Tessali Korventhis had been assessing civilizations for the Korthane Hegemony for twenty-three years. She had evaluated sixty-one trade prospects across four continents, filed seven hundred and fourteen intelligence reports, and personally recommended the economic absorption of nine minor kingdoms. She was forty-six years old, copper and bronze scaled like most trade-caste Dragonborn, and she carried a leather-bound assessment book that contained more actionable intelligence than most nations' entire surveillance archives.
On Day 14 of the Korthane trade mission to the Sovereign Dominion, she opened a new page in that book and wrote:
Assessment 715 — Sovereign Dominion, Western Continent Classification: PRE-INDUSTRIAL THEOCRATIC MONARCHY Age of Civilization: ~300 standard years Patron deity: Powerful. Territory spanning a full continent. Growth trajectory: ALARMING.
She underlined the last word twice.
