Irvin - A Lead

The building we had rented for the embassy was nondescript and temporary. It was hard to find available land or buildings near Embassy Row, which was surprising considering Derva was a second-tier planet for the Hindu people. We would need to find permanent lodging at some point, but the space we were using now was acceptable even if it came at a high cost.

This was my first time traveling to a new world, but I barely managed to process that or take in the sights before I was put to work. Almost from the second, we had arrived; my duties were made clear.

I was given time to freshen up, but since the quarters I was assigned was temporary, there was no need to unpack. I and the rest of the staff would be living out of our spatial storage devices. My first task was to familiarize myself with a detailed reading of treaties and rules. What was expected of an embassy diplomatic attaché and the protections we were afforded was required readings, assigned to me immediately.

It wasn't long before I discovered why the location we were using couldn't be rented long-term. An embassy was required to own the land they functioned out of. This requirement was made by both treaty and System. System treated the land owned by the embassy as sovereign ground. In our case, that meant that the land was considered Sidhe, and anything we could do on Talahm, we could do on this parcel of land.

King Teigh had gifted Ambassador Clive with a Sithern Seed for this very reason. It was a bold move, to open a Sithern on another world, but it would expand Sidhe's influence more than anyone expected. The new Sitherns, sprinkled across multiple worlds would allow our people and planet to expand faster than any of the other Pantheons intended.

The use of Sithern, extra-planetary, had been part of every embassy that was created from the very first. It allowed for privacy and communication that could not be breached or hacked as King Teigh used a bastardized version of fertility rituals to connect each newly birthed Sithern with Saor O Shlabhraidhean. Saor Sithern was designated the control node, the central link in the chain of growing and connected Sithern.

The network built and connected by Sitherns, even between planets, was untraceable, it existed as a magic framework that was unassailable. No matter how gifted the spy or technology may be, no one that entered the Sithern could do so without being tracked. And because each Sithern was linked, bound into a network that King Teigh had discovered and allowed to flourish at the beginning of his reign, there were lines of communication and travel available that circumvented the standard methods.

Once I had subsumed the reams of material and had proven proficient with facts and data, Lord Clive gave the task of finding a suitable location to build the embassy to me. Of course, I understood why I was given that task as I ran into difficulties from the beginning.

The problem with finding a location to purchase wasn't one of cost. King Teigh was willing to provide enough funding, even allowing for bribes and kickbacks to account for cost. The Silinium deposits he controlled ensured that the shortage of Universal credits for the government of Talahm was a thing of the past. The financial markets had even listed the coinage he had created on the index, allowing the future markets to day trade and speculate on the worth of Sidhe coinage.

Most investors had reacted like a frenzied school of piranha, buying frenzy erupted when they found that Sidhe coins were backed and based on a Silinium standard. Even Olympus and Asgard, as robust and strong as their economies were, joined the frenzy until eventually, their currency settled at a two for one exchange rate.

Universal Credit valuation was based on the strongest currency of the member planets, as such, almost from the day the Silinium was listed, Credit valuation was based on that denomination. It devalued every other Government's currency, something that brought real satisfaction to people that had been suppressed and discounted by the economic might of Olympus and Asgard for so long.

Financial institutions and markets that had invested heavily in Olympus and Asgard, looking to those Pantheons for stability were not fast enough to react to the changing landscape. Those institutions that were slow to anticipate the changes, financial markets that had a long and prosperous history, retaliated towards Talahm with fees and red tape that was more annoyance than damaging.

The problem in finding suitable land on Derva was exacerbated because of location, no one was willing to sell, at any price, in the area that had been districted for diplomatic purposes. Eventually, I decided there was no point in continuing to comb the area near Embassy Row. Any land that became available was either quickly snatched up or redistricted for commercial use whenever we expressed an interest.

It wasn't long before I understood that someone was actively working against us; it was made abundantly clear that the financial center for Derva was throwing up roadblocks. I didn't understand why until I finally finished sifting through that pile of paperwork Lord Clive had assigned me.

There was a little known and almost never enacted codicil in the treaties all Embassies were signatories of. The codicil required any foreign government to have purchased land and begin construction of an Embassy within six months of exchanging Ambassadors. King Teigh was kind enough to gift this land to the Embassies that flocked to Talahm. That kindness was not returned.

Someone was throwing up roadblocks, anticipating that the Sidhe, unaware of that codicil, would be forced to make concessions at the eleventh hour in order not to be forced to leave Derva. It became painfully obvious that the government of Derva was complicit, or at the very least was taking a wait and see policy.

I was certain that part of Derva's hands-off approach was because of the lobbying power of the financial district, but that was only a part. I think this was a test of Sidhe ingenuity and adaptability. The Hindu Pantheon was powerful, probably as powerful as Olympus and Asgard based on planetary populations, and they were willing to entertain our embassy. But they wanted allies, not patsies.

I sent a quick missive to Lord Clive making sure he was aware of the relevant codicil with a suggestion that King Teigh be informed, and a suggestion that His Majesty implements a reciprocal policy. I also suggested that any Embassies that were already established on Talahm, those that were using land that had been gifted, be informed that all infrastructure; roads, water, ley-lines would no longer be free and a monthly fee was being instituted.

Once I realized that someone was working actively against us, I decided to change my methodology. Instead of searching for property as an attaché, I would search as an individual. There were no rules that said I couldn't buy a property and re-sell it to the Embassy. I just needed to get creative.

A bit of glamour and I was able to transform my appearance, darkening my skin, changes to my eyes and hair, creating a persona that appeared to be Hindu. Clothing was even easier. The Hindu had adopted the Dhoti, a simple style of clothing, shorts, or skirts that served as a wrap. The shirts were embroidered for formal and festive functions like weddings, and plain muslin for normal everyday wear. The Dhoti required no tailoring and was easy to learn to wear as a wrap.

It was important to choose color carefully because certain colors were reserved for specific Castes. I selected a white muslin. The border trim was perhaps more important than the color of the shirt because they were an easy means of identifying your Caste. They came in only the three primary colors of yellow, red, and blue, or shades of these, and the choice was important.

I settled on yellow time with a blue band. This would identify me as belonging to a wealthy merchant family. Someone that would be expected to purchase land for his family's holdings.

Once clothed and with illusion in place, I began walking the streets, listening to gossip, looking for signs that a property might be for sale. The people of Derva spoke Hindi, but that was no longer a problem for me. In order to understand that pile of paperwork Lord Clive had saddled me with, I'd had to learn the language.

The System made this easy, awarding the skill [Language: Hindi] once I started. Once the language was added to my skills list, it took only a few days of intensive immersion before I had advanced to the expert level. Languages were one of the easiest skills to gain and level up. I think System tweaked an individual's progress to ensure the diverse cultures of the Universe could interact and communicate effortlessly.

I spent most of my time gossiping with men in Hookah shops. It was in one of these establishments that an overheard conversation finally bore fruit. A young widower was refusing the advances of a suitor, one who was beginning to apply pressure in an attempt to leave her with no recourse but to accept his advances.

She found herself without income, no one would employ her fearing to anger the suitor, and she was becoming desperate. She may have ignored his attention indefinitely if she didn't have two small children that required care. Her inability to provide for her children had left her desperate for money. She had already liquidated jewelry, art, and furnishings that had any worth and was attempting to sell the home her husband had left her.

With no recourse or anyone to turn to on Derva, she was hoping to raise enough money that she could relocate off-planet and start again, but no one dared purchase the house. The young suitor was too powerful, too connected to cross, so the sale of the home had been left languishing.

Listening to the conversation until I managed to ferret out the woman's identity and a general idea where she lived, I set out to see if I couldn't purchase a home and employ a young woman. I managed to find the identity of the young Rajah, but his position and power meant nothing to me. The woman might be a suitable addition to the staff we were hoping to employ, solving her financial problems and protection from the Rajah's machinations would make a statement.