I couldn’t believe those simpletons found my base and disrupted the signal. If I had the wherewithal to pay more attention to their presence, I might have deigned to interfere with their intrusion, but I had more important things to do than to expect that the locals would make it through the gauntlet of subjects in the area.

It was categorically surprising how many of the subjects persisted in the area, even with all the time I’ve spent on this continent. I reviewed the notes but they were surprisingly bereft when it came to propagation– I couldn’t say I was surprised. Documentation back then could be rather lacking; no doubt that was a cause of the break in the project. Without proper tracking of the results, support for the project was halted, resources pulled out of the eastern continent. A tale as old as academia.

In some ways, I was glad to no longer be shackled to one of the Academies. I had moved onto bigger and better things. Prospects that could lead to real change, not an endless stalemate. The projects left behind in this land were not without merit. The people here had survived, even if they hadn’t progressed as much. There was still a wealth of knowledge to be found here, if one knew where to look.

That’s what made it all the more frustrating that those ruffians found my special project. I wasn’t done studying the transformation process, nor how it compared to the older model. It would be no matter in the end though. I could always replicate my experiment. All good scientists need to replicate their work to validate the results, after all. Once is a fluke, in itself. It’s repetition with a good enough sample size that shows when one stumbles onto a truth. I still had my earlier benchmark readings… those would have to do. It was too late to try and interfere with them. I had to continue onto other elements of the project, after all.

What stood out the most though, was the usage of administrative rights to disable the sigil. Frankly, I had thought the sigil would remain untouched until the end of time or the extermination of all life, whichever came first. It was a cute little remnant of the earlier researchers, and one of those ruffians managed to interface with it and disable the signal from emanating. That shouldn’t have been possible. I checked the travel logs of any of the researchers associated with the project: none had traveled over to the eastern continent in centuries. The only one I was aware of was myself, and that was fabricated to cover my tracks. I couldn’t have anyone trying to interfere with my work on seeing my travel logs and yet, here we were. A local making use of administrative rights to meddle with my work. So terribly curious. I needed to know more.

If he was aligned with either of the Academies, then I would have to end him before my interference was noticed, but that seemed unlikely, given he exhibited signs of using the beast soul system. That pathetic project by the other team wasn’t worth the investment put in– I couldn’t believe that was still running here. That was perhaps even more shocking than the monster's propagation. If I had the time I would have looked into its continued existence, but to have people functioning with neutered magic was of no concern to me, in the end. Its contributions paled against studied and measured arts. No one working for one of the Academies would utilize it… he had to be a local. A local who stumbled onto something he didn’t understand. Perhaps he could be of use… I would have to monitor him and find out.

No matter though. There was nothing further to do here. It was time to be off to more important business.

I opened up a gate, the tell-tale rippling golden shimmer tearing asunder the air in front of me. I walked off of the roof I had been doing my observations on, stepping into the distortion and found my next steps in the comfy hide-away I had set up elsewhere on the continent. There was something comforting about the ease of personal gates here. Without the monitoring of the movement, it was easy to move about unfettered. No more needing to charter a public gate just to cross over from city to city. No extensive customs declaration to ensure that hazardous material hadn’t been smuggled along. It was as simple as breathing: the enforcement of one’s will upon the world to join two separate parts. With such mediocre architecture in the area, it was almost effortless. Maybe after concluding my research here I could try and set up a second home here. Somewhere away from the watchful gaze of the Academies. Could be nice to live with greater privacy, once the locals were removed, of course. No need to mingle with the illiterate riffraff.

I dumped my measurement devices onto my table off to the side and cast a minor cleaning cantrip. Just because I was doing research in the field didn’t mean I had to be filthy afterwards. I still had work to do. A woman’s work is never done. The worst part was that I had to change my face again. I hated seeing that face in the mirror, but the simpletons had grown accustomed to that visage. I couldn’t go and change it now. If I was going to use them, then I had to use them in the manner they were accustomed to. I ran my hand over my face, my features shimmering to the model I had grown all-too-familiar with, my attire changing with it. Had to look appropriate for the meeting, in the end, although I cursed that I had scheduled one for this time. I should have postponed it. I hated these meetings.

I flung my will at the wall, summoning the screens to life. They spilled out around me, faces of my workers appearing onto the displays. Most didn’t even have the right to speak, only allowed to view the meetings to facilitate the next plans for their bosses. I could admire that efficiency and devotion to making the underlings suffer. It showed that some elements were true across cultures. It made me feel like I was home to see others needlessly pulled into my presentations. At least I wouldn’t be the only one suffering in the end.

After the summary dismissal of my minion in Titan City, as the locals wanted to call their ramshackle settlement, I was only left with one notable worker, who had the temerity to call himself a lord. The other minions were barely worth my notice, but this one carried considerable clout for this part of the world. “Lord Montare, it’s a pleasure,” I lied through my teeth. “How goes the movement?”

“Reports of resistance have decreased by 57% over the last two weeks. Incidents of revenge violence have creased by 13% as well… it’s hard to condition out the need to act against the former oppressor even with the new shifted structure. Overall I’d say we’re doing great work. The new guards are adapting well to their training regiment and are proving sufficient in breaking up scuffles within the city. In terms of spike feeder attacks, contact has decreased by 33%, and unsuccessful skirmishes has decreased by 50%. We’re not exactly sure why the conflict rate has dropped, but our training regiment is proving fruitful in reducing the harm to the city.”

I could see the sweat dripping down the side of his face, his relativistic figures an attempt to obscure the initial rates of conflict in their city. Wasn’t like it mattered to me. Malagost City having a lower conflict rate with the monsters was an incidental side effect of my work and presence. I couldn’t stomach constant disruptions, so I rerouted the majority of them with additional sigils, herding them away from most of the perimeter of the city. The beasts would have to learn new hunting territories but that wasn’t my problem.

“Well done, Lord Montare. You prove yourself ever the competent actor. You truly are proof that good can come with a capable force at hand. I have bad news for you all though. As you may or may not know, our lead actor in Titan City has come to an untimely end, his contributions to the cause nearly sussed out. He knew the potential that was to come and valiantly fought to the very end, dieing lest any secrets of the cause be divulged.”

Did he die by my hand? Yes. The contract they read had implications. Divulge secrets, end up dead. I couldn't let words casually pass around for this trivial diversion. They should have read the fine print more carefully. Lord Nonan had an inkling for the consequences of his actions, but it wasn't like he could get out of the contract. It was magically binding by a superior application of magic. It would take centuries of magic to conjure up a means of interfacing with the contracts, and they simply didn’t have the time for that. They were to work for me for life, untimely death included.

But they didn’t need to know that. That would only sap their motivation. Good workers worked best when they didn’t understand the full implications of their actions. Praise and occasional benefits was enough of a misdirection to prevent them from asking deeper questions about the nature of their work. Being fed vague claims about the purposes of their actions prevented them from investigating further. It was almost too easy to take advantage of the locals, which made it even harder to keep a straight face whenever speaking with them.

All tension left his face, a mistake by all measures of those with proper context, but it wasn’t like I had let him have proper context for his actions. “What would you have us do next then? Can we move up the plans? If Lord Nonan was exposed, then that could disrupt all of the hard work we did here, and I’m not ready for the citizens to work to revert away from the proper order.”

It took a lot of restraint to reply in a manner that wasn’t flippant. It wasn’t that they deserved respect, because they were certainly undeserving of any modicum of dignity I showered upon them. It was simply more effort to maintain the relationship if I let my disdain show through. “Yes, you should up the schedule,” I managed, refraining from any excessive comments that would leak my veiled feelings on the matter.

I had much more important elements to work on than this diversion. They were more of a proving ground to setup the other parts of my experimentation. You couldn’t very well have an army ready without a population prepared for war. Of course an army would overrun an underprepared populace. That would be pointless to test. I needed proper conditions for my testing, and if the local idiots were willing to believe their own artifice and intrigue amounted to anything meaningful, I wasn’t going to be the one to stop them. Their hard work would be its own reward.

“Very well. We’ll begin our preparations posthaste,” Lord Montare said, saluting into the screen. I blinked rapidly to refrain from rolling my eyes at his measure of respect. It was insulting for him to try and refer to me in such a manner, but sometimes one can’t help but get dirty when slumming with beasts.

“I’ll reach out when other actions are required,” I said, calling an end to the meeting. I couldn’t bear to feign my interest any longer when everything was bubbling to a pivotal moment. I was on the cusp of seeing the program come to fruition. I couldn’t afford any further distractions. The monster breeding program would finally prove its effectiveness or its failure conclusively, no more interruptions.

While I had dismissed most of the screens, one remained open, showing a map of the area, with a red blinking dot moving towards my former location. My visual feeds were ready to record the process. All there was left for me to do was to wait and watch.