this is crazy

[from_scratch]

Cam is watching a new recording of Atriama, tail swishing in the gap in his couch, and doesn't stop to pause the show when he feels a summons go by.

Comments

[whole_new_can]

Rei's eyes widen briefly, but if Moord Nag is surprised at Cam's continued existence she doesn't show it. Barely injured and visibly healing is a new one, as far as she and her scavenger have ever seen.

"It seems we won't."

[from_scratch]

"And you have way too many allies for me to just keep you in custody like I did with Bonesaw. Aaaaand if I send you to the Birdcage you'll probably just slaughter everyone in it. Killing people is not my favorite activity but you're not giving me a lot of options."

[whole_new_can]

"I could agree to kill no one unless they are the aggressor, if that is what it takes. And if in the future you decide to kill more people, you can always give them to me instead."

[from_scratch]

"And my reasoning for believing such an agreement would be?"

[whole_new_can]

"A contract is inviolable. I'll forgive the insult once.”

[from_scratch]

And after that she'll, what, fail to kill him again? Whatever. "Can I consult anything other than your say-so for information about your attitude towards contracts?"

[whole_new_can]

"You could ask my minions. I've dealt in cities and brokered alliances and relied on the fact that no party would doubt my word.

That was twice."

[from_scratch]

"Well, if you're not going to forgive me for not already having a complete record of your contract-making history on hand we may have a separate problem."

[whole_new_can]

"The insult was in requiring it."

[from_scratch]

"Yeah, I mostly just have this habit of not taking supervillains' words for things when I have them at metaphorical gunpoint. Can you overlook this character flaw of mine or should I skip the part where I verify your statement?"

[whole_new_can]

"Verify if you need to. But I'm not going to forget it."

[from_scratch]

"I was not proposing any sort of memory alteration," Cam says, and he makes an instance of his computer and sifts through it for anything available on Moord Nag's reputation for keeping her bargains.

[whole_new_can]

There's not a lot of that on the Internet. Mostly it speaks in generalities: she's at the top of a network of alliances made of people who were previously trying to kill each other, and she has a reputation for being very strict about what she does and doesn't allow her warlords to do. The easily available information includes no definitive examples of her sticking to an agreement when it would benefit her not to.

She does meet whatever minimum level of reliability it takes to be the last word in the local lack of a legal system, but Cam's computer can't confirm or deny that Moord Nag is the second coming of Marquis.

[from_scratch]

"Can you suggest anything that may ever have been recorded or written down on the topic?"

[wormcan]

"Her treaties," Rei speaks up again. "Some places send people in exchange for protection. Even having that agreement is enough to frighten most warlords away. And once she accepted that, she never took more or gave the city to anyone. When I was given this city, the deal said I never go near Chiange because she couldn't allow it."

[from_scratch]

Cam conjures up a complete set of treaties to which Moord Nag was a signatory.

[wormcan]

That is a rather long list. Some agreements are of the type Rei described. Most aren't. The shelf life of a local warlord is fairly low, and their second-most common method of settling differences involves running it by her. The general form of the latter is usually that A will stay out of B's city, or that C and D may ally, with Moord Nag providing enforcement. Sometimes she signed her name, other times it was a serpentine shadow topped by a human skull.

If the set is arranged chronologically, it does show the list of places nobody can occupy getting gradually longer whenever a province either sends victims or is awarded to a Moord Nag-approved warlord.

[from_scratch]

"This is suggestive," Cam acknowledges, when he's gone through them. Plus he can always go kill her later if he has to. "Will you sign an agreement not to aggress against others, kill exclusively in immediate self-defense without collateral damage or if for some reason I authorize you otherwise, and neither personally nor through proxy interfere with my projects?"

[whole_new_can]

"And in exchange, you leave me alive and with whatever authority people accept when not in danger?"

[from_scratch]

"That would be the idea, yes. With the understanding that I will expand when invited to do so by a population."

[whole_new_can]

"Yes. As long as your projects are no threat to provinces under my protection. If the inhabitants see you as someone to protect against, they may call on me. And if that happens I cannot promise not to oppose you."

[from_scratch]

"Well, then we may find ourselves doing this all over again if some sort of misinformation gets out, but I don't plan on harming civilians or harmless people in general."

[whole_new_can]

"Then, if you include defense of others alongside self-defense, this should not conflict with anything else where I have given my word."

[from_scratch]

"Okay. And if this works out and you seem to be behaving yourself I might be able to provide you ethically sourced power fuel, but we'll see how it goes first."

[whole_new_can]

"Three."