On a terrace in a modestly-sized town - certainly no Verredam, but what was, these days? - in the far periphery of the Coalition, itself already considered by and large to be 'peripheral', a warlock was enjoying her twelfth retirement. A tall cup sat in front of her - empty, save for a bit of rapidly-cooling water.
On the horizon, the relatively pitiful remnants of the retreating glacier gradually gave way to its main body, which still loomed large as always. Most of the people who lived here were dredgers, scrambling to be the first to see what treasures the world's primordial, icy shell would leave behind as it continued to melt. Riçilt, on the other hand, had moved here to stay, at least for a few years.
The frostwysp sighed. It just doesn't get properly cold anywhere else, these days. She threw back the rest of her cup of formerly-boiling water and called the waiter over. They looked like they were freezing, or perhaps just shaking neurotically, as mortals so often did; particularly ones taken so far away from their futile little exercise in self-governance. They have that certain air of shattered hope about them, at least. Perhaps it would be diverting to ask.
"Whwhwhat can I ggget you, honorable B- Baronet Riçilt?" The waiter asked, for the sixth time in half an hour. Of all the undead they had to get stuck serving, they thought, this one was definitely the worst.
"Hm, put some leaves in my water this time." Riçilt told them. "But don't leave them in there for more than a few seconds." Before the pitiful thing could stutter out their affirmation, she asked "Where are you from, boy, that you're so unused to the climate?"
"Ccconcord, milady..." The human responded. Seeing her exasperated prompt, they elaborated "It's a, a, suburb of the C- C--" They swallowed nervously. "Verredam, milady."
"Silly boy. You're free to call it what you will." Riçilt waved their concerns away with an overly-wide smile. "If it's still called, hm." She adopted a mocking tone. "'Theee Ca-pi-tal' by the time I'm coming out of retirement again, I'll grow a pair of fangs and start biting apart people's arteries." She chuckled at her own joke.
The co-exiled ("kidnapped", some might say) human shivered; in terror, this time. It had been nearly ten years since the Administration had been established, and - judging by the whispered news that made its way outward through major population centers - it genuinely might not last much longer. Its industrial base had expanded rapidly, that much was true, but all its most powerful mages had, by virtue of experience and opportunity, been undead. With one notable exception, all of them had simply left.
And while the undead nations were centralizing and arming up, the mortals mostly seemed to be fighting amongst themselves about how their government should be organized. As land and manufactories were nationalized, privatized, and expropriated again, and trade with miscellaneous undead territories seemed to be permitted or prohibited entirely at random, the value of the assignatory guilder fluctuated almost too rapidly to use - one week, ƒ10 would buy you a voiturette; the next, you'd be lucky if it got you a cup of tea.
Riçilt blew a cloud of frozen vapors at the shell-shocked mortal, displacing their pessimistic thoughts with a more immediate concern. She glared at them. "Well, what are you waiting for? I asked you a single question. This was not an invitation to stand next to me unblinkingly and wait for more." She glared at them in annoyance. "Get me my steam. And don't take so long warming yourself up, this time!"
The servant stammer-mumbled something in the affirmative and clumsily hurried off, leaving the warlock to enjoy the vista all alone. It was beautiful, she thought. Magnetic disturbances still played above the glacier, though they'd been much worse in the aftermath of the Martyrsbreak. Good times. The world was so vibrant, so... makeable. And what've they made of it now? She pensively shook her head.
Later that same night - the nights seemed longer, this far from the center of the world - Lady Riçilt was winning at straterci in an almost embarassingly overwhelming manner. The comfortably dark lounge had emptied out, save for the baronet and her opponent, a former commander under the disgraced duke of Verredam.
He clearly wasn't much better at simulated battle-planning than he'd been at the real thing. "Well?" She prompted him, somewhat impatiently, for the second time. "It's still your--"
"Turn. I know, I know." The dhampir interrupted her. He moved his unruly bangs of hair aside in a practiced motion, tapping the sharp nails of his other hand against the table. "You know, we could have really used someone like you a decade ago." His hand hovered briefly above his primarch, but he withdrew it to thoughtfully tap his chin for the fourth time this turn, desperately attempting to analyze his opponent's burning-cold face.
Riçilt simply continued to fixate him, unblinking, as someone without eyelids was wont to do. She tersely replied "I'm sure you could have, but I was out across the glacier when Verredam fell."
"I know, I know." The half-vampire reassured her once more. "So--"
Riçilt wearily held up a hand. "And even if I hadn't been, I would've been loathe to risk myself in a losing battle, as you Verrebrands seem to be so keen on doing." She mockingly nodded down at the playing field, mostly to cover her bases in case the young noble in front of her had lost a lot of kin to Renewal.
Nipping a potential awkward silence in the bud, she added "I don't blame your father for fleeing. That said, I don't blame the Primarch for exiling him, either."
"Mhm. Me neither." Her opponent matter-of-factly agreed. "Still kinda messed up that they got him on a technicality instead of just telling him outright to fuck off for being a coward."
One corner of Riçilt mouth briefly twitched. "What did you say your name was?"
"Verrebrand. Duh." He grinned impudently at her, but was already holding his hands up as if to apologize in advance. "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. It's Jasper."
"Take your thrice-damned turn, Jasper." She sneered.
"Alright, alright, keep your robes on..." Her opponent responded, delicately moving his primarch along the side of the mountain, clinking it into one of her as-yet unrevealed pieces. With barely a thought, she telekinetically twirled it around.
Jasper stared blankly at it. The way this game had been going, he wouldn't have been surprised if it had somehow turned out to be a fortress, even though it'd definitely already moved at some point. He made a little 'psh' noise as his primarch impacted her defeated knight, sending it careening off the field.
"My turn." Riçilt stated. Finally. Having had plenty of time to think during her opponent's agonizingly-slow turns, she simply moved a piece slightly further back, out of the way of his encroaching primarch.
"Hm." Jasper vocalized. That piece in the corner there hasn't moved all game - it's got to be her flag, right? I've already run into two of her fortresses, so that leaves another two for the two other stationary pieces in front of it. Her primarch's all alone at the other edge of the field, so if I just went around those forts... Even as he thought about it, he already continued moving up his primarch.
His adversary's face, as usual, did not betray the slightest hint of emotion, but he took it as a good sign that she was moving her primarch towards a location his flag could be. I should be able to get to hers a few turns before she gets to mine. Ah, winning with more than ten pieces left is for cowards, anyway...
The retired warlock smugly moved one of her 'fortresses' as soon as her opponent's primarch was right next to it, clanking them together. The 'fortress', which had actually been her assassin, finally found its (pri)mark after having sat around idly for hundreds of turns, and she disdainfully swatted it off the field.
"What." Jasper blankly stated, rubbing his temples. "Why would you have that as your flag's only defense? If I had come in with my ranger--"
"Then my ranger, here", she said, turning over one of her vaguely nearby game pieces, "would have simply closed the gap in a single turn. I deliberately put you in a position where you had to send your primarch out."
"Whatever. It's my turn again." He looked at the eight pieces he had left, crossing his arms defeatedly. "My action will be, uh. To surrender."
"Ugh, finally! I was about to start telekinetically flinging your defeated pieces at you out of sheer boredom." Lady Riçilt half-joked. "Don't look so deflated. I've been playing this game since before it was invented. You had no chance, but you're definitely in the top 60% of opponents I've faced." She generously estimated, inwardly adding: In the 59th or 60th percentile, that is.
"Woohoo." The young dhampir dryly responded, not even willing to engage with the phrase 'before it was invented'. "I really do hope you'll come out of retirement in time to style on the rebels like this."
"We'll see. Maybe if the mortals' Mascot Lich joins the fray on their side." Riçilt said, non-committally. She didn't really want to stop taking a break from intensive magic-usage just yet, but if the Architect was who she thought they were, they'd make for a different enough opponent that she'd let herself be swayed.
"So, probably not, then." Jasper shrugged. "Well, with the sheer amount of people looking to get a piece of the Administration, I'm not sure it'd pay very well, regardless."
Riçilt raised a crystal-like eyebrow at him. "So why are you so invested in it? You really think they'll let a half-mortal be duke?"
"Oh, if you were anyone else!" Jasper shook his fist at the frostwysp faux-menacingly. "But no, yeah, I suppose I should tell you this: people are beginning to suspect everyone's other least favorite lich is also hiding out somewhere in the Admin. And, putting two and two together, the Reaper's hideout is also exactly where a washed-up nobody like my dear old father would've ended up."
"Ah, you mean to take his power for yourself?" Riçilt gave him an appreciative nod. It was rare for someone so unimportant to the world to show such initiative.
"Yeah. If my dad stops being his thrall, and thus starts being mortal again, before I manage that..." Jasper's voice trailed off. He restlessly tapped his fingers on the table.
"Borrowed time, eh?" Riçilt slowly shook her head, outwardly mustering a surprising amount of sympathy for an issue so alien to her. On one hand, it seemed nonsensical that Jasper's parents' relationship would affect his lifespan in any way. On the other hand, vampires had always struck her as nonsensical, so who would she be to tell him that?
Standing up from her armchair, she offered the half-vampire a dispassionate consolation. "Best of luck to you, there. Although, if it hasn't happened in the wake of them losing their duchy, they'll probably be sticking together for a long time, yet."
Jasper had heard that sentiment before, and - even coming from the ages-old, notoriously solitary frostwysp - it did little to reassure him. "Listen, if I guaranteed your perpetual appointment as Governor of Verredam after--" He began.
Riçilt began laughing; a sound like steam rising through cracking ice. "You'd need to pay me a month's worth of the duchy's taxes every week just to accept that position. Keep dreaming, boy - you're mortal yet."
"Don't call-- Ugh. Fine, fine, sorry to bother you with my hopes and dreams..." Jasper said with a huff, as he began absentmindedly packing up the straterci board. My only other option if I want to get at my father through the Reaper is Siegweiher's cohort... and from how much I had to pay just to get them to find him, a contract like that would put my duchy in debt for a century even if I did end up succeeding.
Holding the enemy army's assassin, his eyes suddenly lit up in realization. Then again, what's a century compared to eternal life?
Siegweiher looked into his ledger of active targets, skipping straight to the R section, to the only one with more than one 'OPERATION UNSUCCESSFUL' mark. How many of his clients had that damn abomination outlived? How many losses, in both the financial and military sense, had she caused?
The mercenary baron's office was right at the heart of her former fortress, with his desk standing right where the Reaper's coffin must have been manifested. It was a formidable place, and one with a somewhat stable link to the Shadowplanes at that, but it had still felt like a hollow victory - particularly because the abomination's band of vagabonds had taken anything that wasn't nailed down with them as they'd fled.
Jasper coughed. "So, there's no way you could just..." He gestured as if reaching into something. "You know, grab dear old Xavier out of there and--"
Siegweiher coolly fixated the overly-optimistic young dhampir, simply replying "No." After a short pause, he deigned to elaborate "Killing him would be trivial; untraceable. Kidnapping him on behalf of someone who isn't properly undead would likely be the thing that finally gets the Primarch's hammer brought down on me."
"Alright. Well, in that case..." Jasper pulled his trump card out of his coat pocket: an envelope, sealed by a greyish-blue wax stamp.
Siegweiher warily took it from him, seeming to think it was some kind of prank. The seal crackled as he broke it, as its interior shard of magically-preserved ice started sublimating into vapor. Ignoring Jasper's smug expression, he began reading the short letter within.
Esteemed Baron Novaak II of House Siegweiher,
go on then siggi give the boy a discount
Undersigned,
❄
Baronet ordem Glaçiari Riçilt, advisor plenipotentiary to the Primarch's office
"So, uh, what all's she saying in there?" Jasper inquired, seeing that the baron's initially incredulous expression had glazed over after a short while.
"That I should have my soldiers shoot you in the head where you stand." Novaak replied, emotionlessly. One of the facelessly-armored guards in the corner behind him twitched a bit, instinctively making the nervous young dhampir take a step back.
"Hey, hey, fine, fine, I'm leaving already!" Jasper huffed, moving to turn around.
Siegweiher motioned for him to stay. "I was kidding, you nitwit. You're fortunate to have run into the good Baronet - I wouldn't send my agents after the Reaper again lightly." He cleared his throat. "Especially not on promises of wealth from a duchy which is yours in name only. Tenuously yours, at that."
The scion of house Verrebrand raised an eyebrow. "But on Riçilt's good name it's all fine? Huh." He lost some of his bluster towards the end of his rhetorical question. Maybe I am fortunate. I just walked up to her in that lounge because she looked really bored...
"If her opinion is good enough for the primarchry, it's good enough for me." Siegweiher noncommittally replied.
"I thought she was retired? You know, for a while." Jasper said, idly adjusting his jacket to stop himself from fidgeting. He wasn't necessarily 100% sure what it meant for an immortal being to be 'retired', but he hoped he'd done an alright job of being vague enough about it that no one had noticed.
"From her service to the kindred-house she was loyal to, yes." Novaak replied. "Because it was extinguished entirely during Renewal. Not from her appointment as military advisor." Surely, he must know that's not something you can 'retire' from while we're stuck in this perpetual state of quasi-war - just as he couldn't simply 'quit' House Verrebrand?
"I don't know, you know?" Jasper shrugged, a bit nervously. "I didn't see anyone... uh, otherwise involved with the primarchry around anywhere, so I figured 'retired' meant she wasn't, you know. Active? Any more?" Judging by how emotionally dead inside the man across the desk from him looked, it seemed he hadn't quite managed to conceal his ignorance.
Oh, Martyr's blood. He's serious, isn't he? Siegweiher thought, clutching his desk. Is it even ethical to help a subcentennial brat like this take charge of a city like Verredam?
He disdainfully shook his head. Oh well. It's not like I'm going to have to live there to get my cut of its taxes. "Well, be that as it may..." The baron began, pulling a worryingly-thick stack of contract papers out of his desk. "...I'm sure we can come to an agreement."
Jasper swallowed. He hated feeling like the least well-informed person in any given room - no matter how familiar that feeling was, these days.