The rats were arguing again.

They bickered back and forth uselessly from around the table set up in the throne room, mindless in their panic. Raised voices and screamed insults abound in the air as the gathered noblemen and women of the high houses of Herztal gave voice to their panic. All the while, the most worthless of all sat on high in his gilded throne, clutching at the arms of his stolen seat in his own desperation. The fool’s dull green eyes bounced back and forth among his arguing subjects as he searched for a way out of his doom.

Leonard Ashran sat back in his own chair and idly sipped on a glass of substandard wine, watching the puppets dance.

And pondered.

This conflict was coming to an end, he felt. The news about what had happened up in Elderwyck had finally washed over the court. Sources in the city were saying that the apprentice of Grand Marshal Greycton of the Order of the Eclipsed Dawn had slain a Calamity. Many had been highly skeptical of this claim, considering their intelligence on the young man placed him at under level one hundred. The idea of someone who wasn’t even a proper Magi or Cultivator killing a Calamity of all things had been rightfully laughed at by the gathered fools.

That was until it was reported again.

And again.

And again.

The council had stopped laughing then.

Leonard cast his mind back to the confrontation in his long-lost prison. Had this apparent Calamity slayer been present back then? Yes, he eventually decided, he thought he had been. The boy had been wielding a dinky little spear and protecting Greycton’s get, feeling like he had been barely level sixty to his senses. Hah, well. It was likely the boy was beyond level one-hundred now, if he had actually killed something like that.

The former Warden of Caer-Drarrow raised his glass up in salute to the distant Calamity Slayer, ignoring the confused glances he received from nobles about him. They didn’t matter anyway.

Even as opposed as he was to the schoolteacher's little rebellion, he could still admire a near mythical feat like that.

Good show, Nathaniel Hart.

It…did put him in a little bit of a predicament, however.

He had been counting on the Calamity keeping Greycton and his Uprising busy for longer time, after all. Not for it to be slain almost immediately.

Leonard pursed his lips in irritation.

That worthless little bloodsucker had promised him that ‘the Mighty Rhazal’ was more than a match for the Shadowed Sun and his cohort. Apparently, the Chaospawn had overexaggerated the monstrosity’s abilities a tad.

What kind of Calamity was slain by someone that weak?

If she hadn’t already been killed by an unaligned Lich of all things, he would have hunted her down and ended his former ‘collaborator’ for the inconvenience.

Alas, he was going to have to adjust his plans, now that the Vampyr’s gambit had failed. He supposed he had expected a bit much from an old relic like that. Storybook reputations had a tendency to be overblown.

But she had seemed so competent when she had approached him, those years ago. He had just returned from his voyages abroad and had grown increasingly disgusted with the state of Herztalian society. The introduction of those disgusting little abominations that called themselves ‘Sculpted’ had introduced unacceptable sloth into his homeland. The people no longer had a need to struggle in a world where the toils of life were done by automatons. The farmer did not grow in strength from his tilling of the land. The craftsman did not hone his hedge at the practice of his craft. The soldier did not thrive in the clash with the monstrous.

Leonard had seen the Sculpted for what they were, long before the things had started talking back.

A curse upon the future of the human race.

At the time, he had been so disgusted he had pondered simply getting back on his ship and sailing back off into the sunset, never to return. Vereden might have been small, but a life at sea wouldn’t have been so bad. His voyages had introduced him to heretofore unknown tiny islands out on the ocean, absolutely filled to the brim with very strong monsters. More than strong enough to propel him all the way to Paragon.

It would have been a good, simple life.

But…

The bloodsucker had approached him as he was silently bemoaning the state of his homeland in a dockside Elderwyckian bar. When the creature had revealed itself to him, he had nearly assaulted it immediately. Such a vicious relic from the past had no place in modern society, even with its degraded state. However, she had spoken of some…interesting ideas.

Very enticing ones.

For the foolish, of course. That creature had truly lost her edge if she thought she could get one over a scion of House Ashran. But her presence did present another opportunity. One where he could shape the future of Herztal, and Vereden itself.

All he would have to do was outmaneuver the relic when the right time came. He wasn’t frightened by either her or her remnant goddess.

After all, how strong could a divinity possibly be, if they had been driven so completely from these shores? It’s not like anyone actually feared the Mad God these days, and he was still on Vereden in the first place.

And so he’d agreed, always intending to double-cross the beast at the right moment.

No doubt a duplicitous creature like this ‘Nerexxa’ had been intending the same thing.

The bitch.

Only she had bungled her part of the plan. She had completely failed to capitalize on the horde of generated monsters his modified Ward Stones had created. All they had done was create fodder to feed the footsoldiers of the Uprising.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Well, he supposed they had also displaced and possibly slaughtered hundreds of Herztalian citizens, but he considered that a benefit. The weak would either become the mighty, or they would be culled.

Leonard sighed, finished off his glass of wine, and stood up from his chair. At the movement, most of the arguing immediately stopped. Once, the attention would have brought a brief surge of pride. After all, the strong should be admired, and he was by far the strongest surviving asset that belonged to the Kingdom of Herztal.

But now all he felt was contempt. He brushed the peons off and started walking towards the exit of the throne room, letting his gaze idly brush over the emissary from the Principality as he moved. They had arrived the other day, but Leonard hadn’t given the stuntie much of a second thought. They were some knight under the umbrella of the Savoy of middling renown. Strong, but nothing compared to him.

Stonebreaker, he thought the knight’s name was.

“Stop!” Leonard heard from behind his back, ending all conversation in the hall. As much as he wished to leave, he still stopped at that voice, albeit reluctantly. With an annoyed sigh, Leonard turned in place to gaze at the owner in boredom.

His supposed ‘King’

Alaric of House Eisenherz.

The young man was looking a bit rough, these days. He wasn’t managing the stress of the civil war very well, especially now that his own faction was on the decline. His formally thick blond hair had thinned considerably from the pressure, and unsightly, premature wrinkles had sprouted on his forehead and around his thin lips. The ‘King’ had lost weight as well, looking almost sickly in comparison to his former knightly physique. Once upon a time, this man had been a somewhat respectable knight in service to old Otto, the former King.

Before Nerexxa had set her claws in him.

Now the puppet’s strings were cut, and he didn’t even know it. The influence had been impressively subtle, Leonard could admit that much. The creature had gotten very close to the usurper.

It was only a matter of time before some people made the connection to the Vampyr that had surfaced in Elderwyck…

And the young woman who occasionally appeared out of nowhere to cozy up to the former knight.

Leonard wondered if Alaric was starting to make the same connections.

Judging by the sweat on his brow, probably.

“Where are you going, Lord Ashran?” The ‘King’ asked in a high-pitched, stressed voice. “I did not give you leave to vacate the council.”

Leonard kept his face still, even as he wanted to sneer in disgust. Give him leave? He was hundreds of times this upstarts strength. In a just world, this upjumped peacock would have been begging for a chance to serve at his feet.

Alas, this was a slovenly world indeed.

“I suddenly recalled an urgent matter, my King,” Leonard replied in an even tone. When Alaric looked like he would protest again, the monster tamer made something up on the spot. “Research related to the defeat of Headmaster Greycton. I’m afraid it can’t wait.”

That was a blatant lie. Leonard liked to consider himself a pragmatist. He had already matched himself against that old monster and been found wanting, as much as he loathed the idea. There was no point in trying to duel the Shadowed Sun once more. It would likely be centuries before he could prove his superiority to the schoolteacher.

Alaric brightened up at the offered bait. He nodded grandly, as if Leonard's exit had been his intent all along. “Go, Lord Ashran. I would not keep you from your training.”

It was so, so difficult not to roll his eyes, but Leonard did so anyway. He nodded shortly at the fool and pivoted on his heel, striding out of the room. As he walked through the halls of the palace, Leonard felt a brief burst of regret at what he was going to be giving up shortly. He would miss the comforts of nobility.

But adversity bred strength, and the isles awaited him. Leopold could keep the Ashran Lordship, the great oaf.

It was time to vacate the shores of his homeland.

At least until he had become a Paragon.

Leonard picked up his pace at the pleasing thought.

…………………………………………………..

Once he had reached the Ashran family manor, he dismissed all of the servants for the day. They were confused, but by this point, used to his peculiarities and didn’t question his motives. Once they had vacated the premises, he got to work packing the things he would need on his journey out to sea. Alas, he could not take the entire Ashran family library with him, but there were certain tomes he absolutely could not live without.

Before he knew it, Leonard had filled several large crates with the equipment, supplies, and a certain amount of frivolities he would need on his long, self-imposed exile. Once done, he nodded to himself and ventured down into the basement for a gruesome, but necessary task.

After all, he couldn’t exactly bring along his experiments in monster breeding on his ship, could he?

They would all have to be culled. He couldn’t leave even the slightest hint as to the direction of his research. He would never know another moment’s peace if it was discovered he was trying to recreate the Lost’s experiments on Calamity creation.

The entire kingdom would likely be bent towards his capture and execution.

The regretful task of destroying his experiments only took him the barest few minutes, and when he had finished, Leonard helped himself to another parting bottle of wine in his large, expansive kitchen. He saluted the air with a glass full of a truly delectable Rosé. “Fair you well, my erstwhile children,” He said dramatically, before turning in the direction of the castle and sneering in its direction through the walls. “And good riddance to you, you sniveling little shit. You are unworthy of your throne, and thus my loyalty.”

Throwing aside all propriety, Leonard picked up the bottle and guzzled it down, throwing it into a corner once finished. As the bottle shattered into pieces and he opened his eyes once more, Leonard startled in place at what he found.

There was a dwarf sitting on the counter in front of him.

Leonard stared at the incongruous sight for a moment. “What…?” He breathed.

He may be a tad bit inebriated, but his magical senses were still unhindered.

Leonard hadn’t felt the dwarf arrive at all. It was as if he had simply appeared, from one moment to the next. After a moment of silent staring, he actually recognized the dwarf.

It was that knight from earlier, Stonebreaker.

Said knight leaned forward over his knees, bizarrely cupping his helmeted chin in one gauntleted chin to stare at him. “My my,” The dwarf said mildly. “What is this I see, but the Crown's last hope abandoning it? Are you perhaps preparing to flee, Lord Ashran?”

Leonard immediately leveled one open hand at the dwarf and loosed the strongest Spell he could at short notice. A mass of jagged blue crystal, taller than the dwarf, appeared in front of his palm and streaked through the air to spear at the intruder. The air howled from the sheer velocity of the missile.

The dwarf, almost boredly, raised one hand and caught it out of the air. He examined the crystal almost idly for a moment, as Leonard gaped in open-mouthed shock. “Who…” He breathed. “Who are you? You can’t simply be a minor knight. Not with that strength.”

Through the dwarf’s helmet, Leonard saw his jet-black eyes flick up at him. Almost nonchalantly, he crushed the crystal spire in his mailed fist, sending a glittering cloud of dust floating to the floor of the kitchen. After a moment of contemplation, the dwarf reached up and removed his helmet, baring his face to the world.

Leonard felt the blood run out of his face at the sight. It had been a long time since he had seen this person, but he still recognized them. Years and years ago, he and Leopold had been in attendance, during a meeting between King Otto and the Dwarven Princes. This dwarf had been in attendance, nearly suffocating the court from his sheer presence alone.

“Anguis of Savoy…”

Prince Anguis, Lord of House Savoy. Chainmaker of the Principality.

The Serpent.

A small, thin smile touched the lips of the dwarf as he caught Leonard’s eyes. “I have a proposition for you, Lord Ashran,” The dwarf nearly purred. “Before you leave. Stay awhile and listen.”

Leonard steadied his breath, holding the gaze of the dwarf he knew was stronger than he was. Carefully, he copied the dwarf and hopped up onto the counter opposite of him, uncaring about the indignity of the maneuver.

None of that mattered now, in a negotiation of true power.

He nodded at the Prince, gesturing with an open hand. “Make your case, Serpent.”

The smile on Anguis’s lips…

Widened.