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(A/N: Don't forget to give those power stones to Skyrim everyone!)
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A well placed assassination, a few strategic leaks to the press about his failures, a push from his enemies in New York's financial circles, all of it could be orchestrated from Saint Denis, once Caleb held the reins. Caleb intended to be the one picking up the most valuable pieces while they fought over the scraps.
As he thought about all of this, visualizing the sheer scale of the corporate and criminal warfare he was orchestrating, he heaved a slight headache. The pressure was immense. He took a gulp of the whiskey again, the cheap liquor burning a path down his throat, before then letting out a sigh and he massaged the temples of his head.
Truly, scheming continuously with only a small amount of time to rest and relax, enjoying himself, was very hard and exhausting. Even if his body and mental faculties were already upgraded by the system through his high stats, it was still draining energy.
It was hard, primarily because he couldn't share the burden. He couldn't tell anyone about the direction he was trying to achieve. Even Mary-Beth couldn't know about his past life, his transmigration to here, and the knowledge of the future he had inside his mind. To them, he was just incredibly lucky, extraordinarily skilled, and perhaps a bit prescient.
That was why he did all of this scheming. He schemed against the now already dead Micah, the Grays, the Braithwaites, the Pinkertons, Dutch, Bronte, and Cornwall.
Because in his eyes, they were the variables that would destroy the Van der Linde gang if let survive. He was systematically pruning the deadly branches of this world so the people he cared about could grow in peace.
And speaking of Dutch... Caleb stared at the amber liquid in his glass. Is he already dead or not? He didn't know. He had been away from the homestead for a while now.
Before he left, he had ensured Dutch was being administered that potassium bromide in his evening meals. The process had now been done by Reverend Swanson, who, with his knowledge as a makeshift doctor and fully sober, didn't know that he was putting such a toxin into Dutch's evening meals when he delivered it to the basement where Dutch was tied there.
Caleb had some hope that Dutch wasn't dead yet. He didn't want the man to just slip away quietly in his absence. He wanted to see the effects. He wanted to know that Dutch had begun to change, where he became weaker, showing more signs of confusion, slurred his speech, beginning to look like he was having a stroke.
He wanted Dutch stripped of his silver tongue and his dangerous charisma. He wanted it so that when he came back to the homestead, he would be there to witness his death himself, to ensure the ghost of Dutch Van der Linde was truly exorcised from the gang's future.
And as he thought that, Caleb continued to wait. The hours ticked by slowly. He had some stew as well in the backroom, which was served by Doyle's wife, a thin, nervous woman who looked at Caleb like he was the devil himself, but brought him a bowl of hearty, thick mutton stew nonetheless.
He even had some nap after that, leaning his chair back against the wall and pulling his hat low over his eyes. It was a soldier's sleep, light and ready to snap awake at the first sign of trouble, while waiting for Doyle to bring him any kind of information of where Martelli's location was now.
He also needed to know if Guido had amassed his loyalists inside Bronte's mob to protect himself from any retaliation now, since he knew Caleb, or well, whom he knew as McLaughlin, would be tracking who was trying to assassinate him.
What Guido would never thought is that Caleb instantly knew he was the one who did it. Guido likely assumed Caleb would spend days interrogating suspects or tearing apart Cornwall's remaining men, buying the underboss time to fortify or flee.
Soon, when the time reached around 3 PM, which Caleb saw from his silver pocket watch, the door to the backroom finally creaked open.
Doyle finally returned back to the backroom, shutting the door quickly behind him. He looked out of breath, his apron stained with fresh beer, but his eyes were bright with nervous energy.
"Boss," Doyle whispered, leaning over the table. "I got it."
Caleb sat up, the sleep vanishing instantly from his eyes. He pocketed his watch. "Talk."
"It wasn't easy," Doyle said, wiping sweat from his brow. "Took snippets of informations collected from everywhere. A dockworker heard this, a beggar saw that. But we pieced it together."
"Where is he?"
"Guido is hiding outside of Saint Denis," Doyle reported. "In a hidden house he has. A safehouse. Most of Bronte's men don't even know exactly where it is. But one of the street urchins, little Timmy, hangs around the trolley station, saw him."
"Saw him doing what?"
"Saw him boarding a private carriage, boss. It was moving fast, and it was heading west of the city. Out toward the swamps, near the Kamassa River."
Caleb's mind immediately pulled up the map of the surrounding area. West of the city. Swampland. Isolated. It was the perfect place to hole up if you expected an army to come looking for you.
"Is he alone?" Caleb asked.
Doyle shook his head vigorously. "No, sir. He has also brought a couple of men. And by a couple, the word on the street is there could be dozens of his own loyalists. The men he pays directly, the ones who don't care about Bronte. And probably people he hired off the books to protect him. He's fortified."
Caleb absorbed the information, his face an unreadable mask of calm calculation. A fortified safehouse in the swamps, guarded by dozens of loyalists and mercenaries. For a normal man, or even a squad of Saint Denis law, it would be a suicide mission to assault it directly.
But Caleb was not a normal man, and he didn't fight like a police squad.
He reached into his pocket, into his inventory, and pulled out a crisp one hundred dollar bill. He slid it across the table to Doyle.
"Give this to the urchin," Caleb commanded. "Tell him he did good. And keep the rest of the change I gave you earlier for the tavern."
Doyle stared at the bill, swallowing hard. "Boss... you ain't thinking of going out there alone, are you? If he's got dozens of men..."
"I'm not going to fight an army, Doyle," Caleb said, standing up and checking the action on his Navy Revolvers. "I'm just going to cut the head off the snake. The body will die on its own."
He pushed past the bartender, stepping out of the backroom and into the noisy, smoke filled tavern. The afternoon crowd was in full swing, completely oblivious to the shadow war being waged around them.
He walked out into the oppressive heat of the Saint Denis afternoon. He mounted Morgan, who tossed her head, sensing the renewed purpose in her rider.
"West," Caleb muttered, steering the horse toward the city limits. "Let's go hunting in the mud."
The ride out of Saint Denis was a transition from order to chaos. The paved streets gave way to cobblestones, then to packed dirt, and finally to the treacherous, sucking mud of the bayou.
The air grew thick with humidity and the smell of decaying vegetation. The trees, draped in Spanish moss, seemed to close in around him, creating a claustrophobic canopy that blocked out the late afternoon sun.
Caleb didn't rush. He rode deliberately, his Eagle Eye Skill active, looking for signs of a heavy carriage that had passed recently. It wasn't difficult. The mud preserved the deep ruts of wagon wheels and the churned earth of multiple horses perfectly.
He followed the trail for an hour, the sounds of the city fading entirely, replaced by the chirping of crickets and the occasional splash of a gator slipping into the murky water.
Eventually, the trail veered off the main dirt road and onto a narrower, hidden path that cut deep into a dense thicket of cypress trees. Caleb dismounted. It was too risky to take Morgan any further, the sound of hooves or a sudden whinny would give him away.
He tied Morgan securely to a sturdy tree root, well off the path.
"Stay quiet, girl," he whispered, stroking her nose. "I'll be back."
He drew his Litchfield Repeater, checking the chamber, and began to move on foot. He activated his Sneaking Skill, his footsteps becoming completely silent as he navigated the wet, uneven ground. He moved like a ghost through the swamp, a shadow detaching itself from the larger darkness of the trees.
After ten minutes of slow, agonizingly careful progression, the trees parted slightly.
There it was.
It wasn't a grand mansion, but a large, sturdy, two story plantation house that looked like it had been abandoned years ago and recently reclaimed. It sat on a slight rise of solid ground, surrounded by a dilapidated wooden fence.
And Doyle had been right. It was fortified.
Caleb crouched behind a thick cypress trunk, utilizing his Eagle Eye to scan the perimeter. He counted six men patrolling the outside, two at the front gate, two walking the perimeter fence, and two more stationed near a small dock at the back where a skiff was tied up.
They were heavily armed with shotguns and repeaters, and they moved with a nervous, twitchy energy. They knew someone might be coming.
Inside the house, lights burned in the windows on both floors. Shadows moved across the glass. There were easily another ten to fifteen men inside, providing layers of security for the underboss.
A frontal assault was out of the question. Even with his stats and skills, running across open ground against twenty guns was a fool's errand.
Caleb needed to be surgical. He needed to create panic, confusion, and isolate his target.
He analyzed the environment. The house was old wood. The swamp was damp, but the house itself looked dry. And on the side porch, near the back entrance, he spotted a stack of wooden crates and a few barrels that bore the unmistakable markings of kerosene.
A plan formed instantly.
He holstered his repeater and drew his civil war knife. He slipped into the murky water of the swamp, moving agonizingly slow to avoid making a splash, utilizing his max level Sneaking Skill as well.
The water was warm and smelled of rot, but it provided perfect concealment. He waded through the chest high muck, his eyes fixed on the two guards patrolling the back dock.
He waited until one guard turned the corner of the house to continue his patrol, leaving the other standing alone near the skiff, smoking a cigarette.
Caleb rose from the water silently, right behind the wooden piling the guard was leaning against. He lunged upward. Before the guard could even exhale his smoke, Caleb clamped a muddy hand over his mouth and drove the knife upward into the base of his skull, severing the brain stem instantly.
The man went limp without a sound. Caleb lowered the body gently into the water, letting it sink beneath the duckweed.
One down.
He moved quickly, climbing onto the dock and slipping into the shadows of the side porch. The kerosene barrels were right in front of him. He uncorked one, the sharp smell of fuel hitting his nose. He tipped it over, letting the flammable liquid pool across the wooden floorboards of the porch and seep toward the back door.
He retreated back to the edge of the swamp, pulling out a box of match from his satchel. He struck a match, and waited for the second patrol guard to round the corner.
As soon as the man appeared, walking right into the puddle of kerosene, Caleb threw the match.
It fall toward pool of kerosene that come out from the barrel.
The resulting ecplosion of fire was deafening. The match ignited the spilled kerosene instantly, creating a massive, roaring wall of flame that engulfed the side porch and the guard. The man screamed, a horrifying sound that ripped through the quiet swamp, as he became a human torch.
The trap was sprung.
"Fire!" a voice yelled from inside the house. "We're under attack!"
Panic erupted. Guards poured out of the front and back doors, coughing from the sudden influx of smoke, their weapons drawn, firing blindly into the swamp.
"Where is he?! Where's the shooter?!"
Caleb didn't stay to watch the fire. While the guards were focused on the inferno consuming the side of the house, he moved around to the front. He activated his Dead Eye Skill.
He stepped out from behind a tree, his Litchfield raised. The world slowed. He painted the heads of the three guards standing panicked on the front porch. Bang. Bang. Bang. Three bodies hit the floorboards before the first empty casing hit the mud.
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Name: Caleb Thorne
Age: 23
Body Attributes:
- Strength: 8/10
- Agility: 8/10
- Perception: 9/10
- Stamina: 8/10
- Charm: 8/10
- Luck: 9/10
Skills:
- Handgun (Lvl MAX)
- Rifle (Lvl MAX)
- Firearms Knowledge (Lvl MAX)
- Past Life Memory (Lvl MAX)
- Knife (Lvl MAX)
- Blunt Weapon (Lvl 2)
- Sneaking (Lvl MAX)
- Horse Mastery (Lvl MAX)
- Poker (Lvl MAX)
- Hand to Hand Combat (Lvl MAX)
- Eagle Eye (Lvl 2)
- Dead Eye (Lvl 4)
- Bow (Lvl 3)
- Pain Nullifier (Lvl 4)
- Physical Regeneration (Lvl 3)
- Crafting (Lvl MAX)
- Persuasion (Lvl MAX)
- Mental Fortitude (Lvl MAX)
- Cooking (Lvl MAX)
- Teaching (Lvl 3)
- Trilingual Language Proficiency - G, I, & C (Lvl MAX)
- Inventory System (Permanent - 10x10x10)
- Acting (Lvl MAX)
- Alcohol Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Treasure Hunter (Lvl MAX)
- Drugs Resistance (Lvl MAX)
- Business (Lvl 1)
- Leadership (Lvl 1)
Money: 3,334 dollars and 10 cents
Inventory: 250,992 dollars and 61 cents, 11 gold nuggets, 70 gold bars, 1 Double Action, 1 Schofield, 2 Colm's Schofields, 1 land deed (Parcel), 1 Mauser, 1 Semi Auto Pistol, 1 Lancaster Repeater, 1 Old Wood Jewelry Box, 1 F.F Mausoleum small brass key, 1 Ruby, 1 Braithwaites Land Deed, 1 Broken Pirate Sword, 1 Milton's Safety Deposit Key, 1 Senator Pendleton Sealed Envelope, Proof Of Marlin-Thorne Firearms Co., 10 Dynamites, 1 LeMat, 1 M1899, 1 Carcano, & 1 Ownership deed of Doyle's Tavern
Bank: -