Tutor Hubert was not always scum of the earth; he had an unsuccessful start as a first attempt at a career. His path to normalcy was twisted by an unfortunate awakening, as he witnessed a young noble child eight to nine years, in a ball gown of adult design in the streets. While typical of nobility it was the starting point of his descent into total degeneracy. Twisted as he was, he became known to select individuals, who used a wide variety of methods to pass messages to the tutor.
"Hey Sir Hubert!" Surprised as the man left his flat onto main street, there was no alarm in this sudden call. This wasn't the first time someone he never met prior came up to him pretending to know him to pass requests or instructions. The rag in his face was new, however a sweet smell was the last thought he had. It took a few moments to drag the now unconscious man a few feet to the curtained carriage in the road.
It happened so fast that even on a decently busy road no one noticed anything out of place. Three men had abducted the tutor while the lead operator took a moment to send a message.
"To Lady Dyne, we have acquired the history teacher." Shortly after a bird fluttered across the plaza in flight to a faraway land. It took several days for the messenger pigeon to return to the castle.
From the small dovecotes in a nook in the castle, Sir Octave received the report, and mentally completed the item on his list. It wasn't someone who could slip through the cracks. It had been one of the few that were required to be present when the accounts were to be settled. The rest had been decisions required by the lady on who was required to pay.
Fault assessments were massive investigations to determine what exactly occurred, to the best of one's abilities. With that knowledge it would allow an outsider to make an informed decision on how far one should go when meting out less formal justice measures.
Empire considered justice the purview of the lord of the land, required only to preside over cases in which execution would be the final outcome if found at fault. Most cases were handled by magistrates and constables designated by the lord. Often heirs and other of the lords' extra children took these roles and made judgment based on previous cases and general law.
Lady Dyne had no actual jurisdiction within the empire, nor did she have any right to supersede or replace the lord of the land's decisions. This is what made the assessment so critical to the lady, a key prelude so that she could make her best choices in what amounted to vigilantism or terrorism.
As a person, the Lady had many reasons to not wantonly slaughter people left and right. Head of the Dyne family on the other hand had to project strength as well as ensure the world knew that she had the power to enforce her own choices. In the end, she made a short list of individuals who's known crimes warranted death, toping it was a certain history teacher.
Unfortunately, aside from two children aged two and a half and four from branch lines, the entire family of Oakenstaff made this death note.
"Since no one of the original family line will live, we will also acquire the steward token of Oakenstaff. It will belong to Tiffaney after this cog is shattered." Nodding the apprentice made a note.
"With that the family will be in attendance for a small gathering at the end of the week, it is the date I recommend for this matter." Sir Octave had been keeping tabs on the habits of the various people of the execution list; Lady Dyne was too busy building a sling shot and making modifications.
"Have we located the child my heir asked about?" As a favor the lady had been asked to locate a poor child who had helped her escape before she arrived. It surprised the lady who expected a selfish request from one of the most powerful figures in the land. Perhaps miss Dyne shouldn't have been so surprised when she considered the ancestry of her heir.
"Yes, my lady and it is of odd circumstance however the lady that assisted young mistress has been taken to replace young Tiffaney in her role as illegitimate daughter of the count." Even the nearly unshakable master of Dyne was surprised by that one.
"So, they just left my heir for dead in my lands and took some random kid to fulfil the role?"
Had there been any point to that? The only reason she could think to replace a child like that is if there had been a promise of some type made. Otherwise, it would be simpler to find a reasonable excuse to remove her. This meant that everything that they did to her heir they were repeating on someone else.
"I seem to have a lot to learn about being a villain." Ruefully the lady decided to not worry about it. Since there wouldn't be a formal Oakenstaff to deal with soon.
"Looks like this just became a rescue mission than. Add supplies for a child and an additional aide for the trip back. Otherwise let's go with Snap, Crackle and Pop for operators, since I planed on seeing this favor personally ill do the recovery and infiltration." Nodding to her two butlers the decision was made.
"Does the lady have any irregular transportation to take or will be sticking to a more traditional relay?" Sir Octave asked, wondering if she intended to use her slingshot again. Current traditional arrangements were a set of relays from taking a carriage train that would replace its horses repeatedly at designated intervals.
"Send the materia by relay, I could use a good run." Operation planning was the main purpose the head butler position. Operational management was generally left to the person in charge of their respective areas or buildings. In this case, the house of Oakenstaff was one hundred and forty-seven kilometers away.
"Mission brief will be in the morning; I'll have the details ready by then." Preparing for the operation wouldn't be hard. Her plan didn't have a significant number of moving parts, most difficult will be complete lockout. No one could know what why or how this assault was accomplished.
Three phases had been decided, first was the infiltration, in which lady Dyne would sneak into the mansion to locate the prison complex. Her three subordinates would drop the initial sedatives at the rear entrances and then spread a cloud of sleeping gas throughout the entire estate complex. Once they recovered the child and ensured every one present was where they needed to be, a high explosive would destroy the house and the people inside.
Weather this matter was correct, or moral wasn't a factor to the small group. It was reasonably reliable that this was a group of scum that did not need due process or even what passed for justice of the current times.
"Since I'm infiltrating ill use a light black augment suit, and wait for you three after dropping the initial gas charges. Rather than war suits, id like you in mechanical augmentation, you're going to have to move a lot of unconscious people who have nothing to do with this matter out of the blast zone." Even if they were planning to end lives, none of the people wanted to cause more harm than they felt they had to. Which is why most of the operation would be finding and identifying the various targets.
"Sir, I think that the ventilation will be poor on the underside here. I don't think we can rely on the main dispensers to cover this area. Snap spoke up after spending a moment reviewing the floor plan.
"Threat assessments indicate that they don't have a large prison population, so at best a dozen. With the general gathering I expect less a pair or two maybe. Octave, add local smoke bombs and an impact blaster for me."
"Most of the family will be arranged here, we have three extras that we will move into the impact site afterwards. At which point…"
Lady Dyne continued to cover the mission details, repeatedly going over the most important points before they would set off. While four made up the infiltration team, several others had left earlier as a forward deployed team. Field groups were small as this was the main way everything function outside of the castle itself. There were only four hundred and thirty-seven individuals across three factories that constituted Dyne territories. Of that, a few dozen were responsible for the over all management of all outside operations.
It worked well simply because everyone was able to contribute effectively, it didn't hurt that compensation was generous and the sense of community high. The true secret lay in the creature comforts that one could find in dyne communities, after that who would want to go do things like churning one's own butter, or hand washing clothes all day.
"Since were using a press to crush a grape, I don't expect this to be daring or dastardly however do remember that we can not have any trace that this came from us. Red smoke is total abort, other than that double check you can operate masked."
Completing the brief, the Lady dismissed everyone. Her own set of concerns were going to be identifying the child. There may be other groups of victims and the decision to rescue them would be made at the time. In the aftermath of the assault, to many authorities would be present, so it was unlikely that they would remain captive if records couldn't be produced.
There were no guarantees, however since those who would have committed the crimes would have ceased existing it was unlikely for the innocent ones to not be released. They simply did not have the means to relocate dozens of prisoners, some of which might deserve their internment.
"My lady, please take this." Handing his lord, a small, wrapped package, the butler atomized away.
Of course, he would hand her sweets to give to the rescued kid. He could think like that because he mostly had to follow orders that never considered morality.
"This would be so much easier if I was truly mad…" She said to the empty room.