Or just a half elf furry

It has been mentioned a few times that there have been different iterations of the Circle since its inception. It has likely been effectively destroyed and recreated dozens of times.

Just like now, we know that it had been destroyed previously during Magnolia’s great-grandmother’s time. So, at best, you’re probably looking at the current iteration being less than 100 years old, possibly closer to only 50-60 years. Long enough for plenty of foreign agents to infiltrate, but not long enough for them to really do too much damage prior to this point.

This is another factor in why Laken shouldn’t have even been able to gain the Emperor class as early as he did (or even potentially at all): he supposedly would have need the “arrogance of a god” to do so, yet he has almost never shown such arrogance. The only two times he has really done so were when he first claimed Riverfarm (which is problematic on its own; none of the nearby nobles would have simply allowed such a village to remain completely independent, so any claim he made should have necessitated that claim being disputed by said noble), and when he first created his Undying Loyalty skill.

With the exception of those two incidents, everything we’ve been able to see, as readers, has been him being fairly weak-minded, often second guessing himself, or otherwise displaying a rather large lack of arrogance of any kind. His blackmailing by Tyrion should have also probably lost him his Class, even if only temporarily (similar to how Lyonette lost Princess for a while) due to him basically being subservient to Tyrion.

Teriarch doesn’t seem to like the Drakes very much, honestly.

Two thirds of the inner-most ranks of the Circle of Thorns, the appropriately named, if somewhat exaggerated, ‘Thorns of Death’, had actually been foreign agents who’d risen through the ranks, contributing money and power to manipulate the Circle into attacking Izril’s nobles, effectively destroying itself from within.

That’s so much worse than I expected. Ever since we learned the Circle of Thorns A) thinks of themselves as the unseen final arbiters of northern Izril’s politics and B) is secretive enough that no one knows more than a few other members I expected them to be absolutely riddled with infiltrators. I also figured the compromised or disloyal agents would be mostly low-ranked within the organization and the leadership would be True Believers.

But two-thirds of the inner circle turned out to be outsiders working to the exact opposite goal of the organization at large? Absolute clown shoes. It does explain why they ended up being so incompetent (let’s publicly execute the most powerful [Lady] on the continent!). But these infiltrations had to have been pretty recent because there’s no way a group this stupid would have survived for thousands of years.

Dead or depowered, is what I see happening. It happens so much in this story! Big ups if things manage to resolve themselves without any of that, though.

You’ve done a relatively great job with consistancy but this line right here
“Even the china set was pink, and yes, it too clashed.”

What Drake thinks that? It should say Porcelain set. You’ve usually been consistant besides constantly referring to Ryoka as Asian girl while if it’s a caucasian girl it’s just girl but this right here is where I finally say it needs to stop.