Chapter CIX – No woman can meet two leaders.

1st of Autumn 5859
An indistinct field outside the city, Casamonu

Today was the first day of Autumn. Long gone were the green leaves, for they had grown tired of idly standing around for the last few months. Now the leaves were taking a wee break on the ground. They were covered in the morning dew served to them directly by the humid air.

Whitebeard was intently watching the leaves pass by. They reminded her of bronze leaves flattened on an anvil, especially with how they glistered. She, on the back of a carriage, had planted herself as firm as a rock on a seat.

“Here it is, miss.” The carriage driver pointed at an indistinct blur over yonder “It’s Casamonu.”

“It better be. I paid you good money” replied Whitebeard. Finding a driver willing to venture forth into the lair of the fugitives and their so-called Demon King was a challenge which only money could solve. “I can recognize the place. It hasn’t been long since I came here.”

“Did you escape during the siege?” asked the driver.

“I did, after the siege.” Whitebeard, of course, wouldn’t reveal her methods. A lady always kept her secrets close - secrets like the fact that she conducted business with that shady Ayda fellow.

“You’ll be surprised at the lucrative opportunities here, miss. I’ve been making good libra on bringing whatever I can get from the neighboring towns. There are no customs guards or anything of the sort with the new people here.”

“Is that so?” Whitebeard took out her hammer and poked its cold metal handle to the neck of the man, causing him to shudder “I thought you were charging a premium due to how dangerous the route was. It seems that I was mistaken.”

“Uh- I- I’ll give you a refund on the premium, miss.” The driver let out a sigh of relief when the handle was retracted from his back.

“Pleasure doing business with you.” Whitebeard put her hammer back to its place, the empty seat right next to her, and continued enjoying the scenery. She saw fields filled with peasants who had probably immediately gone back to work after the siege kerfuffle was over. Unusual to her were the variation in the skin colors of these peasants. There were groups of newly-minted peasants who seemed to work a bit away from the veteran peasants out of caution. A majority of these new peasants were working on the construction of new domiciles for themselves. Scattered around were the occasional men in blue gambeson armed with spears. Whitebeard saw one in the distance standing between an old and a new peasant arguing with each other. She had seen the same uniforms when she had peeked out the walls out of curiosity during the siege. Closer to the city was a small collection of upcoming peasant huts which had a signpost in front declaring it to be “the village of New Libertycave”. Whitebeard looked around her and encountered no caves, confusing her greatly. On the other side of the road was another collection of huts which were similarly ensigned “the fair village of Newer Libertycave” on a nearby signpost. Again, there was no cave to be found nearby.

Before any more Libertycaves could pop up, Whitebeard found herself in front of the gate of Casamonu. Not much had changed, save for the wall right next to the gate containing a gaping hole leftover from the siege. There wasn’t much traffic, so the driver stopped right before the gate. “This is where you should get off, miss.”

“Refund.” Whitebeard reached out to her hammer. Thankfully, she was refunded before she had to resort to more aggressive negotiation methods “Thank you.” She hopped off the carriage and watched as it disappeared into the gates. Now it was time for her to gain entrance too. She halted the two blue-uniformed guards in front of the gate “Good morning, gentlemen.”

“Lady,” replied the guard on the left “Are you blind? Do I look like a man to you?”

“Excuse me, all you humans look the same to me” replied Whitebeard with a shrug.

The guard on the right took on the job of her companion “So, what business does a dwarf have in Casamonu? We don’t have many visitors nowadays.”

“Diplomatic business.” Whitebeard took out the stone tablet with her job description inscribed on it. “I’d like to meet your leader, if that is possible.”

“The Captain… or, well, the Commander-in-Chief?” The right guard paused to think for a second “To tell you the truth, he might be anywhere. You should be able to find him by asking around, or you can wait at the castle until he returns.”

“Huh.” Whitebeard wondered what sort of odd creature this so-called Commander-in-Chief was. “Have a nice day.” She went through the gate, which was another oddity. Usually she’d have to pay some sort of tax at least to go through a city’s gate.

Entering the city, Whitebeard observed her surroundings to see not much of note, which was of much note in itself. The city was intact, save for uncleaned rubble left over from the wall’s collapse. While she hadn’t witnessed a city’s fall firsthand, Whitebeard had heard and read that conquering armies would often indulge in the spoils of victory. The people of Casamonu however, while clearly tense, didn’t look worse off than last time. In fact, they looked much better than the starving faces she had during the siege. The only immediately noticeable difference was that the uniform of the city guard had changed color to the standard blue, and of course, the colors of the guards themselves had a whole lot more variation. She could hear the cries of the town crier from far away:

“…not forget to apply for free elementary schooling starting next month! Those who attend the agriculture course will have priority for being granted land according to the Homesteading Act…”

Whitebeard knew not what all those fancy words meant, but she could see their effects clearly as she passed by a brightly decorated stand set by the side of the road. There was an official and a guard at the stand who were attending a snaking line of people. The sign on top of the stand read “Apply for the Casamonu National Guard and defend your city: guaranteed food and drink.” She passed by the stand and started making her way up to the castle as she had before.

The road going up the hill was quite arduous, though it was nothing compared to the entrance to her dwarven home city. After a few minutes and a showing of the stone tablet to the guards, Whitebeard was once again inside the courtyard of Casamonu Castle. She saw a huge line of soldiers. They were comprised of pairs with one blue-uniformed soldier and one familiar yellow-uniformed soldier. Overwatching all these pairs was a blue-uniformed catgirl who seemed to have some sort of authority due to how she was shouting at them “Get your weapons straight! You ain’t national guarding anything with that weak grip; watch the veterans carefully!”

“Excuse me.” Whitebeard let out one loud and diplomatic cough to get attention “Would you happen to know where the Commander-in-Chief is?”

“Continue training.” The catgirl gave one last command before turning back to face Whitebeard “I may, depending on who you are.”

“I am Lady Whitebeard, a diplomat sent over by the Supreme Council.” She tried to hand over her stone tablet, but the catgirl didn’t seem too interested in ineligible writing.

“A diplomat? The old man says those are always welcome here.” The catgirl shouted towards a group of shepherds who were also occupying the courtyard “Old man! We’ve got a dwarf!”

A guy who fit the description of “old man” separated from the group of shepherds and ran towards Whitebeard. His beard wasn’t as great as Whitebeard’s of course, but she still couldn’t help but nod with respect and approval upon witnessing the human with great facial hair.

“Welcome, good sir” shouted out the old man.

“Lady. Lady Whitebeard, at your service.” replied Whitebeard.

“Oh, excuse me Lady Whitebeard. Apologies, for this is the first time I’ve seen a dwarf in person.”

“So, do you know who and where the Commander-in-Chief is?” asked Whitebeard. She was confused as to why this catgirl officer needed to call a shepherd to resolve the situation.

“I know him. He’s me.” The old man pointed at himself “John Brown, at your service.”

Whitebeard debated whether or not to take her warhammer out and quash any semblance of diplomacy under it “It’s not funny. I’m here on official business, and I need to meet your leader.”

“He’s not trying to be funny. The old man is the Commander-in-Chief, though most prefer to refer to him as a captain. If you’ll excuse me – I have a National Guard to attend to.” Ayomide left the scene, leaving John Brown and Whitebeard alone.

Whitebeard took a good look, from bottom to top, at the old man in front of her. His boots were muddy, his pants were clearly patched up, his jacket was a simple leather piece, and his hair was about as well-done as a shepherd’s. “Please take no offence, but I was expecting a man who sieged this city to look… a bit grander.”

Brown laughed at the dwarf’s statement. “Oh, maybe I should don the clothes of the late count if that’ll help visitors.” He cleaned his throat “On a more serious note, I’m here as a temporarily appointed servant and a fellow citizen of the Republic. I think this is about as fancily as anyone should dress: any more is a waste.”

“I see.” Whitebeard was surprised to see a method behind the madness “Then, let me get on with my duty. I’ll repay you the favor and be as clear as you were: Aroghlie requires the copper of Mount Curry, and I believe your Republic will require the coal and iron of Mount Zon’guldac.”

Brown scratched his beard “I’m guessing you’re here because of the latest proclamation of the Empire. We happened to intercept copies of it when we captured the city.”

Whitebeard nodded “Excellent, we can spare some time on the briefing then. The Supreme Council definitely don’t plan on calling for human military help in our affairs, so all I’ll ask for is assurance that dwarven goods will be welcome in your territory as they were welcomed before in Casamonu.”

“Of course. The dwarves have helped many fugitives, as I’ve heard, so your goods will be more than welcome. More than that – I’d be grateful if you could find some experts in steelworking and let them know that we’re hiring. With such help I may be able to convince the folk up in Mount Curry to give the dwarves priority and better prices.”

“It’ll be impossible for me to send anyone over with any dwarven trade secrets, but we have expert non-dwarven steelworkers who I’m sure would be happy to find work in somewhere with less competition.” Whitebeard extended her hand “So, do we have a deal? We dwarves like our negotiations short and sweet.”

“We have a deal, good lady.”

Brown and Whitebeard shook hands, tying the fate of the dwarves to that of the Republic.