Unwieldy (Fantasy & Hammers)

[Sarius]

Chapter 100: Cogs

As more days passed, I was thankful that the whole situation wasn't entirely out of my hands.

I had orchestrated the vague happenings that led us to where Crossroads now sat politically, with the faceless bigwigs simultaneously taking advantage of the situation to further their own political agendas, and also afraid that they were next. There were ideas on who had done it, and why, but when you were working with assassins good enough to kill a high-ranking merchant with clear ties to the Officials, then you weren't going to get answers to easily.

The Officials had sent a high-ranking officer to the Skinned Lizard while seeking Valeri, who had continued to stay as a resident in one of the many rooms that the inn had open. It was clear enough that they were suspicious of her activity around that time, but with the story that she had prepared herself, just about as ironclad as you could make it, they really had nothing to work with.

It also didn't hurt that Valeri was the heir apparent, and there was no one who had the legal merit to question it. Valeri was, for all intents and purposes, the head of the Ephars family and the empire that her father had built. There wasn't much you could question about the woman when she had the money on hand to crush your life in any way she so pleased.

However, I wasn't just focusing on Valeri while she wallowed in her depression. That would be an egregious waste of time. Instead, I spent my time in keeping up with old friends. Two sets of old friends, to be exact.

Gehne and Lauka, and the flamboyant and powerful Lucae Milna and his cohort of connections.

Gehne wasn't necessarily aware of Lauka's existence, but I had changed that after the cogs began to turn. There was no time to allow them to form a true bond of any sort, something that I'd had to have cultivated weeks before in lieu of other important things. I decided to trust them both with a degree of professionalism, that they would work together smoothly.

Lucae Milna was a different beast altogether. We had only truly had one meeting, one that had ended with me asking about the Shadow Walkers, that had then led me to find more about them from Illias Traniel, the man who I'd effectively made into my own pawn. He was more from Valeri's world, but she was out of commission for at least a little while, so he was quickly becoming my best option.

I almost didn't want to drag Lucae into this, nor those that he surrounded himself with, but it was important that I did. He might hide himself and the little community he'd cultivated away in his estate, but the power that he held in the public's eyes was almost unrivalled in comparison to the other big wigs of his size. The Milna family, while not economically as powerful as the Ephars family, were significantly more so politically. This was something that Jitah Ephars was clearly trying to change with his daughter.

I had sent Gehne to Lauka's home, notifying the other woman that she'd need to brief her on the current tensions in Shed's gang. They'd need to actually start planning what they were going to do and how they were going to do it, then after that I would monitor their decisions and see what else could be done. I wasn't as well versed in the inner workings of a gang as they both were, with the higher-class politics making more inherent sense to me.

Either way, I'm almost entirely certain that Lucae was not expecting to have a servant be sent by the doorman to tell him that one Maximilian Avenforth had appeared at his grandiose door in the mid-morning. I had been placed inside of a well-furnished waiting room in the meantime and when the door had swung open to reveal a tamely dressed Lucae, though not without colourful flair, the shocked expression on his face was worth the trip alone.

"Well, I never!" The man exclaimed exuberantly, straightening out the suit which was closer to the current fashion than my own, though I could see some distinct similarities between my own suit design and his, "The ghost that had disappeared as quickly as he had appeared within my own home, no less! I believe that there are quite a few noblewomen asking after you." He winked a hazel eye gratuitously, though I could feel the relief that laid under the surface.

"You can't get rid of me so easily, Lucae." I snarked, grinning at the man as he pulled me from the seat, and gave me a quick hug before leading me out of the room and down a short hallway to a set of double doors which opened into what I imagine is his personal study.

"Well, your sudden disappearance had me worried, I won't lie." He said, his voice shifting to become instantly more serious as the door to his study closed, "It had me thinking you'd found yourself in a situation you couldn't handle on my information."

"I'll have to assure you that there aren't many situations I can't handle, Lucae." He gestured me to a comfortable chair while he rounded the desk and sat in his own, chuckling lightly against his more serious tone.

"I'm coming to believe you, Maximilian. Especially assuming that you've been successful in your investigation?" I grinned, contrasting myself with his seriousness, trying to give the man an idea of how little danger I was actually in.

"More than successful, Lucae. I managed to… make some connections." I smiled slyly as the man's face went sheet white, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed the information heavily.

"You talked with one? A Shadow Walker?" He said incredulously, some doubt even worming its way into his mind. The idea was so incomprehensible that he couldn't even fathom it being a reality.

"Not just talked, Lucae." I said lightly, and then I set back and watched the show begin.

The thing about having an empathic ability on par with my own was that you could almost see someone thinking. Not their exact thoughts, but a surprising amount of emotion was linked with words and ideas inextricably, and 'thinking coldly' was a skill that very few cared to develop and was more likely to be a coincidence that they were capable of it rather than trained in it.

As such, Lucae's emotional sphere lit up like a heat map. The emotions almost jumped out at me like experiences, colours, smells, and sounds, a facet of my empathy that I had neglected because of the sheer time investment that I'd need to train in it. The man in front of me was far, far more intelligent than he even seemed to give himself credit for, and I was just waiting for the words to come out of his mouth that would confirm his brilliance.

"Jitah Ephars." He said, and immediately I felt a wave of gratification flood over me as my hunch proved itself correct, "You were behind that, you had him assassinated."

"So close, yet so far. But for now, that is more than enough to prove to me that you're important here, Lucae." I said softly, losing the snark and exchanging it for a soft smile. Lucae looked at me with a refreshed view, and while it definitely wasn't fearful, it also wasn't warm and happy. Such was the way of the revolution, I suppose.

"You're wrapping me up in this plan of yours no matter what I say, aren't you?" He whispered defeatedly, leaning back in his chair when I nodded in the affirmative.

"Unfortunately." I apologised, expression heavy with a sad smile, "But, I don't think you'll be so against the idea of wresting power from those that sit atop Crossroad's political strata."

"To what end?" He responded, his voice more analytical than I'd ever hear before, a direct view of his most intelligent side in his well-taken-care-of complexion.

"Simple, to provide those who live within Crossroads a proper place of security and comfort, without fear of falling to the same depravities that Vahla fell to or being subsumed by the banner of the Sun God to the north." I shrugged, leaving it at that. The motive was just that, simple and understandable. It was just something that didn't lend itself to easy execution.

"You speak a big game, Maximilian, and I'm starting to think that wagering on your success is a good bet." He said, his voice dangerously cutthroat, just like you'd expect from the son of one of the most politically powerful men in Crossroads. I tilted my head to the side, feigning thought for a moment in an attempt to play the game.

"I do, and I am more than confident in my own wager, Lucae. What is really more important here…" I paused for effect, looking the man in the eye with a grin, "is whether you're willing to compete with your father and overthrow him to begin a new age in the political elite of Crossroads."

The silence hung between us for a good minute, the other man's mind a whirr of emotion and calculation. I let it all happen, absolutely confident in the man's answer, and I was only confirmed in my confidence when a small smile began to grow exponentially on the usually flamboyant man's face. It was an expression of daring and cunning, a predator's smile.

"It seems that I'll be paying my dear old dad a visit. Now, tell me, what exactly are you planning, dear?"

I grinned to match the man, wolfish and filled to the brim with an amusement you could only truly share with someone else just as cheeky as yourself.

"Oh, nothing that special…"

---​

It was in the darkness of night that Rethi managed to get both himself and his girlfriend home to the Skinned Lizard. The inn had long since quieted down to nothing, leaving the empty building open for them to enter, despite both of them still wearing the masks they donned to work in.

They'd returned to work shortly after that incident, continuing through the streets to heal those that needed it. And boy did they need it. Alena had seen a massive increase in the sheer amount of Reptilia that needed to be seen, with anything from an injury from a thrown stone, to a blade wound. It was frankly terrifying to see how quickly the tenuous peace had devolved and unravelled into whatever it currently was.

The really terrifying thing, however, was the implications for this. Rethi had no doubt that Max had been involved with what was happening, one way or another. Rethi was hardly willing to question Max's goals and plans, but when the effect of whatever he was doing was so apparent to him, it made it difficult to even comprehend what would be worth this much suffering.

Rethi, while a smart kid, was smart enough to know that even if Maximilian were to sit down and explain his every idea he would still be confused and require it to be explained many times over. Simply put, Rethi's understanding of grand scale social politics was minimal at best, and he didn't quite have the innate gift for it that Maximilian seemed to hold.

But it was hard to ignore when things right in front of you were starkly changed by what he knew to be his master's actions, or as close to them as they could be.

Alena murmured something, trudging her way to their bed while hiding away the mask in her cloak. Rethi watched her go, somewhat bitterly. He was watching the world affect her so much more now, and it was hard to watch, but it was important to her, so it was important to him. He let her go, letting her sleep as much as she could before she inevitably woke up in cold sweats within six hours.

He was about to make his own way upstairs, though to a separate room to give her some peace, when a gruff voice called out to him in the silent dining floor.

"Hey kid," Tek's voice said, boomingly loud even with the man controlling his volume, "can you take this up to Valeri's room for me? She didn't eat dinner and she didn't eat lunch either."

Rethi adjusted to the other man's presence quickly, and then taking off the iron mask that he'd left on, not to hide his Midday identity, but really more out of politeness. Rethi, looked over at the man who peaked out of the service window, staring at him with a questioning, slitted eye. Rethi walked over wordlessly and found a bowl of hot stew sitting on a wooden tray being offered to him by the man, and he nodded easily, which the other man seemed to appreciate as he left the kitchen moments after to assumably go to sleep.

Rethi picked up the surprisingly heavy tray and began to walk up the stairs to the rooms, then further down a long hall where Valeri's door sat, almost the furthest down the hall you could be. Rethi easily held the tray with one hand as he knocked gently, and then a little harder after a moment of non-responsive silence.

After another few moments, he heard the scuffing of a foot on the wooden floorboards, then a slight shift as the door's lock clicked and the door gently swung open enough for him to see the tall, dark-skinned woman who'd been holing herself up in the room for days.

"Food." He said simply, offering her the tray, and after a moment of looking at it with her sad eyes, she opened the door to grab it, and then simply stood there, staring at Rethi. Rethi almost turned and simply left to his room for the night, but when he looked deeper into her expression, weary and depressed, he sighed deeply, wondering if his master had foreseen such an encounter.

"Do you… need someone to talk to?" He asked, and before he knew it, he'd signed himself up for one heavy conversation.


A/N: Aaah, chapter 100! That's got two zeroes, see? That's kinda neat, right? Also, another Patron; thank you Victor for your support!

Thanks to my 5-dollar Patron; Leon E. Large thanks to my two 10-dollar Patrons; Dyson C., TheBreaker, and Victor! Huge thanks to my 15-dollar Patron; Jokarun! Massive thanks to my two 20-dollar Patrons; Andrew P., Joseph, and PortlandPhil!

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[Sarius]

Chapter 101: Casual


Rethi sat on the floor of Valeri's room, back pressed up against the side of the girl's bed, head resting gently against the edge of the padded mattress.

Valeri herself had stayed upon the bed itself, having finished the food that he'd brought hours ago. Since then, they'd simply talked and talked. Before this, he'd known the girl as a slightly haughty and overconfident rich kid, living out a fantasy of training to be a fighter. She'd known him as the gruff and almost heartless trainer, Midday, a man who held power beyond even her current comprehension.

They'd both known parts of who the other person was. Rethi had come to know her as she nervously confronted her own future in the microcosm of combat training, and Valeri coming to know Rethi in his bitterness while he tried to piece together his dawning understanding that he may never truly know exactly why his master might tell him to do something.

As they had talked, only as Rethi and Valeri with no pretence, they had come to find their lived experiences as almost entirely different. A pauper and a princess, a warrior and a socialite, two dichotomous lives standing independent from each other entirely. There was almost nothing that they had in common, not in their personality or in the way they had both been once.

And that was a powerful distinction. The way that they had both been once. Rethi had once been a beggar, and Valeri had once been a dove trapped within a cage, but now they were far more than just that. Rethi was now a Divine Warrior, inexperienced in legitimate combat as he may be, and Valeri had broken from her cage and was now taking her first, rather hesitant steps into the wide world beyond the gilded bars.

So what gave them all that they had in common? Well, that was an easy question to answer.

Maximilian, damned, Avenforth.

It was almost a little scary just how much Maximilian had influenced in Crossroads already, and just how far reaching the effects of his actions were. At the very least, he'd converted Valeri into someone willing to act for the sake of the people, even if that went against her own self-preservation and the fear that she'd held for her father for her entire life.

But Rethi knew that it was more than that. Max had changed him severely as well and going out with Alena to protect her while she healed countless people with a power many were terrified of, Alena herself included. The way that the Skinned Lizard had changed, the people within it acting with more decisiveness to desperately try and match the effort that the other man was putting forwards.

It was likely only the surface of what he was doing, with Rethi not actually being privy to much more than Maximilian's basic explanations. The change in the Officials and their violence against the Reptilia population became clearer to Rethi as he had talked with Valeri, her understanding of that whole political situation was far more comprehensive than he'd have assumed of the girl.

"–so the Council of Justice have been going after Shed and his little gang for years, but the more 'moderate' parties on the Council have been holding back against a majority vote just slightly. But, after my father was…" she stopped for a moment, her expression dropping slightly, "assassinated, it was easy for the pro-gang crackdown members to convince the Council to overturn past decisions and go after Shed's gang under that assumption."

Rethi sat in the uncomfortable position he was in on the floor, finding himself too lazy to move, unable to actually look the woman in the eyes as he contemplated a strange sense of déjà vu. It took him a moment of silence to pin the feeling on the donkey.

"You know, you kinda sound like Max when you talk like that." There was a long, drawn out silence after his words which almost made him move from his strange position, but before he could, he was hit on the head by what could only be a pillow.

"Hey!" She exclaimed loudly, her voice scandalised, before simmering down to a confused tone, "I don't know if that's a compliment or an insult."

Rethi laughed deeply, though keeping himself quieter than the girl had been, subtly reminding her that it was the middle of the night and other patrons—the few that they were—are well and truly sleeping by now. They both quieted down, falling into a more contemplative atmosphere.

"I don't really know either." Rethi said, clarifying himself, "Maybe that's just what a politician sounds like, and Max just talks that way. But at least you both sound honest when you're talking."

"Only sound?" Valeri said, mock offense in her tone, "I'll have you know that I'm always honest!" Though Rethi just snorted at that, rolling his eyes even though she couldn't see them.

"Yeah. When you're telling the truth, or at least being honest about not telling the whole truth, it's pretty obvious. Max is the same, it's not like he hadn't been deceptive and downright manipulative in the past, but even when it's happening you can tell that it isn't entirely honest. At least you know that he's obfuscating the truth, or bending it in those moments."

"Why would that matter, though?" Valeri asked gently, "Wouldn't that make him just as bad as anyone else with a little bit of charisma and a goal, manipulating their way for their own ends?"

Rethi couldn't help himself as he barked out a laugh, the horrifically uneven comparison of Maximilian against a someone with a 'little bit of charisma' being actively hilarious. Though, the question was thought provoking.

Max's approach to things, while backed with what Rethi believed to be a strong moral compass and code, was inherently grey. You couldn't quite call it an evil approach, though it could certainly be used for evil reasons, but it paled in comparison to the option of simply going on a mass slaughter and 'solving' your problems that way.

However, it wasn't a totally morally upstanding approach either, and Rethi would be more likely to attribute that to what Alena was doing, offering her whole support to the communities affected most and allowing them to strive for a better future. Problem is that approach takes way more time.

Time was a resource that they didn't have much of, and this little city was almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. Maximilian putting forth the effort to fix Crossroads, or do the best he could, was already way underutilising his abilities. By now, they could have easily been within the Brauhm Empire and trying to hinder their incredibly expansionist ideology, maybe even try to correct some of the worst parts of their society as it is.

But they had already spent months here, before the action began and the change started happening in front of their eyes. It was scary, to see the city go from a tense silence straight into what was effectively a civil war on its own populace, though still restricted to some degree.

"I don't know, to be honest." Rethi said, laughing at his own insufficient answer, "Sure, his methods are less than typically moral, but my bright idea was to just run around the place and chop the heads off of all the important people and 'fix' it."

Rethi could just about feel the mortification on the girl's dark complexion, making him chuckle further.

"My God, who taught you that you could solve problems that way?" She groaned, almost amused by the sheer insanity of Rethi's old idea.

"That's just the common belief. Someone's causing lots of problems? Kill them. That's what they do in small towns, and while I never saw someone be killed, I know that someone was stoned for being unfaithful with another farmer's wife." He could hear the squeaking in Valeri's voice before she managed to collect herself enough to reply.

"No, I guess that's fair. I really shouldn't be the one to talk, being witness to my own father's death."

There was a cool breeze of silence between the two after she said those words. It wasn't as if they had just slipped out, they were a tacit confirmation of Rethi's theory that she'd been involved with her father's assassination. If she was involved, then Yeram and Maximilian were likely involved as well, somehow.

"Maybe not, but there was more at play there than infidelity, Valeri." He said, finding the spot in his throat that he could pull Midday's voice from, an almost natural voice for him now that he'd used it so much. "It probably didn't help that Maximilian was searching for an outcome like that."

"Maybe," she said immediately, her voice a little more confident than it had been when she'd started with the topic, "but regardless of what Max had to do with how Yeram or I acted, the decision was made independently from him. While I certainly don't like that I could attribute part of the reason of my father's death to him, it was far from the main part."

They sat there, bathing in the words that'd been said, both of them trying to scabble together ideas and understandings to formulate into a half reasonable sentence, but they continually failed. Rethi must have opened his mouth to speak five times before a sound came out on the sixth, a random idea from the very base of his skull somehow bubbling to the surface.

"Do you like him?" Rethi asked, the curious thought slipping through his lips as his mind cackled evilly while the rest of his conscience caught up to what he'd just said. He was about to apologise for the question, going way over the comfort line that they'd quietly established between them, but when Rethi realised that she wasn't answering the question with a scandalised tone…

"Well, I mean…" She said, drawing out the words hesitantly, making Rethi's neck go slack and allow him to turn his face into the side of the mattress, muffling his voice.

"Oh Gods," Rethi groaned, "please don't tell me. It's so gross."

"Gross?" She exclaimed, embarrassment layered thickly in her voice, "You're the one in a teenage relationship! I'm hardly gross."

"Ew, ew," Rethi continued to whine, a mix between actual revulsion and mocking, "no way, it's so much worse than me and Alena."

"Oh, shut it!" She shot back, hitting the top of his head with her pillow once again, "You're already with someone, how are you so childish about this stuff? At least be consistently childish!"

"But it's, like…" Rethi struggled for a moment, trying to come up with a reason for the disgust in his stomach, "it's like you're going after my older brother or something. It's just gross!"

"Boys." Valeri decreed after a long moment, shaking her head imperiously, as if she'd judged him guilty of a severe crime. Though Rethi just snorted powerfully, actually moving from his uncomfortable spot to turn and look at the woman.

"Oh, so I guess you wouldn't find it weird at all if, say, Gehne was to go after Yeram?"

The imperious expression on the woman's face went from placid to entirely horrified within a split second, warping into a manifestation of disgust so severe that it made Rethi burst into forceful laughter, falling back onto the wood floor behind him with a thump. He tried desperately to keep his voice down, but the expression on her powerful features was just so hilariously extreme that he couldn't even restrict himself.

After a while of laughter, which Valeri eventually joined in on, he was pushed out of the room under the concern that it would become way too late, and that they'd end up getting a knock on the door from Tek asking them to shut up.

Rethi managed to walk down the hallway, only chuckling to himself lightly, trying to forget the absurd expression on the woman's face. He passed by the room that Alena was sleeping in, and instead walked into one of the other rooms that they'd rented, quickly throwing off much of his clothes and diving into the bed, allowing the soft bed to comfort his body and mind.

He no longer needed sleep, but he had come to realise how impressive Max's willpower was, to deny himself sleep altogether until his mind and body truly got used to the new reality, he was forcing it through. Rethi had managed to do so with middling success, but he always ended up taking a few hours of sleep every other day, sometimes more.

It wasn't idea, or even all that efficient, as Maximilian would put it, but it was slowly getting there. Either way, he was slacking on training, mostly because he was trying his best to juggle protecting Alena when she was out healing people and the late-night training that sometimes happened with Tek.

He looked out the window in his room, peering into the dull light that washed over the cityscape, and just quietly wondering what the next day, or what Maximilian, might challenge him with.

Hopefully nothing as horrifying as getting together with Valeri. Not yet at least.


A/N: Enjoy!

Thanks to my 5-dollar Patron; Leon E. Large thanks to my two 10-dollar Patrons; Dyson C., TheBreaker, and Victor! Huge thanks to my 15-dollar Patron; Jokarun! Massive thanks to my two 20-dollar Patrons; Andrew P., Joseph, and PortlandPhil!

If you want to support me and receive 90 total chapters of my stories, check out my Patreon!

 

[Sarius]

Chapter 102: Personal

I sat within the Brightspark relaxedly, drinking from a cup of pleasant-smelling alcohol which left something to be desired from the taste. I lounged within the fourth-floor bar room, entertaining myself idly with using the whispers of the Hearth influence that I'd once received from Ehra. I could still somehow delineate between good and bad drinks, sometimes even getting flashes of momentary inspiration for something to add to the drink to fix it.

This bartender, while decent at his job, was nowhere near the standard that the Ehra faithful had set for me. His concoctions were uninspired and textbook, and while that clearly serviced the gold encrusted fools in the bar with me, it wasn't anything special no matter how you sliced it.

Of course, the rich kids probably couldn't tell either way, the different qualities of the alcohols in their drink less important than the amount of money that the drink itself had cost, with aged drinks being so rare due to the short time since many of the races had actually been put on Virsdis.

It was interesting, and one of the few liquor brands that had managed to start aging alcohol early enough to get fifty-year aged rum was clearly going gangbusters, though it wasn't that much more special than the rum you could get your hands on in the northern street stores. If you went west and made alcohol out there, the natural heat of the weather, in what was effectively a dry plains, would make it great for quickly aging alcohol.

Though, that was if you had a way of dealing with the quite hostile Tiliquan tribes. Being attacked every other day would certainly make it difficult to offset the cost of, you know, dying.

Anyway, long story short, the alcohol was decent, and the bartender was horrifically misusing it for the sake of the dollar tag that could be ascribed to it. He also wasn't making personalised drinks, just those off of the board that could be seen by anyone, which meant that each drink had a social value within the establishment.

Though, the most expensive drink tasted like absolute ass, which was hilarious to me after I had watched in horror as the man mixed together the liquids soullessly. When I had downed it, like you might a shot, the surrounding inhabitants of the bar had looked at me like I was insane. Which, if I had a regular human body, would have been a horrific choice.

Thankfully, alcohol is effectively a strong-tasting juice, and unless I actively let it affect my brain there is next to no effect for more than a few scant moments. Just another thing that can't kill me. I'll take it.

I lounged within the plush chair for a long thirty minutes, my mind slowly ticking over the ideas I kept hidden away from the world. Honestly, I found it somewhat amusing to plot the downfall of much of Crossroads' elite while I literally drank exorbitantly expensive liquor right next to them.

Some of them I remembered from passing encounters, my brain no longer one to misremember something so simple as a name and a brief history. Though, I almost wish that my brain would just forget them and their petty little lives. They were just about as inconsequential as it got, in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe one or two of them could minorly sway the outcome of any given action I took, but nothing so grand as to ruin my plans in any overt way. They may be rich, but they were all pomp and vanity, barely sharing a practically minded braincell between them. So that was why I was here, other than just to drink the revolting cocktails for my own amusement while I planned.

My mind helpfully kept tabs on the emotional sphere that sat around me, the majority of it being rather dour for a place so filled with alcohol, though the lower floors certainly tried to make up for it with the party that seemed ready to persist late into the night. The floors up from there got progressively quieter, and the floor above was even cold.

It wasn't cold in that there was no one within the rooms above, but that those inside the rooms above us were like you'd think a snake would feel. Without the breadth of emotions you could witness just by walking down the street, those inside those rooms were filled with the calculation you'd expect from someone of Yeram's past.

Though, with the sorts of wealth that those above possessed, they'd almost have to be that way. Only very few I have met stayed independent enough from the source of their wealth to remain untouched by its influence. Valeri and Lucae being the only two I could think of off the top of my head, though there were certainly others that held the ability to be so, if they were half as determined as Valeri or as wickedly sharp as Lucae.

I hummed gently into my glass as I savoured the mediocre taste of the drink within, something that sorely needed a generous splash of a citrusy juice of some kind. As I dreamed of a better tasting drink, I felt an emotional presence I was keeping tabs on leave the top floor, slowly walking down the stairs that dared to connect to the floor from behind the bar.

I had been keeping tabs on the bar and those within it idly, just with the spare brain power that was left over between other thoughts. I had clearly realised when a man, one that I didn't immediately recognise, rose from his seat and left the bar through the main doorway, a moment of slight anxiety fixating his mind as he came to the grand flights of stairs and ascended to the top floor.

I had felt the man's vague emotions from the floor below, not quite able to read them with the veracity I might be able to if he were to be in the same room as me. Certainly not as clearly as If I were looking him in the eye. That had continued for likely close to fifteen minutes before the man descended once again, down a pair of service stairs that led to a door behind the bar.

I gave a quick glace towards the door, training my eyes on it as it opened outward, obscuring my view of the man while I heard the faintest noise as he called out to the bartender. After a brief moment of conversation between the two men, the door remained open as the bartender moved up against the bar top and swallowed deeply before opening his mouth to speak.

"Maximilian Avenforth." The man called; his voice surprisingly pleasant in comparison to his mixed drinks. I turned a lazy eye towards the man, finding him looking directly at me with a solid eye. The room came to a stop, the bubbling conversation came to a quiet hush as eyes turned and whispers grew.

For just a moment, I let my eyes lock with the man's delving deep into his emotions and finding them to be perfunctory at best. The man didn't care, past a slight interest in why I was being called to the room above. The shared gaze gave me the orders that I needed, then a slight gesture of his head towards the door behind the bar, clearly pointing towards the way they would like to receive me.

I stood from my seat, looking towards the door pensively as it remained open, coaxing me to enter it… yet I wasn't quite interested in taking the service stairway. What an ingenious way to shape the relationship that you had with those that sat above. A nice bit of social power to exercise over those that walked up those steps, that were likely to be as demeaning as possible for those who lived the high life like they did.

I brushed off my pants lightly, then adjusting the cuff of my blazer slightly while letting a large grin grow on my face. The man smiled back, a reflex of his service industry training, but that smile evaporated quickly when I did a ninety degree turn and began striding towards the main doors of the bar.

There was a moment of stunned silence before I could feel the bartender's shock turn into action as he no doubt alerted the other man of my departure. However, as I made my way out of the doors of the bar and felt the other man start moving, I grinned wolfishly as the doors closed behind me and blocked off any sight of me.

I walked down the short hallway with a quick step, then hopping lightly onto the bannister that separated the walkway from the precipitous drop down a flight of stairs, walking on the wooden railing for a moment before jumping almost weightlessly to the other side of the building, skirting across the wall that surrounded the flights of stairs before truly enacting the Sharah and simply walking up the wall between the gorgeous stained-glass windows that opened it up to the outside world.

As I reached the top of where the fourth floor's ceiling became the fifth's floor, I jumped from the stone wall, flipping gracefully with my legs outstretched towards the roof, arcing down and impacting the floor with the flats of my feet solidly. My shoes held admirably, the shoemaker—which I have since been informed is a 'cordwainer'—had done excellent work with making them as tough as reasonably possible. They hadn't fallen apart just yet, and it seemed that they would be staying that way.

I strode down the hall in the direction that I could feel the passive emotions of the few that existed on this floor, all within one room. I could feel the emotions of the man who'd been sent to collect me as he ran through the service entry and up towards that room. However, I was faster, and my steps reached the door of that room before the man had even made it halfway up the stairs.

So, it was with a grand flourish and loud bang that I pushed the double doors open to reveal a large sitting room, walls filled with books and liquors, while the floor was crowded with chairs of various sizes and makes. However, it was the centre of the room that I was looking for. In four chairs sat three men and one woman that I'd never seen before. Though, just from a cursory glance, I could hazard a guess.

The man closest to me, with his back turned, was tall against the lower back of his chair. His chocolate brown skin stood in stark contrast to the crisp white collar of his shirt, the back of his head covered in short and almost clumped into small bundles until it reached the top of his head which faded into a full and tightly compacted layer of hair. The man didn't bother to turn to me, but I could hazard a guess at the young master of the Teren family.

Julian Teren, a descendant of a princess from Veringohs and a massively wealthy merchant, wasn't quite as impressive as Valeri's family name, but it was enough for him to make it into this room. If he were to stand at full height, I could guess that he'd likely dwarf my own height, making him a strikingly formidable posture outside of the taller races.

The woman, sitting just to his right in the little circle of chairs, was probably Werna Litz, a native from the Brauhm Empire whose mother was insightful enough to realise the potential that Crossroads had as a trade partner with Brauhm.

Across from Julian directly sat a short, pale man, almost sickly in comparison to Julian's healthy brown complexion and physical stature. The man barely had his eyes open, and a quick look into his emotions told me that he was currently making big choices, though I couldn't exactly glean any real specifics from sight alone. I couldn't get a read on the man, but from the small patch of blue and gold on his suit's collar, I could hazard a guess and say that he was likely a son of a high ranking Official.

The last man laid slouched in his chair, suit ruffled and creased in places while he held a wide and stout glass I his hand, slowly sipping on the drink as I paced into the room, grabbing a large chair nearby and easily swinging it over my head as I walked right into the middle of the circle and placed it dead centre.

The man looked up at me lazily, his actions drunk and sloppy, but his eyes and emotions sharp. But, almost in protest, I took a seat, looking directly at the man, crossing my legs and grinning right into his face, his unruly brown hair not all that dissimilar than my own, though considerably longer and more unkempt.

"Well, I heard you called after me?" I asked with a note of jolly in my voice, waiting only a moment longer as the man who had been sent to fetch me burst through one of the side doors and entered into the room with a moment of bluster before seeing me sitting there.

"Thank you, Owen." The woman said, her voice imperious and cold, "Please return to the bar downstairs. I will send the noblewoman of your choice to your bed tonight, as a gift."

The man, who I hadn't even bothered to look at, seemingly nodded and retreated from the room slowly, leaving us to sit in silence as I stared towards the interesting man in front of me. There was a light cough, trying to break me from my interest in the somewhat famous young master of the Bluze household, the drunkard merchant.

Funny that I would meet with the grandson of the man who had the foresight to start making liquor from day one after being put here. Though, I'm not sure that he'd be particularly proud of the excess that had been borne from his success.

"Yes, we did indeed call for you." The deep, silky voice of Julian Teren spoke, resounding around the room as if it were played through an amplifier, "And we are… interested in what it is you might be doing in our city, Mr. Avenforth."

I didn't turn away from the drunkard I'd set my eyes on, a grin growing on my face as the other man's expression grew increasingly neutral on his pensive features. Hayden Bluze was an astute man, and I wouldn't be surprised if my next words were already dawning on him before I'd even said them.

So, with a regal laugh, I let the grin grow wider and spoke my magic words; "Oh, nothing special. Just a little insurrection, of course!" I turned quickly towards the son of an Official, who had since lifted his face to look at me, shocked. I let my grin falter theatrically, a moment of manufactured awkwardness, "Nothing personal?"


A/N: I've been getting pretty negative reviews lately, and it's been wearing on me pretty bad. It seems silly until you get anxiety even opening the site. Hopefully that won't be forever.

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