Philip sat proudly upon his horse. Many of the nobles had come by to see him and give him their condolences. According to the official story, his brother had been knocked from his horse, and then trampled to death first by the conscripts then by the knights. Blame for the ordeal was placed firmly on the man who had given the order he had to privilige to give, and so he was executed. *How unfortunate.* Philip thought. *If he had lived then he would have come to know the pleasures of being ruled by me, as soon all of these men will know. They don't deserve it nearly as much as him, who gave me such a good service even if he didn't know it.*

Philip snorted and carried on. Originally when they had set out from E-Rantel Philip had intended to ride the horse having donned the family armor the whole ride home but it was simply too heavy and cumbersome to move around in. Thus he had used his brothers money to purchase some essentials for celebration on his way back to the family domain. *No, MY domain.* he considered with a smile looking down at his new, more fitting clothes.

xxx

His father was beset with grief, secluding himself to his study and his mothers wails had echoed through the manor for days. Everyone in the whole manor was absolutely dreary. Except for Philip. Philip made sure to stay outside and in the woods where he could drink in peace and look through his journal where he kept all of his genius ideas for how to increase his own power and the prosperity of his domain. So far he had a few truly fantastic ones he felt.

The first being to kill his father if he didn't abdicate the position soon. For the good of the family, Philip had to take charge as soon as possible. He would also expell his brothers family from the main house. He didn't want any challengers to his claim popping up like his nephew. He would give them a small stipend, perhaps one gold every month.

The second being to spend a large amount of money buying animal skins and the ingredients necessary to create scrolls of the first tier. If he had access to those, then he could make 6 to 7 spell scrolls a day, and at about amount of money he could sell the lot of those for he could earn as much as 700-1000 gold coins a year in profit from his own magic alone. He reasoned that if he grew the herbs himself, or rather had the villagers do it, along side having them hunt animals in the forest, then he could go even further and potentially bypass the coast of those all together, which would earn him even more money. Money he would use to purchase magic items to increase his power, thus earning more fame at the Katze Plains, thus earning himself even more land as a reward.

The third being that he would set apart an area of the fields from which he could have the villagers grow tobacco, to sell at market and then investing the profits into merchants. Yes indeed, when the Empire got tired of invading, then more grain would be made, and if more grain would be made and less of it would be sent to feed the Royal Army, then the price of it would drop signifigantly. When that happened he needed his peasents to produce as much retail value as possible and wheat was just not going to cut it.

Having decided his next course of action, Philip closed the journal and looked around the forest he was laying in. He laughed to himself as he drank the entire bottle of wine he brought with him and ate his meal. A picnic of one.

xxx

In the dark depths of a hidden crypt, shrouded from all interference there was a circle surrounding a stone altar. The entire room looked like a cave, enveloped by a pale and sickly looking dim light that would make you think that if you stood infront of it for to long,
it might do something to your health. Inbetween the walls from which this light eminated, there stood one man dressed in red robes and covered in all matter of blasphemous regalia. His worryingly pale skin and visible veins would have made him ugly enough even without the mishapen head. And another dressed in the clothes of a noble, a protruding belly with little hair besides the traditional mustache and groomed beard of the nobility.

"So, he killed his brother in order to become Baron did he?" the necromancer asked. "So it would seem. I've looked into him and it seems he is a magic caster of the first tier. Without magic items, the most he could do would be ritual work and summonings of the second tier but never the less he has a devious mind, and if we teach him, he will reach the second tier of magic."
the noble answered. "Hmmm. We've accepted nobles that can only cast 0 tier magic into our ranks before. We should show him the offer if he proves to be even more power hungry than that, and if that fails, we will simply kill him." The necromancer declared.
"A splendid plan, Master Kaijit."