Tide sighed, his golden shark teeth catching the light. "The refineries are slowly coming about, but the locations of some of these mines make things difficult. Contact with the local lords and nobles who own those lands is becoming completely inevitable."
"Due to my name being explicitly mentioned, and because of the merchant positions my believers hold, these lords are willing to look away while we act, as long as they are paid well and a few favors are done for them."
Tide paused, glancing at Ikenga to gauge his reaction, but the elder god simply continued to listen.
"On the surface, they appear to have looked away," Tide continued, his brow furrowing deeper. "But behind the scenes, these nobles have taken a lot of covert action to plant their own people inside the ongoing project."
