Runeblade

Clasping his hands in front of his waist to stop from balling them into fists, Old Yon didn't bother to suppress his scowl as he walked down one of the few short hallways in his temporary bolthole.

The bunker was austere, even by his standards. Really it was just a collection of blocky rooms that he had paid an earth mage to carve deep into the bedrock a couple dozen leagues northeast of Deadacre.

It was utilitarian enough: he had a storeroom under stasis with enough food for him and twenty men to last a decade, though he had far less magical supplies than he would have liked. Alchemicals had a tendency to degrade, and they did not play nicely with preservation magic, at least not the cheap kind. Artifacts, too — enough of them in one place for long enough could leave a mana signature that might be tracked.

Still, he had his supplies in a storage ring, and the two fools he had brought with him had some meagre belongings.

He grit his teeth, turning the corner to a door. A place to plan — where he could flick through the notes and documents he always took with him.

The place would serve for now. It was one of dozens he had scattered around the region. The Frontier had always been his final bastion; the last redoubt he planned to fall back to if anything went awry.

As far as places to lie low, it was as perfect as a man could hope to get from an inconsequential backwater. A centralized location with access to resources, and trade routes to Mystral, and the Greenseed dukedoms. With the steady stream of Hiwiann caravans that trundled across the rolling fields and open forests, it was practically cosmopolitan.

Despite that, the fact that mana had been practically absent until recently meant that there had been no powers to fear; no true players of the game.

A perfect place to recover, none the less because it was his home of youth. None other than him knew the extent to which his roots went deep around Deadacre and Grandbrook.

He had just never thought he would need to use it. If it had been anyone else to suffer as he had — someone who had not layered contingency upon contingency — they would have been done in long ago.

Stalking across his war room, Old Yon bent over the stone desk he had built into the center many years ago. A map had been carved into its surface: the known regions of Vaastivar. Everything between the start of the icy wastes to the north and the impenetrable forest before them, and the nigh impassible Drozag Mountains with its ruined jungles beyond.

His eyes locked on the carving of a star deep in those dwarven peaks, on the western flank.

Wight's End. A place of power and destiny, where all the strong congregated. Including him, once upon a time.

He scowled, running his hands through his hair. How could this have happened?

Just five years ago he had been attending night auctions and brushing shoulders with Golds and nobility alike. Yet he had made one mistake — trusted one person — and it had been enough to get burned.

Now, even in the very stronghold of his power, his foundations kept crumbling. The integration phase change alone had shattered two dozen operations that had been rebuilding his influence, inching him closer to a higher echelon of power.

Then that nitwit had come to him, speaking of a promising team! It should have been a simple deal: a snatch and grab. With the possibility of new Legacy Skills to leverage in trade, it had been too tantalising to pass up. Blackened bones, even the experience for pulling off a heist like that would have been worth it.

But those fools! He still couldn't believe that Cronte and Torin had let them slip through their fingers. In their incompetence, they had lost him one of his greatest redoubts of power — and half his wealth besides — in the same breath. He would be impressed, if he didn't want to snap their necks.

He wished he could. Unfortunately, his manpower was stretched too thin.

If the loss of his compound hadn't been enough, now the blasted Guild had come down on his head.

All because Cronte and Torin had been too fucking incapable to notice a greater meles in the middle of bloody Deadacre.

He'd known something was suspicious about that team, but who would expect a greater beast to be masquerading as a simple bonded companion? Of course the team had done well; of course the Guild had a vested interest in their protection.

The human and the half-elf meant nothing, but a young greater meles out of the mountains? The Skills it would have, the natural strength of its body…one that young should never have left. Something had happened, and the Guild must have been trying to capitalise on a sudden opportunity. Curry favor.

And he had walked straight into the middle of that fucking diplomatic incident.

Where the fuck had it even come from?

His Skills spun to life as Old Yon's eyes burned with violet fire.

Ribbons of mana pulled half a dozen ledgers from his ring, flipping through pages as fast as he could absorb the words on them. All the while, he scoured his memories.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Moments later, he stumbled across something — a small note he had made about an aligned operative moving through the area, just over two years ago. He had pulled a favor from them after they had asked for information — something about a sword. Easy enough, from its description, it had been a distinctive, eye-catching thing. A few silver pieces here and there had been all it took. The dregs of the city were a valuable resource he plumbed often.

Old Yon snapped a finger. Morton. That had been his name. Some tracker for one of the Fangs in Wight's End. No wonder he'd jumped at the opportunity for the man to owe him a favour — by extension, it was one to someone of real influence in the Temple. A valuable thing.

He ripped through his books, scouring a procession of images that flicked through his mind. He remembered Morton returning with that very same blade. Weak as the man had been, he was skilled in the Game.

Wily as he was, the tracker had tried to cash in the favor immediately — pressing to see if there was any work that needed done. Yon had known better. A man ranging that far, that skilled, that young? With a bloody Fang behind them? They were rising fast.

Before everything had gone to shit, Morton might have been his ticket back to Wight's End in a decade or two.

Still, there had been a sour note. For all the man had insisted he'd succeeded in his task, he was too young by far to pull the wool over his eyes. He might have had the sword, but he'd missed something. Yon had assumed the talk of stumbling on a rare beast cub and losing it was just a cover for incompetence that had lost him his true quarry…but maybe he had not been lying. Maybe it had been his true goal all along?

What if he had found word of a stray meles, and lost it? Not surprising. As good as Morton had been, he was bare Steel, and no one knew the Arboreal Sea like the Meles did — except maybe the elves.

That team he'd come up against was young — young enough for the timelines to match up. For all its strength, the meles had not been anywhere near as powerful as a fully grown one should have been.

What if the meles had run off? Injured, or perhaps lost. The wastrel of a boy might have stumbled across it, perhaps even formed a companionship. Young meles were famously social. If they had bonded, perhaps that was where the boy had learned his skills.

It made sense. Both had healing skills, both were somehow trained in armor. Reports of how they fought had been devilishly similar — enough to truly sell the creature as a simple trained warbeast.

Yes, the boy had magic that was still unexplained, but if they were from delverstock as suspected it wasn't so surprising. Odd skills coming from the children of delvers who had settled far on the edges of the Frontier was not that unheard of.

Still, the fact remained — if the meles was the same beast, it was something he could use. Something like that was a far grander favour owed than a simple collection of rumours.

He'd need to time it well. Making contact now would be foolish — not while his position was so precarious. Players like Morton would smell blood in the water immediately — he might as well wash and bare his neck.

But…once he captured the beast? He'd have proven his capability; shown his strength still remained. If the Fang behind Morton was interested in the beast, bringing it in himself could solve several of his problems. He could even be convinced to cut the Steel into the deal — he was magnanimous, after all.

Still, if he wanted to do that, he needed manpower. He could not take the embarrassments that team had caused him lying down. Not after everything.

One defeat in the high stakes arena that was Wight's End was understandable — everyone suffered one. But something like this? Children crippling his operations, and stealing three storage rings that represented most of his wealth? No. If he let this go unanswered, he was already dead.

Old Yon stared deeply at the engraved mark of Wight's End, wracking his mind. He needed to get back there. It was still his best shot at Platinum — something more important now than ever before.

Ledgers, notes, books of kompromat flew from his ring, dangling on glowing threads. Reading a dozen pages simultaneously, he looked for solutions. He needed men. Powerful ones, that were within his grasp enough to be trusted to perform, and close enough to arrive swiftly.

No matter how far things had slipped, this was the Frontier. His home turf. He had been born here! Spent his first fifty years here! He might have tapped himself dry further afield, but here? He had favours he could call in. Especially if he looked at neighbouring cities — to Mystral, and the ducal cities Roanwheat and Kostrel.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't be able to call on the team that had helped him capture the children. They had long since fled; not undeservedly. If news made it back to the meles — or gods forbid, the elves — that he had captured one of their own…

He steeled his jaw. It wouldn't — not if he succeeded here.

Nine names leapt out to him, all within a couple of weeks travel distance.

Silvers, all of them. Some potentially even higher, considering the age of the favors they owed. There were more, but in a situation this dire, he needed people he could control. People he had dirt on.

People who still needed him. Yon had long since learnt his lesson on trusting honor and promises in his line of work.

Although…

He paused. An old book appeared in his hand, one of his oldest. Long ago, it had been bound in oak-tan leather the colour of sand. Now it was a dark thing — cracked, beaten, and water-stained. The first diary he'd ever started.

He had started keeping them after his parents passed. Yon flipped to one of the earliest pages, flipping to the experience he remembered.

A wire of mana looped under a passage: I met a monster today. Tall as a giant and covered in bone. But he seemed nice, and he was sick. And the snow was coming. So I gave him some soup.

He remembered the night well. The terror he'd felt in his young heart at a beast looming out of the black, silhouetted against the stars. He hadn't been able to move, so sure he was about to be eaten — or gored on the thing's horns.

Yet to his shock the monster had spoken to him. Even with his memory enhancements, he didn't remember the words anymore — only the way it had fallen to its knees. Gods, it had been a horrific creature.

It was almost unbelievable to him now, but he had sheltered it for a full winter without asking anything in return!

Later, much later, he had learned of the Hirgost, of their honor-bound ways. Utter fools to the last. They would rather die than break an oath. And that one he had saved? What could be harder, deeper, or stronger than a life-debt? Something valuable to the now-Gold. It would be risky, considering their sense of honour and their current strength — but everything he knew said the beast would have to assist him.

A worthy risk. If he could secure the lauded Defender, all of his problems would be solved.

Old Yon grinned, summoning parchment and ink to hand as he walked to the smooth rim surrounding his stone map.

He needed to pen a letter.