear it... but is there any other option?"
Alustriel turned around, the bitter smile vanishing from her face, replaced by steely resolve. "My people fear the savagery of the orcs. My back receives no protection from the northern lords — in fact, I must contend with their open and covert attacks. And yet, in the midst of all this, those merchant guilds have the audacity to demand ten times the usual procurement price! Heavens... I've already mortgaged even the gems in my crown, and what more do they want?"
The more Alustriel spoke, the angrier she became. Though she had the backing of two major deities —
Even with the backing of the churches, the Silvermoon Alliance now had to face an entire orc empire!
The costs of war preparation were simply beyond what Alustriel, who had lost everything, and the northern nobility could afford.
This war had been, from the very beginning, a battle between Mystra and the orc pantheon!
Unfortunately, the Goddess of the Weave was not the Goddess of Wealth. Without sufficient gold crowns, she could not attract enough adventurers and mercenaries, nor equip the army with weapons and bread. Even with some "enthusiasts" incited by Tyr's church willing to donate money and supplies and join the fight at their own expense, facing the vast orc horde still filled Alustriel with a deep chill.
"But... Your Majesty, won't this offend the Church of Wealth? After all, those wealth priests are the ones backing the great trading houses..."
The old scholar hesitated, then finally offered his suggestion.
"I have no other choice..." Alustriel spread her hands helplessly. "Lady Waukeen is an absolutely neutral deity. There are even rumors that she has business dealings within the orc empire — we cannot expect her to help us directly..."
"Furthermore..."
Alustriel gave the scholar a wink. "The ones carrying out the enforcement are the paladins of Tyr's church. We should be quite confident in their integrity, shouldn't we? They won't wrong a single innocent person..."
"But... they won't let a single guilty person go either, and unfortunately, merchants are full of that sort..."
The old man sighed deeply in his heart, but dared not speak the thought aloud.
As Alustriel's adjutant and advisor, after spending so much time together, he had come to fully understand that although Alustriel appeared somewhat more mature after the fall of her kingdom, her essential naivety had not changed one bit.
"Also, Sage
The scholar flipped through his notebook and addressed Alustriel.
"That old lecher?" Alustriel's face was full of distaste.
"Please watch your words, Your Majesty! In public you must maintain your image, and besides… he is your adoptive father!"
The scholar's face flushed with embarrassment for a moment before he composed himself and offered the reminder.
"Fine, fine, just go send him away somehow… tell him I'm not here!" Alustriel waved her hand and opened a portal on the spot, stepping through and leaving the scholar standing there with a bitter smile…
……
Elminster's unwelcome arrival brought Alustriel and the scholar's earlier discussion to an abrupt and pointless end.
It also caused them to overlook something. Sometimes, even when a policy has been set, those who carry it out can twist it beyond recognition.
Alustriel had already given Rafinia a heads-up. Those large trading houses backed by the Temple of Wealth were to receive "necessary leniency"… but what kind of people were paladins? If those granite-headed warriors ever learned to bend, that would be the real miracle!
In particular, while searching the warehouse of one of those trading houses operating under a Wealth priest's name, a paladin had a brainwave and cast an alignment detection—and discovered traces of evil, ultimately capturing a demon. After that, everything spiraled out of control…
A storm of justice swept through New Silvermoon City, and the caravans under the Church of Wealth suffered devastating losses.
To secure massive profits and returns, those Wealth priests would dare do anything—they would even deal with devils without hesitation!
The paladins had long known this about them but had no real way to act on it. Only after receiving Alustriel's authorization did they finally launch a full-scale purge.
Right then and there, they seized several caravan leaders tied to demons, put them on trial, and sent them to the stake. As for the other convicted merchants, they were too numerous to count.
Before long, the residents of New Silvermoon City found the streets transformed. Not only had a huge number of shops reopened, but their owners beamed at every customer, terrified of receiving a complaint or condemnation that might bring the paladins knocking at their door again.
Behind the scenes, all the merchants had taken a tremendous blow to their fortunes, and they cursed the paladins viciously—Rafinia topping the list by a wide margin.
As night fell, the common folk retired early, but numerous plots continued to simmer in the shadows.
Faced with staggering losses, those Wealth priests nonetheless appeared flush and utterly unconcerned.
With the Goddess of Wealth standing behind them, they had every right to that confidence! So long as Alustriel retained even a shred of basic sanity, she would have to compensate them in full for their losses—otherwise, they would dare provide direct support and sell weapons to the orcs.
The ones who suffered the worst damage, teetering on the brink of ruin, were always the small and medium trading houses and independent merchants.
In the face of the surging tide, those ungrounded unfortunates would always suffer the worst losses—even being directly swallowed up by the larger trading guilds, their lifeblood devoured whole.
The Nien Trading Guild.
Flickering oil lamps cast a dim yellow glow, illuminating the ashen faces of several guild managers.
"Speak up, all of you! What's the matter? I came here specifically for today's affairs!"
Seated in a leopard-skin chair at the center, a stunningly beautiful young woman in her twenties or thirties demanded coldly.
The managers flinched in unison, not daring to so much as glance at her, as though she were some kind of rampaging beast or venomous scorpion.
"Those holy warriors ordered us to… conduct business as usual today, and keep our prices unchanged—no increases. Because of that, the bank runs and panic-buying cost us roughly fifteen hundred gold crowns, and it's safe to assume the number will only climb higher tomorrow…"
One manager gritted his teeth and spoke bluntly.
For a mid-sized guild like Nien, this loss was nothing short of devastating.
"Furthermore… if our… underground dealings are discovered by those holy warriors…"
Another manager's teeth were chattering. He collapsed to the floor in a heap. "Young miss… please, I beg you, let us leave first…"
"Not a chance! Do you think escape is still an option? Once our hidden business is exposed, those stubborn fanatics will hunt you to the ends of the earth—and your families along with you…"
Frost seeped through the young woman's clenched teeth, and the grim reality she painted plunged the others into what felt like the depths of hell.
"Rest assured… I did not come unprepared. The family's elite guard has been fully deployed. All you need to do is lay low, rush the shipments out as fast as possible, and the moment the deals are done, leave this place immediately… If you succeed, the profit share alone will be enough for each of you to buy a grand estate down south and marry into minor nobility… Perhaps in a few generations, your descendants might truly become lords…"
Under the young woman's assurances and inducements, the managers' complexions finally improved somewhat—they no longer looked quite so much like corpses.
But once they had all departed, a dark cloud of dread descended upon the young woman's face.
She waited for a time, and only after confirming that everyone around her had thoroughly gone did she make her way to the corner of the warehouse, searching until her fingers found a hidden mechanism.
She pulled the lever, and the wall in the corner receded, revealing an underground passage.
Oil lamp in hand, the young woman descended into the tunnel and entered a narrow underground chamber.
The space around her was empty and bare, with not a single object in sight. A faint trace of moisture seeped through, leaving the floor slightly damp.
At the center of the basement stood a fully inscribed magic circle, shimmering with an eerie glow.
After slotting two high-energy crystals into the energy channels, the young woman took out a small silver mirror and placed it at the center of the formation.
"Sssss…"
A flicker of light and shadow rippled across the surface, and from within the mirror emerged the image of a white-haired middle-aged man clad in silver robes.
"
"Thanks to the gods' protection, our covert operations haven't been discovered. We only lost some of our surface-level merchandise…"
The young woman Anya's brow furrowed. "And I've managed to keep the overseers docile for now — there shouldn't be any immediate risk of exposure… But we're running out of time, Father!"
"The situation is far worse than we imagined…"
The middle-aged man's face was dark enough to drip with rain. "The last agent I sent, Borack, has gone silent. It seems he met with misfortune. He carried a great deal of vital intelligence — our secrets could be exposed at any moment… When that happens, the churches of the God of Justice and the Goddess of the Weave of Magic will never let us go…"
"The orcs can't be trusted either, and the Black Blood tribe even less so… Are we going to become the rats that both sides hunt down?"
All the composure the young woman had been putting on collapsed. She nearly crumpled to the floor, a look of utter despair washing over her face.