The meal remains untouched between Kareem Bishop and Empress Xifeng. Beside her hand, the jade token catches the pavilion’s lanternlight, its surface marked with the garden’s covenant.
Empress Xifeng
Show me the sketches. Not as an imperial order, but as an invitation the empire may accept, district by district.
Empress Xifeng
I will open the workshops, records, and surveyors to your review. No levy, office, or command will cross into your garden without its consent.
A servant places a blank covenant board beside the jade token. Its first lines are deliberately empty, awaiting the names of willing districts, artisans, and ward councils.
Empress Xifeng
Each community may petition for clean water and drainage. Each may refuse. Your garden may advise, supply patterns, and lend knowledge, but it will not become the empire’s reservoir or instrument.
The path becomes clear: Kareem’s designs can spread through voluntary petitions and recorded consent, while the garden remains sovereign behind its boundary. The first petition awaits only a willing hand.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure a willing district's petition for clean water and drainage
“"This is my sketch of the of a large filtration system. With layered charcoal and sand." I pull out another one, "gravity fed system in a house with clear waste disposal. Since we have already integrated the large city fountains and built the main sewage lines, implementing each property will be easier and easier”
SUCCESS (Great Crafting, rolled -2)
Kareem Bishop
This sketch shows a large filtration system, layered charcoal and sand. This one shows a gravity-fed household system with clear waste disposal. Since the city fountains and main sewage lines are already in place, each property becomes easier to connect.
Kareem Bishop spreads the second drawing across the covenant board, aligning its channels with the existing city lines marked in the margins.
The charcoal is costly. One of Kareem's prepared sheets tears along a fold as he opens it, forcing him to reinforce the corner with a strip from his remaining drafting paper.
Empress Xifeng
The design is practical, but the first petition must name more than a district. It must name households willing to accept inspection, labor, and the temporary disruption of their streets.
Empress Xifeng
If I choose the district for them, consent becomes ceremony. If I leave the choice untouched, this remains only a beautiful proposal.
Empress Xifeng
I can summon ward councils to hear this openly. I will not promise their signatures before they speak. Will you place the drawings before them and let the first willing district write its own petition?
“"I would even go door to door and get each individual consent"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Diplomacy, rolled +0)
Kareem Bishop
I would go door to door and ask each household for its consent.
Therefore, Kareem Bishop carries the household sketch beyond the pavilion and spends the afternoon speaking with residents one doorway at a time. No seal precedes him, and no guard demands an answer.
Some households refuse inspection. Others question the streetwork, the labor, and the cost. Kareem records each answer without pressing past it.
By dusk, enough households in Willowrun Ward have agreed to inspection, shared labor, and temporary street disruption. Their names and marks fill the covenant board beneath the drainage design.
The ward council adds its own attestation, declaring Willowrun a willing district for clean water and drainage. The petition is complete, contestable, and signed by the people it will affect.
Empress Xifeng
Then this is not my decree wearing a humble robe. It is their petition. I will place surveyors and workshops at its disposal, subject to every household’s recorded consent.
When the petition is laid beside Kareem’s sketches, a trace of gold-script glimmers beneath the covenant board’s blank lower margin. Xifeng notices it, and her offered trust becomes a practical alliance with a dangerous administrative shadow.
Resolve the gold-script's claim over the Willowrun petition
Quest Complete
Secure a willing district's petition for clean water and drainage
Skill Upgrade: Crafting Great→Superb
+ New Item Acquired
Cinnabar marking stylus