The silence in the manor after Lord Malakor's departure was heavier than the desert heat. The scroll, with its elegant script and brutal demands, lay on the table like a coiled serpent. My council, the founders of our new world, stared at it as if it were a death sentence.
Borin was the first to speak, his voice a low, dangerous rumble. "We fight," he said, his hand resting on the pommel of his Oakhaven Blade. "We have walls. We have iron. We have the courage of a people with something to lose. Let the King send his army. The desert will claim them, just as it claimed the raiders."
"Fight the Royal Army?" Kael countered, his face pale. He was a practical man, a man of the earth, and he understood the scale of what Borin proposed. "Borin, you were a soldier. You know their numbers. They are not a hundred desperate raiders. They are thousands of disciplined, armored men. They would march over our walls and salt the very fields we have nurtured."
The council was split. The younger, more hot-blooded members sided with Borin, their newfound pride making the thought of submission intolerable. The older elders, who remembered the crushing, effortless power of the kingdom, sided with Kael. They advocated for paying the tax, for surviving, even if it meant a return to a life of scraping by.
My mother, Elara, remained silent for a long time, observing the debate. Finally, she spoke, her voice cutting through the angry arguments. "You are all forgetting who the King is," she said, her eyes finding mine. "He is not just a ruler; he is a man. A vain, arrogant man. And Lord Malakor is his perfect servant. They do not see a threat here. They see a pantry to be raided. If you fight and lose, he will destroy this place out of spite. If you submit and pay, he will bleed you dry until you are as destitute as you were when you arrived, and then he will forget you exist again."
She was right. Both paths, open defiance and total submission, led to Oakhaven's destruction. One would be swift and bloody, the other slow and grinding. I needed a third path.
The system, for all its power, offered no easy solution. This was a problem of statecraft, of navigating the treacherous currents of human ambition and pride. I retreated into myself, reviewing my assets. I had the city. I had the loyalty of my people. And I had nine System Points. I opened the technology tree, my mind racing. I didn't need better plows or stronger walls for this fight. I needed a better strategy.
Under the [CIVIC & MILITARY DOCTRINES] tab, a new packet glowed, its prerequisite of 'Established Foreign Contact' having been met.
[PRINCIPLES OF DIPLOMACY & STATECRAFT - KNOWLEDGE PACKET][Cost: 7 System Points.][Description: Provides foundational knowledge of political negotiation, strategic deception, intelligence gathering, long-term geopolitical strategy, and the management of vassal/overlord relationships. Includes historical case studies on asymmetric political warfare.]
The cost was immense, leaving me with almost nothing, but the description was exactly what I needed. This was the knowledge of how the weak could outmaneuver the strong, not on the battlefield, but in the halls of power and the minds of their enemies. Purchase, I commanded without hesitation.
The influx of knowledge was a cold, clarifying river of ice. It was not about building things or killing people; it was about understanding and manipulating the intricate, invisible web of human power structures. I suddenly understood the vanity of kings, the greed of courtiers, the potent power of misinformation, and the strategic value of buying time. The path forward became brutally, brilliantly clear.
I returned to the council, my eyes burning with a new, cold light. "We will not fight," I said, silencing Borin's impending protest with a raised hand. "And we will not submit."
I picked up the scroll. "We will obey. But we will obey in a way that will ultimately destroy them."
My plan was simple in its concept, but complex in its execution. It was a strategy of malicious compliance.
"Lord Malakor, and by extension the King, believes me to be a 'bastard prince playing in the mud'," I explained. "He sees us as primitive, lucky fools. We will lean into that prejudice. We will appear to be humbled, terrified, and eager to please. We will agree to his tax."
A wave of despair washed over the council.
"But," I continued, my voice sharp, "we will control the narrative. The King wants fifty percent of our harvest? He shall have it. Or rather, he shall have fifty percent of the harvest he knows about."
I laid out the plan. We would begin construction of a series of secret, underground granaries, their entrances cleverly concealed. Our public granary would be kept only half-full. We would create two sets of books: the real ones, detailing our true production, and the official ones for the Royal Tax Collectors, showing a much smaller, though still impressive, yield.
"We will pay the tax," I said. "It will be painful, but it will be manageable, taken from our true surplus. To the kingdom, it will look like we are giving them everything. They will believe they have broken us, that they are bleeding us dry. Their greed will be satisfied, and their arrogance will make them blind. They will not look for what they do not believe can possibly exist."
It was a plan born of the statecraft knowledge: use your enemy's perception of your weakness as your greatest weapon.
The council stared at me, their minds slowly grasping the sheer, audacious dishonesty of the proposal. It was a lie on a national scale. It was treason, wrapped in a bow of subservience.
Borin was the first to understand. A slow, wolfish grin spread across his face. "You would not just defy the King," he breathed. "You would make a fool of him."
"A fool who is paying for the very army that will one day secure our independence," I finished.
The next morning, I summoned Lord Malakor to the manor. I presented him with a picture of defeated, reluctant submission. I bowed my head. I spoke of my duty to my father, the King. I haggled, not over the percentage, but over minor logistical details—a pathetic attempt to save face that I knew he would expect.
"My Lord," I said, my voice filled with a carefully rehearsed despair. "Your terms are… harsh. They will leave my people with little. But I am a loyal son of the Kingdom. We will obey. Oakhaven will pay the King's tax."
Malakor's smile was triumphant and utterly contemptuous. He saw before him a broken boy, a jumped-up bastard who knew his place. He had no idea he was looking at a revolutionary who had just declared a secret war.
"A wise decision, Prince Castian," he purred, clapping me on the shoulder in a gesture of false magnanimity. "His Majesty will be pleased with your… loyalty."
He and his retinue departed that day, carrying my promise back to the capital. They left behind a city that, to any outside observer, seemed cowed and defeated. But in reality, the moment they disappeared over the horizon, the real work began. We were no longer just building a city. We were building a conspiracy. We were forging a nation in the shadows, waiting for the day our feigned weakness would become the weapon of our liberation.