Interlude 7

City of Selrom

Eris Empire Protectorate of Valtyr

Merchants' Guild Headquarters

Sseth looked out the window, and wondered how many of the people down there in the city, moving around like ants, realized just how fragile the status quo they oh so cherished was. Far more than most would admit, surely. Still, he doubted most of the population was even remotely aware of what fragile edifice they were on top of.

As the head of the merchants guild he had a far better view than most of the cracks in the system. To be fair, it was because he was ruthless about exploiting them, but still. He could see the fault lines forming, and for one he knew that even he could not hope to close them.

It might surprise people to learn that despite his reputation for creating trouble and making off like a bandit, he'd actually been a stabilizing influence on the world. It wasn't out of a deep seated sense of morality or anything either, it was simply that a prosperous city would produce far more money than a looted ruin, if you were willing to look beyond the immediate future. And stable, growing nations immensely more so than a hundred squabbling dukedoms trying to strangle each other.

So he'd very quietly influenced events over his many, many years as the head of the merchants guild. Hell, even before he'd founded it! Sometimes a few simple bribes did the trick, others he had to be more overt. And on a few occasions, outright violence had been the only option. Contrary to what people thought, the merchants guild didn't have a military because it had any delusions about becoming some kind of government. It was primarily used as a pressure and counterbalance to preserve equilibrium that made the modern world possible.

Sseth sighed, and turned away from the window, grabbing a bottle from his desk, and poured himself a generous measure of the whiskey contained within. He looked at the portrait above his chimney, and toasted to it.

If only your successors still shared your vision, we wouldn't be in this mess, he thought as he looked at the portrait of the Eris Empire's First Empress. Meeting her -and crossing swords with her- had been some of the most exciting and dangerous times of his obscenely long life. He was old. Even by the standards of Alcheryos, where anyone who could afford it would use magic to extend their lifespan into the centuries, provided they did not hail from the many species, like elves, who already lived that long by default, he was incredibly old. Old enough that he had seen the God of Fire before he'd departed, leaving his Custodians to guard this world and its inhabitants, although only his closest confidants knew that. Originally he had used his wealth to buy the best treatments to retain his youth, and some of them had been…less than tasteful, to say the least. After all, immediately after the Dawn of Flames, the only discipline which could extend one's life was necromancy. But he had long since become powerful enough that those were no longer necessary. As a matter of fact, his natural healing had become so powerful he got younger faster than he could age! He had to regularly use special artifacts to retain his stately appearance and not revert back to his early twenties.

Of course, the painting didn't answer, and he downed the drink far more quickly that such a fine example of liquor probably deserved. He looked at the glass, and grimaced, before putting it aside. He didn't have the luxury to get drunk, not today. There was far too much to do.

The Eris Empire was...agitated. Not by its people, but something was happening. He could feel it in his guts. Something, an unseen force, was sweeping through its upper layers, like a vast symphony, preparing and coordinating some grand event. Yet there was...dissonance. Some things were out of place, like if a beat had been missed, but the symphony was going on regardless, seemingly unaware of the growing discord within it.

It all formed a pattern. Grand, magnificent, and carefully laid down. Had he not been there when its weaving had begun, he would probably have missed it. As it was, he could see it with a clarity that would have probably horrified its original creators.

The Order to Restore Humanity was moving. Their agents were moving, old debts and alliegances were being called in, and all of it was waiting for something, like racers waiting for the gunshot of the starter pistol.

He gazed at his office, seeing something far different than the tastefully decorated, artifact covered room, before shaking his head. He had correspondence to attend to.

He sat down at his desk, and began the process of going through non-priority messages. He got so many of them on a daily basis that he couldn't keep up, and regularly had to prune it by using extremely costly time dilation spells. These messages were already weeks to months old, by the gods!

He started reading them, drafting short replies when warranted, and setting them aside for his secretaries to fill them out with all the proper niceties and see that they made it to their intended destination, before stopping. A letter from Elkaryos? That was odd. The Master Merchant rarely reported in outside of his quarterly report. He was, after all, extremely independent -there was a reason the dark elf had been his protégé!-, and wasn't lacking in confidence to say the least.

Sseth opened the letter...and his eyebrow rose. Elkaryos writing to him was rare. Recommending two persons for recruitment into the merchants guild? That bordered on the unprecedented.

The merchant read the letter, and burst out laughing. Two young women, both adventurers, had managed to bamboozle one of his brightest pupils? No kidding he was eager to have them recruited!

He smiled, before reading the information once more. So, a link dungeon...that was dangerous. Potentially enormously profitable of course, but still, dangerous. Everyone would be scrambling to control it, and given the current instability of the Asarian Kingdom, he for one wouldn't bet on them retaining control of it, at least not without someone else throwing their hat into the ring. The Hegemony, maybe? No, they'd be too busy taking a bite out of the Republic while it was distracted. Gorromar wouldn't intervene, and the Far Reach couldn't even hope to organize into a coherent army, let alone launch an expedition halfway across the continent. That made this bet a…risky one, as his protégé was aligned with the Asarians.

Still, Elkaryos was on the ground, and had far better local information that he did. And even if that wasn't the case, he trusted his Master Merchants. They might make bad investments from time to time, but if he prevented them from doing so they would never learn to make even greater deals in the future.

He began drafting his replies, and this one he took the time to fully write down. He then turned towards the massive block of crystal and machinery inlaid into his desk -computer, the artificers called it-, and began looking up the names of the young ladies recommended to him. One of the advantages of being effectively the richest person on the planet, as well as probably the greatest land owner, albeit through several cover identities and front corporations, was that the WMC gave him something of a privileged pipeline to their own archives. It still wasn't perfect -the 'digitalization' process was well under way, but paper was still how most domain boundaries and land portions were recorded-, but it was practical. Especially as the WMC, while officially only dealing in high level affairs and not bothering its court with anything short of patents of nobility and land disputes, actually recorded a gigantic amount of data, much of it voluntarily sent to them for archival and safekeeping, to guarantee they were the original documents and not tampered with.

His search for the elf turned up nothing of note. Birth certificate, hunting license, a note that she was wanted in her home country with a rather anemic bounty, and a few reports saying she might have been connected to a few criminal affairs. The one for the human however...

He whistled softly as he looked at her record. Knight-Valiant, decorated half a dozen times for exceptional valor, including gaining her title for rescuing a princess of the Eris Empire from certain death. A list of commendations by officers longer than his arm, and a scion of house Aubétoile. He'd known that house for as long as it had existed -he'd even gotten into a fight with its founder, Océane, an extradimensional-, and its sons and daughters were not to be taken lightly. Then her record just stopped. There was a mention of a duel, and nothing until her ascension to baroness thanks to Elkaryos. As in, absolutely nothing. Not even mentions of further crimes, or existence, it was like she'd vanished from every record or database the WMC had. He sat back in his seat, and rubbed his chin in thought. This looked like it might turn out even more interesting than he'd previously thought.

He looked at the door, then at the pile of paperwork on his desk. The decision wasn't exactly hard.

He got up, took his vest, and exited his office. It had been forever since he had gotten to do a bit of detective work himself, and put the fear of the merchants guild into some bureaucrats. Time for him to get a bit more hands on. After all, if one of his most brilliant protégés thought those young women were worth it, the least he could do was at least take a look! And if it just happened to take him out of his office and the ever mounting pile of paperwork, well that was just a handy bonus!

*****

Elkaryos paced back and forth in his office. To say that the last few days had been stressful was like saying the Charter Ocean was a wee bit deep.

Hearing about the dungeon town he'd invested so much into being under siege had been bad. Being told that the dungeon core had almost been kidnapped and blown its own dungeon to avoid capture? He was fortunate that he was a calm fellow by nature or he'd have had a heart attack!

The news had also swept Darthar like a wildfire, but fortunately the count had followed his advice and not only done a public announcement ahead of the rumors, but also finished it by pointing out that the dungeon was already rebuilding, greater than ever! That had allayed much of the growing panic in the merchants that had thrown their riches into the caravans sent to Rebirth to exploit the dungeon's bounty.

There had been some instability -in times of war there always was- but the city guard had stomped down on any sparks immediately, and restored order within a few hours. But he had little doubt that if news like that kept coming, things were going to get worse. Darthar was a powder keg at the best of time, too much money in play and too many competing interests with scores to settle, alongside very little to any scruples made for an unstable combination. But what worried him was what would happen to Rebirth. Whatever instability would happen in Darthar would be amplified a thousandfold in Rebirth, and with the Republic looking determined to try and take the town, it wouldn't be much of a stretch for some of the soulless, greedy bastards calling themselves merchants to try to take over the town and cut a deal with the Republic.

Foolish of them of course, if the Republic was willing to be pragmatic this mess wouldn't be happening. Their senate would settle for nothing less than total control of the town, and eradicate any local force likely to challenge that control, including pesky merchants with delusions of godhood. Question was, how many of them realized it?

Not many. Well, most of them would know the possibility existed, but with so much potential money, so much power at stake, they probably would simply ignore it. Gods knew he'd seen people delude themselves for far less!

Allya and Pyn -and Melia of course- were going to need reinforcements if they were ever to retain their hold on the town, especially against internal enemies. The Republic's own assaults the Kingdom itself would help with, but given the degree of infighting within the kingdom, royal troops intervening in a purely internal affair was…unlikely.

Still, they had done a superb job of cutting deals with powerful allies and making friends. That would buy them some time. Time for his reinforcements to make their way there.

It was problematical, in many ways, as while he was part of a great deal many organizations which, for all intents of purposes, had their own private armies, said armies were also usually extremely busy, and there was only so much he could skim from them in terms of troops before his commitment to the group rather than his own self interest came into question. One of the solutions was to make his own interests that of the group as well, but that was going to prove a tricky proposition. Still, he had a few ideas, and he'd instructed Melia to support any motion in the town's council to favor the rise of industry there. If the dungeon rebuilt its mineral deposits, and they could get a genuine raw material production -and refining- operation going, he could convince the Omega Consortium to step in.

The Merchants Guild…that was up to Sseth, really, more than anything else.

As for the Syndicate, Allya's professed and public views for equality and against slavery, plus her diverse council, with dwarves, dark elves, beastkin and hell, even dating a wood elf, had made it far less skittish than it otherwise would be. The Syndicate existed to serve and protect dark elves, period, and the Aubétoile family had been somewhat distant friends of the Syndicate for centuries. There had been some worry in his correspondance that the baroness being effectively kicked out of the dynasty was not a good sign where this was concerned, but the woman's utter and total disregard for such factor as species purity and total lack of discrimination and laid much of those concerns to rest.

He'd already managed to negotiate an entire platoon of Syndicate warriors to come to the town's aid, and he was well on his way to convincing the Syndicate that opening an official operation there would be in the best interest of the dark elves. After all, a town built between several empires, on several trade routes and on top of a link dungeon? There was no greater place to set up shop in, and serve as a central point to serve dark elf interests throughout the continent!

He just had to hope that the young women who had outsmarted him would do the same to their enemies long enough for his contacts to help them.