(Outside Cothmore City, Cothmore Estate)
Count Lisko Cothmore walked through the halls, every step brimming with arrogance. His clothes were of the latest fashion, made of materials imported from distant locations. Not that he expected the local peasants to appreciate the expense and quality; he doubted whether they could tell the difference between silk and velvet.
The count stopped before one of the large mirrors lining the hallway, adjusting his ruffled collar and making sure his doublet was set just so.
The manufacturing method of plate glass has been a gift from one of the Summoned to the dwarves of the Tinguard clan, and the dwarves had kept the secret close ever since then. Gold, threats, and secret espionage had all failed to pry the secret out of their hands. Meanwhile, the Tinguards had gained great wealth, charging a princely sum for even a small piece of the coveted glass.
To someone like Lisko, this was just presumptuous. In his mind, lessers existed to serve their betters, and the Tinguard Clan were just a bunch of commoners in the end, despite their wealth.
He fumed. Not that he had time to worry about that now. The issues with the labyrinth were much more urgent. He pulled out his notebook and reviewed the events that had been reported to him.
The first report had been of an outsized monster in an unusual place, leaked to him by a spy he'd planted in the guild.
Then Rammeld's representative in the city (what was his name again?) had relayed a state of emergency due to possible dungeonization of the labyrinth, passed on via guild communications. The vice guild master, after relaying the message, had fired multiple members of the adventurer guild's staff. While the different reasons for each firing made individual sense, the one commonality was they were all Lisko's spies.
Later there had been another announcement, that the dungeonization had been stopped. 'Suspicious characters' had been found in the dungeon, but according to the report it was unknown if they were related to the attempted transformation. The representative and vice guild master appealed to the public to remain calm, and report anything troubling or suspicious to the royal representatives.
The count slammed the wall with his fist. If the 'suspicious characters' were the Followers of Golrin, this could be a problem. His spies would send him a report and he could go from there.
But.
Two days passed without a report.
Three.
Lisko paced the floor of his office. He'd heard nothing from his men or spies at the labyrinth, though the distance could've been covered even on foot by now.
The estate's butler knocked and entered. Lisko snarled.
"Get out!"
Bertram remained calm. "Sir, I have this paper signed by the young lord-"
"Argh!" Lisko rolled his eyes. "He's in debt to someone again? Just pay it as usual."
The butler held the paper open, facing Lisko. "Sir, this agreement contains a formal oath sworn on-"
"JUST. PAY. IT." Lisko pulled his sword partially out of the sheath. "Or I will order the troops to use you as a practice dummy!"
His face undecipherable, the butler bowed and backed out. Lisko slammed his sword back into the sheath and resumed pacing.
On the evening of the sixth day, a wagon pulled up at the gate. A wagon, not a carriage. Lisko came down and stared unbelieving at the contents.
Falchan moaned, turned his head, and saw his father. "Daaaad, it huuurrrrrts."
"Hush, hush, my little boy." Lisko soothed him. "I'll make this right."
One of the two Cothmore soldiers driving it got down, kneeled, and presented an envelope of fine paper. Lisko snatched it from him.
It was a letter from Rammeld. While Falchan's system had been cleansed of the alcohol and 'toxin' content, his leg was not to be healed due to his behavior. He was also to be restricted to the Cothmore estate for the foreseeable future, on pain of royal penalty.
Rammeld had hand selected the two soldiers from the Cothmore unit stationed at the labyrinth. They did not like Falchan or Lisko, and their dislike had only grown with recent events. As Falchan was being handed over to the household staff, Lisko snarled and turned on the soldiers, too eager to wait until he could get them inside.
"Who hurt my son?" Lisko snarled, his face contorted in rage.
"My Lord." The soldiers bowed their heads. "An adventurer, after Lord Falchan tried to seize a young woman."
"What's that adventurer's name!?"
The first soldier shrugged. "We didn't hear it. Rammeld talked to them."
"Is that what Falchan will say?"
"He'd been drinking for several days." The soldier shrugged again. "He might not remember what happened."
Lisko grumbled. Other matters were more pressing until he could question Falchan. "Did the labyrinth almost dungeonize?"
"So we heard. We didn't see anything ourselves," said the second soldier.
"How was it stopped?" The reveal of the Golrin soldiers and the undead would require some quick tie-cutting. The count had to know who the witnesses were.
"We don't know that either," said the first soldier. "The royals haven't shared what they know."
Lisko gritted his teeth in frustration. Watching the servants moving Falchan to a comfortable carrying chair, he finally noticed something -someone- was missing.
"Where's Drysia?" If that girl had some half-baked idea to disobey-
"She was kept back at the labyrinth by Rammeld. There's still a lot of unusually powered monsters running around."
It made sense. Diamonds were subject to royal command. Something niggled at the back of Lisko's mind, but he dismissed it. Drysia wouldn't dare betray him.
What was clear was Rammeld had gone out of his way to make sure his soldiers didn't know anything. Did Rammeld suspect something? Lisko dismissed that as well. His plans were far too clever for anyone else to figure out.
Falchan had recovered enough to start yelling for food and alcohol as he was carried inside the castle. Lisko ignored him; the servants would see to his needs. He was irritated that his two top lieutenants were off taking care of criminal business; they were very useful in helping punish Falchan when he acted up.
The thought crossed Lisko's mind that the healers at the labyrinth camp might have detected the Lustvine derivative Falchan took. He ignored the thought; it wasn't easily detectable in small amounts, and the only time Falchan took a lot was at the private banquets held at the Cothmore Estate.
The primary thing on Lisko's mine was the state of the labyrinth. He had spent so much effort preparing it to be dungeonized. Finding useful patsies in the Followers of Golrin, getting ahold of mana stones, having his people research the proper runes and inscriptions to power up the Bolat Crystal, smuggling in the members under the guise of adventurers. It would have been very profitable, and it didn't matter if it was cleared or not before Bolat's next visit; the Cothmores had long secured another secret bolthole if the labyrinth was not available.
All that effort now gone to ruin.
Grumbling, he made his way to the strong room of the mansion. It would be wise to make sure that all the money in the strong room was legitimate money in case Rammeld and his bunch came calling.
He took one step inside and stopped short.
Gold. There were a lot of gold kestrels missing from their baskets, although the two phoenix coins were safe. Turning to where the magic items were kept, he noticed that half a dozen were missing.
Growlling, he grabbed the inventory sheet, to be filled out whenever money or items were moved in or out of the room. The butler's name was on it, signing out a ridiculous amount of money and the missing items.
"Bertram!" Lisko screamed as he slammed out of the strongroom. "Attend this instant!"
"Sir?" Bertram seemed to emerge from the woodwork behind Lisko, his uniform as crisp and perfect as always.
"What. is. this?" Lisko waved his hand wildly in the direction of the strong room. "You'd better have a good reason for this or I'll feed you to the lustvines!"
The butler quirked an eyebrow. His family has served the Cothmores for generations, and Bertram currently agreed with his father that the line had been degenerating lately. He took a paper out of his vest pocket and showed it to Lisko.
"When I showed this to you earlier, you told me to 'handle it'. The money, extra items, and a Caliban stallion were necessary to cover the full amount, while still leaving us with enough cash to function." And to pay the upcoming fines, though Bertram didn't include that part.
Lisko grabbed the paper and this time read it through.
"Orc general…? He what? He what?!" Lisko threw the paper down. "That- that bastard!" Several rounds of swearing followed. While he threw his temper tantrum, Bertram retrieved the paper and put it back in his pocket.
"We can't do it now," Lisko mumbled, his nails pressed to his teeth. "Rammeld's here, it's too suspicious... we need to wait…"
"Sir?"
"Elmerin. He's been a problem for too long. He's got to be the one that hurt my little boy. We can't do anything to him on Rammeld's watch, but once that king's flunky leaves and this mess dies down, I want Elmerin dead!" The count's voice rose shrilly. "Hear me? As soon as we can get away with it, send assassins after him and kill him!" Lisko grinned, a trifle crazily. "In fact, this works to our advantage. Kres is now his child, his heir. We can acknowledge him and seize his inheritance. We'll get our money back!" Lisko walked away, humming happily to himself, confident in his plan.
Bertram, however, knew better. If the dungeonization had been stopped, then the undead and the Followers of Golrin had been found. The chances of the lustvine farms, the slaves, and everything else illegal in the labyrinth being found had gone up exponentially. Particularly since Lisko had moved everything to the lesser-used storage areas in the Cothmore area, citing easier travel and that the adventurers weren't allowed to go there anyway. The past counts had had their 'projects' scattered through the labyrinth to increase deniability if they were discovered.
Lisko's actions would now have great consequences; with the king's authority embodied in the King's representatives and a declared state of emergency, it meant that every inch of the labyrinth was now open to inspection, and not cooperating was defying the crown.
Which was why Bertram had sent over the Cothmore maps of the labyrinth as soon as he'd received the request. He had made an appropriate note of it in the household log, but hadn't specifically reported the request to Lisko.
Not that the count ever remembered what he had or hadn't been told anyway.
Bertram could see the writing on the wall. Soon Cothmore would have a new lord, either in Lord Firnen or in an entirely new lord. All the servants could do was try not to go down with Lisko and Falchan. Unlike the Cothmores, Bertram was certain Drysia would rat them out, to preserve herself and to break ties.
And Elmerin? Even after he'd prevented Falchan from stealing his kill all those years ago, Lisko still severely underrated Elmerin's resources. His association with the Edwards Merchant Clan alone meant some powerful allies -allies that wouldn't let his death go uninvestigated or unavenged.
Best to never send that order. Although it was unlikely that Lisko would still be in power by the time things calmed down.
*******
People mentioned in this chapter:
Count Lisko Cothmore
Falchan Cothmore. Age: 31
Cothmore butler
Rammeld's representative in the city/second in command
Cothmore soldiers