Interlude 14.1 Old Debt

Clasping his hands in front of his waist to stop from balling them into fists, Old Yon didn’t bother to suppress his scowl as he walked down one of the few short hallways in his temporary bolthole.

The bunker was austere, even by his standards. Really it was just a collection of blocky rooms that he had paid an earth mage to carve deep into the bedrock a couple dozen leagues northeast of Deadacre.

It was utilitarian enough: he had a storeroom under stasis with enough food for him and twenty men to last a decade, though he had far less magical supplies than he would have liked. Alchemicals had a tendency to degrade, and they did not play nicely with preservation magic, at least not the cheap kind. Artifacts, too — enough of them in one place for long enough could leave a mana signature that might be tracked.

Still, he had his supplies in a storage ring, and the two fools he had brought with him had some meagre belongings.

He grit his teeth, turning the corner to a door. A place to plan — where he could flick through the notes and documents he always took with him.

The place would serve for now. It was one of dozens he had scattered around the region. The Frontier had always been his final bastion; the last redoubt he planned to fall back to if anything went awry.

As far as places to lie low, it was as perfect as a man could hope to get from an inconsequential backwater. A centralized location with access to resources, and trade routes to Mystral, and the Greenseed dukedoms. With the steady stream of Hiwiann caravans that trundled across the rolling fields and open forests, it was practically cosmopolitan.

Despite that, the fact that mana had been practically absent until recently meant that there had been no powers to fear; no true players of the game.

A perfect place to recover, none the less because it was his home of youth. None other than him knew the extent to which his roots went deep around Deadacre and Grandbrook.

He had just never thought he would need to use it. If it had been anyone else to suffer as he had — someone who had not layered contingency upon contingency — they would have been done in long ago.

Stalking across his war room, Old Yon bent over the stone desk he had built into the center many years ago. A map had been carved into its surface: the known regions of Vaastivar. Everything between the start of the icy wastes to the north and the impenetrable forest before them, and the nigh impassible Drozag Mountains with its ruined jungles beyond.

His eyes locked on the carving of a star deep in those dwarven peaks, on the western flank.

Wight’s End. A place of power and destiny, where all the strong congregated. Including him, once upon a time.

He scowled, running his hands through his hair. How could this have happened?

Just five years ago he had been attending night auctions and brushing shoulders with Golds and nobility alike. Yet he had made one mistake — trusted one person — and it had been enough to get burned.

Now, even in the very stronghold of his power, his foundations kept crumbling. The integration phase change alone had shattered two dozen operations that had been rebuilding his influence, inching him closer to a higher echelon of power.

Then that nitwit had come to him, speaking of a promising team! It should have been a simple deal: a snatch and grab. With the possibility of new Legacy Skills to leverage in trade, it had been too tantalising to pass up. Blackened bones, even the experience for pulling off a heist like that would have been worth it.

But those fools! He still couldn’t believe that Cronte and Torin had let them slip through their fingers. In their incompetence, they had lost him one of his greatest redoubts of power — and half his wealth besides — in the same breath. He would be impressed, if he didn’t want to snap their necks.

He wished he could. Unfortunately, his manpower was stretched too thin.

If the loss of his compound hadn’t been enough, now the blasted Guild had come down on his head.

All because Cronte and Torin had been too fucking incapable to notice a greater meles in the middle of bloody Deadacre.

He’d known something was suspicious about that team, but who would expect a greater beast to be masquerading as a simple bonded companion? Of course the team had done well; of course the Guild had a vested interest in their protection.

The human and the half-elf meant nothing, but a young greater meles out of the mountains? The Skills it would have, the natural strength of its body…one that young should never have left. Something had happened, and the Guild must have been trying to capitalise on a sudden opportunity. Curry favor.

And he had walked straight into the middle of that fucking diplomatic incident.

Where the fuck had it even come from?

His Skills spun to life as Old Yon’s eyes burned with violet fire.

Ribbons of mana pulled half a dozen ledgers from his ring, flipping through pages as fast as he could absorb the words on them. All the while, he scoured his memories.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Moments later, he stumbled across something — a small note he had made about an aligned operative moving through the area, just over two years ago. He had pulled a favor from them after they had asked for information — something about a sword. Easy enough, from its description, it had been a distinctive, eye-catching thing. A few silver pieces here and there had been all it took. The dregs of the city were a valuable resource he plumbed often.

Old Yon snapped a finger. Morton. That had been his name. Some tracker for one of the Fangs in Wight’s End. No wonder he’d jumped at the opportunity for the man to owe him a favour — by extension, it was one to someone of real influence in the Temple. A valuable thing.

He ripped through his books, scouring a procession of images that flicked through his mind. He remembered Morton returning with that very same blade. Weak as the man had been, he was skilled in the Game.

Wily as he was, the tracker had tried to cash in the favor immediately — pressing to see if there was any work that needed done. Yon had known better. A man ranging that far, that skilled, that young? With a bloody Fang behind them? They were rising fast.