BECMI Chapter 175 – To Federyn City

Hanvol hied back to the Great School for classes. If he wanted a Siricil connection, he had enough power to get it on his own time (and he would, of course), or he could use the Mirror at the Innspot. The only reason he was going to go there was to buy stuff for resale elsewhere, or to equip our people in the north.----

“The thugs burst into our rooms through the balcony, roping down like something out of a buckle-swashing play or something! Thaum but they were surprised when we were all awake and sitting around waiting for them!” Nico laughed over breakfast the next day, shortly before we were due to leave.

“Master Guy took care of them for us. He said something about suitable lawn ornaments and a gorgon that sounded quite dreadful, at least judging by the faces of those still alive,” Messime chirped happily, scarfing down a bun dripping with honey and nuts.

The night manager had just sort of rolled his eyes at the report of the incident, named a figure for damages, been paid out of the pockets of the intruders, and that was that. A couple of spells in the morning, and all the broken glass, windows, doors, and gouges in the walls were all fixed up, and even the professional cleaning crew hadn’t had much to do after Cantrips straightened up everything.

A considerate group of Zanzyran mages! Whatever would happen next?

Our road south was wide open and heavily-traveled, with farms and ranches basically all along both banks of the Wynxias, as well as ships and barges traveling up and down the river. It was the most-heavily traveled trade river known, navigable from Absoglor all the way down through the Chelphryggi Swamp, which was dominated by tribes of reclusive but mercenary lizard-men, who held it tightly against all intruders… not that the natives at Hynpact and Rhodos were wont to go exploring into the monster-infested place.

A hundred miles south of Absoglor, the Wynxias River cut through Federyn City, and so we passed into the center of Federyn and seat of its mercantile, plutocratic government.

We actually ‘beat’ a lot of the news coming from the north, to the point where Hanvol had stuffed a whole lot of letters to deliver into our hands. Guides were quickly hired, and I watched excited students head off to all parts of the city to deliver missives to this person and that, most of whom were members of Houses great and small who might just have purchased a lot of information that was going to be particularly relevant, and whoever acted fastest would make the most money.

The city was clean, even cleaner than Zanzyr City, which had the problem of canals and people dumping waste into the waters… and alchemists and mages flushing their experiments and residues out into them without a care for the consequences.

Here, there were people cleaning up the streets at all hours of the day, especially keeping it clear of horse-crap. Apprentices mages were good for this, able to perfectly scoop up horse dung and dump it into buckets or wagons, with no residue, but mostly it was an easy, mindless job for the less intellectually-gifted, and the manure made for a constant export from the city to the surrounding farms.

They hadn’t twigged to having high-level mages use and to replace horses and wagons, especially since they thought in terms of having to pay for the spells. Technically, all they should have had to do is pay a mage a decent salary and set him to work, and in a month or two he could have reduced the need for horses in the city by ninety percent, and with it the street cleaners.

Of course, then they’d need a new job for the laborers. Actually, they should just push them out into the neighboring streets and poorer neighborhoods…

Whatever, the place was clean, with classical lines, hand-carved stone and marble everywhere, and it exuded Money.

Muh-nee.

Again, technically there was more money in Zanzyr City, if you considered the cost of spells on places (especially illusions), magical materials, wards, and so forth and so on. But those didn’t give the of money, they gave the impression of flashy glitz, or maybe understated power, if they had better taste.

The white marble, classic lines of the buildings, obviously places of great business and government, and attempts at architectural glory and fine monuments that were all in careful good taste exuded muh-nee. Capital Muh.

This was a plutocracy, literally run by the wealthiest Great House in the nation, or rather, the person who was the head of that Great House. Goldweight was everything, and the banks of Federyn handled accounts from across the Known World (which admittedly wasn’t very big in my view of things.)

My fellow students had orders to deliver their letters, and then go on shopping sprees. The stores and bazaars here were some of the finest supplied in the whole world in various merchandise, only lagging Zanzyr City in access to magical items and magical components… largely because they sold most of the latter and bought much of their supply of the former there.

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All of my entourage were to have at least one bodyguard with them at all time, and Guy and Buck had both somehow miraculously popped up here to be guides to the city again, rather dumbfounding the Adepts at how they’d gotten here ahead of us after waving goodbye in Absoglor.

Now, when in mercantile settings, appearance isn’t always everything, as every merchant knows when dealing with mages. Wizards are prone to be proud, arrogant, very intelligent, otherworldly, and really don’t like having to mess with money while trying to contemplate the mysteries of the universe.

That usually meant mages were easy to manipulate, as long as you didn’t care about being turned into a turnip if you were caught. Clever bankers and merchants could run rings around them, as legal niceties and local rules and regulations could be really complex and boring, meaning most mages didn’t want to deal with that crap… but were nastily capable of understanding such things if they were!

Nor did a lot of wealthy folks, actually. They had people for that.

So, naturally enough, did I. And since I was doing this for others, I had people for this. Namely, Ketcher Kociba, the Catcher for King Antius of Darkmoor; Alamos Moeuseur, who handled the finances for the Kingdom; Prince Ukker Denalan; Regent of the Halls Himmmelstern Karackheim; Yedemil Feiahan of the Weirwood Court, one of the rarer elven merchants and traders; and Dani Saliaveli, who had downloaded a whole lot of financial management data to work with, and had been in Federyn City a couple weeks memorizing their financial laws and regulations.

“Gentlemen and Lady, you look like foreign dignitaries who just might have enough money to be interesting, if they don’t look too closely,” I greeted them coolly.

Their clothing styles were from their home nations, naturally enough, which were definitely not Federyn style. The dwarves, for instance, wore finely tailored working leathers, typical of dwarves… except theirs were made from white dragon and red dragon wing leather, respectively. Prince Ukker’s bracer, rings, and buckles were in blue-black adamantine, while the Regent’s were in butter-silver mithral in contrast. The Catcher was dressed fit for the Darkmoor royal court, wearing it as naturally as a nobleman born; Alamos was in a custom-fit sharp suit and jacket that screamed dangerous lawyer, watch out, while Yedemil Feiahan of the Weirwood Court was clad in what looked like interwoven crystal leaves, and Dani was rocking a shimmery quasi-metallic power suit that nobody had ever seen the like, the kind worn by Federation businesswomen at power meetings.

“Kindly remember you are not in competition here. You are here to observe first and foremost how business is done, and treat these people exactly as cleverly and benevolently as they treat you… which will likely be a considerable amount of the one, and not much of the other. It will also give you the working capital you need to start making moves in this time, as opposed to your own,” I repeated for their benefit. “Is everyone ready?”

“Time to play the fool to humans who don’t think dwarves understand money,” Prince Ukker grumbled softly, drawing a smirk from Regent Himmel as they started following me.

“Aye, your people don’t do any merchant banking for the humans here, which is a bit of a shame, but understandable,” the older dwarf nodded. Despite his hiccups in behavior, Himmel was a strong, charismatic dwarf who knew how to lead his people, and even though he came from a tradition which looked down on royals and nobles among dwarves, he and Prince Ukker had become easy and fast friends. They were startled to find out they had more in common than they did not, and if they had differences in how governments among dwarves should be run, as long as good and competent leaders who cared about their folk were at the top, they had precious little to complain about.

Rukheim’s success in holding lands of its own and its population were proof enough that the right kings in charge worked just fine.

I strolled toward the ancient Royal Bank of Federyn, commissioned over three hundred years ago by the then-kings of the country, and proudly holding onto the name even with the last king of Federyn dying well over a century ago. It wasn’t the largest bank of the nation (the Merchant’s Bank and Trust of Federyn held that title), but the Royal Bank was indeed older and preferred by most of the nobility, while the Merchant’s Bank catered to the more aggressive traders and financial speculators.

I just swirled into a black and red outfit somewhere between power dress and runway strut suit, complete with quite the feathered hat, veil, arm-length gloves, hourglass corset… and my feet clacked for attention on three-inch heels while I was walking six inches above the ground, scarlet-tipped black hair swirling for attention.

Splashing that much red into the conservatives blues, grays, and browns of the locals was bound to cause attention, and it did. Basically everyone got out of our way as I made my way up the steps to the doors of the bank, which the liveried attendants there hurried to open, wondering how we’d appeared out of nowhere.

The professional attendants inside did a curious mixture of blanching, quivering in delight, grinning in expectation, and valiantly tried to remain completely unmoved as I strolled through the door, trailing the others.

The oldest of them, a rather short white-bearded gentlemen in an impeccable suit whose vintage was somewhat after the styles of Catcher and Alamos, and thus looked almost frightfully cutting-edge in fashion compared to the two very frowning gentlemen, stepped forward to intercept me as I walked inside.

“Greetings, fair elfin, and welcome to the Royal Merchant Bank of Federyn.” He almost stuttered the last syllable of that as I fixed my eyes on him, totally unimpressed and radiating it. “I don’t believe you’ve graced our establishment before. How may we be of service to you?” he continued smoothly. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ ????????????????????·????????????????·????????????

I just turned my chin, and Alamos stepped forward, his long face heavy with gravity at the sheer chutzpah of this man daring to talk to me. “After due diligence and research into the mercantile and financial dealings of the assorted banking institutions of this nation of Federyn, the Lady Edge and her business partners have decided to open accounts with the Royal Bank.” He paused.

The man had not the slightest idea who we were, but he was damn good at his job. The fact he couldn’t identify the accent of the very human man, and that his suit was at least a century out of style, sent off all kinds of alarm bells. “Of course, sir! You have come to the right place for all the traditional banking services! Our money management and investment experts deal in lengths of investment and proprietary accounts that no other bank in Federyn can match!” he replied with pride and confidence.