The Dirrium nobility act : Viscount Mishima : The Gilded Cage of Mishima
The estate of Viscountess Mishima was a testament to "old money" and even older pride. It smelled of expensive incense and decaying tradition. Mishima sat behind her mahogany desk, her eyes sharp, her posture regal. She controlled the Silver-Silt trade, the only passage for luxury textiles into the Northern Empire.
Leornars sat across from her, legs crossed, looking less like a conqueror and more like a bored scholar. Beside him, Stacian stood like a marble statue, holding a single, velvet-lined case.
"Lord Leornars," Mishima began, her voice dripping with practiced condescension. "I am told you wish to 'optimize' my trade routes. I find the suggestion... amusing. My family has held the Silt-Pass for three hundred years."
"Three hundred years of stagnation is a long time, Viscountess," Leornars replied, his voice a level murmur. He didn't look at her; he was focused on his silver pen. "You have the route, but you don't have the speed. Your caravans lose 12% of their cargo to damp-rot in the lowlands. Your profit margins are bleeding into the mud."
Mishima's eyes flashed. "A minor seasonal loss. The market compensates."
"Does it?" Leornars signaled to Stacian.
She opened the case. Inside lay a vial of shimmering, viscous liquid Aether-Glass Varnish.
"Apply this to your crates," Leornars said. "It flash-seals organic material. Zero rot. Zero loss. It increases your transport speed by 40% because you no longer need to stop for ventilation. I am offering you a monopoly on this substance."
Mishima leaned forward. She was a predator, and she smelled a meal. "And your price? I assume you want a percentage of the Silt-Pass?"
"Actually," Leornars said, offering a rare, thin smile. "I want nothing from your current profits. I want the exclusive rights to the waste-runoff. The silk scraps and the 'damaged' ores your workers throw away. To me, they are curiosities. To you, they are trash."
Mishima paused. He wants the trash? She did the math. If she used his varnish, her primary profits would skyrocket. Giving him the "waste" cost her literally nothing. It was a 100% win for her.
"You have a deal, Lord Leornars," she said, her voice filled with a hidden triumph. "I shall have the contracts drawn."
"No need," Leornars said, pulling a pre-written scroll from his coat. "I've already detected the flaws in your standard contracts and corrected them for you. It ensures your family's name stays protected from any... unforeseen liabilities."
She signed it without a second thought.
One Month Later
Leornars stood on the balcony of his own manor, watching a report from Zhyelena.
"The Viscountess is delighted," Zhyelena reported, her voice raspy. "Her wealth has doubled. She's currently throwing a gala in your honor, calling you the 'Saviour of Silt'."
"The fool," Leornars remarked, swirling a glass of dark wine.
"Did you find what you needed in the 'trash'?" Stacian asked.
"The waste-runoff contained trace amounts of Deep-Iron dust," Leornars explained. "By 'cleaning' her waste for her, I have secretly harvested enough raw material to arm three battalions in Avangard. But that isn't the real victory."
He tapped the contract on the table.
"Section 4, Paragraph 9," Leornars read. "In the event of a 'production anomaly' caused by the Aether-Glass Varnish, the provider—me—retains the right to 'stabilize' the estate's logistics to prevent a regional economic collapse."
"And the anomaly?" Stacian asked.
"The varnish is permanent," Leornars said coldly. "After three months, it doesn't just seal the crates; it bonds with the wood, the stone of the warehouses, and the hands of the workers. It makes the entire trade infrastructure impossible to move or alter without the solvent. A solvent only I possess."
A sudden realization dawned on Stacian. "You didn't just buy her trade. You turned her entire estate into a fixed asset that only you can unlock."
"She thinks she is the Queen of Silt," Leornars said, his gaze fixed on the distant lights of Mishima's gala. "But tomorrow, I will stop the solvent shipments. Her warehouses will become tombstones. She will crawl to me, begging me to take over 'administration' of her lands just to keep the workers from rioting. I haven't just taken her money; I've taken her agency."
He clicked his silver pen.
"She wanted a partner. She got a puppeteer. The audit of the Mishima estate is... effectively closed."
The heavy iron gates of the Mishima estate had barely creaked shut behind them when the air grew unnaturally heavy. The gravel beneath Leornars's boots didn't just crunch; it flattened into the earth as if crushed by an invisible giant.
Standing in the center of the courtyard was Sir Ronald the Heavy, a veteran of the Royal Guard. His armor was etched with gravity-attunement runes that hummed with a low, oppressive vibration. Around him, the very rain seemed to fall faster, slamming into the cobblestones.
"You," Ronald spat, his voice strained under the weight of his own power. "The White plague or auditor, whatever you call yourself. I've seen the reports. The knights' hearts failing, the Prince vanished, the King a hollow shell. It all traces back to you , You've poisoned this nation from the inside."
Leornars didn't slow his pace. The gravity field intensified, the pressure enough to snap the ribs of a lesser man, but Leornars moved through it like a ghost through a curtain.
"Your math is emotional, Sir Knight," Leornars said, his voice undisturbed by the atmospheric pressure. "And emotional math always yields a remainder of error."
Ronald roared, clenching his fist to collapse the gravity around Leornars's heart. In that millisecond, Leornars vanished in a blur of silver mana. He reappeared instantly behind the knight, his leg extending in a brutal, high-velocity kick. The impact sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil. Ronald was sent flying, his heavy armor shrieking against the stone as he slammed into the perimeter wall, the masonry cracking behind him.
Leornars landed softly, his expression shifting from bored scholarly interest to a terrifying, absolute cold. The air temperature seemed to drop twenty degrees. He didn't even look at the man coughing blood in the ruins of the wall.
He turned his gaze to Stacian.
"He is a variable that refuses to be solved," Leornars said, his voice a razor's edge. "Do it. Age him."
Stacian stepped forward, her silver hair beginning to float as if caught in an updraft of pure time-mana. She raised her hand, her fingers tracing a circular sigil in the air that glowed with a pale, ghostly light.
"Chain Breaker: The Flow of the Past," Stacian whispered.
The Knight's eyes widened as a shimmering shroud of chronal energy enveloped him. The change was horrific. His thick, dark hair turned to brittle white straw in seconds. His muscular frame withered, the skin sagging into deep, papery wrinkles. His heavy plate armor, once a perfect fit, became a cavernous shell that slid off his shrinking shoulders, clattering uselessly onto the gravel. Within a minute, the formidable warrior was a hunched, trembling ancient, gasping for breath through toothless gums.
A squad of younger palace guards rounded the corner, drawn by the sound of the crash. They stopped, spears leveled, looking in confusion at the ruined wall and the withered old man in tattered under-garments.
Leornars adjusted his cuffs, his face returning to a mask of calm, civic duty. He looked at the guards with an air of mild offense.
"Guards," Leornars called out, his tone projecting the perfect authority of the Grand Administrator. "This wretch has managed to infiltrate the estate, draped in the stolen remains of Sir Ronald 's armor. It seems we have a delusional vagrant impersonating a Knight of the Realm. It is a desecration of the uniform."
The guards looked at the "old man," who was trying to point a shaking finger at Leornars, his voice nothing but a wheeze. They didn't see a hero; they saw exactly what Leornars told them to see: a pathetic, lying intruder.
"Take him away," Leornars commanded. "The penalty for impersonating a royal officer is execution by dawn. See that the records reflect his 'intrusion' accurately."
The guards seized the withered man by his bony arms, dragging him across the gravel. Sir Kaelen's muffled cries were ignored as the heavy doors of the dungeon opened to swallow him.
Leornars turned back toward the carriage, the silver pen clicking once in his hand.
"A clean subtraction," he remarked to Stacian. "Now, shall we go check on the Deep-Iron harvest? We have a schedule to keep."