Death of Duke Nico

Duke Nico was killed by Mr. Dreamtime, as a result of a plot by Drago Vatislov, also known as "the Snake".

Duke Nico's Plan
Niccolai Cassovetes knew that Karl-Heinz Wassmeier, the Minister of the Treasury, made regular visits to the Theatre Of The Fallen King amd the courtesan who makes her home there. Like a thousand other things in Gervasa, Duke Nico kept track of these visit in case the information should ever be useful. That Wassmeier visited Charmian was, in itself, nothing unusual -- many powerful figures in the city have vices, most of them far worse than a weakness for hired company. What was unusual is that Wassmeier suddenly stopped making these visits, and as far as Duke Nico was able to determine, never contacted Charmian again.

That was unusual. No one simply stopped seeing Charmian. This got Duke Nico's attention. The fact that Drago Vatislov hired a Gothic sorcerer to work at the Theatre less than a week later also got his attention.

As the weeks went on, Duke Nico attempted to find out why Rahlvast was at the Theatre, and what he was doing there. Time after time, he found out nothing. He knew that the Snake had hired Rahlvast, but with all of his resources, he could not find out why. He became obsessed with this, until at last he decided that a direct confrontation was the only solution.

Duke Nico received a report that a thief had been hired to steal something from Rahlvast, and that the thief was laying a trap for him. So Nico laid a trap of his own. He kidnapped Karline and kept her near the location of the thief's ambush, knowing that Rahlvast would find her, and then the thief. And then Nico would interrupt all of that unimportant stuff, and get the answers he wanted.

Mr. Dreamtime's Plan
Kaspar Dreamtime is one of the best assassins in Gervasa. It was a surprise, then, when he was hired to steal several ceramic tiles from a Gothic sorcerer, but instructed not to kill him. This was an unusual request, and it piqued Kaspar's interest, so he took the assignment. It was only after searching Rahlvast's room for the tiles that he found the drawings that Rahlvast had made of the staff, and realized what the tiles and the staff signified: the solution to a puzzle that had kept Kaspar awake many, many nights. So while Kaspar technically did not abandon the assignment, he became much more interested in obtaining the staff and the tiles for himself.

After several attempts to steal the staff and the tiles, Kaspar came to the conclusion that doing so without killing Rahlvast would be next to impossible. So he devised a plan to lay a trap for him: lure him to an ambush, and then present such an overwhelming force that Rahlvast would have no option but to turn them over, thus completing the contract, and getting what Kaspar wanted from Rahlvast in the bargain. So Kaspar made a point of mentioning an inconvenient priest who had repeatedly healed Rahlvast, even from injuries inflicted by Mr. Dreamtime's troll steel blade (Mr. Dreamtime knew that this was not true, of course -- or at least he assumed it was not true). Then, he mutiliated but did not kill one of his least reliable henchmen, ostensibly as punishment for sleeping when he was supposed to be keeping watch, knowing that the man would seek healing for the wound and eventually seek out Rahlvast's priest. Having nothing else to trade, Mr. Dreamtime assumed that Rahlvast would extract Mr. Dreamtime's location from the man, which would lead him directly into the trap. And then Mr. Dreamtime would get everything that he wanted.

The Snake's Plan
Drago Vatislov is ambitious and cunning, but he is also patient. He had waited several years until the right set of circumstances presented themselves: an opportunity to set events in motion which would lead to the death of Duke Nico, without implicating Drago in the plot. When Drago learned that the mysterious cessation of Wassmeier's amorous activities had attracted the attention of Duke Nico, he knew that the stage was set. He hired Rahlvast to work at the theatre, knowing that Duke Nico would learn of this almost immediately. He also knew that Duke Nico would stop at nothing to learn the reasons why, with the hope that this would eventually draw Nico out into the open. It was only later, after learning that Rahlvast had discovered tiles similar to the one that Mr. Dreamtime had found years earlier, that Drago thought of hiring Mr. Dreamtime to steal the tile -- but to not under any circumstances kill Rahlvast. He had a premonition -- a vision, if you will -- that if he could sustain the level of frustration of both Duke Nico and Mr. Dreamtime, that one of them would kill the other. Others would die, as well, of course. Maybe Rahlvast; maybe not.

The future was by no means certain: Duke Nico might die, or he might not. But the opportunity to eliminate Duke Nico and enhance his own power and influence was too much to pass up. At the very worst, an assassin and one of Drago's catspaws would be killed, without any repercussions to Drago himself. At best, Duke Nico would be killed, again without anything tying the death to Drago (just in case anyone came looking for revenge).

It took enormous bribes to conceal the identity of the "thief" from Duke Nico. In fact, it was only the fact that Nico had already become careless that enabled that omission to remain intact: under ordinary circumstances, Duke Nico would not have come within a mile of an assassin even half as notorious as Mr. Dreamtime. But by keeping both Duke Nico and Mr. Dreamtime occupied with much more interesting things, the Snake was able to maneuver them into exactly the situation he had foreseen.

And the Snake got exactly what he wanted.