Sweep of the Heart (Innkeeper Chronicles #5)(107)

Four candidates stood on the stage, awaiting their scores. Oond floated, seemingly serene unless you were familiar with the oomboles and caught the slight shivering of his fins and erect tail. Amphie looked confident, her shoulders held back, her spine straight. Next to her Prysen Ol simply waited, his face a handsome blank. Lady Wexyn smiled, looking innocently clueless. During the break, her forest of golden hair decorations had been pruned to a single kokoshnik-like golden comb modestly studded with grape-sized purple jewels.

The arena fell silent. Orata was milking every last drop of drama out of the elimination, because the crowning of a rebel Gaheas king and near-complete destruction of a vampire house simply weren’t thrilling enough.

A large central screen, positioned above the exit to the portal, came on, showing a table with four rows and multiple columns labeled with Progress scoring categories: culture, medicine, science, etc. The final column was marked “Total Score.”

“It is my privilege and honor to now announce the results of the game,” Gaston proclaimed. “In third place…Oond of the oomboles!”

Oond’s name popped up in the third row down, as the scores in his columns populated. The oomboles broke into their version of applause, and I had to look away because the visual cacophony of waving fins and colors was worse than staring into a strobe light.

The side screens above the delegate sections displayed a detailed breakdown of his statistics and strategies. His population was happy, his economy was solid, if a little less diverse than it could’ve been, and the unique Witness military units he’d engineered had no trouble defending his realm. Oond had managed to go through the entire game without invading anyone. Instead of relying on brute force conquest, Oond would sidle up next to the settlement he wanted to annex and send his missionaries in. The missionaries would build schools, hospitals, and temples. They would employ people. He would spend a couple of generations indoctrinating the populace and then they would voluntarily join him.

However, he failed to account for the inherent tribalism of humanoid creatures. His mono-religion created room for bias and discrimination against the less or differently devout. As his science advanced, so did free thinking, because science hinged on questioning everything, and a god-king couldn’t afford to be questioned. He had to suppress certain branches of the natural sciences to keep civil unrest down, and that took a big chunk out of his score.

“In second place…” Gaston boomed, “…Prysen Ol of the Kai!”

Prysen Ol’s name appeared in the table on the big screen, in the second row from the top. His statistics and scores replaced Oond’s on the side screens, offering a detailed look into his strategy. The Kai didn’t do cheering. They stomped instead, driving their six limbs into the floor of their section in rhythmic approval.

Prysen had settled on a military republic with limited representation, citizen rights, and a focus on conquest. His nation quickly became a conquering juggernaut. Prysen didn’t get involved in large-scale wars. He found a target he knew he could take and blitzed it, expanding his nation one small bite at a time. For the first half of the game, he was always at war, yet it never disrupted the lives of ordinary citizens. Unlike Bestata, he had invested in arts, sciences, and trade. His capital city was a shining jewel of civilization.

However, he also relied on slave labor, and once he exhausted the supply of the barbarian settlements in his immediate vicinity, that source of free workers dried up. Shifting to a paid work force proved costly and difficult. Inflation combined with labor shortages gave rise to corruption and tax avoidance. Cracks began to appear in the colossus’ massive legs, and his two failed attempts to break through Nycati’s monstrous fortifications only widened them. Still, his score was 62 points higher than Oond’s.

The two women remaining on stage couldn’t have looked any different. Amphie stood ramrod-straight, stone-faced, looking like a sword someone thrust into the floor. She kept touching the heavy silver necklace around her neck, stroking it as if it were a talisman. Lady Wexyn was smiling at Kosandion. He watched her, his face impassive. She gave him a little wink.

“At the top of the leaderboard, with an impressive score a full 107 points higher than her closest rival…” Gaston said.

The pause stretched.

And stretched.

And stretched…

“Lady Wexyn of the Temple of Desire!”

Amphie stumbled back half a step. In the Temple’s section, Lady Wexyn’s entourage pulled off their veils and waved them around, flashing half of the galaxy.

Lady Wexyn’s scores filled the screens, her name glowing with golden light at the very top of the table. She reigned supreme. She had successfully transitioned to a monarchy with a democratically elected legislative body. She instituted meritocracy, allowing surfacing talents to rise, and guaranteed freedom of religion, organizing the representatives of various sects into a “spiritual council” so they could give her sage advice and squabble in person rather than through their followers. She redirected harmful tribalism by developing organized sports.

Her trade network was superb. She had instituted a policy that offered additional rewards for discoveries, so not only did her caravans bring back a variety of goods, but they also learned of new technologies and cultures and then delivered that knowledge back to their homeland to collect a hefty payout.

Despite staying away from large conflicts, she had a robust military. She had allowed one of the barbarian settlements to flourish into a 3-city civilization, and when she built new military units, she would send them to the border with that tri-city state, to repel their raids and carry out small invasions, always stopping short of conquering or debilitating the enemy. Once her military units had been seasoned in those wars, she sent them with the caravans as guards. Her people were prosperous, healthy, happy, and proud to belong to her nation.