Clover Kingdom / Diamond Border (Saint Peter Cathedral / War Chamber): January 11h, 1016.
It was a ugly day for the world. The restored church district above full of white stone, chiming bells and enough holy banners to make lesser people think peace actually existed, yet if you were to look closely inside saint peter cathedral. To be more specific, inside of a large war chamber with a long stone table, stained glass windows and enough armed church knights standing around to make ordinary criminals lose control of their bowels. You could see the shape of a problem that had refused to die for five very long years.
The atmosphere grim.
For five years, the black die syndicate had grown in the dark beneath outlaw city.
At first they had only been a irritating little underground nest of gutter trash. A reckless little boy with dice magic. A cat beastkin brat with too much speed and not enough discipline. A old butler with door magic that made retreats and ambushes far more annoying than they should have been. And a drunken wine mage who somehow refused to die despite every law of decency suggesting otherwise.
They should have been crushed early.
That was what several bishops had believed.
That was what several church officers had said.
That was what ariella tepse herself had expected after that ruined church years ago when the boy had escaped her grasp with a newly chosen grimorie and a ugly grin on his face.
But instead of dying.
Instead of folding.
Instead of vanishing like lesser criminals did when real force was applied.
The syndicate adapted.
When the church took back the upper streets, the black die syndicate moved deeper underground.
When the church cut one contraband route, the syndicate opened two more somewhere else.
When powder wells were seized, the black die syndicate bought surviving handlers, murdered the stubborn one's and quietly replaced the routes before the church could even finish celebrating.
The lower tunnels changed.
The lower market changed.
The underground slowly became quieter in some places, more violent in others and far more organized than it had any right to be.
By the end of the first year, three contraband routes had vanished into black die hands.
By the second, bounty hunters, failed adventurers, outlaw heirs, desperate mercenaries, tunnel trash and ex knights had started joining them.
By the third, the black die syndicate had become more than a nest.
It had become a structure.
By the fourth, they had become a hidden power beneath the border city.
And by the fifth, church reports no longer referred to david swallow as merely a child.
They used titles now.
Devil of the Clover Border.
Luck Twister.
Church Ruin Survivor.
Loaded Fate Bearer.
The same could be said for the others.
Nyx nocturne had become faster, crueler and more disciplined.
Benjamin pennyworth had become a whispered nightmare among lower church knight detachments whenever silver doors appeared in alleys where they should not have been.
Jarred earlson jr had become a walking disaster whose wine magic had ended more men than his personality ever should have been allowed to.
And David.
David swallow had become worse.
Not louder.
Not more reckless.
Worse.
Smarter. More patient. Better funded. More disciplined. More irritating. More cruel in ways that were harder to predict and more expensive to clean up.
He no longer fought like a starving rat clawing for survival.
He fought like someone building a kingdom out of corpses, coin and weighted outcomes.
The church had regained stone, roads and towers.
The black die syndicate had taken the veins beneath them.
That was the truth of it.
And the truth had finally become too large to ignore.
…
(Ariella Tepes's POV)
Ariella stood at the head of the stone war table with one gauntleted hand resting lightly against the silver spear at her side and her pale blue eyes fixed on the maps before her.
Red markings.
Black circles.
Crossed routes.
Vanished storehouses.
Missing collectors.
Dead patrols.
Too much red.
Too much black.
Too much of that irritating little bastard's influence.
The war chamber was completely silent.
No one wished to be the first to speak while ariella was staring down at something with that much stillness in her face.
A younger church officer finally adjusted his throat and said with a careful voice "Lady ariella. The newest reports have been confirmed. The black die syndicate now controls or taxes most lower movement beneath the old market and at least a third of the eastern tunnel traffic."
Ariella did not look up.
Her voice that was calm and nonchalant as she asked "And how long did it take for this truth to become large enough for all of you to finally stop pretending it was a temporary inconvenience."
The room went completely silent. Good.
At least shame still existed.
A bishop in layered white and gold robes adjusted the ring on his finger and said "The church has always recognized the syndicate as a threat. However, their growth in recent years has surpassed earlier estimations."
Ariella slowly lifted her gaze and looked directly at him.
He regretted speaking immediately.
"Surpassed estimations." Said ariella calmly while repeating the words back to him like they were something mildly filthy she had found on the bottom of her boot.
The bishop swallowed.
Ariella looked back down at the map and tapped one gloved finger lightly against the lower tunnels beneath the church quarter and said "This is what happens when weak men mislabel dangerous things. A rat is a rat. A wolf is a wolf. A child with no power is a child. David swallow stopped being merely a child the moment he survived me."
The hall became even quieter somehow.
One of the detachment commanders with a scar cutting across his jaw clenched one fist and said "Then allow me to gather three church detachments and collapse every lower tunnel in the district. We can root them out by force, burn the infected quarters and…"
"No." Said ariella calmly.
The commander froze.
Ariella's expression did not change in the slightest as she continued "If brute force was enough then this conversation would not be happening in a church war chamber five years later."
The commander bowed his head and said nothing more.
Ariella slowly moved around the table. The sound of her greaves against the stone floor was quiet but enough to make the others tense.
She stopped by the section of the map showing the lower market and asked "How many times have the black die syndicate lost outer routes only to regain them within weeks."
A scribe looked down at his notes and said nervously "Nine major route losses, lady ariella. Seven regained. Two replaced by alternate pathways."
Ariella nodded once and pointed toward another marked section and asked "How many independent smugglers have joined them in the last year."
Another scribe answered quickly "Thirty four confirmed. Possibly more."
Another tap.
"How many church informants have vanished in the lower district." Asked ariella nonchalantly.
A bishop answered stiffly "Seventeen."
Another tap.
"How many times has david swallow escaped a confirmed encirclement operation." Asked ariella nonchalantly.
No one answered immediately.
Ariella's pale blue eyes lifted.
The younger officer looked down first and said quietly "Six."
Ariella stared at him for a moment and asked "And how many times has he made that escape expensive."
No one answered that one at all.
The silence said enough.
Ariella turned away from them and looked toward the stained glass high above the chamber wall where cold afternoon light spilled in thin slashes of color.
Five years ago he had been bloody, loud, ugly and absolutely not worth the amount of irritation he had eventually become.
She still remembered the ruined church.
The rubble. The grimoire.
The way he had grinned at her despite shaking from fear, pain and sheer nerve.
That had been the moment.
Not his escape.
Not his grimoire.
Not even his insult.
The moment had been when ariella realized he would survive humiliation if survival gave him another chance to become more irritating later.
That sort of creature was never safe to leave half broken.
And yet.
She had.
Ariella's fingers tightened slightly around the shaft of her spear.
Annoying. Very annoying.
The bishop from before asked carefully "Then in your judgment, grand commander, what exactly is the black die syndicate now."
Ariella turned back toward the table. Her face was calm.
Cold.
Her voice remained nonchalant as she said with no emotion "They are no longer a criminal infestation."
The room stiffened.
"They are an emerging hostile power rooted beneath the border district." Said ariella nonchalantly.
That landed harder.
She could see it in their faces.
Good.
They were finally hearing the truth.
Ariella stepped closer to the map and said while pointing at a series of marked tunnels, sealed wells and vanished trade paths "David swallow does not defend land in the way fools think land should be defended. He defends use. Routes. Wells. Food. Smugglers. Hidden coin. Powder movement. Fear. Dependency. He kills what resists him, buys what fears him, and makes himself useful enough that lesser trash would rather kneel to him than face uncertainty alone."
The scarred commander clenched his jaw and asked "Then what do you suggest."
Ariella looked straight at him and said "We stop treating him like gutter filth and begin treating him like a border rival."
Silence.
"You truly believe he has reached that point." Asked another bishop with an uneasy tone an look on his face.
Ariella's pale blue eyes narrowed just slightly and said "He was eleven years old when he first survived me."
The bishop went still.
Ariella continued calmly "Now he is sixteen. Older. Stronger. More experienced. Better funded. More disciplined. Surrounded by better trained filth and no longer naive enough to waste himself simply because his temper was touched."
The left side of her lip shifted ever so slightly and ssjd while licking her lips "He has learned."
That was the ugliest part.
Not that he had power.
Not that he had coin.
Not even that he had survived five years.
That he had learned.
Creatures that learned from pain were always more irritating to kill.
Ariella rested both hands on the stone table and said with a soft, cold authority that made everyone in the room feel smaller "I want false route leaks planted in the lower markets. I want bounty hunters redirected toward their outer cells. I want every powder intermediary watched, every surviving route collector squeezed, every black market healer pressured and every food supplier made afraid to choose the underground over the church."
The scribes began writing faster.
The church officers straightened.
The bishops said nothing.
Ariella was silent for a moment and said with squinted eyes "Starve the smaller mouths. Pressure the frightened middle. Force the syndicate to spread itself thinner protecting the desperate creatures that now depend on it."
Her eyes lowered to the map again.
"And when david swallow is forced above ground again…I will deal with him personally." Said ariella nonchalantly with squinted eyes.
One of the younger church officers asked carefully "Do you intend to capture him."
Ariella looked at him for a very long moment.
Then smiled.
It was small.
Cold.
Inhuman.
"No." Said ariella.
The chamber felt colder.
"He received one chance to remain an irritation. I have no intention of granting him another." Said ariella nonchalantly.
The chamber was completely silent. Only the sound of writing being heard.
Ariella looked down at the map and said with her eyes glowing slightly "This time I will be eradicating him, even if I have to raise this filth of a city to the ground."
…
THE END…