Shane's response

Shane paced the workshop, gears in his head spinning over how to handle that smug princeling causing trouble back in Eleanor's kingdom. Diplomacy wasn't his strong suit, but nobody messed with his friends!

"We gotta sabotage pretty boy's schemes so Eleanor can return on her own terms," he muttered. But how could some random tinkerer challenge royalty? Vincent had money, soldiers...tradition itself backing his play for power.

Then Shane grinned as an idea took shape. He wasn't beholden to those stuffy customs - he was an outsider to Eldoria, with outside the box assets!

He set to work modifying his mechanical engineer’s eye, integrating a compact portal connector to Eleanor's handed communicator. Now he could traverse between worlds unseen as needed, cause all sorts of havoc...

Shane cackled, envisioning slipping past Vincent's defenses to pull the plug on his influence. A few "mishaps" detonating those entitled warlord egos, and Eleanor could waltz back to grateful cheers!

Cracking his knuckles, Shane prepped disguises both magical and mechanical. Time to show this prince traditional fancy titles meant squat next to good old fashioned engineering brilliance!

"Ready or not Vince, here I come to take your royal highness down a notch," Shane declared with gleeful relish. This playing nice drivel was over!

Shane stepped through the shimmering portal, scanning the shadowed border keep with his enhanced eye. Inside, Prince Vincent raged to his generals about gathering arms to take the capital. Shane snorted - not if he wrecked this jerk's plans first!

Tapping controls on his wrist, Shane's outfit shifted to disguise him as a servant. Now to get some inside intelligence.

He slipped in behind a bustling kitchen procession, grabbing a random tray of food scraps and carrying it in his hands. These fancy royal types never noticed the help.

"...can't support open rebellion yet, the other nobles would turn on us!" a commander was arguing when Shane entered the hall. He busied himself with cleaning nearby, eavesdropping closely.

Vincent pounded the table angrily. "Then we must force their hand! My played marriage claim is reason enough to capture Eleanor when she dares return." The men grumbled reluctant assent as Vincent pointed on a map. "We sabotage Gregory’s supply lines from the east - blame bandits. Deprive him of funds and power, the vultures will circle around him."

Sabotage caravans huh? Shane's grin turned wicked behind his holographic servant's guise. Oh he'd sabotage alright - these jerks’ entire operation! Polishing a plate, he secretly scanned the markers on the map, planning ambush locations.

But as the conspiring nobles dispersed, a weaselly little attendant approached Vincent with an unctuous smile.

"My prince, I can offer assistance securing your aims, if you allow a bit of...esoteric aid?" Shane paused his escape to watch warily as the man withdrew a vial of something ominous from underneath his cloak.

"With this potion, I can arrange barriers to communication from isolated areas. Let us vanquish meddling Sir Gregory's forces, making them disappear, so that your plans may proceed unimpeded?" The attendant offered the vial to a considering Vincent who frowned at it.

Shane committed their faces to his database before slipping away, his mind turning over this new supernatural angle. If Vincent had some magician making people vanish, that could spell real trouble for Eleanor’s return!

As he stepped back through the portal though, Shane was still confident. However fancy this prince’s schemes, he was still just an arrogant bully. And Shane would make sure his plotting came crashing down in the most humiliating way possible!

Time to gear up, build some special surprises for Vince’s road trips, and get sabotaging!

Back in his workshop, Shane began gathering an eclectic assortment of parts and tools to build the devices needed to sabotage Vincent's plans. But he had to admit now - going solo against an entire cabal of hostile nobles and magical help was a tall order.

"Gonna need my own crew for this," Shane muttered. He couldn't jeopardize Eleanor though, or draw attention from her mission abroad. That left his ragtag associates here - outcast tinkerers, gamblers, smugglers and other useful rogues.

Activating his eye scanner, Shane sliced into the realm's communication grids, sending encoded messages to recruit help. Before long, a motley bunch gathered at his backdoor workshop.

"Need some discretion on this job," he explained. "So, no yapping about our extracurricular activities right?" His reputation guaranteed their agreement.

"There's a high falutin' prince trying to cause trouble for my friend. I aim to take him down hard." Shane outlined the basic sabotage plans. "You help me wreck pretty boy's supply trains, I'll pay you well."

With their own scores to settle against nobility, his new crew quickly agreed. Soon they were fabricating all manner of remote controlled stealth devices - mines, drones, monster holograms.

Shane surveyed their progress with satisfaction. Time to run Vincy off the road! "We hit fast then scatter. I'll handle any magical mishaps."

His assistants didn’t need to know Eleanor's identity or Shane's emotional stakes in this job. Only that no arrogant, plotting prince messed with his friends! Gear loaded, Shane opened the portal to start their guerrilla war.

Shane's mechanical eye whirred, guiding stealth drones from his hidden canyon to overlook the process as the supply train approached below.

Time to crash Vincent's party!

"Hit 'em hard boys!" At Shane's signal, his crew triggered all sorts of chaotic devices - depositing illusionary monsters alongside real detonations and magnetized cargo balls to wreck the train. Vincent's men cried out in shock, their wagons overturning violently.

Grinning fiercely, Shane collapsed the special portal relay and slipped away amidst smoke and confusion. The border realm's vast wilderness would hide his escape.

Soon Vincent would find his influence weakened by failing weapon deliveries, bandit raids, and communication delays from Shane's magical allies.

“Let him try marrying Eleanor then!” Shane told himself.

Back through the portal, Shane's black market helpers cheered a successful first strike. "That's just a taste," he assured them. "I'll call your skills in soon enough."

As his crew left, buoyed with victory and fists full of coins, Shane tried ignoring the pang about deceiving Eleanor. But she couldn't know - this was his burden to dismantle Vincent's schemes alone, however long it took.

Activating his portal relay again, he prepared more sabotage ambushes.

Shane would run Prince Pompous ragged with chasing phantom thieves who were supposedly disrupting his supporters.

This should buy Eleanor's efforts abroad enough time to genuinely help her people - no royal pains allowed!

Shane prayed that his plans would succeed.