A New Star Chapter 124 (Patreon)

"Baron Troy,” I said as I stepped from The Dark onto the balcony.

“Have you finished preparing my morning tipple,” the man replied in a bit of a haze. “I can’t function without my first drink of the day.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes; this was going to be even more challenging than I had thought. The man didn’t even realize I was an intruder, likely having no concept that such a thing was even possible in the central neighborhood of the city. He was also clearly in a state; I wondered just how many months, or likely years, he had been marinating his brain in such massive amounts of booze that he thought a strong, stiff drink was an appropriate breakfast at…three in the afternoon. I had a sinking feeling that I was going to be getting very little out of the man, but just maybe he was so alcohol sodden and foolish that he had reams of evidence laying about the place.

“Baron. Baron Troy. You and I need to have a talk,” I said in a serious tone.

“I’ve told you,” he said, peeved. He was gesturing with his hands, though in a vague manner, and his eyes seemed to be seeking something to focus on and failing to find anything worthy of the effort. “If I haven’t had my drink, what’s to happen? I can’t…I can’t operate like this. I need something…you know, to get started.”

I was guessing the baron’s blood was more ethanol than anything else at this point, despite him having just gotten out of bed, and I was already regretting my decision to hinge even a small part of any plan on this moron, but I needed to make the attempt. Rather than get him extremely boozed up when trying to pull some information from him, I stepped through The Dark and grabbed a hot kettle, the heat not bothering me at all, and grabbed a mug and some herbs. I stepped back to the balcony and poured him a cup of tea, to which he looked a big disgusted before looking closer at me.

“Wait now. I don’t know you, do I? When were you hired on?” he asked.

“Baron Troy. You are going to need to focus, as if your life depends on it,” I replied coldly as the tea steeped and he spun a little in his chair to face me.

“Now, hold up a moment. Where do you…ah, who…are you?” the baron asked, really struggling to remain even a little cogent.

“Baron,” I said, a maelstrom of power gathering around me, though I kept it contained to the balcony, and crushing down on the young man. “Treat this as if your life. Depends. On. It.”

I emphasized my point rather heavily and he was now starting to get the message a bit. I could see the realization and recognition starting to set in, the realization that he was in a bad position, somehow, and the recognition that I was not someone he could fool around with and get anywhere. I practically shoved the tea in his hands and he took a large swallow, choking on it before coughing and getting himself back under control. I had picked out some tea leaves and the leaf of a minor flowering shrub that acted as a bit more of a perky stimulant than tea. When mixed together, they gave a bit bigger kick than a carafe full of coffee, though the baron would have a large headache but the early evening. Still, that was no problem of mine.

“Baron. Baron Troy. Are you, perhaps, ready to discuss some serious matters?” I asked, my tone making my level of patience very clear.

“Yes. Yes, I think I can get the day started,” he said, reflexively taken another big gulp and coughing again as the hot tea scalded his tongue and throat. “Who are you, again?”

“I haven’t said, and I don’t think I will. Operational security and all that. I’m sure you quite understand,” I said, though I was pretty sure the man didn’t understand, either operational security or the mockery in my tone.

“Well, I would say I would call the guards, but I think I might be in a sort of trouble where that wouldn’t work. Do I have that right?” he said.

So, not a total and complete idiot. Well, I could work with that.

“Baron Troy. I have heard and seen some disturbing things in Cambria in the two months I’ve been in residence,” I began. I wasn’t going to give him any accurate information in this discussion, but was going to craft my own narrative in a way that led to certain ideas or conclusions on his part. I was more worried, though, about if there were anyone listening in, or if anyone in False Death would get their hands on him later and try to pull something useful out of him.

“Cambria’s a small place, for all that it’s a big city,” Troy replied. “If you’ve been to one seedy corner of this damn town, you’ve been to every corner of it.”

That was certainly a specific framing, and I drilled into it for a moment. “And you’ve seen some of these seedier things, Baron? Some things that go just beyond a little whoring and a little gambling, perhaps?”

“I have,” he said, shuddering before taking a long drink, one that didn’t cause a coughing fit this time. “There are some dark forces working in the shadows here, My Lady. Forces that you would do well to forget about.”

“Please. You’ve seen some drug dealers, or perhaps, you’ve had an encounter with the illegal slave market? Disgusting, but hardly anything to go running home to mama and crying about,” I scoffed.

“Oh, it’s far worse than that. Far, far worse,” he said, taking a much smaller pull as his faculties were coming fully back online. “The things I’ve seen…well, I don’t want to frighten a young woman such as yourself-“

“Let’s not play games, Baron,” I said coldly, flexing my power again and making him shiver. The baron, for all that he’d fallen in with quite a bad crowd, was not at all that strong himself, and even pushing on him with a bit of raw mana funneled by some of my affinities was enough to have him shaky and off-kilter. “I know exactly my place, and I’m no spring daisy. I have seen things that would turn your head to mush in an instant, so let’s be straight with one another. You’ve gotten in some trouble, some debts incurred as part of a little excessive gambling, if what a little birdie told me is correct. Trying to keep your indolent life rolling, you fell in with a bit of a tough crowd, a crowd willing to provide for you in exchange for certain favors.

“I’ll even go out on a limb here, one you don’t deserver, and say you really didn’t know what you were getting into at the start. However, some time after taking these people’s money and agreeing to do their dirty work, you were finally confronted with some of their dirty laundry, and it made you upset. Not upset enough to stop working with them, and certainly not upset to stop taking their ill-gotten funds and spending them like water, but you did feel a bit squeamish. How am I doing so far, Baron Troy?”

“Well, that’s…now, you see,” he sputtered a bit before taking a long drink, nearly draining the cup dry. “That’s not quite fully accurate. What, ah, happened, was that I got into a little trouble with some card games, yes. But, I was destitute, as some people claim. No, far from it! I just was, uh, presented an offer, an offer that saw my fortunes soar.”

“It’s just too bad that you didn’t learn until so much, so long after that you couldn’t do anything about it, that all that help came coated in innocent people’s blood,” I scoffed.

“Well, I mean,” he tried to stumble around for something to use as a repartee, but in the end, hung his head and sighed mournfully. If I didn’t know more about him and what he’d been doing, I’d be rather moved by the whole thing, or some other interrogator might. As it was, this game of wordsmithing piled on top of this faux regret was disgusting, and my impression of the man certainly wasn’t improving as our discussion dragged on. “Yes. Yes, that’s true, I knew much of where the money and items came from, and still used them anyway.”

“And how many of these ‘items,’ my dear, foolish baron, did you use, exactly?” I asked. I had no clue what he was talking about, not in specifics, but I was playing off that I had more knowledge about the whole thing than I did. It made me sound like I already knew everything and was just confirming it. Given my power and authority, even without him knowing my heritage, he could well believe that I was just asking for minor details to fill in gaps. Hopefully, he would spill more than he let on, painting the picture without me having to ask tons of minute, detailed questions.

“Well, uh, as to that, I can’t really say,” he said, immediately holding up his hands as I had done nothing to disguise the frustration on my face. “Now, now. Let’s not be hasty. I know that using those things to make the servants a bit more compliant was not a great idea, but I only used a few of them. The ones to increase my strength and constitution were much better, and I kept a track of those. It was hard to get them, but they brought me twenty of them in total. There’s still, uh, one in the office, if you need more evidence.”

“Oh, I’m sure I already have enough evidence.” For what, I didn’t say; it would put even more pressure on the worm if I let him imagine what I was going to do with all that juicy evidence.

“Right, yes, I’m sure,” he said, coughing before finishing the last of the mug. “Well, I did use most of the warding items to make this place, uh…impenetrable, or so they claimed, but you’re standing here without my guards even knowing. So, I guess that was just one more lie.”

“I think, young baron, that the more we dig into this, the more of a twisted skein of old yarn we shall find it,” I said calmly. “Now, tell me about your various meetings with their representatives.”

“Well, there was the man in black,” he said rather calmly and I had to put in some effort to not rolling my eyes. A man dressed in all black with a mysterious identity? I see we were leaning hard into the cliches with this one. “Then, I met with the lady that loved to carouse at the various parties. She was quite fun, though we never, ah, you know?”

“I don’t need all the gory details of your party life, Baron. I need the details on the people and the meetings,” I said in a cold tone.

“Right, yes, I see,” he said, glancing around and waving a hand over the side table beside his chaise lounger, likely looking for the bottle of booze that he was so used to having it was ingrained into his psyche at this point. “The lady was a good guest, certainly with how she carried on and entertained the guests, but there was always something a bit off about her. I couldn’t ever really tell what it was, and we never, uh, yes, ahem, so I only know that she was very interested in the servants, strangely enough. Almost all of my current servants were selected by her, and they’ve all done a marvelous job, especially the butler. Speaking of, where is that man? He should have brought me a nice little tipple by now.”

“I think you might have to go without for now, Baron, and I mean that for both. Now, tell me exactly what the arrangement was for your cooperation; I know much of what happened already, but I want to hear it in your own words.”

The story then spilled out of him over the next twenty minutes in fits and starts. The whole thing went like this: Troy had been down on his luck in gambling, and it was much worse than the impression he had tried to give me earlier. At a low point, this mysterious lady that liked to dress in white and gold approached him, the same lady he didn’t ‘ahem’ with on several occasions, as he kept pointing out to my increasing annoyance. She offered to help cover some of his debts if he was willing to do some work for them and pass them some information, though he didn’t really have access to anything that critical at that point. What he did have was a noble title that went back quite a bit, even if it was only the title of a baron, and some connections with the younger nobles and wealthy scions of the merchants in the city.

It became rather plain from there, and he explained it rather succinctly; he had been used for his connections. It was even better that he could use their coin to throw lavish and crazy parties, which attracted even some of the older and more steady nobles in the city, as well as many of the merchants. Goods changed hands, deals were struck, favors bought and sold, and all kinds of illicit activity went down, though I already had enough that I was dreaming of the various ways I was going to, quite literally, pin this rat to a wall when I was done with him. The mansion became a hub in the city for soirees and shindigs, a place to see and be see, and to strike such aforementioned deals. The baron got to live high on the hog, as it were, as long as he continued to provide access and information, some of which he got from old family connections that came calling once it was clear the young man was in the ascendancy again.

He had explained much of what happened, including at the parties, in detail, though he always tried to steer around his part in all of it. I wasn’t buying any of it, and I had a whole raft of problems to confront thanks to this idiot. It was nice that I had names and information on deals and movements now, but I was going to have to clean this whole mansion up. The servants, the guards, the part-time help; this young jackass had infected them all with necromancy, poison, mind coercion, dark sorcery, and other foul things to one extent or another. That had become clear when I asked a few questions about what the items he had been using looked like and how they performed. Now, I was sure at least a few people could still be saved, but a lot more people were going to die because of this twerp.

He had details on the man in black and the lady in white, though they were sparser than I would have liked. For all that he was a central figure in this, the baron had been kept mostly in the dark. A nearly perfect tool, used and abused and none the wiser, all the while thinking he was on the path to being the next great noble or next king. The only good thing he had done, a stupid thing for him and all others, but the man was not at all smart, was to save some of the evidence. I would be collecting that, along with his confession, and then leaving much of it to professionals to sort through. I had other things I needed to take care of, starting with the baron himself, and working out from there.

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