"You can have money or you can have Justice." - Which do you choose? -- Prompey
[AN: Very sorely tempted to do so many Leverage riffs]
The right to reign is often accepted to mean: anyone who reigns has all the rights. And when anyone is both rich and powerful, they can take what they want and make consequences happen to others. Naturally, the people on the wrong end of that exchange tend to get irritated by that attitude.
So rebellions rise in odd corners.
Five rogues gathered in an undisclosed location, each with their particular area of expertise. They didn't dress like rogues, which was the point. If anyone in authority found them, that authority would mistake them for Adventurers up to some nonsense.
To a casual observer, they appeared to be: a Fighter, a Wizard, a Cleric, a Bard, and a Thief. They looked too much like the textbook model, but the casual observer would have moved on. Because everyone has seen a group just like them. They're everywhere.
What stood out was things like the accurate portraits on the pinboard, or the copies of official documents in the same place. Or, perhaps, the eerily accurate maps and plans of buildings. Things that regular Adventurers didn't bother with. Things that regular Adventurers ended up causing a low-level apocalypse to acquire. Things they get either during or after their strike on their target.
This group gets that stuff before they start.
"Earl Luptonshire," began the apparent Cleric. What anyone outside this group missed was that he was a cleric of Wothyn, the god of knowledge. "He's been systematically confiscating peasant land around his new holiday castle to improve the views. Surprising nobody, this has had an impact on food security for everyone who doesn't have money or a title."
"Using bullshit laws he writes himself," added the Bard. "So his soldiers can evict the luckless family and raze everything they build. And the poor sods are lucky to take their livestock with them when they go."
"What happens to the animals?" said the Thief.
"Earl and his guests wanted a feast," supplied the Wizard, drawing a line across his neck as further illustration. "Twenty nobles, their retainers and staff eat a lot of meat. And whatever crops were on the land before the soldiers came along. Those same soldiers take a majority of the remaining farmland's yield to pay for them patrolling the Earl's lands. Which the remaining citizens risk their lives in, trying to forage for their own food. It's bordering on disaster."
"A disaster we should stop. but not in the traditional way," said the Bard. Her line across the throat indicated the traditional plan.
"Aaw," pouted the Thief. "I was really hoping we could kill him." Reluctantly, and with some aggression, she re-sheathed her numerous daggers.
"Nah, he's politically important," said the Fighter, radiating menace in his favourite corner - one where he could watch the doors. "Anyone set to inherit his stuff is worse than he is."
"Oh, so it's our usual plan," said the Thief. "Bamboozle, seduce, steal, and sell them something they only think they want?"
"And I hit anyone getting in the way," said the Fighter. "Or provide a distraction with an exhibition battle."
"What are we selling him?" asked the Cleric.
The Wizard smiled, "Picturesque villages."
[Photo by Michiel Mulder on Unsplash]
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