The Case of the Ransacked Rug [Story]

[Verad]

Tonight:

 

Jeresu Resu fumbled his key in the lock of his door as he was closing up shop for the evening. While he was normally a practiced door-locker - an expert, some had speculated, to the extent that a few particularly boring individuals had joked that he ought to make a career of that instead of his current profession - his mind had been preoccupied with matters of far greater import, and worry had translated to trembling fingers. The key hit the street outside with the clatter of brass on tile, and he knelt down to pick it up, poking around on hands and knees in the dim glow of Ul'dahn streetlights until he felt it in the grip of his hands.

 

The moment's delay and the turning of his back meant both that his door was still unlocked, and that he did not notice the stranger's approach. Only the soft, sonorous sound of a question, posed from directly behind him, drew his attention, and that with an abrupt start: "Ser Resu?" 

 

The Lalafell stumbled forward, halting just before his nose collided with the door. With a quick hiss of relief, Jeresu took a step back and turned to peer up at the man - Elezen, older gentleman by the look of him, with a heavy white beard contasting against the dark skin of a Duskwight. 'That's - that's me," he replied, glancing from side to side down the street. Even this late, it was a busy enough thoroughfare, with a few stragglers from the day's business returning home with unsold wares, nodding in passing to those on their way to the night markets. He didn't get a sense of a threat, of some assassin unseen among the crowd, waiting to strike following the Elezen's distraction, and so gained a greater sense of his composure. "If it's about a payment, I'm happy to assist during my business hours, but as you can see - "

 

"Ah, yes, I can see!" The Elezen laughed, too brightly by far for what seemed like a very poor joke by Jeresu's standards, and took a step back, placing space between them. Without the benefit of surprise, he seemed harmless, spreading his hands wide and giving a lengthy bow. "And were it about such, I would come another day, I assure you. But I have a much more important matter to discuss, and - " He paused, adopting a shocked look and shaking his head. "Ah, but where are my manners? Verad Bellveil, at your service, and quite literally so. I wish to sell myself to you."

 

Jeresu's eyes narrowed. A borrower and a lender he may well have been, but this was unusual. "If you mean debt-trading and labor, that's not exactly something I deal in." Or at least he amended, it wasn't something he advertised. Openly displaying that he was in the business of buying debts and selling debtors into labor, legal or not, was a quick way to attract unwelcome attention. "Where did you hear that?"

 

Verad waved a hand in a dismissive circle. "I keep - kept - an office in Pearl Lane, and one does hear things. But I'm not wrong, am I? You are in such a trade? I can go elsewhere."

 

A quick shake of his head force Jeresu to brush a few tufts of black hair from his face. "No, you're not wrong, not as such, but - forgive me, maybe I don't understand. You wish to sell yourself? You are, I assume, the debtor?" It only took a small nod from Verad to confirm, and Jeresu chuckled in response. "You're going about this all wrong, then. Tell your creditor to get in touch with me, and we'll work something out, if they're so inclined."

 

"Ah, that won't do," said Verad with a quick tut. "They have relinquished responsibility, and shall not collect. I understand it's a bit odd, but for all intents and purposes I am both creditor and debtor alike." A rustling sound followed, and then a sheaf of papers was produced. Verad knelt down to hand them over. "Here, you can see for yourself."

 

Jeresu took them, eyebrows creased in curiosity, and read the first page, lips moving in a silent habit. Its contents intrigued him, and the second page fascinated. The third made his lips cease entirely. "That much? That much gil, and they're not pursuing you for it. Really." The Elezen nodded, and offered a smile. "Would they negotiate? How much of a sum would they require to - "

 

"I'm sure any amount you offered them would be accepted without complaint," said Verad. "I would, of course, suggest a reasonable sum. I have no desire to swindle them. Ah - " He gestured towards the still open door. "Perhaps we could speak about it inside? Of course, if it's out of your means, I can go elsewhere. A Miss Edge said she could arrange for some good terms."

 

A great deal of sputtering commenced. "Burning Edge?! That coliseum washout? She couldn't manage this kind of sum in a hundred years." Jeresu sighed, and reached up to push open his office door. "Come inside, and let's talk."

 

Verad smiled. "I would be much indebted to you."

 

[align=center]---[/align]

 

After a half-bell's discussion, Jeresu was beginning to regret the possibility of the man being obliged to him in any way. His conversational style was maddening, drifting from topic to topic, none of which were related to the papers. He would comment on the quality of the wood grain in the bookshelves or remark on the portrait of Jeresu and his sister together in one moment, and spend another providing a long, aimlessly rambling story about his days as an auroch-herder in La Noscea. If he had met the man on a street, he'd have broken a gil in half and told him to chase after the other.

 

Yet the papers were legitimate. He could find no evidence that the man's debts were anything but valid, and to see all those zeroes together, changed from nothing to a number by the mere presence of a solitary numeral, suggested the potential for great profits indeed. And so Jeresu endured, suffering Verad's inanities until he felt it time to get to the nuts and bolts of business.

 

Only then did the irritation truly begin.

 

"Liquidating your current stock is fine," said Jeresu, leaning forward on his desk, rubbing his hand roughly enough against his cheek that he was sure it would chafe. "I can have an appraiser sent out to your warehouse to assess the value thereof in the morning. And it certainly would reduce the overall amount of time you would be working. But, Ser Bellveil - "

 

"Verad, please! I insist upon it from friends."

 

"I understand, Ser Bellveil, but if you wish to have your debts traded, you have to work. That's the point. You labor. You would become a debt-laborer, and I can set you up with some very good terms for it. In deference to your age - "

 

"Age?! Thirty-eight is hardly anything, you know."

 

"Of course, of course, I'm sorry," said Jeresu, soothing, astounded that the Elezen could make his beard fluff up like that. "All I'm saying is that younger workers would have more time to pay back the debt, and so the labor wouldn't be as severe. If you wanted to be out of bondage quickly, you'd have to perform some very intensive labor."

 

"Oh, don't I know it." Verad waggled thick white eyebrows in a conspiratorial manner. When this failed to elicit an immediate response, he waggled them again. "After all, it's quite hard work, is it not so?" Jeresu's face remained stubbornly blank. Verad leaned over from the other side of the desk to nudge him with an elbow. "Eh?"

 

"Eh? Eh what?" 

 

"At any rate, I would prefer to avoid being contracted out to other Lalafell. I bear your kind no ill will, of course, but, well, that kind of behavior just doesn't seem appropriate with such a great difference in height, does it?"

 

"Ser Bellveil, what, exactly, do you suppose I would be contracting you for?"

 

"Why, hard labor, of course! I daresay there are a lot of women in Ul'dah who would pay very well for a few hard labors." Verad's grin threatened to split off his head. At this point, Jeresu had been willing to let the matter go as the product of an old man's nonsense. Annoyance, and the quantity of nothings preceded by a something, led him to make a decision.

 

"Ser Bellveil," he went on, opening a drawer in his desk and rifling through for a piece of paper, "You've completely misunderstood the nature of the business. We're not an escort service for the downtrodden." He slapped the paper in front of him, nudging the inkwell by his side towards his opposite number. "But if you'll put in your information and sign here, I can pass your name along to a few other traders, and see if they can't find something you'd find a little more favorable." When Verad seemed to hedge, glancing back towards the front door, Jeresu was quick to go on. "No Lalafell, I can assure you of that."

 

Comforted, Verad jotted down the information requested on the sheet - name, nameday, citizenship, and a few other odds and ends - signed, and collected his papers. "I quite look forward to hearing from them! Oschon guide you." He was quicker to leave than he was to enter, giving the office door a polite slam.

 

Jeresu slumped forward on his desk, and took a few long, calming breaths. Something about the Elezen, most likely the everything, set his teeth on edge. He took little pleasure, in most circumstances, in his job, but there was a certain thrill in him as he tapped against his linkpearl. "Sister? I know it's late, but can we meet? I think I have a big one."

[Verad]

A Day Or Two Later:

 

 

They came for him later in the evening, as he'd suspected. It took longer for them to arrive than Verad had supposed, despite going out of his way to make it easy for them. Lurking around Pearl Lane for as long as he did, he was sure that even if they did not take him, somebody would, whether that be some of the dirtier Blades or a few disgruntled refugees. But he was lucky, and the right people waylaid him before anyone else had the chance, waiting until his back was conspicuously turned to the main street before striking him a hard blow against the back of the head. They were well-practiced, and unconsciousness came mercifully quickly; he only had the vaguest impression that he was being secured and placed out of sight as darkness overtook his vision.

 

He awoke to find himself in a muddy, blurry kind of darkness, the presence of heavy burlap over his eyes, bindings around his his hands and feet, and a gag in his mouth suggesting that they would very much appreciate it if he did not say anything that might attract the rare honest Blade, and if he could do that then things would be much simpler for all parties so involved. Nothing if not an obliging guest, Verad complied, and, save for all the bumps, the trip was much smoother for it.

 

After a time, they pulled the sack away from Verad's face and splashed lukewarm, tepid water in his eyes. Why they did that, he had no idea. To wake him up, he supposed, but between the stinging pain in the back of his head from where he'd been struck and the jostling and rattling of the wagon over every last bump in Thanalan (he assumed it was a wagon, and a poorly-maintained one, given the prevalence of splinters strong enough to laugh at burlap and plunge right through his clothing), there'd been no chance of him being unconscious outside of his initial abduction. Surely, he thought, they could at least have the decency to check before subjecting a person to immersion, but that was routine for you: bringing about sloppy work as much as in kidnapping as it could in retail.

 

Regardless, he found himself wet where he hadn't been, his beard dampened and giving him a look more like a particularly virile rodent than his usual winning features. He had very little time to protest however, being able to do little more before a harsh voice grated against his ear. "He's awake! Unload him."

 

Verad scarcely had time to consider his cover story before he felt hands pulling out his gag, unbinding him, gripping his shoulders and, with what he considered very little delicacy given his reputation and prominence within the city, thrown from what felt like a very high place to collapse into the dirt. "Come on, on your feet. Didn't hit you that hard."

 

This took a bit of doing; Verad found his legs a little weak from sitting in an awkward position for Twelve-knew-how-long, and he could feel dirt caking into his now-wet beard, turning it into a patch of bristled mud. He was torn between wiping this off and rising up, and did poorly at both. Only once he was upright did he finally get the chance to examine his surroundings.

 

They were desert. This much he suspected, but he also found himself in front of a substantial barricade, behind which stood a number of buildings in various states of disrepair. Behind it, a number of what appeared to be workers loitered in the outdoors, giving him no particular notice outside of the occasional bored glances. 

 

The guards bore immediate attention, standing between he and the barricade, hands at their belts and, by coincidence, near the hilts of their swords, bemused looks upon their faces as if about to hear their favorite joke. Between them, a slightly ill-looking Lalafell flipped through a set of freshly-inked papers. Not Jeresu, by Verad's estimation. He had trouble telling the Dunesfolk apart, but Jeresu's hair wasn't so green, nor were his cheeks. "Verad Bellveil?" he asked, plucking one parchment free of the mass.

 

Verad nodded, but, midway through doing so, seemed to hesitate. He had, after all, just been abducted from the streets of Ul'dah. A greater deal of confusion seemed appropriate, and so what had started as a pleased smile at the sound of his own name shifted into rapid blinking and a confused look, coupled with multiple panicked-seeming glances to his left and right, as if seeking escape. If the guards or the Lalafell noticed the shift, they didn't comment.

 

"Just to confirm," he went on, proffering the document up for Verad's perusal. "This is your signature, correct?" Puzzled, or near to it, he dropped down to his knees to examine the paper. Sure enough, there was his signature, exaggerated flourish at the V, extra loops at the final L and all. It was exactly as he'd left it on the informational slip he'd provided to Jeresu the night or nights before. "That's . . . yes, that's mine," he said, feigning confusion. "How did - " 

 

"Because you signed it, sir," replied the Lalafell, peering up at Verad with the annoyed look of someone explaining the obvious. "Your contract with the company, in order to work off your debts. You'll find your trader's authorization here - " he pointed to a small scribble Verad could only assume belonged to Jeresu, "And here. Ten year contract, very favorable terms, according to your trader. Should be worked off in half that time if you're diligent."

 

He couldn't stop his face from falling at the mere thought of ten years, and he heard the guards chuckle, approaching their desired punchline. "But - I mean," Verad stammered, looking around the desert and rubbing the back of his head. "The blow - "

 

"Traders may, if they are concerned that their debtors are a flight risk, employ force within reasonable limits to ensure the safe delivery of their laborers to third parties." The Lalafell's voice had the bored tone of recitation. "If you feel the force was unreasonable, you can speak with management regarding a complaint later. For now we need to get you sorted, set you up with your uniform, establish your company account, assign sleeping quarters and work shifts, and perform the necessary medical examinations. Are you ready?"

 

Verad glanced between he and the guards, whose grins only seemed to widen. What shift in his stance, he wondered, would make them think him a "flight risk?" A bending of the knees? Perhaps a squaring of the jaw? And what force would they think reasonable to employ?

 

He hung his head. "I am."

 

"Very good, then. Just step through the barricade and they'll get you sorted. And welcome to the Coblyn's Fancy Mining Company." The Lalafell waved a hand vaguely behind him before swinging on his heel to march to the west. Verad followed his path for a moment to see other buildings in the distance; company offices, no doubt, and at a far remove from the worker camp. Offering a resigned sigh, he stepped forward.

 

He was stopped by a hand at his chest, the guard in front of him giving him a curious look. "I've seen you somewhere," he said, frowning, and for an instant Verad felt his heart hammer against his ribs. "Sir, I - I assure you that it must be - "

 

"No, no, I have. You're Bellveil, aren't you? Merchant? Always wandering around selling 'dubious goods'?" He snorted. "How'd that business work out for you, then?"

 

"Ah, so you have heard of me!" His grin was bright and grateful. "Then let me assure you that this is only a temporary setback. Once my debts are paid, I shall be back in my office - "

 

"Heard it was just a rug," said the other guard. "Wasn't it just a rug."

 

The grin turned to grimace very quickly. "Yes," he sighed, stepping past them and into the camp. "It always comes back to the damned rug."

[Verad]

A Few Weeks Ago:

 

Trouble started for Verad, as it often did, in a cruel and unjust manner. Were he a more pessimistic person, he would have railed against the Twelve for choosing to torment him so. However, he at least recognized that the woes he suffered were not of his own making. 

 

So it was that when here turned from a brief, entirely voluntary vacation in Limsa Lominsa that had nothing at all to do with the possibility of his implication in accidentally smuggling a small forest's worth of juvenile cactuars into Ul'dah, he did not take it as a strike against him when he found that his Pearl Lane office had been vandalized, burglarized, and ransacked in a most vulgar manner. He came home to find a great quantity of blood on the carpet, his strongbox cracked and emptied of its contents, and his sign, the pride of his office, defaced in order to display a lewd slogan. If nothing else, he had to marvel at the creativity of the writer in changing "Dubious Distributions" to its current state; were he not quite cross at the culprit, he would seriously consider employing him for later advertisements.

 

Now, some less-than-charitable individuals might have argued that Verad brought the possibility of robbery upon himself by making his office a small piece of rug situated in the middle of Pearl Lane's thoroughfare, and that by leaving his strongbox in plain view when he was not present, it was a miracle on the part of the Twelve that he had not been burglarized even sooner than he was. Verad could only scoff at such people, for the rug was some of Pearl Lane's most highly-desired outdoor real-estate, and available at a very reasonable rate considering its location, which was very close to the Quicksand. Further, would it not be unseemly for a dubious merchant to have anything other than a dubious office? Where else could he keep his papers and meet with larger clients but the rug, and not leave the impression that this was a man who was exactly as trustworthy as he appeared to be, without the dishonesty of meeting inside a building and at a desk, of all things! 

 

No, Verad prided himself upon his former office, whether that invited risk or no, and to the last point he had taken measures, first in making his materials appear to be far from worth the time and effort to steal them, and second in hiring security to patrol the area on times and days when the rug was being used by others, for he only rented it three out of the seven days of the week. It was, in fact, the very presence of this security which convinced Verad - in addition to more insignificant clues like the substantial quantity of blood that now stained the rug - that something was amiss beyond a mere robbery, for Ser Corinthus, the newly hired security, insisted that nothing had occurred on the days on which he patrolled. 

 

With no reason to doubt the man's honesty, and every reason to doubt the enthusiasm of the Brass Blades in resolving the matter once it was reported, Verad declared that he would put every one of his considerable resources to the problem of finding the culprits and returning his stolen belongings. It was most fortunate that he had only recently acquired the aid of one of Eorzea's free companies - or perhaps it was a charitable organization with a militant arm, Verad was never quite sure. But after making a sufficiently impassioned entreaty, several of their members offered to assist him in solving the crime.

 

The task of finding witnesses to the robbery was simple enough, as it could only have occurred on the days Verad was not using the space, and was not present in the city as a result of his vacation. With the aid of Miss Airka Lakshmi's skill at dice - carefully monitored and supervised by Verad, of course - they were able to determine that the attack happened on the one day that Gliding Bone, a Roegadyn basket-weaver and, in Verad's estimation, a fellow of outstanding character, rented the space to sell his wares to the less fortunate. Their witnesses claimed to have seen the attack, and that one of the assailants was a member of the Ala Mihgan refugee community, notable for his bright-red, braided hair and relatively slim build for a member of a predominantly Highlander community.

 

With this lead in mind, Verad had set about prodding, in his gentle, understanding fashion, for leads in the Ala Mihgan refugee community to see where such a man might take his leisure. Having narrowed down his location to the Laughing Peiste, a small tavern in Pearl Lane, he was quick to insinuate himself into the community, as well as take a few extra members of the company along for security's sake.

 

Once one looked past the small riot that had occurred, the trip had gone quite well. Verad had been sure that there was some trick to be found in the wood grain of one of the tavern's tables, some sort of secret message, and so absorbed had he been in deciphering it that, regrettably, he had been unable to assist when one of his fellows in the company attracted the ire of one of the patrons. In retrospect, he supposed, bringing a number of Miqo'te and Midlanders into an Ala Mihgan bar was perhaps not the best way to avoid attracting attention, but not everyone could be as effective at blending in as he.

 

Violence was prevented by the late-but-timely arrival of Miss Lakshmi, and between her prowess as an arcanist and Verad's ability to provide a distraction while being stunned by arcanist magic, the group was able to escape before any serious harm was inflicted. Nor had their efforts been entirely fruitless, for one of their number was able to contact Godrich, the red-braided man identified as one of the assailants. Through him, Verad and, by natural extension, the others, were made aware of their next big lead: The Coblyn's Fancy Mining Company.

 

But it was in investigating this lead that the case would take a far darker turn...

 

Now:

 

Wahlbert sighed in relief as the Duskwight - Verad, he supposed, he'd certainly said his damned name often enough - stopped talking. It didn't sound as if he'd finished talking, with the trailing-off of his voice leading into the kind of pause in which an interested audience might prompt him to continue. But it certainly sounded as if he'd stopped, and Wahlbert was happy to take the lesser form of cessation. "All very nice," he said, pushing forward the small piece of parchment Verad had completely ignored. "But I was not being literal when I asked what brought you here. Could I get your name - all of it - and your contract tenure, please?"

 

"Well, as you'll see - " Verad began, before stopping, giving the man a second look. "I'm sorry?"

 

"Ah, so you can use the first person. Name. First and sur-. Contract length.  Please." If he pushed the paper any more firmly towards the man, it would scrape the desk. Wahlbert was fond of his desk, a holdover from the earlier days of the company, and one of the last few goods of some value remaining in the commissary. He would have much preferred to leave it unscraped. But this Elezen sorely tested.

 

"Y-yes, of course." He seemed to flush, leaning forward to scribble his name and tenure on the parchment. "Apologies for that. But as you can see, it is a problem of some import - "

 

"Your arms, please." Wahlbert rose from his chair and gestured upwards. "Need to get your measurements for the uniform." The Elezen was silenced by the act of lifting his arms out, and Wahlbert made a note to keep interrupting him to throw him off-balance. Probably the only way things would get done.

 

"Do we get new uniforms?" Verad asked as Wahlbert did not so much measure his arms as pat them down roughly to get a vague feel for the length. "I have to admit, some of those I saw on the way into the building seemed quite shabby."

 

"You can get replacements and repairs, but those are added to your debt." He gave a vague pat to the man's torso, then stepped back to eyeball his legs. There was no chance of him patting down a debt-laborer, knowing what some of them were up to in their spare time before coming here. "Not many trousers in Elezen-size, though - too narrow for Highlander legs. They'll end a bit high."

 

Verad seemed disappointed. "You don't have anything new, really?"

 

Wahlbert looked over his shoulder, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He took in the dust on the shelves behind him, some from where empty spaces hadn't been filled, some where full spaces hadn't been moved. It was thick enough to hang in the air without being disturbed; on the days he had a cold, some of the more resigned workers would joke that it was a small sandstorm, of sorts.

 

"No," he said. "Nothing new." With a vague sense of Verad's measurements, he limped back towards the more recently-used shelves to fetch one of the remaining uniforms.

 

"Well, at any rate," Verad continued, despite Wahlbert's best efforts to shut him out as he poked through shelves for a pair of boots, fitting or no, "My chief concern here is finding Gliding Bone. The Roegadyn? I've reason to believe he was brought here as part of a debt-trade when my office was robbed."

 

"Might've been," Wahlbert said with a grunt, kneeling down to pick through old aldgoat leather and worn laces. "We've had a few Hellsguard through here, the past few weeks. Name might be in the commissary purchases."

[align=left]

"Then you must have seen him! If he has found his way here, anyway. I was hoping to get in touch. I'm quite sure his family is worried, you see."[/align]

 

"I just handle the commissary." Wahlbert returned to dump a pair of the older boots on the ground beside Verad, the rest of his uniform tucked under his shoulder. "You'll need to talk to the main office to get a personnel request - Lamaki should help you out."

 

"Lalafell? Green hair, looked a bit queasy? We've met."

 

"Maybe. He does most of the greetings. Here." Wahlbert pressed the uniform into Verad's open hands. "Get to the sleeping quarters and get changed. Like as not your first shift will be in a few hours. Might get lucky and run into him then."

 

"I shall certainly hope so!" Verad grinned. Wahlbert resisted the urge to punch. It was a very punch-worthy grin, as much for its mere presence as its sheer cheekiness. "If I may ask, though, have you worked here long?"

 

"Longer than you, certainly." Wahlbert returned to his seat, stifling a wince, before picking up Verad's paperwork. He glanced up after a moment to see the dismissal had not led to the man dismissing himself. He remained there, eyebrows wide and inquisitive, a very old puppy. "Five years in this spot," he added. "Just a bit after the Era started. Longer than that, though. Back when the company was new."

 

"Then you're not a worker? I got the impression from the look on the guards that my term was . . . extensive."

 

"No, no. You won't find most of the workers here longer than a year or so." Wahlbert frowned. "Why, how much do you owe?" 

 

[align=left]Verad told him. He snorted. "And it was only ten years? You were lucky." He shook his head, shut his eyes. "No, been here a while now."

[/align]

He said nothing afterwards, and the Duskwight seemed to infer the conversation was over, as he heard the door shut after the man left. Wahlbert stretched out his arms before leaning down, gasping as foot and knee protested the movement, and patted around for the flask in its small catch, another advantage of having one of the old desks.

 

As he uncorked it, he caught sight of the old emblem of the company logo on its side, that of a small, cheery-looking coblyn, mouth open as it tossed a piece of ore into its mouth with one tendril, using another to pick up the leavings of a stubby-looking miner a few paces ahead of the beast, hacking away through rock with an oversized pick. As logos went, it was a poor choice, over-elaborate and too cutesy for a mining company.

[align=left]

Wahlbert grimaced, and swallowed before taking a long drink.[/align]

[Verad]

Mining copper was not what Verad had expected. Months of attempting to sell goods to the many adventurers that dabbled in amateur prospecting on the side had given him the image of the independent prospector, cheerily hacking away at the nearest rock with the promise of yielding ore through means only they could divine. They were hardy and cheerful and wouldn't buy his miniature picks (souvenirs for the children, he told them), which spoke well of their judgment if not of their ability to appreciate the dubious. There were a positive thing.

 

This expectation was, with great care and attentiveness, smothered to death when he met the crew with which he was to work. A mixture of a dozen or so men - it was always men, he thought, wasn't it? - of mixed stock, mostly Highlanders, some Midlanders, and the odd Miqo'te. They matched the tunnels that surrounded them as they trudged towards the day's work, small and cramped and almost bereft of light, and the weight of their tools dragged them forward as much as they were carried. Only the supervisor, a particularly stout Hyur, seemed to be in working shape, and the difference was marked in all possible ways, whether that be in posture, voice, build, or the shape of his tools. Even his uniform seemed to be in better shape, with none of the obvious tears and holes that riddled the others. 

 

Verad followed behind the pack, and for a time he went without notice. The group traveled in silence, and there were none of the chatter or bawdy jokes he would have supposed would exist in the company of coarse working men. The silence was so sharp that he suspected he had joined the wrong group. It was possible; even without onlookers, he knew he stood out, both in how much further he had to stoop to avoid bumping his head on the lower sections of the shaft's roof, and in his generally cheerful demeanor. He had almost thought to hum a tune, but, as if reading his thoughts, a glare from the crew leader gagged him as well as a cloth.

 

Only when there was work was there speech. They arrived at a wall of rock that, to Verad's eyes, seemed like any other wall of rock a vague, brown, jagged shape in the dark. This triggered something in the leader, though, who barked out orders to the crew in terms Verad did not understand. To Verad, he forced a wedge and a short-handled hammer into each hand. "We'll start simple," he said, pointing at one section of rock. "Chisel out a small opening there, at least a fulm deep. That will make room for firesand placement. Do you understand?"

 

With an eager nod and a salute that nearly brought the flat of the mallet against his forehead, Verad made his way to the indicated point and started chipping away. Were it not for the circumstances in which he believed many of the other workers had arrived, he could not understand their resignation. Surely the work wasn't as hard as all that.

 

Thirty Minutes Later:

 

Verad was dragged bodily into the infirmary by a pair of workers, moaning and clutching at every single part of his body, including and especially the beard. He hadn't even been aware that there were muscles in the beard, but he supposed that was inevitable when possessed of one as virile as his. No doctor greeted him; instead, he was bodily thrown into one of a handful of old cots. "Sleep it off if you need," said one before they left. "But every hour is added to your debt. And try not to wake the big guy, huh?"

 

He was left to lay flat on his back, terrified to move lest he pull another muscle in the new and fascinating network of pain that currently spread across the whole of his body. In a way, it was an education, showing him a thousand points of suffering. Had he only some notes, he would be recording his own reactions in order to refine the art of Cactu-Puncture. But of all the items he had seen gathering dust in the commissary, parchment and ink were not among them.

 

A rustling in the far corner of the room drew his attention, but he could not lift his head to see. He was only aware of something heavy hitting the floor, and the solid thump of a great mass travelling in his direction, step by step. "Ah, you must be the doctor," he said, exhaling in relief. "Surely you must have something for this pain. Your rocks must be very hard indeed to leave one such as I in this state!"

 

There was no response, though the sound drew closer. "Or perhaps a massage?"

 

Thump, thump. "Only a slight maming, please?" he asked, his low voice managing to raise into a squeak from the pain.

 

A body loomed over him, entering his field of vision. Roegadyn, from the size, and exceptionally large, though gravely wounded, with a bandage, spotted in dried blood, concealing the top of his head and obscuring one eye. He used the good one to examine Verad, and started back in recognition. "Bellveil?" His tone was a mixture of surprise and dismay.

 

Verad grinned, or, at least, bared his teeth through the pain of every part of his neck and jaw having given up on life. "Gliding Bone! At last, we meet."

[Verad]

Less Than A Few Weeks Ago:

 

 

The events at the Laughing Peiste had shaken Verad somewhat, and not simply because he had been an accidental casualty of Lakshmi's assault. The violence with which they had been met, and Godrich's provided lead to one of Thanalan's mining company, had given him serious cause for worry. It was one thing for the robbery and Gliding Bone's disappearance to be the work of the criminal element. Criminals could be apprehended and turned over to the appropriate authorities, but the presence of a legal entity meant that there was far more work to be done.

 

He was relieved, then, to hear word from one of his many contacts a few days later, suggesting that both his stolen goods and the missing basket-weaver had been sighted in the company of a group of bandits operating out of the confines of Mor Dhona. Between the proximity of Castrum Centri and the dangers of the Tangle, his contact reported, they were able to operate with impunity. Impunity enough, Verad reasoned, to engage in slave trafficking.

 

Rousting a camp of bandits was a more dangerous undertaking that infilitrating a bar, and while his aides had escaped the Peiste with no more than minor injuries, Verad wished to leave nothing to chance. In the circumstances, he was happy to consign the matter to the efforts of Ser Corinthus and Ser Val Nunh, knowing they were capable fighters in their own right and not wishing to shame them by a display of his combat prowess.   

 

 

His reward for this trust was for the pair to return with naught but a bill of sale and the absence of Ser Corinthus' shoes, lost to the perils of the swamp. The matter was not entirely fruitless; through their actions, they were able to attract a morbol into the bandit camp and disrupt their base of operations, and the bill of goods they brought back did indeed confirm the presence of Verad's stolen goods at the site. 

 

More than that, the contents of the bill of sale indicated something else. Something far darker, and, which, in time, would reveal the depths of the crimes in which Verad had found himself entangled...

 

Now, A Couple Hours Later:

 

 

Gliding Bone waited in his seat, stooped over the bowl of thick gruel served to the infirmary patients, a curious and expectant look in his eye. Verad had trailed off again, a distant look in his eye, staring at a point on the wall to the right of the man as if some revelation could be found there.

 

"Well?" he asked, the question nudging Verad back into his reverie. This was normal enough; he'd spoken to the Elezen many a time over the course of the past few months, and it was certainly within his power to start a rambling, third-person story and end it on implied ellipses.

 

"Well what?"

 

"What was on the bill?"

 

"Ah, yes, of course. As you can see - " Verad paused, a spoon halfway to his mouth. "I do believe I've just seen something in here move!"

 

"The food's not that bad, Bellveil, I can promise you that much. It's bad, certainly, but there's worse." Bone took a large spoonful of his own, chewing with an expression of forced pleasure for emphasis. "There's better in the mess hall, but they add it to your bill."

 

"That does seem to be something of a recurring theme here. New uniforms, time off, better food - all of it extends the contract?"

 

"As far as I can tell, anything other than working, sleeping for your assigned hours, eating what they give you, and using the latrines extends the contract. And sometimes even that, if you do it on shift." Gliding Bone reached up to tap the bandage surrounding his eye and forehead. "I got this last week. Banged my head against a support beam and some rocks happened to crumble down just after. They told me that each day this heals up I get another one added to my term. Half-tempted to take the risk and head back to work."

 

Examining the dried blood still on the bandage, Verad frowned. "Surely, you can't. Is it not still healing?"

 

"Hm? Oh, those. Haven't changed them in a few days. The extra supplies - "

 

"Yes, of course." Verad took another bite of his gruel, and found it tasted as it sounded. "Now then, the bill of sale. It said the goods were to be delivered to the Syndicate as part of a payment of debts. I gather it was meant as part of a debt reduction, and your attackers simply claimed them for themselves when they abducted you. Is that about right?"

 

"And all my baskets, and my materials. Surprised they didn't lay claim to my home; probably worth more than all of that combined." Something seemed to strike Bone, and he looked up with a startled expression. "You've - has my family been contacted? They won't let me write."

 

"When I saw them, they were fine," said Verad, offering a reassuring smile. "That was some weeks ago, I admit, shortly after you'd gone missing, but I don't see why that would change now. Did you get the chance to look at your 'contract'?"

 

"Once I was dumped here, aye, and on the rare chance that the folks in the main office come down to handle papers. Said they were being given a portion of my wages as a stipend in exchange for extending the contract - I think? I'm not great with this."

 

"Makes a sort of sense, I suppose. I don't imagine everyone here is without families, and those that do must have them placated." Verad rubbed his chin, fixing his eyes on Gliding Bone. "And what happened to me was much the same for you, correct? You found you'd signed a contract you'd never seen."

 

"Yes, after speaking to Jeresu Resu about entering into debt reduction. I hadn't meant to sign up for trading, but he asked for my signature, and, well." He shrugged. "Mine's only six months; not so bad as all that."

 

"But none of them are so bad as that, are they? If I were to go outside and ask those off-shift how long their contracts were, they'd all say the same. But then, all the extensions, and the additions - I wonder how long they can drag it out?"

 

"I think there's a few people on the other shifts who are nearing the end of it. Might ask them." Bone finished up the last of his gruel and set the bowl on the ground. "If they get out, though, what a story to tell to the Blades, eh?"

 

"Hm." Verad glanced towards the door, as if he might get up and check just then. For a moment he rose to his feet, but sank back down, his body audibly groaning in protest. "That can't be right, though. Why kidnap all these workers, forge all these contracts, and then leave themselves open to exposure? Even with all the limitations and extensions they must give at least the hope that people can finish their contracts and leave."

 

"They might not have thought it through?" suggested Bone, resting his hands on his elbows and adopting a thoughtful look. "You've seen the guards, after all. They're not all exactly the brightest, though I hear they're mostly ex-Blades."

 

"Perhaps not the security, but surely the staff must have thought of this?"

 

"Perhaps." Bone bobbed his head in concession. "I haven't dealt with many of them, though. Lamaki, the secretary, he handles most of the interaction with the staff. If anybody would have a hand in that side of things it's either Palmer, the company head, or Agid, the security chief. But we usually only see them from afar out here. Are you going to finish the rest of th - " Bone was gesturing towards Verad's still-full bowl before noticing the sudden pall in his face. "Bellveil? Are you well?"

 

"I - yes, I'm fine, but - did you say Agid?"

 

"Mm. Agid Hatemonger. Damned good name for a security chief, isn't it?" Bone chuckled, shaking his head and folding his arms together. Can't imagine his parents picked it for him. Did you want to finish that, then?"

 

"No, no, it's fine." Verad proffered the bowl out, trying to hide the trembling. He had a plan for the investigation, certainly, and he knew there would be some risk involved. But not until the man's name had been mentioned had he ever felt in real danger.

[Verad]

Third Day, Probably:

 

A few days passed, and Verad gradually learned how to apply himself at the trade, which, in the main, meant figuring out which work details he should follow in order to avoid future trips to the infirmary. Breaking apart the ore was just not the thing for him, he decided. As rugged and virile as he was, it was far better to feign weakness by appearing incapable of such serious and difficult tasks, lest his employers suspect him of enacting some scheme against them. Nor could he spend all his time in the infirmary, for that would prevent him from assessing the character of the company and its organization.

 

Thus Verad took a page from the chapter of no less prestigious a work on criminology than the collected writings of the Manderville guides to inspection and inquiry, and took the bold move of hiding himself in the plainest of sight. Feigning injury on another breaking team to such an extent that even he marvelled at the skill with which he portrayed intense, searing pain, he found himself reassigned to one of the ore dressing stations, closer to the mine's entrance. There he was handed a long-handled hammer, a stack of small chunks of ore by a supervisor, and told to break, break, break.

 

The work was difficult, but not impossible. Whatever it was about the act of drawing the ore out of seams that crippled him was absent here, and he felt the pleasure of sweat on his brow as he applied mallet to stone, smashed rocks to pebbles. The workers, he noticed, were smaller and slighter and more worn, Midlanders and Miqo'tes of a more slender disposition than those in the tunnels. This made him fear that he would stand out even more than he already did as the sole Duskwight, for given his own far more chiseled build and his identity as a well-known peddler about the town, someone would have recognized him and thought something amiss.

 

His fears proved unfounded, however, and a day passed with no incident, and then another similarly so. When he retired each evening he was exhausted, a problem alleviated only by the heavy meals and cheap beer he could acquire for but the price of a day and a few hours' change. Even the better meals were not good, but leg of ziz roasted into a leathery hunk and fried bread with honey were far better fare than the gruel and broths served to the workers who tended towards frugality. 

 

The beer, however, was sour and yeasty, exactly as terrible as he preferred,  and after a few sips he could almost imagine Miss Foxheart serving it to him with a laugh and a smile. Such thoughts comforted him after his meals, after which he would fall into the deep, half-dead sleep of the weary.

 

So the days passed, and there was a charm to this, he supposed. Were it not for the circumstances of his arrival, his and all those around him, then he could see a rustic charm to the notion. He mulled over his meal as he pulled apart a piece of ziz between his fingers - to use his teeth, he feared, was to loosen them - before popping it into his mouth. If this were meant to be the worst of the labor-trade, he supposed, then the best surely could not have been so bad, could it?

 

As he thought this, he saw Gliding Bone approach, supper in hand and fresh bandages over his eye, and those only at Verad's insistence. He had gone back to work in the tunnels, and that over Verad's protestations. He remembered speaking to his wife at their homestead outside of Horizon, her dark hair ragged and her eyes as red as her irises, to ask if he had seen the man.

 

"Bellveil," said Bone, seating himself before Verad could draw a mental conclusion. "Managing the dressing well?"

 

"Hm? Oh, yes, of course! Much simpler work. I think the break was just - well, as Eorzea's Greatest Archer, Pending Certain Conditions, you know, I have to keep my wrists in excellent shape, and that was just the wrong position for them to be in. I could have kept it up, of course," he went on, after gagging down a thick portion of ziz-meat. "But I couldn't bear to let Eorzea lose one of its greatest champions in so doing, don't you agree?"

 

Bone smirked, no doubt impressed by Verad's stoicism. "Yes, of course," he said, taking a spoonful of gruel. "And how are you finding it otherwise?"

 

Intimating his meaning, Verad was about to drop his voice and respond, before a voice interrupted. "Bellveil? Verad Bellveil." Glancing to his right, Verad found himself being gawked at with great force and aggression by a sandy-haired Midlander with a grin that showed the gap in his teeth. "Is that right? You're him, right?"

 

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

 

The man guffawed and slapped his knee. "Knew it from the voice." He cleared his throat, as if to put on a display, and spoke in what Verad felt to be a poor approximation of his voice. "'Pardon me, my good madam, but would you be interested in any fine duuuuubious goods today?' That's you, isn't it?"

 

"Ah-hah, well, it's not always a madam," Verad said, pulling at his collar in an absent fashion, "but otherwise that's quite a good impression, sir! Are you perchance a customer? A fan?"

 

"Oh, not a buyer, but a watcher, sure! Always a laugh to see you walk up to some poor young Miqo'te in the Quicksand and think, 'Well there goes the Dubious Man about to lose a pitch again.'" He grinned, and of a sudden the gap did not seem so friendly.      

 

"Come now," said Bone, tone chiding, rising up just enough out of his seat to loom. He was an older Roegadyn, but to say an older Roegadyn was weak, warrior or no, was to suggest that an axe sharpened over time could only lose its edge. "There's no need for that. He's on a contract here, just as the rest of us."

 

At this the man seemed to take great delight. "Sure he is! Haven't we seen him, all of us, carried back to the sick hall, complaining of a broken beard?" He glanced to his left and right for emphasis, having drawn other workers to the conversation by his laughter. It was, Verad supposed, a rare sound to hear in the camp. "Hoping for a pretty nurse, perhaps? Hope you weren't too disappointed by the old man here."

 

This caused Verad to rise, and on the heels of that movement came a slew of others. The Midlander closed the distance between them, and a crowd of workers started to gather around. Out of the corner of one eye, he could see the guards at the barricade, their attention towards them with expressions of mixed bemusement and wariness. At the back of the crowd, he could see the commissary, and Wahlbert sitting out front, taking a few drinks from a flask, his face a mask.

 

"Oh come on now," said the gap-toothed man, in all the easy confidence of youthful superiority. "Nothing to get riled about, right? That's not what you do, right? Besides, you wouldn't want to hurt me, would you, 'Eorzea's Greatest Archer'?" He smiled, spread his hands, placating. "Tell you what, we can let it drop, just pass me some of that ziz."

 

A mystery solved, then. It was rare Verad attracted such ire. Irritation, certainly. Annoyance, absolutely. But rarely anger. In such circumstances, there was but one thing to do, so he smiled.

 

"You may of course have it," he said, genially, but held out a hand before the man could dart past him to take it. "But! I have one point to correct. You need only listen, and then it is yours." 

 

The Midlander seemed to seethe, glancing between the food and the hand that stopped him like a vulture frustrated in its efforts to find carrion. In this moment, Verad knew, he had not even a hint of control. "Fine, go on," he said, stepping back. "Nothing wrong with a story."

 

"It's not that I am bothered by your request to share," Verad said, scratching at his nose with his other hand. "That is fine, of course! But you seem to be under the wrong impression. I do not offer my wares to women out of lechery. There is a reason for it! One I have told no one until today. A story you would not even find in my memoirs, for even the most recent edition ends before the Calamity."

 

He didn't bother to examine the gap-toothed man's face, instead scanning the crowd. They were confused, mostly, but it was not the sort of confusion to led to Verad being pelted with rocks and other blunt objects. No, there was curiosity there, and his grin grew wide, a shark smelling blood.

 

"You see," he said, removing his hand from near the man's chest and hooking it into his belt. "There was a time when I was far more egalitarian! In the early months of my newfound trade, I would offer goods of dubious quality - a fine impression again, sir, I must say - to anyone who would ask. Man, woman, young, old, Roegadyn, Lalafell. I daresay there wasn't a soul who was safe from my rapacious dubiousness!" He grinned as if that were a joke. A few of the men chuckled, knowing looks on their faces, as if they had gotten it.

 

"I would say it went on like this for quite some time - ages, weeks, days, I cannot recall. When one lives dubiously, to keep track of time is to risk becoming respectable! But then it came to pass that I happened to approach a young Seeker, a Tia by the look of him, with that lost look, like a kitten that has somehow become a puppy, that suggested he was newly displaced from a tribe. I offered him my wares, as I am wont to do, with my pitch, as I am wont to do, in my usual manner, and his only response was to burst into tears!"

 

He heard a few scoffs from some of the Miqo'te in the crowd, and paused for an instant to let the image settle. "Ah, Ser Bone, if you could pass me my beer? Thank you, yes. Now then, while I am a dubious man, I am nothing if not considerate, and so I asked him whatever could be the matter. As it happened, I was the first to have shown such consideration, and he confided in me that he had been cast out of his tribe by an over-protective Nunh." This caused a few more scoffs, but there was a sympathetic tone to them, certain that few, if any, of the Seeker crowd were Nunhs themselves. "He had thought to start his own, but he hardly knew where to start in the starting! He had never known how to fight, or how to hunt, but he knew that in Ul'dah, the light of his life, a charming young woman, had taken residence here to become a dancer. If only he could find her, he told me, and prove himself, he could start anew!

 

"This seemed a dubious scheme for any number of reasons, and while I was not yet Ul'dah's premier distributor of the dubious, I was swiftly gaining a reputation. I pledged myself to aid him on the spot, and offered to play the part of a villain for him. He knew the woman's place of work. I would bother her, he would defend her, lovers would be reunited, and all would be well!" Verad offered a great, wistful sigh, before taking a drink of his beer and stepping forward. The circle around him had started to expand, giving him space. Even the gap-toothed man had stepped back. Noting him, Verad paused to pull a hunk free of his ziz and offer it to the man.

 

"There you are - here, there's quite a bit of it, and why don't you pass the rest around? Add another to my tab if you like, what's a few days to a man with ten years?" He saw one Highlander hurry back to the mess hall, to place a new order, he presumed, before going on. "Where was I? Right, yes. Now, we had her place of business, a bar of ill-repute and high class along the Steps of Thal, and entering was easy enough after greasing the palms of the staff. Why they wanted the grease, I couldn't say, but dubious deals reveal strange tastes. He pointed her out to me, dancing for some coarse customer, and ah! Such a vision." The workers leaned forward, and he supposed details were required. "Hair as golden as the sun, eyes as blue as the sky, and as for the rest, must I say? We are all gentlemen here, and if you are not, then shame, shame! Let us not trouble ourselves with such digressions."

 

"Now, we were polite enough to wait until she was completed with a customer, and had finished her routine, and only then did I approach her. As charming a person as I am, I had to take care to avoid being too gallant, though, else she would have been swept away, and the plan ruined. No, I had to be dubious. I slicked back my hair, just so as it is now," he said, running his hand over his hair for emphasis, "and put on my the best of my worst grins." Verad's grin was over-broad, looking less like something cheerful and more like something conjured out of an All Saints' Wake nightmare, forcing himself to squint one eye out too far. "And of course," he said, maintaining the appearance, "She was rather short for a Seeker, so I needed to adjust my height." 

 

There was an audible crack as he hunched forward, to scattered laughter and chuckles. Through his open eye, he could see that the guards had turned away, back to their boredom. His crowd had grown, though, and he could see even the commissary watching with a jaundiced look. 

 

"So it was in this state," he continued, remaining in his position, "That I approached the woman and appeared enraptured. Hardly a difficult thing to do, I assure you, especially putting my voice into my best rasp. Ah, the pleas I made! She was the flower of the desert, the gem of all Ul'dah, and I would be all too pleased if she would only spare me a moment of her time. Her disgust and confusion were all too obvious, of course, and she made every effort to escape me. Too much effort, in fact, for my young Tia friend was still nowhere to be found. There can hardly be an intervention if the man to intervene is not there to do his job, after all"

 

The man who'd left returned with a plate of ziz - several plates, from the look of it. Verad had not authorized such generosity, but then again, he had said what's a few days, plural. His own fault. He suppressed a sigh and forced a smile as the meat was passed around to the crew, to an increasing level of cheer. "Now, my chief concern was that some other man might intervene in my comrade's place, and then the entire plan would be undone. It was much to my surprise that she intervened for herself! Little did I know that she had been taking lessons with the Pugilists to improve her balance as part of her routine, and had picked up more than a few tricks of the trade. I will not describe the beating - "

 

"Describe the beating! Go on, go on!" He looked around the crowd to see who had said that, but the call was picked up by a growing chorus. "Very well," he said, with an overexaggerated sigh. "What should I say? That she had learned to strike for vulnerable spots? That given my actual height my vulnerable spots were especially vulnerable? I shall tell you that I am fortunate for my skintone, for bruises hide easily, and ah, there were many the next night! She struck high, low, to the sides, and sent me sprawling through the crowd, gasping and wheezing. But still I kept on! I kept on praising her and courting her, asking for just a moment, only to be rewarded with just that, in the form of a fist to the jaw or a boot to the midsection."

 

He pantomimed the abuse, adopting his exaggerated posture and swinging to the left and the right, to a few scattered cheers. "Finally I collapsed, and I could take no more. Tia be damned, what would this world be like without a Verad Bellveil?"

 

"Better!" "Cheaper!" "Slightly less irritating!"

 

 He ignored the hecklers and pressed on. "I called 'Help, help! I am assaulted!' albeit more inelegantly, and at last I happened to spy the Tia, all this time trying to speak to the wrong dancer! I called 'Help!' again and he recognized my plight and saw my state."

 

"I will give the man credit, he was quick to intervene once he saw the truth of the matter. My mistake was in not correcting the original plan. For no sooner did he intervene did I find two pairs of boots colliding with my ribs rather than one." This caused a few howls and few sympathetic winces. "I gather he had assumed this was all part of my appearance. Had they not started attacking each other in the chaos, I believe that should have been the end of me. But soon they were spitting and fighting and trading blows. He was quite a fighter himself, it seemed!"

 

"And it was in that brawl that they recognized each other, and in the joy of that reunion, they soon left the bar, to leave me, bruised and battered, amidst a staring and laughing crowd. Two lovers reunited. A fine thought, and for that, what is the harm in a great deal of harm?"

 

In another crowd, he would have let that question hang, but here, among rowdier sorts, it was more likely not to be left as rhetorical, so he did not pause to take a drink. "Now, sir," he said, and the gap-toothed man started, as if he had not expected to be remembered, and looked up between hastily-stuffed handfuls of roast ziz. "You asked why I pitch so often to women. And is it not obvious?"

 

Puzzled, the man shook his head. Verad's smile was passive and benign. "Then I shall explain. After that moment, I stopped pitching to men so often, in the hopes that someone would intervene, as the young Tia meant to, and to see a proper reunion again. And, I must admit, because I have not yet been beaten quite as hard when I do so as I have when I pitch to a man."

 

A weak ending, he felt, but it would do. He settled back into his chair to finish his beer and give one of the forgotten bowls of weak broth a longing glance, his own meal now forsaken. The crowd gave a few scattered bits of applause, but he had not expected a standing ovation.

 

Still, there were smiles. Amusement. A bit of laughter. In three days, it was the most of it he had seen in the camp. A welcome relief.

 

Past the crowd, he saw Wahlbert staring, his flask half to his lips, at the scene. Verad smiled and lifted his mug in greeting.

 

The officer picked himself up from his seat and staggered, limped back into the commissary building. Verad sighed, shook his head, and drank. Bone slapped him on the back, and he nearly bit through a chunk of his mug.

 

"Not bad," he said. "But do you really want them talking so much about that Bellveil character through the rest of the shifts, to the other workers?"

 

Verad scoffed. "You insult me! As if they don't speak of me already!" He smiled behind his drink, then set it down. "Besides, better that outcome than another beating. As someone said, 'Both laughter and bruises will fade, but see which leaves the longer mark.'"

 

Bone furrowed his brow. "Who said that? That's awful."

 

Verad opened his mouth to respond, and silence followed as his eyebrows contorted themselves in several directions. "You know, I don't actually know."

[Verad]

Next Morning:

 

Verad awoke and dressed for his shift a little later than the rest, but there was no problem in that; after all, time lost was time added. The evening had proceeded well; better, he thought, than many of the workers had felt in weeks, perhaps months. Better than he had thought as well, for he had discovered the weakness in the Company's system, its loophole. For in a system that relied on the extortion of time, what did extortion matter to someone for whom time had no meaning?

 

Supposing, he thought to himself, seated a hard cot that must have been an early prototype of the Grand Company models (pillows and blankets extra at a day per week) as he looped his arm into a sleeve with a large enough hole that his arm often went through its elbow, that all went poorly. That he were trapped here, unable to find the evidence he sought. What a simple matter it was, then, to cater for the other workers! Good meat and drink at every shift, blankets and new uniforms for all, shiny boots and better tools, all on his tab. There could be no benefit in not only kidnapping the workers and robbing them if the costs could all be placed on Bellveil's contract.

 

Lacing his boots through the right holes, which took a few tries, he had visions of the company collapsing under the debt of months and years laid upon him like so many weights A thousand costs all placed upon one worker, whose labor alone could not hope to recoup them no matter how long he worked. In such circumstances, what hope did the company have but to abandon the practice?

 

"A dubious plan," he said, chuckling to himself as he fastened the buttons of his shirt. "A most dubious plan indeed!"

 

Upon stepping outside, he had enough of a moment to recognize the uniforms of the guards before he was grabbed from at either arm. "Bellveil." The voice that said his name was soft as broken gravel, and the sound of it made him pall. "Management would like to speak with you."

 

[align=center]---[/align]

 

The main office of Coblyn's Fancy was not as well-appointed as Verad had expected. Better than the worker's quarters, certainly, housed in an outbuilding that looked far less likely to collapse than his sleeping quarters as it was. The furniture was much-improved as well, fine-grain mahogany chairs being a significant improvement over the stools and splintered cast-offs that were used further to the east. But the building nevertheless seemed older than it should have been, as if it had worn itself out before its time.

 

He had very little opportunity to take in the details, however, the attention of three people being fixed upon him. Jeresu Resu was a known quantity, however vexed he might look at the moment, cheeks puffing out in frustration under his mop of shaggy black hair. The other two, however, were of greater interest.

 

There was the company head, of course, Milith Palmer by the nameplate on her desk. Hyur, Midlander, late-twenties to her early thirties by his reckoning. Short, light red hair and a smile that hid deep strain, the kind of politeness he might use when a customer had proven truly unruly. Neat clothes and neat posture and a neat manner of holding her hands together in front of her desk. Nothing amiss and nothing out of place. But it was the eye of Agid that had him squirm in his seat.

 

The security chief was a bear of a Highlander, and, under the long dark braids of his hair, seemed as savage as his demeanor implied. He bore the scars of recent injuries, a superficial burn marking the side of his face near his eye, which seemed to make it bulge out as he watched Verad from the other side of the room, standing behind both Palmer's desk and Palmer herself, arms folded. He wasn't armed, and Verad suspected he didn't have to be.

 

"Stay out of my business or you will become its product."

 

His shoulders bunched together reflexively, remembering the threat. What, then, would become of him were he already the product?

 

"My apologies Ser Bellveil, are you cold?" Palmer's voice cut through the exposition.

 

"No, no, my apologies." He shook his head. "A little surprised, though."

 

Palmer's smile stretched rather than widened. "That certainly makes two of us," she said, her finger not so much pointing to a parchment on her desk as sliding towards it until it was incidentally indicated. "I received an unusual expenditure report from the commissary today. A dozen or more extra meals, enough beer for at least a keg's worth - this all on your account." Her hands returned to their folded position. "You don't seem to be immobile. I trust you didn't consume it all?"

 

Verad scrunched his lips together, screwing them up in thought. Certainly he'd seen people taking extra food on his name, but it hadn't seemed so many at the time, caught up in his own tale as he was. "No, I can't say I did," he replied.

 

"That would make sense. And it wasn't a special occasion? Your nameday, or a Duskwight holiday? I confess I don't often meet with people of your clan."

 

"I . . . can't say that it was, no." He tried grinning, kept it at a minimum wattage, looked sheepish, self-effacing. "Just a small party, you know." The room remained silent for a long moment, and the grin faded.

 

"Mmhm," Palmer said. "Just a small one. But quite an extension of your contract! A full month, just in one night, by these expenditures. Just imagine if one person were to pay for these meals every night. They might be here for years, which, let me assure you, is an unusually long contract when it comes to debt-trading. Yourself excepted, of course."

 

His stomach churned, performed a few mummers' tricks in his gut. "Of course."

 

"And, of course, it's a gross violation of our contract with the debt-trader, an abuse of the system we've established to allow the other workers to set their own levels of comfort and the length of their stay." She gestured towards Jeresu, who stood to the side of her desk. "I had to contact Ser Resu right away once I learned of it. In your case, he's taken on a great deal of risk, and it would surely do him no good to see the contract terminated. Isn't that right Mr. Resu?" The man seemed as close to fuming as Verad had ever seen a Lalafell, stamping his feet in an emphatic gesture too angry to be practiced.

 

"I took a big risk on you, Ser! You begged and pleaded, you did. Didn't I see you with tears in your eyes? Didn't I see you on your knees? You even said you would prostitute yourself if it came to that, and instead I found you this place, didn't I?" He slapped the desk beside him, scattering an ink quill. "And this is how you repay me?!" He stepped forward with a sudden movement, as if he held himself back from rushing at Verad, who similarly stopped himself from lifting his hands in defense.

 

"Calm yourself, Resu," said Agid, in a voice barely above a murmur. Jeresu remembered himself and drew back. "My apologies, Ser," he said to Agid, who snorted with the slightest lift of his shoulders before looking out the window with limited interest. 

 

Palmer spread her hands wide. "You see the problem. In light of the good work we've done with Ser Resu over the past few months, and in light of how new you are to our company, we've decided to overlook the breach of contract - although we will be distributing the extra accumulated time to the off-shift workers from last night."

 

At her words, Verad started out of his seat, Agid lifting off of the wall to match. "A warning," he said, a note of plea in his voice. "Just a warning for them, I beg you. What is a month on my contract? It will not happen again, I can swear it - "

 

Palmer cut him off with a look, her eyes stone. "This is the only fair method of distribution, Ser Bellveil. I trust you won't make this mistake again. Otherwise, as your contract will indicate, the penalties will become more severe. Let's not have this conversation again, shall we?"

 

His nod was weak, but it seemed enough to please her. "Ser Hatemonger, if you could show our worker back to his position. I think we're done here." She took a sip from a cup emblazoned with the company's cheery coblyn mascot, and the click of porcelain on her desk when she set it down was close to the bang of a gavel. 

 

[align=left]Agid crossed the room and opened the door. Verad walked out with a shuffling step and his head hung low, Jeresu following behind him, grumbling under his breath. "Of all the inconveniences, to be called out from home for this, of all things, honestly . . . "

[/align]

Verad chanced a quick glance over his shoulder. Agid had lingered behind, nodding at Palmer as she offered instructions he couldn't hear. When he was certain he was inaudible, he spoke, whispering, "And how is your sister, Ser Resu?" Jeresu blinked, caught off guard by the question.

 

"She's . . . fine, obviously," he said, giving Verad a suspicious look. "Why?"

 

"No reason, no reason." He feigned interest in the secretary's desk. "But you should, perhaps, ask the security chief about his whereabouts last week." He smiled, brightly at that. "But it was good to see you! My apologies for the breach; I just thought to improve the workers' morale a little, ease the burden."

 

"Hm? Oh, yes. Very, um, noble, yes." Jeresu seemed distracted as he left the office. Verad preferred to wait for Agid to catch up. He was, after all, being escorted, even as he dreaded being anywhere alone with the man.

 

"This way," he grunted. Verad was quick to follow him out of the office, towards the mine's main entrance. "Very cute, what you did," he muttered. "You're at the dressing station?" Without waiting for a response, he pointed down the tunnel. "Bit to the right, just past the ore loading dock there."

 

Verad squinted down the mine's entrance. He had always entered from the camp, and so the front of it, with its rickety railings and loading docks, were foreign to him. "Thank you, Ser. I'll be on my way."

 

"Safe job, the dressing station. Not like working the tunnels. That was lucky for you." Agid gave the mine's tunnel a long stare, as if offended by it. "Lot of risks in the tunnels. Lot of accidents."

 

Turning, he walked away, leaving Verad in front of the dark and surrounded by the clatter of machines and the cacophony of metal on rock.

[Verad]

Ten Days Ago:

 

While the dispersal of the bandit camp by Sers Val and Corinthus was undoubtedly a boon for the already dangerous region of Mor Dhona, it had the unfortunate side-effect of leaving Verad at a dead end. His goods had not been recovered, nor was he any closer to understanding the advice they had been given to investigate an apparently unrelated mining company. For one instant, even a man as resolute as he was brought close to despair that neither his goods nor the missing vendor would be found.

 

He was nudged in the right direction by an unlikely source. Over the past few weeks, he had made the acquaintance of a one Burning Edge, a retired gladiatorial great. Over time, she revealed to Verad that she was in the business of debt-trading, of purchasing debts from creditors at a reduced value and selling the debtor's labor to outside parties in exchange for their wages until the debt was paid. It was all a perfectly legal practice in the Ul'dahn economy thanks to the careful manipulation of the Monetarists - so long as the workers gave their consent and were adequately cared for.

 

The very notion of it rankled Verad, but what was legal was legal whether he deemed it wise or not. However, Burning had gone on to tell him, there was somebody in the business who was rumored to be cutting corners, forcing laborers to work without consent. Such an action would normally be found very quickly, but they were covering their tracks well.

 

The possibility raised other questions in Verad's mind. If Gliding Bone had been attacked by thugs in the street, why had he been told to investigate a mining company? Why had the assets in Verad's strongbox been seized as debt reduction, and if that were the case, how had goods seized in such a plan been found in the hand of bandits? 

 

It was possible, he supposed, that the trader, whomever it was, had hired extralegal assistance in securing newly-purchased debtors, but that would mean very little without the strength of paper and parchment, of ink and quill, to forestall accusations of kidnapping.

 

Feeling the matter bore fruit, Verad entreated his comrades in the Harbingers to investigate further. Miss Lakshmi was the first, and her task had been simple to relocate Godrich, one of Gliding Bone's attackers, amidst the Ala Mihgan refugees in order to press him for further information.

 

Finding Godrich amidst the refugee camps was simple enough for her, as he had been polite enough to give the company his address, believing Ser Val, from their encounter at the Peiste, to be a fellow cactuar enthusiast. Presenting herself as a friend of Val, Godrich was eager to talk, even going so far as to provide a forged document authorizing prohibited medicines to help the "injured plant." Godrich, it seemed, was an accomplished forgery artist, with a variety of different documents intended to provide extra food and supplies for the refugees. How simple would it be, thought Verad when she reported this, for him to forge consent to debt-trading as well?

 

He would never have the chance to ask the man, as an intruder appeared, and Godrich urged Lakshmi to hide. She was forced to listen as someone, an Agid, informed him that they had a new forger, less prone to errors on other jobs, less prone to, ironically, providing sensitive information to rats snooping around. She heard the man's throat open, and heard the wet, whimpering sound of his death. And then she heard him call to her; he had known she was there all along.

 

After a brief confrontation, she was able to escape, distracting Agid by using her skills as an arcanist to start a fire in the tent, but not before surrendering her linkpearl, and not before Agid was able to reclaim Godrich's stash of forged papers. That evening, they had received a threat that, however lightly the members of the company had taken it, that nearly left Verad's marvelous skin in a state of deathly pallor: "Stay out of my business, or you will become its product." Lakshmi had unwittingly come upon one of the operation's ringleaders, and had only barely escaped. Cursing his foolishness for sending out a member alone, he resolved to make sure nobody went unaccompanied.

 

Ser Val's second excursion to the Tangle fared better. Aided by Lan Darklyn, they were able to examine the remains of the dispersed camp and recover Verad's now-abandoned and mostly-reeking-of-morbol goods. This came at a price, however, as they soon found themselves ambushed by a group of the same, seeking to use the place as a waystation.

 

Ah, if only Verad could have seen the battle! From their report they were able to easily overpower the larger force, only defeating their leader with some difficulty. And how rare is it that one can say one was hit in the face with a Lalafell? A strange injury, but one Val should have counted among his proudest, for it was in being struck with one that he had, however unknowingly, found the key to the matter.

 

Once they had defeated the bandits - and, unfortunately but understandably, killed their leader before getting him to reveal more information - the pair discovered that the group had a captive, a young Lalafell woman who had been kept in a sack, one incidentally used to strike Val in the face. The woman identified herself as an innocent victim of the bandit's machinations, a claim that, again understandably, the pair took at face value. She gave them her name, and, along with the goods recovered from the camp, they escorted her home to Ul'dah.

 

It wasn't until the next day, when Miss Covington investigated the mining camp itself, that the meaning of the name would become clear . . . 

 

Now:

 

 

Verad didn't wait to be caught alone once he was off-shift, finding Bone and treating him to an extra ziz, extra time be damned. The two sat very far away from the rest of the workers tonight, the genial atmosphere of last night's supper having vanished once they received notices saying how many more days they owed for indulging. There had been no trouble beyond the occasional sullen glare in his direction, but he decided to take no chances and isolate himself. Not only did this guard him from future savage beatings, but it gave him the opportunity to explain his investigation to Bone in full.

 

He had listened patiently while Verad spoke, and, for once, he was willing to respond with a prompt. "Well, what did it mean?"

 

Verad shrugged, all gravitas having left him once the matter had gone from mono- to dialogue. "Reresu Resu," he said, and left it at that. Bone nearly spat out a half-chewed piece of meat.

 

"Resu?! Like Jeresu."

 

"The same. Brother and sister. You can see their portrait in his office if you ever happen to visit."

 

"Well, how can - I mean, he doesn't know, does he? How could he be working with them if - " Bone trailed off in confused silence.

 

"I was confused about it myself," said Verad, in-between picking at his meal. "If Agid is working with him, then why kidnap his sister? Leverage? It doesn't seem like he needs it - business is booming. And a few other things. Who was the new forger he mentioned when my comrade saw him murder Godrich, his old one? I only have some suppositions, but, if you will? They may help us escape this place."

 

Bone nodded his head in an overly genial fashion. "By all means, Inspector Hildibrand, tell us."

 

Verad's grin lit up the table. "You flatter me too much. But to begin. Here's the operation as I see it: Jeresu and the company have an understanding. A trader would normally pay the original creditor, sell the debtor into labor, and take part or most or all of his wages, the contract depending. Eventually, the debtor works for at least long enough to pay off the debt and make a profit for the trader. Simple. What Jeresu is doing is avoiding paying the creditors at all."

 

"Huh. He kidnaps the debtor, fakes a contract to make it look like a legitimate trade. That way he hasn't had to pay anything to anyone. Any wages he receives are immediately profits. Correct?"

 

"Correct. Because it's all profits, he can accept less of their wages than he would otherwise. An attractive proposition to a company that needs to cut - " There was a crack and Verad felt his stool's leg lurch from underneath him before bolting upright to avoid the inevitable crash.  " -costs. That takes us to the last of the investigations, the one Miss Covington conducted herself."

 

"Mm, hold on." Bone pulled another stool aside. "And what did she find?"

 

"Here? She found the office itself, spoke with Palmer under the pretense of investing, for which I am told Palmer was very eager. But she mentioned a few things - most specifically, that the company has only been turning a heavy profit within the past six months or so, shortly after Palmer's appointment as new company head. I'm willing to wager, as well, that this was around when Agid was first hired."

 

"Wouldn't know; it's not as if I have access to the personnel files."

 

"Just follow along. Miss Covington also learned the name of the company's debt-trader - our friend Ser Resu. And the company established their relationship with him as their chief supplier of debt-laborers around the same time they started turning profits." Despite the seriousness of the topic, Verad bounced in his seat, making the give an ominous creak. "So, suppose Jeresu is tired of paying creditors. He finds a struggling company in need of cheap labor, cheaper than even debt-trading would provide. He speaks with the head, who's agreeable, and makes an arrangement with the security chief, who's also agreeable - " 

 

"Where did he come from though? How likely is it that somebody who's running the security of the company is also ordering around bandits in Mor Dhona?"

 

Verad rubbed the side of his cheek. "I don't know. I've thought and thought but I don't know. Maybe he was a bandit hired on by Palmer or suggested by Jeresu. Perhaps he was the chief, and had these old contacts he could rely on? It would explain Godrich. It's he who is the real key."

 

"A dead cactuar enthusiast?" Bone scoffed into his meal.

 

"And a forger. A good one, from Lakshmi's appraisal. Without a forger there's no way to make this all appear legal. Agid seemed to have a personal connection to him - at least before he slit his throat, but that's neither here nor there." Verad could feel sides of his brain pulling apart as he tried to sort out the details. The occasional sip of beer only provided temporary relief. "Jeresu gets Palmer to agree, they bring Agid into the scheme, he brings Godrich and the bandits into the scheme, and they have a starting point. Jeresu gets their signatures, Godrich forges them, Agid and the bandits kidnap them and bring them here, and Palmer creates a debt system to keep them locked down as long as possible. Jeresu gets a cut of the wages that's all-profit, Palmer keeps her costs down, Agid and his crew get a small percentage. A working system."

 

"There's holes, but it's a start. So where does the sister into this?"

 

Verad sat facing forward in his table, and took a deep sigh. "The first part of this was theory supported by fact. Now, the next part - this is the truly dubious part, and I cannot say I am correct. But - " He held up a finger. "What happens next is that you get kidnapped, and Godrich takes a direct hand in it, and ruins my rug."

 

Bone laughed into his beer, short and sharp. "You think he died because they were afraid of you?"

 

"And why shouldn't anyone be afraid of me, when my fangs are bared?" Verad's smile was beatific. "Whether they were afraid or not, Godrich exposed the operation to somebody, and people started snooping - admittedly, we could have done better at the Peiste. But it gives Agid an opportunity."

 

"How so?"

 

"As I see it, he does the most dangerous work and profits the least. Keeping workers in line, kidnapping people, paying Godrich and the bandits, that's quite a lot of effort for doing most of the actual business. And then Jeresu's sister enters the picture. . . "

 

Bone waited a minute before giving a prompt. "You're trailing again."

 

"Oh! Yes, right. I suspect Reresu Resu also has a knack for forgery. Agid killed Godrich because he had a new forger; Godrich was expendable. Sers Val and Darklyn rescue a Lalafell from the bandits the very next day. I suspect that we stumbled into a double-cross. On the one hand, Jeresu having his own forgery artist means less pay for Agid and his crew. But if Agid has the forgery artist, and it's Jeresu's sister - "

 

Bone picked up the thread. "He can take a much larger cut, both for his own work and as leverage. Of course!"

 

"You see? It all fits!" He started laughing in the mad cackle of a genius, and Bone joined in.

 

"It does, it does! You've cracked it, Bellveil! So how do we prove it?" 

 

"I have no idea!" he responded, his laughter continuing as Bone's died a quick death.

 

"What d'you mean you have no idea?!" He seemed halfway to lunging across the table, to which Verad could only throw up both hands in defense.

 

"Now, now, you're right that I don't have proof, but I never said I had no plan! I have proof enough for curiosity's sake, but I'd need to prove any number of forgeries to indicate Jeresu's guilt, and that Palmer knew about them to prove hers. Agid is the easy part, by comparison, so long as he doesn't do something awful to my vital organs before I can bring that about. As for how to prove those things?" He shrugged. "The documents are under guard, or don't exist here, and our movements are watched quite closely. A more dubious man than I could break into the offices, I am sure, but I? I am far too honest a man to rob!"

 

"That doesn't exactly help us, though. Any of us." Bone looked over his shoulder at the workers. If anything, they seemed worse after their night of revelry than before. "Honesty won't do much good if it keeps us stuck here."

 

"True." Verad finished the last of his beer and stood. "While I may not have proof, though, I have a number of levers, the first of which I pulled earlier this morning. And I have Miss Covington, who will be coming here to tour the facility in the hopes of investing in a few days' time. Has that happened before?"

 

"Mm-mm, not since I've been here. I heard some workers speaking, though, and it happened once before. The place will be cleaned up a day or so before they come, to make it look presentable."

 

Verad's hands clasped together with a sharp clap. "Wonderful! Then that is all we need. I must say I agree with the management. We have to put on our best possible face for the investors, wouldn't you agree?"

 

Confused by his enthusiasm, Bone's nod was slow and hesitant. "I . . . suppose so?"

 

"Good! Then I suppose we should see about fetching some firesand!"

[Verad]

Later That Evening:

 

"Took us a month to find the first seam. It was a tough one, let me tell you, not least because of the stakes. Bought our way out of a contract, me and Lennard, used what we had for two weeks, and that stretched to three, and that turned to chewing on boot leather. I kept telling Lennard the place was a bust, his nose was wrong, but he wouldn't have it, kept on plugging away, pick to metal, pick to metal. Not saying he was stronger than me, he being a Midlander and all, but you could see in the night, he was hammering away at something using I-don't-know-what for fuel. Not muscle, I know that.

 

"End of it came, we could barely swing down in the sink shaft, but once you've seen copper in the rock, hunger doesn't matter so much. We struck good, you know, saw the gleam. Brought some investors on, account of we didn't have much money to do any more than dig that pit deep enough to go out the other side of Hydaelyn. Wasn't a mine yet, not really.

 

"Money came in,though, and we were digging horizontal and vertical. Lot of the guys were new, industry just starting to boom back then. So a lot of the boys were just leaving rocks by the wayside, not clearing their paths. If you know what you're doing you know to keep the rocks secure, keep them safe, otherwise you get coblyns, scuttling in, looking for a meal. They won't do a man any harm if there's rocks around, just bad for business. Came to be that we'd see men break away rocks, open up a new shaft, and they'd make their way down the new path and the coblyns would be scurrying right behind them, chewing up all the leftovers, pleased as I suppose one of them can be.

 

"Well, we kept seeing that, and took a liking to it. We were the Palmer-Blood Mining Cooperative at the time, just a name we threw together, something to look official for the investors, but we liked that a little better, so we went through the paperwork, one of the men drafted up the little picture - I forget which, but he's gone to the Calamity now, I think - and there it was, Coblyn's Fancy Mining Company."

 

Wahlbert paused, and took a drink from his flask. "Put it on just about everything," he said once finished, holding it up so Verad could take a look at the faded logo on its side. "But just Lennard and I got the flasks."

 

Uncertain of what to say at first (an admittedly rare occasion), Verad leaned against the commissary's wall. From this position, he could vaguely see the outline of the company's head office, from its position to the west, only a faint shadow blocking dark with more dark. Wahlbert sat nearby, having commandeered one of the better-quality stools within his own stores. Verad could not begrudge him his preference for quality.

 

He had planned to ask the man a few questions, to perhaps push another of the levers he had mentioned to Gliding Bone earlier on; however, all it had taken was the briefest of greetings and to lean nearby, and Wahlbert had started to talk. "You're one of the owners, then?" he asked, unable to keep some of the surprise out of his voice.

 

Snorting, Wahlbert took another long drink from his flask before he continued. "Was," he said. "Hurt my leg in the Calamity, and it never set right. Too much pain to mine, and I never did do much of the paperwork. Lennard bought out my shares and set me up in the commissary. Used to be a nice job. Quality goods, got to interact with the boys. For a few months, anyway.

 

"Don't know if the seam got busted up five years ago or if it was always close to drying out, but output got less and less. Not as much ore going out or money coming in. Investors might've been fine with that, might have just squeezed the workers, but Lennard wouldn't budge. Always gave the miners a fair wage, tried to help them out, you know."

 

"Did you use debt-laborers?" Verad stopped himself from clasping a hand over his mouth even after he couldn't stop himself from asking the question. Wahlbert's glare was dark under the lantern light, thick brows casting a shadow over his eyes.

 

"Of course we did. Don't be stupid. You want to find somebody who will look down on that, go join the Sworn and the Royalists. It was good business." The look faded, and he turned his head to examine the offices. "Not like this, though. No contract extensions or bleeding them for a mug of beer. Nor - " He paused, as if hesitating, and continued. "Anyway, we didn't treat them any different than the skilled laborers. There but for the grace of the Twelve, and all. We could have wound up the same way if that first month hadn't paid off.

 

"But he kept pushing and the seam kept failing. We prospected, surveyed, stretched it out, but something had to give, break. People holding the purse-strings cut him loose, would have taken over entirely if his daughter hadn't stepped in. Businesswoman, you know. Raised right on honest gil, but a Monetarist for it all the same. They gave her some time, and I guess the money started flowing again, right around the time the camp started going bad."

 

"Not a coincidence,I'm sure." Verad chewed on the inside of his cheek in thought. "Why tell me this?"

 

"Because you're about as subtle as a bomb in a firewood shed." Wahlbert held his flask up, closer to Verad. The contents smelled foul, vaguely sulfurous. He took it all the same. "New workers cause some trouble," he went on, "But they don't cause as much as you, and they definitely don't stretch out their contracts with whole feasts at a time in their first week."

 

A gracious guest, Verad took a careful sip of the flask's contents, and the familiar taste of Qiqirn firewater conducted a full military offensive upon his throat. He fought back the urge to cough and expel the contents of his stomach through his nose as he returned the flask. Wahlbert seemed to take the silence as another prompt. "Don't do it at all, really. Used to be that we'd have them often as we could - sharing drink, food, stories. These fellows? The void's in them, or it might as well be. Dead inside, no breaking the contract, trying to ride it out as cheap as possible to get out and get done. Nothing like last night."

 

"Surely, you can stop it, then. You can't contact your partner?"

 

"Not without a shovel." There was another dark look on his face. "Passed just after Milith took it over. Died happy, at least. Company was carrying on in the family. And she always did think he was too soft on the workers anyhow, so I can't see as how it would matter much."

 

"Then the law,certainly. Perhaps the Blades - well, some of the Blades, or - " He was cut off by Wahlbert's stare. "There must be an honest one somewhere."

 

"For certain there is. That's not the point. I may be cozy here, I may be secure, with a full flask and a simple job, but I'm also under watch. If you don't think Hatemonger wouldn't hear about me getting up and trying to leave camp, same as any of the other workers, then you take him for a fool." He offered a rueful smile as he tipped his flask over to find it empty before closing its cap. "Hope they'd at least let me drink to death."

 

"So there have been deaths, then."

 

"Sure. People get too close to their contract, and a mine's a good place for accidents. Not often - about . . . " He counted out on his hands, once, twice. "Too often, but not often. Most of the boys here are extended through the next year. No telling what'll happen then."

 

Wahlbert leaned forward in his seat, rubbing a thick, calloused hand through his hair. Verad watched him, uncertain. There were a half-dozen pitches he could offer. He could appeal to the man's better nature, to nostalgia, to the need to quit the drink, to spite, to any number of things. No one seemed like it would fit, no sophistry would function. In the face of that, he chose the simplest question he could conceive.

 

"Do you want to stop them?"

 

Quiet settled between the pair, the kind of silence full of noise, surrounded by the workers and the clang and clatter of the night shift, the occasional low laughter and cough from those off-shift. Rubbing his face between both hands, Wahlbert sighed and sat up. "I do. The place needs to die." He pressed his hand against his face to hide something, Verad thought a laugh at first, before biting down on his knuckle as he kept his gaze on the offices in the distance. "It's not what it was, and it needs to not be."

 

"Then here's what you can do to help me."

[Verad]

Next Morning:

 

"If it's not too much trouble, I would very much like to receive a receipt."

 

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.

 

"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?"

 

"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."

 

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?"

 

"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."

 

"No, please, go on. If there's a problem I can certainly try to resolve it."

 

"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."

 

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?"

 

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.

 

"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."

 

"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.

 

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.

 

A Few Days Later, Before The Tour:

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

"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."

 

"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?"

 

"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."

 

"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?"

 

"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?"

 

"You have."

 

"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?"

 

"You have, as little sense as it makes."

 

"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!"

 

Silence, and a flat look from Bone. "That doesn't make a Twelve-damned onze of sense."

 

"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.

 

"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."

 

"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."

 

"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."

 

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?"

 

"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.

 

"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."

 

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?"

 

Verad pursed his lips,and tested the connection between wires and caps. "Why?"

 

"Debts."

 

"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?"

 

". . . You're not.But even so, there must have been other ways."

 

"There were. I was taking them. I would have gone elsewhere, if not Resu. Perhaps that Burning woman, or someone else."

 

"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."

 

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."

 

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."

 

"But you profit from them all the same."

 

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. 

 

"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."

 

[align=left]"What about - "

[/align]

"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.

 

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."

 

"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.

 

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.

 

"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 -"

 

"Please, Bellveil," said Agid, voice weary. "Cut the bullshit. What have you been planning?"

 

"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 - "

 

"Near the separator? Not to explosives storage?"

 

"I, well, when you put it like that  - "

 

"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."

 

"That, hah, that is a very strange coincidence, is it not? That he could guess like that - "

 

"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."

 

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 - "

 

"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."

 

"C-come now, ser, surely you must - "

 

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?"

 

The sensation of a blade driven into his side was cold and familiar.

[Verad]

The Day of the Tour

 

With sensible business coat and trousers (not to her taste, but wearing a skirt of any length for business in the deserts of Ul'dah was a surefire way to dirty it) impeccably in place, Millith Palmer paused to adjust her bun of auburn hair in a mirror kept in her office desk. Today was a crucial one, and she would let nothing she could control make her plans go awry.

 

Six months! Six months of struggling with investors and forcing them to see that the Mining Company could still produce what it had in its heyday. She had scraped and saved and wrung as much profit out of the copper and cut her expenses as closely to dangerous as she could. She had partnered with Resu when he'd approached her with a scheme to save her money and earn him the same. She had even hired the Security Chief he'd suggested to help maintain order around the offices, though if she were honest, she could not fault that choice - despite his name, Hatemonger seemed good at keeping the workers docile.

 

Docile. Not a thing she liked to think of when it came to miners. Papa had been the sort to laugh the longest and loudest in any crowd. But it was necessary. All of it was necessary. It was the only way to keep the company alive when so many people would see her father's work broken apart and sold. They had to suffer to see the good days again, and she regretted that.

 

But she would not regret the outcome, for that would all change, she thought as she double-checked the papers and contracts, ensuring that nothing was out of place and all was ready to be signed. Madam Covington's interest had been polite but enthusiastic, and she was sure that once she saw the mine's output, and the potential for future investment, not to mention the plans for improving worker quality of life with her funds and the new seam it would allow them exploit, that she wouldn't hesitate to sign up for the enterprise.

 

She tapped and checked and shuffled everything, and placed it back on the desk. Nerves, she told herself, and cleared her throat before regaining her composure. Halfway through putting on the mask of a professional, however, she cracked open a drawer in her desk, taking out a small portrait. It was a simple one, but she'd always found it vibrant - Lennard Palmer in the prime of his youth, shaggy brown hair, gap-toothed grin and all, leaning his pick on a rock and posing as if he'd just slain a dragon, looking up at her where she sat on his shoulders and kept her hands on his forehead, doing her best to match his smile.

 

Stopping herself from tearing up, she tapped the image with her index finger before setting it back in its place. It would be better soon. All of it.

 

Finally composed, she stepped out of the Coblyn's Fancy's main office to see the carts and crates she'd arranged at the edge of the mine's rails, each stacked high with copper ore, ready for processing and transport. The output represented what was likely the last of the lode here, but it would be more than enough. Impressive to see and impressive to sell, that was it.

 

She waited near the front entrance of the company, watching a figure approach in the distance, and smoothed out her coat. The tour wasn't the only meeting she was having today; with things falling into place, the other part of her plans meant jettisoning her contracts with Jeresu Resu. She had put feelers out in the past few days, and a reliable name kept turning up. She had arranged a meeting to coincide, in order to show Covington the best possible face of the debt-trading movement. And who knew? Perhaps she would be the sort to react well to celebrity, former or otherwise.

 

For this, she had to thank Bellveil, she thought as she watched the figure approach, the whiskers and paws of a tamed couerl becoming visible through the haze of Thanalan's heat at high noon. His comments had, however inadvertently, spared her from disaster. 

 

The woman who dismounted from the couerl once she reached the Fancy's main gates was recognizable in large part because she'd kept the looks and physique she'd had when she retired from the gladiatorial arenas ten years ago. Palmer only knew this by reputation, never having followed gladiators with much interest, but she could certainly see why people said that. The Hellsguard woman cut a striking figure with a heavily-muscled physique, an apparent interest in flaunting it with a midriff-baring shirt, and the mass of fiery hair that was part of her namesake.

 

Admittedly, the macahuitl she'd brought along was a little strange, but perhaps it suggested security. A metaphor, certainly. Everyone projected an image, after all. Millith put her worry aside and offered a polite bow.

 

"Ms. Burning Edge! Welcome. Please, come in. I think we have business to discuss."  

[align=center]---[/align]

The firewater was weak today, or at least Wahlbert thought so after another long swallow. Perhaps his throat had gone numb from too much of the stuff, and he was finally losing his ability to taste it. Not so serious a problem - firewater tasted awful - but it meant he might drink too much, and either lose his nerve and fail, or get too much of it and start matters too early.

 

That wasn't on him, though, he thought, looking around the commissary office, good leg tapping out a rapid rhythm on the dirt with each clatter of boot to ground. That was on the workers. Verad had been vague about his plans, excepting what he'd asked Wahlbert about explosives, tunnels and so forth. He'd been clear about one point. Today, there was supposed to be a tour of some potential investors. Good people, he'd said. Impeccable characters. If they were to see trouble - real trouble, the kind that couldn't be cleared up with paperwork - he was sure they'd intervene.

 

How that trouble was supposed to happen, Bellveil hadn't said. He hadn't even said he was leaving it to Wahlbert's discretion, but instead gone on about how exciting it'd be to infiltrate the mine. Like it were an adventure, the fool. But Wahlbert had assumed he had discretion, and so he'd taken steps.

 

The thing that most of the workers did - the thing that kept most of their contracts growing and growing by days and hours - was drink. And he couldn't fault them that. It was one of his favorite activities. But it also meant that there was one surefire way to raise their ire. He was just waiting for it to happen, seated patiently at his desk. The morning shift had come off their hours, and so it was bound to occur.

 

A minute passed. Then another. He was halfway to taking a second sip from his flask out of boredom when the first one burst into the door, looking mad enough to tear down the mountain with his bare hands, starvation be damned. Through the open door behind him, Wahlbert could see another mass of workers outside, looking just as irate.

 

"What the hell, Wahlbert?" said the man before him, slamming his hands down on the desk. Even expecting it, the movement made Wahlbert jump in his seat. "What the hell?! A month for beer?""

 

Wahlbert was very practiced at hiding a grin behind a noncommittal shrug and a lifting of his flask. "Ask management. Those are the rules now. You want a drink, it's an extra month. Or go without."

 

From there, things began.

[align=center]---[/align]

Negotiations took much longer than Palmer had expected. She had been willing to pay a great deal for Burning's services, and she knew her urgency in acquiring the woman as a supplier of labor was obvious. But every time they seemed to come to an agreement, Burning raised the stakes, and so it had gone for two hours.

 

"And you're willing to pay the chirurgeon fees should I come to violent resistance?" she asked, looking surprised and amused with both eyebrows raised. "On top of the repairs, the lodging, the private stable for Chooga - " She nodded towards her couerl, which had kept out of the way once Burning had dismounted, "And shares?"

 

Palmer nodded externally and winced internally. It was a painful contract, but one she could afford with Covington's assistance. And the sooner she cut herself loose of Resu, the better. "Yes, certainly," she said. "Profits have been up for the past few months, so we can certainly afford to spend more on a trader of your reputation, Miss Edge." Looking pleased, Palmer stuck her hand out as if to shake, and, out of the corner of her eye, noticed another group approaching the gates.

 

Like Burning Edge, Faye Covington was easy to notice, with her penchant for all-white clothing. A daring choice in the dust of Thanalan, Palmer felt, but that was neither here nor there. She seemed to have brought three others with her, all Miqo'te, and all apparently armed in some fashion, or, by the stance of one, able to take care of themselves without armaments. Strange; very different from the bespectacled fellow she'd brought last time, but perhaps after last time she felt she needed her own security detail. Fair enough. "Ah," she said, "And even better! Here's one of our interested investors. She was very concerned about the nature of the debt-laborers, so your presence would be a tremendous comfort during her tour."

 

Burning did not take Palmer's hand, nor did she give much of a response, merely uttering a "Hrm," and giving a lazy nod in the direction of the group. Out of earshot, Palmer saw them speaking among themselves, apparently organizing the detail. When Covington stepped forward, it was with only one of the Miqo'te men, a shockingly handsome man with golden blond hair, whose features did not detract from the spear at his back. 

 

Palmer tried not to flinch as Covington bobbed in a polite curtsy. "Good day, Miss Palmer. It's a pleasure to see you again."

 

Grinning, Palmer looked immensely relieved, radiant with the prospect of an imminently successful business deal. "Madam Covington," she replied. "Likewise a pleasure." She returned the curtsy with a bow. "You've come at a very opportune time. Our copper is ready to be shipped south to Ul'dah for processing and smelting. An excellent time for inspection. Ah, and - " She gestured towards Burning. "I know you were concerned about debt-trading in the past. I've been speaking with Burning Edge here about a new series of contracts. I think you'll find her reputation in the business to be impeccable."

 

At this, Burning actually stuck out her hand to shake. Palmer did her best to ignore the snub. "I haven't signed the contract yet, Palmer," she chided. "A pleasure, Miss."

 

"Oh?" Covington coiled one corner of her lips into a grin. "What impeccable timing indeed! I'm glad this seems to be such a profitable investment." She turned towards Burning and curtsied again. "Miss Edge, was it? It's a pleasure to meet you. Lady Faye Covington, Support Saint of Harbingers of Dawn, at your service." 

 

The two shook, and exchanged pleasantries. Meanwhile, Palmer tried to edge her neck past the Miqo'te guard standing behind Palmer, to see what the other two men were up to. She could see another figure approaching, though much smaller, and very determined. Surely it could't be -  Faye's voice brought her back to attention. She 

 

"Ah," Faye said, gesturing to the Miqo'te and bringing Palmer back to her attention. "This is my bodyguard, Val. Please pay him little mind. A precaution, you know? Mines aren't always the safest place." She spoke into her linkpearl - personal business, Palmer assumed.

 

"Oh, I completely understand, madam. Our accident record is cause for concern, of course, but I think with the right distribution of funds that it need be a concern no longer." She gestured with one arm towards the steps leading to the mine's entrance. "Shall we?" If it was who she thought it was, then she wanted nothing to do with the man. Perhaps her security would keep him out after all.

[align=center]---[/align]

Jeresu Resu was doing his level-best to keep a cool head as he made his way to the Coblyn Fancy's main gates, but his rage was evident in the trembling of his fingers and the clenching and unclenching of his hands.

 

"That bitch," he grumbled to himself. "That backstabbing Midlander bitch." The debt-trader market was a small one in Ul'dah, and word had gotten around that the head of the Fancy was interviewing Burning Edge - Burning Edge, of all people - as a possible new source of labor. Cutting him out. Him!

[align=left]

The very thought of it made his eyebrow twitch. Who had kept her company from collapsing? Who had made it possible for her to keep her costs low and her gates open? None other than he! Certainly they had both profited, but he didn't need her the way she needed his services, his forged contracts. And to think that after all this time she was going to terminate his services! Why, if she thought she could get away with that, then - [/align]

 

In his rage, he almost tripped, and in tripping, realized he was being spoken to. "Of all the things to need maintaining," he groused, stamping his foot in frustration on the short stair leading up to the main gates. Squinting upwards, he noticed two Miqo'te in front of him, both armed. "Are you new security? I hadn't realized Ser Hatemonger was hiring again. No matter. I am Jeresu Resu, and I must speak to Miss Palmer at once. May I pass?"

 

One of them, a white-haired Miqo'te with a spear on his back, looked a little uncertain. "Ahh, well, actually there is a tour of the mines going on right now Mr. Resu." He squinted towards the east, where the worker's camp was located. "Say, what is going on down at the camp? Those workers are kinda rowdy." The other, darker-haired, said nothing, merely staring down at Jeresu. He hated that look - it always made him feel like he was being treated like a doll.

 

"A tour?" he said, ignoring the question. But it really is very impo - " He craned his head to the left and right, and froze at the sight of Burning next to Palmer, unmistakable with her height and build. "So that's how it is!" Never before had so much rage been compacted into so tiny a body, and Jeresu stamped and shouted and spat. "Palmer! Palmer, you'll regret this!" he shouted, trying to attract her attention.

 

The white-haired Miqo'te tried not to look perturbed as he intervened. "Hold on there a second. What is going on between you and that lady?" 

 

The other nodded, sounding annoyed. "They're doing a tour right now, and you can't go in; you've got no special privileges here . . . But perhaps you should voice your troubles to us."

 

Resu looked as if he were about to speak in his irritation, but hesitated. There was no sense in incriminating himself simply out of anger. "F-forgive my agitation," he said, waving a hand. "It's a private matter between she and - "

 

"What in the hells is going on down there?" The white-haired Miqo'te attracted Resu's attention, which veered to the east, towards the camp at last, and he paled visibly at the sight. "Oh, Twelve."

[align=center]---[/align]

Palmer was doing her best to ignore the shouting. Jeresu showing up was a set-back, certainly, but she had to do her best to keep the tour going, keep the investors interested, and that meant smoothing over any complications.

 

"My apologies," she said as she lead Faye, Val, and Burning up the steps. "We've been having a rather tough time with the former trader. I was apparently - well, I was quite mistaken about his reputation, and that's something I fully intend to correct." There was no use denying the state of the workers now, she felt. In the circumstances, plausible deniability was her best defense.

 

Faye gave Palmer's expression a close look as they walked, but paused at the sound of shouting in the distance. "Ah, mistakes do happen. That's the Mister Resu you mentioned last time, I take it?"

 

[align=center]

"It is, yes,"said Palmer, nodding. "I really shouldn't be telling you this, but as it turns out, he's been double-dealing." Her voice turned conspiratorial once the group was up the steps. "He's been shorting the worker's creditors on their payments. They would have ended their contracts to find they still owed debts! Quite unsavory."

 

 

"How shameful. Unsavory, indeed." Faye clicked the tip of her tongue against the back of her front teeth. "I'm glad you cut ties with him. I trust Burning is a more suitable candidate?"

 

Palmer was only a moment away from completing her reassurances when Burning seemed to notice Resu in earnest. "You had that little shit working with you before?!" She broke from the group without waiting for a response, shouting back to the man. "Resu, you little shit - I swear to the Twelve!" She broke away from the tour group and bolted towards the gates. 

 

Nald'thal, thought Palmer, grant me mercy. "She's, ah, coarse," she said, trying to hide a stammer. "But still of a far better reputation, I assure you."

 

Faye cleared her throat, not entirely subtly, as Burning stomped off. "Coarse, yes . . . I take it those two aren't fond of each other? I suppose it's only to be expected of business rivals."

 

"Yes, very expected," she said, eager and relieved that Faye had accepted the explanation. "Well, you've seen the head offices already, and to your right is where we keep our demolitions storage," she gestured to one building, and then another, "And in that other building is the offices of Security Chief Agid Hatemonger. He runs a very right ship, I assure you, to avoid having people renege on their contracts."

 

Something about the name made Val's eyes widen and give the office a closer examination, but Palmer paid it no mind. The tour proceeded, for a brief moment, a little more smoothly. Faye asked for more details about how workers could terminate their contracts or buy their way out of them, and Palmer was happy to explain that their situation was the best of a bad option as they made their way to the copper shipment.

 

"Mm, well, there are options, but this is really the best of them," said Palmer, stepping towards the mine's output. "There's certainly debt forgiveness, if someone had the resources to buy their contract out from both the trader and all partes consented. They could legally terminate of their own will, but that would leave them exposed to their original creditors - and with creditors like the Syndicate, that may not be the best option."

 

Something struck her, and she smiled as she reached out to pick up a loose hunk of copper ore. "You know," she said, "It was my father's company originally? Lennard Palmer. Genius at finding a productive seam." I'm proud to keep up the family trad - "

 

Her speech was interrupted by an out-of-breath guard, dashing up from within the tunnels. "Miss P-Palmer - " he breathed, doubling over, hands on his knees. "The - the workers - they're rising up. It's a riot, Miss!"

[align=center]---[/align]

In the camp below, Wahlbert was lifting his flask as if it were a banner. He had been right - no beer was the final straw. All it had taken was some apathetic remarks, at least at first, to incense the workers. Then he had to express some growing sympathy, grudgingly acknowledging their state. And when one of them expressed dismay at the prospect of another day in the camp, he had growled, and slammed his flask on his table.

 

"Then don't spend another day in this camp. You, was your contract legal?" The man sheepishly shook his head. "What about you? Or you?" He watched as the workers assembled in his office became a chorus of horizontal head-shaking. "It's like that for all of you, hm? You all get knocked on the head and told you signed a piece of paper and so here you stay, because it's better'n being in debt to the Syndicate, is that right?"

 

This time they nodded. To be expected, Wahlbert supposed. "I've been here long enough to see good workers here, real workers. Hired proper, or bought on good contracts, better'n yours. And I don't know about you, but I'm sick of it. He forced himself out of his chair, wobbling as he stood on his bad leg. "Sick of feeding you slop and giving you blankets thin as paper and making you work an extra day for a mug of beer and acting like I'm doing you a favor."

 

[align=left]There were grumbles and nods of assent. "Well, I'm not doing you a favor. I'm keeping you trapped in here, same as those guards and that barricade outside. And I'm sick of it. Just damn sick of it." The grumbles grew louder, as men started to pump their fists in assent. "So now I am gonna do you a favor. I'm gonna help you bring that wall down, and get you home."

[/align]

Here there was silence, and Wahlbert couldn't tell whether he had their interest or their fear. Bellveil, at least, could hold a crowd's attention. He hobbled past them, however, one limping step at a time, and marched out of the office to reach the furniture they used for resting out doors.

 

With his flask in one hand to take a drink, he picked up a wooden leg from a stool the Elezen had broken a few days before; nobody had bothered to discard it. "You wanna stay here, that's your business. They might let you out in a year or so with all the garbage they add to your debt. But me?" He thumped the leg against his chest, and knew he had the interest of the guards, watching him from the barricade with intent expressions, hands no doubt drifting to their swords. "I'm getting out of here, now, today, and anybody wants to come with me, grab a chair and come along."

 

He started marching towards the barricade in slow, halting steps. In some respects, he was thankful for his bad leg - too fast and he would have been cut down, he was sure, before people had a chance to make up their minds. But after a moment or two he heard chairs snapping and breaking apart, and grunts of assent.

 

"Yeah!" "Too long!" "Tear it down, tear the whole thing down!"

 

Wahlbert was soon joined by workers, soon overtaken by more given his slow pace, until the several-dozen off-shift miners had gathered in front of the barricades - heavy things, sturdily constructed of wood and metal, the only opening therein held by four guards, all drawing swords and lifting their shields.

 

"Wahlbert," said one, calling out over the crowd. "You back there? If you're in this, you'll want to step back. Agid's not gonna like hearing about this." 

 

"Yeah," he snarled in response. "It is gonna sound bad, he finds out you four got beat and all of us are free." He wasn't the best speechmaker, and he knew it, but he didn't need a speech when anger would suffice. "Get 'em!"

 

They charged.

[align=center]   ---[/align]

Jeresu watched the violence below and to the east with increasing horror. The workers had the numbers, but the guards had a stronger position, training, and proper weapons. It was fortunate that their interests were only in holding the barricade, as the men trying to storm the opening were knocked back, some collapsing to the ground and falling still, some stumbling back into the mass.

 

The dark-haired Miqo'te's interest had been piqued by the fracas, and he had left the entrance to go spy on the battle out of sight. The white-haired one spoke to him through a linkpearl. "Try to stay out of it Ziuz'a . . . just keep me up to date."

 

Then Jeresu heard Burning curse, saw the tower of Hellsguard charging the entrance with fists clenched, and he squeaked, putting the white-haired Miqo'te between himself and the woman. The Miqo'te seemed impressed by her somehow.

 

"You have been stealing my work, you little whoreson - "

 

"The Burning Blade's Edge? It's great to meet you. I saw you fight a few times myself."

 

" - Hello, yes, that's me, always nice to see a former fan - " she said, much more politely and without skipping a beat or changing her enraged expression before continuing her tirade. "I swear to the gods I will rip your little legs off, you thieving money-grubbing two-timing little buzzard-fucker!"

 

Jeresu tried to disappear behind the Miqo'te's knees. "Now just, just calm down, you don't want to get involved with this woman! She'll use you, same as me, mark my words!"

 

"I'll - You - Fff - "She pointed, huffed, puffed, grunted, and grumbled unfinished words as they all melded together with the power of hate. Finally, she could get out a complete sentence. "You're going to tell me why she wants you gone so bad, or I will sell you stuffed with cotton as a children's toy."

 

"Actually," said the Miqo'te, "I am curious about that myself Mr. Resu. What did you do that has you, Miss Palmer, and Miss Edge so worked up?"

 

Jeresu was happy to acquiesce. Plausible deniability seemed to be the best defense here. "Oh, yes, I'll tell you, definitely," he said, casting a hateful glare past Burning to the top of the stairs. "She's been threatening me, she has. Forcing me to forge contracts for laborers to help her cut costs, and using her Highlander goon as insurance to make sure I don't complain. Even had the beast kidnap my sister not a few weeks ago as a warning!"

 

"I know," said the Miqo'te in response to something on his pearl. "Just stand by. And are you saying this woman goes back on her word? Miss Edge, she may try to betray you as well to keep her profits high."

 

Grinding her teeth hard enough to make a terrible crunching noise, Burning hissed out a quick "We're going to have words later, Resu," she said, before taking off for the rest of the tour group again.

 

Quivering, Jeresu looked for the nearest exit. "Words" probably meant "A cliff high enough for me to kick you off of it," and he wanted nothing to do with that.

[align=center]---[/align]

Hairs were starting to poke out of her bun. Palmer could always tell when she was getting stressed this way; her hair seemed to have a mind of its own when it came to expressing her dismay, and to have a worker riot in the middle of the tour suggested a great many hairs would come undone.

 

She took a deep breath before replying to the guard. "That - please contact Chief Hatemonger to immediately to restore order. This is unconscionable." She smiled, a resigned and polite gesture, at Faye. "My apologies, but I'm going to have to cut this short. This is, I assure you, not a typical workday, but there are occasional agitators for the Royalists in the ranks of the laborers. May we reschedule this for another time?"

 

Faye's Miqo'te bodyguard finally spoke at this time, the first she'd heard him do so. "So what 'xactly is a typical workday? How's this Hatemonger guy plan on quellin' these riots and what're these fuckers riotin' fer in th'first place? F'they were happy, ya'd think they wouldn't give two shits 'bout what was goin' on. Ya tellin' us th'truth or ya just talkin' shit t'our faces?"

 

Taken aback, Palmer did not respond immediately, giving Faye the opportunity to silence Val with a wave of one gloved hand. She smiled at Faye, but it was sinister like a shark that had smelled blood. "Another time? Oh, I assure you, I don't think rescheduling will be necessary. I'm sure you have much to attend to now, but Val and I can finish the tour on our own - we will not think you rude for leaving us without an escort. I believe this is a prime opportunity to see what this facility is truly like."

 

She could feel another hair breaking out of her bun. This was going wrong, wrong, horribly wrong. What was happening? Why were they out of control today? Why was Resu causing so much trouble, and where was Agid anyway? "I, well," she said, stammering, losing her composure. "We've had instances with agitators, and - "

 

"Espionage."

 

Interrupted by a sharp voice calling out from within the mine shaft, loud enough to be audible while still understated, Palmer turned her head to see Agid coming out of the dark of the mine as if summoned from the void. He looked the part of such a creature, his dark braids hanging over his face and obscuring the burn on his cheek he'd received a few weeks ago. He was carrying a body over his shoulder and a knife, the blood on it dried, in one hand. 

 

"It's corporate espionage, Miss Palmer," he went on, stepping out of the mine's entrance and dumping the body on the ground beside him. Verad's bright white beard and grey skin were unmistakable, as was the stab wound in his stomach. He did not move.

 

[/align]

[Verad]

The Tour, Continued:

 

Verad's body, prone on the ground, seemed to elicit a reaction from Faye and her Miqo'te bodyguard, Palmer noted. Faye seemed to stiffen, and her bodyguard certainly seemed to recognize the man. They were not looks of confusion. 

 

Apparently unconcerned, Agid pulled a small firesand stick out of his belt. "I found this man trying to detonate firesand in the tunnels, collapsing some old shafts. You say there's a riot? I can't imagine why." 

 

Pointing his knife at Covington and Val, he continued. "And for things to go so bad? On a day that big investors are scheduled to tour? Somebody is trying to ruin you." He smirked. "Nothing the Syndicate likes more than saboteurs. Except when they get caught. I think the two of you'd better stay. The Blades will want to hear of this."

 

"F'ya ask me," said Val, unimpressed, "Looks like someone already ruined ya. Y'should prolly get that taken care of."

 

Faye's eyes narrowed on the man, and Palmer saw fit to step aside, unclear on what to do. This was wrong, too wrong for her to correct, nothing she could say to smooth over. She edged back towards the copper shipment as if she could use it as a shield.

 

"Yes," said Faye. "Call the Blades indeed. I'm sure the Immortal Flames would like an explanation as to how one of my men ended up in your employ and wounded by your hand as much as I would." She spoke between gritted teeth. "It's a clever business, you know . . . pretending to buy someone's debts only to force them to work for free labor. Unwitting slavery. Very clever of Mister Resu . . . and very foolish of your company not to continue his practice, am I right?"

 

Palmer looked shocked, but there was no chance to correct the woman, nor would the words come out. That wasn't it, she thought. That wasn't it at all! "Of course," continued Faye, "eventually people will begin to notice, won't they? But when that happens, I imagine it's awfully easy to blame it all on your trader and pretend you were blissfully unaware."

 

"No, no," said Palmer, trying to step forward, an edge of desperation in her voice. "That's not - "

 

"Quiet, Miss Palmer," said Agid before she could go on. "Just be quiet. You don't say anything to saboteurs. Corporate espionage is pretty serious business, and they'll twist what you say, and you know it." He sniffed, running his thumb under his nose. "You've done a good run trying to ruin me. Raiding my camp, snooping around, I'll give you that. But we'll be calling the Blades for your sake, to tell them how you resisted when we tried to detain you on site."

 

He turned to the guard, who had regained his breath. "Tell the men below to terminate the worker's contracts. Use the back tunnels." The man saluted in a sloppy imitation of the Blades' own, and bolted for the mine shaft. Agid grinned, and stepped forward, brandishing his knife in one hand and firesand in the other. "You just leave this to me, Miss Palmer. I apologize if it looks like I'm enjoying it."

 

Val took an immediate step towards Agid. "Ya ain' gonna lay a single damned finger on th'woman. Now f'ya value yer life, I suggest y'take yer big ass back into that house'f yers an' fill out paperwork 'r rub one out 'r whatever it was y'were doin'. Ya nasty fuck."

 

Agid did not have time to respond to the insult, Palmer noted with the serene calm of somebody who has watched matters spiral so thoroughly out of her control that regaining it was impossible. As Val had finished speaking, Burning returned to the mine entrance. Compared to the muted reaction of the two guests, Burning's seemed overstated: At the sight of Verad's body on the ground, Palmer caught a glimpse of rage in her face before she rushed towards Agid, her macahuitl raised high to strike Agid down.

 

Her reward for this was to see Agid spinning aside and give Burning a similar wound, cutting open a broad gash along her midriff and stepping aside as if she were hardly worth considering, though a cut on his cheek indicated her strike had not gone entirely without impact. 

 

Palmer clutched at her face, her hair, with both hands, watching as the scene spiraled down further. She saw Faye dragging the body of the worker - why Bellveil? Why the elezen? Why had he warned her if this was going to happen? - aside, saw her lay hands on the man to try to heal him, saw Burning and Val face off against Agid. He was a skilled fighter, she knew but hard-pressed against two combatants of what seemed equal power. To the east, she knew the riot continued, and that either workers or guards or both were going to die.

 

She clawed down the sides of her face, her nails too short to leave scratches. What was happening? How was this all going so, so wrong?

[align=center]---[/align]

Wahlbert watched as another man fell back under the blades of the guards. It had been a risk, and he'd known it. More of the company's security team had come to reinforce the barricade until there were now eight of them, holding the gates and the various weak points the workers had tried to rush. 

 

Verad had been sure there would be help. He'd been sure of it, but the men were starting to waver. He couldn't blame them. They were weak, tired from bad food and overwork, and the bravado and outrage that had fueled their initial charge was knocked back by better trained and equipped men. They held steady, keeping their broken chair legs and other assorted clubs held up defensively, but nobody was making a move forward, and with good reason - at least a half-dozen men were laying on the ground, bleeding from various gashes along arms, midsections, and scalps. 

 

The guards had been using the flats of their blades, as far as he could see, but when and how that would change, he didn't know. Nor did the workers, and he could see that uncertainty in their postures. He could see the single thought, electric and crackling between them: If we put down our chairs now, then perhaps this will all pass. Who needs beer, anyway?

 

Uncertainty lasted for only a few seconds as a guard rushed out of the worker's entrance, shouting to the men at the barricade. "Chief's orders! Kill the contracts!"

 

The workers hesitated, uncertain of the orders, until one too close to the barricade was cut down, a deep gash in his shoulder erupting blood. The guard drew back his blade, and, with more discipline than Wahlbert had expected, they marched into the camp with grim intent and weapons ready.

 

Twelve, he thought. They trained for this. How easy would it have been, he realized, to claim a worker riot got out of hand, and required lethal force, to eliminate people and prevent them from alerting the Blades? And here, he'd allowed it to happen, been eager for it to happen, all because of an idiot Duskwight.

 

Taking a sip from his flask to brace himself, he found the container empty, and so tightened his grip on his club.

[align=center]---[/align]

The oil was almost gone. Bone had kept a careful eye on the lantern once Agid had left with Verad, lighting it once he was certain the Highlander hadn't doubled back around to see if anyone else remained. Whatever Verad had done, he had ensured that Bone had gone unnoticed, and for the past bell the lantern had glittered in the dark, Bone waiting nearby with the detonator in a safe location.

 

It hadn't been easy; on at least a half-dozen instances, he had been sure that a rattling on the rock or the echo of a cough had been the signs of a guard or a curious worker making their way down the tunnel, and he had been halfway to blowing out the light entirely. But then he would lose track of time, the precious moments spent waiting for the perceived threat to pass meaning that once the lantern was lit again, that the time for Bone to push the lever would pass well before the oil was spent. The opportunity Verad had spoken of would be lost.

 

For some reason he couldn't allow himself to do that. It wasn't that he had faith in the plan, exactly. Here, in the dark, he didn't even know what the plan was. For all he knew it would fail disastrously and that would be the end of Gliding Bone, never to see his wife and child again.

 

"I will get you home."

 

And yet, there was that. The Duskwight believed it would work, whatever it was. He was sure of it, had guaranteed it with the same certainty that Bone had seen him use to tell customers that the item in their hands had no value whatsoever with a bright, broad smile. And money and products inevitably changed hands, despite or because of that warning.

 

The lantern started to flicker and gutter. He could leave now, of course. Make his way back down the tunnels, creep out into the camp, take an extra week's punishment for shirking his shift without permission or a visit to the infirmary. The thought was tempting, and he rubbed his hand against his temple, still bandaged after so many days, in careful consideration.

 

It wouldn't be the first time. Verad had left that strongbox out so often that Bone had joked to him at one point that anybody could steal it, so there must have been nothing valuable in it at all. "On the contrary," Verad had replied, grinning. "There are many valuables within! But who would be so cruel as to steal the only valuable things belonging to a man with nothing else to his name?" It had sounded like a jest, but Twelve above, the man had said it with conviction, as if Nymeia herself had decreed it must be so.

 

He had said it with such conviction that Bone took him at his word and, when Verad was away in La Noscea, tested his theory. He had been right; there were promissory notes for large sums of gil, research notes on a half-dozen insane projects, a few portraits. Valuable enough for Bone, certainly, and so he had, happily in the moment, betrayed the man's trust. It would be simple to do it again.

 

The lantered flickered and dimmed, and left Bone in the dark, his hand on the detonator. He tensed for a moment, and then placed the other on the detonator's plunger. "Sorry, dear," he said, placing the image of his wife in his mind before pressing downwards with both palms.

 

The explosion was short and sharp, and Bone's position was secure, away from the blast. The rocks flew apart or shattered, the boards behind them cracked and splintered, leaving a ragged opening in the tunnel where a dead-end had existed before.

 

Unwilling to stick around the site of the explosion, Bone picked himself up and, after confirming he was no worse for wear, ran towards the active sections of the mine. In his haste, he missed the sound of scuttling behind him.

 

A Few Days Back:

 

"So what happened to them? I never see them around, and yet all the logos would give one the impression they're everywhere. Did they leave?"

 

"Hm? Oh, the coblyns?" Wahlbert chuckled. "New workers learned to trap them, eventually. You open a seam, drop some ore down a dead-end, and lead them to it, then collapse the passage behind 'em. Of course, the way they lay eggs, they're probably still lurking in the old tunnels even now."

 

The Tour Again:

 

((Best read to Ride of the Valkyries. Or just imagine it, you probably know the song.))

 

The sound was what came first, crawling up out of the tunnels in the form of a soft, subtle whispering. They didn't have armored legs in any fashion, and so it was not the sound of their steps but the echoing of their steps, the rattle of rocks being pushed aside in rapid fashion, clattering against the walls of the mine again and again as a great mass of creatures pushed it aside.

 

Nobody noticed it at first. At the offices, Palmer watched, horrified, as Agid fought Burning and Val to a standstill, each advantage the pair managed to make against the man neutralized by fast reflexes and a sturdy defense. Nor could Agid strike another blow against them, doing so exposing him to the others. Faye was distracted by trying to heal Verad, the severity of his wound enough that she could rouse him to the faintest state of consciousness without closing it.

 

At the camp, Wahlbert and the workers were busy fighting a defensive battle against the marching line of guards, who scattered and broke apart to slash at workers who drew too close, while Ziuz'a and Lan, the two Miqo'te guards, rushed to provide aid. Everyone's attention was, therefore, preoccupied, save Verad's, who, through pain and through noise, heard the sounds, and mustered enough strength to give half a pleased grin.

 

It came as some surprise, then, when the first of the coblyns poured out of the mine tunnels. A few, and then more, and then more, dozens of them skittering forward on thin, stalk-like legs, a sea of beady eyestalks poking up three feet above the ground, their crystalline carapaces shining in the mid-day sun brightly enough to blind mid-day onlookers. As one they surged forth, a tide of pest animals ignoring the weak and fleshy participants of mortal affairs to seek their only real purpose in existence - copper, metal, and the rapid consumption thereof. 

 

The work camp was thrown into chaos, laborers pulled forward on surging coblyns and scattering the guards. In the same moments, Ziuz'a reached the barricade, and began tearing it apart with bare hands, punching and opening a hole and shouting for the workers to aid him. Some noticed the opening he gave amidst the chaos and, with the guards preoccupied, rushed to aid him in dismantling wood and metal, ripping the wall apart until it was enough to let a man through, then two, then three, and then another surge happened, this one not of beasts but of workers pouring through the opening and breaking free into the desert. They ran, and did not stop, heedless of exhaustion, water, and heat, running south, the spires of Ul'dah in the faint distance.

 

The guards recovered their composure and sought to cut down the escapees, to find that Lan was among them, striking down one of their number with a spear to the back before they could recover. As one the group turned on the white-haired Miqo'te, but trained though they were, they could not withstand his assault. He kicked dirt into one's face to distract him, spearing another, tripping a third on the backswing, and eliminating the distracted man all in one fell swoop. The survivors were quick to surrender, dropping swords and shields to the ground, though they did not stay there long, snatched up in the gaping maws of stampeding coblyns eager for metal.

 

To the west, Agid found the coblyns skittering past made him lose his footing, there being few places he could reach without needing assistance. Burning was the first to take advantage of the opening, grabbing a coblyn by its legs to bash its crystalline shell against Agid''s back, a high squeaking noise issuing forth every time the carapace hit flesh. Val followed suit, tripping Agid up by sending a coblyn between his legs, flipping above him to stab him in the shoulders while the man was off balance.

 

While he howled in pain, Palmer was only half-aware of the man. More pressing were the numbers of coblyns surrounding her, drawing closer and closer to the shipment and the overpowering sent of copper coming from each cart and crate. Beady eyes wavered and jaws slavered in anticipation. "No . . . " murmured Palmer, holding out a hand as if to stave them off. "No, no!" They skittered and scuttled towards her, over her, and past her, and for a moment she was submerged beneath blue quartz until they had reached the shipment itself, tearing apart wood and toppling carts in their haste to devour a lode's worth of copper.

 

Blood flowing down from his shoulders, Agid tossed his weapons aside, drawing out the loose firesand stick he had revealed upon his exit from the mine. In the other, he drew a piece of flint and a striker. "Nobody fucking move," he hissed, doing his best to step past the stragglers as the coblyn horde began to thin, conglomerating around the shipment before scattering into the desert. "Do what you want with Palmer. I don't care. Ruin her. But I walk," he went on, waving the explosive. "Or this gets thrown right under demolition storage!"

 

Val froze on the spot, eyeing Agid as he drew the weapons. He was not impressed. "Go right ahead, cupcake. Throw that shit all y'want. Ain' like I give a damn."

 

It was the wrong thing to say at the right time. "Fools." Snarling, Agid struck the flint, lighting the firesand's fuse with the sparks. He swung his arm back to throw, lobbing the stick in an overhead arc. It left his hand in time for Burning to shout "Fetch, girl!" Agid disappeared beneath the weight of a full-grown couerl as Chooga bounded forward, pouncing over the remaining coblyns and bringing the man down with both front paws. The details of his devouring are gory, unnecessary, and can reasonably be excised.

 

The firesand, however, was still in midair, arcing over the group towards the demolitions shed. Val was the only one able to react, racing towards it to leap up and swat it away from its arc. Sparks struck his palm as he diverted its path, rebounding it towards the mine itself. Being only a small measure of firesand, the explosion was small and concentrated, notable for a loud boom that frightened the remaining coblyns and caused them to scatter from the now empty shipment, and little else.

 

Watching all of this from Verad's side, Faye shook her head and tried to shoo away a few coblyns that had seen fit to perch atop his prone body, waving her hand at them to get them to scurry away. "Awful lot of trouble your rug led to, you know," she remarked in an off-hand fashion.

 

Verad tried to chuckle, but only managed a wince. "Just a little bit," he said, his voice hoarse. "But still one of my better plans, I think."  

[Verad]

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. 

 

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 - 

 

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."

[align=center]---[/align]

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. 

[align=left]

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?"[/align]

 

"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?" 

 

"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."

[align=center]---[/align]

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