A New Star Chapter 111 (Patreon)

“I have another question for you, Milton,” I said then. “Well, several, actually, but chief among them is this: is everything going bad in the fields, or have you found spoilage happening during transport and storage?”

“Well know, funny you mention it,” the man said, his bright green eyes losing their piercing nature as he turned the problem over in his head. “I’ve looked at the records, and I believe that almost half of the spoilage is happening after the grains have been harvested. Do you believe that’s part of the sabotage?”

“I’ll tell you what my theory is, before I look further into it,” I said, sipping the last of my tea. The maid was there in a heartbeat to refill the cup and offer biscuits before retreating to the corner. “I believe what is happening is transport and storage of the materials I’m after is corrupting the crops. To hide the smuggling, or just because they don’t give a damn, the smugglers are dumping some of the waste product in the fields. Thus, you’ve got decay in the fields and decay in the crate, but both are from the same source.”

“Damn those petty bastards!” Milton snapped, eyes blazing again. I could feel the element of wind stirring around us, which the count had a rather high affinity in. “To think they aren’t just smuggling dangerous goods around the country, but doing it in such a manner as to threaten people’s very lives, their food source.”

“I’m sure those willing to smuggle such goods, let alone use them, only care about one thing,” I said.

That set the count off on a diatribe about greedy scum and those wanting to play the system to make more coin, which I let him vent out. He was wrong, at least in a sense, about what he was grumbling about. Oh, sure, some of the people involved in the racket would be doing it for the pure greed of it; many of the lower level employees or workers or those taking bribes only saw the coin. That was true with basically any operation, and such people weren’t too difficult to flip or neutralize, given the right incentive or force brought to bear.

The real problem was that we were dealing with a necromantic cult that wanted to sow chaos and destruction, among other things, and attributing all their actions to greed was a bit foolish. I wasn’t sure exactly how dedicated the cult was, partially because they hadn’t done anything big in a long while, and partially because I simply didn’t know their inner workings well enough yet, but they were doing this for far more than money. Whether it was to create a ‘dark’ state that practiced the fouler things, similar in a sense to the empire I had battled in my previous life, or whether they were trying something more esoteric but no less harmful, such as resurrecting an evil god, I didn’t really know and didn’t much care. Only the fact that knowing their motivations would help in bringing them down got any interest from me, but fanatics were largely the same, wherever one went, even across species boundaries, and the best way to handle them was to root them out.

‘There is death magic here,’ Alex said to me while the count was lecturing and I was nodding along, thinking over the cult. ‘Not here directly, but I have sensed it for a while.’

‘Be more specific,’ I said, nodding along to the count while Alex hummed in my head.

‘I have felt it since arriving in the city, but there were stronger impressions when you entered the center of the city. The city hall had strong emanations coming from within, and I can still sense more around here. I don’t think the count has anything in his home, but he might have someone on his staff involved, I can’t tell. I’d have to examine the people individually unless someone with a major necromantic corruption walked near,’ she explained.

‘Looks like I’m going to be spending quite some time in the city center,’ I replied, sighing internally while continuing to nod at the count.

“And to think, poison in food just for a few coins,” the count finished, shaking his head.

“Let me ask you another, Milton,” I said once he’d run down. “Is there anyone in Cambria that has had a sudden rise recently? A merchant that went from peddling on the street corner to living in luxury? A noble that went from a minor baronette to suddenly living next door to you?”

The count had been about to respond after I started asking about a change in fortune, but he developed a surprised look. “Why, how did you know about that? Did you already investigate?”

“Know about what?” I asked, brow scrunching as I set my tea cup down again.

“The minor baron next to me,” the count said, waving his arm to the side of the room before taking a sip of his tea. “Baron Ziegfried. Why, just four month ago, or maybe it was five, he was rather down on his luck, as the story goes. Some debt related to bets or gambling or some such; I’ve never had much head for the thrill of wagers like that. Apparently, the young baron has a taste for games of fortune and chance, and the modest inheritance he had, including the small estate at the edge of the city center, were all gone.

“Well, come to find out, just a few months ago his fortune must have changed. The man was never considered lucky, though how much of that is from genuine chance and how much is because he isn’t the brightest lamp on the street, I’m not quite sure. But anyway, about four months ago, suddenly his creditors all disappeared, more or less overnight. Then, he had money, lots of money, and started splashing it around. Spending big on this and that before he eventually bought the house just to my east on the corner. Why, that was the old academy head’s house, the one before the current head. He had retired to Cambria after his teaching days were behind him and lived out his last few years here. It isn’t as large or well-furnished as my manor, but it’s quite the estate.”

“Quite the estate, for a baron that was in the poor house less than six months ago,” I added in, quirking an eyebrow.

“No, but smuggling?” asked Milton, looking a bit bewildered. “Surely not, not a man of his caliber.”

“A man of the caliber that would piss away his family’s entire fortune and holdings on game of chance?” I asked with a sarcastic tone, taking a slow sip of tea.

“Well, yes, there is that, but really,” Milton said, shaking his head vigorously. “What has the nobility fallen to these days? And even were he to be smuggling, the wealth is not something that passing off a few fake coins or hiding some illegal moonshine or shoddy healing potions in a wagon can explain. All of his creditors paid off in days? With fake potion money?”

“Believe it or not, Milton, but people will pay a premium just on the hope that something will work or is authentic,” I replied with an exaggerated sigh. “It looks like I’m going to have to do some digging in to the young baron. Speaking of that, both digging and youth, how old is the man, anyway?”

“Why, not more that thirty,” Milton said, spacing out for a moment as he thought. “In fact, I believe he just turned twenty-eight. Well, I say just, but it was a few months ago, right when his fortunes were turning around. Threw a lavish party at the Golden Bear; expensive liquor, expensive food, expensive women, the whole works. Why, it must have cost an absolute fortune, but it was also after his creditors stopped hounding him.”

“Interesting. Very interesting,” I replied, nodding. “Well, Milton, I’m going to have to dig into this.”

I had made a gesture preparatory to rising, and the count took the hint. “If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to contact my staff or myself. You have no idea how much I’ve been worrying over this issue with the harvest, and if it’s some gang of criminals just looking to make a few coins, why, I’ll have their hides for it!”

“I’m sure you’ll be seeing much more of me in the coming days, Sir Count,” I said with a small smile as we got to the front door. “Don’t worry about the problems with the crops. I can assure you, I and my team will make sure it’s handled, and handled quietly, at that.”

“Don’t overdo, Alexandra,” he said quietly. “I know you’re talented and have your parents backing, but these are dangerous people. Criminals, even. Be careful about getting mixed up with them.”

“I assure you, Milton, that I have a handle on it,” I said, giving the older man a genuine smile before stepping out the door.

“Just be careful, and don’t trust that twit of a mayor,” Milton said, glancing around the street. “And let me know, regardless of the hour, what you find.”

“Take care of yourself, Count,” I said, waving as I set off.

I had done a bit of deception there at the end, at least when it came to discussing what the baron was likely up to and what people were spending their money on. There was likely going to be a point where I brought the count up to speed with what was really going on, but there was no reason to get the man into a panic so early in the operation. Besides, loose lips sink ships, and I wasn’t sure that the overall gregarious Milton could be trusted to not spill the beans. He had only visited my parents a few times, the last a few years before, but he was an inveterate gossip and overall talker, and I wasn’t going to compromise operational security, not at this time.

I headed down the street, walking past the other manor that the count had indicated, seeing if I could see or smell or sense anything that was off or out of place. I didn’t really get a good feel for anything, but Alex certainly did, giving me a mental tap and sharing her sense of her affinities as we passed the place and made a turn, keeping the building on my left. I could feel through her affinities that there was more than a trace of death and necromancy in the house, but it was very faint. Just being inside a house with its own enchantments like Milton’s had been enough to totally cover up the sensation, and I had approached Milton’s from the other direction.

Having felt it, though, it was not at all mistakable as anything else. While Alex didn’t have a necromancy affinity, she did have an incredibly powerful, incredibly compatible Death affinity that let her sense related magics and powers. The sense of death and of a twisted death emanated from the young baron’s new property like the scent of apples from a fresh baked pie set in the window. Alex’s five hundred percent compatibility was certainly doing some heavy lifting on that front, but the man had to be neck-deep in the trouble for his house to stink so badly, even through the wards I could sense were there.

I knew we had found one in, but we needed to see the whole shape of it. I wasn’t going to burst in and kick down the baron’s front door without a lot more to go on, especially because I doubted this twit was actually in charge of anything. A man with a title and some connections was valuable, which was exactly as far as baron Ziegfried was useful and no further, and attacking him before having the whole shape of it would just make the rats scatter.

The next thing I checked wasn’t with more nobility, though I would need to do that, but around the city in general. I still remember the hidden corpses and undead from the attack on the capital, and the cult had been active in Cambria long enough that they had had plenty of time to plant such things. It would be a long and slow process to ferret them out, and especially to find their little hidden ‘surprises,’ but it was absolutely necessary. Also, Alex had barely been awake the last time we crossed the cult’s path, but now she was fully conscious all the time and had grown quite well into her power. With that crazy Death affinity, we’d be able to sniff out their little tricks from a mile away.

It was also a way to find stores and buildings that they were using, just as we’d done in the capital. I didn’t make any moves against anyone or anything this day, though, just noting where we both got a sense of something wrong. I might have had to connections with death, at least, not through affinities, but I had my own affinities and senses, the latter of which had been honed over centuries of battle with a crazy empire that performed all kinds of perverted and twisted rituals and rites. The biggest threat I had faced in my last life was a blood ritual where the blood, and even the lives, of regular people were sacrificed to empower soldiers, bringing them to a whole new level. The stench of the magic had much of the signs of twisted power and evil about it and I had become expert at sniffing out such things.

The scents in the city weren’t a great help, and not just the stench. The place did have at least a basic sewer system, not that that contained all the smell, but there was a lot more besides that. The smells of food and roasting meat, the smells of booze, which was quite strong many places in the city, the smells of spices and foreign oils, not to mention the smells that could be produced by different people’s affinities. Then, on top of all that and more, were the alchemist’s businesses, breweries, and a few other places that could produce a hell of a smell. It was the first time I was grateful that alchemy had fallen out of favor with the general masses, as I didn’t have to sniff through a hundred or more alchemy shops and their runoff just to find something.

Any building that was suspicious I made a note of, though not all of them were for directly cult related things. The bar that was doubling as a brothel with far too much money changing hands for either profession was interesting, but there was no trace of death there. I had several more such encounters, but I also found many places with the obvious stains of death magic lingering in the air. I would have to meet back up with the others and go over what we had all found before I could plan around all of this.

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