“From this vantage point, you can see the whole of Aldorna!” Holo laughed, spreading his arms wide as if presenting his own kingdom.

The four of them had followed the patriarch up to the third floor of his manor and were now standing on a large balcony with a truly spectacular view of the town below. He could see the main street and homes he passed the day before. But the view allowed him to take in the area as whole. Dilapidated buildings lay in near ruin just out of sight from the main thoroughfare, with crumbling houses along the coast. They could even make out the pier the Dragonling was tied to, though Glade could only guess how many of the town’s guards were now on the ship.

Likely more than they could handle in a straight up fight.

It had been a roller coaster of an afternoon since the Aldorn patriarch dropped his bombshell of a question. Though, if he was being honest, the fact that Holo had deduced that Riya was a treeless and could cast celestial magic wasn’t all that big of a surprise. The patriarch had personally seen her cast healing magic and it was widely known that Gen’Shelds had bound themselves to the banished elves. Throw in the Horse Lord he had helped rescue had shown clear deference toward Riya… well, it didn’t take a genius to make the logical leap of Riya’s true identity.

Then there was the matter of Kedryn being found out. Honestly, Glade could only blame himself for that. For what felt like the hundredth time, Glade shot another frustrated glare at the Corporal’s face, taking in the Kid’s vibrant silver eyebrows. Seriously, they looked like they had been manicured and polished at a salon!

“A celestial treeless and an illegitimate royal that are not only traveling together but are friends!?” Holo had laughed so hard that he doubled over, his face going bright red as he fought to breathe. Glade had explained that Kedryn wasn’t recognized by the royal family and that they had stumbled onto Riya in the middle of nowhere and were in the process of returning her to her people. It was close enough to the truth for him. “What will the world powers think when that little tidbit of information leaks out?”

The man had been downright giddy at the thought. Not that he was going to leak said information himself, or so he had promised. But Glade knew better than to trust someone of Holo’s caliber to be wholly altruistic. Men like this didn’t keep such secrets without a price. The only question was, how steep of a price would he be extorting them for?

“Did ye just bring us up here to string us a long, or did ye have something on yer mind that ye couldn’t share inside?” Bragden growled, barely able to see over the balcony railing.

“All in good time my short friend, all in good time,” Holo chuckled, giving Glade a wink.

“Who are you calling short, long legs?” Bragden all but snarled, though if his anger did anything to change the patriarch’s demeanor, the man didn’t show it.

Though, Glade couldn’t blame Bragden for his reaction. He too was getting tired of Holo’s perpetual laugh. Unfortunately, the man had them over a barrel, and everyone knew it. It wasn’t right or just, but then again, that’s not how the real world worked. The only bright spot out of this entire debacle was Crixus. The man had simply shrugged away the information like it wasn’t a big deal. Then, he had ignored Holo and Cirea and simply said, “I’m with you.”

What really surprised Glade was the Crixus was telling the truth. He had used his telepathy skill to gauge the general feelings of those around him ever since Holo had trapped them. While not perfect, he could get a general sense of a person’s intentions if he had been around them long enough. And the man was being as honest and as genuine as he could be.

“I’m with shorty,” Glade said, causing Bragden to shift his glower to him. He knew he shouldn’t antagonize the dwarf, but honestly, the sour puss deserved it and more. “I’d like to know how, exactly, you plan to rake us over the coals?”

“What an unusual, yet descriptive, idiom,” Holo smiled, glancing curiously at him. Glade cursed internally. The less information he gave this dangerous man the better. “But you’re right, it’s time I began explaining myself.”

He turned to his bailiff.

“Cirea my dear, would you be so good as to request the kitchens to prepare us some tea?”

She gave a quick nod and departed. In minutes, each person was sipping surprisingly good tea around a table on the balcony.

“I’m sorry to impose upon you further,” Holo said, turning to face Bragden. “But from the reports I’ve read from your actions in town last night, the master dwarf is an enchanter.” It was a statement of fact rather than a question. “Would you be so kind as to erect a temporary bubble of silence? I assure you; the materials and workmanship of my table can take the strain.”

Bragden glared at the man before climbing down from his chair to write a glyph under the table out of sight of the patriarch.

“Well played!” Holo laughed as the air around them began to hum in Glade’s ears. “I can already tell that we are going to be great friends! Though, I assume that if I try to sneak a peek at the rune…?”

“I’ll bloody wipe it away afore ye so much as twitch out o’ your seat,” the dwarf growled.

“As you should!” Holo smiled, the gleam in his eye never wavering. If Bragden’s response bothered the patriarch, he didn’t show it. “Now, before I get to answering your rather… straightforward questions, I ask that you humor me for a few minutes longer…”

Glade’s gaze darkened, as did the others.

“…what, pray tell, do you see when you look out over my family’s little slice of heaven?”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Glade didn’t even have to think.

“It’s smaller than it should be,” he said bluntly. “You’ve cleared the land to accommodate a village three times its current size. There are abandoned homes and buildings up and down the coast from what I can make out. If you’re looking for my opinion, your economy is in the crapper, or you lost a large part of your populace a few years back which has made it all but impossible to recover.”

“Both, actually,” Holo said, and for the first time since meeting the patriarch, Glade saw the man’s smiling mask slip. “My grandfather’s father built this place with nothing more than the sweat of his brow and a stubborn streak a league wide. ‘We’ll be the jewel of the east!’ He was often heard saying. And for a time, we were.”

“Our main exports were originally the Water Tigers, a particularly dangerous fiend within the sea that could strip flesh from bones in seconds. If hunted successfully, its mana saturated meat and pure water shards would make for a tidy profit.”

“It took years to figure out how to safely fish the Water Tigers, and even longer to convince fisherman to relocate to our burgeoning town to go after them. But once those were solved, the Aldorn’s had a booming economy overnight. Since then, my family has built upon that foundation, expanding our trades to include horse breeding, farming, hunts into the wild grasslands for rare game… By the time the legacy passed onto me, the greater houses of the Free Cities deigned our little town the premier hunting grounds both on land and on sea. We were the rising star. The gateway to the East, they called us.”

“I was trained in politics and business, like my father before me. But unlike my father, my hubris knew no bounds and eventually brought us to ruin.”

There was a prolonged moment of silence that was finally broken by Kedryn.

“What happened?”

“I made the most egregious of errors. I became wealthy.”

“You became wealthy,” Bragden snorted.

“Oh yes, my fine, vertically challenged friend. More specifically, I was the principle backer to create the Asylum’s first auction house.”

“You were the sponsor behind Helmund’s Free Cities’ Auction house?” Crixus said with wide eyes.

“Oh, yes, my dear captain! Me and Helmund grew it from the ground up. We specialized in catering to the great powers’ specific needs! Mana shards, cores, natural treasures and legendary weapons of power! We found them all!”

Holo, looked somber as he delivered his speech, his eyes never wavering from the town below.

“Did it not work out?” Kedryn asked.

“On the contrary, it was a resounding success! We went from a profitable house to one of real means practically overnight. So much so, that I was finally able to bring in the only thing that my remote house needed to be acknowledged amongst the greats.” Holo sighed.

“Mages,” Crixus replied. “You brought in mages under the Aldorn banner.”

“Yes,” Holo said in a low voice. “Mages.”

Holo stopped talking, staring off in the distance as the man’s mask finally fell away completely. Gone was the laughing patriarch, his energy and enthusiasm spent. In its place was a broken old man.

“I assume the other houses didn’t like that very much,” Glade said. “No one likes to share power.”

“Yes…” Holo said, still staring out over the bay.

“What happened next?” Kedryn asked gently.

“I was approached by House Gerund first. One of the lesser houses under Fellu. I was given an… opportunity,” he nearly spat the last word. “I hand over a majority of the auction house’s shares and I would be blessed to join their great house.”

“What did they do when you said no?” Glade asked.

“Hunting expeditions catering to the vacationing lords and ladies dropped off first, though that wasn’t a big deal. They were our least profitable endeavor by that time. Then we started losing fishing vessels to pirates.”

“Patriarch Holo hired some of the best protection money could buy,” Cirea chimed in, looking proudly at her lord.

“We had the money from the auction house, after all,” Holo laughed bitterly. “Nothing was too good for my people. Their protection has always been, and will always be, my priority. At least, that’s what I told myself.”

“But the pressure got to be too much,” Holo continued. “Our caravans were attacked. Helmund, my business partner who ran the auction house, was under threat daily, and my sponsored mages were being ambushed wherever they went. The attacks were sporadic at first, but they continued to grow until I couldn’t move without some disaster happening. Finally, another offer came in. This time from House Fellu themselves. Give up my shares or suffer the consequences. So, I gave up my shares.”

This last he said with a wicked grin.

“I take it you didn’t do it in a manner that house Fellu found agreeable?” Glade asked.

“Hardly!” Cirea scoffed. “He sold his shares back to Helmund. House Fellu didn’t see it coming.”

“No they didn’t,” Holo said, his smile slowly fading. “I thought we were done with the whole thing. Helmund isn’t interested in creating a house. All he has ever wanted was to be a merchant. I thought I had planned accordingly and found a suitable way out that both kept my honor in tact and allowed me to bow to the might of the greater houses.”

“I was so very, very wrong,” he whispered.

There was another long pause that was picked up by Cirea.

“A ship showed up in our harbor after Patriarch Holo sold off his shares. They tossed crates of plagued rats into the harbor and then poisoned the Water Tiger breeding grounds. We lost so many people…”

There was another long silent moment where everyone processed the story. It was appalling. An act that should have been stopped; the offending party brought to justice. But that was not the way of the world.

The truth was, those with power flourished. Those who didn’t suffered. Glade had seen the aftermath of those with power imposing their will upon the weak too many times to count. But it didn’t have to be that way. Glade had become a soldier so he could stand up against the tyrants of the world. While it wasn’t perfect, he had done a lot of good. He knew, deep down, that anybody could be empowered like he had been.

All they needed was a chance.

“I’m sorry fer yer loss,” Bragden said, folding his arms. “But what has this got to do with us?”

Holo looked first to Bragden, then to Glade, and smiled. It was not the jovial smile he had displayed before.

“Why, revenge of course,” Holo grinned.