>>5347538“Yes…it would.” Shelley concedes. “But he’s a merchant. These people keep records of all their dealings. We’d hardly need the pig alive to find out where he’s buried his loot.”
Corrine pulls at your arm. “Blaaaaair….she’s yelling at me again. Stick up for big sis!”
Echeverria was a merchant of the Leicester Alliance. Or at least that’s what he appeared to be on the outside. In reality, he’d recently been quite busy working as a servant of the Empire. He’d been involved with ferrying supplies and favors from the Empire to the Pro-Imperial lords within Alliance territory. He’d covered his tracks well and had been hard to locate, predominately sticking in Pro-Imperial lands. But somewhere along the way, he’d messed up and had been uncovered. He was currently making his way towards Siward, to meet with the territory’s Viscount. Viscount Siward had openly declared his intent to stand against the Empire’s expansion. Internally however, Claude believed the Viscount to be on the verge of turning towards the Pro-Imperial faction. At this point in the war, any one lord switching sides could greatly upset the balance of power between the Pro and Anti-Imperial factions. Rather than dealing with Siward directly, Claude wanted you to stop this Echeverria before he could make it to his appointment. Claude believed killing him would send the necessary message to Viscount Siward and cease the merchant’s meddling for good.
Privately, there was another reason Claude had chosen you for this matter. Prior to his explorations into the world of spycraft, Echeverria had been an ordinary merchant. He’d grown up in a wealthy business family and had even studied abroad in Faerghus’ Royal School of Sorcery. Perhaps most curiously of all though, was that Echeverria had been a devout follower of the Church of Seiros, going so far as to tithe much of his earnings each year towards the Church.
So why was he now working against them on behalf of the Imperials?
Perhaps Claude was just humoring you. He didn’t exactly say he believed your full story, and it was true what Shelley had said. He didn’t care whether Echeverria turned up dead or alive, just that he was gone.
But perhaps this might be the first real lead you had on the Shapeshifters in years.
The choice was yours:
>A): They all die. No exceptions.>B): We’ll prioritize capturing Echeverria alive.>C): Give me some time to think about it. I want to see what we’re up against first 