Next Morning:
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"If it's not too much trouble, I would very much like to receive a receipt."
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Palmer gave him a puzzled look, not least because, despite an otherwise impeccable appearance, she had the bleary eyes and tightly clutched cup of coffee that suggested, given the hour, that she hadn't expected to receive visitors this early in her work day. But Verad had risen early, dressed early, and begged leave for an escort to the main office early, as the befuddled guard sharing a brief smoke with the office workers could attest. He was bright-eyed and bushy-bearded, and giving Palmer the expectant expression of a man who  believed the woman in front of him should have all the answers.
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"A receipt?" She repeated, to which Verad gave an eager nod. "I - certainly, I suppose that's reasonable. Was there a purchase that wasn't accounted for at the commissary?"
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"Oh, no, no,"he said, chuckling and waving his hand. "No, I haven't been sneaking any more feasts or anything of the sort, I assure you, honest as an Ixal!" He held up his hand as if swearing an oath, and pressed on before she could question the saying. "Rather, this is something I needed to provide my former creditors to show that the transfer of my debt had been finalized, and that they had received appropriate compensation for the sale. I gather that there was a discrepancy in the amount they received."
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Stifling a yawn, Palmer took a long gulp of coffee before she responded, heaving a satisfied sigh once she was done. "It's unusual, Ser Bellveil, but I can look around in my files for something that might suffice, or have my secretary draft a document stating that the contract was finalized. May I ask what brought this on?"
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"Oh, well," Verad glanced away, shrugging his shoulders, an abashed look on his face. "I just happened to talk with Ser Resu after our meeting, that's all. Just before he left. There was just - well, it's nothing, I'm certain."
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"No, please, go on. If there's a problem I can certainly try to resolve it."
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"You see, he happened to mutter something about - well, I cannot say I understand the particulars, I understand debt-trading is a subtle business and all, but." He inhaled, bracing himself, unwilling to speak ill of his benefactor. "He muttered something about me not being worth the effort 'even if I never paid half-a-gil'. His words, you see."
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Not quite comprehending, Palmer rubbed her chin and furrowed her brow. Without being interrupted, Verad continued. "And I remember him being very surprised by the scale of my debt and my situation - I did mention that the creditors would accept any sum - but I'm afraid he might have taken that to mean they would accept no sum. So, if there's some sort of receipt showing they've received some form of payment, I just wanted to put my mind at ease." He laughed, the sound high and bemused. "After all, imagine if he hadn't been paying creditors at all! Who knows who would come to collect? Badgering the guards and all that, you see?"
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For the briefest of moments, the horror of realization flicked across Palmer's eyes, though the rest of her expression remained unchanged. It was all Verad could do not to shout "Aha!" and leap upon the desk in preparation for the dénouement. Such things were unbecoming too early in the game. She kept her composure well, that was certain, dropping her hand from her face, though both palms gripped her coffee mug tight enough to keep it from trembling.
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"Let me see what I can find," she said, doing, in Verad's estimation, an admirable job of keeping the strain out of her voice. "Personally, though, I can assure you that Ser Resu has done an excellent job of maintaining good relations with creditors, and if there has been any kind of discrepancy in their receipt of payment, it is no doubt an honest mistake."
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"All the same," Verad replied. "It would put me at ease to have a receipt. If I could see that in the next few days? After all, as Ser Resu would attest, the amount of money I owed, well! It was substantial. I would hate to see the company be liable in any way for it. But I should be on my way to my shift." He bowed, and was in enough of a good mood to make his usual exaggerated flourish, before stepping out of the office and closing the door behind him.
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Once outside, he counted to three,but the satisfying sound of a coffee mug crashing against the wall was nowhere to be found, and all he received for the delay was the secretary giving him a curious look. Disappointing.
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A Few Days Later, Before The Tour:
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Things proceeded smoothly from that point, so much so in fact that Verad feared his plan, far from being dubious as originally intended, might border on something approaching effective. Shortly after his meeting with Palmer, he had requested to be transferred out of the dressing stations and back into the mining teams again. This occurred without incident, though not without a fair bit of mockery that he should shave his beard, lest he risk it being injured again. He bore the insults with the gravity suited to his station, and spent the next few days in the mine, straining himself as little as he was able.
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The firesand was more difficult, but Wahlbert had been as accommodating as he could manage. He did not control access over demolitions, which were kept under lock and key and heavy guard in the third of the main office buildings. He did, however, have access to the requisition forms through which a crew could request extra stock in the event of a particularly stubborn boulder or a tunnel that refused to budge, forms that were available for a mere extra week on the leader's contract. It was with no small amount of pleasure that Verad watched as they forged their crew leader's signature to acquire a few blasting caps, dozen or so sticks of firesand, and a detonator.
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From there it was a matter of waiting. Verad had given Miss Covington a specific date upon which she should tour the facility; he had to hope that she would arrive as planned, and that no rescheduling would occur. He had that day, and that day alone, to act. Any sooner, and he could not guarantee success, any later and the point would likely be moot.
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Thus on the anticipated day, he and Gliding Bone begged leave from their crews to go to the infirmary, complaining of stomach aches from bad ziz the night before. It was an easy enough lie for the workers to believe, enjoying the sight of a man eating better than they and suffering for it, and left under their own power. Once they were out of sight of the crew, they turned left in one tunnel, rather than right, heading deeper into the mine and down old shafts scouted in the days before, to retrieve their equipment.
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"You'll be all right down here?" asked Verad as they peered down one unlit shaft, only the vague glow of a pilfered lantern lighting their way. "I couldn't stomach the thought of you being lost here forever, to become little more than a ghost haunting the dreams of miners, you know."
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"I don't know the tunnels well, but I know them better than you, and you don't have to make it so dramatic." Bone harrumphed as he picked past a stray piece of rock, keeping his head low and his upper body stooped. "How do you even know about this tunnel, anyway?"
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"Wahlbert, same as the equipment. Gave me the directions, and how to use the equipment properly." Verad patted a small scroll tucked into the loose belt of his trousers. "He has his own role to play as well, while we're down here. All to be explained when it's over, of course."
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"Of course. Telling me now while I'm stuck here in the dark waiting to push a lever would be unfair, wouldn't it?" They reached a dead-end in the dark, after a long curve in the tunnel, and unlike others, it appeared to be man-made, hastily covered with rocks and boarded up long after the fact. "What you have Ser Blood doing makes sense. And I don't know what you mean about levers, but I suppose this isn't it. So why this?"
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"Ah, well, of course it wouldn't make immediate sense if you did not see the particulars of the plan in the grand, overarching sense that I do," said Verad, gesticulating broadly before propping up the lantern on a nearby rock. "But at least allow me to illuminate you. I have already mentioned, of course, that a wealthy investor of some acquaintance of mine will be here today to tour the facility, have I not?"
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"You have."
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"And I have already mentioned that, as a man of business, I know that when one wishes to impress an investor, one must put on a great display of potential, have I not?"
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"You have, as little sense as it makes."
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"Ah, but it makes all the sense! For with an investor here, I have no doubt that Madam Palmer will seek to put on a display of the mine's still-remaining output, and that the day's load will be outside and ready for inspection." Verad lifted his index finger up, past his eye, as if reaching a conclusion. "And it is for that reason that we are here in the dark with explosives!"
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Silence, and a flat look from Bone. "That doesn't make a Twelve-damned onze of sense."
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"Ah, but it will,and you will see! But first let us place the caps and arrange the detonator." Verad unrolled the set of instructions from his belt. Following them was simple enough, and refreshingly free of any mishaps that might cause accidental detonation.
The lack of failure nagged at him, however. There was yet nothing dubious to this plan, nothing overly complicated, nothing that would fail. He did not doubt that his allies in the Harbingers would free him, that his levers would succeed, and that Wahlbert would succeed. This was the only place where there could be any failure! And there was none to be had. It was this lack of complication that led Verad to speak, halfway through connecting wires.
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"You know," he said, glancing between the wire and the instructions to make sure he did not meet an explosive end, "I never did tell you about some of what we found on that bill of sale, did I? Back in the Tangle, the first time my assistants went out there, I mean."
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"Huh?" Bone looked up, distracted by the careful arrangement of a blasting cap. "No, you did, didn't you? You said it was from my debt reduction plan."
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"Yes," said Verad. "Yes, that's quite so. It was a debt reduction plan for you." He connected the wire to the detonator and set it down. "And yet it had many of my promissory notes listed as part of your assets."
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Gliding Bone was not so practiced at maintaining a poker face as Palmer had been; even if the lantern had gone out and left the tunnel in darkness, his flinch would have been visible. "It was . . . it was a kidnapping, a robbery." he said. "They just took whatever they wanted, and made the bill of sale after, didn't they?"
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"Mm. That's so, and I suspect anyone would believe that. There's no reason to suggest otherwise, after all." Verad took one of the firesand sticks they'd procured and placed it near a likely gap in the rocks. "I certainly wouldn't. One might wonder whether or not the papers could have been forged so quickly, and known the contents so thoroughly, without having been appraised of them in advance.
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"But it's a minor question, easily overlooked. I certainly wouldn't gainsay it, out there - " He pointed towards the other end of the tunnel. "When all is said and done. I wouldn't. And I wouldn't sabotage this plan for the sake of a bad mood over it either. But in here, at least, in the dark? I would like to know."
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There was a silence between them for a few moments as they connected firesand sticks to caps, caps to their detonator. "You always left that strongbox out there, right in the street. Always, every week. Said nobody would think it would have anything worth stealing. But I knew. The other vendors as well. We knew there was money in there." Bone tied a pair of sticks together and jammed them in the rock. "When you were on that vacation, it was easy to force the lock, take a look, security or no. I wrote it all down, and passed it off to Resu as mine." He shrugged. "I just didn't expect to get taken the day I tried to take, you know?"
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Verad pursed his lips,and tested the connection between wires and caps. "Why?"
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"Debts."
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"We both have debts."
"I have debts. And a family. You have a number you're trying to make for people who don't even want it. No family I know of. None you've spoken of. Am I wrong?"
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". . . You're not.But even so, there must have been other ways."
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"There were. I was taking them. I would have gone elsewhere, if not Resu. Perhaps that Burning woman, or someone else."
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"You couldn't!"He started to shout, but managed to drop his voice lower, remembering himself. "They're profiting from your debts, exploiting you! Legal or not."
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Bone slammed his fist into the rock, though he kept his voice at a whisper. "And how are you so different? What's half of your stock? Bought from failed craftsmen and broken merchants at a fraction of the gil they cost, sold for a fraction more. And you laugh about it, and your customers laugh with you."
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The Duskwight could not have looked more offended if Bone had reached forward and slapped him. "I have never stooped so low as to sell people."
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"But you profit from them all the same."
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A clatter at the end of the tunnel, the sound of stone on stone and stone again, silenced both of them before Verad could offer a retort. Grabbing the lantern, he blew it out before any signs of light could be see too far down the hall. He then pocketed a pair of loose sticks of firesand, and pressed a small vial into Gliding Bone's hand before the man could protest.Â
"Here," he hissed. "Do not move nor make a sound. Once the commotion is gone, use the vial - it's a bell's worth of lantern oil, roughly. Finish the job, and only when the oil is gone should you detonate the charges."
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"What about - "
"I will get you home. Do not call out after me." He turned to leave before Bone could protest, making his steps loud, making sure they echoed.
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Feeling his way along by a hand on the wall, he walked some dozen yalms or so before he could see fresh lamplight further along the shaft. He braced his eyes to adjust to the glow before stepping forward, calling out "Ah, hallo? Anybody there? I do apologize, but I am just the slightest bit out of sorts." When there was no response, he continued. "Hah, I was trying to reach the ore separator, and found myself in the old tunnels. Silly of me, really."
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"Lost, huh?"There was less of a chill in his skin than Verad expected when he heard Agid's voice, and the same when he saw the man round the corner, lantern in one hand, dagger in the other, gleaming gold in the light.
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He feigned lifting his hand to block out the glare in order to look backwards over his shoulder. From this distance, Bone could not be seen.
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"Yes, silly of me,really."
"You said that already."
"D-did I? Hah, my apologies. Haven't the slightest idea how people get used to these tunnels, but -"
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"Please, Bellveil," said Agid, voice weary. "Cut the bullshit. What have you been planning?"
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"Hm? What do you mean - " Verad seemed to notice the firesand for the first time. "Oh, these! Duds! My crew leader asked me to take them back - "
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"Near the separator? Not to explosives storage?"
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"I, well, when you put it like that - "
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"Your debt-trader and I had a chat, a day or two ago." The subject change caught Verad off-guard, and Agid gave him no time to speak. "He wanted to know what I had done with his sister, why she had gone missing for two days. And I thought it was strange, you know?" He held the lamp up near his face, the light giving the burn on his cheek and jaw a rough texture, as he peered at Verad. "How did he know that? He was right, I mean, I kidnapped her, but how did he know? We never did find the men that killed my lieutenant and took her back."
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"That, hah, that is a very strange coincidence, is it not? That he could guess like that - "
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"I asked him, and he said you had suggested it to him. Now how would you know that, I wondered? Just some fresh debt-slave."
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Verad wished very badly that his uniform had a high and open collar, that he might tug it in worry. "Well, you know, we'd just had that conversation, and I was a little cross, it was quite the shot in the dark, you see - "
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"You've been working with them, haven't you? The bitch in the mask and whoever killed my men and broke up my camp." Agid drew closer, one step, another, another, the expression on his face mild. "And now Palmer's talking about a tour with investors, and I find you here, lost, with some firesand sticks."
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"C-come now, ser, surely you must - "
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Agid moved suddenly, and Verad heard a soft, whispering sound before he felt something strike him. The security chief was much, much closer, looking him in the eye. "I warned you all to stay out of my business," he murmured, as if apologetic, using a newly-freed hand to pluck the firesand sticks out of Verad's slackening grip. "What do you think will happen to the investors without these now?"
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The sensation of a blade driven into his side was cold and familiar.
Verad Bellveil's Profile | The Case of the Ransacked Rug | Verad's Fate Sheet
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
Current Fate-14 Storyline:Â Merchant, Marine
