I cannot believe the audacity of the people here in Combria, both the workers and even my own colleagues.
I thought that the wages offered to the laborers from West Combria and East Gymia were enough to incentivize work on the Project. But they came forward with a petition demanding a 15 percent increase in the pay. While I have always sympathized with the interests of the working class, this demand would mean more funding from the Finzi Administration to keep things afloat. Finzi, of course, initiated a Mount Carris darkfire discharge to help generate such funding needed.
I have a feeling, though, that this is all about their disdain for the Darkfire Community and their willingness to throw whatever inconvenience they have at us in order to make our lives just a little more difficult.
Combrian nationalists...they were the ones who tried to kill me. They are such reactionaries. Combria has not been its own nation since the rise of the Republic way back in the 1240s. It's bad enough to refuse to acknowledge the legalization of darkfire and passage of the Fourth Amendment of the Retunian Constitution. But to refuse to believe that the Chartered State of Combria is no more, despite its fall 70 years ago is just beyond...I cannot even think of the word do describe the stupidity of what these workers believe in.
When I first got here, before the incident with the gunman, I saw media displays of people marching down the street carrying the five white stars on the blue background, that being the Combrian provincial flag, along with the signs reading things like "Resist Finzi." I thought it was a joke at first, or one of those adolescent prank-protests designed simply to cause a disruption rather than achieve an actual political purpose. But when I realized it was full-grown adults convinced that they have said political purpose, I learned how lacking they were of intellect.
And then there is Colin Madrey, who has neither returned nor even responded since June 18, despite promising that no matter what, he would certainly make himself known to us by September 16. Eight days have passed. I have been writing him on a daily basis, giving him regular updates on Project matters, and still...nothing.
I have made my stressors known to Rose Anne, Susan, Meona, and the others. No one seems to take me seriously.
Moreover, Ceri Mains, soon after arriving and hearing what I had to say, pulled me aside and blamed me for everything, accusing me of my apparent "condescending attitude toward everyone around me." She accused me, falsely if I may stress, of being convinced that I was an absolute prodigy and that I had a toxic sense of self-righteousness amounting to a personality no better than the nationalists, and a personality not fit for someone my age.
I will say that this is not even remotely true. I just have a passion for dymensional planecrafting. I do not think that I am a prodigy by any means. I just simply happen to observe around me that most people, primarily Combrian nationalist workers, lack the education, and even the intellect, to understand planecrafting.
And Ceri went as far as to insist that perhaps Colin left me for the same reason as Sophia. She said that I need to listen more, and even threatened to have the workers vote me out if I did not start "doing a better job."
"True leaders listen to their followers without having to say so," Ceri told me.
I have been, though. I know to do that. I mean, I am thirty-eight years old. I have the maturity. How could Ceri question that? I got the additional funding from Finzi for the worker demands. What more can I do to get Ceri and everyone else to understand!?
Oh. And Sophia Qalmers did finally send me a message today. She said that she still respects me and is supportive of my project, and even is considering what I experience in my "vision." She said, though, that she was simply staying in North Kempton for now over fear of abrasion with the Combrian nationalists.
And we talked things over. She insisted that I return to North Kempton for the same reason, to which I told her I understood but that my presence was needed in South Masonia until November at the latest. She responded by asking that I at least take a weekend off to visit her, and even bought a gyroplane ticket. I told her that I would oblige if she bought me an airship ticket instead, an agreement to which she obliged.
So I do listen.
I will give Ceri and the others a benefit of the doubt though. Perhaps I do gripe a bit much.