Tiberius could play politics. He had smiled at rchants until their greed showed through their teeth, and he had nodded at petty lords until their pride did the talking for them.
That kind of ga had rules. This was sothing else.
Eldric sat across from him like an older monster wearing a man’s face.
Age clung to the senior the way smoke clung to cloth, quiet, stubborn, impossible to brush off.
Beside that, Tiberius felt like a child dressed in adult robes.
He did not try to refute the plan with Eldric. Not with words. Not with sches. Eldric was strong, and worse, he was sharp.
Tiberius had seen it in the way the man’s gaze went past the surface of a gesture and into the intent underneath.
Eldric was not here to play protagonist in Goldkeep Crownmarkets. He was here to blend in, to look harmless, to let other n take the light while he kept his hands clean in the dark.
Tiberius lowered his chin and gave Eldric the obedience that cost the least.
"Senior, what do you have in mind?"
Later that very day, new young faces were invited to work under the Contractcrown of Plunder Alp.
Jekyll arrived early. His skin sat on his younger self, naivety etched into his flamboyant grin, nose up in the air.
With him ca other Hemal Tithe cultists, wearing their younger selves, all of them acting.
Tiberius and Jekyll had known each other. Both from Hemal Tithe Cult.
The sa hymn, the sa cultivation thod, only sung from different rooms in the sa temple.
Different departnts, and different duties.
On the other side of the hall stood Oisin, Elsin, Maeron, and Ewan. They were not boys, even if their faces played at youth. They took the jobs without fuss.
"Oh, I haven’t seen you for a while," Ewan said to Jekyll.
"Let’s have a spar if you are free," Jekyll replied.
Their exchange made the older personnel of Contractcrown of Plunder Alp soften, taking their arrival as normal.
That night, the Alp buzzed with clients wanting a family mber guarded with discretion.
Tiberius’s son, Manicus, handed out missions to the new faces.
He gave them missions Radeon Terraces did not offer in the open. The guarding work those clients wanted ca with urgency.
As soon as the younger generation received a report about who was to be taken in, the older dogs put their hands on it.
Not violently. Not openly. Like elders guiding novices. Like tutors correcting a grip.
Ink scratched fast on paper. Lists beca copies. Copies beca stacks.
Nas passed from hand to hand as if this were standard practice, like counting coin or logging supplies.
It looked normal. A few extra eyes to see, a few extra ears to listen.
As people gathered wealth, ambition rose with it.
Those older dogs had worked for Tiberius for decades. So had worked for centuries.
Nas went around. So were treated carefully. So were tossed aside when they were no longer useful, dropped like peelings on the floor.
The papers looked inconspicuous until you knew what to look for.
Too white. Too clean. Against brown-grey stone and green terrain, it was a clue a careful man noticed without aning to.
A rat found a strip and dragged it through a gap near a post. A gust of wind lifted another and carried it under a door.
Even insects played their part, clinging to the edge, bumping it along a wall, pushing it into the wrong corner.
Small carriers. Small accidents. Enough to move secrets from one hand to the next.
Tiberius stayed at Radeon Terraces this ti. He set his sights on a glass box artifact filled with smoke.
The smoke morphed, then unfurled into shapes that showed what fate awaited those very papers, thrown away as mundane.
Each strip of stolen white paper showed as a faint thread in the haze. Tiberius watched them move in real ti.
The paper slid through alleys and under doors, disappeared into cellars, reappeared in back rooms.
They did not lead to grand palaces. They led to the small underground bosses.
n with too many keys and too few scruples. So of them sat under the city lord’s shadow and still dared to collect their own tribute.
Tiberius kept his voice light, as if he were discussing market fees.
"What if we just rid of these city lords themselves. We could call the other sects and have them replaced."
It was a clean solution. Logical. Reasonable, even. So city lords had been placed by the very top sects long ago, but those were old placents.
Second generation, third generation. The originals were either dead or too ancient to bother with the day to day, and their descendants wore the title like a hat.
Eldric shook his head and chuckled, soft as a knife sliding into a sheath.
"Young man, it is not about loyalty. It is much simpler. At the end of the day, these are cultivators. They just happen to be unaware."
Tiberius did not argue, for he listened intently.
"They still respect you. Consider, if you will, that they are not wholly blind to what has transpired."
"Would they dare to slip again, with such a lesson before them? Would they permit a next ti to co to pass? It is unlikely."
"And yet, there is another road. You may set in their place new hands, n of headstrong temper, who will deal more strictly in business, and favor newer systems."
Eldric’s eyes stayed on the smoke map, not on Tiberius.
"Brewed respect is greater. Deep seated fear of you is far better. In the end, you earn more control."
Tiberius nodded and swallowed the rest of his words. He understood the shape of Eldric’s refusal.
Eldric saw what Tiberius wanted. He wanted control.
Control ant leaving pieces where they lay, not building a new chessboard full of new variables.
While the smoke threads crawled across the glass, another part of the plan walked on weaker legs.
Fay, Thaddeus, Oswin, and Lifara had been sent out as crippled youths in need of treatnt.
Just for of a few hundred decoys, baited hooks, each placed in a different town, or on the outskirts where the law grew thin.
Radeon said it was so they could see the real hearts of n.
They stayed in dud estates, half-empty houses guarded by a few n, enough to still look important.
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