Despite the coldness of that hand that covered his mouth, or maybe because of it, Caeso’s head seemed to be the center of a bonfire. His lower jaw was jammed into his upper one with an iron grip and he could taste the blood in his mouth as small droplets of sweat streamed down his face. His teeth had hurt briefly, until the pain from his abdomen radiated in blinding waves of agony, making the already dark room go even darker.

What, by the Stormfather, was going on?

A moment ago he had sat on his bed, trying to figure out what was bothering him so much that it kept him from sleeping and now his head was held in place by a… lunatic. Worse, a lunatic that worked for Lord Lux Primus and who apparently had the strength to handle Caeso like a child would a toy. Caeso couldn’t push him away no matter how hard or what he tried, and hitting him seemed to have no effect other than making Caeso fists feel as if he was back at the training grounds, hitting the wooden dummies.

What kind of a skill did this… man have?

Was he… was he an Expert in it?

By the Sacred Lightning, he was! At that realization, a thousand cold insect feet crawled all over him. He was dead. Still alive, but soon to be dead. Caeso had known that something concerning Lord Lux wouldn’t be easy— he already had to deal with that woman’s persistent interference earlier in the day— but this… this was absurd. Not one but two Experts in one tiny provincial town?

Was this… was this a… dream? It could be. Did he fall asleep? It certainly didn't feel and look like it, but his mind told him that nothing made sense…

“You can’t speak like that, can you?” he whispered, still covering Caeso’s mouth with his palm, yet using his fingers to squeeze Caeso’s cheeks. Clutching his abdomen as a wave of sharp pain closed his eyes and made him grunt, it took Caeso a moment to realize that the man was speaking again and that this was no dream.

“Consider that a pre-warning, my new friend. My ears are ever so sensitive. Speaking above a whisper or making any kind of sudden noise— these things irritate me.” the man waved the pointed blade close to Caeso's eyes. “And since we're friends, let me give you a friendly warning. Don’t irritate me. I have this mite of a problem while I’m irritated. I won’t tell you about it, since we barely know each other, but I will tell you this— it's not pretty and you don’t want to see it. Alright?”

As if expecting an answer, the man waited. Caeso grunted. How was he to answer him with a hand in his mouth?!

“Oh right…” he said, the cold hand still not letting go. “Oh! By the way, if you listen to what I have to say, my friend, then you and I don’t have to be on the opposite sides. No one has to know and we can come to an accord…”

It took a moment for Caeso to understand what he was saying. An accord? Was he after money?

A stone was suddenly lifted from the pit of his stomach. If he was after money, Caeso had money to spare. Before he had left Spheros to go on this mission, he had taken a sizable sum from the Bank with his Lord Father's permission. Two-thirds of that money was gone by now, most of it spent on information gathering and greasing Army and Noble palms to look the other way. Another, albeit much smaller, part of the money went on paying his men and now even mercenaries, since his reinforcements have yet to arrive.

But a respectable sum remained still and Caeso could get even more when they made their way back to Spheros if need be. Looking at the dark hood and the mask inside of it, Caeso finally let his body relax. Praise be to You, O Mighty Stormfather, for staying by my side.

For a moment there, he had thought that he would end up being killed or worse— tortured for information. The truth was literally squeezed out of them, one drop at a time, and worse was that he couldn't even lie around these types! He had seen with his own eyes what people who had survived torture by the ilk of Lord Lux looked like, their soulless eyes, sunken cheeks, sharp marks and scars over every part of their bodies, and he no desire to follow in that path.

But this… If Caeso played this right and with enough care then this unpleasant surprise could be turned into another piece in his hands.

After all, everyone had a price. And thanks to his Lord Father, Caeso had the money to meet it.

In any case, he had to drag out any negotiations. A skill like that, even beyond its third barrier, should be quite the spender… Every minute spent was a minute that would benefit him later…

The man removed his hand from Caeso’s mouth and he experienced a moment of release, a happiness that proved to be fleeting when it departed with a firm hand around his throat. That managed to return him back to the reality of his situation, with the biting immediacy of an ice bath. The man did not squeeze one bit but the hand was there, ready to be employed in a fraction of a second.

“So, my new friend, what do you say?” the man whispered the question, the edge of his dark hood close to Caeso’s face.

"I'm sure we can come to some kind of an arrangement," he whispered back, measuring each word, his naked neck slick with a cold sweat and a firm threat.

***

***

***

While he planned this whole thing, Tercius remembered reading somewhere that torture was not an effective method of gathering true information. Almost everyone had a resistance towards torture. Stubbornness, conviction, spite, loyalty… all of these and more could be a mother and father of that resistance, so getting the full truth through torture was an unlikely prospect.

That was why he had decided against torture as a tool for information extraction.

In his few ruminations on the subject of torture, Tercius came to see it as a tool used as a means of deterrence.

Show the people the consequences of their activities ahead of time and they will think at least twice before committing to something that could result in a similar punishment. He supposed that learning from the mistakes of others was something that came easily to most people when the survival instinct kicks in. To move against it, it would take a lot of motivation. To overcome it— or any instinct, let alone one so strongly integrated into every single living being— it would take a lot of driven practice and repetition in willfully doing the opposite of what your whole being is telling you is right.

A monumental task of reprogramming both evolution and the already established ego.

It was strangely amusing how an answer to an important self-posed question came suddenly to light in a pitch-dark room, as Tercius held a young man by his throat. A deliberate act of transformation of yourself by yourself, that was what Willpower was. The direction of transformation didn’t matter, as long as it occurred.

And that was why he didn’t have it. By the very definition of what he thought the skill was, he knew that he didn’t deserve it. Not yet.

In his old world he had been a creature of a certain comfort zone, emotionally, physically, and in other ways. In many of those ways, he was still the same. There was some progress on some fronts, he had to admit, but almost all of it was a result of outside influence, of multiple factors imposed on him. Among other things, Willpower was imposing those factors on yourself and stepping out of your comfort zone despite yourself. Willful denial was only a part of the skill.

Created not of desire, but despite of it, in a way Willpower was an anti-skill, at least by what his current view of what a skill was. Which meant that he needed to rethink everything he knew about the skills from the ground up. Or did he? He could see that, if framed properly, going against one’s own desire was also a desire.

He knew that he was simplifying a part of a complex skill— a skill that a mage of Mistress Helfira’s caliber called “essential”— and that there was more, much more to the skill itself.

Yet right now he had information to extract. Caeso had sweated enough in silence, he reckoned. With a thought, Acting [20] came to his aid, and new life was breathed into his body.

"Now that's a fine thing to hear. You know, friend, I thought you were of the most unsavory kind of people. I mean, trying to kidnap a little girl? My, oh my…" Tercius whispered, his left hand gloved with telekinesis still pinning the man against the bed by his throat. He squeezed the muscular neck, using his skill to add a little pressure. "I dislike people who target children, regardless of their reasons," he whispered with a strained grin on his face and while the mask hid it, it was most certainly heard.

“No, ple—” the man croaked back with haste, his voice just a little too high for Tercius’ taste. It was a silent night out there, after all, and sounds were carried too easily.

Tercius tsked as he pulled the pressure back, seemingly disappointed, as he shook the tip of his blade before Caeso’s eyes in admonishment. “You’re very lucky that your plan didn’t work… And what did I say about speaking too loudly? Eh? Will our conversation have to come to an end here, friend?”

Caeso coughed a couple of times, trying to suppress the sounds, and then he took a deep breath, only to whisper after a moment of silence, "It won't happen again."

“A fine thing to hear. I’ll hold you to that promise. Now, we spoke earlier of an accord… What can you offer me to step away from this whole mess?”

“Just say how much that man has given you and I’ll double it.”

Tercius waited in silence, seemingly considering it, only to shake his hood-covered head. The first rule of bartering was that the starting price was just that— the start. Never agree to it. Rule two was that whether buying or selling, always try to seem disappointed with the initial offers of the other side. Septimus swore a third of his mercantile profit to these rules.

"Wait— you name your price and I'll meet it. My Lord has more money than you can imagine." the man whispered while nodding confidently.

“I’ll take that to mean that there’s no limit… then how about a Coin of the Emperors? I’ve heard those are priceless.”

“Uhh…”

"One's enough for me," Tercius whispered.

The man swallowed, obviously afraid of saying “No, you can’t have that.” but unable to say “Yes, you can.”.

“You’re really bad at this whole thing, did you know that? A bit of friendly advice— you can’t give such an open-ended statement and expect me not to take advantage. Now, considering that I don’t have all night to go back and forth here with you, let me get straight to the point.

“I want one thousand kvartas.”

At one kvarta going for one hundred tretas and one treta going for fifty dwetas, the price he settled for was an unimaginable fortune for your average citizen of the Empire, most of whom earned between four to five hundred dwetas in a single month. Tercius knew that Nurium guards, most of them ex-members of the Armies, had around thirty tretas in monthly wage. If he remembered the monthly statistics he kept back when he worked with Neiran and Ciron, and he did, the three of them combined had the average monthly earning of ninety-seven tretas. For a master craftsman that was above average, according to his grandfather.

While money rarely came up as a topic between his uncle and him, Tercius had gained some sense of money within Lux's circle. Spending one hundred kvartas would be within his ability, but cashing out one thousand kvartas would make him pause. Freeing that much money into circulation in a short timeframe would be a considerable blow to his money-making estates. The Empire Coin Vaults, such as the one in Spheros, Porvul, or Lissea, were the ones that handled most of the major inter and intracontinental money flow. He knew that each was directly under the purview of the Imperial Family and a sum of one thousand kvartas flowing through their faucets should merit at least a glance from someone up the ladder.

Tercius saw that Caeso was struggling for word once more. “That’s… That’s… not something I can give you.”

The young man was smart. If he had said that he could, Tercius would have called bullshit. But this wasn’t about yes or no— this was about making him sweat.

He let the young man stew for a minute of silence, tapping one finger over the visibly speeding pulse before he slowly addressed him again leaning closer to his face. "You're playing games with me, I see. You said not three minutes ago that your Lord has more money than I can imagine. Now you're saying that you can't offer one thousand kvartas. Where you're coming from, do friends lie to each other?"

"Wait!" Caeso whispered in haste. "That's not what I mean. For that much money, I need to ask permission from my Lord and we would need to go to Spheros to pick it up."

“From the fancy Vault, eh? This Lord you keep mentioning… he has a name?”

“I can’t share my Lord’s name, but I can assure you that your money—”

“You can assure me, can you?”

The man nodded hesitatingly, seemingly afraid to even nod.

"No offense, my friend, but you assured me earlier of something quite opposite that, so… How much money do you have right now? I want the exact number.”

Caeso just blinked at him. “Sixty seven kvartas.”

Tercius exaggerated a humm under his mask and then he kept his silence, as he counted to thirty using the pause to check on the mage and everyone else with his Mana Sight while letting Caeso come up with his own conclusions to fill the void.

"Sixty-seven… that's it? That's your… final answer?”

Caeso went rigid.

“My young new friend, that much money is not worth turning my back to my good old friend.”

“Wait, wait, I can get an additional fifty in a few days—”

“Now that’s progress. Progress is always commendable.” Tercius nodded sagely.

“So… are we in agreement?” Caeso inquired.

“In agreement about what?”

“About… you… stepping aside.”

"For one hundred and seventeen kvartas? I don't think so. But I'm feeling generous. Tell you what. Give me what you have now, then leave those fifty kvartas you owe me in a sack somewhere on the roof of this little shanty. I will pick it up after the new cycle begins and for your sake, it better be there. And finally you, Caeso my new young friend from the Capital, you will agree in your Lord's name that he owes me even more money. Say… eight hundred and eighty-three more kvartas. And I will have to insist on your Lord's name. I need to know who owes me."

Caeso pondered the offer, his eyes visibly hardening. “You think I'm a fool don’t you?”

“I would never.”

“I see what’s going on here. You aren’t here for the money, are you? You need the name and you expect me to just turn over only the leverage I have? You know what, you either take that blade and slice my throat or stuff it up your ass.”

That… Tercius had hoped that he had shifted enough focus on greed to press for the name one more time, but Caeso was not easily fooled.

“My friend, you need to align your priorities properly. Ask yourself, is it better to lose the only leverage you have or the only life you have?” Tercius whispered back.

“If I lose one, I will lose the other anyway. Won’t I, friend?”

Tercius halted. What do I do now? Torture him for that information? Wracking his brain for something— anything really, when something dawned on him. Slowly, he returned his blade to its holder at his hip.

“And yet you, my friend, are still whispering… I take it that means that you intend to cling to life still?” he whispered, in an even, steel-like tone for the first time.

Caeso didn’t respond verbally but his steely eyes spoke volumes. No one wanted to die, not if they could live. The sudden contrast in speech pattern unnerved him, Tercius saw.

"In the light of honesty, let me share with you a little bit of what I did earlier in the night. You see I didn't come straight to you. Oh no. I made sure to look around a little bit, learn a bit about the house and those who live inside of it. Like that mage sleeping on the top floor, for example. Would you believe my surprise seeing one present? Anyways, I snooped around a little, and would you believe it when I say that I managed to find some coins and jewels just lying around? But those are far from my most important find. Say the coded letters in that room you visited just before going to bed…"

Tercius heard Caeso grind his teeth. “You don’t know anything. They are coded, you said it yourself.”

Tercius nodded slowly. “They are for me, that’s true. But I’m sure that if I manage to send them to my good friend Lux, and I will, he will sooner or later find out who was behind them. Assuming that he doesn't know already, of course. The man was smart to have more allies in this little town than just me. If I know the man, and I do, then he won’t take kindly to anyone messing with his business.

“So you see, your leverage isn’t as big as you think it is, my young friend. Your life was never protected by it.”

“Even if he knows who my Lord is, he can’t move against him!” Caeso hissed.

“You’re still stuck on that? What’s your Lord to you? This isn’t about your Lord, Caeso. Not anymore. You really need to align your priorities and think of your neck. This is about you and me and the choice you make now. Do you want to live to see another Reunion? You must have someone you want to see again?”

Caeso was silent, his breath rapid as his eyes darted around.

“Give me all your money, then go and cry to your Lord the truth. Lux had left far more resistance than you could ever go against. Say that even if you had succeeded in capturing the family, I would have harassed you along the way, killing your men one by one. That’s an excellent excuse for failing in your task, while I get more money. A win, win.”

The young man was hooked, Tercius saw. Cogs were turning in that mind and he could almost hear them.

“Yes… but everything I’ve worked for so far will be…” Caeso murmured a lament, closing his eyes.

"Gone. But you'll be alive, my friend. Isn't that more than enough?" Tercius advised. "I'll even mention your cooperation to Lux. And this is a one-time offer. If you refuse…"

Caeso nodded to himself, as he opened his eyes. “Alright. Before I give you the money, you need to do a few things. One of my men needs to die. The tall, muscular one that went after the little girl. Don’t worry about him. He’s a nobody, a grunt whose sole use was in his muscles. He won’t be missed by anyone. Completely expendable. Make sure he suffers, though. It would also help if you can kill a guard or two, as well as a few mercenaries. If you can injure or even better kill the mage, that would further establish your—”

As Caeso continued to whisper his plan, Tercius just blinked.

“— break my nose and maybe a bone or two. One arm, one leg. I need some superficial cuts, as well. Some bruises, here, here, and here. We need to make the room look like there was a struggle here. Before you leave, we will make a lot of noise to alert everyone, then you need to hit me and make me pass out—”