Chapter 550

Before him, the great ferret seemed to swell, its muscles bunching beneath its fur like thick roots. Veins of raw earth magic cracked the surrounding stone walls, bleeding a threatening orange light into the gloom. The beast lowered its wedge-shaped head, bared fangs the length of a human forearm, and let out a hiss that was less a sound than a weapon, capable of rendering weak-willed men insensate.

Nick stood his ground. He kept his hands visible, loose at his sides, and wore the face of Aleister Crowley at his most annoyed, his expression set in a cold stare.

He suppressed the innate urge to assert dominance. An exchange of raw power here would achieve nothing, except alert every guard with sensory skills, however weak.

He had no legitimate claim over the Beastmen, no recognized right to determine their fate. He needed the entity before him, the spirit born of this land and of the collective reverence of the generations who had called it home before Alluria was ever a thought in a King’s mind.

Thus, he waited, letting the spirit’s territorial fury wash over him without showing any weakness.

Its amber eyes bored into his false, icy gray ones. The telepathic intent it projected shifted from murderous aggression to cautious, swirling curiosity. The ferret paused, its sinuous spine undulating slowly as it regarded him.

Nick felt the creature’s full focus. It was probing, and had he been any weaker, [False Personhood] would have failed then and there, for few beings were as attuned to the ether’s reflections as a guardian spirit.

And then something strange happened. He expected deeper hostility, a rejection of his human nature, especially given the current state of its charges. Instead, he felt the spirit’s mind recoil slightly, not in disgust but in a confused sense of familiarity.

“You…" The projection was strained, less a voice than a vibration in the ether he allowed to reach him. “You do not belong, yet the land does not wholly reject you. There is a shadow upon your soul that it remembers.”

Nick kept his expression neutral, though surprise flickered through him. He had chosen his grandfather’s face precisely because it was an unknown quantity in this world, a mask to hide behind. Still, he didn't dwell on the spirit’s odd reception; instead, he cataloged it as a unique quirk of interacting with his Traits. He certainly had several that could be at fault.

“While that is interesting, I’m not here to argue about metaphysics,” Nick replied, making sure his voice came out as relentless as he remembered. “Your plan is flawed, Guardian. Trying to make this operation uneconomical won’t work. The Cinder Consortium will not abandon its claim to your charges simply because of supply troubles.”

The great ferret shifted on the rock, its broad paws gripping the stone and leaving gouges. “The earth will swallow their roads. The forest will crush their wagons. These people care about coin above all else. They will leave, as has happened before.”

“They will leave, yes,” Nick agreed, though his tone held no acceptance. “And they will take their property with them. The overseers will not simply unchain two hundred workers and wish them well. They will force-march them to the next site, likely a significant journey. They will not account for the elders, the injured, or the children, because they have already calculated and accepted their loss. By the time they reach the next camp, your people will be halved.”

The ether roiled, mirroring the spirit's sudden surge of protective fury. “I will hide them from their sight, and if they try anyway, I will crush the guards!”

“And so, you will invite annihilation,” Nick retorted with absolute certainty. “You are a creature of the wild and understand its rules, but the great machine that is the Kingdom of Berea operates differently. A supply convoy, guarded by D-rank guards, does not simply vanish without consequence. Worse, the nobles will see this as rebellion. The moment the road collapses, and blood is spilled, this ceases to be a commercial dispute.”

Nick stepped forward, projecting some of his intent onto the Guardian, letting it feel how serious he was. “Investigators of significant power will be dispatched from the surrounding lands. They will find your tracks and quickly discover your presence. And then they will hunt. Not just this group, but every enclave within the Managed Wilds. Even if you manage to avoid them, the Crown will enforce order with overwhelming power, deleting your people from existence to ensure the next supply convoy is not delayed.”

The spirit fell silent, its territorial posturing easing as it processed his words, replaced by a brooding cunning. It was a spirit, yes, and its mind worked differently than a mortal’s, but it was no fool. It understood the difference between a skirmish and a war of eradication all too well.

“You speak of the King’s wrath as if you have tasted it,” the spirit projected warily.

“I have seen its aftermath. More importantly, a rebellion here, and the subsequent crackdown, invites scrutiny neither you nor I can afford.”

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That was nothing but the truth. The turmoil here, so close to the West’s borderlands, could ripple to Floria. If the High Nobles grew paranoid about Beastmen uprisings, they would view Floria’s progressive integration policies with a jaundiced eye. The current pace depended on House Crowley being seen as a bulwark of stability, not a hotbed of reform that could aid a hostile force.

“But I did not come here just to crush your hopes. There is a solution,” Nick continued, allowing his visage to smile. “A bloodless victory is possible. I have already laid the framework for a powerful ritual, guiding the guards and the overseer to build it themselves through subtle compulsions. It is a sympathetic array, and it only needs a conceptual anchor to link the physical contracts held by the overseer to the master copies secured in the capital.”

The ferret tilted its horse-sized head. “You seek to rewrite reality itself. Such a task requires great power.”

The ferret was more wary now, as it understood exactly what kind of being he was to offer such a deal. But there was also a sliver of hope, and that Nick could work with.

It wasn’t necessarily an accurate assessment. He could have cast something like this even before his rank-up, though it would have required more prep work. But there was no need to say as much. He was Prestige, and the spirit’s awareness of that made it less likely to go against him.

“I still need your aid. I am a stranger with no claim on your people. Alone, I cannot enforce the connection. But you can. They offer you their reverence. You are their guardian, a remnant of the Free People’s past. You have the right to determine their fate.”

The spirit locked its amber eyes on Nick’s gray ones, the confusing sense of familiarity still present but now muddied by several other emotions as it tried to decide on the spot. It looked at the ravine, at the ancient stones, and at the land it had guarded for centuries.

They both knew it couldn’t stay here after this, for two reasons. The magic would use that very connection as fuel, and staying would only lead to its eventual capture.

“You ask me much. To bind my essence to your intent,” the spirit projected. “To gamble their lives on magic I do not control.”

“Only so that you may save the Beastmen from a march to the grave,” Nick replied. “If we perform this ritual, the contracts will burn, both here and in the capital. The debt will be erased, and they’d walk away as free citizens, untraceable by any magic.”

The great ferret slid off the stone platform, moving with a strange, sinuous fluidity. It approached Nick, its mass eclipsing the moonlight, and stopped mere inches from him, its deep breaths vibrating in his chest.

It lowered its head until its cold nose pressed against his coat.

A surge of mana rushed into him, and he let it in. It was a grounding, resonant power, thick with the earth's history and the collective will of a marginalized people.

Nick embraced it, merging it with his own vast reserves even as he kept an eye out for any last-ditch attacks. But he needn’t have worried, because the cooperation was unexpectedly smooth.

The spirit was far weaker than he was, but its claim over the land and its denizens was strong and had been nurtured for centuries. There was power in that. Power he might one day wield directly.

Another avenue to explore. Saga-spells could work well for this. I would need to learn more about any place where I cast them, but with my spiritual affinity so high, I should be able to weave any story, and the World might even lend its aid, given the nature of this power.

“We will break the chains,” the spirit declared, its voice echoing like rolling thunder in Nick’s mind. “The shadow upon your soul is vast, human, but it is not malicious. I accept your deal.”

Returning to camp was easy; both he and the spirit were far stealthier than the guards could counter.

They reached the clearing at dusk, as people settled into the evening.

Nick moved to the focal node he had established—the repositioned brazier near the center of the clearing, beside the new drainage trench. He raised his hands, drawing on the joined river of his and the spirit's mana, and funneled the combined power into the geometric array marked by the stumps.

The trench ignited with azure light. The stumps hummed in response, marking the ritual circle's outer boundary.

That was enough for a guard near the overseer’s tent to turn, his eyes widening as he took in the robed figure standing in the glowing light. "Mage! An unauthorized mage is in the camp!" He fumbled for his crossbow.

A moment later, the overseer burst from his tent. He took in the glowing array and pointed a trembling finger at Nick. "Kill him! He must be the one sabotaging us!”

Even as more power surged through the ritual, the guards raised their crossbows, but the giant ferret materialized at Nick’s side. It reared onto its hind legs, towering over him, and slammed its broad paws into the earth.

A wall of solid stone erupted from the dirt, forming a curved bastion between Nick and the guards. Crossbow bolts shattered against the rock face, sending useless splinters onto the ground.

They wouldn’t have done anything against his protective enchantments, but this way he could focus. Nick closed his eyes, extending his spiritual senses into the array, and felt the thick, almost breathable miasma of the laborers' despair, exhaustion, and desperate longing for an end to this cycle. He gathered the raw emotion, weaving it into the core of the sympathetic link.

Now, he projected to the spirit.

The great ferret pushed its ancestral claim into the working. Cooperation magnified its power. For a single, crystal-clear moment, Nick didn't merely act on their behalf; he had the legitimate authority to determine their collective destiny. He used that power to seize their servitude and turned his mind against it.

“The contract is injustice!” he roared. “The chains are broken!”

A silent wave spread from the brazier, though the air remained still, for this power was designed to alter the World's stored truths, not its form.

The ledger in the overseer’s tent erupted in sudden, white-hot, smokeless flames. The man shrieked and scrambled away. Inside the surrounding tents, hundreds of laborers' stamped slips of company scrip dissolved into ash.

Hundreds of miles away, in the Cinder Consortium's fortified headquarters in Siderea, shelves of meticulously maintained records spontaneously incinerated. The ironclad contracts, the detailed accounts of generational debt, and the very proof of ownership over the lives of those in the logging camp ceased to be.

Nick held the magic for a few more seconds, ensuring the conceptual purge was complete, overriding the World’s confused resistance as it tried to re-establish its previous state. He then used his will to lock the new reality into place.

Only then did he allow the ritual to fade.

Well, now for the not-so-fun part.