“Director Tolish, here are the weekly reports,” his assistant said, handing him a stack of papers.

“Thank you, Vetor, anything of note I should look into first?”

“I have arranged them by significance, Director,” the man preened.

Tolish smiled, happy to have such a competent assistant as Vetor in this strange new world. He did frown slightly when he read the first page. It was a BOLO for a native enchanter. The request came from another Guild representative that Tolish was unfamiliar with.

“Tell me about this Lord Vik’t?” Tolish asked.

“He is from a small house of no real repute. Their family expended all of their capital and secured a Guild loan to come to this world and claim one city. Their family's only claim to fame is enchantments that mimic mind reading. It was debunked by the Guild as a parlor trick and they were censured for misleading classification. The items only let the users see possibilities a few seconds into the future and it is easily countered with a mental block artifact.

“Hmm, thank you for that, Vetor. What about this man they are searching for?”

“That is actually more interesting, Director. Please look at page two.”

The director grabbed the second page and glanced over the information provided. A natural enchanter? That was rather rare. Most enchanters needed a class to be able to make the most of the skill. Unique inventions, cloned tech, and an airship of some sort. Tolish could understand why this Lord Vik’t wanted to get control of this man, not that he particularly cared what this Lord wanted.

Most people outside the Guild saw it as one monolithic organization but that was far from true. It was more a cluster of warring factions that all agreed to limit the outside influence of magical technology. Tolish’s group was mainly focused on trade and didn’t have any specific technological achievement to their name.

This worked well to allow them to become the default trading organization within the Guild. Unlike some of the major houses, like the Dwarven Oligarchs' and their mana cannons or the Syleen and their slave empire built on control collars. Then there were the Shipbuilders who controlled the most popular airship technologies.

Tolish wouldn’t be surprised if the Shipbuilders got involved with this search just to keep this unknown airship technology for themselves or squash it completely. It's just what most houses did to maintain their monopolies. Tolish on the other hand would have liked to come to an arrangement with this man. At least as a subsidiary he would be covered from most of the Guilds predations.

But going by the information provided in the report, the man already disliked the Guild and was an escaped slave. Tolish chuckled when he read that, the Syleen would be incensed knowing that someone had broken their supposedly unbreakable enchantment, not that it was or ever had been very unbreakable. Tolish didn’t like relying on slaves, even former criminals turned to slaves but it was the price of doing business. To keep his costs competitive, he had to use slaves as all of the other Guild traders used them as well.

Tolish quirked an eyebrow as he read the rest of the report. “This is accurate?” he asked his assistant.

“It was triple-checked, Director.”

“Well, that is interesting.”

Apparently, this man was flying around the Isles of Mist in his airship and hunting pirates. Perhaps a meeting wasn’t out of the question. “Alert our agents and ask them to invite this man and his crew to Mohisa for a meeting. Also, tell them to eliminate any Guild agents that come snooping around, or redirect them if possible. I don’t need a bunch of houses muddying up my trade with their infighting.”

“Yes, Director,” the man bowed slightly before leaving the room.

Tolish leaned back in his chair. This was a dangerous game to play when other houses were involved but if he rolled over and let their agents traipse about, they would try and take control, he couldn’t have that. As for this trumped-up lord, he would have no problem squashing him and his desire to build a kingdom. It was bad enough the Syleen were already establishing an empire on this planet, along with a dozen other random Guild houses.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Tolish smiled as he had an idea how to get this Paul Fuller on his side and it wouldn’t cost him much at all.

***

Tu’Cath stared at the utter destruction of his base. He had been out raiding a Dormian convoy as they were always easy targets, and when he returned, the entire cave was destroyed, the ceiling simply missing. It was easy to guess what had happened, as the scrape marks were clearly evident on the stone floor. What he didn’t know was how it happened.

“Reach out to our nearby contacts, I want to know what transpired here, and I want to know now!” he yelled, making his crew fly into action.

“Sir!” one of his communication people shouted, “one of our scouts located the remains of the Ghorla.”

Tu’Cath ground his teeth, “where?”

“The far side of the island. The unburnt sections of the ship show massive damage, so it appears they were in a battle. There are agitated elementals near the site and our scout had to flee before getting a closer look.”

Someone had done this, that much had been clear to Tu’Cath, but who would be so brazen as to attack his holding? Another pirate fleet? No, there was no sign of the normal flotsam associated with that type of battle. Just a few bits of crushed hull floating in the ocean below the island. The massive slab of stone falling into the Ocean probably pushed any other debris away but he didn’t think so. His instincts told him that whoever had attacked was still out there.

“Gather the scouts, it's time to hunt,” he hissed, his forked tongue flicking between his fangs.

***

“Prince Lameen, a moment?” a man asked, running up to him.

Lameen’s guards tensed, but relaxed when they saw who it was.

“Jard, I’m kind of busy, can this not wait?”

The man shook his head imperceptibly. “I wouldn’t wish to keep you from something important, my Prince.”

“My apologies councilor, it seems work calls. I will return momentarily after I deal with this issue.”

“No apologies needed, Prince Lameen, take your time,” the man said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

You old snake, Lameen thought as he went to a secure room a few hallways over. As soon as the door shut, he slapped the man. “You fool, why would you rush into a private meeting like that. Unless the world is coming to an end, you maintain your composure, am I clear?”

The man nodded as he rubbed his face.

“Good, now what is so important that you had to pull me away?”

“Your brother has escaped the island.”

Lameen sucked in a breath, “How? Who would dare, free him?”

“It seems some outsider stumbled upon the island and your brother Barcos managed to convince him to bring his replacement to the island. Then your brother transferred over duty to the new man and relinquished his.”

Lameen cursed, causing the other man to flinch back in surprise. He ignored the servant and started pacing about the room.

Barcos had been a thorn in his side since they were younger. Always more talented, always more handsome, always more liked by the people, despite the fact that his brother wasn’t even in line for succession. It was always meant to go to him or his two younger brothers, not his fourth brother, the son of some concubine whore. Not that succession meant much outside of the house. Unlike a traditional kingdom, the protectorate was run by a committee of the five great houses. With a majority vote by the members being the way matters were settled throughout the kingdom.

It had taken time but Lameen had figured out a way to be rid of his brother’s influence once and for all without killing him. That would have been a recklessly stupid idea. If his brother was one thing it was a fighter. Not that Lameen lacked the ability to fight, it was required by all male heirs to at least put in a token effort by joining the legion for a year. Lameen had done that, as did their late father but Barcos had remained in the legion, despite their father's protests. But knowing how to fight and living in an environment where your daily survival was uncertain was another. When the man finally returned, he came back a monster in human skin which only solidified Lameen’s resolve to be rid of him.

After their father passed, Lameen made his move. He had gotten the man assigned to Hylatty using the excuse that his brother needed time to convalesce after his hardship in the Legion. His reasoning was accepted by the military leadership and Barcos was moved to a dockmaster position. One he was none too happy about but accepted it as a good soldier should.

After his brother arrived at Hylatty, Lameen blocked any attempt for a replacement to take over for him. This turned out to be rather easy since dockmasters needed to submit a form to the Legion headquarters, then wait for a replacement. Intercepting the mail from the remote island wasn’t too difficult, Lameen simply paid the only captain that went to that rock to toss the correspondence overboard.

Barcos must have eventually realized his mail wasn’t arriving. The crafty bastard managed to sneak a formal request through an underworld contact that occasionally visited the island. How this Pirate managed to deliver this message was something Lameen never figured out. Lameen did learn of the letter's arrival though and cut this attempt to get off the island at the knees by paying the replacement to make himself scarce. And for ten years, that had worked.

There was no doubt that Barcos had figured out what had transpired during his forced exile. Even cut off, his brother's underworld contacts had sold him information. Lameen had dealt with that as well, convincing the Jerboan pirate's first mate to turn on their captain. That hadn’t gone as well as Lameen would have liked, producing a much more violent pirate to that area of the Protectorate. But that issue could be solved with judicial force, which was easy.

The hard part was dealing with his monster of a brother. Now the pissed-off monster was out of his cage and Lameen was lacking critical information on where he was or what he was planning in order to resolve the issue.

“Tell me everything you know,” Lameen ordered.