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<7th of Mid-Year (June) 4E-198 - 8:00 PM>
"Master, I missed you tho much!"
"..."
Why on Nirn is she here?
I was sitting quietly in my office yet suddenly, Vittoria Vici popped out of nowhere.
"Ehem, a bit of a s.p.a.ce miss Vici… By the by, why are you here?"
"Eeeeh! M- Master, don"t you miss me too? I- I missed you so much!"
Vittoria bypa.s.sed the desk I was behind and stuck herself right in front of me, she sat on my hips and started acting h.o.r.n.y.
"Sigh! Fine, I will play with you but not here and not now… Still, what brings you to Winterhold?"
Vittoria got a hold of herself and stood up then started to browse the bookshelves behind me.
"I am the Trade Manager of the East Empire Company, my job is to appraise what we buy and what we sell… and what we loot. I requested to accompany the Company"s Ships to make sure everything goes smoothly."
"And in Winterhold because?"
"Where else would I stay? The a.s.sault hasn"t started yet and the East Empire Company is a good friend to Winterhold so I can at least spend some time on the land, right?"
"Yeah yeah… what else?"
"Fufu! We heard about what happened in Raven Rock… to tell the truth, we were utterly speechless. My mother insisted that I send our agents to robe Raven Rock back, but to be turned back at the docks! I didn"t see that one coming."
"Yeah, whatever!"
"Master, we know that you are the new trading partner with house Redoran in Raven Rock but that would upset many people, you know!"
"Hmmm… you mean the Empire, the Company and House Hlaalu?"
"Oh, you even caught up with the matter of House Hlaalu? I am impressed."
"I am not worried about any of that."
"... Oh!" She seemed confused.
To tell the truth, my overtaking the trade with Raven Rock was all done because of my efforts so I have every right to be greedy and make a monopoly with the Imports and the Exports. Even though I didn"t do that directly and didn"t offend anyone, all the vultures could soon smell money around Raven Rock. And now as the Ebony Mine is back to business, I am completely the number one player in Raven Rock trading.
"Simply put as that this handsome man here is a Law Abiding Citizen of the Empire and I sympathize with House Hlaalu… Queen Barenziah is one of my heroes by the way." I said.
House Hlaalu was once the ruler of Morrowind before the Oblivion Crisis, the Red Year and the Argonian Invasion. It was the proxy ruler for the Empire but these three events forced the Imperial Army to abandon Morrowind leaving House Hlaalu defenseless. Queen Barenziah is really my hero and she was the Queen Mother of Morrowind before 200 years ago. One can say she is the female version of Jon Dare or even cooler. We both were thieves at Riften, we both h.o.a.rded power and made strong positions by shady means, and most importantly we both don"t know how to keep it in our pants.
"Well, I see that you have "The Real Barenziah" book series."
"All the ten volumes."
"Wait, you mean the series that was published during the Warp of Daggerfall? Not the new clean version?"
"Hehehe!"
"Can I borrow it?"
"No."
"Please…"
"Puppy eyes doesn"t work here, ignorant heathen."
"Ehem… anyway, you say that you are a Law Abiding Citizen of the Empire... by that you mean?"
"I am selling you all the Ebony Ore I import from Raven Rock to you, making me the proxy between you and the large mines of Raven Rock."
"..."
"I am sure the Imperial City won"t mind. Morrowind is no longer part of the Empire and the Houses of Morrowind only trade with Skyrim and High Rock. If my company is to improve some of the relationships with House Redoran, the Empire will surely overlook a single Ebony trading operation."
"Sigh! You sure are hard to play with."
Vittoria gave up on the idea she had in mind. The problem here is that the Empire prohibits both the unlicensed mining and trading of Ebony and the Imperial Legion is really uptight about that important resource. Still, importing it from outside the Empire shouldn"t be that bad if I sell it to the Empire directly… Still, that doesn"t mean I am not filling my coffers with Ebony first.
"Ebony trade is never a losing business. The Empire may have no faith anymore but money is still a good way of understanding... How is the trading state between Ebonheart and Cheydinhal?"
"In Slumber, the Argonian don"t want any relations with the Empire or Morrowind, they may trade with Riften or Elsweyr though."
"The Thalmor are behind that then."
"Naturally."
"And Mournhold?"
"Old Mournhold is still being rebuilt but the struggle between House Hlaalu and House Indoril is making it hard to be done with."
"Are the Argonians hara.s.sing them?"
"On the contrary! Argonians are showing a lot of manners towards the Dunmer outside their new borders. Mournhold now is the border city so they deal with Argonian bandits and slavers more often. However, there are some resistance movements that rose between the Dunmer in Mournhold and they are getting ready to make a stand. Not sure if we can profit from it though."
"I see."
After having some serious conversation with Vittoria about the trading affairs In Morrowind, Skyrim and Cyrodiil, I called Sev to take her to a private place.
I finished what I had to finish before heading out to the College to submit my request for becoming a "Scholar" and arranged a date for the exam. After that, I headed to the bathhouse as it was already at night and the boys would come here to drink together in a hot plunge pool and all.
After some time, I headed to the private room for my own affairs.
***
<8th of Mid-Year (June) 4E-198 - 6:00 AM>
The next day, I woke up with seven girls around. Vittoria, Lisette, Elishka and some girls from the bathhouse were ally lying around me.
"d.a.m.n! I overdid it again!"
Lately, I have developed a bad habit where I perform the "Paired Meditation" (Dual Cultivation) process on those girls I sleep with. I harvest their "Anuic Energy" without giving them any "Padomic Energy". It is not that I was using them as "Cauldrons" or anything, they simply can"t handle the energy I may give them and will harm themselves.
[A/n: "Cauldrons" refers to the process when a cultivator uses his partners as resources to benefit himself while crippling the partners or killing them in the process.]
I could always give them a Vigor Potion to help them regain their energy right away.
I didn"t wait any longer and took my clothes then headed out, it was still at dawn but it was going to be a busy day.
As I went out of the room, Sev was waiting for me with some paper files.
"Oh, good morning, Sev."
"Good morning, Boss. These are the last things you had to see before you head to the Chill Isle."
"Summarize."
"The new expansion of the Wheat farms in the South around the Night Gate Village and Whispering Mine is submitted and the financial department has reviewed the costs."
"Good. Just make sure to focus on the parts north to the mine, we want to farm on all these lands beside the road."
"Noted, the Wind Mills project was also submitted and reviewed, we have some locations in mind but we didn"t get a confirmation from you yet."
"Ask Alina, she can read the wind better than me and will be able to pick the best location. Next."
"The City Wall project and the expansion of the residential district. We are having some problems as they are overlapping a bit. The people don"t want to live outside the city walls."
"I knew this would happen, that"s why I suggested the apartment complex system. I told them these houses will be built with bricks and the new Roman Cement we import from Raven Rock, why are they so stubborn?"
"It is a bit new to them, Boss. People are a bit insecure to live this close to each other."
"Sigh! They just got fed and warmed and now they are getting spoiled. I am starting to see why the Egyptian Government was so cringy."
"What is that, Boss?"
"Nevermind, Replace the residential district project from normal housing to Apartment Complexes. It will save everyone time and money."
"There was this thing from the Human Resources."
"Don"t tell me…"
"The Dark Elves and the Khajiit employees are still skeptical about the name."
"Again!… what should I call it then, huh? I am way too nice… I swear I am too nice to you people. Tell them no Sujamma or Moonsugar on the job."
"It always works. Is there anything else?"
"Hmmm, I want you to take a map and go to the Construction Department, tell them to make a plan to reconstruct Saarthal… Before that, take the idea to the Monks in the Temple of Kyne and tell them to go and check Saarthal."
"Saarthal? The Old Crypt?"
"No, keep away from the Crypt. The area around it where the ancient city was is a good place. It can be easily defended if we built a town there."
"... But Boss, no other ruler has ever attempted to rebuild Saarthal again, how long has it been since that place was sacked?"
"Ysgramor"s age, Late Merethic Era, more than 4500 years ago."
"But Boss…"
"Building a new Saarthal near the old crypt will make our image look pretty good between all the Nords, these fools from Solitude can stop bothering me once my reputation spread around."
"... I"ll get to it, Boss. Anything else?"
"No. I am heading to the Chill."
I parted with Sev after giving her the schedule for the hold then I headed to the ship that was waiting for me at the dock.