Epilogues
Just After:
With the danger past, they stopped to heal the wounded, summoning Airka over the linkpearl to assist those workers still too badly hurt to flee and assist in closing Verad's wound entirely. As they left the camp, Ziuz'a noticed Wahlbert sitting by himself, watching a few coblyns ravenously break down the metal components of the barricade. He approached the man with a puzzled expression. "Don't care to run out of here?"
Wahlbert gave him an appraising look before shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head. "No," he said, upending his flask in the hopes there would be even a little more firewater remaining. "Let me watch them take it down, and then I'll hobble along with all the rest."
Ziuz'a took this as explanation enough, and left to assist Airka in healing. Wahlbert noted that the surrendering guards had fled the scene as well, but given the scale of the operation, was sure the Blades would be along to investigate them. And the workers would have many stories to tell. Just had to hope that the Blades they told them to were honest.
The group left, Burning carrying the injured Verad over her shoulder like a rescued damsel in distress. He was mortified enough, despite his injury, to kick his legs back and forth, helpless. It didn't improve the image.Â
On their way out, they spied Palmer, hair undone, wandering around the broken camp like a refugee fresh out of the Calamity. Faye stopped in front of her. "On further consideration," she said, her voice sweet as candied venom, "We have decided not to invest in the company."
She received a nod in response, but Palmer only seemed to hear her from a great distance. "Of . . . of course," she said. "There will be other - other opportunities, I assure you."
Faye's smile matched her voice, and they left.
Wahlbert was true to his own word, and watched for an hour as the coblyns removed the barricade until naught but wooden planks remained, and these they tore up for the nails. On a whim, he tossed his empty flask to them, and he had a brief glimpse of the cheery cartoon coblyn on its side before a real one snatched it up in its maw and crunched it apart. Coblyns were more fond of raw ore, but he couldn't imagine how long this swarm had been down there, and how hungry they'd been.
He made his way to the offices, finding them abandoned as the camp, save for Palmer, sitting against the side of the main building, staring south, towards Ul'dah's high towers. Watching for a moment, he only spoke up when he feared the woman was broken. "Millie."
The phrase snapped Palmer out of her reverie, and for the first time she seemed to take in her surroundings in earnest. "O-oh, Wahlbert, I'm - you're still here."
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you run?"
"Meant to." He shuffled forward. "But I didn't think your father'd be pleased if I just left you to your own."
"Papa . . . right, yes." She placed her head in her hands, but there was no sobbing, no tears that Wahlbert could see. "It's all gone now."
"That's so."
"I just - I wanted to keep it going. It was his."
"Mm." He made his way towards her and helped her up to her feet.
"There's - the investors are going to want a return. The shipment's gone. I can't - I don't even want to imagine the gil."
"Well," said Wahlbert as he helped her to the gate. "Could always trade the debt."
A Few Days Later
A bump on the road caused Jeresu Resu to snap out of a light sleep with a start, grumbling and grousing as he looked around the environs. The caravan had not yet reached the Shroud, but drew close, the desert having given way to the sparse evergreens that served as precursors of much more grand foliage. The road here was rough, and as he fought to doze off again, another bump rattled his skull.
Beside him, his sister lay curled into a ball, using her hands for a pillow and not in the least perturbed. He envied her in the moment, but she'd always been a heavy sleeper, able to nap through a thunderstorm on the open desert without so much as a twitch. Chuckling to himself, he ruffled her hair slightly, and the movement did not so much as wrinkle her nose.
Once the Miqo'te guards had been distracted by the riot, Jeresu had fled, running to Black Brush Station as fast as his legs could carry him. From there he had hired the fastest chocobo they had to reach Ul'dah, gathered his clothes, sister, and what assets he could carry, and bribed his way onto the first caravan out of Ul'dah.
Extreme, perhaps, but Jeresu was good at seeing the writing on the wall. The workers were going to escape. And then, assuming they did not report him to the Blades for his actions, would involve him in a great deal of calculated vengeance of their own devising. And in either case, what happened to him would happen to his sister as well, and that he could not allow.
He leaned back in his seat, kicking his legs against its underside as he watched the scenery go by. It had been a good run, he admitted, having made a tidy profit from all the work. And this was likely something he'd have done in the next week or so; the creditors had noticed that they weren't getting the pay they said they were.
It was a shame about Palmer, of course; she'd been good business. And Agid would be tough muscle to replace. But he was disloyal muscle, and so that would have had to play out the way it did one way or another. He could handle skimming profits, but kidnapping family was something entirely different.
No, what really rankled him, and the thought made him kick his legs harder against the seat, sending thumps along the entire plank, was the Duskwight. Bellveil. His face scrunched up in a scowl as he remembered the grinning idiot and his big, stupid beard and his stupid grin and his stupid stories, and his stupid, stupid debt that was too good to be true. Who carried that much over their head without losing their thumbs?!
He'd get his, though, Jeresu was sure of that. He'd cut the man's heels to force him to crawl on the ground, so Jeresu could get a look at his face, begging for mercy, before he brought the knife down. He'd drive him into poverty - real poverty, not his "I have rich friends but woe is me I'm so poor and use a rug" poverty. He'd ruin his business, destroy him, bankrupt him -Â
The scowl turned to a blank look of realization, and then a smile. Ah, but it was already done, wasn't it?
Jeresu began to chuckle, which turned into a chortle turned into a laugh turned into a guffaw turned into a cackle. A sharp burst of pain cut through his thigh as his sister woke up and punched him there. "Jer!"
"What?!"
"You're too loud!"
He looked abashed. "Sorry. I was just having a good last laugh, that's all."
"Well quit it, it's stupid."
Just After:
With the danger past, they stopped to heal the wounded, summoning Airka over the linkpearl to assist those workers still too badly hurt to flee and assist in closing Verad's wound entirely. As they left the camp, Ziuz'a noticed Wahlbert sitting by himself, watching a few coblyns ravenously break down the metal components of the barricade. He approached the man with a puzzled expression. "Don't care to run out of here?"
Wahlbert gave him an appraising look before shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head. "No," he said, upending his flask in the hopes there would be even a little more firewater remaining. "Let me watch them take it down, and then I'll hobble along with all the rest."
Ziuz'a took this as explanation enough, and left to assist Airka in healing. Wahlbert noted that the surrendering guards had fled the scene as well, but given the scale of the operation, was sure the Blades would be along to investigate them. And the workers would have many stories to tell. Just had to hope that the Blades they told them to were honest.
The group left, Burning carrying the injured Verad over her shoulder like a rescued damsel in distress. He was mortified enough, despite his injury, to kick his legs back and forth, helpless. It didn't improve the image.Â
On their way out, they spied Palmer, hair undone, wandering around the broken camp like a refugee fresh out of the Calamity. Faye stopped in front of her. "On further consideration," she said, her voice sweet as candied venom, "We have decided not to invest in the company."
She received a nod in response, but Palmer only seemed to hear her from a great distance. "Of . . . of course," she said. "There will be other - other opportunities, I assure you."
Faye's smile matched her voice, and they left.
Wahlbert was true to his own word, and watched for an hour as the coblyns removed the barricade until naught but wooden planks remained, and these they tore up for the nails. On a whim, he tossed his empty flask to them, and he had a brief glimpse of the cheery cartoon coblyn on its side before a real one snatched it up in its maw and crunched it apart. Coblyns were more fond of raw ore, but he couldn't imagine how long this swarm had been down there, and how hungry they'd been.
He made his way to the offices, finding them abandoned as the camp, save for Palmer, sitting against the side of the main building, staring south, towards Ul'dah's high towers. Watching for a moment, he only spoke up when he feared the woman was broken. "Millie."
The phrase snapped Palmer out of her reverie, and for the first time she seemed to take in her surroundings in earnest. "O-oh, Wahlbert, I'm - you're still here."
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you run?"
"Meant to." He shuffled forward. "But I didn't think your father'd be pleased if I just left you to your own."
"Papa . . . right, yes." She placed her head in her hands, but there was no sobbing, no tears that Wahlbert could see. "It's all gone now."
"That's so."
"I just - I wanted to keep it going. It was his."
"Mm." He made his way towards her and helped her up to her feet.
"There's - the investors are going to want a return. The shipment's gone. I can't - I don't even want to imagine the gil."
"Well," said Wahlbert as he helped her to the gate. "Could always trade the debt."
A Few Days Later
A bump on the road caused Jeresu Resu to snap out of a light sleep with a start, grumbling and grousing as he looked around the environs. The caravan had not yet reached the Shroud, but drew close, the desert having given way to the sparse evergreens that served as precursors of much more grand foliage. The road here was rough, and as he fought to doze off again, another bump rattled his skull.
Beside him, his sister lay curled into a ball, using her hands for a pillow and not in the least perturbed. He envied her in the moment, but she'd always been a heavy sleeper, able to nap through a thunderstorm on the open desert without so much as a twitch. Chuckling to himself, he ruffled her hair slightly, and the movement did not so much as wrinkle her nose.
Once the Miqo'te guards had been distracted by the riot, Jeresu had fled, running to Black Brush Station as fast as his legs could carry him. From there he had hired the fastest chocobo they had to reach Ul'dah, gathered his clothes, sister, and what assets he could carry, and bribed his way onto the first caravan out of Ul'dah.
Extreme, perhaps, but Jeresu was good at seeing the writing on the wall. The workers were going to escape. And then, assuming they did not report him to the Blades for his actions, would involve him in a great deal of calculated vengeance of their own devising. And in either case, what happened to him would happen to his sister as well, and that he could not allow.
He leaned back in his seat, kicking his legs against its underside as he watched the scenery go by. It had been a good run, he admitted, having made a tidy profit from all the work. And this was likely something he'd have done in the next week or so; the creditors had noticed that they weren't getting the pay they said they were.
It was a shame about Palmer, of course; she'd been good business. And Agid would be tough muscle to replace. But he was disloyal muscle, and so that would have had to play out the way it did one way or another. He could handle skimming profits, but kidnapping family was something entirely different.
No, what really rankled him, and the thought made him kick his legs harder against the seat, sending thumps along the entire plank, was the Duskwight. Bellveil. His face scrunched up in a scowl as he remembered the grinning idiot and his big, stupid beard and his stupid grin and his stupid stories, and his stupid, stupid debt that was too good to be true. Who carried that much over their head without losing their thumbs?!
He'd get his, though, Jeresu was sure of that. He'd cut the man's heels to force him to crawl on the ground, so Jeresu could get a look at his face, begging for mercy, before he brought the knife down. He'd drive him into poverty - real poverty, not his "I have rich friends but woe is me I'm so poor and use a rug" poverty. He'd ruin his business, destroy him, bankrupt him -Â
The scowl turned to a blank look of realization, and then a smile. Ah, but it was already done, wasn't it?
Jeresu began to chuckle, which turned into a chortle turned into a laugh turned into a guffaw turned into a cackle. A sharp burst of pain cut through his thigh as his sister woke up and punched him there. "Jer!"
"What?!"
"You're too loud!"
He looked abashed. "Sorry. I was just having a good last laugh, that's all."
"Well quit it, it's stupid."
---
A Week Later:
Despite his vehement insistence that he was fine, Airka and Faye's healing having reversed most of the damage inflicted upon him by Agid, Verad was still confined to his room and the company quarters for a day or two after the confrontation, and even when he was allowed out on the streets he wasn't to do anything stressful like peddling. They couldn't understand, of course. The streets of Ul'dah were broken and forlorn without his wares! Who would answer when the people cried out "Where, oh where, can we find dubious goods?" He envisioned men and women gnashing teeth and rending clothes when the call went silent. But his superiors were adamant, and so he stayed away.
It was therefore some time before he could get in touch with Gliding Bone again, and that only when he knew where the man would be. So it was that a week after his freedom, Bone approached where the rug had been in Pearl Lane, wicker baskets on each shoulder, to resume his business. There were, after all, still debts.
He arrived to find a rug in much better shape than the one he had used previously, a nice patch of carpet in the oasis style, as well as a new placard, one he had certainly never made. The writing - "Bone and Family Baskets" - was too neat for his own script, precise to a degree that worried him.Â
Verad was there too, of course, leaning against the wall and grinning from ear to ear, a difficult feat for an elezen, but that hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things. Bone frowned, setting down his baskets. "Did you do this?"
"Mm, well, consider it a donation," said Verad, bobbing his head in concession. "And the sign. You needed one, and I don't - with my offices relocated to the Mist, there's little point in my selling here. You look better without the bandages."
"Yeah, well, the eye healed all right. Said I was lucky, really." He touched the space where his bandages had been. "You look better without the knife-wound."
"Oh, that?" Verad waved a hand. "A scratch. I felt it best to let Agid feel like he was contributing before the true nature of my plan went into motion." He gestured towards the baskets. "But I'm surprised to see you back at work. Didn't your family want to keep you at home?"
"Of course, they were ecstatic. Begged me not to go. But this is my day at work, and I still have debts to pay. Help me organize these?"
They pulled small baskets from large and arranged them in front of the rug. In so doing, Verad pulled out a small slip of paper from his coat. "About the debts, though - here."
"Not poison, is it? Not another scheme?"Â
"Just take the paper!"
Brief silence as Bone took the slip and read it. Then, sputtering. "You can't - no, you can't be - where did you even get this much?!"
"Promissory notes, as you'll recall from my strongbox?" Bone looked abashed, but Verad ignored it. "My comrades were able to recover them during their second excursion in the Tangle. I'm just giving you what you've already taken."
"If you're going to put it like that, then take it back, please." He tried to offer the slip to Verad, who pushed the man's hand back.
"And my days on the rug are now yours, at least until the lease runs out in six months. You'll have much more time to sell your wares. And - "
"No, no more anding. That's enough ands."
"And if you'll come with me, I have something I think you'll find useful."
---
The trip to Verad's warehouse wasn't a long one. Verad rented space where he could afford it and, like his rug, that meant his storage space was in the alleys and byways of Pearl Lane.
"I recall you saying in the past that wicker could be quite expensive to procure." Verad spoke while he walked, moving backwards and facing Bone while keeping pace with the man. "And, during my convalescence, I happened to see a small supply of it in my inventory. It's not much, but I'd certainly like you to have it."
Bone's frown was deep and suspicious. "You're being too kind, you know. If this is a ploy to see a Roegadyn blubber, you're going to be sorely mistaken."
"It's not a ploy, it isn't! I just want to show my appreciation."
That made Bone stop in his tracks. Verad followed suit, and a passer-by stumbled into him. "For what? For stealing from you? For dragging you into the whole mess and getting you enslaved, and stabbed?"
"For keeping faith, and doing the right thing when you needed to," said Verad, righting himself. "Besides, so far in this fracas I've ruined at least three lives, destroyed a business, caused a mass coblyn migration which will doubtless affect other mining companies - legitimate ones - and seen a man get eaten by a couerl. Somebody needs to get rewarded in all this, or I'm going to go mad, and it certainly can't be me."
"You freed the workers though."
"They did that. They and Wahlbert. I just gave them an opening. Would you take the offer?"
"Fine." Bone huffed, marching forward again. "But I'm taking a reward under protest."
"Capital! That's the best way to take it. Now, it's just a bit further."
Verad's warehouse was something of a misnomer. More of a wareflat, by the size, but it housed his goods decently enough, and with minimal threat of theft. "Now, it's in the back next to some old furniture, so it -will- take a bit of digging," Verad said, before turning to see the door, and frowning. "That's odd."
A piece of paper had been plastered to the door, covered in Eorzean script in bright-red ink. Maintaining the frown, Verad pulled the paper off of the wooden surface and glanced it over.
"Verad, you okay?" Bone peered downwards. As he read, the Duskwight's skin changed from a healthy grey to an ashen color, his eyes widening. He let the paper drop from his hands as he scrambled for his keys, fumbling to find the right one for the door. Bone reached down to pick up the loose leaf.
"'Notice of Asset Liquidation'," he read aloud, finding the text familiar. "In accordance with the terms of the contract as defined by Jeresu Resu and the undersigned - " Realization struck. "This's the same bill of sale I had! What's going on here?"
Verad said nothing. The door was open, and the key dangled from its lock. His eyes were wide, his skin pale to the point of whiteness, his mouth open. Bone peeked over the man's shoulder to look inside.
Barren. Desolate. Emptiness. Void. Nothing but bare rock greeted the two men, Verad's wares nowhere to be found. Almost nothing. A gust of wind from outside, let in by the open door, caused a small tumbleweed in the corner to roll across the room.
Seeing this, Verad put on a desperate, brave smile. "Well," he said. "At least they didn't sell the plant."
--fin
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