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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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While the capos secured the prisoners and hauled the confiscated bags of gold out to the transport wagons, Caleb at this time stood perfectly still in the center of the foyer. He didn't just want the money they had packed. He wanted everything. In front of him, with a mere thought, Caleb smoothly opened his system map, an incredibly advanced, holographic interface which only he could see, of course.
The world around him instantly overlaid with a faint, translucent grid of digital information. Through his max level Treasure Hunter skill, the mansion's secrets were completely laid bare to him. The ability did not just show him loose change, it acted as a supernatural radar for high value items, hidden compartments, and buried wealth.
As Caleb scanned the opulent interior of Caliga Hall, his eyes widened slightly. He saw several glowing, golden points of interest scattered inside the Grays' mansion, indicating the presence of highly secretive treasures or hidden stashes.
He saw a massive, glowing golden aura radiating from beneath the floorboards in the grand dining room. He saw another bright cluster of markers hidden behind a false brick wall inside the massive fireplace in Tavish's private study. He saw a third glowing point buried deep inside the wall of the master bedroom upstairs.
The Grays had been hoarding generations of wealth, keeping it completely off their official ledgers.
Caleb closed the system map, his eyes returning to normal. He turned to the Italian capos standing guard near the doorway.
He ordered for some capos to go and dig everything out.
"You three," Caleb commanded, pointing a leather gloved finger with absolute, unwavering precision. "Go into the dining room. Rip up the oak floorboards directly beneath the center of the dining table. You two, go into the study on the left. Take a sledgehammer to the back bricks of the fireplace. And send a man upstairs to the master bedroom, tear open the western wall behind the armoire."
The highly specific, incredibly bizarre orders, of course, completely surprised the capos and the members of the gang standing with him. They looked at Caleb, before exchanging a confused glances with one another.
Because they thought, what is he doing? Why had he suddenly ordered that, with such pinpoint, seemingly impossible accuracy? They had just breached the house seconds ago. There was absolutely no way Caleb could know the architectural secrets of Caliga Hall.
But, despite their confusion, they were completely loyal to the Don. Of course, the capos immediately went to do exactly what their Don had ordered them to do. They grabbed heavy iron crowbars and sledgehammers from their saddlebags outside and rushed into the designated rooms.
Within moments, the sounds of splintering wood and smashing bricks echoed through the mansion.
Arthur Morgan, standing beside Caleb, holstered his pistol and crossed his massive arms. He looked at the Don, his brow furrowed in deep, genuine curiosity.
"Caleb," Arthur asked him at this time, lowering his voice so the kneeling family couldn't hear. "Why in the hell did you ask them to do that? How do you know there's anything behind those walls?"
Caleb looked at Arthur, his face a mask of calm, untouchable confidence. He couldn't exactly tell the man that he possessed a supernatural, video game- ike system map that highlighted hidden loot. So, Caleb looked at him and delivered a flawless and convincing lie.
"Intelligence is everything, Arthur," Caleb said to him with a lie, his max level Persuasion making the fabrication sound like an absolute, undeniable fact. "I didn't just come here blindly. I got some very expensive, highly classified insider information from one of the eastern backers' disgruntled accountants in Saint Denis. He told me that the specific places I just told the boys to smash open were actually filled with the Grays' true generational treasures. Either untraceable paper money, heavy silver, or pure gold bars."
Hearing that, the logic completely clicked in Arthur's mind. It made perfect sense that Caleb, a man who controlled the shadows of the city, would have bribed someone to get the blueprints to the enemy's vault. Arthur simply nodded his head in deep respect for Caleb's unending preparation. "You don't miss a single trick, do you?"
"Never," Caleb smirked.
A few moments later, a capo rushed out of the dining room, his face covered in dust, carrying a heavy, rotting wooden lockbox. He dropped it at Caleb's feet. The rusted lock was already smashed. The lid popped open, revealing dozens of gleaming, solid gold bars stacked neatly inside.
"Mother of God," Bill whispered, stepping forward to stare at the fortune that had been hidden right beneath the dining table.
Soon, the capos from the study emerged, hauling heavy sacks filled with pristine stacks of pre war Confederate gold and thousands of dollars in hidden cash.
The Grays members, who heard the smashing and now saw their most guarded, secretive wealth being casually hauled out into the foyer, were absolutely, profoundly surprised. The weeping women stopped crying, staring in utter, horrifying disbelief.
Those hidden stashes had been secrets passed down only to the patriarchs of the family. No accountant, no servant, and no eastern backer had ever known about them.
They looked at Caleb, standing amidst their shattered home, his dark duster billowing slightly in the draft. To the Grays, he was no longer just a mob boss or a rival businessman. With his terrifying weapons, his impossible marksmanship, and his supernatural ability to uncover their deepest, darkest secrets, he truly seemed like the devil himself, come to collect his absolute due.
Caleb looked down at the mountain of confiscated wealth sitting in the center of the shattered grand foyer was staggering. It wasn't just the rotting lockbox filled with heavy, dust covered gold bars, or the burlap sacks stuffed with pre war Confederate gold and hidden cash.
The pile also included the heavy leather bags the Grays had been frantically packing, bags overflowing with bearer bonds, property deeds, pure silver pocket watches, and exquisite diamond necklaces.
Caleb looked down at the glittering pile, his sharp blue eyes calculating the immense logistical challenge of moving it all. He didn't want this fortune loaded onto the backs of their warhorses, slowing them down.
"We need secure transport," Caleb stated, his voice cutting through the quiet sobbing of the captive Gray women. He turned to the capos standing nearest to the pile. "I want these riches to be stored inside a carriage. We don't have to use ours. Go look for one that belongs to the Grays out on the back. They had already prepared their luxury carriages back there in desperate preparation to run away before John cut them off."
"Yes, Don McLaughlin," a capo nodded, gesturing for three others to follow him.
They jogged out the back doors of the mansion, heading toward the sprawling carriage house. After saying that, the remaining capos stood guard, their high velocity rifles leveled at the kneeling aristocrats, ensuring no one moved a muscle.
Within minutes, the capos returned. They had found the perfect vehicle, a massive, heavy duty, black lacquered luxury coach, completely reinforced and drawn by a team of four panicked but healthy thoroughbreds.
The capos skillfully navigated the heavy carriage around the side of the house and parked it right outside the shattered front doors of the mansion, the wooden wheels crunching loudly over the blood-stained gravel of the courtyard.
"Load it up," Caleb commanded, stepping out of the way.
He had the capos move absolutely all of the riches that the Grays possessed.
They hauled the heavy leather bags, the rotting wooden lockbox of gold bars, and the burlap sacks filled with the treasures founded through his max level skill, securely storing them inside the velvet lined interior of the carriage.
Once the fortune was completely loaded, Caleb turned to Silvio, the towering enforcer who acted as the iron fist of his security operations.
"Silvio. Detach ten of our absolute best capos from the main perimeter," Caleb ordered smoothly, his mind already securing the asset. "I want them heavily armed with Sweepers. They will ride alongside this carriage. It is to be guarded with their lives and sent directly back to my mansion in Saint Denis, to be stored deep within the primary vault."
"It will be done, Don McLaughlin. The gold will reach the city before nightfall," Silvio rumbled, immediately moving to select his most trusted shooters to form the armed escort.
With the financial spoils of the war entirely secured and sent away, Caleb adjusted his heavy leather duster. The extraction of the wealth was only half of the objective. He still needed the intelligence.
"Arthur, John, let's go," Caleb said softly.
Caleb andmembers of the Van der Linde gang left the shattered, dusty interior of the mansion. Behind them, the grim faced Italian capos remained inside, their weapons drawn, making absolutely sure the weeping Gray family inside didn't do anything rash or attempt to retaliate.
As they stepped outside onto the grand marble porch, the freezing winter wind hit them, carrying with it a sound that was far more chilling than the weather.
Coming from the direction of the distant, heavy wooden curing barns on the eastern edge of the property, the muffled, agonizing screams of Tavish and Leigh could be clearly heard. The screams were not the short, sharp cries of men being shot, they were the long, desperate, ragged shrieks of men being systematically broken apart.
Arthur Morgan frowned slightly, adjusting his hat, though he didn't voice any objections. John just stared straight ahead. They were outlaws who had killed plenty of men, but the calculated, clinical torture utilized by the Italian mafia was a different breed of violence entirely.
Caleb walked off the porch, his boots crunching over the blood stained gravel, heading purposefully toward the location of the torturing.
He navigated the twisting, muddy paths through the tobacco fields, passing the scattered, lifeless bodies of the ex Confederate mercenaries he had gunned down earlier.
When he finally arrived at the heavy, reinforced oak doors of the curing barns, the pungent smell of drying tobacco leaves was completely overpowered by the sharp, metallic tang of fear and blood.
He pushed the heavy wooden doors open and stepped into the dim, shadow filled interior of the barn.
Inside, illuminated only by a few flickering oil lanterns hanging from the rafters, he found Tavish and Leigh. They were stripped of their expensive linen coats, bound tightly to heavy wooden support pillars with thick, rough hemp rope. The two patriarchs were already completely exhausted.
Caleb noted with professional approval that there were actually very minimal physical injuries on them. There was no excessive bleeding, no broken bones protruding from their skin. Dean and the capos had followed his orders perfectly.
The physical torture wasn't the kind that could kill them, they had utilized brutal, agonizing pain compliance techniques, stress positions, joint manipulation, and suffocating water rags, designed to shatter the mind while leaving the body intact enough to sign a document.
But their faces were very, very pale, completely drained of blood. Their eyes were wide open, showing a level of sheer, unadulterated terror that bordered on madness. They had looked into the abyss of the mafia's cruelty, and their aristocratic arrogance had been entirely burned away.
When they saw Caleb's imposing figure enter the barn, the gold inlaid pistol still resting in his thigh holster, they immediately began to beg for mercy.
"Please! Make it stop! Make them stop!" Tavish shrieked, thrashing pathetically against the ropes, his voice hoarse and broken. "We told them! We told them everything!"
"I swear to God, we told them every name! Just don't let him touch me again!" Leigh sobbed uncontrollably, staring at the scarred capo, Dean, as if he were the devil incarnate.
Caleb completely ignored their pathetic begging. He walked slowly past the bound men and turned to look at the capos who had tortured them.
"Well, Dean?" Caleb asked, his voice calm and business-like in the dim barn. "Have they given you any information actually worth knowing?"
Dean wiped a smudge of dirt from his scarred cheek and nodded his head, a dark, incredibly satisfied grin spreading across his face.
"They sang like canaries, Don McLaughlin," Dean reported, pulling a blood stained notepad from his vest pocket. "It took less than fifteen minutes for the old man to start naming names."
Dean stepped forward, handing the notepad to Caleb. He then informed the Don of exactly what they had extracted during these last few minutes of agony.
"These backers of theirs... they aren't just random businessmen," Dean explained, pointing to the hastily scribbled names on the paper. "They are massive, heavy hitters. Some of them are prominent railroad tycoons from Chicago, some are big steel manufacturing tycoons from the Rust Belt, and also some incredibly wealthy oil tycoons from New Hanover."
Caleb's eyes scanned the names, his mind instantly cataloging the corporate targets.
"Why this specific coalition?" Caleb asked softly.
"Because they all feel incredibly threatened by your sudden ascension and appearance down here in the South," Dean relayed, relaying Tavish's desperate confessions. "They told Tavish that you show a very, very different movement compared to Angelo Bronte and the mob bosses before him. Bronte just wanted to run gambling dens and whorehouses. You are building factories. You are building hotels. You are aggressively moving into legitimate, massive industries, and you are doing it with unlimited capital and an army of killers. They are terrified you are going to monopolize the entire Southern economy and choke them out."
Caleb let out a slow, dark chuckle. They were absolutely right to be terrified.
"But they didn't organize themselves," Dean continued, delivering the absolute centerpiece of the intelligence. "All of these tycoons... they were gathered together by one man. Leviticus Cornwall."
Hearing that name, Arthur stiffened slightly, his hand instinctively dropping to the grip of his M-1911 pistol. John Marston cursed under his breath.
"Cornwall," Caleb murmured, the name tasting like ash.
"Yes, sir," Dean nodded. "Tavish said Cornwall used his last, desperate burst of high society contacts, his remaining liquid money, and his political influence to create this big corporate group. His losses down here in Lemoyne, the train robberies, the destruction of his coal mine town Annesburg, and can't access his oil fields, have been too massive for his ego to handle. He funded this proxy war because he is entirely ready to split the Southern economic cake with those other tycoons, but only if he manages to get everything back by using the Grays to kill you."
Hearing that comprehensive, massive corporate conspiracy laid bare, Caleb slowly nodded his head. It was exactly the kind of arrogant, overreaching move he expected from a desperate billionaire like Cornwall.
Caleb handed the notepad back to Dean and slowly turned to look at Tavish and Leigh.
The two men were shivering, completely broken.
"Is this the truth?" Caleb asked them softly, stepping up to Tavish, his piercing blue eyes boring into the man's soul. "Have you truly let out everything you knew? Every single name?"
"Yes! Yes, God, yes!" the two of them nodded their heads frantically, pulling against the ropes. "That is all of them! Cornwall organized it! The men in the parlor brought the money! We were just the middlemen!"
Caleb absorbed the confirmation. He then asked the next vital question, confirming the details of the hit. "And who explicitly requested for the assassination attempt to be done against me yesterday? Was it your idea, Tavish?"
"No! No, I swear it wasn't!" Tavish cried, his voice pitching higher in sheer terror. "It was all of the representatives of those rich people! The suits in the parlor! They ordered it! They brought the mercenaries down on the trains and they paid them the bounties! We just did what they asked! We just gave them a place to stay!"
Caleb stared at him for a long, silent moment, analyzing the man's micro expressions. He was telling the truth. The Grays were too cowardly to order a hit on a mafia Don, the backers fixers had forced their hand.
Caleb nodded his head, accepting the reality of the corporate war. He had the names. He had the motive.
Before he concluded his business in the barn, he asked the final, most important logistical question of the day.
"Where did you store the official land deeds that belong to the Gray family?" Caleb demanded, his voice dropping into a cold, uncompromising register. "The legal paperwork for Caliga Hall and the surrounding town of Rhodes. I know you didn't have it in that bag you dropped in the foyer. Where is it?"
Tavish hesitated. Even broken and beaten, the deeply ingrained greed of the Southern aristocrat flared up. He was absolutely sure he knew this is how it would end, that Caleb was going to take their land and wipe them out.
Tavish looked up, blood dripping from his lip, and of course, he didn't want to give up the location unless he got something in return.
"I... I will tell you," Tavish gasped, his breath rattling in his chest. "But you have to promise me. You have to promise the safety of the other family members first. Swear to me that they will be allowed to live out their lives here."
Caleb didn't even blink. He looked the broken man dead in the eyes, his max level Persuasion skill weaving a masterful, flawless illusion of mercy.
"I give you my word, Tavish," Caleb agreed to it smoothly, his voice radiating a calm, absolute sincerity. "Tell me where the deeds are, and the women, the children, and the cousins will be completely unharmed. They will remain on this plantation."
Tavish let out a long, shuddering breath, the tension leaving his body as he believed the lie. "They are in the Rhodes bank," Tavish confessed, his voice a defeated whisper. "In the primary underground vault. Safe deposit box number one. The key... the key is hidden inside the hollowed out base of the grandfather clock in my study."
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Name: Caleb Thorne
Age: 23
Body Attributes:
- Strength: 8/10
- Agility: 8/10
- Perception: 9/10
- Stamina: 8/10
- Charm: 8/10
- Luck: 9/10
Skills:
- Handgun (Lvl MAX)
- Rifle (Lvl MAX)
- Firearms Knowledge (Lvl MAX)
- Past Life Memory (Lvl MAX)
- Knife (Lvl MAX)
- Blunt Weapon (Lvl MAX)
- Sneaking (Lvl MAX)
- Horse Mastery (Lvl MAX)
- Poker (Lvl MAX)
- Hand to Hand Combat (Lvl MAX)
- Eagle Eye (Lvl MAX)
- Dead Eye (Lvl MAX)
- Bow (Lvl MAX)
- Pain Nullifier (Lvl MAX)
- Physical Regeneration (Lvl MAX)
- Crafting (Lvl MAX)
- Persuasion (Lvl MAX)
- Mental Fortitude (Lvl MAX)
- Cooking (Lvl MAX)
- Teaching (Lvl MAX)
- Trilingual Language Proficiency - G, I, & C (Lvl MAX)
- Inventory System (Permanent - 100x100x100)
- Acting (Lvl MAX)
- Alcohol Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Treasure Hunter (Lvl MAX)
- Drugs Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Business (Lvl MAX)
- Leadership (Lvl MAX)
Money: 2,772 dollars and 60 cents
Inventory: 283,392 dollars and 61 cents, 11 gold nuggets, 74 gold bars, 1 Double Action, 1 Schofield, 2 Colm's Schofields, 1 land deed (Parcel), 1 Mauser, 1 Semi Auto Pistol, 1 Lancaster Repeater, 1 Old Wood Jewelry Box, 1 F.F Mausoleum small brass key, 1 Ruby, 1 Braithwaites Land Deed, 1 Broken Pirate Sword, 1 Milton's Safety Deposit Key, Proof Of Marlin-Thorne Firearms Co., 10 Dynamites, 1 LeMat, 1 M1899, 1 Carcano, 1 Ownership deed of Doyle's Tavern, 3 Diamonds, & Important Documents & Deeds Of Cornwall
Bank: -