Lich for Hire

Ariel's sensitivity was understandable. While Ambrose played the role of Monge Greywater, she had watched him very carefully, studying how he used words to manipulate others in hopes that one day she could become as intelligent as he was.

As a result, she had internalized just about everything there was to know about Monge Greywater.

The lich before her bore no physical resemblance to Monge Greywater at all, but the nature of his manipulation, especially in that last exchange, was identical. The moment Ambrose finished speaking, Ariel knew she had walked straight into a trap, the same ones Monge Greywater used to spring.

What an unsettling feeling.

She looked him over carefully, trying to see past whatever lay beneath his Shapeshifting.

But she could identify nothing amiss. He simply looked back at her, perfectly composed, and said, "If Your Highness has other considerations, please raise them directly. Business, after all, requires negotiation."

Ariel came back to herself. "What alternative arrangement did you have in mind?"

Ambrose was very pleased. The fact that Ariel had asked such a question meant she was prepared to consider it.

"It's straightforward," he said. "The Ragetide Kingdom does not possess enough funds to make this purchase directly, but it does have surplus labor."

Ariel interrupted him. "Master Megaman, I'm afraid you've got that wrong. We don't have a large population. Even feeding everyone we have is already a challenge."

Ragetide was spread across several large islands, and the total population was well under ten million.

The territory had very little arable land, and both large-scale farming and rearing livestock were impractical. The kingdom lived off the ocean. Most citizens were fishers, and most taxes were paid in fish.

Gold was genuinely scarce; the only reason Ragetide had any at all was an underwater deposit discovered some years back, and even that was almost exhausted. The difficulty of deep-sea mining meant the returns had always been modest, and the only other source of gold Ragetide had access to was piracy.

A kingdom that couldn't reliably feed itself had no leverage in continental trade, which had kept Ragetide perpetually isolated, economically backwards, and poor. The cycle reinforced itself.

So the idea of surplus labor was, by any ordinary reckoning, nonsense.

Ambrose shook his head. "I understand Ragetide's situation. Fishing is an inefficient way to feed a population. It's dangerous, labor-intensive, and isn't conducive to further development."

That was the fundamental problem with island kingdoms. Without the scale to support real industry, it would be stuck in a subsistence cycle for good.

Ambrose was perfectly positioned to solve this problem. "I'd like to suggest importing food. If the kingdom had a reliable food supply, you could redirect your people toward more productive work—specifically, processing alchemical products for me."

Ariel looked uncertain. "We have no foundation for alchemical manufacturing. No infrastructure, no trained workforce—"

"That's fine. I have a complete production line all set up. What I'm short of is labor."

Ariel thought back to their earlier discussion about dragons. "You really are going to harvest the dragons wholesale for materials?"

"Nothing so dramatic. I operate on a long-term model, and don't believe in killing the golden goose. Once the dragons are gone, what then? No. What I'm working with is their sustainable outputs: dragonbone vine, dragon scales, and dragon blood. Adjust the proportions, and those raw materials alone suffice to produce a wide range of alchemical goods with enormous market potential."

"You have a relationship with the undead queen," Ariel said. "Wouldn't it be simpler to set up operations there?"

Ambrose looked pained. "The Umbral Depths are completely unsuitable for large-scale manufacturing. And dragon materials are particularly sensitive. Any contamination from dark energy might ruin the final products."

Undead labor was out of the question for high-end production. Dragon-derived products were premium goods, and even trace contamination was deadly. Living workers were necessary.

Even setting aside contamination, the Umbral Depths had no flat ground, inadequate ventilation, and a water situation that didn't bear thinking about.

Using Terraform to carve out factory space would cost more than the factory was worth, and even then, every shipment would need to be teleported to the surface, which was ruinously expensive.

The Ragetide Kingdom, on the other hand, was situated on an island. Shipping was comparatively simple, and Ambrose was in the process of establishing an inter-kingdom airship freight network anyway. Adding a Ragetide route would barely affect the cost.

And Ragetide was poor, which meant he could pay its workers a fraction of what he would anywhere else on the continent. It had a competitive advantage in labor costs.

There was also the geographic angle: Ragetide was closer to the dragon islands than any other inhabited territory. Even if it weren't a manufacturing hub, it would function as a logistics node. Better to make it both.

He could even price the combat airships high enough to serve as advance payment against future wages.

Not only that, he could share a portion of the sales revenue with Ragetide to keep their enthusiasm engaged. And once the population was employed and fed by the arrangement, he would have converted an entire kingdom into his workforce.

The thought of it made his soul hum. Once he had that kind of production, he could flood the market. Every alchemical merchant guild on the continent would fold within a generation. And after that, the price of a vitality potion would be whatever Ambrose deemed it to be.

"Your Highness, what I'm offering is this: I'll provide airships, technology, and core infrastructure. You provide workers and space. As for food, I have connections with certain druidic circles, and I can arrange supply lines that will keep Ragetide's population fed. No one will go hungry.

"I imagine Your Highness doesn't want your people eating fish for the rest of their lives. Bread, eggs, milk, and meat can all be part of your citizens' regular diet. What do you think?"

Ariel was stupefied by Ambrose's vision. Even as a princess, she ate only fish and sea vegetables. Beef and lamb were rare delicacies she had only had a handful of times; milk was essentially mythical. The only reason bread existed in the palace was that Ragetide's minimal farmland was reserved for the royal household.

If this lich could actually deliver what he was describing, it would be genuinely transformative for the kingdom.

Though she was tempted to agree, she instead said, "I'll give it serious consideration. Master Megaman, why don't you prepare a detailed proposal? I'd like a written outline covering the full structure of the arrangement, what we would provide and what we would receive in return. I'd like to study it carefully."

Ambrose felt sincere admiration. The young woman who had been charging around with a hammer recklessly had grown up. She was more careful now, and more guarded.

He handed her the proposal he had already prepared. Ariel opened it: her expression brightened within seconds. Everything on the page was exactly what Ragetide needed. It all looked so reasonable, so balanced, and so clearly beneficial.

Despite having improved by leaps and bounds, Ariel hadn't yet had time to develop the instincts to see what was missing.

The document had been drafted with great care, specifically to avoid a certain fundamental question.

What might happen to a kingdom whose food supply is monopolized and whose entire population has become factory workers?

The resulting dependency wouldn't be obvious until it actually took place. Once Ragetide's people were accustomed to bread and meat and milk, returning to a fish-only diet would be catastrophic. Not a disruption, but total collapse. At that point, the kingdom's future would rest entirely in Ambrose's hands.

He didn't mind Ariel taking the proposal back to study. He was quite confident there was no one in Ragetide's court capable of identifying the core problem. The kingdom was too poor, too isolated, too small in population to attract the kind of talent that might have caught it.

He had met Ragetide's court mages—an alchemist, a necromancer, and a generalist spellcaster—and none of them had any background in political economy or social systems.

As for the old king, Monge Greywater had run circles around him. Ambrose would have no difficulty tricking him at all.

The one variable he couldn't fully account for was Thanos. Would the Lord of Storms look down at this arrangement, see through it, and decide to give his faithful a divine warning?

Would that count as interfering in mortal affairs?

Ambrose directed a silent prayer at Aion to maintain strict standards and, ideally, to forbid all deities from issuing any divine guidance whatsoever. At that point, it would simply be a matter of time before the entire world fell into his hands.

He watched Ariel leave, then turned to focus on his own preparations.

The Lyon force wouldn't be stopped by the Sea of Storms. They would make it through eventually, and when they arrived, his performance needed to be clean and decisive. That was the whole point.

But just as he went back to planning, he made a connection between Ariel and the naked man he had recently encountered.

The fool's bride-to-be was, purportedly, named Ariel.

He had dismissed the connection immediately: the name was common enough, and there was no reason to suspect Princess Ariel of the Ragetide Kingdom immediately.

But Aiolos possessed a specific and unusual power. Whoever he was meant to marry surely wasn't going to be some ordinary farmer's daughter. And no ordinary woman could simply disappear when an invincible man came looking.

You would need someone with real status, real backing, and real resources, to have any chance of not being found. Only someone like Princess Ariel fit that profile.

Given Aiolos's power, innocence, and lack of worldly knowledge, Ambrose was certain that there was divine intervention at foot.

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