Chapter Summaries

Chris learned that battle reports from Hegrande had caused applications for the open beta to surge, even though the game lacked enough content for more players. As assassination attempts continued at the poorly defensible palace, Chris ignored negotiations and let the threats persist.

• Chris saw that the Hegrande battle reports had driven open-beta applications from about a thousand to more than ten thousand, but worried that war activities were already full.
• A gunshot and commotion outside Chris's office marked another assassination attempt, which he ignored while continuing to review documents.
• Street-Sweeper's purge of traitors in Votradnoi prompted surviving elites and their allies to offer Chris wealth, seek negotiations, or arrange assassinations.
• Chris rejected invitations to negotiate and did not react to assassination attempts.
• Chris kept living in the vulnerable former assembly palace, despite its busy surroundings, confusing passages, and informants who helped assassins infiltrate it.

Chris let Street-Sweeper continue his brutal campaign against criminals while focusing on feeding Bagnia’s people. In Votradnoi, Second Lieutenant Joachim tried to help slum residents, unaware that their apparent hardship was a performance staged to deceive players.

• Chris read Street-Sweeper’s report about a bloody judgment that had killed 127 people and left 57 wounded, then allowed the Inquisitor to continue his campaign.
• Joachim saw starving slum residents receiving porridge and work tokens, remembered his own hungry childhood, and gave an old man a silver coin for boots.
• Old Jack claimed that local thugs were stealing relief food, so Joachim shot their leader and arranged for a patrol to pursue the fleeing accomplices.
• Joachim gave Old Jack nearly fifty silver dollars to buy clothes and shoes for the residents, and left believing Prince Chris could improve the country.
• After Joachim departed, Old Jack revealed that the slum residents had staged their hardship to fool players and planned to sell the canned meat they had hidden.

Chris managed Votradnoi’s winter relief and accepted Count Dirac Siso’s request to keep the Expeditionary Army in Hegrande, then a religious confrontation erupted in a village on the King’s Plain. Alia’s attempt to demonstrate Demeter’s power ended in violence after an Earth Mother Goddess priest destroyed her winter wheat seedling and urged the villagers to attack.

• Chris’s relief efforts helped keep deaths from cold and hunger low, while corrupt neighborhood chiefs caused some residents to go without aid.
• Chris agreed to Count Dirac Siso’s request to leave the Expeditionary Army in Hegrande but did not establish a respawn point there.
• Alia demonstrated Demeter’s power by making a wheat seed sprout through the frozen ground before the village chief and farmers.
• An Earth Mother Goddess priest shot and crushed the seedling, denounced Alia and her followers as southern swindlers, and ordered the villagers to attack them.
• Alia stayed calm when the priest arrived, expecting events to unfold as planned and noticing a horse approaching the village.

After a religious brawl left sixteen people injured, Chris made the player who arrested the combatants an Apprentice Inquisitor and questioned the two priests responsible. He dismissed their claims that their goddesses could restore the burned King's Plain, leaving the land's recovery unresolved.

• A player named I Love Being Idle reported a fight between the priests of the Earth Mother Goddess and the Goddess of Agriculture, which had injured sixteen people, and said he had arrested everyone involved.
• Chris rewarded I Love Being Idle with the title of Apprentice Inquisitor and told him to notify the local sheriff in the future.
• Chris summoned Grom and Alia and asked them how they could help restore the burned King's Plain and its failing crops.
• Grom proposed a holy ritual to create sacred soil, while Alia admitted she could not promise that the Goddess of Agriculture's blessing would restore burned land.
• Chris demanded that the priests restore the entire King's Plain, rejected their proposals, and ordered the guards to throw them out.

Chris learned that Priest Alia of the Goddess of Agriculture Church had intelligence about the Earth Mother Goddess and the former king, and arranged to meet her. Alia’s attempt to engineer a clash that would help her church gain influence in Votradnoi had gone awry, leaving both sides arrested.

• Chris considered the rivalry between the Goddess of Agriculture Church and the Earth Mother Goddess Church and ordered both to focus on the King's Plain.
• The Clerk told Chris that Priest Alia wanted to meet him and had information about the Earth Mother Goddess and the former king.
• Chris arranged to meet Alia in the palace garden after lunch.
• Alia recalled how her church had planned for her to clash with Grom so Chris’s confidant would intervene and help her gain access to the prince.
• The player watched the fight instead of stopping it, cheered Grom on, and prompted Alia to seek help from Chris’s confidant.
• After the clash ended, the player arrested both sides and sent them to the palace in Votradnoi.

Alia met Chris in his greenhouse and tried to use the Earth Mother Goddess Church’s role in Bagnia’s past to win his favor for the Goddess of Agriculture Church. Chris dismissed her first revelations as old news, and Alia began telling him the former king was preparing to return from Minisia.

• Alia cleaned her injuries and followed an attendant through Chris’s heavily guarded palace to the greenhouse.
• Alia saw crops flourishing in the winter greenhouse, and Chris explained that it was the beginning of a national cultivation base.
• Alia told Chris the Earth Mother Goddess Church had helped overthrow Bagnia’s former king, but Chris said he already knew.
• Chris urged Alia to move on, and she revealed that the former king was preparing to return to Bagnia with support from the Minisia Royal Family.

Chris learned that someone was returning from Minisia, then used the Goddess of Agriculture's church's information as a reason to press Alia for more intelligence. He rewarded the church with official permission and property in Votradnoi, leaving Alia to carry the offer back for the church leaders to consider.

• Alia told Chris that she knew nothing more about the returning man and would have to consult the High Priest.
• Chris picked a tomato in the greenhouse, prompting an enraged gardener to curse him and Chris to flee.
• Alia concluded that the gardener was an agricultural expert and that Chris respected his skills, then resolved to inform her church's superiors.
• An attendant delivered Chris's wooden box to Alia, containing a permit for the church to operate in Votradnoi and a deed to an unclaimed church there.
• Alia recognized that the documents were payment for intelligence and pressure for further contributions, then left the palace with the box.

Chris used the Goddess of Agriculture Church to counterbalance the Earth Mother Goddess Church and support farmers as Bagnia faced a likely grain shortage. He held an open civil service examination in Votradnoi, where candidates began taking papers written in Chinese.

• Chris decided against abolishing religion and instead planned to use the Goddess of Agriculture Church to counter the Earth Mother Goddess Church.
• Alia returned with information and documents for Chris, and the Goddess of Agriculture Church opened its first church in Votradnoi five days later.
• The Goddess of Agriculture's priests taught farmers on the King's Plain improved farming methods and distributed better seeds to help restore damaged fields.
• Chris organized civil service examinations to recruit staff for a national government.
• Peggy Yarlin enforced the examination queue and stopped wealthy candidates from cutting in line.
• Candidates took entry-level mathematics and language papers written in Chinese, which they had been able to study for free.

Count Dirac Siso met Prince Chris in Votradnoi and reported that the former king was returning with Minisia’s army and Bohemian gold. Chris declined Dirac’s offer to intercept the former king, saying he had already devised a solution.

• Dirac arrived at the palace and noticed the practical changes Chris had made to its halls and study.
• Dirac told Chris that the former king was returning and that the Earth Mother Goddess Church had urged him to make a choice.
• Chris revealed that the former king was coming with Minisia’s army and Bohemia’s gold, then asked Dirac what he thought.
• Dirac declared his support for Chris and offered to lead Hegrande’s garrison against the former king’s forces.
• Chris refused to make Dirac bear the blame for killing his king and said he already had a way to resolve the matter.

Valentin returned to Bagnia and saw how Prince Chris’s reforms had transformed farming and village life. After learning his son could earn land through military service, Valentin warned Martha that Bagnia would soon face a war someone else intended to start.

• Valentin crossed the King's Plain and saw steam engines, irrigation channels, and farmers eagerly working their newly allotted fields.
• A farm woman told Valentin that her son had earned tax-free military land by serving Prince Chris, then scolded him for damaging a field marker.
• Valentin returned home to Martha and learned their son had earned grain and tools through work on Prince Chris’s Road-Building Team.
• Martha asked whether their son should join the army to earn a military allotment, while Valentin reflected on Bagnia’s new opportunities and the farmers’ attachment to their land.
• Valentin told Martha that Bagnia would soon be at war and that they could not avoid it because someone else intended to start it.

Chris used land requisition, compensation, and progressive agricultural taxes to take control of most of the King's Plain, then distributed farmland and introduced measures to support farmers. He also began preparing Bagnia for a likely defensive war against Minicia while the Bohemian Empire sought a truce.

• Chris bought available land on the King's Plain and used an emergency requisition order, resettlement offers, and tax investigations to bring over eighty percent of the region under his control.
• Chris awarded military farmland to soldiers and militia members, recruiting enough people on the King's Plain to form ten corps.
• Chris introduced agricultural instruction, irrigation projects, interest-free loans, improved seeds, and work and welfare options for landless families.
• Chris used the King's Plain to test agricultural policies and the baojia system, but continued to face shortages of skilled specialists, civil servants, generals, and trained soldiers.
• Chris prepared to assemble ten defensive corps after learning Minicia intended to retain control over Bagnia, while the Bohemian Empire sent a delegation to discuss a truce.

Chris watched the Inquisition bombard a castle after its owner killed a waterworks maintenance worker, and he discussed the dangers of relying on the players with Isaac. He appointed Isaac to lead Bagnia’s military and left him a secret document about the Barbarian Guard; the siege continued under Inquisitor Street-Sweeper’s authority.

• Chris arrived at a castle siege and recognized the attackers as members of the Inquisition, who were using cannons and a large militia force.
• Chris told Isaac that he could not avoid the cost of borrowing the players’ strength, and Isaac chose to keep helping him.
• Chris planned ten infantry regiments and three military theaters, then appointed Isaac commander-in-chief of the Military Affairs Department.
• Chris instructed Isaac to read and burn a classified document about the Barbarian Guard.
• Connie reported that Inquisitor Street-Sweeper had ordered the siege after the castle owner killed a waterworks maintenance worker.

Valentin watched the Inquisitor’s forces besiege the castle after Baron Kara led villagers to seize hostages and resist Prince Chris’s waterworks inspectors. Realizing his son was among the rebels, Valentin knew he had to act to save him.

• Chris ordered the siege to continue and told the Inquisitor to do what was necessary.
• Baron Kara incited villagers to reclaim land he had sold, then attacked the Waterworks Inspection Team and killed one of its members.
• The villagers helped Kara seize hostages and enter the ruined Kara Family castle, while Valentin failed to stop them.
• Valentin learned that his son had joined the villagers inside the castle.
• The Inquisitor arrived with more than a thousand militia members and began an assault without negotiating, leaving Valentin determined to act.

Chris encountered Valentin, a former Cockscomb Knight who asked for help rescuing his son from the besieged castle in exchange for information about the old king. Valentin offered details on the old king’s supporters and a route close to him, and Chris began arranging an early strike.

• Chris rode forward after hearing a commotion and saw Valentin defeat a guard in a sword duel.
• Valentin introduced himself as a former Cockscomb Knight and said his son was inside the besieged castle.
• Chris ordered Connie to suspend the siege and asked Valentin to explain his offer.
• Valentin revealed that he knew the names and locations of people helping the old king return to Bagnia.
• Valentin offered to lead Chris’s people close to the old king, and Chris sent Connie to take him to the Inquisitor.

Street-Sweeper took on the quest to rescue Valentin’s son and led an assault that found Young Valentin hiding in the castle cellar. After the father and son reunited, Valentin agreed to identify the former King's Black Glove and other traitors, beginning with Gareth “Iron Hand” of Votradnoi.

• Connie told Street-Sweeper that Valentin had stopped Prince Chris’s entourage because he hoped to save his captured son, and a main quest appeared.
• Street-Sweeper promised to rescue Valentin’s son, though he warned that the boy might already have died in the siege.
• Street-Sweeper and the players launched an assault on the castle and found Young Valentin hiding in its cellar.
• Valentin reunited with his son and agreed to tell Street-Sweeper what he knew about the traitors.
• Valentin named Gareth “Iron Hand” of Votradnoi as the first former King's Black Glove.

Ye Ao Nai He and his companions traveled toward Tavitsky Province with the Rhododendron Mercenary Corps and encountered suspicious Minisian soldiers and signs of violence on the road. Valentin explained that Bagnia was occupied and rife with banditry as they continued onward.

• Ye Ao Nai He and the other players joked and argued inside a rickety carriage driven by Valentin.
• A Minisian patrol stopped the carriage, but Valentin showed the Rhododendron Mercenary Corps travel pass and paid the officer, who let them go.
• Ye Ao Nai He learned from Valentin that Minisian troops occupied a castle guarding the route from Bagnia into Minisia.
• The travelers spotted corpses in Bagnian armor hanging on a hillside and blood on a nearby wagon.
• Valentin told Ye Ao Nai He that Bagnia was known for desperate bandits and that the mercenary corps’ reputation and his payment had prevented a fight.

Valentin guided Ye Ao Nai He and the player squad to Tavitsky, where they learned that Bagnian mercenaries were tolerated in Minisia in exchange for tolls and service. After reaching the filthy, crowded city, they settled at the Drunken Bird tavern, where Valentin stopped Ye Ao Nai He from killing a drunk mercenary.

• The players learned that Minisians routinely hired Bagnian mercenaries and let them pass after paying patrol tolls.
• Valentin led the squad through Tavitsky's outskirts and bribed two guards to enter through a side gate.
• Ye Ao Nai He and the players saw Tavitsky's crowded, filthy streets and arrived at the Drunken Bird tavern.
• A scarred member of the Yak Corps confronted Ye Ao Nai He, and Valentin punched him before Ye Ao Nai He could stab him.
• Valentin warned Ye Ao Nai He not to kill anyone in the city, then led the squad upstairs to their rooms.

Chris checked the players’ forum and learned that Ye Ao Nai He’s group had been fired after killing a mercenary during a brawl. Meanwhile, Albert III assessed Minisia’s ability to pressure Bagnia and worried over his children’s rivalries before planning to meet Oakland.

• Chris read Ye Ao Nai He’s mission updates and learned that the group had lost their castle-guard jobs after a fatal brawl with mercenaries.
• Albert III asked General David about Minisia’s forces in Tavitsky City, and David reported ten thousand troops, thirty light cannons, and only three months of provisions.
• General David warned Albert III that Minisia’s forces might not defeat Chris in Bagnia’s mountainous terrain before their supplies ran out.
• Albert III worried about his eldest son’s idleness, his daughter’s ambition, and his talented younger son’s lack of interest in becoming king.
• Albert III decided to leave Tavitsky the next day and ordered a banquet so he could discuss Bagnia with Oakland.

After Ye Ao Nai He’s group lost their castle guard jobs, Valentin told them about a banquet at Tavitsky’s castle and they planned to enter as bards. Their unexpected musical talent convinced Valentin the plan could work, and Ye Ao Nai He explained that they had followed him because of Chris’s vision for the poor.

• Ye Ao Nai He’s companions beat him for ruining their chance to infiltrate the castle guard.
• Valentin stopped the fight and told the group that Tavitsky’s castle would hold a banquet that night and need fresh ingredients.
• Ye Ao Nai He proposed disguising the group as vegetable farmers, but Valentin pointed out that none of them looked like farmers.
• The five players decided to pose as a troupe of bards and offer their services at the banquet.
• Ye Ao Nai He and the others performed a song with improvised instruments, impressing Valentin and the tavern’s patrons.
• When Valentin asked why they had followed him to Minisia despite their talents, Ye Ao Nai He quoted Chris’s hopes for farmers, the poor, and orphans.

Fergus investigated Edmund’s recommendation of a supposedly Bohemian troupe and discovered that the musicians were genuine, exceptionally skilled performers. He approved them for the banquet but warned them to follow strict rules, including staying away from Rose Hall.

• Fergus spotted signs that Edmund had been drinking Rosin Wine and tampering with a travel permit to recommend a troupe for the banquet.
• Fergus realized Edmund had accepted a bribe and decided to inspect the musicians himself and expose the scheme.
• Fergus met Ye Ao Nai He and the four other players in the Lapis Lazuli Hall, then listened as they performed “Sonnet Beneath the Moon.”
• Fergus was impressed by the troupe’s musicianship and invited them to perform at the banquet.
• Fergus told the five musicians to submit their program, avoid speaking to guests without permission, and stay away from Rose Hall.