As Simon suspected, the Cobweb’s Attic door to Telluria led them straight to Beleth.

After having Belzemine summon him back to Rosanne, Simon was then summoned to the butcher shop for immediate transportation to his new assignment. Belzemine and Eole had to be blindfolded to keep the Attic a secret from them—they were simply told they would be sent to Telluria through magic—and they crossed multiple thresholds until they arrived in a traditional shifter item shop’s basement. Another smiler held the counter, but Simon only had to take a look outside to recognize the area.

“Western quarter, five streets away from your house,” Simon informed the Honorius family through telepathy. “The shifter item artisan shop. The door is in the basement.”

“I see the main room on my crystal ball, Your Majesty,” Cassandra replied. “The basement is shrouded to me though.”

Of course they would have defenses to hide the Attic’s door. The smiler had immediately covered the trapdoor leading to the basement with a carpet before undoing Belzemine and Eole’s blindfolds.

“Stick to divinations for now until we’re ready to seize the gatekeeper.” Simon wouldn’t directly risk seizing a fetch until he could be sure it wouldn’t be tracked back to him, or if he was ready to wage war on the Cobweb directly. Either way, it was too soon to act. “I want to know who comes and goes at all times.”

Simon had gone to great lengths to keep the Cobweb in the dark about his allies in Telluria. This would serve him well when he was ready to spring his trap on the organization.

He had an idea to accelerate his planned takeover, but it would require both Eole’s assistance and some luck. Having multiple plans and back-up plans in the works should also let him adapt accordingly.

Afterwards, the group was given horses with a local ‘guide’ to lead them to their designated meeting point on the Tellurian plains. Simon was forced to apply the Brand of Envy to Eole to ensure she could shapeshift into a human woman rather than risk letting rumors of a kish in the area reach Vouivre’s ears. She didn’t object much this time, both because she already bore another unremovable Devil Brand, and mostly because seeing the items on display in the shop had hardened her resolve.

“This establishment… the items on display were crafted by my people,” Eole informed him through telepathy, an angry scowl on her face. Since she had no experience with horseback riding, she sat behind Simon and held on to him instead. “They stole them from the slaves they captured.”

“It’s very likely,” Simon conceded. The Cobweb wouldn’t waste any chance to make money. “I told you they were monsters. They steal people’s freedom and sell their lives away.”

Eole nodded slightly and kept her head pressed against his back during the entire ride. She spent most of the ride in thoughtful silence until their guide led them to a small forest she seemed to recognize.

“This is Centaur Federation territory,” Eole informed him. “They’re allied with Endymion.”

“And thus with the War Party,” Simon replied. Was the Cobweb mad enough to pick a fight with Louis and his faction? Or did Vouivre set them up to fight them?

Simon guessed that made some sense. The number of tribes unaffiliated with either group had probably shrunk considerably during the civil war, and the Cobweb would probably rather avoid alienating their main slave supplier.

Their guide led them to a small camp of a dozen animal-skin tents flapping in the breeze blowing through the surrounding woods. An enormous yet empty slave pen stood in the middle of them, next to a cage holding the biggest ogre Simon had ever seen. It was roughly sixteen feet tall, with a mouth large enough to swallow a bull whole and a portly, sagging belly. Simon immediately recognized the creature from one of Dassein’s bounty posters: the Horse-Eater Ogre. The beast was snoring for now.

Most of the men present were either humans or orcs armed to the teeth, with Borsh towering over them all.

“Greetings, Goldenhell,” he greeted Simon’s group politely once they arrived. “You’re right on time.”

“I’ve seen that ogre before on a bounty poster,” Simon mused as he and his companions climbed down from their horses. Eole’s grim gaze lingered on the empty slave pen. “Did you catch him?”

“We made him,” Borsh corrected. “A local warlord called Vouivre paid us to harass the Centaur Federation before the war, mainly because they wouldn’t bend their knees to her. We fed this creature a steady diet of horses until it got a taste for it, then released it to prey on the centaurs.”

Was there any incident in Telluria Vouivre didn’t have a hand in? Simon had to give it to her; she had covered her bases well before making her play for power.

“Where’s the kish?” Borsh asked, with Simon waving at Eole. The werewolf squinted at and smelled her, much to her unease and disgust. “Even her scent has changed… What spell did you use? Some sort of polymorphy?”

“I can imbue select individuals with brands that grant them otherworldly powers,” Simon replied, “Including advanced shapeshifting.”

“Interesting,” Borsh said, touching the strange clockwork device on his chest. “This machine pumps drugs into my veins. They let me retain my intellect even when I stay in my beast form for a prolonged amount of time, but it needs constant maintenance. Could your brand magic do the same thing?”

“That can be arranged,” Simon replied, being careful not to sound too eager, lest the werewolf sense a trap. Things would go much more smoothly if he could brand a Weaver into his service. “I have other marks that grant other benefits, such as immunity to poison and disease or greater strength…”

“At the cost of servitude, I would assume,” Borsh replied with a dismissive snort. “I’ve branded too many slaves myself to accept one from you, but it’s good to know runic tattoos can produce those kinds of effects. I’ll look into crafting some of my own.”

“Suit yourself,” Simon replied, knowing better not to insist, “Though I wonder why you want to stay in beast form at all times.”

“Because humanity is overrated. I would rather be at my peak at all times.” Borsh crossed his arms. “We can discuss those brands of yours after the job is done. You did well to bring the kish. We won’t even have to fight if she sings well enough.”

Although she didn’t understand their tongue, Eole picked up on enough of his intentions to glare at the werewolf with the full force of her contempt. She gathered her breath, and then asked the question that had been on the tip of her tongue since the moment she had learned a werewolf led the Cobweb’s slaving operations.

“Why?” she asked in a tongue Simon recognized as a shifter dialect.

Borsh glared at her as he answered her in the same tongue. “What did you say?”

“You are one of us, a shifter, yet you lead men and orcs in enslaving your own kind,” Eole said with spitting contempt. “Why? Is there a hole in your heart only gold can fill?”

Simon stood ready to intervene should Borsh answer her with violence, but the werewolf’s reaction took him aback. Rather than hatred or anger, he stared back at Eole with the same contempt she showed him… and more surprisingly, a hint of condescending pity.

“My men call me Borsh Fleshmonger nowadays, but I was once called Lorak of the Silverfang Tribe,” the werewolf answered Eole in the shifter tongue. “Surely it must ring a bell.”

It did, from the shocked look on Eole’s face. “You… you fought against the imperial invasion…”

“I did. And before that, I was fighting my fellow shifters in endless skirmishes.” He pointed at the empty pen with his metal claw. “Who do you think sells slaves around there? The humans love shifters to work in their mines and to warm their beds, but they don’t know the steppes well enough to catch us.”

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Simon scowled as he put two and two together. “You shifters enslave each other?”

“Of course we do,” Borsh confirmed. “When one tribe defeats another, they always sell off the useless ones to the southern cities to buy weapons and supplies. I was enslaved by a rival tribe at eight, ‘till I killed my captors and came back a few years later to enslave their children. That’s how it goes around these parts.” The werewolf sneered at Eole. “Were you so high up on your perch you couldn’t see the truth? Did you think we were victims of the southerners?”

Eole bit her lip, her silence an answer in itself. “That doesn’t make it right,” she said weakly. “We could change those ways, break our chains and fight–”

“You’re years too late, kish,” Borsh growled with cold anger. “When Endymion came, a few others and I tried to unite the tribes to push them back. I knew we could have won if we fought like a closed fist with one purpose, yet the chiefs wouldn’t stop bickering. Some tribes like the centaurs bent the knee rather than fight, while others preferred to retreat east and let the western tribes bleed alone to slow the empire’s advance. When the Rider and his forces came for us, we Silverfangs fought alone and were crushed.”

The bitterness in his voice was palpable, and Simon quickly realized why the werewolf pitied Eole before; because he had been in her place once, trying to lift his people up into noble rebellion, only to slam his head against reality’s wall.

“When I woke up amidst the corpses of my tribesmen, I learned a lesson you should make yours as well,” Borsh said. “Since you can lose everything at any moment, you have to take it all right then, right there. The money, the power, the women, the fame, whatever there is to seize. That’s the law of nature.”

Borsh raised a claw and pointed it at Eole’s heart and slave tattoos.

“So if you want to help our ‘people,’ then you better remember how to sing, ‘cause the words of the weak are always wasted on the strong.”

Eole flinched as if she had been slapped, then looked down at the ground; her silence an answer in itself.

“Your slave is too insolent for her own good,” Borsh warned Simon. “You pamper her too much.”

Simon glared at the werewolf. He had already been considering smiting him where he stood for his harsh words to Eole, and the urge had only gotten much stronger. “Am I dreaming, or are you telling me how to handle my affairs?”

“No, no,” Borsh added with a hint of wariness. He knew not to cross the Overlord, and that a favor wasn’t an order. “Just some friendly advice.”

“There is a wide gulf between friendly and disrespectful,” Simon warned him. He knew better than to show weakness in this particular company. “Either way, my time is precious. Let’s proceed with the raid.”

“It will be quick,” Borsh promised. “Your girl will just need to sing them to sleep, then we’ll kill the unsellable ones and collar on the rest.”

A cold-blooded and cowardly plan, but an effective one that would torture Eole to go through with. Simon only had to glance at her to tell that Borsh’s acidic comments were gnawing at her.

“Don’t let his words get to you, Eole,” Simon told her through telepathy. “He is a criminal. They’re all good at finding excuses for their aberrant behavior.”

“You are kind, Simon, kinder than an Overlord ought to be… but he’s right.” A dangerous glint passed in Eole’s gaze; the same one Simon had caught the time she accepted the Two-Tailed Fish’s power in the kish palace. “I am sick of wasting my words.”

She was wrong, for her words weren’t wasted on Simon. He sensed the resolve beneath her bitterness, the desire for change. If she was truly willing to harden her heart to win, then victory was yet within her grasp.

“The question is… what will you do about it?” Simon asked. “I have ideas, if you are truly determined.”

Eole’s scowl deepened, her eyes burning with hatred for all that Borsh represented. “I’m listening.”

The slaving raid began at midnight.

The Centaur Federation encampment dwarfed the slavers’ one, with hundreds of tents and twice as many campfires lighting up the night. Either Borsh and his soldiers were confident in their power to take all these shifters on, or he absolutely believed Eole’s voice would ensnare them all.

The werewolf himself didn’t show any fear at the risk of hearing the kish’s song, which clued in Simon that he had a protection against mind-affecting effects on himself; likely the drugs pumped into his veins, if his prior comment about them allowing him to stay in beast form without losing his intellect was any indication. This opened up an opportunity Simon wouldn’t pass up.

Either way, the group had taken position at the woods’ borders, facing the wind so as not to alert the locals to their position. Simon had put on a Nightveil to become a living shadow, but didn’t activate his Overlord armor yet to ensure he could cast a certain spell…

“We’re ready and waiting,” Borsh informed Simon, who nodded and turned to Eole. She had put on her Songstress outfit, and most importantly, made up her mind.

Eole gathered her breath and then took flight like a night owl. She flew over the centaur camp under the cover of darkness, then circled above it. It didn’t take long for her Class-enhanced voice to echo across the plain. A beautiful song joined with the night breeze, an enchanting melody worthy of Valnean operas. Even Simon found himself enraptured by its beauty.

Charm and Sleep cancelled by Indomitable Crown.

Simon glanced at Borsh, who looked a little bit more tired than before but nowhere near ready to fall asleep. His men were equally spry in the night in spite of Eole’s enchanted dress joining with her outfit to empower her song.

“Neither you nor your men seem affected all that much,” Simon noted.

“The drugs clear my mind,” Borsh replied dismissively. “Did you think I would call in a kish without taking precautions?”

A pity they won’t be enough. Simon contacted Eole through telepathy. “He is affected, if only a bit. Resistant, but not immune.”

“I am tuning my song to lower his inhibitions then.”

“Alright, men!” Borsh called to his slavers. “Move in and collar the whole lot of them!”

“You heard the man, Agnes.” Simon waited for his companion and Borsh’s men to walk on ahead before he gently tapped the werewolf on the back like an old friend while muttering a prayer under his breath. “Holy Lightstone of the ancients, please Cleanse your faithful.”

His prayer’s power flowed through Borsh’s body, cleaning it of the drugs coursing through his veins and shielding his mind from the song.

Borsh immediately tensed up, but his resistance was crushed before it could even begin. The song wormed its way into his mind, his very shifter biology betraying him. His entire Tribe had been engineered on a primal level to serve the kish, and he was no exception.

Devil Brands required the target to willingly accept them, that was true; but consent was a very loose term when it came to demonic bargains. Eole’s work at the Golden Butterfly had been the occasion to test out the limits of that particular restriction.

As it turned out, an agreement obtained under duress or a substance loosening inhibitions satisfied the requirement. True, direct mind-control would prevent the deal from going through, but greasing the wheels was allowed so long as a part of the target wanted to fall.

Borsh craved power so much he would dope himself to stay in his beast form at all times, and Simon had seen his interest in the brands. He simply had Eole silence the logical part of his victim’s brain that whispered that the cost might not be worth the benefits...

“Now, about my brands… you want them, don’t you?” Simon asked mirthfully, phantom marks appearing in his hand as he activated his Overlord armor. He also sent a mental signal to Belzemine to proceed with her part of the operation. “The power. You want the power dearly. You want to kill like a demon, to never age.”

“Y… yes,” Borsh replied, his gaze that of an addled alcoholic. “I… want to be strong… stronger than anyone.”

“And you will be…” Simon applied the brands to his back. “As an instrument of my will.”

The marking took mere seconds, after which Simon turned them invisible to ensure they wouldn’t be discovered. He could feel his Class’ glee in the flow of experience that followed, though it wasn’t enough to grant him a level-up.

Borsh’s device pumped a new batch of drugs into his system and snapped him out of his trance. He bolted away from Simon, far too late to change anything.

“What have you done to me?!” he snapped at Simon, fangs and claws out to kill.

“I’ve granted your wish,” Simon replied.

“I serve no o–urrk!” Borsh collapsed to his knees as Simon lazily drained him of his lifeforce through the Brand of Lust.

“I will have none of your backtalk, insolent slave,” Simon boasted in his mind, to better strike the fear into the slaver’s heart. “As you said, the words of the weak are wasted on the strong. And dogs that bark at their master are put down.”

He grabbed Borsh by the throat and lifted him up, even though the werewolf was the bigger of the two, and forced him to look into his burning eyes.

“I am in your head now, and I own your soul too,” Simon informed him through telepathy, tasting his fear through the brand. “I can torture you in ways so savage, you can’t even imagine them. Death will be no salvation from fear and terror. Only faithful service.” Simon then tossed the werewolf to the ground. “Now come.”

Simon walked towards the camp without waiting for Borsh to follow, which he did, scratching his back in a vain attempt to remove the brands that were imprinted onto his soul. They walked amidst sleeping centaurs, most of whom didn’t resemble the half-men, half-horses Simon had heard so much about. Most of them looked like men and women with horse ears or occasionally had hooves for feet in their humanoid form.

Everyone present was sound asleep thanks to Eole’s song, except for Belzemine, who stood alone in her Gladiator outfit and surrounded by dead slavers torn to pieces. Eole landed nearby with a smile of pure satisfaction.

“Such a pity, all these losses because your pet ogre broke free,” Simon mused out loud as he kicked the corpses. “You’ll have to hire new people, Borsh. Solid, loyal people. I can recommend a few.”

“He will know,” Borsh replied with a dash of fear, “The Prince will know. He always does, sooner or later.”

“Sooner or later can be a very, very long time, Borsh.” And by then, the Prince would hopefully be dead. “Do you know who he is?”

Borsh growled, though he quickly learned his place when Simon drained a bit of his lifeforce as a warning. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I’m not even sure the sisters know who they really are.”

“A shame, but not unexpected. We have other questions either way.” Simon turned to Eole. “Are you satisfied? Was it worth it?”

Eole glanced at the sleeping centaurs, but her guilt at using her voice against her fellow shifters disappeared the moment she took a look at Borsh’s angry expression.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, it was.”