Reborn From the Cosmos

Arc 8-16 (Marcella)

Despite its long reach, powerful reputation, and immense assets, the Guiness was a young family. Their bloodline stretched rather far but it had only been recognized as a noble house in the past two generations. Her father had taken their family from well-known merchants to nobles whose names could literally and figuratively move the kingdom. It was the stuff of legends.

Unfortunately, legends weren’t all wonderful tales. Her father was a prideful man and would happily let the world think that he had built his empire with nothing but intellectual acumen and daring. In truth, he was much closer to a villain than a hero. 

He was not malicious or cruel, no. That would have hindered his progress as people could recognize evil. They prepared themselves against mal intentions, warned their children to beware of thieves and charlatans.

What made Maximilian so successful, especially when he was a young man whose grand ambitions were an affront to those in power, was that he was endlessly rational. Everything was assigned value. Every action was weighed strictly on profit/loss and the odds of success. The marquis never acted unless there was profit involved and he never took losing odds. 

Every daring business venture he started was actually backed by months, sometimes years, of planning, making it all but guaranteed to succeed.

So long as there was profit to be made, nothing fazed him. Hurting innocents, defeating villains, treading old ground, or adventuring somewhere new, all of it meant nothing in the face of gold. He would face a dragon if it lived on a mountain of precious metals.

But his utter lack of concern for anything but wealth and the power that came from it wasn’t the whole secret behind his success. What else lurked behind the Golden Family, Marcella wasn’t sure, but she knew there had to be something. Her father wasn’t the first plucky young man to rail against his fate and he certainly wouldn’t be the last. Luck alone couldn’t account for his success, not when there were unscrupulous bastards like the Grimoires who could have disappeared him with a snap of their fingers. Worse, they could have turned his mind inside out, subverting his golden mind for their own ends.

He wasn’t a master caster, nor did their family have any affiliation to powerful fighters, at least back then. Something had to protect him from blades in the darkness, but he’d never deigned to share his secrets with his heirs. Marcella was sure she wasn’t the only one left out, as it was a frequent source of complaint the rare times she met her siblings in person and they were all worse liars than they thought.

It was strange. Their father could only cling to his youth for so long. Eventually, one of his children would succeed him but he seemed to have no interest in preparing them. He gave them books and tutoring but never personally involved himself, looking down on them with the same detached interest with which he watched over all his investments. Perhaps he was getting reckless in his old age, more prone to chaos. Healing and potions could keep the body young, but she knew of no magic that would keep the brain from deteriorating. Or personalities from souring. Who knew what was going on in the mind of an old man that had the kingdom in his hands?

Despite his distance, Marcella had learned from her father. Good things, bad things, but, above all, useful things. Her way of doing business was very different from his but it was built on the same ability to detach herself from the circumstances and view them objectively. As well as a decisive nature that had little regard for fear.

She wasn’t the only merchant in the city. Others had recognized the opportunity in the tragedy and moved to capitalize on it. Yet, they found she had already swooped in, leaving nothing for them aside from the dust kicked up in her wake. They’d hesitated, weighed down by a sense of decency or made cautious by the rampant death surrounding the messy business. Even for the quickest, the few days they’d held back meant the targets of their schemes had been snatched from under their noses. They’d been reduced to wild dogs, fighting in the shadows for scraps while Maxine built the foundations of her own empire.

Her plan to buy the city had gone refreshingly well, free of any major obstacles. Her biggest hurdle was obtaining land deeds. To the uninformed, it would seem an impossible task. Tracking down families that occupied each individual home was a trial even an army of clerks would struggle to conquer with months at their disposal. Luckily, few commoners, including the wealthier artisans and hunters, owned their homes or the land they were built on. In cities, the land was owned by a few notable individuals and was rented out to others.

Said individuals had the wealth to afford competent bodyguards that got them out of the city when the trouble started. They were also eager to sell, readily taking a bag of gold and the opportunity to start over somewhere far away from the purple monster that dominated their nightmares. She also didn’t have to worry about her actions irking the local nobles, who, if they were smart, made sure that no one snapped up enough land in their territory to become a hindrance.

But that was also a source of concern.

Most of the time, nobles didn’t have alternative sources of income if they governed a territory; their share of taxes was more than enough to support a lavish lifestyle. However, such an approach lacked foresight. Nothing, not even titles, lasted forever. A noble’s position was a volatile thing. One wrong move and they could find themselves stripped of their authority. Even if they did nothing wrong, they could be targeted simply because they were inconvenient to someone else’s plans. The truly powerful houses were like trees; their governorship was the face of their power, but their roots extended to every part of their territory, as deep as they were varied.

The Teppins were a wise family, the lord having sunk his roots deep into the territory, especially in properties. From what she could gather, he owned something close to a fifth of the city, mostly warehouses and residences to the south. A significant prize and one she desperately wanted. The lord and lady weren’t in the city to negotiate with, but their daughters should be around. The eldest daughter could have the power to act in her father’s stead or…Lou could claim the properties by right of conquest; the merchant doubted anyone would dare to argue about it. 

Either way, she would need to confront the summoner.

Perhaps just as importantly, she needed to confirm Lou’s intentions. After so many days without trouble, she was reasonably sure that the violence was over, but there was no point in doing so much work if the summoner would take offense to Quest recovering. Or if she already thought of the city as hers. Deeds and deals would be as effective as piss in the wind if the summoner decided she was taking Lord Teppin’s place.

Immediately after the massacre, Marcella had hoped that Lou would reach out to her and they could work together. Now, she just hoped that the woman’s silence meant that she would stay out of the way. Better, she wanted the noble woman to disappear.

The crown was sending someone to handle the situation. And not just anyone, the king had sent the Butterfly. The woman had a reputation of getting things done, no matter the cost; if the most effective way to solve a problem was to sacrifice infants, she’d snatched the babes from their mothers without hesitating. Marcella was sure that the woman would resolve the lingering uncertainty and tension, but she was just as sure that it wouldn’t be pretty. It’d be better for everyone if Lou disappeared.

She didn’t even care about fulfilling her father’s ambition of opening another foreign market. Marcella was more than willing to finance a vacation for the strange clan, at least long enough for her to get a firm grip on the city. It’d be no skin off her back if they decided to stay gone.

Unlike her poor siblings, she wasn’t pinning her future on inheriting their father’s wealth. She wouldn’t be surprised if he forsook all his children, burning every accumulated crown on the eve of his death to fuel a grand celebration that would be remembered for generations. That suited the vain man more than protecting his descendants. Whatever may come, Marcella would ensure that she had the resources to continue living the privileged life she was accustomed to.

Quest was her big catch, the investment that would secure her future…but she wouldn’t let its potential blind her to the danger. She’d abandon the city in a heartbeat if any of the threats congregating in it proved too much to handle. There was a surprising number of them, including several she hadn’t anticipated.

The greatest surprise of all was her sister of all people. Marcella hadn’t spared her a thought after her attempts to discover more about Maxine’s business trip hit a dead end, too busy with her own work. Her sister was far too easy to ignore. At least, most of the time.

Her return to the city was anything but subtle.