Governor Blichard woke up with a splitting pain going through his head. His cry was muffled by a steely hand over his mouth, and a searingly cold pain on his tongue that seemed to burn the very edges of his soul as he struggled and writhed. He pulled for the magic that would throw this assailant off of him, and make them regret they hadn’t killed him immediately...

And he felt a Star in his Air Galaxy wink out. Just... gone!

The disruption to his Stars was instantaneous. No longer possessing the Stars necessary to form a Star Palace, his magical Rank in Air Magic dropped instantly to Mage, every Star beyond the first 343 he had put in place instantly useless for more than excess Mana.

He stiffened in total paralytic shock, staring at the dark figure with fingers like iron, the burning blade in his mouth stifling any of his cries.

“Yes, that’s right. You’re going to wither away and die,” a completely alien, mechanical voice drummed through his teeth and bones. “You’ve got a barbed Plumbum needle in your brain right now. It’s going to slowly and constantly absorb and cancel out all of your Stars, faster if you actually wield Mana at all.

“If you try to draw Mana in to replenish your Stars, it’s going to eat every Star you try to fill. If you spend Mana, it’s going to eat every Star you spend Mana from. If you tear it out, its barbs are going to rip your Galaxies apart, and you’ll bleed Mana out until you have none and die. If you irradiate it with magic, you’ll shred Stars like a hurricane of razors going through all of your Galaxies.”

Governor Georges Blichard, one of the most powerful regional governors in Brazil, stared up at his assailant in horror.

“You’ve sold your position and people out for money and influence for a very long time, Governor. I think it is safe to say that you don’t have much time left to you. Our best guess is about two years.

“If you stay in office, under the stress and need to show off your power, I expect you’ll be consumed from within by Mana Deprivation within a month. And if your enemies realize that you can’t Cast without hastening your own death, well...”

The grating voice reverberating in his teeth and bones was definitely amused.

“I think you should spend the rest of the night thinking about what is actually important to you with the time you leave for yourself. It is a chance most men never get in their whole lives, so you should embrace it. Counting down the days to your own death is such a rare thing to experience.”

A finger tapped his forehead, and he saw stars, nearly blacking out. By the time he recovered and sat up frantically, there was no one in the room. He reached out for Light Mana, and the room lit up... and he screamed as a Star winked out in his Light Galaxy, reducing him from an Archmage in Light to a Mage as he stared in horror at the glowing orb at his fingertips, blinking at the empty room around him.

He stared at the spell in his hand, shining and lighting up the room about him, all that was left of just one Star. One Star, whose loss had instantly taken him from the grand heights of an Archmage in his second Element, crashing back down to merely the power of a Mage again.

He could feel it, the black spike in his brain, sitting there and neutralizing the magic coming in contact with it... the magic that was keeping it from killing him immediately. It would be eating his Stars slowly and constantly, perfectly placed to destroy him, and if and when he had no Mana to stave it off, he would literally wither and die as his empty Galaxies threw his lifeforce at the devouring sliver of metal to stave it off.

It was going to be a horrible, sucking death, and he, a master of Poison, knew that fact well, and that there was nothing he could do about it...

-------

The abrupt resignation and retirement of Governor Brichard from his position shocked the political community, and naturally opened up opportunities for his lieutenant governor, a retiring man by name of Juan Guillermo, who had never expected to actually advance to the governorship.

Those who thought to swiftly remove him and put forward their own candidates for the position found him remarkably well-prepared for the sudden rise in authority, having somehow arranged for a score of Families local and overseas to support his suddenly-revealed ambitions.

Dow’s problems in the province, manufactured bureaucratic nonsense that should have long been dealt with, evaporated rapidly. It was also quickly reported that some of the standards the Dow facility was being held to were being completely ignored by some other alchemical businesses in the province, reminding everyone that Dow was a world leader in the environmental harmony movement.

Some unfriendly attention was soon focused on those companies...

--------

The six Archmages were staring at Cameron with very intense, almost murderous gazes as he finished his presentation to them.

He met their gazes without flinching, impressing all of them with how readily he weathered their Wills. Of course, they knew he was a Void Mage, and for all his Seville Row suit and tie, he was a facilitator for the Dow Family, dealing violence in the past with panache and skill when it was needed. His Will would thus be exceptional!

“Do you come here on behalf of the Dow Family with this information?” Elder Ajam Punjah demanded of the foreigner who had come bearing this information, information that pointed damning fingers at those truly responsible for the falls of their Families.

“My elders have no idea I am here, Elder Punjah,” Cameron Dow replied calmly. “They cannot be blamed or held responsible for things they do not know. One might say this is a bit of a personal effort on my part, for all that it definitely aids the Family.”

“You have some personal grudge against the DuPonts and Anjaesilim?” Elder Chuvalt pressed, his rage seething inside his dark eyes. His Family had fallen the furthest after the accident at Bophal, clinging to its status only by the skin of its teeth and his own personal power after its fortune and reputation were both gutted. He was actually surprised that he had been invited here at all, but it was now plain to see why he was included.

Cameron turned heavy eyes upon the angry Hindu patriarch. “The DuPonts have been bribing my personal lawyer for over twenty years, and my brother-in-law for nearly as long. Looking back at it, it is quite obvious how I failed so many times at my plans and assignments over the years, and how bad luck followed me around like a mangy dog with its teeth firmly locked on my heel and refusing to let go.

“Yes, you could say I have a personal interest in creating a great deal of difficulty for the DuPonts. The continuing irritation my Family still endures from the survivors of the Bophal tragedy is also something I would totally enjoy foisting off on those who arranged the matter in the first place.

“But enough of my personal tribulations, they are of no interest or concern to men in your positions.” Which was an absolute lie, as now they had reason to trust his motivations, as something beyond another white devil coming to profit off the numbers and strength of great India. “What might be more interesting to you is that I have managed to arrange some start-up funding for a number of business enterprises that may benefit you. Of course, this is India, and without the proper connections, nary a single dollar or rupee will be spent on anything productive.”

Six heads going grey nodded once. This was India, and if you were not working with a Family here, you would accomplish nothing!

“The greatest revenge is, of course, success. Gentlemen, I would like to begin the process of gutting the Anjaesilim and DuPont business partnerships in place here, both by taking their contracts and rendering those businesses obsolete or too expensive to continue. Based on their history, I believe that may well prompt a violent reprisal against certain Families daring to pull themselves back from the brink of dissolution.” He looked around at all of them. Such a reprisal of course gave them carte blanche to do the same, and there was no end of people who would love to do just that for those who had prompted the tragedy of Bophal! “Of course, we will need more manpower and influence to accomplish what we want to do.”

The powerful Elders there all glanced at one another knowingly. “I see that you know that we can easily rope in over a dozen more Families who would be quite eager to gain revenge on those who inflicted such losses on them, Mr. Dow,” Elder Silathathajan spoke up in his grave voice, but there was a dangerous light in his gaze. “What exactly are you proposing?”

Cameron reached out and pressed a button on his laptop. The screen lit up, and the connected display behind him lit up with names and connections. The elders pursed their lips upon reading them.

“Is there anyone I have left off?” Cameron asked calmly, as they studied the chart of their Families’ connections to other Families, complete with question marks where influence was uncertain. It was amazingly complete, with many secret links now exposed to their peers here who had not known of such connections. “What we can accomplish to a great degree depends on how wide we can throw our net... and how well those concerned can keep their lips shut.”

Thoughts of vengeance now conflating with the knowledge that the American had truly come prepared, and with the possibility of new money to be made to revitalize their Families, the elders glanced at one another, suddenly extremely interested in what was being planned here...

-------------

Driver Sam coasted to a stop in the middle of the town, his Earth Wave sinking away smoothly. A bolt of light flashed into a hole in the ground as magic reached out and Shaped away the stone thirty feet below the ground, forming braziers and channels and open spaces before the Chained Vivic Eternal Lights skipped from one to the next, forming overarching lines of influence below the ground.

It would take someone extremely sensitive to detect the immediate tug and attraction of the Dark Mana in the air, drawn down below by diffusion to be purified away and Feed the Land. The simple farms in the area were only going to profit...

We’d attracted attention, of course, as someone riding a Disk and someone else moving that fast on an Earth Wave was wont to do. People just didn’t see the simple magic moving that fast, but when you had Tier-6 Stars in Earth Magic, basic spells performed magnificently. Driver Sam spent a lot of time working with all the variations of Earth Ripple, teaching the Earth Mages of Coralost how to move their people around faster. Without exception, the Earth Element were the first Stars any Mage with that Element raised the Tier of.

Earth Magic was already greatly admired in Michigan, an attitude only rewarded by the Earthhouse being put there. Enthusiastic embracing of the new spells was only to be expected!

“Ohaszu Village,” Driver Sam said unnecessarily, looking about with his deceptively lazy, dark eyes, and the darkly tanned villagers regarding them carefully. “Not the friendliest of places, Lady Fae...” he noted under his breath.

He knew I needed absolutely no protection, but boys would be boys, and he was my driver and functional bodyguard, taking the job very seriously.

It was the tenth such place we’d made a stopover through, going down the Mexican Coast from one small village to another, stopping at a couple larger port cities with some development and better water access. It was only a few hours of travel a day, making our way along the coast on the west side of the country, laying a line of vivic flames underground before Teleporting back home.

News had not spread ahead of us much. The normal people didn’t wander far from their homes, so they had little idea we were coming. Those who did have an idea we were coming knew for other reasons.

As Sama and Briggs had said, they had wandered down this very coast a long time ago, and they came back to visit every so often. When they did, some people tended to die, and others were brought away to get a Typeless or magical education and come back when they had the power to do so.