Chapter 34: A Skulk of Foxes (Patreon)

Hugo spent the first day back at home crying. He just laid on his bed and cried for hours straight. He was mad at Oscar for betraying him, but even more mad at the academy for believing the lie.

If Hugo hadn’t even gone to the academy, he wouldn’t be in an impossible situation. Harvesters made money, they didn’t get into enormous debt. He should have been a harvester.

Even a hedge mage would be better than this. Even though most of them were garbage, some hedge mages could do some cool stuff without a domain.

But no. He had to risk it all and go to the academy. He was an idiot for thinking he could ever be rich. By the end of the month he would be in debt bondage. His life wouldn’t be his own.

Unlike the clear terms he had signed for when he started this whole thing, he was going to be in debt bondage for the foreseeable future. Whenever he would get close to paying off his debt, the warrant officers would just make up some extra expense that would mean he was stuck working for several more years.

He knew families who had permanently lost a parent to debt bondage. They started out with a debt they couldn’t pay, like fifty gold. Something that should take about three years to pay off. But then the warrant officers would charge for housing, charge for food, charge for every little thing, until the debt grew instead of shrunk. There was no escape. His father had died doing a risky job instead of allowing himself to go into debt bondage.

Today was going to be one of his last days of freedom, and he was going to spend it how he wanted. By crying like his life was over. Because it was.

The next morning, he made himself breakfast after his mother left for work. He still felt hopeless and despondent, but not quite as depressed as yesterday. He realized that he still had twenty-two days before his first payment was due, that was enough time to change things.

Not that he actually expected to successfully pay off his debt, but he knew that he would feel better about everything if he at least tried his best first. He had about eighty silver saved up, most of that from selling his party access to his crossbow. Now he just needed fourteen gold and twenty silver more.

His first thought was going out harvesting. There was no way he could count on earning enough to pay back the debt on a harvester team though. They just didn’t make enough. Marius got lucky killing a monster that dropped a grancryst, but that was a once in a lifetime thing, not something he could count on happening.

He organized his school supplies and sellable possessions and packed them up. Then he started walking all over town, trying to sell them all. Some things were easy to sell, like writing supplies and paper. Not that he got much for them.

The book on mana manipulation was only worth a silver. Apparently it was common and always in stock. He did end up selling the bestiary for much more though. That was in high demand by harvesters and the copy he had was a newer edition. It netted him two gold.

He tried to sell his crossbow, but no one would buy it. It really surprised him, Hugo knew that his crossbow was a quality weapon, he had used it to kill monsters himself. But the weaponsmiths would only sell things that they knew everything about, and none of them worked with aluminum and magnesium.

General stores didn’t have the same compunctions and happily bought up all of his bottles. They only paid thirty coppers each, but he had to admit that was a fair price. Out here there was a lot more market competition.

That gave him an idea, maybe he could get a job in a factory, producing household goods. Since he was still low leveled, they wouldn’t pay him much. But maybe it would be enough that by the end of the month... no. There was no way he could make fifteen bottles a day and make that much money.

It wasn’t like he knew of any bottle company in town anyway. There was a glassworks by the docks so he started walking that way. Then he remembered Mia’s vacuum bottles. He hadn’t had the time to make one yet, but the way she described it, it didn’t seem too hard. Maybe there was a market for bottles that would keep things hot or cold for a long time. It had to be worth more than a regular bottle.

He turned back home. Now he wished that he had kept some of his school supplies. He needed to write this down to get the math right. He just accepted that his mother would be mad at him and borrowed her paper. He wrote up the equations for a thick bottle, and then removed the parts that governed the middle of the bottle’s walls. He would have to create it all at once so that air wouldn’t get inside, but with Fabricate at level nine, he should be able to do that.

The first time he tried to create the bottle it seemed like a success, until he tried to put some water in it and it leaked. He hadn’t gotten the seals right.

The second and third time failed too. They had crumpled in the formation process. The fourth time he kept the math in the forefront of his mind, but also kept his will firm, focusing on controlling the aluminum and magnesium alloy. He practically talked to the metal so it wouldn’t move during the creation process.

This time it worked. He had a functional vacuum bottle. He grabbed it and danced around the kitchen. His mother didn’t have a cold box, so he couldn’t put anything cold in there, so instead he brewed a pot of tea and poured it into his bottle. He smiled as he picked it up, the bottle didn’t even seem warm.

A few hours later he found himself talking to the manager in charge of Kassworks, the largest glassworks factory in the city. He had been surprised that he had gotten the meeting so quickly. He had expected to take a few days to work his way up the chain.

There were some advantages to being soulmarked though. As soon as he created a trinket for the receptionist, he was led in right away. The manager seemed impressed when he poured out steaming tea from his vacuum bottle. Unfortunately that is where his luck ran out.

“Your invention is a good one. It really is. But it simply isn’t going to make you the money you want. Let me explain why,” she said. She got up and walked to her office window that looked over the factory floor, “Can you guess how many soulmarked I have working for me down there?”

Hugo looked down and saw about thirty people working the kilns and blowing glass. “I don’t know, maybe ten?”

“It’s two. One barrier and one ritualist. I haven’t hired more because I can’t afford more. The economics just don’t justify it. Sand is cheap, labor is cheap, and so my glasses and bottles are cheap. If I brought you onboard to make your special bottles, it would raise my operating costs to unreasonable levels. I just don’t think we could sell them for a high enough margin to make it worth it.

“I think you are going to find the same answer no matter where you go in housewares. This industry's margin comes from quantity, not quality. Of course, if you wanted to go into high end products, like mana carts or weapons, then you could charge platinums for your work,” she said.

Hugo’s heart sank. Maybe she was right. No one was going to pay a gold per day in this industry, even if he had completed his education. He really needed to change industries, like she said. The problem was, what kind of industry could he try and get into?

Weapons were probably a bad idea. His elements didn’t make strong weapons or armor. He still thought he made a good crossbow, but no one believed him. And he couldn’t work for the government because he wasn’t licenced. So that meant shimmer shimmer trains and shimmer casters were off limits.

What other industries were there? mana carts were high end, like she said, but he didn’t know what they were made of, let alone how to make them.

He slowly walked home thinking of what his next attempt would be. He wasn’t quite so despondent today as he was yesterday. He had sold a few things and earned some money, which brightened his mood a bit. He only had to come up with twelve gold now.

Walking by the docks, he wondered if there was anything he could do there. Ships were typically

His musings were interrupted by a voice.

“Rebane! My cousin. So good to see you,” the fox gang member said.

Hugo swore internally then said, “It is nice to see a familiar face, particularly since you are so far from your normal home.” The fox gang didn’t operate on the docks, it was strange that he was here, particularly with his fox mask on.

“I have traveled far and wide to find you, little man. If it wasn’t for you, I would be sitting on my stoop at home,” he said, “The boss wants to talk to you. Come on, let’s go.”

“Go where?”

“I just said, didn’t I? The boss wants to talk to you, come on, it’s been hours since he sent me out. He said you would like the job offer.”

Hugo thought about whether or not he wanted to refuse. He could beat up this guy, easy. Even without his extra stats in strength and dexterity, the combat training he had gone through would help him take this guy down. The question was whether or not he could take on the next guy they sent. That was more iffy. The fox gang had their share of soulmarked.

It would be easier to just listen to their job offer and politely decline. Without the backing of the academy, he couldn’t afford to anger a gang that big.

“Of course, we shouldn’t keep the boss waiting,” Hugo said, “Who is the boss anyway?”

“The only name you are going to get is the boss. Let’s go already,” he said gruffly.

They walked from the docks straight north. As they walked, Hugo tried to remember everything he knew about them. He didn’t really know what exactly the fox gang did. They were always this amorphous entity that he tried to avoid growing up. But now that he had a summons from one of the gang leaders, he wished he knew more about their inner workings.

He knew the broad strokes of course. They shook down businesses for protection money. They ran drugs like ravim and blue silk. The worst hedge mages ended up with the gang. He was pretty sure that they were involved in the train heist at the beginning of the year. Basically all he knew is that they operated like most gangs, and they were greedier than they were smart. Not a good combination.

They ended up at a verivorst restaurant and headed downstairs. Apparently the criminal organization had their headquarters underneath a blood sausage eatery. He promised himself to never eat here. Who knows what they mixed in.

They passed several people wearing fox masks, but it was easy to tell when they had arrived at the boss. He was wearing the same white mask, but his had a vibrant red border. He was holding court in a large room, various people waiting their turn to talk to him.

When it was his turn, Hugo was pushed forward.

“Uh, hello? I understand you wanted to talk to me?” Hugo hesitantly said.

“Yes, of course. I heard that our neighborhood had a new soulmarked. And one with a formation domain too. A very welcome addition to our community,” the boss said.

A wave of dizziness passed through Hugo before he realized what was going on. He wasn’t having vertigo, the shadows in the room were moving. The boss must have the shadow domain and was showing off. It was working, Hugo was properly intimidated.

“Hello sir,” Hugo said.

“Ho ho. So polite. No need for honorifics here. My kits all call me by name. ‘The Boss’,” he said and laughed at his joke.

Kits. A baby fox was called a kit, and ‘the boss’ called his underlings kits. He was trying to be cute. It wasn’t working.

“I called you here to listen to a job offer. The nobles of this city do not live up to their name. They are greedy money grabbing sharks. We are too, if I am being honest. But they have failed their responsibility to the city. We must redistribute the wealth a bit, otherwise no one will look out for the poor. You are being given the chance to make a difference.”

The stress of the moment was making his head hurt. But the boss had a point about the gang caring for the poor. Hugo had heard of the gang’s soup kitchens and how they built houses in the narrows. He was being offered a chance to be a criminal so he could help those efforts. He was strangely tempted at the offer. He had always considered himself an honest and stalwart citizen, but he had lost his respect for nobility. After seeing how the children of nobles treated those that they thought were beneath them, he no longer felt bad when they got robbed.

“I want you to join our little family. As a soulmarked, I would give you preference, and I think you could earn a mask within a year,” the boss said.

“Your offer is very tempting, sir, but as much as I respect the fox gang, I am a small man with meger ambitions. I cannot accept your kind offer. I would be happy to pay a toll for the pleasure of visiting though,” Hugo said. His face started turning red. He had no idea why he was trying to be so polite and officious. The stress was getting to him.

The boss laughed and said, “What? You got a better job offer, Mr. Drop out? Somebody save you a spot on a gleaner team?”

Gleaners. Hugo shivered. It seemed like an innocent enough profession. Their business model relied on following high ranked harvesters and picking up the manastones and shards that were too small for the rankers to pick up. Minimal profit for minimal risk.

At least that was the lie they told when recruiting for gleaners. The reality was that gleaners often died at a higher rate than new harvesters. It was true that the gleaners didn’t have to fight monsters, and only had to collect manastones. But what often happened is that the high ranked monsters the harvesters were after would find the gleaners before the harvesters. With the minimal protection that the gleaners were given, they would often die before they even knew what had happened.

As desperate as his father had been at the end, he had never considered gleaning. It was a profession that would take anyone, soulmarked or not, and kill them in equal amounts. Hugo never wanted to be that desperate that he would consider being a gleaner. There is no such thing as a rich gleaner, they all died before they got to that point. A wave of panic swept over him at the thought.

“What would I have to do?” Hugo said, knowing that even the question would feel like a commitment to this man.

The boss smiled widely. He stood up and started giving him a tour. The restaurant above was just a cover for their extensive criminal network. The downstairs was much larger than the building above. There was a ravim distillery, a loanshark division, a room for the hedgies to practice, an armory for their protection racket, and a lockpicking training room. The rats in the corners of each room gave credence to the idea that the gang controlled them. The boss left Hugo in the lockpicking room for a bit, telling him that his new role in the organization would involve redistributing wealth.

...

Hugo started swearing as soon as he smelled fresh air on the walk home. What had he been thinking? He should have said no as soon as they mentioned working for the fox gang. The boss had been so persuasive though, at the time it seemed like the only choice. But now he felt like a fool.

This was the worst idea ever. He wasn’t a criminal, he was going to get caught. Even debt bondage was better than being killed by the shimmer corps.

He had a sudden thought. The boss had been playing with shadows, showing off his domain. That meant that he probably had high charisma. The boss hadn’t really been that convincing, he had just been leaning on his stat. The realization sent cold shivers down his spine. He had been manipulated from the moment he saw the fox boss.

That was probably why they had told him so much during that first meeting. He was complicit now. If he tried to leave, to escape the gang, they would have to kill him so he didn’t talk.

The realization that he had been duped would do him no good. It didn’t change his situation. His only choice was about what to do now. Maybe he could be an informer? Surely the corpsmen would appreciate the help in wiping out the fox gang.

Then again, he had heard of a few informants through the years. He didn’t know of any that were still alive. The city’s underground was impossible to hide from.

He considered turning informer anyway. Maybe his sacrifice would make a difference in the city. The fox gang did whatever they wanted, extortion and drug running. The world would be a better place without them in it.

He shook his head. He had to be honest with himself. He had walked into that meeting with the fox boss on his own. Before any charisma had a chance to work on him. He wanted to be honest and good, but he wanted to be alive even more.

Author Note:

This is why no one adds stat points to charisma. It's mind control. Hugo is beating himself up about it, but magic that affects your perception of them is hard to fight against. I have always thought that classic D&D bards should always have the chaotic evil alignment.