Author’s Note: Hey everyone! Here is the Work in Progress for Chapter 176 I hope you guys enjoy! :D Also an extra note from me, this WiP is technically twice as long as a typical one. I just felt really excited and so I wanted to send twice the amount as usual! So be warned, this is basically just under half the chapter length for tomorrow! XD
The Transgracian Academy for the Magical Arts. Exhibition Hall. Grand Arcade. Central Thoroughfare. Prosperity Row. Local Time: 2045 Hours.
Emma
I blinked.
Then, I raised a finger.
…
But words refused to leave my mouth despite it already hanging wide open.
I had thoughts.
No.
I had more than thoughts; opinions that boiled over into the memories of trade counsel briefs stretching all the way from the SOC-SCI departments to Weir’s personal office.
Trade had always been a matter of particular sensitivity.
Yet no one could’ve accounted for this eventuality.
Well they did… but… the minutiae was inevitably lost when magic and its consequences were added into the mix.
So I responded the only way I could; a means of preventing Etholin from pursuing a path with only one foregone conclusion.
“Etholin.” I offered politely, warmly even. “I don’t believe this is the right path for both of our realms, at least not without explaining a few—”
“Oh, indeed! How could I be so daft!” He interjected, his eyes darting momentarily towards the watchful gazes of the Merchant Guild’s upper-yearsmen, before landing back on my lenses. “I’ve yet to actually explain the benefits, and the details of such an arrangement! Allow me~” He trailed off, but before I could interject or offer another offramp, the doors behind us abruptly slammed shut, and a book — a sight-seer — was promptly pulled from one of the merchant’s many pouches.
The lights within the lobby quickly dimmed.
Following which, we were effortlessly whisked off to what I assumed to be his elevator pitch, one which landed us straight in the midst of a truly medieval landscape; or at least, what stereotypical conventions of it often depicted. We found ourselves in a dirty run down town beneath a permanently overcast sky, a settlement consisting of stone and mortar buildings scarcely two stories tall overlooking cobblestone roads with open gutters overflowing with brown sludge consisting of god knows what.
I could smell the scene despite it being purely visual.
But that was only the start of the experience.
Looking up, I saw barely a handful of tiled roofs, interspersed between thatched roofing in various states of cleanliness, rot, and utter decay.
The sight seer quickly pushed us forward, away from the random street and towards the town square, where water flowed naturally and divided the entire town in half. There, we witnessed shadowy residents as they grabbed water by the bucket-full, and carted them off either by shoulder-slung yokes, or in carts attached to various beasts of burden.
Overlooking this entire scene was a castle. And not one of those fairy-tale castles either, no. It looked… functional, practical, but gave little consideration in the way of aesthetics or ornamentation; with only a conical wizard’s tower giving off the slightest bit of fantasy to this low fantasy setting.
But that wasn’t the focus it seemed.
No.
Instead, the merchant lord ushered us to the markets, where stalls haphazardly lined what should have been a spacious main street, but whose presence had forced all traffic into a crowded shoulder-to-shoulder free-for-all, with horses and carts clogging the sea of faceless traffic and turning this hell into a complete nightmare.
The merchant lord then quietly gestured at the stalls, pointing out their wares, and speaking with the detached lilt of a documentarian.
“While the typical Nexian perception of a newrealm may be that of mud huts and stick roofs, that anachronistic stereotype is far from accurate. Because as you see, for a realm to have managed the impossible — breaching the space between spaces — one would expect some level of sophistication commensurate with such a worthwhile achievement!” He offered in this sincere, genuinely uplifting tone of voice. Yet the sentiment he preached was anything but. “Here, we see a typical town in a newrealm. Not a city! But a town! A city may even possess a greater degree of sophistication!”
He snapped his fingers, and the whole scene shifted.
The streets were wider here.
Paved somewhat, but still carrying over the same grimy overtures from prior. Just… scaled up in size.
The buildings here actually had facades for instance. Facades of plaster, paint, and glazed mosaics and not much else, but facades all the same.
The markets were larger, with wares and items far more varied than the town, complete with wispy citizens possessing a great degree more ornamentation and design on their otherwise nondescript tunics and robes.
He allowed us to take in the sights, the sounds, as he made sure to emphasize the grand castle at the end of this brick and cobble paved road; an actual castle to write home about now, what with its tall spires, grand keeps, and even a drawbridge gate.
“Yet all of this…” He continued, wistfully. “... all the riches of the capital, overflowing with tributes from the furthest corners of your realm…” The scene switched rapidly between the stalls, even going into grand bazaars and large indoor stores selling anything and everything from spices to weapons to armor and fabrics. “... can scarcely compare, nor compete, with the totality of interstitial trade. Indeed, when set against the full scale of Status Prospera, your newrealm becomes a drop in a practically endless ocean.”
The scene paused, as we moved down street after street, avenue after avenue, through winding paths and twisting corridors, until we finally arrived at a harbor, and a warehouse containing what I could only describe as staple commodities.
Grain stacked high in neat piles, filling entire warehouses from end to end.
Woven fabrics and spunned fibers that filled similar volumes, as the perspective soon shifted outwards to a position high above the harbor.
Finally, we saw at least ten of those warehouses highlighted, as it was clear Etholin was leading to something of a lesson on scale.
Yet the scales being presented here… felt more like the stuff found in an ancient history lesson than anything resembling a figure as weighty or impactful as the growing background music was attempting to incur or curate.
“This is the typical domestic trade volume of some of a newrealm’s most staple products as taken from a single month outside of peak season. Adjusted for the average, though possibly skewed due to some admittedly less than developed realms that fit with the Nexus’ notions of mud huts and stick roofs…” Etholin sighed, before shrugging and moving on seamlessly. “Meanwhile…” His grin grew wider, as warehouses of the same size started to quite literally fall from the sky — like one of those poorly thought out ‘x for scale’ videos, where seemingly random items are drawn up for comparative scale. Soon enough, I saw where he was going with this, as orders of magnitude more warehouses were summoned and dropped in neat piles, creating a clear contrast between the ten or so ‘newrealm’ stacks, and the hundreds piled high next to them, creating an illusion of a bar graph. “This is the typical interstitial trade volume between two adjacent realms of minor importance, as tabulated through the Nexian trade authorities, of course.” He turned to the invisible upper-yearsmen outside of the sight-seer, bowing in the process, before turning back to me.
“However… this is only the start of things.” He spoke ominously, before pulling out towards the main street, down towards the castle itself, up its drawbridge, and deep down into its vaults and coffers.
“Raw trade volume and staple commodities are one thing. Indeed, one could say it means absolutely nothing when compared to this next issue, Cadet Emma Booker. But I needed to show you the scale of the issues at play, before we address the greatest threat of them all.”
He took a deep breath, opening the comically sized vault doors, to reveal a room flush with gold, silver, copper, and a few bits and pieces of what I assumed to be platinum scattered about.
The EVI was quick to guestimate the sizes at play.
These were fundamental base elements we were talking about after all.
So the same constants applied for volumetric analysis and extrapolation.
“Ten thousand tons of silver.” I raised a brow. “And what… four thousand tons of gold?” I offered, garnering the first genuine stutter from the merchant.
“That… that’s precisely how much is being shown… how did you guess—”
“I did some quick maths.” I responded slyly, even taking Thacea and Thalmin by momentary surprise again, before their shock dissipated far quicker than the slack-jawed Etholin.
They were used to the EVI’s quick-maths shenanigans after all.
It took a moment for Etholin to recover. Long enough that the awkward silence became momentarily deafening.
Though, thankfully, that didn’t stop the merchant lord from completely losing his stride, as he cleared his throat with a nod of acknowledgement. “Impressive.” He bowed slightly. “Which makes what I am about to say next all the more jarring I’m afraid.” He spoke apologetically. “Because all of the gold, and all of the silver you see before you.”
“And the copper and platinum.” I added.
“Yes, and the copper and platinum… are worthless.”
The room went silent again.
This was probably where most newrealmers probably had their perspectives shattered, their worldviews destroyed, and their prospects at anything short of a fair and equal standing completely upended right then and there.
However, both this reveal, and its ensuing effects, did little to phase me.
The former was already hinted at courtesy of Ilunor’s reactions to the wealth cube after all.
And the latter?
Well…
16 Psyche would like to have a word with such a paltry sum.
Or more accurately, it would’ve liked to have a word with it, if it wasn’t already mined out.
So I stood steadfast, expecting Etholin’s carefully worded warnings which came through like clockwork.
“As you may have already observed, the Nexus deals only in attuned gold, Cadet Emma Booker. This is because the art of transmutation, now commonplace, has effectively turned the value of what was formerly scarce… into anything but. As a result, all newrealms must face the monumental task of overcoming two major obstacles. The first…” He paused, gesturing to the warehouses ‘outside’. “A trade imbalance of disastrous proportions. For there is nothing a newrealm can offer that the greater adjacencies do not already possess, but inversely, there is everything that the greater adjacencies can offer, that a newrealm would demand without hesitation. The second…” He paused once more, before gesturing towards the ‘worthless’ gold. “Is the medium through which such trades are conducted. Any local currency is to be penned as useless. Any ‘precious’ metal or material is also rendered just as worthless. Thus, a period of conversion must be observed, where a newrealm’s wealth is steadily converted into sums of equivalent value in Attuned currency.”
We were about to reach a crescendo, I could feel it.
“This is where I would like to offer my services, Cadet Emma Booker.” The merchant lord bowed deeply, far deeper than ever before.
“I am willing, if you see fit, to act as your realm’s fiduciary. I shall oversee your realm’s transition. I shall personally see to it that everything is raised from the level of a newrealm, to that of a respectable minor adjacency. I do not offer miracles, I do not promise that you will immediately rise to the ranks of the middling adjacent realms, let alone the preferred adjacencies. However, I promise you that I will sculpt, mold, and shepherd your economy, your industries, your merchants and banks, into that of a respectable contemporary fellow.” The ferret practically beamed, placing his hands by his hips and puffing his chest out in pride.
“And as a gesture of good faith… I am willing to match your realm’s current stores and holdings of gold and silver with my own.”
…
I felt the proverbial record coming to an abrupt screech.
As even Thalmin and Thacea turned to each other in shock, before once more meeting the pattenor’s eyes.
“You heard me right, Cadet Emma Booker. I understand that such offers come with doubt. I know that you of all people are wise enough not to take an offer so flippantly. Therefore, as collateral for placing your realm’s finances into my guiding hand, I am willing to match the entirety of your gold and silver reserves in their attuned equivalents. Free of charge. Free of interest. To be returned without limits or stipulations, all signed in mutual agreement of such an exchange, of course.” He beamed.
But instead of relief, satisfaction, or excitement behind my helmet, there was only pure and unadulterated dread. Not for me, of course, but for Etholin should this actually play out.
Because despite not having the authority to okay it. The mere hypothetical thought was enough to send shivers down my spine.
“Etholin.” I began calmly, politely. “Disregarding everything else so far, and just addressing your latter offer…” I continued, as Etholin leaned in ever closer, as if expecting an excitable — Yes! — from my speakers. “Trust me when I say this, but you really, really don’t want to do this.”
shock as I realized just how ludicrous this all was.
Moreover, I could only begin to imagine how much of a disaster this would be if I even had the authority to okay it.
“Etholin… disregarding everything else… just addressing your latter offer. Trust me… you don’t want to do this.”