Article 5: FenrisCo
Every Golden Alliance history book is bound to have dozens of chapters dedicated to the Legion wars, describing how multiple planets and races fought together to expel a threat beyond any the galaxy had faced previous. Most of them, however, will simply gloss over the next few chapters, not saying too much about what happened between the end of the Legion War and the start of the Deviling incursion. It only takes a glance at any Castaways Treaty Systems textbook, however, to see exactly why that is.
During the war, Golden Alliance High Command quickly did the math, looking at the number of planets that Legion had already taken and their exponential rate of conversion, and decided that simply recruiting soldiers to fight them wasn't going to cut it. On top of that, Mecha technology had not yet advanced to the point where effective android warriors could be mass-produced on the scale needed to fight. In order to save the galaxy from total Legion conversion and the loss of individuality, they were going to have to resort to any means possible to collect as many troops as they could to throw at the advancing Legion hordes. For many of what now call themselves Redeemed races, such as the Orcs, the Trolls, and the Kobolds, this was through a means of conscription. Typically, to accomplish this heavily-armed Golden Alliance agents were sent to high-population "sub-mythic" worlds with instructions to face all the chieftains they could find, defeat them in as impressive a fashion as possible, then use whatever tribal law gave them the chieftainship to order them into battle. When it came to the Dark Elves and their underground, usually matriarchal societies, however, this was not as much of an option as such laws never really existed, but their ability to see in the dark and their galactically-known prowess in stealth made them heavily desired as soldiers against the photosynthetic Legion. It was for this reason that the Golden Alliance made the largest expenditure of capital in recorded history. The exact amount is not known, but what is known is that between 20 and 30 generations of Dark Elf progeny were sold into slavery by the Grand Matriarchs of some two dozen worlds in exchange for a huge volume of pure Mahoucite. Strangely enough, even after the old Grand Matriarchs were deposed for their role in this, only bits and pieces of this Mahoucite have ever been found.
As the first, youngest generations of slaves began to grow into their lives of servitude, they all began to adopt a common practice of suffixing their names with a number representing how many generations remained in their family line before their share of assigned debt was paid off and their children would be free. It became common practice when dealing with Dark Elf slaves to offer reductions in this number in exchange for work not stipulated in the slavery contract, notably suicide missions and experiments. Alyanna Fenris was one of many Dark Elves who signed up for the latter, as her magically-powerful genetics made her particularly valuable in such experiments. This deal was one too tempting to pass up--ten generations of reduced servitude, reducing her suffix from 14 to 4. In exchange, Alyanna would need only to serve on the ship The Castaway. Of course, all students of history know how this ended up. She was hooked directly into the ship's power system, and the ship's commander, Orpheus Ardentblade, ordered the ship to fire on its own "Sub-Mythic" pilots to trap and destroy a huge Legion ship along with the planet's entire Hive tree. Alyanna Fenris kept records of the truth of the incident and assisted the Orc, Ogre, and Dark Elf crew in mutinying thanks to the level of control she was able to exert over the ship's subsystems. While scientists worked to free her, however, anti-"sub-mythic" extremists destroyed the ship, apparently killing Alyanna.
All who attend MSF High, and most who live in Mahou City, have encountered Miss Fenris on some level of interaction, but it can often be hard to connect the historical, heroic figure with the apparently greedy, capricious and overly-showy woman that claims to be her while simultaneously teaching first-year magic and attempting to peddle her wares. Fenrisco itself is well-known as a supplier of all sorts of goods both mundane and magical, and its distinctive salesgirls recruited primarily through a form of magical debt bondage leads many to conclude that Miss Fenris's morals are highly suspect. However, through my experience as a Fenrisco salesgirl myself, as well as interviews done with both other Fenrisco salesgirls and customers, I've come to a few conclusions that many seem to pass up.
Firstly, Fenrisco deals are never heavily marked up. Every item she sells is worth every dollar of its price, and thanks to the magic catalogs she issues, someone need only place their money into the book, shut it, and open it back up for the item in question to appear. This effect only works when the book's holder is wearing the Fenrisco outfit assigned to them, so I believe that the outfit generates a sort of magical link to Miss Fenris that is required for the catalogs' magic to function.
Secondly, and more importantly, everyone who has fallen for her schemes and been tricked into the skimpy leather and fishnet outfit has learned from the experience. While I purposely signed into the Fenrisco Salesgirl program as I feel my Inspired abilities naturally synergize with my ability to look up students' attributes and therefore gauge their needs more accurately, others have at least figured out that they need to understand exactly what they've gotten themselves into before they make a deal. It's entirely possible that the profits her business generates are secondary to the lessons taught to her salesgirls.
While I can understand that my position might be biased, I feel that the general beliefs about Miss Fenris are founded in a misinterpretation of her actual motives. Fenrisco is the most profitable business in Mahou City, almost certainly, but beneath all that lies an important teaching tool that Alyanna has learned to utilize to prevent her history from repeating itself in others.
