Hundreds of years ago, the little Darian Duchy of Varonia was a major producer of mithril. Their mines gave out, and they sunk into poverty and obscurity... until this past year, when they began producing again. Group 23 wants to know if they have a new mine or a new method, and to secure either for the Empire. It is known that the Elves have just sent a diplomatic mission to the Duchy, so the situation is urgent.
Section Unicorn plots their method, and ends up going in two groups. Baba and Ivar will go as laborers and try to get work in whatever mining is going on. The other three will form a diplomatic mission, taking along a minder (named Julian) from the diplomatic corps to make sure that they don't promise the impossible. Julian turns out to be a bit of a dork, which explains why he is getting sent to nowhere Duchies at the request of fishy parts of the Imperial intelligence apparatus. Still, he's nice enough. They also get a few guards and some lackeys, as befits diplomats.
Traveling by airship and boat to the Darian coast and then up into the mountains takes some time. Ivar and Baba arrange to be first on the scene, and notice that the river they are following into the Duchy becomes fouler the closer they get. Vegetation along the river is dying, and farms are not thriving. Baba thinks the water is a little acidic. In the Duchy itself, they find that the river and the Duchy fork into an east valley and a west valley. They turn first up the unpolluted east fork and come to the town of Varonia, overshadowed by a large castle. Everything is fairly well kept, considering the last prosperity around these parts happened 500 years before. Staying in the only inn, they learn some about the perfidious habits of the west valley folk.
The next day they head to the west valley, stopping along the way to investigate reports of missing sheep (alleged to be west valley sheep thieving: Ivar discovers it was a griffin and gets mutton for his efforts). The west valley is not well kept like the east, and the few people they see often have strange facial twitches. At the head of the valley they find the source of the increasingly acrid and bitter pollution - a complex of new buildings below open mining pits on the mountainside. Ivar is quickly able to get work as a miner in these pits - rock is broken up and sent down into the buildings below for processing. Baba is cruelly pointed at the foulest of the buildings when she looks for work.
That building turns out to be filled with bins of slime - living slime - which are tended by a crazy old lady. The air inside almost burns the nose and eyes. Baba accepts the work and learns that the secretions of the slimes and jellies are collected and put in coated barrels, which also go to the big main building with the rock. She also learns that these creatures are called "the pretties" by their keeper. The gelatinous cube (a small one, perhaps three feet on a side) is named Jenny.
Meanwhile the other team has an easy time of it, progressing by carriage up from the coast. They are put up in one of the castle towers by the Duke, and get to meet him the next day in a formal introduction. Gaius is the ambassador, Lucia the chief trade negotiator, and Sasha Gaius's "personal private secretary". After the formal introduction there is a welcome banquet, where they meet the Duchess (the daughter of a bandit Duke farther east), their opposite number (an elf named something very elfy, who is to be called "Leaf"), the Duke's two sons, some local notables, and a nice cut of meat. Gaius tries to be charming, but the elf has a knack for stepping on the conversation just as he gets really witty, and Lucia starts to establish herself as the sensible one to Gaius's fop. A little more questioning of servants later establishes that the elf has come with more staff than they - perhaps ten orc guards and twenty servants and so on.