Rereading the update and gathering thoughts.
"In these chambers, there is a certain degree of looseness on standard expectations of decorum," Vanessa told the man, which seemed to make him relax a few degrees. "Your job is to provide honest and clear advice, not tell me what you think I need to hear, or stroke my ego."
"Understood, your Majesty," he nodded, and Vanessa turned to the rest of her assorted council.
Vanessa continues to be a good boss.
"There's whoever embezzled the funds for the expanded logistics," Rienne grimaced. "Thanks to Keeper Itrick's people, we've rooted out much of it, but there's at least one Colonel or General who was behind it all. And we can't confirm it. It's going to require some thorough digging and likely dragging them all in for personal interrogation by Keeper Itrick himself to be sure, at this point, I'm afraid."
"I do have to concur with the High Marshall," Itrick sighed. "The people who might know who was behind it all aren't talking, and the rest were just taking money to look the other way, following orders, or complicit in other, indirect ways. Tracking the money itself hasn't worked either."
If we know some of the lower down officers who are involved but are keeping quiet... I'd actually almost want to reach out to them and tell them to pass a message back up to whoever was actually behind it to offer them an honourable discharge.
Keeper Itrick is the nuclear option and even then doesn't have great odds of actually finding out who's behind it. Ways to defeat truth sensing magic exist. At the level of high ranking colonels and generals. Who possibly have mages under their command even, they might have ways to defeat truth senses.
People have already said and they're correct, corruption cripples armies. But considering whether it's better if we try to punish this person, or if we try to clear out the corruption. IMO clearing out the corruption wins.
Something like offering an amnesty tied in with the other amnesty's. Whoever did it comes forwards, tells us how so we can put specific procedures in place to stop this happening again. They take a discharge from their position but no further punishment. And we then don't have to risk destroying goodwill through interrogating other high ranking officers.
"But it doesn't prevent South Zarsim from potentially aiding Morvak, in some ways. And it's now clear to Selissa that South Zarsim isn't under our thumb."
"Well, of course not. Gaius Rodela wouldn't have agreed to be."
Vaguely annoyed at this. Soft power. The right to have troops in and moving through south Zarsim, stopping them from being an outright Morvakian puppet. And just goodwill.
I'd almost be tempted to argue that South Zarsim *is* under our thumb, but generally, where that's the case, there's a certain amount of politeness that even if everyone knows one party is the junior partner such things aren't mentioned outright or lorded about.
We All know we
could have decided to accept the agreement. Gaius even confirmed he would have been willing to have us accept it. But it was a courtesy that we asked. (as well as a negotiating tactic to see if Selissa would try to offer better terms. It's a negotiation. The war is ongoing. We've got time.
"The customary petitions for leniency, pardons, amnesties - they do need to be resolved, your Majesty," Itrick said. "If you intend to look at them yourself, it would help if I knew now, else I'll set to having my people filter through them and present their suggestions for your signature."
Same as what I said above. I'd almost want to see if Keeper Itrick could offer amnesties and pardons to whomever was embezzling funds from the military. But that strikes me as somewhat greedy, by trying to offer pardons and amnesties to those we haven't even caught yet.
One of the other things. Is just with the Zarsim Civil war. I'd like to send more troops, to help win it quicker and keep our units there up to strength. but that might risk leaving our mobile reserve under strength. So I'd like to recruit troops into the mobile reserve as standing forces.
I'd also like to recruit More than we need just in case it fails and to create a bit of a buffer. So we'll have a large enough reserve to send more troops to Zarsim and still have more soldiers than we started with.
Something like this.
-[ ][HIGH MARSHALL] Recruit Additional Soldiers (Strong Success gets you all the soldiers you wanted. Weak Success or Failure gets you less soldiers) (Base Chance 60% + Martial)* (Costs Dureks Base on # of soldiers desired)
--[ ] Write in desired Types and Numbers of Soldiers 285 heavy Cav. 415 light cav. 727 men at arms. 488 crossbowmen. 410 pikes.
2325 soldiers total recruited. Even if we only get half that's still over a thousand.
2.5 dureks, 4 dureks, 3.5 dureks, 2.25 dureks, 2.5 dureks. =14.5 dureks total army maintanence.
For other actions. Correspondence I think port lest would be good. Royal vaults. I'd like to purchase some Selissan debt but since no-one seems to have much interest in that I'm not worried about pushing too strongly. Auditing the royal demense seems fine.
Keeper of secrets either rebuilding internal spy network or taking a look at the wedding guests.
Sheriffs and reeves calling for settlers is what I'm most interested in. To improve the queens own personal holdings and power. Especially if coinciding with a time when we're recruiting for the army.
Justice, pretty simple. Look at the Petitions for Amnesties and Commutations on vanessas behalf.
envoys trade with Gyptar. And yeah. Lastly for vanessas actions, wedding planning and inviting not dad to walk her down the aisle.
