“What a mess,” ‘Vincenzo Stonebreaker’ said to himself, clucking his tongue and shaking his head. Following his interaction with the slave that had killed the boy, he’d checked on a few things before retreating to the highest place in town to get a better look at the situation.

That turned out to be the roof of this ridiculous manor. He didn’t think he could stay up here long, though. The fire was already spreading to this very building.

Speaking of the fire…

‘Vincenzo’ cast an eye out over the town of Addersfield. Even with just a cursory glance, he could tell that it was lost. Hell, it didn’t even look like the fields were salvageable. The blaze was already raging in some of the surrounding crops, even if it hadn’t reached the main portions yet. It was only a matter of time, though. The fields were too closely packed together. The fire would rip right through the entire plantation before long. Despite everything that had been invested in this little project, it was all a loss.

Perhaps he should have listened to Orinbar about the density of the fields after all. The dwarf had told him plenty of times that they were pushing this land to the absolute brink with the variety of products they were growing. Even with the agricultural potions they'd been using liberally, the soil here was nearly a dried-out husk with how hard they’d been pushing it.

‘Vincenzo’ glowered down in the direction of the boy’s corpse at the thought of Orinbar. Orin had served faithfully for decades, never bothering with troublesome questions. He had quite honestly been one of, if not the most capable administrator in the entourage of House Savoy. It had been why he’d been assigned to this little experiment. Only now he was dead, cut down in a fit of madness by the boy. It had been easy to tell the slave had been telling the truth, with his advanced senses and skills. A quick check in the former Seneschal’s office before he’d come up here, and he'd merely confirmed the matter. By now, ‘Vincenzo’ was used to the evidence of the now-dead Heir’s proclivities. Magnus had most definitely been the one to kill Orin.

Hmm, thinking of the slave, he wasn’t sure if that one could be called a slave after all. With the loss of his collar, he was no doubt going to flee the Principality for Herztal. It would be extremely difficult to track him now, without a collar. In normal times, he could simply go through certain back channels within the Kingdom and have the property returned to its rightful place, but that was unlikely to happen now. What with the civil war, and all. ‘Vincenzo’ allowed himself a brief moment of smugness at the thought of that whole situation.

House Savoy seemed to be losing more than just one slave, though. ‘Vincenzo’ was easily able to peer across the distance and see that Azarus the disappointment was organizing the rest of the slaves with the help of a merchant. He was cutting down guards left and right, and rounding up the slaves in a caravan that would most likely lead into Herztal.

He hoped the fool enjoyed his exile from the ledgers of House Savoy. The raven-blooded half-breed would only be able to count on minimal support from the Florens now. They didn’t think much of people with Savoy blood running through their veins, no matter how closely related to their Prince.

No doubt this entire plan was a scheme cooked up by the Headmaster. ‘Vincenzo’ couldn’t help but be amused at how bloodthirsty of a plan it was. It had been expected that the wily old man would eventually find a way to free himself, but not this way. Even now, ‘Vincenzo’ could feel the Aether building in the surroundings, as more and more monsters were spawned from a Breakage Effect. Gods, it had been a long time since he’d seen one of these. Most people these days were too soft to consider initiating one.

He supposed old Greycton really was just from another age.

No doubt the old man was down there in one of those wagons right now, crowing to himself about the success of his plan. He’d managed to manipulate both his captor and a slave into doing all the dirty work without lifting a finger. A truly spectacular performance, from the Lord of the Academy.

However, now ‘Vincenzo’ was in a pickle. He supposed he had a few options open to him. He could stay and fight off the hordes of monsters that would no doubt be descending on the town soon. No doubt that would be well over a week of constant fighting, though. He wouldn’t do it for the surviving townsfolk and guard, though. He didn’t give a damn about them. No, if he stayed, it would be to protect the massive amount of agricultural products that had been secretly gathered since the inception of this project.

He wasn’t sure it was worth it, though. Not only was he exasperated with the way this entire situation had played out, but he wasn’t sure the stockpile was valuable enough to expend the effort over. The Addersfield project had only been in operation for six months, after all. He’d seen the reports that crossed Orinbar’s desk. It was estimated that the stockpile only held around twenty thousand gold worth of supplies.

A pittance, when compared to the greater wealth of House Savoy.

Beyond even that…

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He simply didn’t want to expend the effort.

No, better to leave for now. Perhaps in a few months, when the monster surge in the area had died down, he would see that a force was sent to this area to retrieve the supplies. The town would no doubt be emptied of inhabitants by that point, and it would be much simpler to retrieve the stockpile then.

The slaves were all leaving, anyway. Very soon the town would be empty. Well, at least when the worthless townspeople were devoured by the surge. The stockpile would be perfectly safe in that time.

It’s not like the monsters would seek it out.

Satisfied with his chosen course of action, ‘Vincenzo’ mentally reached out to a certain mental thread. Strumming it, he caught the attention of the person on the other end. They responded with a vague sense of exasperated surprise, along with a question. ‘Vincenzo’ mentally responded with an affirmative.

It was time for him to leave.

The presence on the other end acquiesced, and dissolved the mental bond that maintained ‘Vincenzo Stonebreaker’.

With a shimmer, the construct dwarf dissolved into a fine mist of shimmering blue mana. His armor and weapons clattered down onto the roof of the manor, rolling off of the angled surface onto the ground below.

The only thing that marked where the ‘dwarf’ had stood was the green and gold Savoy tabard he had been wearing, soon to be burned to ash by the flames engulfing the manor.

………………………………………

Hundreds of miles away, in an office richly decorated in green and gold, a dwarf paused in the middle of scribing his signature on a document. Slowly, he leaned back in his extravagantly decorated, massive chair and folded his hands over his stomach.

Well.

Hmm.

That didn’t go quite how he’d wanted it to.

Prince Anguis of House Savoy furrowed his dark brow at the memories his skill-born clone had fed to him. The persona of ‘Vincenzo Stonebreaker’ was an old favorite of his, and he’d used it many times over the years. Nobody, not even the now apparently deceased Orinbar, knew about the subterfuge. It was easy to be in two places at once, when you had a Unique Skill that let you spawn a clone slaved to your will. Well, at the cost of being weakened by half, as well.

The only problem was that his clone skill wasn't able to be maintained indefinitely. Every few days, he had to cancel the skill and wait for it to recharge before recasting it. It only took a few hours to recharge, so his clones were well used to simply finding an excuse to wander away for that time so he could be dissolved. While 'Stonebreaker' had been in Addersfield, that excuse had been to wander into the forest for some stress relief via monster killing. No actual killing ever happened, though.

However, the limitations of his ability had come back to bite him in this case. He'd cancelled his clone earlier in the day, and had stayed up past his usual bedtime in order to recast it. Only, his slave had found that the town had been on fire and his current heir slaughtered by a slave. What a pain. Now his clone skill was on cooldown again, after an early cancelling.

Anguis unlaced his hands and began to drum his fingers on the desk. With the loss of Addersfield, his plans would be set back a fair bit. Not terribly so, he admitted to himself. Addersfield was far from the only stockpile plantation he had.

He spared a brief thought for his lost heir in Magnus, before snorting in disgust. The boy had never learned restraint. In retrospect, that particular spawn had come from poor stock. He should have known when the dam had perished in childbirth. He hadn’t given a whit about the boy’s proclivities before it had started to become too public. At that point, he’d decided to give him just enough rope to hang himself with. Either he’d succeed in his posting at Addersfield, or his obsessions would lead to his death. Hells, he’d even sent a clone to observe the proceedings.

He wasn’t surprised that the boy was dead.

Oh well.

He had spares. What a pain it was, choosing a new one to train up. Hopefully, his new one would be even better behaved before the eyes of his court.

The larger problem was now Headmaster Greycton. No doubt he’d be traveling with all possible haste to Herztal, to settle their little civil war once and for all. The country was about to become a much more hostile place for his agents and beneficiaries inside the Kingdom. Briefly, Anguis wrote down a note to remind himself to recall the agents that were still valuable to him, and burn both the ones that weren’t. Including all his human puppets.

Still, while the length of the Headmaster's imprisonment was shorter than he would have liked it to be, it had served its purpose. He’d accomplished the goal he’d set out for, while he’d been out of the picture. Anguis allowed himself a brief, self-satisfied smirk.

He wondered how the notoriously tricky Headmaster had managed to break his bond. Not only that, he seemed to have broken the bond of that one slave, as well. He'd certainly found himself with a nicely obedient little assassin.

Standing up from his chair, Anguis walked over to stand in front of the large window in his office. Just outside of it lay the city of Vittolia.

His city.

While it wasn’t quite as beautiful as that hole Rhoscara, it held far more power within the Principality. After all, Vittolia controlled nearly sixty percent of the dwarven agricultural market. Nobody could survive on an empty belly. Not for long.

Gazing out across his markets and shops and nobles and peasants, Anguis once again felt a familiar certainty settle on his shoulders.

Yes.

This was the way. This was how he’d bring dwarven kind into pre-eminence on the continent.

By his guiding hand.

Anguis allowed himself a brief moment of calm, before turning his mind to other matters. After all, before he’d left, he’d seen a curious thing from the human that had killed his son.

A skill that he was one hundred percent certain had belonged to Magnus.

Concentrating briefly, Anguis searched the depths of his mind for the slave's name. He was sure he’d seen it on one of Orin’s dreadfully dry little reports. After a moment, he recalled it.

“Nathan Hart,” Anguis mused to himself before smirking slightly. “What curious abilities you have.”