Irwyn was currently seated behind a table in a luxurious lounge facing the Brinewood butler, Sebastian. If Irwyn were to compare this guestroom to those back at Blackburg mansion this one was much more opulent and extravagant, but the clear lack of magic made the room boorish from a mage's point of view.

"So, that is what I suggest," the butler finished his long speech. It was almost word to word what Avys had predicted: They offered to gradually borrow him resources that he requested hoping that he would remember them once those resources supposedly allowed Irwyn to take over the Blackburg family.

"Hmmm, it is very tempting, but what guarantee do I have that you will not just sell me out if things start looking grim?" Irwyn questioned, if he just accepted without a trace of doubt it would only cause suspicion. The man in front of him was no Avys, but Irwyn preferred to be wary when it came to things that might allow him to obtain great benefits.

"We will both sign a contract, of course, this one is already signed by count Porcus," Sebastian presented a sheet of pure white paper covered by crimson letters. Fortunately there was no fine print, well, it wouldn't matter much in the end. Irwyn would have been fine with keeping the terms spoken and written, but even if he had wanted to do so he couldn't create a contractual bond. He couldn't care less that whoever was the owner of the other sign was definitely not the count, but some sort of scapegoat; Irwyn himself was likely not going to keep his end of bargain either.

"Fine, I will sign it," Irwyn finally agreed after he pretended to consider it for a moment. All of the thinking was in fact done back when Avys suggested he should accept a bribe. The pros, cons and dangers were put into consideration, and Irwyn ultimately concluded that it would be very much worth it. The contract not being able to bind him was just the icing on the cake. And that was before considering the importance the girl would almost certainly hold.

"Then right here, with a drop of your own blood," a silly ritual that would not affect the binding in any way even if Irwyn was not immune, but despite the futility of the thing Irwyn complied with the request. A small burst of magic let few drops of blood surface on the top of his palm; the wound was also small enough to seal without leaving behind anything noticeable. With a dexterous movement a nearby quill was skillfully stained with said blood and ready to scribe.

As Irwyn wrote down his name he felt a well hidden mana creeping from the contract through his quill and then up his hand in order to pierce past his skin somewhere around Irwyn's elbow. It was always an eerie feeling when such a contract attempted to form. But then it snapped and the power which attempted to bind him was instead devoured in a single bite of his own mana empowered by the keystone.

"With that out of the way; what will you need, lord Irwyn?" Sebastian smiled now that he thought that the deed was done. He didn't flinch even when Irwyn incinerated the quill together with the blood they might have wanted to misuse.

"I have few items in mind, but those are exceedingly rare; I will only need them when I attempt my individual advancement trials. That is still quite a distance away, at least 6 years for the first one."

"What items exactly?" the butler didn't frown, but his expression sharpened since it would be for the best if he could remember what Irwyn was going to say word by word.

"From what I found in the Blackburg archives there is a certain kind of plum tree which grows in the Tribal lands. Its perpetually self-igniting fruit which festers at most once a year gave the entire species its name: Ember bloom. I will need two of its fruits for my advancement into second tier," Irwyn gave a quick description of what he wanted and smiled

"I have never even heard of such item and importing anything from the tribal lands is extremely difficult, because of its savage denizens. Isn't your request slightly unreasonable?" the butler tried to bargain, but Irwyn knew the man couldn’t possibly offer anything more.

"You are asking me to plot against my brother with 20 year advantage that was in his youth already considered a 'genius' and has the full support of my parents. I will need to take risks and do my best to get make advantages. Moreover I will be constantly walking on a tightrope from now on, if my mother ever as much as catches the wind of this she will have me murdered in my sleep. All I ask of you is to get me two of those fruits with a 6 years deadline. How am I supposed to harbour any trust if you cannot even do this much?" Irwyn snorted as he said those words. He needed to negotiate a bit here, especially since today’s events doubled his demands.

"Hmm," after a moment of consideration Sebastian accepted "fine, however, we will not provide any additional resources until then."

"I wouldn't even have it any other way. With that done I suggest we do something symbolic to seal the deal." a small grin creeped on Irwyn’s face.

"Symbolic? What do you have in mind?" Sebastian smiled back and relaxed. He understood that the symbolic thing would not be anything particularly valuable.

"Let's see. Oh, of course. The little girl, the one not older than me, that I ran into before you brought me here. A young Brinewood maid in training coming with me to the house Blackburg as a reminder of our deal. I find that just the right type of symbolism. So, what do you say?"

"Have you accomplished what you wanted?" Irwyn tried to initiate a new conversion with Avys on their way back. They hadn't stayed the night despite Porcus' protests, but Irwyn was in fact glad that was the case; the sooner he returned home the sooner was Elizabeth inescapably in his clutches.

"Fortunately, I accomplished all 3 of my objectives. All things considered you appear to have also struck a deal, but I have to ask: Why the girl?" Avys maintained that smile and alluring tone as she returned a question of her own

"You can guess, can't you?" it was not really surprising that the information already got to Avys, but Irwyn decided to not immediately reveal his intentions.

"You are a natural beholder. So she most likely has enough talent that you would want to steal her away for the Blackburg family."

"You are almost correct. She indeed has great talent, but I stole her for myself, not for the family. I will eventually need a close aide like you have Clarissa. Her talent is just good enough to be worth the effort. Since she is still young I can imprint unwavering loyalty into her. For that reason to I will not let her even be in the same room as you for a while as a precaution. You have far too many ways to twist people through words," Irwyn decided that being relatively blunt should work best with Avys. Someone so entangled by lies might just believe such a bluntly insulting statement to be a fact.

"Is that an insult or a compliment?" Avys just chuckled instead of denying it "but fine, do as you see fit. I most of all people know what it means to have someone trustworthy by your side as you crawl through mountains of lies and deceptions."

"Thank you. If you are for once not lying I will repay your blessing eventually," Irwyn was once again blunt this time, but Avys' expression unfortunately betrayed no information

"It will rain soon," Avys suddenly swapped to a seemingly irrelevant topic "we should stop and camp for the night, don't you think?"

"We can easily just travel through that. What are you planning?" Irwyn asked while he made sure that a frown didn't appear on his face.

"Let's see, I think you could call it reverse assassination," Avys spoke as she put a finger on her chin and sheepishly smiled.

"You think assassins will strike when we camp and you want to kill a specific one," from that short statement Irwyn assessed the situation without any issues. Avys was after all not the first person to ever invent that term.

"Yes, the only fourth tier being under the employ of the Brinewood family," her smile went from sweet to a wicked grin as those words left her mouth.

"I guess it would be foolish to assume anything less of you. I also trust you are not just playing with fire," Irwyn gave her a serious glance. The difference between a 3rd tier and 4th tier was incomparable to those between the previous tiers. In fact, the differences between each tier increased exponentially the more powerful a person became. Unless he caught one off guard Irwyn was well aware that killing a 4th tier being without completely shattering his mortal shell was currently impossible for him.

"Of course not. I brought 4 of our own along, and I even have a specialist for this kind of job among them."

"You brought Shade," Irwyn realised at that moment. He remembered the man quite well since he was his bodyguard for a few years; it would take a while for Irwyn to forget about the constant barrage of mental probes the man subjected him to. There was, however, one more thing that peaked Irwyn's attention: She mentioned a total of 4 people in the fourth tier. And that excluded the duke Ezax himself and perhaps more since Avys was not likely to bring away all of Blackburg forces.

That suggested there were more. Quite a sizeable force the Blackburgs had in that case. Much larger than what Irwyn remembered the dukes of North used to have in the last few thousand years. There was a limit to how much Irwyn could understand by reading textbooks made by Lucas, the man simply did not specialise in politics and similar power plays, but it was enough to understand that both the Blackburg and Brightbeak families are somehow far more influential than any other dukes. He would have to add that onto the relatively short list of topics he had to delve into and better understand.

"So that was why you acted the way you did. You wanted to make him absolutely furious."

"Yes, and I more the succeeded. Porcus is in the end no smarter than a hog he looks like. Despite my reputation some dimwits here in the North still underestimate me just because I am female," Avys scoffed, but didn't break her tone nor expression. Before the conversation could continue the carriage suddenly began to slow down until it came to a gradual stop. That signalled they had arrived on whatever spot Avys designated

"They are not likely attack your tent, but you should do your best to hide. The night will be long," Avys said as she opened the door and vanished into the darkness of the moonless night. Irwyn followed not long after.