Book 6: Chapter 6
After introductions were made in depth and Miri demonstrated her loyalty to Amanda’s tentative approval they dived back into the meeting, going over some of the subjects Amanda considered sensitive. They ranged from the plans and desires of various factions and leaders they’d discovered through espionage of one form or another to more specific information about the movement of their troops.
Hearing Amanda’s take on reports Kay knew came from Isla was amusing but he did his best to keep a straight face. The obvious changes to certain words combined with a shift from Isla’s normal mischievous tone into Amanda’s no nonsense tone was made it a stilted recitation but all of the key information was there. Kay thought Ilsa was probably getting a laugh or two out of it as well and wished he could see where she was at the moment.
His spymaster was a pixie, a race of tiny people with wings not unlike Earth’s myths of similar creatures, and a skilled illusionist as well. She was probably tier six, she’d never said it outright that he remembered but had made several allusions to it, and liked to hide herself both physically and under layers of illusions making it next to impossible to find her when she didn’t want to be found. She could be sitting right on Kay’s nose and he’d have no idea. She could make auditory illusions as well as was most likely pumping her report right into Amanda’s ear to recite, along with some teasing to go with Amanda’s deliberate changes.
Eventually his new seneschal would need to meet his spymaster, and not just the illusion of a bland human man she used in meetings to help throw off any trace of her real existence. Miri was going to be his right hand in everything to do with his day to day existence and making sure everyone in his inner circle knew when to go to her instead of heading directly to Kay was going to be important. Avalon was a growing nation, and Kay was going to keep getting busier as his country grew. There was a time coming where Kay would not have time for a direct report from Isla or Isla wouldn’t have time to give him a report and either way they would need Miri to bridge those gaps. Additionally, Miri had some experience that would meld well with Isla’s expertise.
Miri had spent a large portion of her early life training to be a spy for the Seramist Isles until she’d decided she didn’t want to spend her life working in the shadows and had moved to working as a maid in Queen Alahna’s palace. Now she was Kay’s seneschal and though she didn’t want to be a spy, what she’d learned in that vein would serve Kay well. Just imagining the person in control of his schedule, who everyone who wanted a piece of him would have to go through, working hand in hand with his spymaster was both exhilarating and terrifying. The amount of information they could gain, and the havoc they could wreak…
The amount of bullshit that anyone was going to be able to pull with his schedule was going to become extremely diminished before it ever became a problem, and it was glorious. But it wasn’t time for that yet. It would take some time for Isla to reveal herself in all her tiny glory to Miri, and Miri needed time to get her feet under her. Until then they’d have to keep having invisible pixies whisper the secrets of others into their ears.
Moving past the confidential portions of the update Amanda started going over what they’d done to work with and around the heavy number of people that Avalon now had to take care of. Even in the details things were going pretty well there. As she’d already said they’d been expecting people to start moving into Avalon in the future so they’d been preparing, the only real problem was that all these people were coming at once instead of the steady flow they’d planned for.
Still, the infrastructure they had already built or had been in construction had softened the initial blow and resources had been diverted to speed things up. Only a few villages worth of people were still in temporary camps and those camps weren’t a terrible place to be either. Kay remembered news videos about refugee camps back on Earth that were little better than slums, with people having to constantly struggle to get enough to eat or drink. That wasn’t a problem here, thanks to his excellent subordinates. Order was maintained, careful control of resources kept people form hoarding or trying to steal from others, and the regular flow of people out of the camps into better living conditions helped keep people calm. The projections Amanda showed him indicated that they could have everyone living in an actual home within the next few months at the earliest, once again showing the power of magic, Skills, and Classes. Hundreds of homes and the infrastructure to support them built in a few months would never happen back on Earth.
The people still in the camps were the ones who didn’t want to become citizens of Avalon but also weren’t causing problems. The troublemakers had been relocated first, ending up in what were basically open air prisons. Kay wasn’t comfortable with what sounded quite close to concentration camps, but no one was being abused thankfully, and people were free to leave as they pleased. That being said, if they did leave they were subjecting themselves to Avalon’s laws as long as they remained in Avalon and had to support themselves. If they remained in their prison camps they’d get food and drink provided to them and could basically do as they liked outside of any criminal activities. Leaving the camps opened them up to the rest of society and made them have to figure out their own housing and how they would get food to eat.