Frankly, the distillery's pollution wasn't necessarily that interesting of a problem for Bernard, at first glance. It didn't do anything to threaten him, and even the pollution that did affect the townsfolk would have been manageable once it wasn't being compounded by the smelting byproducts. Bernard figured he would simply work with the distillery owners to redirect their waste, or maybe limit their usage of the water supply, something along those lines. Before he acted, though, he decided to go for a walk and mull things over. By the end of his loop around the town, he was less confident that he had the right idea than he had been when he started.

Unregulated alcohol production could kill people, or blind them, and the production process itself can injure people if not carefully watched. On top of that, like many economically depressed communities, Bernard had been having some trouble with the amount of alcoholics in the area, who were likely to cause a bigger mess at one point or another. It would be far easier, he thought, if nobody drank at all. Bernard knew that he couldn't stop everyone from doing anything he didn't want them to do, but this distillery might still present an interesting opportunity.

One option he considered was to just embrace it. He could regulate the sales in Lenoran, and enforce steep fines for smuggling it in from other places. Eventually maybe he could regulate production too, if he could ever get control over it.

This might be a good test to see if he could spin a reduction of freedom as a necessary public good; if people hated it, he could always back down a little, and probably no harm would be done. Of course, he knew that people would still make their own bathtub gin or homebrew beer, but the measure of how effective he was in gaining control over them would be how secretive they were about it.

It was worth it to try the experiment. Bernard decided that shutting down this distillery (or getting them to move) would be a good step for him to increase his power, even if it wasn't the way he had planned it. Half-measures would only kick the can down the road, and leaving it be increased the risk too much; this was the best option.

Still, he had to determine how to shut it down. One thing that Bernard had on his side so far was a certain degree of stealth. Nobody except Peter knew he was thinking about the distillery issue, and he hadn't had any direct conversations with anyone. While it wasn't something that he felt like should become a habit - too messy, too dangerous - the first thought that popped into his head was that distilleries are well known to have frequent accidents.

It wouldn't even be clear to anyone that Bernard would benefit from the loss of the distillery, so he wouldn't be suspected, as long as he kept his distance. He couldn't talk to anyone about it, or go visit the distillery, anything like that. The most straightforward approach would simply be to blow the whole thing up...it felt a little bit like using a sledgehammer to tap in a small nail, but it would work.

There was the danger that it wouldn't be a permanently effective solution. Someone was clearly making a lot of profit on it, and had gone to sufficient lengths to hide the operation away from major cities, so they'd probably want to restart operations.

Bernard's best chance was to destroy the distillery, then announce to the people that he understands that they miss it, and that he would be willing to start a regulated one but it would require shutting down the regional border, and not allowing anything from outside to be sold inside. After all, he wouldn't want the government to be seen as interfering with public markets.

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That was a big step, though, and he wasn't sure that people would buy it. Then again, it was just too good an opportunity to pass up. Controlling people's vices as well as their livelihood would really feel like the total package. If the regulated distillery offered them a certain amount free every week or month, like an allowance, they'd have no need to buy it!

Bernard became excited as he plotted it all out. Of course, with the allowance, they could (and would) trade among themselves, creating a secondary market - at the same time, it would give them a feel of autonomy and economy, all while still playing in the confines that Bernard had outlined. Perfect.

He didn't see any reason to wait, so he went and bought a few bottles of whiskey from the same store that he had visited with Timmus. Bernard made casual conversation with the proprietor, telling him that although he had greatly enjoyed the whiskey he had purchased there before, it had been difficult for him to imagine enjoying it again without thinking about the night Timmus died, which made him sad for everyone; however, he was hoping to host a small gathering of community members for a dinner soon, and he knew they'd all like to have a drink or two, so he was going to need some supplies.

Of course, the shopkeeper ate it all up, and thought that Bernard was a wonderful man; he took no time at all in telling him so, either. Bernard thanked the man politely with a vaguely religious-sounding goodbye, and made his way back towards his home, carrying the heavy bottles of alcohol.

Along the way he made a stop at Timmus' old house. Bernard didn't expect to be questioned, but knew that if he was, he could easily make up some excuse about looking for an old ledger or something like that. In truth, he was only going to be there a minute or two anyway. Once inside he grabbed a worn, reasonably non-descript blanket that he had remembered seeing near the fireplace, folded it up, and tucked it under his arm with his remaining purchases. Job done (and with no questions or suspicion - he was certain nobody had even noticed him, in fact), Bernard proceeded home.

He prepared for his evening excursion after dark, cutting the old blanket into long strips of cloth. Once it was fully dark out, Bernard made his way on foot to the area around the distillery, then crept quietly up to it, following the river, where he knew he wouldn't be seen. He couldn't just start throwing flaming bottles at the distillery and hope for a good explosion - there was a chance that somebody would see the projectiles and know that arson was occurring, and if he didn't succeed in burning down the place, he would be hard-pressed to get another chance.

Instead, Bernard crawled along the side of the building to where the large holding barrels were located, and nestled his store-bought jugs between them. Only then did he insert the long strips of cloth into the open tops of the jugs, and light them on fire.

Although not exactly an expert at this sort of thing, Bernard assumed he had a good amount of time before the cloth would burn enough to ignite the bottles' contents; it would have been faster, certainly, had he soaked the strips in the whiskey first, but this gave him more time to clear out anyway. Once they did ignite, however, they should definitely be enough to get the larger barrels to explode, and that would in turn bring the whole place down to the ground. To be safe, though, he'd follow the river again, and duck in if things started getting out of control.

The reaction might be slower than with a pre-soaked cloth, but Bernard knew there wouldn't be time to crawl away; he'd have to stand and run in the dark. He could hear the voices of the men in the building working, and just as he reached the river and ducked out of view, Bernard saw the door open; one of the workers was rolling out another barrel full of whiskey for storage.

The worker must have noticed the lit fuse, Bernard reasoned, but it was too late to do anything about it now. All he could do was run. Bernard fled downstream as quickly as he could, making it only a few dozen paces before the night sky lit up with a huge fireball, and sounds like cannons firing rang through the air at a volume that made his whole chest shake.

The trees and grass all around the distillery were burning. Oh my, Bernard thought to himself as he took in the destruction. On the good side, he supposed, whether he was seen or not nobody would be telling any stories. On the bad side, there was a real chance that fire would spread too far and too quickly, and cause him a whole new problem.