My Little Fortress: Shadytrails

by PersonalGamer

[30] 18th Hematite, 222

18th Hematite, 222

Like most days, Isolde finds herself sifting through some figures on the pages in front of her. There wasn’t a huge amount to keep track of yet, so she could still do it on her own in addition to everything else she needed to do, but it was still a chore she didn’t relish. She taps a talon idly on the table as she reads, finding nothing unexpected or alarming. Good.

As she worked, a large griffon would walk into the shelter. Fargo had been on duty for a little while and now he was taking a break for lunch. He rested his halberd against the wall near the front door, but as opposed to getting some food, he looked around for one person in particular. Upon spotting Isolde, he started to walk over to her. “Um, pardon me, are you busy at the moment?”

She looks up and quickly smiles. “Oh no, nothing important. What’s on your mind?”

“Well, I have a few things I’d like to talk about, in particular a few problems I have with how the town’s defenses are being run.” He said before taking a seat across the table from her.

It takes a bit of effort not to frown. Looked like this wasn’t going to be as pleasant of a distraction as she’d hoped for. “Alright, what problems are you referring to?”

“I’m sorry if this is a bother but regardless, my problem is rather simple. I feel like we need to have some type of eh.” He tried to think of a way to put it. “Basically, it seems before I showed up it was expected for the guards to go to sleep during the night and have nobody on watch. I have been trying to keep up most nights and keep an eye out since I came here, but I need some help with this. Shooting stars seems willing to help with this but eh...” He paused for a moment and made a small sigh. “Still I’m usually working more hours than I can really handle. There needs to be some rule or something that people takes turns watching at night.” He wasn’t making much eye contact and seemed to be a little anxious.

She listens and relaxes a hair as he speaks. “I see. I’ve been leaving those sorts of decisions up to Kiume, as far as I could, but I understand what you’re saying. We had a bit of a problem before you showed up since we only had him and Shooting Star to watch. Two can’t cover a 24 hour period by themselves for very long, so I think they were just doing the best they could.

“If you want to change the schedule up so that someone is always watching at night, then you’ve got my blessing. I agree that it’s something that should be done, especially now that we have enough to cover it.” She tilts her head a bit. “Do you want me to talk over it with him?”

“Yes, actually.” He smiled a little. “I was hoping you would and Eh, thank you.” The big bird actually looked rather tired, even if he was trying hard not to let it show. “Though em, problems like this probably will keep popping up as the fort grows, eh, as more people come I expect more things will need updating.”

She nods and gives a little shrug. “I imagine so, yes. I’m hoping that Kiume will be able to take over more of the administrative side of this as that happens, so maybe that’s something I’ll talk with him about.” She returns his small smile. “At least we’re making a little headway on formalizing the guard. It’s going to be a few months before it’s done, but the guardhouse will certainly make things feel more official. It’ll probably be necessary by the time we get anyone else.”

“Yes yes, and the guardhouse is a good step, but just be prepared for when you get more people. You have silver in this place, and when word spreads I suspect you’ll be having far more people around than you do now. When you have enough people you soon need to watch them as much as you watch the outside.” He leaned back a little and looked away. “An eh, if the guards watch the people who watch the guard eh?”

Isolde isn’t entirely able to mask her concern this time. “Are you worried that there might be some… corruption?”

He sighed before looking her in the eye. “I’ve been to many towns in my years on the road. There is always corruption.” He looked away again, “This town is small now, and everyone knows each other, but once it gets big enough, someone will get greedy. It will happen, it’s our nature.”

Oh, at least he wasn’t talking about anyone there now. She relaxes again and says, “Likely, yes. I’m not sure exactly what we’ll do to police that and minimize it. It’s kind of one of history’s big questions that nobody has found a perfect answer to.” She taps a talon on the table again. “The simple aspect, of course, is that corruption among any Confederacy employees is immediate grounds for termination and exile, and depending on the exact details I’d probably pursue that. How do you detect and prove it though? That’s the hard part. I think we’ll probably have to fall back on the only really reliable method: just keep track of our own. The guard will probably have to rely on themselves to find any future corruption, for better or worse.”

“Guard’s aren’t only corrupt, they can abuse the trust they’ve been given, walk the thin line between invasive and protecting, and all sorts of things... Look, I’m not planning on us to create some fantastic answer to things like this, I’m just hoping that you start to plan or at least be prepared for this now before it’s a problem. Look to the future eh?”

“I understand your concerns, believe me.” She sits up and takes a deep breath. “These kinds of things are always at the back of my mind. I’m the one responsible for everyone here, so they have to be. Abuse of power at least is easier to recognize and deal with. For any situation though, we can lay out rules but it’s going to come down to circumstance in the end. I’ll do my best to prepare for when it happens, I assure you.”

“I trust you will. Anyways, I think I’ve been enough of a bother as it is. Your doing a fine job here, so I feel rather bad for bringing up such worrisome things.” He said before standing back up. “Thank you for your time.”

“No, no, don’t worry about it. I’m glad anyone is concerned about these matters, really.” She waves a claw. “Any time you want to discuss anything, I’m always available.”

“Thank you, and thank you for the help too.” He said nodding before going to grab his halberd. He’d spent a decent amount of time talking with Isolde, and it was probably for the best he went back to work as opposed to grabbing some food.

“You’re welcome.” She waves him off and goes back to staring at her stock report. Yeah, maybe they should be a bit more careful about that silver...