Blood Money - Linus Lyffre

All right, if that's how you've settled on things... though maybe I should remember to bring it up later. Linus thinks to himself.


"Well, a single table setting isn't everything, but I'll leave you to it." Linus carries on to look for father.
 
"As you say. Your lord father is in his study, if you are seeking him." The footman offers, before hauling the girl toward the kitchens by an arm.


You can hear father chattering away about trade-routes from halfway down the corridor.


"....And of course, the savage pirates are an issue, but they'll trade for poor iron easily enough. The hard part is dealing with their weather-witches..."
 
Linus smirks a little at the mention of the weather-witches as he heads down the corridor to the study. His father's stories of them were amongst his favorites. He knocked dutifully at the door and waited to be called in.
 
"Come in," father calls. He's standing with an unfamiliar man in slightly worn finery, face heavily lined and head shaven - there's a puckered scar across his scalp which, you realise, would interfere with keeping a tidy head of hair. One of the clerks is sat at a desk rummaging through ledgers.


"Ah, Linus." He grins. "I trust the deal went well?"
 
Nodding at the other man first, Linus answers his father "8 crowns-worth of good steel. ...and I caught the guards slacking on their drills... I may have 'suggested' they be more attentive." Father would probably hear of his little lesson and tardiness soon enough, but navigating the details and their timely revelation was old-hat to Linus.
 
"Good to keep them about their work," the scarred man notes with gruff approval, but Father has other concerns.


"Aye, eight crowns-worth," he says, a familiar and uncomfortable look in his eye. "But what did you pay for them?"
 
"Actually, father, I thought it worth nearly 10 crowns. I offered him 7 and 5 scepters, but he said he could accept no less than 8." Linus answered, a little tremulously. Father tended to have that effect.
 
Father srokes his chin, expression betraying nothing, but then he claps you on the shoulder. "Good! Good, Linus. I was starting to fear you were not taking your duties seriously."
 
Linus sighed a little and relaxed a bit. "Thank you for your... concern, father. I try to do my best."
 
"Eventually trial has to pay off, like any investment," he says with a grin. "Try not to be discouraged. What are you to do next?"
 
"I thought I would take a book of battle history and tactics to read in the woods with Lise."
 
"Hm. Hardly seems appropriate material for a lady. She'll join the Iron Rose when she comes of age, if you keep this up."


Thankfully, Father seems more amused at the prospect than anything.


"Go on, then. We must get back to work."
 
Linus smiles and leaves the study with a small spring in his step. He heads off to the library. There he runs his finger over the spines of the books taking in each title, opening a couple tomes to check their content before finally settling on one detailing some H'Kaeri battles with Kroms, largely reconstructed histories but still a good read. Then, he makes his way out into the forest behind the manor.
 
It's cool and quiet in the forest, the sounds of the Manor reduced almost to nothing. Shafts of light through the foliage, tinted green, the smells of wild strawberries and wet grass.
 
Linus makes his way deeper into the woods, not to Litrys' altar but another favorite spot. A stream falls sharply over a lip of stone and flows out under a fallen, moss covered tree. On his way he calls out to Lise a few times but receives no answer. By the stump of the tree he weighs searching for Lise some more against sitting and reading, but the reading ultimately wins out. Linus slumps himself by the fallen tree's stump so the fall is just visible if he looks over the top of his book and settles down to read, releasing a relaxed sigh.
 
It's so still and quiet, it seems like the sound of the fall drowns out everything. The book is... intriguing if strange. The H'kaeri tactics wouldn't work very well against a conventional force, but the unorthodox methods seem to serve well against the bizarre monsters Kroms supposedly employs. There's a lot about managing hordes of ill-equipped humans with no training, singling out the Vampires in their midst - you'd almost believe H'kaer is trying to justify conquest over some under-developed people, like the Lamans.


An hour passes without your immediate notice.
 
Linus flips a few pages ahead and back. This is as good a stopping point as any coming up soon. He stands and stretches. Now, where is Lise? He wanders off, calling for her.
 
You call, but there's neither sight nor sound.


Passing an opening in the foliage, you see smoke rising from the direction of the house, and the silence becomes eerie.
 
Trying not to think the worst, in fact thinking himself silly for thinking the worst, Linus runs towards the house.
 
As you get closer, it seems some of the outbuildings are on fire - but it has not yet spread to the main house. In the yard the cart full of steel, but the ingots have been cast aside to reveal the stack had been carefully built like a box to hide something beneath it. There are dead guards lying nearby in pools of bloody mud. One hadn't even drawn his weapon. On the steps of the manor is the young man from earlier, the young guard - dead, but so is one of the attackers.
 
Linus draws his blade and runs forward. The ingots... he should have been more careful... He pushes shock and terror and blame, time for that later, from his mind again and carefully, tentatively, fills it with just a single thought, family. Somehow thinking of nothing else he runs into the courtyard with one purpose: find his family. Mother, Lise, his brothers and sisters...
 
Your mother and sisters will be in her apartments, most likely. Depending on who these men are and what they want, they'll have gone right for Father and Leopold, or to take the women hostage. As you stand in the darkened and bloodstained front hall, that is your decision to make.


At least Lawrence and Lisette are safely away from here.
 
The door is closed, and on giving it a push it seems to be locked, too. No signs of violence here.
 
Linus shoves on the door again without thinking and then pounds on the door with his fist: "It's Linus. Is anyone there?" He keeps his back to the hinges of the door, an eye on the hall and the doorknob. "Come on... Mom... Lise... anyone..." he thinks to himself.
 

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