Sacrifice Mage

I was a little awkward at first. Yulien stood smug before me, well aware that he held a lot of the cards in this impromptu little meeting. He wasn’t alone, though. The Vaunted stood a little farther back, tall and pretty, her powerful aura simmering just below the surface of sensation.

“Yes, welcome,” she said. Her slight singsong voice was once again kind of distracting. Her New Zair had improved by leaps and bounds. “It’s good to finally see you making the right choice.”

I bowed, Zairgon style. “Don’t get ahead of yourself, Lady Vaunted. Do you mind if we get right down to business?”

“Not at all,” Lord Yulien Seltvin said. His jagged smile meant that our little fight was still fresh on his mind, but I decided to ignore the tension. I had more important things to deal with. “I get the impression you’re a busy man. But yes, let us get down to it. You wished to acquire funds from Claderov for your… ventures?”

Every moment I was here made me feel like I was in a den of serpents. Even if the lord and his superior were the only ones meeting us, I could tell that this exchange would be common knowledge for the entire delegation from Claderov soon enough.

“I did,” I said. “A small loan. Well, small for you, most likely. But I’ve got the collateral prepared.”

He held out his hand expectantly. “Of course.”

“What exactly would you be using twelve million gold on, Mage Moreland?” Vaunted Auriam asked. “The letter didn’t state that, just that you wanted this meeting…”

I handed Yulien the official document I had procured from the Adventurer’s Guild. “I just need a small infusion of cash to… take care of some business.”

He looked down at the paper for a good long moment, a small frown enhancing the lines already etched on his brow. “You’re giving up your claim to the Nether Vein until the entirety of the money has been returned?”

“Correct. And to sweeten the deal…”

Linak cleared his throat and stepped forward. “A fully-functioning Starlamp. Compliments of our venture, Lord Seltvin, Lady Vaunted.”

Yulien nudged his chin to a table on one side. As Linak placed our gift there, his attention once more returned to the matter at hand. “This much money… what ever for do you need a sum like that?”

“I think you’ll find out soon enough, my lord,” I said. “What do you say? Deal?”

While Yulien’s expression remained neutral, the Vaunted made a show of thinking it over. Eventually, she nodded.

“I am highly curious what this will lead to, in all honesty,” she said.

“Agreed,” Yulien said. “Alright, then. Deal. I await to see what wonders you have planned for this fair city.”

“Let’s just call it the wonders of… redressing, shall we?”

There was no time for me to waste. Now that I had everything I needed, I got to destroying Uralivanth in a way they wouldn’t be able to respond to. Bunch of assholes.

The first thing I targeted was the supply lines. If Uralivanth had apparel manufacturing, then they needed clothing, fibres, dyes, sewing equipment and so on. I hit them all up. And no, I wasn’t setting fire to poor tailor’s shops or destroying their stock or anything like that. I wasn’t that cruel. Instead, I visited the business registry office of Zairgon, conveniently located in Ring Three.

“You wish to purchase… all of these businesses?” the clerk asked.

“No, no,” I said. “I don’t want to go through the whole headache of outright buying businesses. I just want to purchase the supplies, you see.”

“Why?” the Plumefolk asked suspiciously.

“Well… I want to start a rival business.”

He didn’t look like he believed it. Thankfully, I had no reason to waste my time convincing him of anything. This was one of those bits of information that Revayne had suggested was public, so the clerk was obligated to offer it to me. Pits, even my business and its information was up there, though they unhelpfully didn’t state the condition of any of the businesses.

With the list in hand, I went about doing exactly as I had said. Not alone, of course. There were ten of them, and I didn’t want to waste several days going to each one by myself. It was a good thing I had the Scarthralls backing me up with the money I had acquired.

Our little operation wasn’t butter-smooth. I wasn’t expecting it to be. But I had the main ingredient I needed to be successful.

Lots and lots of available cash.

I was happy to pay the prices for the supplies marked up by nearly two-hundred percent of the value that Uralivanth was offering them. Eventually, the suppliers caved. Loyalty and “good business sense” could only prevail so far in the face of more gold than some of these tailors and crafters had ever seen in one location.

So, within a couple of days, I was armed with over a month’s stock of apparel manufacturing supplies.

“We have to wait now, right?” Vandre asked.

I nodded. “We just need to let Uralivanth start feeling the faltering in their supply chain. Speaking of supply chains…”

“Wow, Cultist Ross.” Lujean was shaking his head in apparent disbelief. “How did you even know to do all this? Especially since it’s all… legal.”

I grinned at him. “I have my fair share of business experiences, Lujean.”

We didn’t need to wait for long. I got wind of Uralivanth operations taking a hit in less than two days. A quick, surreptitious chat with Revayne had confirmed that House Uralivanth was slowly getting worked up about why their apparel business had ground to a complete halt in a day.

I smiled. My little plan was coming together. It gave me a very different sort of visceral satisfaction, no less stimulating than punching an Uralivanth straight in the kisser would have.

No doubt, the businesses I had hit up possessed backup stock and were already starting to procure more supplies. But I had struck Uralivanth’s chain of operations hard enough on a temporary basis, which was all I needed.

Despite my hardest attempts, I found it almost impossible to focus on training in the middle of this debacle. There were obvious moments in between where I could have tried ranking up my Aspects and Attributes, but my focus was shot. Even when I tried the less intensive work of trying to manifest more of my Icon, I couldn’t really concentrate enough.

“It’s alright,” Hamsik said as we were walking back to the bonds office. “You’ve got far too much on your plate nowadays to even think of Icons and whatnot.”

“Well, I’m glad you think so,” I said. “Very kind of you.”

“Don’t think too kindly of me yet. I think you’re going a tad overboard here.”

“Says the guy who wanted to meet a Councillor when the temple was threatened.”

Hamsik didn’t seem bothered in the slightest by the apparent hypocrisy. “I could handle the consequences.”

“And you think I can’t?”

“Well… the more you push, the harder pushback you’re going to suffer.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Unless I push hard enough to make them regret deciding to mess with me in the first place.”

“That is one way to go about it…”

He didn’t sound fully convinced, but he also didn’t have any further rebuttals. Admittedly, I was still way too pissed off to consider taking my foot off the gas pedal. Which was why we were heading to the bonds office. I liked that it wasn’t too far from the business registration office.

“Can you show me a list of all the bonds up for public purchase?” I asked the Scalekin registry lady.

She briefly noted my appearance, and then glanced at the fact that I was accompanied by a seemingly rich Scarseeker. Then she curtsied and brought the register I was looking for.

With Hamsik’s help, I perused through the entries until I found all the names I had targeted. Some of the suppliers I was targeting weren’t on the list, and Hamsik confirmed that they were clear from any debts rather than me missing them on the registry accidentally.

“Please list the details of the bonds from the registry that you wish to purchase on this form, Cultist,” the receptionist said, handing me a form.

I filled it out pretty quickly. “I’m… going to need another form. Unless I can write on the back?”

Her eyebrows rose at seeing how many I was purchasing then and there. “Erm, one moment.” She rummaged through her desk drawers before handing me yet another form, this one more blank and freestyle than my first one. “Use this one. Please copy the format of the table of details too.”

“Thanks.”

It wasn’t at all surprising that a ton of the intermediaries and suppliers of Uralivanth’s apparel conglomerate weren’t fully solvent. They were purposefully kept that way by the Great House. It would hold them on tenterhooks, ensuring they were dependent on their main, parent manufacturer for the continued operation of their sub-business and their livelihoods.

What a cruel way to run their operations. Hamsik was scowling in disgust as he read through the financial margins some of the suppliers were operating under.

“Kind of explains why some of them were really relieved when they finally caved to me,” I said.

“Indeed,” Hamsik muttered.

I supposed, by buying the bonds and other outstanding debt from as many of the suppliers as I could, I wasn’t exactly being benevolent. Especially because I was effectively halting their future enterprise by ratcheting up interest rates. They’d be forced to pay back the new amounts they owed before they could reinvest back into their own businesses.

But I was trying to minimize damage. That was one of the reasons I had offered them such a generous amount of money. It would make sure they wouldn’t be too stressed out, at least for the short-term that I intended to maintain my plan.

Also, Zairgon had limits I needed to adhere to. I couldn’t just turn a ten-percent charge into a two-hundred-percent apocalypse. There was a somewhat complicated ruleset where the increases were dependent on the time since the last raise, but it wasn’t that difficult to make sure I complied with legal bounds.

The other thing I looked at, since we were already there, was the furniture company who had a hand in the arson. Those bastards needed to pay too.

They also had supply lines to maintain. The problem was that much of their suppliers came from abroad, from outside Zairgon. Then there was the good chunk of their operations that ran through the undercity, which legal offices wouldn’t have anything to do with.

“How are you going to tackle them, then?” Hamsik asked.

He clearly had ideas about how, but those didn’t involve the official bonds office of Zairgon.

“Simple,” I said. “They’re still a business that needs a functioning moving component. Furniture isn’t exactly something you can run without either your own movers or a contractor who does the moving for you. And judging by their cheapskate primary client called Uralivanth…”

I was right. Although, I needed a trip to the business registry office to confirm and had to duck under the suspicious glare of the Plumefolk there.

“There,” I said, showing the document I had obtained to Hamsik. “See. These movers carry stuff all over Zairgon, and one of their main clients is the furniture company.” I read the furniture company’s name and scoffed. “Everlasting Furnishers. We’ll see just how everlasting they are.”

“Oh, I see.” Hamsik turned the page to look at the other side. “You’re basing your assumption on the investments these movers have received.”

“Exactly.”

I went ahead and bought out their bonds too. Now the arsonists would feel at least a little bit of pain as well.

The effect was further compounded when I used the leftover money to help raise rival businesses and operations. Cash injections were usually welcome, though I needed to follow legal processes of submitting a record of the transfers at the business registration office. Sure, this garnered even more interest and suspicion on my actions, but I wasn’t about to back down.

I didn’t get a lot of news from Revayne or Thefris about further developments in their investigation. Turned out the main thread that Thefris followed led all the way to the undercity. Of course. It could wait. I already had things well in hand.

Most of what I intended to set in motion took about a day and a half. With the business and bond buyouts performed, I just needed to watch things unfold. Rival companies stepped in. Powerful clients got disenchanted. Rumours swirled like a cyclone. Uralivanth was suffering because they were the first point of contact.

And because there were others waiting to claim a greater share of the apparel market, the audience for clothing never got around to getting mad at me. Not when the market was fully functioning.

I incentivized this too, relinquishing my death grip on certain debts when they took the brave step of working for Uralivanth competitors.

My efforts over the last few days left me so exhausted, I could hardly muster the effort to train. The fatigue was less physical and more mental. I wanted a break. I wanted a damn holiday.

If I hadn’t had the Scarthralls, Aqrea, and Hamsik, I’d probably have fallen flat on my face.

Unsurprisingly, I failed to maintain consistent enough effort to get any helpful rank ups over all those days. Much as I trained intermittently, it was like the Weave refused to reward my efforts when my mind was clearly not on training and my body just couldn’t muster enough energy.

That said, working with the Scarthralls did have me ranking up Leadership and Auric Hierophant again.

[ Rank Up!

Your Leadership Aspect has risen by one Rank.

Your Path of the Auric Hierophant has risen by one Rank.

Leadership: Silver I

Path of the Auric Hierophant: Gold IX ]

It was a little wild that my cultist Path was the one ranking up faster than my unique Path. Not that it was a bad thing. I felt the burgeoning energy still. That little [ERROR] from the Weave I had received on my first Nether Vein expedition was still flitting with my soul, barely perceptible in the far recesses of my mind. I was looking forward to becoming Opal-ranked.

With Leadership getting so high, I decided I’d spend a bit of time working on an Affix for it.

Basically, my idea was the reverse of my Fervour Augmentations. Where Reverence Everlife and Enshrined Growth empowered me based on the following I had, I now wanted to empower my followers with the powers I had.

Lending the power of my Aspects didn’t seem possible. Randomly weighing them more or less was a bad idea, though giving them the ability to control heat or light—or even Gravity—to some degree had great potential uses. But again, I had no idea how I’d go about giving them those sorts of capabilities.

When I focused, I couldn’t really send my Aspects through the strange link Reverence Everlife had created. Bummer.

But I focused on keeping it simple. Surely it would be possible to send some of my Attributes there, right? Surely I could create a buff based on how high my own Attributes were ranked? I couldn’t figure out the mechanism for doing so at first, but then, I started trying to Sacrifice those strange links that Reverence Everlife had created between me and the Scarthralls.

It again didn’t work instantly. Looked like the links were so ephemeral, even Overclaim couldn’t properly get a hold of it easily.

I felt like I was getting there, though, so I kept at it.

Over the same period of time, I had a good deal of fun just visiting the places affected by my shenanigans. They all showed signs of my plan bearing fruit.

I spotted members of House Uralivanth lurking near tailors and crafters to try and figure out what was going wrong. Several of the smaller businesses had barred their doorways and windows to everyone save for clients. Khagnio reported a bit of a frenzy of activity in Ring Zero as well. I had created a small storm.

“You’re keeping an eye on things, right?” I asked.

The Scarthralls all nodded. If House Uralivanth could unleash a fire on an unsuspecting shop, then there was no telling what else they were willing to carry out. It would be best if we remained wary.

I’d have given a lot to watch the chaos directly, to be a fly on the wall of House Uralivanth. Unfortunately, I had to make do with second and third-hand accounts.

“Well, your plan seems to be working, Cultist,” Aqrea said. “I wish I could have helped some more, maybe figured out a better spending structure for everything.”

I shook my head. “You’re keeping the cult’s financials afloat, Aqrea. You’re already doing more than enough. And you also looked over the finances of the Starlamps, didn’t you? Linak appreciates your help a lot too.”

“I did look through the accounts, yes. They were well-settled and pretty simple overall. You did a fine job with them as well, Cultist. But speaking of the Starlamps… What are the next steps for the business? And do we need to worry about further pushback from these nobles?”

She had a point there. I could only get high off the fumes of Uralivanth’s crumbling business empire for so long. The more meaningful thing to do would be to use the ashes of their remains to build something—

Loud steps interrupted my thoughts. The door to my office was thrown open, Vandre nearly flinging himself inside in haste.

My heart was already trying to climb into my neck. “What—”

“Cultist Ross! It’s—it’s Sreketh. She’s had a bad accident!”