The World of Elzeria was vast. Although it had one Central authority which was the Royal Family, it had many regional authorities that worked under the Royal Family.
The entire land in Elzeria was divided into smaller provinces, each province having families that held power in their region. Some provinces even had many great families that were often fighting with each one for more control.
For the most part, the Royal Family turned a blind eye to these conflicts, leaving the families to solve their own conflicts.
Only when it was a matter that could affect the stability of the entire land did the Royal Family become involved, sending the Royal Guards to solve the mess. However, there were only a few instances where one such decision was taken by the Royal Family.
One such conflict had already started brewing in the city of Ember. Ember was one of the major cities of Elzeria that held a lot of value for even the Royal Family.
Ember was the home to the best of Blacksmiths within Elzeria. It was also a city where most of the artifacts, technology and equipment was created for the Royal Family.
Ember was called the heart of the Royal Army. Many powerful generals from the Royal Army could often be seen entering and leaving Ember for their personal reasons.
Unfortunately, not everything was peaceful in Ember in recent times. All Ember citizens could feel tense undercurrents within three major powers of the city.
No one knew when things could deteriorate to the point that the Royal intervention could be needed. Fortunately, so far things hadn't escalated to that point.
None of them wanted to see Ember in chaos, especially since it was the city that could be called the strongest City, if one was to ignore the Royal City.
However, there was one man who didn't want peace in this city. He wanted to make sure that the balance within the City of Ember was broken.
"Is this all the information about the three major powers of the city?" Karyk asked, sitting inside a bar within the city of Ember.
Outside the bar, a sign was hung, saying that the bar was closed at the moment.
"That's correct, City Lord." A young man answered Karyk. "I've verified all this information multiple times with my sources."
"What a pity. I thought that the three families would burn this city to flames to solve their conflict. Unfortunately, it seems that the situation hasn't deteriorated to this point yet."
Karyk let out a sigh as he picked up the papers. "In that case, I can only help them to speed things up a little."
He opened the papers and started going through them in detail, not in any hurry to leave. The entire bar belonged to him after all. This was a base established by the intelligence teams that he had sent out of the Border City.
Since the Intelligence Teams had left after only a few months of their awakening, they weren't able to go through the extensive training as the other citizens went. However, they were taught other methods.
They were taught the methods of Assassins and other skills that Karyk thought could be of use to then. These people were an important part of the puzzle he needed to solve.
He had paid special interest for a few cities, and Ember was one of them. It was not too close to the Royal City, but not far either. This made the city of Ember an ideal place for him to put forth his plan.
For the next few hours, Karyk read through the papers, occasionally asking questions about certain things to go into detail.
"The three families are Frostheart, Starfall and Silverthorn. How would you rate them in terms of pure strength?" Karyk asked, curious to gather insight into the power dynamics of Ember.
"It's hard to know the actual strength of all three families as none have ever truly engaged in a full scale battle. We don't know what all three of those families might be hiding. But the general perception is that the Silverthorn family is the strongest."
"Frostheart is considered the second strongest. As for Starfall, they are generally considered weaker amongst the three."
"Why do I feel like Starfall Family is the one that's hiding the most?" Karyk muttered, his eyes gazing at the documents before him.
The papers contained all the information that was gathered about the three families. Most of it was public sources while some was sourced directly through infiltration. However, Karyk felt that something was wrong with the information about Starfall.
With the other two families, he could see many flaws. Frostheart was arrogant and often boasted about their strength. They were also known for their lavish lifestyle and extravagant parties.
Meanwhile, Silverthorn was also seen extending their influence. They didn't leave a chance to show the other two families down. It was clear that these two families had a lot of pride and greed.
However, Starfall was different. The Starfall was the most low profile which made people believe that it was because they were the weakest of the three families.
As Karyk went through the information that was gathered about that family, he couldn't help but feel that everything was too... perfect. It was as if they had created an entire fake world around them.
Even the servants of the family seemed to be carefully chosen and trained to maintain the facade of simplicity, yet there was an undeniable air of intelligence and competence about them.
Karyk couldn't help but smile as he put the papers back on the table. "How fascinating."
"Are you going to use the Starfall Family?" The Bartender asked, curious about Karyk's plan.
"I don't want to use the Starfall Family. That would just make things more troublesome. Silverthorn is already considered the strongest in public opinion. It should be easiest to play with Frostheart."
Karyk had made up his mind about what method he was going to do. In any case, he had to turn this city upside down, without revealing his presence.
