Von Lipwig, a man who’s lived by his wits since he was orphaned, becoming a master manipulator of men and women, takes the job, with escape and profit his end game objective. Vetinari wants to abolish the clacks’ monopoly and fakes captured conman Moist von Lipwig’s death at the gallows with an offer of reviving the post office once more.

Patriarch of the city, Lord Vetinari, the highest ranking government official, has the advantage of his own mythical creature in the form of a gorgeous female werewolf sergeant who can scent track criminals. There is no competition to communication by clacks, as the all but abandoned post office of Ankh-Morpork is in an even worse state than the dilapidated clacks towers. His preferred dispatcher is a banshee, a half-man half-bat creature who’s perpetually covered in ooze. Gilt isn’t averse to hiring assassins to remove anyone who gets in his way or threatens to thin his fully packed wallet. Control then passed to Reacher Gilt, an unscrupulous man who threatens employees into doing his bidding and who’s let the clacks system fall into disrepair and suspicion after an employee drops to his death in the opening scenes, while a large dark figure flies away. The system was the property of the Dearheart family until its inventor, Robert Dearheart, met with financial tragedy and an unexpected death.

The clacks system is a mode of communication in Discworld, a sort of telegraph business that converts customers’ messages to ticker tape which are then relayed from one clacks tower to the next through the city and beyond by semaphore signals using opening and closing shutters at each tower’s top.

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