• Published 2nd Nov 2015
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Lateral Movement - Alzrius



Having been granted rulership over the city of Vanhoover, and confessed their feelings for each other, Lex Legis and Sonata Dusk have started a new life together. But the challenges of rulership, and a relationship, are more than they bargained for.

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55 - Bumps in the Road

“We’ve run into a few problems.”

Looking up from the financial records and lists of municipal activities that he’d been pouring over since that morning, Lex narrowed his eyes at Ribbon’s statement, frowning. It had only been a few hours since he had dispatched her to begin putting his plan to relieve Vanhoover into action, and there were already difficulties coming up? He’d anticipated some obstacles in coordinating an activity this large, but not this early in the process. “What problems?”

Ribbon paused, trying to think about the best way to parse the news she was about to deliver. A moment later she realized what she was doing, and smirked internally. She’d always hated it when somepony – typically Lucy – fretted about telling her bad news. She’d always thought that it was disingenuous; that they were unduly focused on not being blamed for what they were about to say.

Now that the horseshoe was on the other hoof, she understood how wrong she’d been. It wasn’t about trying to avoid culpability, whether rightly or wrongly. Rather, it was because they were worried about disappointing the pony who’d trusted them enough to give them a task. The sudden fear that somepony she looked up to would think less of her was an awful feeling.

Mentally apologizing to Lucy and everypony else she’d ever berated for hesitating, Ribbon forced herself to answer Lex’s question. “I spoke to the manager of Tall Tale’s bank. He won’t exchange the coins you gave me for Equestrian bits.”

“What?” hissed Lex softly, though his tone was no less dire for it.

Wincing internally, Ribbon plunged ahead. “These coins,” she nodded towards the rolled-up portable hole that was tucked under one wing, “aren’t of a make that anypony at the bank had ever seen before. They aren’t sure what they’re worth, and so they can’t change them out for bits. Throw in that there are several different kinds in there-”

“There’s more than one type of coin in there?” interrupted Lex, his frown changing to one of confusion.

Ribbon blinked. “You didn’t know?” When Lex shook his head, she unrolled the portable hole on the floor again, reaching in and digging out a hooffull of the coinage it contained, bringing it over to lay them on Lex’s desk. Once she did, it became immediately apparent what she was talking about. “You see? Some of these are made of gold, and there are quite a few silver coins in there too, but it turns out that most of them are made of copper. So there’s going to be a different value assigned to each type.”

Lex leaned back in his chair. He hadn’t examined the coins very closely at all, having been more interested in the scrolls than the rest of the dragon’s hoard. Still, whether there was one type of coin or three, this shouldn’t have been an issue. “Then have them call a coin collector to assess their value and exchange them based on that.”

“I did,” replied Ribbon. “That’s why this took so long. She examined one of each type of coin and said that, as far as she knew, they weren’t like anything she’d ever seen before.”

“Shouldn’t that increase their value, then?”

“That’s what I thought too, but she said that, and I quote, ‘there’s a difference between something that’s a piece of history and something that has no history.’ Between that and just how many of these there are, she was adamant that they simply weren’t worth anything as currency…” Ribbon trailed off with a helpless shrug.

“Then what about buying them for the metal?” asked Lex through gritted teeth. “Even if these coins aren’t recognized as being money, gold, silver, and copper are still valuable unto themselves.”

But Ribbon was already shaking her head. “I tried, but the manager just said that they were a bank, not a smelting company, and he has a point. If they just bought them for the metal, all they’d be able to do is turn around and sell them to somepony who could melt them down, not to mention having to store and ship them to boot.” She hesitated for a moment, then added, “though I suppose that part of it might not be a big deal if you wanted to sell that thing I’m carrying them around in too, but good luck figuring out what it’s worth.”

Lex snorted in derision at the idea. Seeing that no further answer was forthcoming from him, Ribbon picked up the coins on the desk and deposited them back into the hole. The clink as they landed amongst their brethren was the only sound in the room for a moment as Ribbon let Lex digest everything she’d just told him.

For his part, Lex simply stared at the contents of the hole, thinking. He had expected there to be some issues of currency conversion, but he hadn’t anticipated the entire lot of them being effectively worthless. This was a serious problem. If he couldn’t use the contents of the dragon’s hoard as currency, then he had no operating budget for funding Vanhoover’s relief, which limited his options to virtually nil.

That was not acceptable.

Lex looked up at Ribbon. “I want to know how much each of those metals is currently worth. Find that out for me, and then bring the bank manager here.”

Ribbon tilted her head. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to make him purchase these coins.”

“How?”

“By leveraging the authority of my administration over this city,” replied Lex without missing a beat. “He’s going to buy them, every single one, because I won’t give him any other choice.”

Ribbon’s eyes widened. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“Compared to letting the ponies of Vanhoover suffer because I can’t purchase the supplies needed to help them due to one banker’s cupidity, it’s a fine idea,” retorted Lex flatly.

“But running roughshod over the ponies who disagree with you-”

“-is sometimes what the government is supposed to do, for the greater good!” snapped Lex, his voice rising. “Just because somepony doesn’t like what I’m doing doesn’t mean that their objections are at all cogent, let alone worthy of consideration! Why doesn’t anypony ever understand that?!”

Ribbon gaped at the unexpected outburst, taken completely aback. She’d apparently hit some sort of sore point with him, and she made a mental note of that as she bit her lip, trying to figure out how to reiterate her point while avoiding whatever tripwire she’d just crossed. “All I’m saying,” she said slowly, keeping her voice soft, “is that making the bank buy the coins for the cost of their metals-”

“I’m not going to make them buy them for the cost of their metals,” interrupted Lex. “I plan on giving them a generous discount, one that will allow the bank to turn a profit when they resell them later on, even after the storage and shipping costs are factored in.”

“O-oh…” Ribbon stammered, suddenly feeling very foolish. Of course he’d had a plan in mind. Selling the coins at a discount wasn’t a bad idea at all; in fact, it was probably the best solution possible. Ribbon had known the bank manager for years, and although she knew he’d grumble at the arrangement, he wouldn’t have any serious objections once he realized that he’d make money on the deal. And this way, they’d acquire the bits they needed immediately, rather than having to go through the lengthy process of finding a buyer for all of these.

“What else?”

“Huh?” Ribbon started, drawn out of her ruminating by Lex’s question.

“You said that there were ‘a few’ problems. What else?”

“Oh, um, it’s about the dockyards.” Ribbon paused to gather herself, trying to get past her sudden bout of embarrassment. “I had Lucy send a message to the harbormaster, and the response came in just as I got back.”

“Let me guess,” said Lex with a sigh. “None of the ships there are currently seaworthy.”

“…that’s exactly right. There are currently two ships there, one of which is still under construction, and the other is dry docked for repairs to its hull. Both are going to need weeks before they’re serviceable. How did you know that?” She wasn’t going to ask, but she couldn’t help herself, suddenly overcome with curiosity.

“Your speech, back when you declared that Tall Tale would be evacuated,” answered Lex. He stood up as he spoke, reaching into his haversack. “You said that ships would ‘arrive’ to take everypony to Las Pegasus. The only reason to have ships arriving is if there aren’t any already here. Since this is a major city, even if it only has a modest maritime presence, it wasn’t likely that the harbor would have no ships whatsoever, which meant that there were probably some there, but not serviceable.” As he finished, he withdrew a copy of the “special evacuation edition” of Tall Tale’s newspaper from his pack, folded to the page that had reprinted her speech.

Ribbon was impressed, and it showed on her face. “You got all of that from one word in a speech that I made several days ago?”

Lex shrugged. “It was just a guess. In any event, it doesn’t matter. I can use my magic to repair the damaged ship. Even if it’s too small to bring everything over, Vanhoover is close enough that making multiple trips shouldn’t be any trouble.” One of the spells that the Night Mare had granted him allowed him to repair damaged objects. Unlike when the train he and Sonata had been on had come across a mangled stretch of railroad track, a broken vehicle was now nothing more than a momentary inconvenience. “I’ll go and repair that right now while you arrange things with the bank manager.”

He started towards the door when Ribbon called out to him. “Wait a minute.”

“What is it?” he asked, turning to face her. He’d presumed that she’d told him everything that needed to be taken care of, but reading people had never been his strong suit. Clearly, there was yet another issue that required his intervention before-

“It’s lunchtime.”

Lex raised one brow, his dubiousness obvious. “Are you joking?” He was going to say more, but stopped as he suddenly remembered having a conversation just like this with Sonata several days ago, back when they were on their way to Tall Tale.

Ribbon shook her head. “I’m not. Listen, the bank manager is going to be at lunch himself right now, so I won’t be able to get in to see him for another hour or so. And if you want to talk to him this afternoon then you can’t go to the dockyards right now, since going there and back takes a few hours. So in the meantime, let’s get something to eat.”

Lex frowned, but didn’t object. While he was used to skipping meals, he only did so when there was a good reason for it, such as work that needed to be finished. But from what Ribbon was telling him, there was no other work to be done. He could have spent time looking over that second scroll, but that wasn’t any sort of immediate priority. Finally, he nodded. “Alright.”

“Great!” Ribbon grinned, slightly surprised by her own enthusiasm. “Should we go get Sonata, or…?” She trailed off, looking around the room as she asked in what Lex had learned, after long periods of study, was a silent query as to the location of the person under discussion, in this case his girlfriend.

“She’s with Nosey somewhere. If she’s not back yet, it means they’re not done yet.” Lex was grateful for that, since the irritating reporter had been making a nuisance out of herself, hovering outside of his office and yelling that she wanted an interview every time Lucy had opened the door. Lex had been entirely willing to turn over the remaining bits that he had to Sonata in exchange for her making Nosey go away.

“Well, Lucy likes to eat at her desk, so I guess it’s just you and me then.” Ribbon smiled as she led him towards the door. “Do you like pasta? I know this great little place.”

Author's Note:

No plan is ever executed perfectly, something Lex is all too familiar with.

At least the solutions seem fairly simple...so far.

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