ARC 7-Cursed Fates-106-Mr. Richard (Patreon)

Mr. Richard, and he was Mr. Richard to everyone, including his friends and sometimes to his family, looked over his party with a pleased eye. He wasn’t one for extravagance, being a practical man with few, practical vices, but the party was not a mere exercise in fun. In Harvest, there were all kinds of power and it was hard to rank them, as supremacy was more often than not dictated by circumstances, but Mr. Richard thought that gold was the most versatile. Something about wealth appealed to all. Currency was a language that transcended all tongues and the bridge that connected all places. Better, it was a power anyone could wield, not trapped behind the barriers of natural advantages like noble blood or magical talent.

The party was an exercise in power. The people standing about the tables and having their fill of drink were some of the most important people in the city and beyond. Beneath the cover of pleasant music, many important negotiations were taking place. Trade agreements, most of them related to war matters such as weapons, rations, and alchemical ingredients.

Mr. Richard meant to engage in many such negotiations himself. Having worked closely with the guilds since he was a boy apprenticed to his father, he knew how much money there was to be made in a conflict. Yet, the most valuable commodity he sought were the conversations themselves. As the host, his people were sprinkled throughout the event, disguised as simple waiters and pretty faces. The information they would mine from the partygoers was almost as valuable as gold.

The only damper on the evening was the affair taking place below them. The Richard family had lived in the city for generations. He knew better than most that one could not do business, not any proper business of large enterprise, without going through the guilds. Normally, that constituted a bribe in the right pockets, but Mr. Richards’ father had taken things further. He tied their fates to one of the guilds, the Shadow Wolves. It boosted revenue, as hunting was a profitable business, and earned them a small amount of prestige but it came with obligations. Namely, whatever the guild wanted, including hosting illicit meanings.

Mr. Richard wasn’t very happy about the arrangement. Conflict was profitable but only if one could carefully step around the edges of it. Being caught in the middle meant ruin. And this particular conflict was the most ruinous of all. The rumors had turned into casual conversation. The whole city knew that war waited on the horizon, ready to charge against the great walls of the city should they make one false move. Their opponents wouldn’t be dumb manabeasts, whose bodies they had made a business of harvesting for centuries, but the madmen of the north. No, that wouldn’t be good for business at all.

Instead of deescalating the situation, like rational people with any measure of foresight, his backers were organizing a resistance in his basement. If he could, Mr. Richard would have pulled up stakes and left, but his company was far too entrenched to do so. If Quest burned, so did he. All he could do was grit his teeth and go about his own business.

He managed to do so with an affable demeanor. At least until the commotion erupted near the entrance.

Mr. Richard was in the middle of a somewhat animated discussion about the rising price of steel and the merits of having crafters on the payroll as opposed to simply buying their works when he noticed a faint shouting coming from the other side of the room. Frowning, he motioned to Bertrand, his middle son. His oldest had proved incompetent, shucking the business and all his talent for it away for the so-called wonders of love. Bertrand didn’t have his brother’s ability, but he was eager, taking to shadowing his father in all manners to gain experience.

“Go and see to whatever that is,” he whispered fiercely, annoyed at the possibility that some unexpected drama would ruin his evening. His son didn’t have the chance to offer a response before the yelling grew so loud, it was impossible for anyone to ignore, followed by a loud crash as the door was thrown open.

Or better described, broken down. One of his guards, a hunter loaned by the Wolves as they had been quite paranoid about the security of their event, was laid out on the floor, looking as if he’d been used as a battering ram. The other guards were nowhere to be seen. Given the circumstances, Mr. Richard could only guess the met a similar fate.

“Well, this is…quaint.”

The ones responsible for the destruction strolled through the shattered door, stepping over the fallen hunter as if he were another obstacle of the road, no different from a stone or a fallen sign. Mr. Richard recognized the intruders. He would be surprised if anyone within the city didn’t recognize them, so widely distributed was their description.

They were a group of three. The most recognizable of them, the one that could never be mistaken for any other or forgotten, was the elf. The princess, some said, though just as many said that was a misunderstanding. As a merchant, someone who understood the value of information, he of course knew the truth. Kierra Atainna was royalty, in the sense that she was the blood of a reigning monarch, but their culture did not have the same concept of monarchy as Harvest. Being royalty did not make her a princess or heir to an elven throne.

She was quite the character. A beauty, but a ferocious one, with a beastly tilt to her eyes. Her strange coloring didn’t detract from her charm but added to it, the green of her skin and the silver of her hair a startling contrast that drew the eye. Along with her dress. The people of Harvest ranged from the very conservative souls of the capital to the beastly tribes of the south. The elf’s dress, with its lack of sleeves, its plunging neckline that showed off a scandalous amount of her bust, and its short skirt, spoke to morals that leaned closer to the profane tribes.

If Mr. Richard’s favorite lady companion wore such a number, he’d give her his entire coin purse but if he saw his daughter wearing the same, he’d faint with anger. Just his luck, the damn girl would have a twin made within a week, given the way the girl’s eyes were gleaming. The green woman had some modesty at least, draping the fur of some fox-like creature around her bare shoulders but she didn’t seem to care one way or the other about the eyes on her, lips turned up in a smug smile as she was escorted across the room.

The woman escorting her was not quite as distinctive but equally well known. Dying one’s hair was a popular trend amongst older ladies, whose main pastimes were chasing beauty and youth. For a while, the young ladies of Rosentheim had also took to dyes, in more vibrant colors. Gold streaks in darker hair was the most common, followed by darker streaks in auburn hair. None had done something as ridiculous as coloring their hair purple.

Mainly because of the cost. Some colors were rather cheap to make, like browns and darker greens, the color made from plants. Others, like blue and purple, required far rarer components. Rare meant expensive.

Purple was a color that screamed money. To waste it on something as frivolous as hair was an unthinkable expense for anyone. Even those that could afford such would never think to do it, held back by common sense. The cost to continuously reapply it could feed a family of five, comfortably.

However, Mr. Richard, being a man of information, knew that it was no dye job, just as her eyes were not a trick of the light. It was her natural coloring, permanently altered by the physical affinity. A preposterous thing. The masters of Harvest struggled enough returning a body to its natural state. There wasn’t even a proper field of study for altering it for cosmetic reasons. But that was the beauty of the pure affinity. It didn’t require study. One simply wished of the world and reality contorted itself to said whim.

So. Lourianne Tome’s distinctive violet highlights and eyes didn’t make her an imbecile running down a steep slope straight into poverty, but she was certainly vain. And still not opposed to spending money. That was obvious from the quality of her clothes.

Shirt, pants, and a jacket were standard formal wear but there was a long field of quality between something a porter put on at short notice and what the young noblewoman wore. Everything was of fine quality, but it was the jacket that really stood out. Along the arms, a masterful seamstress had somehow stitched images of paper, bent and curled as if being blown by a strong wind. It was hard enough to convey such natural movement with paints, let alone fabric. It was a masterpiece. Better than Mr. Richard’s own jacket and its paltry mix of reds, oranges, and gold. That was the crux of the matter. It was…unseemly for a host to be outshone at his own party, especially by someone without an invitation.

By comparison, the last to enter was unremarkable. Oh, the way her human legs transitioned into hooves and the gray skin were certainly remarkable but her simple white dress was of average quality and her head was bowed, giving off the impression a meek lamb following in the wake of lions. Her demure demeanor encouraged one’s eyes to slide right off her. Which of course meant Mr. Richard was immediately wary of her. The quiet ones were always the ones to watch out for.

“I’ll see them out,” Bertrand said with a ridiculous confidence, taking a step toward the women moving deeper into the room. The old merchant wanted to smack his son upside the head for such stupidity but limited his reaction to catching the eager man by the arm.

“How do you suppose to do that?” Mr. Richard asked.

“I shall order them out.”

“And should they refuse?”

“That is what guards are for.”

Mr. Richard sighed. “Do you not recognize those women?” He rethought having his son inherit his company as Bertrand gave him a look of confusion, having considered unleashing his son’s wicked intellect and bad temper on the kingdom’s merchants many a time, as he sighed. “What is the most valuable thing in the world?”

“Er…information.”

It irked that the boy, man that he was he would always seem a boy, especially with his absentmindedness, had needed two long moments to think but Mr. Richard was gratified he got the question right. “Having the information is not enough. Being able to apply it to your decision-making is also important. That means dredging up relevant facts at the appropriate times, not simply reading and memorizing them.”

“I take it they are important?”

“Those are the infamous ladies causing our backers so many problems.”

Bertrand’s eyes widened with shock and were held in their state by fear. “Do they know…”

“Perhaps they have an inkling.” He couldn’t imagine anything but a gathering of traders interesting the women. He didn’t think they knew of the meeting in his basement, otherwise they would never be so casual walking through the front door, but they had to know about his connection to the guilds. Hopefully, they had merely come to ask questions. “Either way, what is our duty?”

“To protect our profits.”

“And how do we do that?”

His son paused. “Making sure our connections aren’t killed in a fight between master casters?”

Mr. Richard clapped his son on the shoulder. “I will talk to them. You are going to discretely, very discretely, make your way to the entrance of the basement and impress upon our guests that I don’t want my warehouse burned down. Then you will go to the office, take any important papers, and run for the guards. Impress upon them the urgency of the situation but do not return.”

Bertrand frowned. “I won’t leave you in danger, Father.”

Mr. Richard was a little grateful for his son’s concern, he’d be a cold man not to be, but mostly he was annoyed. “This isn’t the time for sentiment. There’s nothing you can do to protect me, but you can protect my legacy. Go. Now.”

Whether it was logic that swayed him or the habit of responding to his father’s stern voice, Bertrand followed the order. Mr. Richard waved down one of the nervous hunters meant to serve as security and told the man to grab his gawking daughter and get her out of the building, by force if necessary. Then, assured his family was taken care of, the merchant squared his shoulders and marched toward the interlopers.