Almania

Almania has no state religion and no famous relic. It has engineers. Their surveys find ore where three other nations drilled and found stone. Their rifles arrive in crates marked for agricultural use. Their negotiators walk into a room already knowing what the other side can't afford to lose.

The official reason is discipline. Seven hundred years ago the state sealed a cave network in the Storm Mountains and classified it as an acoustic hazard. The engineers who worked in it before the seal came out with better arithmetic and flatter voices. Almania built a school on top of the entrance.

The Ijzerberg agreement gave Britannia the Etherium, Arcadia the labor, and Almania the maps. The maps were supposed to be the valuable part. They weren't. So Almania started funding something quieter. Frysian hackers, Frysian soldiers, an Almani passport promised at the end of a job nobody in Almania will admit exists.

If it works, Britannia loses the stone. If it fails, it was never Almania's crew.