Chapter 554: Chapter 538 – Underworld Contact

“No matter how clean a place looks, more often than not there would be a criminal underworld hidden beneath. Except the Lichdom, maybe. Too many skeletons already waiting beneath for any sort of underworld to even set root there.” - Ilya Varkoff, crime lord of Eastern Elmaiya, circa 382 VA.

As it turned out, the impromptu good deed the three had done in the village – they ended up saving over half of the village’s populace, as some had unfortunately lost their lives before their arrival – ended up helping them as well. The villagers vouched for them when they reached the next town with them in tow, which helped them gain entry despite being strangers.

 

With the village’s populace vouching for their saving them, it made things far easier for Aideen, Kino, and Eilonwy to obtain passage and an entry permit to the capital of the Emirate, a city named Shahadur, after the first Emir of Urvan. There they went to meet with their local contact, who was amusingly enough, the ruler of the city’s underworld criminal elements.

 

Except that they had exposed themselves already by then, pledging their support to the younger brother in exchange for pardons and a chance to start life anew. They had cleverly taken an opportunity to help save the life of the younger brother when his older brother tried to kill him in the capital, using their knowledge of the underground routes to bring the young Emir to the safety of his palace where he managed to rally those loyal to him and force his older brother to flee on that fateful day.

 

The young Emir was naturally grateful to his saviors, and despite some protests, gave them the pardons they asked for as well as a reward to help them start life anew as honest citizens. Of course, all those would wait until after the conflict was over, as for the time being, the criminals worked together with the young Emir’s intelligence people to scout out the older brother’s actions.

 

Honestly, that change just made it easier for Aideen’s group to pay a visit to them without raising undue suspicions. After all, a group of reformed criminals would attract some curiosity, and since the three had proven to be very capable of handling themselves, their visit to the former criminals mostly went unnoticed by the locals.

 

After an exchange of gestures, the underworld boss welcomed Aideen, Kino, and Eilonwy as honored guests. His men clearly had questions, but did not dare to question their superior. Fortunately, what the three women had done to save a village was common knowledge by that point, so there were many reasons other people could infer as to why they were received so warmly.

 

Aideen further topped it off by having Eilonwy hand over a list of what troop movement they noticed while they snuck through the war-torn land until they reached the village in question. It was not that much, but every little scrape of information helped with the war effort. 

 

Their informant – the crime boss – also explained that the older brother had an advantage at the moment since he could split his troops to strike all over the Emirate, while the younger brother had to defend his people, which forced him to take a more passive stance. Even the criminals had gathered their people and formed hit squads to take down raiders that entered their territory.

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Because the raiders that followed the older brother did not care about the civilians, and while the criminals also preyed on the civilians, they were well aware of the logic that a predator could not survive if all the prey were eaten. As such, they banded together in defense of their own livelihoods, something that helped make the young Emir appreciate the pardons he had granted them.

 

Understandably, most of the information the crime boss – named Zayid – revolved around the current conflict that the Emirate was embroiled in, and the circumstances that led to it. While it was not always the case, it was quite common for the oldest child to inherit the position of the Emir, but the late Emir had felt that his oldest son was cruel and unfit for rulership, and chose his younger son instead.

 

That decision was what instigated the whole mess, as the older brother felt maligned by their father’s choice and tried to forcibly take the position by enacting a coup on the day of his younger brother’s investiture. The coup failed and the elder brother was forced to escape, but he possessed a good bit of personal wealth with which he rallied soldiers and mercenaries to his cause, leading to the current situation.

 

The war situation posed a different problem for Aideen and her group, however. The older brother’s faction currently controlled the borders and outer regions of the Emirate, while the young Emir and his supporters were confined to the interior, mostly to the area closer to Shahadur itself. Sure, Aideen could sneak out together with Kino and Eilonwy the same way they came in, but that idea left a bad taste in her mouth.

 

Like it or not, when she let the girls kill those soldiers and save the villagers, they were already involved with the situation, and Aideen didn’t like leaving things undone behind her. It was definitely not part of their work to mess with the local political situation, though in this case their agents were clearly on one side’s good graces already and they also had a plausible excuse for interfering, given the atrocities the other side seemed to have no issue committing.

 

As such, once Zayid had briefed them about the local situation in its entirety, Aideen asked him whether he would have room for three more people in one of his hit squads. Kino and Eilonwy immediately understood what Aideen meant by that question and gave their tacit consent as they nodded along with it. Neither girl liked what they had seen, and they would have felt bad about leaving the people of the country to be ruled by someone who was willing to go that far just to gain power for himself.

So they would do something about it.

 

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