Maurien stepped closer to the cell, his sharp eyes taking in the restrained man twitching on the floor before turning back to Ludger.

  “I’ve been coming here pretty often,” he said. “At least once a month, sometimes more. Usually with the Lionsguard delivery teams, froststeel, mana cores, the usual. Gives me a good excuse to move around the League without drawing attention.”

  Ludger folded his arms. “And Linne and Dalan? Have they done anything about the underworld activity?”

  Maurien gave a dry, humorless laugh. “Not much. They’re engineers, not hunters. I think they’d rather believe their city’s clean than dig in the mud and find out it isn’t.”

  Kaela made a small sound, half amusement, half annoyance, still watching the prisoner. “Can’t blame them. Too many people up there rely on that mud staying buried.”

  Ludger’s gaze flicked to her briefly before turning back to Maurien. “Then what changed? You wouldn’t have called me just to tell me that the League’s still rotten.”

  Maurien nodded once. “Two weeks ago, some rumors started circulating. Nothing official, just whispers in the taverns and supply markets, about a group buying up every stock of purple mushrooms from the herbalists in the region.”

  Ludger’s brow furrowed. “Purple mushrooms…” He thought for a moment before saying quietly, “They’re a base ingredient in the berserker draughts.”

  Maurien’s eyes met his. “That’s what I figured too. Hallucinogenic when brewed raw, but if refined right and mixed with some powders, it amplifies aggression and stamina output. Dangerous stuff. Kaela’s little friend here”,he gestured to the prisoner“was part of one of the shipment chains.”

  Ludger exhaled through his nose. “So they do have production lines inside the League now.”

  Maurien nodded grimly. “Looks that way. Which means someone important’s funding it. Someone who can move ingredients and cores across borders without getting flagged.”

  Ludger’s expression tightened. “Nobles again.”

  Kaela finally turned from the cell, brushing dust from her gloves, her tone dry. “You catch on fast, Luds. Seems like your Empire’s bad habits spread farther than you thought.”

  Ludger didn’t rise to the bait. His eyes were already cold and calculating, the gears in his head turning. “Then we’ll follow the trail from the source,” he said simply. “If they’re buying in bulk, someone’s doing the selling.”

  Maurien smirked faintly. “Already ahead of you. We’ve got a name. The mushrooms are moving through an herbal supplier in the outer district. You’re going to like this one.”

  Ludger arched an eyebrow. “Why?”

  Maurien’s grin widened slightly. “Because he’s on the city council of researchers.”

  Ludger’s eyebrows rose slightly at Maurien’s last words, but before he could respond, the sound of footsteps echoed down the corridor. Rhythmic, deliberate, two pairs.

  Moments later, Linne and Dalan appeared at the end of the hall, both wearing their usual engineer coats but looking less confident than usual. The faint sheen of fatigue around their eyes said enough, they’d been busy, and not with academic work.

  “Ludger,” Linne greeted, forcing a polite smile as she stepped into the lamplight. “You’re earlier than expected.”

  Ludger’s expression didn’t shift. “You could say the same about your timing.”

  Dalan chuckled weakly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, well… word spreads fast when one of our guests decides to visit the lower floors.” His eyes flicked briefly toward the still-convulsing prisoner before settling back on Ludger. “I see Kaela’s been… productive.”

  “She’s efficient,” Maurien said dryly.

  Linne sighed. “Efficient is one word for it.”

  Ludger crossed his arms, gaze steady. “You both knew some troublesome people were involved, didn’t you?”

  Linne hesitated before answering. “We suspected.”

  Dalan stepped forward, his voice lower, tone edged with frustration. “We didn’t have proof until recently. You think it’s easy to dig into the council’s dealings? The man’s untouchable here. He funds half the academies and pays for the city’s runic infrastructure.”

  “So you decided not to investigate,” Ludger said flatly.

  Dalan winced slightly. “It’s not that simple. He’s a councilor of Coria, a senior one. Touch him, and the League Council starts breathing down everyone’s neck. He’s the kind of man who smiles in public and owns everything in private.”

  Linne folded her arms, looking conflicted. “And yet, all signs point back to his estate. The mushroom trades, the sealed shipments, the missing imperials… it all threads through him somehow.”

  Ludger’s jaw tightened as he processed that. “Then that’s where we start.”

  Dalan frowned. “You can’t just—”

  “I can,” Ludger interrupted, tone quiet but final. “And I will. If this councilor’s tied to the draught trade, then he’s a liability to both the Empire and the League. You don’t stop a rot by studying it. You cut it out.”

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  The engineers exchanged uneasy glances. They both knew he was right, but the look in his eyes told them he wasn’t bluffing.

  Maurien leaned against the wall, arms folded. “Told you he’d take it well.”

  Linne sighed softly, pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “You don’t understand. If you go after him, the entire city will notice. The council protects its own.”

  Ludger met her gaze evenly. “Then they’d better protect him fast.”

  The silence that followed was heavy, the kind that made everyone realize the point of no return had just been crossed.

  Ludger’s expression didn’t change, but the air around him seemed to cool. His voice was calm, too calm.

  “How did you even find this group?” he asked, turning his gaze from Linne to Maurien. “And more importantly… who in the capital is tied to them?”

  The question hung in the air like a weight. Linne looked toward Dalan, but he was staring at the floor, jaw tight. Maurien didn’t answer right away either. His usual sharp smile was gone; instead, he rubbed at his temple, exhaling through his nose as if trying to find a way to soften what he was about to say.

  Finally, he spoke. “It wasn’t easy. The trail’s a mess, split across half a dozen places, fake merchants, and puppet trade intermediaries. But the more Kaela… encouraged our guest here to talk”—he gestured toward the trembling prisoner—“the clearer the pattern became.”

  Ludger waited in silence.

  Maurien met his eyes, and for the first time in a while, his tone was flat, serious. “The buyers in the League are middlemen. Their funding doesn’t stop here. The money moves west, through a chain of fronts that lead back to the Empire’s own noble registries.”

  Linne’s voice dropped almost to a whisper. “Not minor nobles either.”

  Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Then who?”

  Maurien hesitated again, gaze flicking briefly toward the floor before returning to Ludger. “One of the old families,” he said quietly. “House Roderick. They’ve got old blood ties to the Imperial line, cousins to the throne, technically.”

  The room went still. Even Kaela, who had been leaning casually against the cell wall, straightened slightly at that.

  Ludger’s frown deepened. “You’re sure?”

  Maurien nodded once. “Too many connections for it to be a coincidence. Besides, this guy spoke. Whoever’s behind this isn’t just some corrupt merchant. It’s someone with authority, someone who can move illegal goods between nations without raising a single red flag.”

  Dalan muttered, “Which means even the Empire’s own customs officers wouldn’t dare question the shipments or wouldn’t be aware of it.”

  Linne folded her arms, her earlier forced composure beginning to crack. “If that’s true, then this isn’t just smuggling. It’s state-level corruption.”

  Ludger didn’t say anything for several seconds. His eyes lowered, expression shadowed in thought.

  House Roderick. The name carried weight even he couldn’t ignore. One of the oldest bloodlines, a relic of the royal family’s expansionist past. And now, knee-deep in the trade of berserker draughts and cross-border corruption.

  When he finally looked up, his tone was quiet but edged like a blade.

  “Then we deal with this carefully,” he said. “If they’re that high up, the wrong move will bring the Empire down on us before we can even name them.”

  Maurien nodded. “Agreed. But at least now, we know who’s hiding behind the curtain.”

  Ludger’s gaze turned cold, almost distant. “Good,” he said. “Then it’s time we start pulling strings of our own.”

  Dalan exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck, his nerves finally showing through the usual easy grin. “There’s one more thing you should know,” he said. “Eventually, both sides, the Empire and the League, are going to realize something’s off. The underlings we’ve captured will stop reporting, and when that happens, the people above them will start asking questions.”

  Linne nodded grimly beside him. “And when that happens, they’ll either prepare for a conflict or try to erase any trace that leads back to them. Including us.”

  Maurien gave a short grunt. “Wouldn’t put it past them.”

  Dalan leaned forward, lowering his voice. “Which means we have to move fast. before they can get ahead of us. If they get desperate, they might even try to blame you and the Lionsguard for this whole mess. Smuggling, bribery, corruption, it wouldn’t take much for them to twist it.”

  Ludger’s eyes narrowed slightly. “So they’d rather burn a few scapegoats than risk exposure.”

  “Indeed,” Dalan said. “And if it comes to that, you’re the perfect target. A frontier guild running cross-border tunnels? The Empire’s bureaucrats would eat that up.”

  Ludger’s expression hardened, but he nodded slowly. “Then we don’t give them the chance. We move before they do.”

  He exhaled quietly, then added, “Which means I’ll have to deal with House Roderick while I’m at it. According to what I heard from Yvar, they have been quiet lately, and that usually means they’re waiting to pick a side when trouble arises.”

  Linne frowned, crossing her arms. “That’s dangerous. The Rodericks are opportunists, they’ll back whoever seems stronger at the moment if things goes south… I know some people who do business with them..”

  “Exactly,” Ludger said. “Which is why they need to see strength.”

  He turned his attention back to the League pair. “And you two, what about the councilor? The one tied to this mess. What can you actually do about him?”

  Dalan and Linne exchanged a heavy look. Linne sighed first, pressing a hand to her forehead. “Not much,” she admitted. “Blaming him directly would be suicide. He’s too well protected, and any accusation we make would vanish under ‘procedural review.’”

  “Meaning,” Maurien added dryly, “they’ll bury it under a mountain of paperwork until everyone forgets it existed.”

  Linne nodded, frustration slipping through her composure. “Even if we brought proof, they’d say our information came from… let’s just say questionably interrogated prisoners.” Her eyes flicked toward Kaela, who was humming idly while cleaning some dust on the table.

  Kaela looked up and blinked innocently. “What?”

  Ludger ignored that. “So in short,” he said, “we can’t accuse him, can’t trust the League’s bureaucracy, and can’t wait for the Empire to get involved.”

  “Pretty much,” Dalan said. “We can keep him under observation, maybe gather something more substantial. But acting now? It’d blow up in our faces.”

  Ludger stood silent for a moment, his expression unreadable. Then he finally spoke, voice low and measured.

  “Then we don’t accuse him. We isolate him.”

  Linne tilted her head. “Meaning?”

  “Cut off his routes. His buyers. His coin. The nobles can hide behind their titles all they want, but even the powerful choke when their gold stops moving.”

  Maurien’s smirk returned, faint and approving. “That is Ludger’s way of thinking.”

  Ludger glanced toward the prisoner still twitching faintly in the cell, then back at the others. “If they want to play a game of power,” he said quietly, “then let’s remind them who’s better at digging holes.”