the other day aejar said "we cannot rule if we cannot lead and leading sometimes means getting out of the way"
but he also recognized that because he was getting reports that things were good he took his eyes off of sharn for a little too long so he has some work to do in fixing what's gone wrong
he says he doesn't want to be in a leadership role but good leaders admit their errors and take responsibility
he's already a better leader than he knows
unfortunately we're bumping against much of what's gone wrong in sharn
when cinnabar was looking to sell dust girder wanted in so nolan toranak offered to loan him the resources to get started ... but only later did girder find out this meant the involvement of clan boromar
when the source of dust went away they switched to selling ash but now dust is back and they're not involved and since nobody wants ash anymore (good!) they've lost all that revenue
they've leaned on girder to make up the difference by helping with toranak's dirty scheme in which he buys cheap buildings in the cogs and pays badberry janat to blow them up so he can collect the insurance payouts
also a majority of the city council are fine with this because clan boromar is also smuggling in all the banned import goods they want
so badberry is always cleared of any accusations of wrongdoing and toranak gets to keep ruining the cogs
now that girder sees how ruinous ash is he's taking responsibility – he's closed the sands of time and he'll help us stop the scheme and reveal everyone involved
this puts him at great risk starting with an arrest warrant and probably continuing with clan boromar and several former councilmembers wanting to take revenge on him so for now he's hiding in the red hammer
he messed up badly but now he wants to do the right thing
i hope he gets that chance
in other news spark managed to solve the puzzle of merrix's shopping list!
it works out to read "between drum and vanguard"
if that actually refers to "drum keep" and "vanguard keep" then those are points on the map and directly between them are the blackcaps ... which would also be where zer' and i planned to mine for crystals so now we have two reasons to go
but why be so secretive? what do they want us to find there?