PreCursive

  The rats were arguing again.

  They bickered bad forth uselessly from around the table set up ihrone room, mindless in their panic. Raised voices and screamed insults abound in the air as the gathered noblemen and women of the high houses of Herztal gave voice to their panic. All the while, the most worthless of all sat on high in his gilded throne, clutg at the arms of his stole in his own desperation. The fool’s dull green eyes bounced bad forth among his arguing subjects as he searched for a way out of his doom.

  Leonard Ashran sat ba his own chair and idly sipped on a gss of substandard wine, watg the puppets dance.

  And pondered.

  This flict was ing to an end, he felt. The news about what had happened up in Elderwyck had finally washed over the court. Sources iy were saying that the apprentice of Grand Marshal Grey of the Order of the Eclipsed Dawn had sin a Camity. Many had been highly skeptical of this cim, sidering their intelligen the young man pced him at under level one huhe idea of someone who wasn’t even a pri or Cultivator killing a Camity of all things had been rightfully ughed at by the gathered fools.

  That was until it was reported again.

  And again.

  And again.

  The cil had stopped ughing then.

  Leonard cast his mind back to the frontation in his long-lost prison. Had this apparent Camity syer bee back then? Yes, he eventually decided, he thought he had been. The boy had been wielding a dinky little spear and proteg Grey’s get, feeling like he had been barely level sixty to his senses. Hah, well. It was likely the boy was beyond level one-hundred now, if he had actually killed something like that.

  The former Warden of Caer-Drarrow raised his gss up in salute to the distant Camity Syer, ign the fused gnces he received from nobles about him. They didn’t matter anyway.

  Even as opposed as he was to the schoolteacher's little rebellion, he could still admire a near mythical feat like that.

  Good show, Nathaniel Hart.

  It…did put him in a little bit of a predit, however.

  He had been ting on the Camity keeping Grey and his Uprising busy for loime, after all. Not for it to be sin almost immediately.

  Leonard pursed his lips in irritation.

  That worthless little bloodsucker had promised him that ‘the Mighty Rhazal’ was more than a match for the Shadowed Sun and his cohort. Apparently, the Chaospawn had gerated the monstrosity’s abilities a tad.

  What kind of Camity was sin by someohat weak?

  If she hadn’t already been killed by an unaligned Lich of all things, he would have hunted her down and ended his former ‘colborator’ for the invenience.

  As, he was going to have to adjust his pns, now that the Vampyr’s gambit had failed. He supposed he had expected a bit much from an old relic like that. Storybook reputations had a tendency to be overblown.

  But she had seemed so petent when she had approached him, those years ago. He had just returned from his voyages abroad and had grown increasingly disgusted with the state of Herztalian society. The introdu of those disgusting little abominations that called themselves ‘Sculpted’ had introduced uable sloth into his homend. The people no longer had a le in a world where the toils of life were done by automatons. The farmer did not grow in strength from his tilling of the nd. The craftsman did not hone his hedge at the practice of his craft. The soldier did not thrive in the csh with the monstrous.

  Leonard had seen the Sculpted for what they were, long before the things had started talking back.

  A curse upoure of the human race.

  At the time, he had been so disgusted he had pondered simply getting ba his ship and sailing back off into the su, o return. Vereden might have been small, but a life at sea wouldn’t have been so bad. His voyages had introduced him to heretofore unknown tiny isnds out on the o, absolutely filled to the brim with very strong monsters. More than strong enough to propel him all the way ton.

  It would have been a good, simple life.

  But…

  The bloodsucker had approached him as he was silently bemoaning the state of his homend in a dockside Elderwy bar. When the creature had revealed itself to him, he had nearly assaulted it immediately. Such a vicious reli the past had no p modern society, even with its degraded state. However, she had spoken of some…iing ideas.

  Very entig ones.

  For the foolish, of course. That creature had truly lost her edge if she thought she could get one over a s of House Ashran. But her presence did present another opportunity. One where he could shape the future of Herztal, and Vereden itself.

  All he would have to do was outmahe relic when the right time came. He wasn’t frightened by either her or her remnant goddess.

  After all, how strong could a divinity possibly be, if they had been driven so pletely from these shores? It’s not like aually feared the Mad God these days, and he was still on Vereden in the first pce.

  And so he’d agreed, always intending to double-cross the beast at the right moment.

  No doubt a duplicitous creature like this ‘Nerexxa’ had been intending the same thing.

  The bitch.

  Only she had bungled her part of the pn. She had pletely failed to capitalize on the horde of geed monsters his modified Ward Stones had created. All they had done was create fodder to feed the footsoldiers of the Uprising.

  Well, he supposed they had also dispced and possibly sughtered hundreds of Herztalian citizens, but he sidered that a be. The weak would either bee the mighty, or they would be culled.

  Leonard sighed, finished off his gss of wine, and stood up from his chair. At the movement, most of the arguing immediately stopped. Ohe attention would have brought a brief surge of pride. After all, the strong should be admired, and he was by far the stro surviving asset that beloo the Kingdom of Herztal.

  But now all he felt was pt. He brushed the peons off and started walking towards the exit of the throne room, letting his gaze idly brush over the emissary from the Principality as he moved. They had arrived the other day, but Leonard hadn’t giveuntie much of a sed thought. They were some knight uhe umbrel of the Savoy of middling renown. Strong, but nothing pared to him.

  Stonebreaker, he thought the knight’s name was.

  “Stop!” Leonard heard from behind his back, ending all versation in the hall. As much as he wished to leave, he still stopped at that voice, albeit relutly. With an annoyed sigh, Leonard turned io gaze at the owner in boredom.

  His supposed ‘King’

  Aric of House Eisenherz.

  The young man was looking a bit rough, these days. He wasn’t managing the stress of the civil war very well, especially now that his own fa was on the dee. His formally thick blond hair had thinned siderably from the pressure, and unsightly, premature wrinkles had sprouted on his forehead and around his thin lips. The ‘King’ had lost weight as well, looking almost sickly in parison to his former knightly physique. Once upon a time, this man had been a somewhat respectable knight in service to old Otto, the former King.

  Before Nerexxa had set her cws in him.

  Now the puppet’s strings were cut, and he didn’t even know it. The influence had been impressively subtle, Leonard could admit that much. The creature had gotten very close to the usurper.

  It was only a matter of time before some people made the e to the Vampyr that had surfaced in Elderwyck…

  And the young woman who occasionally appeared out of o cozy up to the former knight.

  Leonard wondered if Aric was starting to make the same es.

  Judging by the sweat on his brow, probably.

  “Where are you going, Lord Ashran?” The ‘King’ asked in a high-pitched, stressed voice. “I did not give you leave to vacate the cil.”

  Leonard kept his face still, even as he wao sneer in disgust. Give him leave? He was hundreds of times this upstarts strength. In a just world, this upjumped peacock would have been begging for a ce to serve at his feet.

  As, this was a slovenly world indeed.

  “I suddenly recalled an urgent matter, my King,” Leonard replied in aone. When Aric looked like he would protest again, the moamer made something up on the spot. “Research reted to the defeat of Headmaster Grey. I’m afraid it ’t wait.”

  That was a btant lie. Leonard liked to sider himself a pragmatist. He had already matched himself against that old monster and been found wanting, as much as he loathed the idea. There was no point in trying to duel the Shadowed Sun once more. It would likely be turies before he could prove his superiority to the schoolteacher.

  Aric brightened up at the offered bait. He nodded grandly, as if Leonard's exit had been his i all along. “Go, Lord Ashran. I would not keep you from your training.”

  It was so, so difficult not to roll his eyes, but Leonard did so anyway. He nodded shortly at the fool and pivoted on his heel, striding out of the room. As he walked through the halls of the pace, Leonard felt a brief burst ret at what he was going to be giving up shortly. He would miss the forts of nobility.

  But adversity bred strength, and the isles awaited him. Leopold could keep the Ashran Lordship, the great oaf.

  It was time to vacate the shores of his homend.

  At least until he had bee a Paragon.

  Leonard picked up his pace at the pleasing thought.

  …………………………………………………..

  Once he had reached the Ashran family manor, he dismissed all of the servants for the day. They were fused, but by this point, used to his peculiarities and didn’t question his motives. Ohey had vacated the premises, he got to work pag the things he would need on his journey out to sea. As, he could not take the entire Ashran family library with him, but there were certain tomes he absolutely could not live without.

  Before he k, Leonard had filled several rge crates with the equipment, supplies, and a certain amount of frivolities he would need on his long, self-imposed exile. Once done, he o himself aured down into the basement fruesome, but necessary task.

  After all, he couldly bring along his experiments in monster breeding on his ship, could he?

  They would all have to be culled. He couldn’t leave even the slightest hint as to the dire of his research. He would never know another moment’s peace if it was discovered he was trying to recreate the Lost’s experiments on Camity creation.

  The entire kingdom would likely be bent towards his capture and execution.

  The regretful task of destroying his experiments only took him the barest few minutes, and when he had finished, Leonard helped himself to another parting bottle of wine in his rge, expa. He saluted the air with a gss full of a truly delectable Rosé. “Fair you well, my erstwhile children,” He said dramatically, before turning in the dire of the castle and sneering in its dire through the walls. “And good riddao you, you sniveling little shit. You are unworthy of your throne, and thus my loyalty.”

  Throwing aside all propriety, Leonard picked up the bottle and guzzled it down, throwing it into a er once finished. As the bottle shattered into pieces and he opened his eyes once more, Leonard startled i what he found.

  There was a dwarf sitting on the ter in front of him.

  Leonard stared at the ingruous sight for a moment. “What…?” He breathed.

  He may be a tad bit inebriated, but his magical senses were still unhindered.

  Leonard hadn’t felt the dwarf arrive at all. It was as if he had simply appeared, from one moment to the . After a moment of silent staring, he actually reized the dwarf.

  It was that knight from earlier, Stonebreaker.

  Said knight leaned forward over his knees, bizarrely cupping his helmeted in one gaued to stare at him. “My my,” The dwarf said mildly. “What is this I see, but the 's st hope abandoning it? Are you perhaps preparing to flee, Lord Ashran?”

  Leonard immediately leveled one open hand at the dwarf and loosed the stro Spell he could at short notice. A mass of jagged blue crystal, taller than the dwarf, appeared in front of his palm and streaked through the air to spear at the intruder. The air howled from the sheer velocity of the missile.

  The dwarf, almost boredly, raised one hand and caught it out of the air. He examihe crystal almost idly for a moment, as Leaped in open-mouthed shock. “Who…” He breathed. “Who are you? You ’t simply be a minor knight. Not with that strength.”

  Through the dwarf’s helmet, Leonard saw his jet-bck eyes flick up at him. Almost nontly, he crushed the crystal spire in his mailed fist, sending a glittering cloud of dust floating to the floor of the kit. After a moment of ption, the dwarf reached up and removed his helmet, baring his face to the world.

  Leonard felt the blood run out of his face at the sight. It had been a long time since he had seen this person, but he still reized them. Years and years ago, he and Leopold had been in attendance, during a meetiween King Otto and the Dwarven Prihis dwarf had been in attendanearly suffog the court from his sheer presence alone.

  “Anguis of Savoy…”

  Pringuis, Lord of House Savoy. maker of the Principality.

  The Serpent.

  A small, thin smile touched the lips of the dwarf as he caught Leonard’s eyes. “I have a proposition for you, Lord Ashran,” The dwarf nearly purred. “Before you leave. Stay awhile and listen.”

  Leonard steadied his breath, holding the gaze of the dwarf he knew was strohan he was. Carefully, he copied the dwarf and hopped up onto the ter opposite of him, ung about the indignity of the maneuver.

  None of that mattered now, in a iation of true power.

  He the Prince, gesturing with an open hand. “Make your case, Serpent.”

  The smile on Anguis’s lips…

  Widened.