It takes you a disappointing amount of time to realize that something is wrong with the contract Livia accepted from the office of the Weaver-Governor. It's not fake - the letter you received very much did come from the city government. The offer is genuine. The pay is genuine.
But in retrospect, sending a single [Slave], below level 10, to negotiate with [Druids] is obviously an insult in bad faith and not an actual attempt at diplomacy. The [Druids] themselves realized it right away, and they're not exactly bastions of social awareness. One of them, an old human man, is currently picking his nose and flicking the contents onto an expensive-looking rug in the Alcazar of Cloth, the Weaver-Governor's palace at the center of the city. A giant staff leans against the crook of his arm, and closer inspection reveals that the staff is actually a gigantic yellat. You have no idea how or why the potato-like vegetable has been grown in the shape of a walking stick. The [Druid] is completely intent on his picking-and-flicking. You believe he is trying to draw something in the rug. It is impressive and horrifying.
The other two are arguing. One is a Garuda with bright yellow feathers that fade to brown at her wingtips. She wears a patchwork leather loincloth and halter-top, both made from some cheap, rough-looking material that immediately draws your eye after weeks of living amongst the String People and their obsession with quality fabrics. Across from her is a Hemp caste String Person, his features rough and heavy, as if carved from stone rather than shaped of cloth. A scorpion the size of a housecat is perched in his head, its barbed tail twitching towards anything that moves. The three of them stand in sharp contrast to the well-appointed conference room in the Alcazar of Cloth, where the silk curtains and elaborately decorated murals of shimmering cloth practically radiate wealth.
You survey the [Druids] once more - a filthy vagrant of a nose-picking human, a shoddily dressed Garuda, and a Hemp-caste. And you wonder if the [Druids] are doing the same insult the Weaver-Governor is. You can't exactly imagine a group that the status and image obsessed String People would be more repulsed by.
"I say fuck this and fuck them. Call the rest of the Circle and see how the city feels after a [Rite of the Jaw]," says the Garuda. Her voice is high and oddly melodic, seeming to linger in the room.
"That's not how it works and you know it, Arsha," says the Hemp man. "The city-folk have to feel like they're in control. Which means going through their bureaucracy, starting at the bottom." He emphasizes 'bottom' by gesturing towards you, which is rude but not exactly in dispute. There are few people below you on the social totem pole of String People society.
"And we're [Druids], not city-folk, dammit!" says Arsha, slamming her taloned fist against the table at the center of the conference room hard enough to send a gust of wind across the room that sets the curtains to fluttering. "You may have more of a talent for putting up with their bullshit than anyone else in the Circle, but I do not."
Oh God. These [Druids] aren't here as a calculated insult to String People propriety. These are actually their best diplomats.
"Excuse me," you interrupt before the argument can spiral any further out of control and cause damage to the furnishings that you will no doubt be blamed for, somehow. "I think we've gotten… off track. And I do have to try and help you."
Arsha turns to you, mouth open to begin another tirade, when her eyes go to the collar about your neck. Her beak swings shut with an audible click before she scowls and crosses her arms over her chest. "Feh. And we have to put up with this unnatural bullshit as well.
Slaves."
"There are two breeds of ant in Baleros that make slaves of weaker ants," says the nose-picking [Druid]. "There is nothing more natural than the tyranny of the strong over the weak."
"Feh," says Arsha. "Do your ants use Skills to force their will upon their kin?"
"They would if they could."
You clear your throat, trying to draw them back to the matter at hand, but both ignore you in favor of squabbling over the mating habits of insects. You turn to the third member of the group, the Hemp man who has yet to introduce himself. He chuckles at your expression, and beckons you over to him. You eye the scorpion on his head and approach slowly, with great reluctance.
"Forgive my fellows," he says. "They are not used to the ways of 'civilized' folk. But I actually leave the Zeikhal every now and then, so I know how it is. Hemp aren't treated much better than [Slaves], though Snips gives second thoughts to most." He pulls a piece of dried meat from within his robes and tosses it up without looking. The scorpion, Snips, spears it from the air with its tail, and its claws begin clacking with excitement as it brings the bit of jerky to its mandibles.
"I can imagine," you say.
"Still, you're going to get blamed for when this fails. Sorry about that."
"What if we didn't fail to work something out?" you ask.
He throws his head back in laughter, which causes Snips to dig its claws into his head for purchase, chittering furiously at the disruption. He does not seem to notice. "I don't think that thread's in the weave."
"Well, why don't we just talk about whatever your problem with the city is?" you ask. "All I know is something about weather magic causing environmental damage. And I'm sorry, but I never got your name. I'm Roger Davis."
"I'm called Tharos," he says.
"Also called boy, moron, cotton brain, pain in my ass… " says the nose-picking [Druid], counting off insults on his booger-stained fingers.
Tharos rolls his eyes. "Bek has examples for everything, and has never met the moment that didn't call for him to voice them."
The old man flicks another wad of nose goo at his ever-growing artwork on the rug. "Just because you haven't seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I've never seen you say anything clever, but I assume you have at some point. Possibly by accident." His expression never changes from bland disinterest, nor does he look up from his work.
"So what were the problems with weather magic again?" you ask, desperately interrupting before they can start arguing again.
"It's fucking up the weather around the desert!" Arsha says.
"Isn't the point of weather magic to change the weather?" you ask, having no real idea.
"Feh. City folk. If you make it rain more
here, then that means less water
elsewhere. And the only way to make land next to a damn desert drier is to make it a desert, too! Your weather mages are causing the Zeikhal to expand!"
"I thought you were the Circle of Eastern Zeikhal. Wouldn't that mean more territory for your Circle?" you ask.
"We're [Druids], not [Kings]," says Tharos. "We don't rule territory; we help it find a balance."
"Also we're the Circle of the Jaw, not Eastern Zeikhal," says Bek. "That's Nerrhavia's name for us; we don't use it ourselves."
"We do, actually," says Tharos.
The old man looks up from his nasal artwork for the first time. His brow furrows in confusion. "Since when? I don't remember voting on that."
"We've been doing it for eight hundred years," Tharos says, slowly, as if explaining something to a small child. "Maybe you didn't notice because we only do it when talking to the nations east of the Zeikhal, and you can't be bothered to leave the desert more than once a decade?"
"So you want the city of Shakobar to stop using weather magic?" you ask. It's like herding cats, except one of the cats has a giant scorpion on its head, and that's the
reasonable cat.
"Yes!" shouts Arsha. "Expansion of the Zeikhal means loss of habitat for other areas of Chandrar. There's a damn difference between the arid shrublands that border it and the desert itself. And careless weather magic is killing it!"
You have obtained approximately zero records from the city regarding their usage of weather magic. Possibly because they hired you as part of a calculated diplomatic insult. But you assume that 'stop using weather magic' is not something they'd be okay with. There's tons of farmland outside the city, a verdant oasis in the arid lands that surround it. An investment like that can't have been cheap to set up.
Still, this isn't exactly an unheard of scenario. Environmental economics wasn't your area of focus in your doctoral studies - you'd gone for digital economies and collectibles markets - but you've done some reading on the subject.
"I don't think the city cares about Chandrar's biodiversity," you say. "What about this land that's getting swallowed up by the Zeikhal? Who owns it?"
"Nerrhavia's Fall claims it, but it's unoccupied land," Tharos says. "But it's an important part of the migratory routes of a number of bird species."
"Also to succulents, insects that shelter in the succulents, lizards that eat the insects… " Bek says.
"The entire food chain; got it," you say.
"Food chain?" asks Tharos.
Oh. They apparently don't have that term, though Bek is clearly familiar with the concept. "It's the idea that animals are all… linked together, like a chain," you say. "Animals at the top of the chain eat the animals below them - the next link in the chain - who eat the animals below them, and so on, until you get down to tiny plants. If all the plants at the bottom die, then the animals up the chain start starving, and so do the animals who feed on them, and the ones who feed on them, and so on. And it goes both ways. If the predators at the top all die off, then the things they prey on breed out of control and eat all their prey, which causes problems all the way to the other end of the chain."
You're fairly certain you butchered that explanation, because it's not a concept you've ever really had to put into words before. Everyone just sort of knows what 'food chain' means. Except for here, where they don't… and where all three [Druids] are now looking at you with interest, rather than merely humoring you while they bickered with one another.
"Food chain," says Tharos. "It has a certain ring to it."
"Not entirely accurate," says Bek. "Animals usually feed on more than one thing."
"But a useful simplification," says Tharos. "What did you say your class was again, Roger?"
"I'm a [Teacher]."
"And this is the sort of thing you teach?"
"Actually, no, I teach economics and philosophy. But those touch on everything, so I have to know a little bit about most things. And I think I see your problem with weather magic, and it's what economists refer to as the 'tragedy of the commons.'"
"Go on," says Tharos. The other two [Druids] observe you in silence, their gaze focused on you like hawks. (Is it racist to say that about Arsha?)
The sudden focus is unsettling, but you do your best to ignore it. You've given lectures to [Slavers] threatening you with death and post-docs threatening you with additional TA duties. These are basically just… hippies.
"The tragedy of the commons is what happens to unregulated public resources," you explain. "Like… a lake full of fish. If there's no rules about how much people are allowed to fish, then there's nothing stopping one person from taking
all the fish out of the lake and ruining it for everyone else."
"Ah, like how the clans of my people charge for access to oases," says Arsha. "Else travelers would drain the damn things dry in less than a year!"
"Right, and that's one of the ways to deal with it: privatization. If the oasis is owned by one person, or clan, then they have an incentive to preserve it so that they can keep making money from it over a longer period of time."
"The clan can still drain it themselves," says Bek. "Happened to three different oases west of Reim in the turmoil after the King of Destruction's slumber. Two of them have yet to recover."
"And the border of the Zeikhal is not so easily… what was your word? Privatized," says Tharos. "The animals and plants there are of little value to [Alchemists] or [Hunters]."
You shrug. "Nothing's perfect. But it's better than nothing, and there's other things you could do. Now, tell me - what are the valuable things that depend on this border area? Do rich people like to hunt there for sport? Would the expansion of the Zeikhal put other valuable areas under threat? Basically, what economic damage would be caused if the Zeikhal continued to expand at its current rate for five years? Ten? A hundred? And is there any level of weather magic that can be done without making things worse, or would people have to stop altering the weather entirely?"
The two younger [Druids] look to Bek. The old man scratches at his much-abused nose with the tip of his yellat staff. "Some weather magic would be fine. Desirable, even. The Circle's higher-level [Druids] cast spells to help manage the Zeikhal's winds, lest sandstorms bury all of Chandrar within a handful of centuries. It only got so large in the first place because our predecessors were slow to act and curb its growth, after all. But the rain magic… a few spells here and there would have little effect on the Zeikhal. So long as the spells are spaced sufficiently, and not all cast at once during a single season, of course."
You grin. Now you're getting somewhere! "Alright. So, the first thing that I think you should do is see how much weather magic can be done, and of what types, without causing environmental damage. Then estimate how much damage is caused, in gold, by spells past that point."
"This sounds like a lot of bullshit busy-work to get us to go away," says Arsha.
"It's so that you have an argument to bring to the city about why they should care about the desert," you say. "Because they don't care about habitat loss or wildlife, but they do care about money." As proof, you gesture towards the richly appointed waiting room that Bek is currently devaluing with a snot-stain depiction of… is that a yellat? You think it's a yellat.
"I do not know how to measure value as the city folk do," Bek says, finishing his yellat mural with a final gooey flick.
"Me neither," says Arsha.
"Nor I," says Tharos. "But… you are a [Teacher], you say? Then teach us how the 'civilized' people of Shakobar would count the wilds in gold. And even if you could put a price on nature, who would pay for it?"
"Well," you say. "There's a thing called a cap-and-trade system… "
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[Teacher Level 9!]
[Skill: Your Attention, Please obtained!]
==========
The [Druids] will keep you very busy over the next few weeks, but you'll still have some time to yourself. You've chosen to spend some of this time investigating magic. How do you go about this?
[ ] Start at the obvious place: the local Mage's Guild.
[ ] Melanhir has actually performed magic in front of you, though he called it shamanism. Talk to him.
[ ] The Druids can use magic, and you seem to have made a good impression on them. Ask them.
