Chapter 3: The Fireblight Family

3/3 this week. Greed is good. Enjoy ^^.

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The capital of the Flame Brand Republic was called Flamesworn City. The city had little going for it in terms of resources, but was located adjacent to a volcano where a temple Jezeriah had been built. It was thanks to this temple that the republic was able to train many fierce warriors, many of which were hired out to neighboring countries. The best of them were in high demand across the continent.

Oster Fireblight came from a prestigious family of mercenary generals that had lost most of its core descendants, leaving Oster as the family’s sole inheritor. That didn’t go over very well, so in the end, only Oster and the family steward, Maurice, remained.

Out of all those who returned from the Heartforge Realm, Oster was the least active. Not because times were peaceful, but because he preferred to wait and see what wars would develop rom the infusion of talent.

Tying up your time and capital too early was a rooky mistake. Oster also wasn’t hurting for cash and could probably buy a few countries if he so wished.

He was currently sitting in the drawing room reading a treatise on war so well-used that it was falling apart from wear. A heavily pruned family tree adorned the wall. A few branches had been added sometime during his absence, and it would take time to determine whether or not additional pruning was required.

It was just after lunchtime. Oster’s eyelids were heavy from a food coma, and only a hot cup of coffee stood between him and the small cot in the drawing room. It was a nice day so far – too nice to be ruined by whoever it was knocking on his door.

“Who is it, Maurice?” Oster asked his steward. A stiff-backed, aging man with oiled gray hair wearing a butler’s uniform entered the room.

“Just a door-to-door salesman,” said the Butler. The answer was provided to him via a skill. “Shall I capture him and feed him to the dogs for interrupting your train of thought?”

Oster closed his book. “No, I think I’ll personally deal with him.” He used a simple skill to project his voice down to the door. “Who is it?” he asked. “Did you read the sign? Unless you don’t know how to read, in which case I might let this off as an honest mistake.”

The large, triple-chinned man on his doorstep quivered slightly, but did not shy away from the door. “I did see the sign, Lord Fireblight,” the man said. “And I was about to turn away, but the detail in the message caught my attention. Private Property, No Soliciting is a common door sign to hang, but the addition of Death by Fire for Failure to Abide? That’s different. It’s a classy message that speaks of a man that values his time and pays attention to the smallest details.”

Oster Fireblight was impressed by the man’s bravery but uncertain about his intelligence. Had he really been gone for so long? Don’t go anywhere near Fireblight Manor was advise that mothers gave to their children as soon as they were old enough to walk outside alone.

“Do you not fear death?” said Oster finally. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t torch you and take your possessions.”

“That is exactly the kind of inquisitive question I would expect from a man of your calibre,” said the man. “I heard it said that you are the finest of generals, and strike fear into your enemies half a world away.”

“It’s Ex-General,” Oster corrected. “I don’t do mercenary stuff anymore. It attracts too much attention from the wrong people.”

“Which is exactly why I’m here!” said the salesman. “You are a man of vision, one that’s not satisfied by the meager opportunities that pass you by. You’re the type that would rather wait a year without doing anything, but once given the opportunity, will surprise the world with a lightning offensive! Most importantly, you know what’s important in life.”

“… which is?” asked Oster.

“Money, of course!” said the salesman.

“Money?” Oster asked. “Everyone wants money, even the selfless preachers. Since you don’t have anything interesting to say, I’ll be torching you and scattering your remains in the back courtyard.”

He was about to do just that when the man exclaimed in a loud voice, “Wait! I’ve come bearing rare trade goods from Titanvale, the kind that you can’t find on the market anymore!”

“I have no interest in ore,” said Oster.

“I would never bring you anything so mundane as ore to you,” the salesman said. “I bring you something much rarer –Titan-forged goods. They’re a rarity these days, given the disappearance of the Titan Clan. But with painstaking effort, I have gathered here not one, not ten, but a hundred such blades, all crafted to the Titan Clan’s exacting standards.”

This piqued Oster’s interest. Hiring subordinates was relatively easy, but arming such elites with proper weapons? Inconvenient. He’d not bought nearly enough from the Heartforge Realm before leaving – largely due to the sky-high prices near the end of the trials.

But Oster was a suspicious individual, would treat all salesmen with a grain of salt. “Why should I believe you?” Oster said. “And once again, why shouldn’t I torch you on the spot? Then I could just take your goods as my own.”

“And break the sacred covenant between salespeople and their buyers?” asked the salesman, aghast. “Of course you would. Because you’re the legendary general. As such, you’ve probably already determined that my equipment is held in a life bound storage ring. If you kill me, my goods will be destroyed.”

Oster wasn’t convinced, so the salesman had no choice but to summon ten such blades. They twirled about to perform a blade master’s dance. It was obvious by the quality of his movements that he’d practiced many hundreds, if not thousands of times.

“Impressive,” said Oster. “But ten is not the same as a hundred. Show me half your stock, and I’ll your offer.”

“I’m afraid a merchant can’t bet everything on a single hand,” countered the salesman. “But I’ll tell you what – I’ll show you a third of my goods.” He summoned another twenty blades and had them each perform another blade dance. Judging by his look of intense concentration, thirty blades was his limit.

“And how much are these magnificent weapons?” Oster finally asked.

“For you, and only for you, I will sell these hundred blades for the low, low price of a thousand top-grade inkwell jades,” said the salesman.

“A hundred,” said Oster. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’m afraid that’s not nearly enough,” said the salesman. “I spent my life savings on this venture, everything I had for this one opportunity. At least give me eight hundred top-grade spirit stones.”

That was when Oster finally had enough and directly torched the man, reducing him to a pile of ash in front of a group of horrified passerby’s. A nearby guard pointedly looked in the other direction and whistled. Nope, this had not happened on his watch.

“Shall I go outside and clean up?” inquired Maurice.

“Please,” said Oster. “And make sure to go heavy on the grease stains this time.”

“As you instruct,” said the steward. He teleported to the doorstep and used a tiny broom to sweep away the ashes, then tossed a few handfuls of a white powder around to clean up any remnants.

Thirty seconds later, Maurice returned with thirty blades and five storage rings. “Here are the goods that remain, Lord Fireblight. It seems he was lying about the life bound storage rings. I didn’t see any traces of self destruction. Shall I open these for you?”

“No,” said Oster. “The red-gemmed ring provoked a reaction from the wards. Destroy it please.”

Maurice obeyed his command without hesitation. The middle gold-ranked Steward of Blight and Coin summoned a containment field around the ring and crushed it. The ensuing explosion shook the containment field but did not manage to breach its protections.

“And what shall I do with these blades?” asked Maurice. “They appear to be of high quality. Shall I add them to the armory?”

“No,” said Oster with a tinge of disappointment. “They’re forgeries. All of them.” They shattered with a wave of his hand, and Maurice swept them to a corner of the room for future disposal. Treasure materials were worth something, at least. And the house of Fireblight did not waste.

“If I may,” said Maurice. “What exactly are you looking for in this pile of garbage? It’s not like you to obsess over a small bit of coin after your recent gains.”

Oster picked up one of the rings and tinkered with it. He twisted a piece of rune-work before tossing it towards the Butler, who yelped, put up a containment field, and braced himself for impact.

But this time, there was no impact. A black and white needle shot through the shield, only crash into a secondary shield of green flame that Oster had pre-emptively deployed.

“I’m trying to solve a puzzle,” said Oster to Maurice. “Which is many times more interesting than reading a dusty old book.”

“A puzzle?” asked Maurice. “Which puzzle are you speaking of?”

“The puzzle surrounding these industrious assassination attempts, of course,” said Oster. “On the surface, they all appear unrelated, but if you look at each one deeply, you’ll find something connecting them.” He pulled an object out of one of the rings. It was an oil painting, one of Mendin’s classics.

“Is that real?” asked Maurice.

“Of course not,” said Oster. “It’s a forgery. But bear with me.”

He summoned eight other such paintings that he’d obtained over the past few days, then took out a knife. He slashed each painting open and retrieved a small thread from each one.

He then connected the thread pieces and heated them up with his green flames until they coiled into a long sentence. “There are many unnecessary steps to this puzzle, but that’s what caught my interest.”

“This sentence…” said a hesitant Maurice.

“Is meaningless,” Oster finished. “We must therefore rearrange it.” He summoned his Mirror of the Blighted Coin used it to evaluate the jumbled-up characters. “Here we are. Each of these characters can be assembled into words when paired according to the Crimson Lotus Empire’s traditional text. When randomly drawn, each word has a statistical probability of being chosen.” He waved his hand a few times then stopped when a legible sentence appeared. “It appears that I’ve failed yet again,” Oster said.

“You’re. Looking. In. The wrong place?” said Maurice. “That’s the message?”

“Yes,” said Oster, adjusting his red tie. “I was sure I had it right this time. Did you check the dust as I instructed?”

“It contained only ash and grease,” said Maurice. “No additional residues.”

“These remaining storage rings contain nothing,” said Oster, crushing them. “Which brings us back to square one. Unless…” His eyes narrowed, and he tossed a ball of green flame at the weapon shards that had been swept up against the fireplace.

The shards came alive. They first scattered to avoid the green fireball, then reassembled as a scythe beside Maurice that attempted to bisect the butler.

But Maurice was not to be underestimated – the steward was of a general’s household and had many tricks up his sleeve. He drew a thin sword from his pant leg and parried the scythe, scattering the many assembled bits of metal that formed tiny metal slips.

“What are those?” asked the Butler.

“They’re talismans!” Oster shouted. “And there’s only one person that would attack me with talismans. Come out Clear Sky! I know it’s you!”

A third of the metal talismans shot towards the butler and created a formation lock, completely sealing away his ranker powers. The remainder came together to create a spatial passageway.

“Your mansion is extremely difficult to infiltrate,” said Cha Ming, walking through the gateway. “The cook was absurdly good at blocking any entry in to the kitchen, and your steward runs nasty interference. By the way, why are the wards in your mansion so difficult to pierce?”

“Because immortal wards, Clear Sky,” said Oster. “I bought them in the Heartforge Realm, specifically to deal with you.”

“Could I trouble you for a cup of tea?” asked Cha Ming.

“Of course,” said Oster. “Here, let me.” He used this opportunity to throw a cursed dagger Clear Sky’s way, but winced as when a tiny stream of black ink cut the dagger in half and dissipated the curse.

This created an opening, which Oster used to activate a battlefield skill. A healthy layer of space appeared between him in Clear Sky and was growing wider by the second.

“Are you really going to rely on something so elementary?” asked Cha Ming. He used spatial ink to paint a bridge between them, then painted a second battlefield to collapse the ever-expanding space into a tight bagua formation.

Oster’s movements were restricted. He could only move forward and backward. Left and right and up and down were no longer options.

This was a very favorable arrangement for Cha Ming, who immediately attacked with a large bronze pillar. Oster used a quick-retreat skill to pull himself out of harms way, but it was only a matter of time before he caught up.

“Does it really have to be this way?” asked Oster. “We don’t have any significant grudges, do we?” He threw up a small bronze shield up and used it to block Cha Ming’s follow-up attack. This time, the pillar stopped dead in its tracks.”

“You don’t have the power to sustain such a shield, Oster,” Cha Ming said calmly. “You’re burning through immortal jades to activate it.”

He was correct, and Oster new it. Just blocking a single strike had used up a tenth of an immortal jade. “You can’t be doing much better than I am,” said Oster. “A war of attrition benefits no one. Just tell me what you want.”

“Can’t I just want you dead?” asked Cha Ming. Paintings began pouring fourth from two portals, and they were soon joined by three cats made of lighting, wind, and blood that commanded a small sea of bloodstorm energy.

“You’re not the only one with an army,” said Oster. He tapped on his storage ring and summoned three armies consisting entirely of metal puppets, then issued a pre-planned string of commands to them.

Their respective armies tangled for a while, but neither side came up the victor. Clear Sky had his strange flames and his powerful law projection, but Oster was by far the better general.

“Fine,” said Oster, pulling his armies back. “Let’s talk. Let’s have tea.” He stored his puppets and turned his back, leaving himself defenseless. His gamble paid off, because Clear Sky did not cut him down, and unsummoned his own armies.

“You dare gamble with your life like that?” said Cha Ming.

“It’s not gambling if the odds are good,” said Oster. “Moreover, my odds of surviving if you truly wish to kill me are very slim. You didn’t break your limit, I note.”

“That’s true,” said Cha Ming. “You’re very good at this game. Then do you know why I’m here?”

Oster walked over to a table and poured Clear Sky a cup of tea. Cha Ming was apparently a tea heathen – he added only sugar to his black tea but no milk or cream, as was proper.

“If I were to guess correctly, this has to do with the Monkey King and the others that disappeared along with Verdant Crossroads,” said Oster. “For the record, I had nothing to do with their disappearance.”

“This is exactly why I came to see you,” said Cha Ming. He took out a jade slip and tossed it to Oster.

Oster reviewed the jade slip and was surprised to discover that it was a very confidential map of a familiar location – the Realm of Good and Evil. “How did you get this?” asked Oster.

“You don’t need to know that,” said Cha Ming. “What I want is for you to get me into this place. I need you to come up with a plan to save my teacher.”

“Are you insane?” asked Oster. “That’s the Realm of Good and Evil we’re talking about.

“Which is why I couldn’t figure out how to do it for the life of me,” said Cha Ming. “I figured if there was anyone on the Inkwell Plane that could do it, it’s you.”

Oster folded his hands over his teacup and pursed his lips. Inwardly, however, he was quite pleased. This was exactly the kind of opportunity he’d been waiting for.

“And what are you offering in return for said plan?” asked Oster. I’m sure you understand that betrayal is not looked kindly upon by my goddess.” Unless the price is high enough, obviously. But he didn’t say that out loud.

“Is it really betrayal if you’re just profiteering?” said Cha Ming. “And can’t you make up for it later?”

Oster was surprised by his words. “You’ve grown, Clear Sky. I completely agree with your assessment, and so does Harid Dej.”

“Then is that a yes?” asked Cha Ming.

“It’s a maybe,” said Oster. “I can help you out. But it’ll cost you.”

“Name your price,” said Clear Sky. “I’m a little short on liquid funds, but I’m sure I can make something happen.”

“My price is something that you cannot pay,” said Oster. “At least not right now.” He took out a blood red scroll, which he’d prepared ahead of time. Clear Sky opened up the scroll and reviewed it before frowning. “This is far too prescient to have been drafted by mortal hands.”

Oster smirked. “What, did you think I’d been refusing envoys from the church for no rhyme or reason? I knew you would come, Clear Sky, just as I knew what you’d ask of me.”

“But this is –”

“Is a fair one,” said Oster.

“I was going to say speculative,” said Cha Ming. You’re asking for a favor I can’t grant, at some unspecified time in the future. And these terms at the back…”

“Non-negotiable,” said Oster.

“Fine,” said Clear Sky. “If that’s what you want, I won’t stop you. I promise to accomplish this favor you’re asking for should I became capable of granting it. I’ll also agree not to pursue any grudges or attempt to cause you harm until the contract expires.”

“Excellent!” said Oster. “I’m glad we could come to an accord. Now tell me, would you like the risky and most likely method or the safest and least likely one?”