The ping came not from spytech this time—but from Vehrmath Station's central commerce board. Though House Arcten had funded much of Vehrmath's eastern leyline expansions years ago, their presence had always been economic, not personal.
Until now.
A new player had filed trade registration under a sovereign license.
Name: Vassian Arcten
Affiliation: House Arcten
License Tier: Tier 3 Arcane Distribution, Apprentice to Archmage Malrek Arcten
Purpose: High-arcana communication and infrastructure-linked enchantment systems
Benedict stared at the listing. "He's not even pretending."
Arden scowled. "House Arcten? They don't come to Vehrmath unless they're trying to humiliate someone."
Eline scanned her bracer. "He just bought the eastern supply quarter. All of it. Factories, stalls, bulk shipping permits. Ten minutes ago."
Vassian Arcten arrived with fanfare and calculated grandeur. He wore a layered robe woven with dusk-thread and lined with mana-inscribed insignias. His retinue included licensed vendors, signal handlers, and two personal duel guardians. One was a flame-marked highborn dwarf with House-pledged plate and a gauntlet-anchored spellpike, who loudly proclaimed he only trusted ward spells while tipsy—"liquid clarity," he called it. The other was a whip-lean halfling in arc-cloaked boots who never stopped shifting her weight—eyes everywhere, fingers twitching like she was already defusing spells. Halflings, famously restless, thrived in chaos, and she wielded it like a blade.
He walked like Vehrmath had always belonged to him.
Where Benedict's devices were shaped for usability and modular design, Vassian's shimmered with aesthetic exclusivity: gem-etched interfaces, mono-user glyph verification, and arcane brand-locking. You couldn't just use them.
You had to qualify.
They met publicly for the first time in the Market Hall of Trades. A quiet tension rippled through the artisans and merchants.
"Benedict," Vassian said smoothly, barely tilting his chin. "Still enamored with rustic circuitry?"
Benedict didn't look up from his portable relay node. "Still mistaking exclusivity for innovation?"
"You'll find," Vassian said, "that Vehrmath appreciates tradition."
"I'm not here for tradition," Benedict replied. "I'm here to make sure no one needs permission to talk."
A sharp silence followed. Traders glanced between them.
Vassian only smiled. "And I'm here to ensure the wrong people don't."
Vassian's first play came swift and calculated. Using old House Arcten pacts, he offered communications and protection services to known slaver syndicates. He re-outfitted their channels with rune-locked signal scramblers and promised them secure trafficking pathways—untraceable, uninterruptible.
His halfling agent distributed exclusive Arcten-licensed charms to undercity negotiators, constantly in motion and speaking only in hand-signs—Underdark trade signals, half-elven coded dialect. Benedict caught sight of it once, recognized the syntax, and filed it away. The Underdark had infrastructure. And maybe… an untapped network.
Later that night, Benedict jotted diagrams for tunnel relay repeaters—designs adaptable to subterranean interference and high-density mineral fields. "They think they're hidden," he murmured, "but even shadows cast signals."
Eline reviewed local tunnel access maps. "There's a maintenance network. Not on official maps, but messengers use it."
Arden nodded. "If we install repeater stones and signal converters down there, we can carve channels beneath Arcten's nose."
"We don't outshine him," Benedict said. "We outlast him—underground."
In response, Benedict updated his communicator firmware. The new version offered encrypted pulse-pings, warning any user near bonded signature emissions. He released it anonymously—under a community dev name.
By morning, it had spread across the lower wards.
When two slaver camps were exposed and a caravan intercepted, the undercity called it coincidence.
But Vassian noticed.
The next day, one of Benedict's public relay posts caught fire.
"Sabotage," Eline growled, her hand on the cooled metal housing. "Triggered by arc-inversion runes. Probably planted by one of Arcten's 'clients.'"
Arden ran diagnostics. "No blast core, no collateral. Designed to burn the tech without harming people. Intentional restraint."
"Someone's watching the level boundaries," Benedict muttered.
Hours later, a new relay tower rose in the exact same place.
Polished. Branded. Arcten-marked.
They weren't just fighting. They were being replaced—not by power, but by perception. And perception, in Vehrmath, was currency.
Benedict pivoted. He turned to his undercity network—not to make sales, but to seed dependence. His devices became bartered currency—traded for food, safety, or small favors. He partnered with soup kitchens and outpost medica tents. Each device came with a firmware update that allowed shared access between users with trust-link signatures. A community mesh.
Arden wired backdoor diagnostic points into the relay hubs, letting them track where most users congregated and where signal dead zones emerged. Eline refined encryption standards, adding pulse signatures based on unique user rhythms.
"Talk patterns are fingerprints," she said. "Let's make each relay smarter."
To the locals—traders, minor guilds, city scribes—Benedict was still a curiosity. A clever nuisance. They thought if Vassian broke his network and pushed him out, they could inherit the designs and profit freely.
They didn't understand that Benedict wasn't just building devices.
He was building independence.
They weren't watching a business feud.
They were standing inside a cultural insurgency.
Far above, Calder Vance watched from his scry-lattice.
Technically, he still held nominal command over Vehrmath. On paper, every license, trade permit, and leyline junction fell under Calder's jurisdiction. But he rarely enforced it—so long as his research remained funded, and his quiet was undisturbed, he saw no reason to intervene.
But he noted everything.
"No level suppression," he said to the silence. "But apprentices walk the gray line—too protected to challenge, too unranked to be restricted."
"But Vassian's learning how to tilt the board."
And so was Benedict.
And neither of them was playing small anymore.