Chapter 46: 46.

Spying on Konistan is surprisingly amusing. He never realized I generously seeded his whole place with eyespiders. By now, they have had dispersed to every place he has dealings with. So, to sum it up. He is rattled by our meeting and intends to pretend he is doing what I told him. Taking gold and leaving. Of course, the instructions he leaves are different. He instructs that I am to be listened to, smiled at and politely ignored as much as possible, or in case I give direct orders - do bare minimums in a way that makes it easy to reverse, otherwise stick to normal operations, wait for instructions from him. I believe he is intentionally promulgating the idea that he is using me to take the fall for something he did, and would be back to take control as soon as I'm arrested or assassinated. His second in command, notably, receives the same instructions, but unlike everyone else, also sends a letter about it somewhere else. The guy is also notably rattled. I think he expected a somewhat different outcome of the meeting.

I wonder where Konistan is going. Given the arrangements he made, I surmise he intends to travel by sea, because he travels south. Confederacy, perhaps? Or further on? Or maybe he just doesn't want to get near dad's duchy and intends to get to Kraut via Mittelzea? Anyway, he has a carriage prepared for him... And, apparently, he decided to pick up some extra cash taking passengers. Why, hello there, former professor Hardlock, long time no see. I think I'm going to kill two birds with one stone, here. Ooh, they're talking! And Hardlock just started ranting. Ooh, and here Vole goes wide-eyed. Wonder why. Did he not expect to pick up someone else who has a grudge against me?

The carriage stops outside the town a good ways off. Huh. This must be Vole's pal handling illegal matters more closely. Interesting kit this guy has. I gotta nab him soon. The rest of the day proves to be a boring one, but things start heating up in the evening. Vole and his pal step out for a word.

"So what's the deal? I read your letter, did you seriously run from one prissy bitch?" - his pal begins - "What's going on? I don't believe this shitty story you spun one bit, Vole! If she were truly leaning on you that hard, you have enough people willing to slide some knife into a noble back for a bit of coin."

"Shh. Not so loud. Yeah, I was thinking things over, and I'm smelling a rat." - he retorts - "See, this whole thing? Maxie's tip. He found the bitch, he told me she's easy pickings, he 'forgot' important details like she's still fucking betrothed to the royal family. Just to the princess instead of the prince. Geez, I'd love to be a fly on the wall on that wedding night..."

"Yeah, yeah. Vole, head in the game, pal. You think Maxie's setting you up? He's been operating real loose for a while, yeah, but he never did anything that overt before." - his fellow grumbles - "This stinks. Why would he suddenly set you up like this? Think that broad's got him over something?"

"Damned if I know, Kaste. I think we're going to lay low for a while. If they're in cahoots, then we can expect Maxie to start getting his mitts on the shops and drop my name in every ear. Then we'll just have our local associates pull him in for a nice lazy talk." - Vole replies with a shudder - "Damn, it's chilly when the sun's down. I'm more worried about the witch. She could do some crazy shit without any flower showing up. So either she has something to keep'em nice and safe, or we're really screwed."

"Might be second, actually." - Kaste offers - "I've put out some feelers, and get this? The rumor goes, that whatever is that bee shit going on in Sultanate? Gillespie's the one who tossed it their way."

"Crap. Shit. Merde. Drek. Scheisse! ДЕРЬМО!" - pacing around, Konistan starts waving his arms as he considers the implications - "Meaning she might have NOT been fucking bluffing that evening when she killed Uz and told me to get out of country or else. Ok, change of plans. That fucker with me? Has her attention on him. Didn't find out until he started ranting on the road, or I would've told him to find someone else to ride with. He needs to... get lost. I gotta go be seen at the hall. Take care of him for me? I'll owe you one."

Kaste scratches his head - "...Fine. But you're going to owe me solid for this one, brother. It's sad enough I have to pretend to be your lackey."

Vole waves his hand dismissively, as he heads back in - "Once we're in Mersaille, pick your pub and drink all you want, I'll cover the bill." His brother (Huh, they don't really look alike... But share common features. Different living standards really turn things around.) grins and steps back into the alley. The conversation he has with Hardlock is surprisingly simple - he simply tells the prissy idiot that someone knocked over his chest and Hardlock flutters out of his seat to go check. I guess petty thievery is a common problem.

Or maybe Hardlock is having some sort of glassware in his chest and is doublechecking on it. Huh. Go figure. Why is he so protective of those vases? Must be antiques or something enchanted maybe. Kaste steps behind Hardlock. Quiet-like, he obviously is used to not being heard. I wonder what... Ooh. Huh. A knife makes an appearance and introduces itself hilt-deep into Hardlock's liver, a short twist and jank ripping the liver in two halves with the tip of the blade, and is swiftly pulled back, while a free hand muffles the surprised yelp. An experienced murderer, it looks like. I can see him lowering the body on the ground silently. The knife is stuck into the ground between the paving stones, ostensibly to clean off the blood... and this is when I strike. My eyespiders have not been idle and had collectively eaten enough out of the inn's larders to give me a full body operational mass. So when I step out of the alley behind Kaste, I do it in my human form.

He... Is surprisingly light. I'm not exactly confident in my ability to land an instant kill with a knife, and so I opt for a conjured loop of steel wire. Garrote is a very convenient tool. Especially if you have some idea how to use it. And DOUBLY so if you can grow extra arms on demand. So this is exactly what I do - grow a pair of extra arms and step up. The lower pair grabs Kaste under the armpits and holds him aloft like a kitten, while the upper pair loops a wire around his neck and pulls on it. Not too hard, I remember about having superhuman might this time and opt for slow and steady strangulation instead. Admittedly, it might be less pleasant to Kaste than an instant wire decapitation that would happen if I just yanked on the wire hard, but his personal feelings on the matter are less important than the fact he's not going to make a mess... I SAID, NOT GOING TO MAKE A MESS, GODS DAMN IT! Why did you have to go and piss yourself... oh, wait. Heh. This is not piss. Dude actually had a hangman's boner. Go figure.

Dropping the dead body unceremoniously, I turn to check on Hardlock. He is... still alive. Barely. Just enough to make a gurgle and go silent on seeing my face. Oh well. I daresay, there are less pleasant sights to die to. Still... I close Hardlock's eyes with my fingers, and sigh. I guess I need the last actor in this here. But to do that... Oh. Gah. Ew. Ok, SO... Let's quickly dispose of Kaste. I don't want to eat the body whole, it would be extremely weird and unnecessarily sexual and morbid and oh gods why did I have to think of that. Ew ew ew ew. Ok. Pulling one of the Hardlock's spare sheets (Yes, he has bed sheets in his chest. Don't ask me why.), I start dealing with Kaste piece by piece. Brain, eaten. Musclemass - mostly eaten. Bones - partially eaten. Internal organs - ew no, bad condition, low nutrients, dump dump dump. Blood... ew, no, he has a pretty nasty case of malaria, boil and evaporate, dump the dry remnant. Skin, shred and dump. In the end, I have a nice little roll that I'm going to take somewhere really secluded and burn the fuck out of.

Stretching out, I take the shape of Kaste and stroll into the inn. Vole grins upon seeing me, but his grin falters when I motion for him to come and disappear back into the backyard. He shows up a moment later, huffing. "What do you want!?" - he hisses - "I can't be seen next to the.... grrk!" The last is said when I turn around and run a knife through his solar plexus, squeezing his throat to silence him with the other hand. "Brother, WHY!?" - he manages to choke out, and I let the shape flow back to form my own. His eyes widen comically and I can feel him starting to shut down, as excitement runs out his last few bits that much sooner.

"Did you honestly think I'd settle for just kicking you out of the country, you little shit?" - I tell him pleasantly - "I just wanted you somewhere quiet, dumbass. For fuck's sake, you should have been running day and night and have four people watching you at all times if you wanted to live long enough to cross the border." He dies without comprehension, I feel, because his face remains a mask of painful surprise even as I detect his brain shut down for good. I drop him on the ground and continue with the plan 'Highway Robbery'. The aforementioned plan includes me nudging bodies to be closeish, and adding some scuffle to make it look like Hardlock was stabbed in the back while he was poking through his chest, and then his assailant was in turn grabbed by Vole who got stabbed in the chest for his troubles. Then the assailant grabbed the obvious valuables and hightailed it, leaving the knife stuck in Vole's chest in a hurry.

But this leaves me with a burden. I have a bunch of vases from Hardlock's chest (want not, waste not and all that, besides they're obviously expensive and I had to take them because otherwise my set up stage would look odd), the whole chest of money that Vole "got" from me in exchange for his businesses and a bunch of assorted knick-knacks that look obviously expensive (Hardlock's coat clasp and cufflinks, Konistan's neck chain and a couple of rings from his fingers, a fairly nice pocket watch, I might even keep that one for personal use, an ornate knife from his belt... Nice haul.). How to carry it homewards without being seen? After some rumination, I take a cue from yet another game I played, morphing myself into something vaguely resembling an organic cargo blimp. It actually works better than I expected, I'm making good time. Squids have a pretty good propulsion system, if you really think about it. If the wind keeps its current direction, I estimate I'm going to be back at the estate two hours before sunrise. Yesss, all according to keikaku.

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Far away, in a comfortable bed, I mumble something nondescript, pulling whoever is in front of me a little closer. I think it's Bridgit. Or maybe Lily-Anne. Too asleep to care.

___

Morning presents me with another problem. I have located Maximilien Verwaand, and would you guess it? I recognize him. He is the dude who suggested the idea and hired the brigands to kill Bridgit's dad. Second in command of Konestan trading house is apparently answering to Klaus, if the clues I found at his place are of any indication. I have decided to check on him after hearing from Vole that it was he who pointed me out as a potential mark, and I was not disappointed. Oh, was I ever NOT disappointed. Apparently, he had served Klaus since his teens, always presenting himself as a merchant (and let us be fair, getting pretty good results out of it), while acting as a spy.

Maxie is found in bed, tied, gagged and taken back to my estate before the sunrise. This is my present for Bridgit. Now, let us make the final act of this drama happen. Taking on his shape, I visit several of the businesses he is expected to have free reign of. Each one, I visit, act like I'm in a hurry, "check ledgers" and grab as much gold as I can out of coffers. The story will be that Maxie indeed planned to doublecross Vole, got him successfully killed, and then disappeared with the money. Later on, he would be fished dead out of the river, and the remains of Vole's organization will hopefully arrive to the conclusion that Kaste took offense to Maximilien murdering his brother, did the revenge and then took the moneys and went off into retirement somewhere far away. I can see people starting to be suspicious as I clean out the last business, but they are not fast enough to stop me. Maybe if they were a little quicker on the uptake, I'd have to do a runner, but as is, the narration is "and you let him go!". Good. That will give me a good starting issue to legitimately apply pressure over.

Lessons pass slowly. I spend this time using my alternate self to interrogate Maximilien on all that he knows. Pro-tip. It is entirely possible to conjure sodium thiopental in the accompanying syringe. Maxie readily remembers Christoff and admits he was "a problem" and that he "wouldn't cooperate". He also admits, somewhat curiously, that the idea to kill Christoff was his. Klaus was actually displeased with the suggestion once the consequences became obvious and had forced Maximilien to become second in command to Konistan instead of being his own boss. Admittedly, Klaus was mad not because someone died, but because having someone killed for not cooperating had fractured the merchant guild in Kraut into factions that proceeded to wage cold war on each other, making it necessary to cultivate a separate network of contacts within each faction. The split is still going strong, by the way, Maxie really fucked things up. This is also why he ended up in Champagne - keeping him in Kraut merchant circles was just too divisive for Klaus to tolerate.

In the afternoon, I pick up Bridgit and venture to the estate, on the premise of "handling some domestic issues". She is more then a little surprised to see Maximilien tied to the chair in the cellar.

"Mistress, who is this?" - she frets, obviously discomfited by the situation.

"This, Bridgit, is the man who killed your father." - I tell her and her whole countenance changes like I flipped some kind of switch. "Oh? Tell me more, please." - she offers with a smile that shows no warmth, but all the teeth.

Over the next fifteen minutes, I explain to her the sequence of events, inject Maxie with fresh dose of thiopental so he could confirm (he's beaten down enough that he would talk even without it, but I wanted to show Bridgit that I have a way to make people talk without torturing them) and gag him again.

"Do you want to kill him yourself?" - I ask Bridgit - "Or watch me do it? Or you'd rather step out while I handle it?"

She sighs. "...I... Don't think I can do it myself, mistress. But if you are going to do it, then I believe I owe it to you and to my father to see it happen."

I hug her. "Shh. It's alright. I'm actually glad you don't want to do it yourself. I need someone to be a voice of conscience at times." - I tell her before pulling back - "Alright then."

She... winces as I step around the chair and throw the loop of wire around Verwaand's neck, biting her lip and looking away as he chokes and wriggles, his legs beating against the chair as I strangle him. I try to do it as quickly as it is reasonable without splashing everywhere with blood. As he stills, I drop the wire loose and return to Bridgit, hugging her around the waist with one hand as I point with other and snap my fingers. The chair disappears from under the freshly made cadaver and it falls on a sheet of tarp I put there just for this. Another gesture rolls the body up and deposits it into the corner to be disposed of later.

Bridgit sighs deeply, and turns to me, hiding her face against my chest. "I was thinking of this so long." - she sobs - "And I finally have my revenge. Why does it feel so bad now?"

I pat her hair. "Because you're a good person?" - I tell her simply - "Because you understand that two wrongs don't make a right, even if justice has to be served. But mainly, because now you have to acknowledge that your father is truly and completely gone and avenging him did not bring him back. I'm sorry you have to."

She sighs. "Thank you, mistress." - she offers softly - "For seeing after me, no matter what it takes."

I smile at her - "You're welcome, my dear wife." As corny as it was, it seems to cheer her up a lot.

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