Interlude 4AdriaGaius sat in his office, hands folded over his mouth, reading the report in front of him for the fourth time. A deep frown marred his face. An unknown creature of massive size and power leaving the planet. An ancient dwarven vault unearthed beneath the mountain, full of strange corpses. A friendly dragon visiting the White Dragon Clan. And, of course, Marcus King in the center of it all.“You should have taken care of him when he first came back,” a voice said behind him.“Shut up,” Gaius told Herodian, though without any real heat. He understood the sentiment, but… “Haven’t you seen the recording? If we had sent anyone after him, we’d be done for.”“You think our assassins would fail?” Herodian asked. He sounded honestly curious. “Besides, surely you don’t think he’d go after you in the city itself? The wards here are ancient and strong.”“And what? I’m supposed to stay here forever, afraid to step outside lest he gets his hands on me the moment I step one foot outside the wards?” Gaius countered.That was no way to live. He imagined what the other academy leaders would say, or even the other elders. The sheer humiliation of it all…“Besides,” Gaius continued. “Assassinations are not the way. I didn’t even kill Gnaeus, you know that. It’s not worth the risk.”Some considered Gaius to be ruthless and immoral, but he insisted he was simply sensible. And sensible people did not make powerful enemies and risked their reputation if they didn’t have to. There were smarter ways to go about dealing with your political enemies. If he wanted to have Marcus killed, he would simply declare him an enemy of the academy and send a battle group to execute him out in the open.That said, that whole incident with the Crystal Mountain and Thunder Hall… that really didn’t work out how he had hoped for. What Gaius hoped for was that these two (...)