The room where the most feared bandit lord in Exaul held a meeting was rather unremarkable. This would have shocked many who felt that the aesthetics of such a meeting required it to be dimly lit, if not completely pitch black. However, the reality of such a meeting would largely be a bunch of people accidentally stubbing their toes on chairs and table legs or bumping into one another while trying to find their seats. Practicality alone demanded that there had to be some level of lighting available, which was provided by several glowing crystals suspended on chains hanging from the ceiling.

The plain nature of the furniture, and the room itself, would have also infuriated any aesthete, as the meeting of bandits and rogues should be in a dark room in a deep cave or seedy underworld hideout, perhaps with a table and chairs marked by cuts and gouges or even speckled here and there with old blood, complete with a haze of tobacco smoke clouding the room. Instead, everything in this room located in an otherwise unnoteworthy building in an isolated settlement was painstakingly, infuriatingly clean, and well kept. The only notable quality in the room was the distinct, fruity smell of olive wood from outside.

Perhaps more importantly, most of the men and women who would participate in this meeting room did not see themselves as the sort who held meetings in dark rooms. They viewed themselves as good, decent, hard-working people who were doing all they could to bring about a dream six and a half centuries in the making. The fact that said dream was the downfall of a powerful nation whose end would likely cause untold death and a dark age spanning centuries did not detract from their internal perception as heroes.

A dozen men and women filed into the room, all of them dressed in an ash-gray cloak, each of them wearing a mask shaped like the skull of a deer, complete with eight-pointed horns. Normally, these individuals would not be taking this measure to hide the identity of the Ashen Stag, but today was a special occasion. Today, they were meeting with the benefactor who had granted them the funds and resources to be able to move forward with their plans at a far greater speed than they had thought possible.

As they waited for their guest, one of the seated figures muttered in a deep bass, "I wish we could just move on to Remus now. We could take it tomorrow if we moved quickly."

There was the odd sensation in the room of nearly a dozen people rolling their eyes under their masks. One of them, her voice a throaty contralto, retorted, "Taking is one thing. Keeping it is another. It will be at least a year before we can have any hope of holding the mine once we take it, even if we had ten times the bandits we have working for us now."

"Indeed," said another of the seated people, his voice a harsh rasp, "and we've only just started work on that project. It took two years for us to complete our work in Romulus. The fact that Remus will be only a year in the taking shows just how rapidly our operation is gaining ground. Today's mine collapse we engineered was just the start, and now that we've confirmed that the artifact works as our benefactor promised, our infiltrators within the mining operation, the smelters, and foundries in the region can begin their operations in earnest. Between repeated disasters, evidence being brought forward of corruption in the operation of the mine both real and planted, and false reports that the mine is going dry, we'll be able to take it within a year and all the kingdom will do is write it off as lost and not worth retaking."

Another, this one with the mellow, melodious voice of a bard, added, "With Remus gone, the price of iron ore will skyrocket and the dwarves will be asked to provide more. I've confirmed with a source within the Kingdom Under The Mountain that there's effectively zero chance that the dwarves could ever improve their iron output to that degree." With a chuckle which might have been almost musical, were it not for the sheer malice it contained, he added, "Just like with the famed olive oil of Romulus, we'll have control over suddenly very rare and sought after resources, which we can sell to Exaul... at extremely inflated prices."

"Right, right," muttered the man with the deep voice, exasperation making him sound very old, "I know the plan."

Making himself sound like a schoolboy reciting his lessons from memory, he mockingly added, "'With the money that we get from all of that, we can start taking control of the golem manufacturers and Exponentia production companies. While Exaul is falling apart from the economic turmoil of the iron shortage, we'll be able to take the two biggest secrets to the kingdom's centuries-long success and sail off into the sunset, selling that knowledge to the highest bidder for even more ridiculous amounts of money.' I just wish it could go a little faster since I'm likely to pass away before I get to reap the fruits of our labors."

"Perhaps," said an exceptionally beautiful blonde man dressed in white silk trimmed with silver as he walked in through the door followed closely by a figure in a dusty, threadbare hooded cloak. "But your children will. That's the only form of immortality that mortal men and women can aspire to, after all." Chuckling as if he'd made a joke, he continued, "But enough of such morbidity. Today is a wonderful day. I'm glad to see all of you, oh dear rangale of Ashen Stags."

Each of the seated figures reached up and tapped a portion of their masks. After a moment, the one whose voice was previously a contralto spoke, her speech coming out as harsh and gravelly, "Mister Phoebus, so good of you to join us. We've been awaiting your arrival. I trust that your companion is all you have promised he will be?"

"I've yet to disappoint," came Phoebus' reply, "and I shan't do so now." With a wave of his hand, he signaled his companion to lower their hood.

Almost immediately, the room became icy cold, the lights dimming drastically. The smell of olivewood was gone, now being overpowered by something unspeakably, indescribably foul. The member of the group who'd just recently complained of his age put a hand over his heart, seeming to struggle to breathe. Then, at a signal from Phoebus, the figure replaced its hood, and suddenly, the room was the same as it was a few moments before, although the terror of the seated men and women was evident even while still masked and cloaked.

"You wished for me to provide you with a proxy," the man in white silk noted, "one who could wipe out well-fortified villages, settlements, and outposts without having to risk any of your men. I trust that this fine fellow will suffice?"

One of the seated individuals, after a moment, was finally able to speak, asking, "What... what is that... thing?"

His expression a little disappointed, Phoebus chided the speaker, warning, "Now, now, one of the conditions of our partnership is that I am under no obligation to answer any question I don't like, and that's one of them. What I will say is that Mister Mortem will be everything you need and more. He'll be perfectly obedient to your every command, as I've ordered him to be so. Between him and the monster attractants I've also provided your lovely little organization, it will be more than enough to make it seem like the woes of the Titus archduchy are coming from multiple sources, rather than a single organization."

With a wicked grin, he added, "After all, if the crown ever thought for an instant that a single organization was the source of all of this region's disasters, they'd immediately jump in... and you don't want that." His smile becoming more natural, he then asked, "Now, as to the matter of my recompense...?"

The threat, while unspoken, was present. In this situation, Phoebus was protected by this... Mortem creature, whose loyalty was first and foremost to Phoebus, and only after him to the other men and women in this room. Further, if they tried to grant him payment which turned out to be fraudulent, he could simply leak the full story of the Ashen Stag to the king of Exaul, and the entire organization would be put in jeopardy. They were now in a situation where they had to give him exactly what he wanted.

Phoebus, deep down, was laughing hysterically at the foolishness of these men and women as they mentally justified accepting this monstrosity. They had just seen the creature that was being offered to them, they had felt its power, its horror, its corruption... and yet right now, they were internally creating reasons for why it was okay to use it for their plans. Here in this very room with them was a something whose very existence was a tumor upon all that was good and right, along with the monster he was offering them for their future plans, and these men and women were telling themselves that unleashing this horror on innocent people to further their goals wasn't an objectively evil act, but rather a fully justified means to an end.

It speaks volumes regarding the nature of not just humanity but all mortal life that even a mass-murdering, cannibalistic black knight clad in gore-drenched armor, wielding a magic sword fueled by the souls of sacrificed infants... can still consider himself to be as just, heroic, and virtuous as the shining paladin who strikes the black knight down.

Having recovered from the shock of what he'd seen and experienced earlier, the older member of the group picked up a scroll and tossed it to Phoebus, who caught it easily. "I hope this is what you were after," his altered voice stated, "as it took months of combing through the archives to find. I don't see why you'd want the location of an old library, though."

"Well, that's the difference between us, I suppose," Phoebus replied absently, looking at the scroll. "You lot equate power with wealth, which isn't necessarily wrong. Wealth can give power, but it is not the only wellspring from which power flows. A friend of mine once said that you can tell a lot about someone by asking them what they think equates to power."

Curious, one of the seated figures asked, "And what do you think equates to power?"

"Whatever someone else believes is power," he answered, a slow smile coming across his features as he continued to study the scroll. "If you know what someone values, what they treasure, what they lust for, what they envy others for, then that grants you power over them. Offer people what they want to receive, and they'll dance through hell barefoot for you even if you don't have it. Tell people what they want to hear, and they'll believe you wholeheartedly even when you tell them blatant lies. Promise them that their greatest wish, dream, or desire will be fulfilled if they follow you, and they'll throw away everything they have in devotion to you even if you never actually deliver."

What he left out was the fact that, because these men and women viewed gold as power, they failed to see knowledge as power. By narrowly defining 'power' as a single thing, it blinded them to all the other things that could grand them the power they sought. It was possible to wave gold in front of men and women like these and keep their attention on that, all while with his other hand was grabbing the real prize right from under their noses.

Within the scroll that Phoebus held was the key to his own future plans, plans that would take years to come to fruition but would gain him far more than these men and women imagined possible. Knowledge, too, could be a kind of power, provided one could obtain it and knew how best to apply it. If these men and women had known the true value of the knowledge within this scroll, they could have sold it for a sum that would make the amounts they hoped to eventually gain seem like pocket change...

However, if they were foolish enough to trade gold for lead, Phoebus was more than happy to provide.

Closing the scroll carefully, Phoebus concluded, "What a person believes equates to power is often what equates to power over them."

Putting the scroll away, he added in a mockingly sorrowful tone, "Ladies and gentlemen, it truly has been a pleasure. It breaks my heart that I must be away to the Seven Isles for the next year or two, but I have irons in the fire that cannot be left unattended for much longer. Had I not my own plans in the works, I would have gained much enjoyment and, dare I say, entertainment by watching things proceed from a front-row seat. Alas, we cannot always get what we want. I wish you farewell and good fortune in your future endeavors."