From the Ashes: Sear (ch. 13) (Patreon)

There was a change in the alienage after the fire. Soris likened it to it being the final straw -- First, the purge on the alienage, then the lockdown, and now, after we had built a new orphanage, the Arls' own son came and burned the building down and tried to burn half a hundred orphans alive with it. There was a tension in the alienage that seemed to fill the air, and signs of it could be seen everywhere, from the groups of elves muttering darkly to each other, to people moving everywhere in groups, and just a general sense of unease.

“He damn near burned the alienage down and ain’t nothing gonna happen to ‘em,” I heard an elf mutter in the Blushing Maid, a tankard of ale clutched between his fingers, unaware that I was striding through the room due to my invisibility. He sat at a table with a few other Rabbits, all of them wearing deep frowns and scowls. Even the working girls showed signs of that tension. “It’s not right.”

“Those kids would have died. The old Hahren would have died. Thank the Maker Azoth was there,” I heard one mutter as I headed for my office. “Strode right in, got ‘em all out, left the building covered in flames with a babe in his arms!”

“Heard Andraste herself protected him from the flames,” one elf muttered.

There was a snort, “No such luck. The lad was burnt to cinders when he left the building, but he didn’t seem to mind that none. The boy’s become a man.”

“He had to. Everyone knows what happened to his family. I knew ‘em. The Suranas were fine folk. When he walked off to find the Dalish after the funeral, I thought he was going to drown himself in the ocean. Instead, the lad came back and he came back angry.”

“I don’t care about how angry he is. He did right by those kids. And by us. I thought he was going to be another thug, but as far as thugs go, he’s alright. The Rabbits are alright.”

“It ain’t right,” I heard another group mutter as I approached my office. “It just ain’t right. Did he at least get a scolding?”

“Not that I’ve heard. It was that Darrien fellow that got a finger-wagging. Got sent back to his lordship's home for striking an Arl. He’s a good’un. What I wouldn’t give for him to be the Arl instead of the Kendells,” another Rabbit echoed.

“That’s treason,” one elf shushed him but the Rabbit didn’t care.

“It’s common sense. Vaughan is as rotten as they come,” the Rabbit stated flatly with a shake of his head. I left the tavern talk behind me as I entered my office, the well-oiled hinges not making so much as a squeak, letting me slide in without anyone being the wiser. My office was in a state of disarray, mostly because of how busy I was in the week following the fire.

There was a note on my desk -- a list of names that I had asked for. If there had to be a silver lining to Vaughan's antics, it was that it ensured that there was a long, long waiting list of elves that wanted to join the Rabbits. It would be some time before we could get through all of them because the Landsmeet was still in session. In theory, we could have as many as three hundred new members, but I imagine a number of them would thin out when they learned about the initiation to the Rabbits.

Still, if even half of them saw the initiation through, then the Rabbits would number over two hundred -- a hundred and fifty new members and eighty current members. Not a bad number at all. It would put our numbers near the Blighters, the largest gang in the city. Though, from the sounds of it, the Hounds and Raggers were both on a recruitment drive, so perhaps the title of largest gang in the city would be changing hands in the coming months regardless.

I took the list and shoved it into my pocket before sorting through the rest of the notes. I saw confirmations that Darrien had indeed been banished back to Pilgrim's Path for assaulting Vaughan. King Cailan, under Queen Anora’s guidance, had decided that compensation would be given to Tanya for the burning of her building. Nothing was said about the elves that Vaughan nearly murdered.

I also received a note that Darvik was in the city. At the Pearl, the nicest brothel in the city that the nobles frequented. The tip came from an elven whore that worked in the Pearl. Another small change that I noticed after the fire -- elves, even ones that weren’t connected to the gang, started coming forward with bits of information. I was quick to start setting up a payment system for elves, whether they were whores or servants, to be paid for any information they give.

Like the people out in the Maid’s hall, the perception of the Rabbits was starting to change. We weren’t just another gang of elven thugs. We were a protection gang for the alienage.

Lastly, I took a small sleeping draught that I had Shianni prepare for me. She was all too eager to go to an herbalist for one, glad that I was finally going to do something about my lack of sleep.

“I have a busy day ahead of me,” I decided, folding the pieces of vellum, tucking them in my pocket, before leaving my office. There were a lot of things happening at once -- things that I needed to set in motion and things that I needed to tie off. During the Landsmeet was the best time to do most of it because of the guard enforced truce it caused. It was a rare opportunity that would only come once a year, in theory.

With that in mind, I set about my long day. Leaving the Blushing Maid invisible, I went about heading to the edge of the slums that bordered the docks. Deep into the heart of Blighter territory.

I cast Disguise Self upon myself, giving myself the appearance of someone that the Blighters knew very well -- Gerald Verday. The leader of the Blighters. A middle-aged man, with dark black hair, a clean-shaven face that sported a few scars, and a nose that had been broken so many times that the bridge had been flattened. It's why most people knew him as Flat-Nose. Thankfully, he wasn't that much taller than me at 5'6, so the illusion wouldn't be revealed by touching anything.

It was a good way to avoid a confrontation. A gifted fighter I was not.

Magic coiled around my hands as I approached a building that was trying very, very hard to look abandoned. It did a decent job of it all things considered. There was only so much you could do about the footprints that led up to the doorway in a back street that didn’t see a lot of foot traffic on account that the Blighters had thoroughly claimed this part of the city. It was where they kept their families and where their members lived -- half to protect each other and half to act as guards for their main bank.

The vault. The place where the Blighters housed the ill-gotten gains that they had accrued over decades of operation. Since before Fereldens liberation over thirty years ago. It was a very well-kept secret. Only a handful of Blighters knew that there was a vault at all, and fewer knew where it was. It was the most well-kept secret they had, just one that was privy to rats that slipped into the building for a nibble of cheese.

The not-so-hidden guards didn’t really know what they were protecting. They thought they were guarding the homes and families of their fellow Blighters, but that wasn’t really the case. People passed me by, their gazes going to the floor to avoid catching my eye. It helped a lot. Gerald didn't become the leader of a very old gang because people liked him. He did it because he was a mean son of a bitch that made sure he was the only choice. I walked up to the door and pounded on it.

A slot in the door slid to the side, revealing a pair of beady brown eyes that shone with surprise and then hesitation when he saw it was his boss. "Password…?"

I slammed a hand on the door, making him flinch before casting Phantasmal Force upon him through our meeting gazes. The spell made the target believe that he was seeing and hearing what I wanted them to -- I wasn’t good with the spell yet. I could cast it on myself fine enough, but thats because I left myself open to it. Meaning, that if I wanted it to work on others, then I had to cast it in ways that they didn’t know they were experiencing an illusion.

I had no clue what the password was. Only a few knew it, and despite my efforts I hadn’t been able to find out what it was. But with Phantasmal Force, the target would see what I wanted him to see and hear what I wanted him to hear. I didn't know the password, but the man on the other side of the door did, and he knew that Gerald knew the password, so he was expecting it to be said, and so the spell took root with ease. The spell filled in the blank for me and the man heard the password that he was expecting so he began to undo a rather incredible amount of locks.

The door swung open revealing a member of the Blighters. A weasley-looking man who looked up at me with faint confusion, "What brings you here, boss?"

"I need the books," I said, stepping into the building to see that it was a dilapidated building. I was careful not to touch anything. My voice was disguised as Gerald's, but I didn't want to give anyone reasons to doubt that I was him. "Both of them. Darvik is here to make sure that we aren't cheating him," I told the weasley man, who paled until his face was bloodless before he walked to a wall. Grabbing hold of a shelf, he pulled back to reveal a staircase that led to a cellar.

"Why is he suspicious?" He asked, leading me down the steps into the cellar itself. It was cut in half by iron bars that protected four chests and a few lockboxes. It wasn't the only vault that the Blighters had, but it was the largest. The others were just to avoid putting all the eggs in one basket.

"Someone talked that shouldn't have," I gave a vague but believable answer. I chose to drop Disguise Self in favor of maintaining Phantasmal Force. The former wasn't needed anymore, and maintaining two spells that require concentration was incredibly difficult. I only managed to balance between them for a short time before one or the other suffered. The man, as he gathered the two sets of books, would believe that Gerald was standing before him, leaving me free to cast Mage Hand that grabbed the lockpicks tucked in my boot to start picking the lock to the treasury.

I eliminated the noise as the man stepped forward, setting two very heavy books on the table. Stepping forward, I flipped them open and pretended to read while picking the lock. It was a good one. Looking at the books as I worked with the lock, I saw more or less what I expected to. "I'll take the decoy," I told him, earning a nod.

The two books revealed the truth -- that the Blighters were stealing from the Carta, and not in forgivable amounts. When dealing with thieves, it was understood that no matter what threats were made, at some point, ten silver was going to become nine. Especially when those ten silver passed through multiple hands.

But the books revealed that at the first stop, Denerim, ten silver became seven silver before it exchanged hands and was sent to where the ten silver was meant to go. The theft was universal from what I could tell -- hiding profit off of Carta goods to avoid paying a full kick up, inflating prices for goods that were smuggled from Denerim to Orzammar, skimming off the top, and so on. The decoy book did reveal some level of theft, but it wouldn't end a relationship like the true finance book would.

That being said, I nearly dropped both spells when I realized that the Blighters had more than three hundred sovereigns worth of funds built up. Not all of it was here, unfortunately, but most of it was.

I made a snap decision.

Looking at the older man, I drew a dagger and slashed his throat, murdering him with little hesitation. He gagged on his blood, his hands going to his throat as red spilled over his fingers. He collapsed to a knee, then fell flat on his face, dead with his blood soaking into the dirt. Wiping the dagger off on him, I finished off the lock and swung the wrought iron door open.

"This should work," I told myself, really hoping that my greed wasn't getting the better of me. I hadn't realized the Blighters were robbing the Carta blind. Now that I did, this changed things a great deal. Stepping into the treasury, I kicked open a chest to see that it was full of silver and copper bits. The other chests were the same -- running my hand through the bits of metal… it was more money than I had ever seen in one place. I closed the chests and looked to the lockboxes.  I was forced to pick another lock, but when I flipped it open, I felt like I had been punched in the gut.

With numb fingers, I ran my fingers through gold sovereigns. Dozens of them. In my wildest estimates, I had hoped that maybe, just maybe, I would come out of this with around thirty sovereigns. A fortune by any measure, but the Blighters were far richer than I thought. There were dozens of gold sovereigns in the lockbox, easily surpassing the thirty I needed, and that wasn’t even counting the silvers and bronze bits. Altogether, there had to be north of a hundred sovereigns worth of treasure in the vault. I wasted no time emptying the contents of the lockbox upon the dirt floor -- jewels and jewelry came tumbling out.

It was joined by the contents of the chests and the other lockboxes until there was a pile of silver, jewels, and copper on the ground. All except one strongbox that I left full. Looking to the pile, I used a cantrip I so rarely got a chance to use -- Mold Earth. The soil underneath the pile of coins and jewels began to bottom out, letting the fortune fall into an expanding hole five feet below the ground. I spread it out as much as I could to prevent the soil from being obviously displaced and packed it down. In a few seconds, the fortune was gone, vanished without a trace, and the floor looked no different than before.

Grabbing the lockbox and the books, I spared one glance at the dead man before casting Disguise Self to make me look like Gerald once again. With the deed done, I spared one last glance at the treasury, seeing that the chests were all closed and arranged as they were when I first saw them, before I closed the vault door with Mage Hand and headed up the stairs.

My heart pounded in my chest as I kicked the door to the building behind me and started walking with the books in arm and the strongbox in hand. I half expected someone to stop me as I walked, but no one did. The guards just watched me go, thinking I had important business to take care of, and none the wiser that I had just robbed them all blind.

The theft would be discovered shortly, but by taking the books, people would only discover empty chests. It was possible someone would think to dig on the off chance that the money was buried or, in the far more likely case… they would think that there was never any money at all and that Gerald had stolen the little that was left. After all, they did just watch him leave the vault with the books and lockbox in hand. All I had to do was make sure that no one found his body and it would simply be a case of him taking some money and fleeing Denerim.

To that end, I had to seal the deal. Which is why I immediately went down to the docks, looked for a ship that looked like it was about to sail out, and threw a sovereign into the captain's face, making my human expression tinged with fear. “I’ll take a room if you set sail now. Right now!”

The captain was a portly man but his expression grew hungry when saw the gold. “Welcome aboard…”

“Gerald,” I answered shortly, boarding the ship with quickness as the captain began to rally his crew. They were caught off guard at the quick retrieval, but they went about setting sail with no issue at all. I was given a room to myself as an expensive guest, and I imagine that Gerald would have been robbed and tossed overboard before Denerim was even a spec in the distance.

It was then that I dropped the disguise, turned myself invisible, and when the ship began to set sail, I simply leapt onto the dock as the… Queen’s Revenge took off on a round trip to the Free Marches. It was a simple bit of distraction. To anyone that tried to follow after Gerald,  what they would see was that Gerald got on a ship to flee the city. The ship's captain would likely assume that whatever trouble that had been following Gerald had found him, and the trouble that followed Gerald would assume that he had been killed and thrown overboard.

Either way, it was completely unconnected to me or the Rabbits.

I maintained invisibility all the way up to the Pearl and I dropped it in a back alley just outside it. The docks were a rough part of the city. It was by nature of the slums being adjacent to it. However, the areas leading up to and around the Pearl were a marked improvement. It was a part of the docks that the nobility bothered to maintain because it housed establishments that they were willing to frequent. And what were the nobility without their pleasures?

The door opened as a nobleman stepped out. I knew him -- Bann Tegan Guerrin, an unmarried Bann of Rainesfere, brother to the Arl of Redcliff. With him stepping out, I was able to step inside with little difficulty. It was impossible to not compare the Pearl to the Blushing Maid, and the Maid fared poorly in that comparison. The Pearl was lavishly decorated with silks, brightly lit, and the air carried the scent of wine and perfumes rather than the stench of sex.

My gaze swept over the interior, noting the wealthy merchants, the noblemen, and the breathtakingly beautiful whores that glided between them, laughing and smiling all the while. The Pearl only took the prettiest or the most skilled of the trade and it showed. My gaze was drawn to the source of some obnoxiously loud laughing that disturbed a number of the patrons.

It was then that my gaze landed on the man who I was here to see. Darvik. He was a dwarf -- stout and short at about four feet tall, a well-groomed beard that was intricately braided that dipped down to the middle of his chest while his dark brown hair was cut short. Upon his cheek was a tattoo. A mark of a casteless dwarf. I knew very little of dwarven society, but I did know that all those that wore that brand were just as bad, if not worse off, than elves in Orzammar.

He was sitting at a table, surrounded by beautiful women -- one of whom I recognized as the elf that passed the message along. The table itself was stacked high with a veritable feast of meats and cheeses and wine. There was a great big smile on his face as he pawed at the women that smiled at him.

That smile promptly dropped when I approached, taking a seat that was directly across from him. “Huh? Nughumper, you better have a sodding good…” Darvik began, his eyebrows furrowing when I set the two books and the lockbox in front of him.

“I do, actually. I would imagine you would like to know that you’ve been getting robbed blind,” I told Darvik and, predictably he went for the lockbox first. His face twisted when he saw it was filled with jewels and gold. It was unfortunate, but I had to part with some of it to keep the rest of it.

“Aye? And who's robbing me, nughumper?” Darvik questioned, his hands going to the books. The decoy one was on top and the true book was underneath it.

“The Blighters. I understand you had a meeting with Gerald this afternoon?” I questioned him, making the dwarf frown at me. His eyes sharpened, his drunkenness receding as he began to realize that there was something more going on here. “You can go ahead and cancel it. Gerald just got on a ship to the Free Marches, I believe. Taking somewhere in the realm of… I’d say a hundred sovereigns with him.”

Darvik began to go red in the face, his eyes bulging at the sum while the whores next to him gasped. They knew who Gerald was. Everyone did in this city. I continued, ignoring his growing temper. “This here strongbox is a decoy. As is that book. At some point down the line, if you ever wisened up to the fact that the Blighters were robbing the Carta blind, Gerald was going to give you that box and that book as an apology. Try to make things right.”

“Did he now?” Darvik said, looking through the decoy book with a disgusted scowl on his face. He set it aside and cracked open the true ledger. “And why would he run then?”

“Because Gerald learned that I had figured out how widespread the thievery was. I suppose he felt that the jig was up and he ran,” I lied to Darvik as he began to redden, a vein bulging in his temple as the numbers started to add up.

Darvik was a dwarf from one of the last two dwarven thaigs, Orzammar -- a single city that was located within Ferelden's borders. However, he was not just any dwarf but a representative of a criminal organization known as the Carta. The Carta was a primarily dwarven organization that was as legitimate as the king of Orzammar because they were one of the only ways to actually interact with the dwarven kingdom. Officially, the dwarves only traded with the Chantry for Lyrium -- a substance I had only ever heard about and never seen.

Meaning that dwarven goods -- weapons, vanities, armor, and so on -- could only reach the surface through unofficial means. For the most part, that was the Carta. They brought goods into Orzammar and out of Orzammar. Which put them into a very lucrative position, more so because they also smuggled goods in and out of Orzammar as well on the surface.

Why did it work like that? I wasn't really sure. The only answer I got was that Orzammar clung to traditions that it had back when it was an underground empire that spanned all of Thedas because dwarves were stubborn. I also really didn't care. The important part was that Darvik was a representative for an extremely powerful organization that had a reach as far as the Tevinter Imperium.

And in his infinite wisdom, Gerald had decided to steal from that organization. A foolish decision. However, the greater fool was Darvik because, for the past seven years, Gerald had been getting away with it. And he only grew bolder with each year until the Blighters were raking in gold.

“What do you get out of this?” Darvik asked me, his voice small and deadly.

“Now? Nothing. I imagine you would like to conduct your own investigation into the matter. After you learn everything in that book is the truth? I suppose… consideration. When the time comes,” I said, standing up and offering Darvik a small nod.

“I don’t even know your sodding name,” he pointed out, his tone gruff and unhappy.

“I’m sure it’ll be easy enough for you to find out when you decide to start looking for me,” I told him before I turned and left the Pearl. That seed had been planted for the future. It wouldn’t manifest now, but it would in short order. The effects might even be more explosive than I thought they would be.

The Blighters were supported by the Carta. It's how they managed to become the single most powerful gang in the city. Carta goods, both legal and illegal, came out of Orzammar and into Denerim. Denerim was likely the least important port that they used for smuggling -- Amaranthine or the Orleasian city Jader were both closer and larger, but even the small portion that Denerim received made the Blighters rich and powerful.

If the Blighters and Carta were at odds, then that would weaken the Blighters significantly. If the Carta decided to eliminate the Blighters wholesale, and with how widescale the theft had been they just might, then it would mean there would be a power vacuum. No matter what, I highly doubted that the Blighters and Carta would be working together going forward. That would deny the Blighters a huge swath of their normal income, meaning that they would look elsewhere for it.

Such as the Ragger's and Hound’s territory.

In any case, in the coming months, Denerim was going to get interesting as the old balance of power shifted.

I turned into a back alley and cast my favorite combination of spells once again, vanishing from sight a split second before the dwarven Carta member that Darvik sent after me turned down it. I saw her expression morph into one of surprise before she shrugged and headed back to report that she had already lost me.

While that was a huge ordeal, the day wasn't over yet.

Walking through the busy streets, I avoided the main roads and stuck to the less populated backstreets as I made my way to the noble district. As it always was this time of year, the area was swarming with patrols so the blue bloods felt safe. I effortlessly weaved past them as I approached my destination.

The Arls estate.

It was an impressive building. Nobility from all over Ferelden had estates in the noble district, and the Arl of Denerim had to show them all up. The building was tall and was broken into three wings like a giant H. The walls were made of stone, hard and unyielding to give the impression that it was a fortress that stood twice as high as any other building in the district except for the Royal Palace itself.

A fortress it tried to look like, but a fortress it was not. Outside the front door, a large set of double doors, stood a good dozen guards in gleaming armor, but around the side, in a small gated off area with an easily scalable wall, was a garden with an unguarded door into the estate. I made my way to the corner of the garden for something that I prepared for in advance.

Casting Mold Earth, the loose dirt began to give away as something rose up. It only took a short few seconds for a body to be unearthed.

The corpse of Gerald Verday. Murdered by asphyxiation.

Murder really was simple when you knew where someone lived and could turn invisible.

I cast invisibility upon the corpse before hauling it over my shoulder, a small grunt escaping me as Gerald's weight settled on me. Mage Hand wasn’t a possibility. I couldn’t maintain so many spells at the same time. So, I was forced to carry the corpse with only my own meager strength as I opened the door and made my way through the halls of the Estate.

It galled me to see how fine everything was. From the rugs to the polished stone, to the paintings on the walls and the suits of armor on display at every corner. While the decorations were sparse by most standards, it was still enough casual wealth to feed everyone in the alienage throughout the winter. With bread being priced at a silver.

The servants and the guards were in a tizzy as they scurried about, bowing to whatever whim they received. I had walked this path before on a dry run. I knew exactly where I was going, even if I did feel exhausted when I reached the top floor in a corner room.

The room of Vaughan Kendell.

The door opened soundlessly. For the past week, since the fire, I had been oiling them every night to make sure my entrance was soundless. The door swung open revealing a richly decorated room that was larger than most houses in the alienage twice over. On the far wall was a bed with Vaughan sleeping on top of it despite it being midday. The covers were pushed back, revealing that he once had a partner in his bed, but whoever she had been had taken the time to slip out when she could.

Closing the door behind me, I set Gerald down with a quiet grunt. He was heavy. With my hands free, I approached Vaughan’s sleeping form as he snored softly. My fingers twitched to just wrap my hands around his throat and squeeze the life out of him. However, that was far more than he deserved. Vaughan was going to suffer. I was going to make sure of it.

Instead of strangling him, my hands went to the sleeping draught that Shianni got for me. Popping the cork, I brought it to his lips and began to trickle it into his mouth, ready to jump him and force it down his throat. However, I underestimated how deep of a sleeper that he was because Vaughan just smacked his lips and rolled over. While I waited for the sleeping draught to take effect, I began preparing the scene.

I pulled out bottles of wine from my empty bag of holding, some full but most empty. I hid two empty ones under his bed, spilled one upon the floor, had another on his nightstand, and set aside another for later. Minutes went by and I heard Vaughan’s breathing become deep and heavy. Pinching him to make sure he was dead asleep, I didn’t get so much as a twitch.

Mage Hand made switching Vaughan and Gerald a lot easier. Gerald went up on the bed where I unceremoniously dumped a bottle of wine on the bedding and on him. I tucked him in, adjusted his arms, and after knocking a candlestick over, I turned and cast invisibility on Vaughan. The slumbering noble vanished from sight just as the bedding caught fire, filling the room with the stench of burning flesh. After I got through the door with Vaughan over my shoulder, I used Minor Illusion to make hellish pain-filled screeching echo out from the bedroom.

Servants and guards heard it, sprinting to save his life… only to discover that their lord was dead. Burnt to death after partying too hard and knocking over a candlestick.

…

“Hnnn…” I heard Vaughan moan, making me look up from the book I had been reading while I waited for him to do exactly that. His eyes fluttered, his lips smacking as he tasted the sleeping draught I had given him, and likely a hangover to boot. He began to move, only to find that he couldn’t, the slight movements making chains rattle.

The sound seemed to alert him because his eyes snapped open, jerking his arms to find that they were on a leash. Bound by iron cuffs and chains that prevented him from moving far from the stone wall that he was bound to. His eyes went wide, his breathing suddenly harsh, “Nh-wha? What? What is this! What is-” He cut himself off, his gaze darting around, realizing his nudity before his gaze landed on me. “What is this, knife ear? What did you do to me?!” He shouted at me, going red in the face with veins bulging in his neck, lunging for me despite his limited mobility.

I snapped my book shut, a cold smile curling the edges of my lips. “I killed you, Vaughan Kendell,” I answered him, taking a vicious satisfaction in seeing his panic and confusion. It was a balm to my soul, seeing his fear. I shouldn’t take such pleasure in it. I shouldn’t enjoy this as much as I did… as much as I would. My smile grew, “As far as everyone is aware, you got drunk and burned yourself to death. No one will look for you. No one will think to.”

“Y-you won’t get away with this! Do you have any idea who I am? I’ll have your head, knife ear!” Vaughan shouted, lunging for me again as his situation began to sink in.

“You seem worried, Vaughan,” I told him, standing up and towering over his forced kneeling form. “Are you afraid that I’m going to kill you?” I asked him, smiling softly at him. Vaughan glared up at me, his expression defiant and promising vengeance. “I want to reassure you, that won’t happen. Ever. No matter how much you wish it. How much you beg for it. Even when you try to claim the sweet oblivion of death for yourself, I want you to know… I won’t let you die. I will never. Ever. Let. You. Die,” I stated, snarling over him.

Vaughan’s response was to spit at me. I breathed deeply, my smile never wavering. I wiped the spit from my face and took a step back. I gestured to the room around us. A small room with a pit in the center of it. A pit so deep that the end couldn’t be seen. The walls were lined with chains and shackles, giving Vaughan room to walk around the room. The walls and floors themselves were made out of stone that I painstakingly molded with Mold Earth so they perfectly slotted together.

Above, on the ceiling, was an air hole and a food shoot where scrapes would be tossed down. Water could be licked off the walls in small trenches in the corners that freshwater dripped down from. A perfect, self-sustaining prison.

This was what I spent a week creating.

“I do hope you learn to enjoy your new home, Vaughan. You will be spending the rest of your life here,” I told him in no uncertain terms. Vaughan let out a strangled gasp as he looked at my back before unleashing a string of curses. “You will never see the sun again. You will never feel a fresh breeze upon your skin… but, don’t worry about one thing, Vaughan,” I said, casting Mold Earth upon the wall, making the bricks shift back to become a staircase, casually revealing what I was.

A door opened up that revealed a staircase that led up to the hideyhole I had made. A place that none would ever find.

“Don’t… Don’t leave me here!” Vaughan said, his voice cracking as his fear was revealed. The stairs reset themselves into a straight vertical wall that went up about twenty feet. As tall as the wall around the alienage. “Damn you, don’t leave me here!”

“You won’t be lonely. You’ll be getting company soon enough,” I told Vaughan, closing the stone door behind me with Mold Earth, silencing his screams before they could properly begin.

And I knew exactly who was going to join him.