Enjoy ~

Nisha listened with rapt attention as Sera Carmen delved into the workings between the [Thieves Guild] and the kingdom.

As a noble herself, she wondered how the existence of a criminal guild worked inside the capital Thurgau, the seat of power of the entire kingdom.

Looking at the entire situation from a new perspective, the dragon tentatively agreed that it made sense to allow a regulated entity focus the various criminal elements into a structured, yet stringent body.

As for the various losses suffered by the merchants and citizens in the capital, the people in charge wrote them off as inconsequential.

“Then why do you require me to act for you, to the point that you agree to the deal I proposed?

With the silent agreement between the kingdom and the Seats, you should not need me as an intermediary, right?”

Up until now, Nisha did not see the explicit need to bring in the Dharnas name.

“Well, even an unofficial agreement has its limits.

The crux of the issue lies in the extreme speed the [Blackroot Plague] spreads.

Before the carriers fall ill, the spores already infect livestock and produce, making food supply an issue.

In normal times, ammassing food in a short period of time will trigger extreme wariness from the officials in charge of monitoring trade.

Even with the whole [Thieves Guild] working together, the total amount of supplies we can gather before the plague gets to the countryside is still not enough to feed even half of our numbers.”

Carmen retrieved a long and slender pipe from her desk and lit it up with a small magic tool.

A pale and muddy cloud gathered over her head when she released the smoke over her head.

“I’m not going to bother with talking around the issue, not at this point.

As you probably know, the [Thieves Guild] is centered in the capital. We have plenty of people that support our cause, and even more peripheral members.

But that comes at a price, which is not too hard to bear in normal times.

To preserve our influence and the cohesion of our members, the Guild has to look after their members and help them in difficult times.

Protection from the city guard, hideouts to tide over pursuit from angry nobles and rich merchants, services of that nature, we provide them all.

And if the [Thieves Guild] cannot help in the coming crisis, the plague will be more than just fatal to us.

We need to procure food, lots of it.

To that end, the strong focus on Thurgau has made it hard for us to establish a presence in other major cities, they have their own small circles of criminals and shady merchants.”

 

The last sentence from the [Golden Heel] was accompanied by a bitter smile, as well as some helplessness.

Nisha roughly understood the issue that Carmen talked about.

Due to its intrinsic illegal nature, the [Thieves Guild] found it hard to establish their branches in distant places.

Why would these local snakes agree to follow the lead of a far off organization, who could not offer them tangible benefits or returns for the money they had to pay in exchange.

Nobles were fundamentally different, their rule was backed by the kingdom.

Even if a Duke or Count resided mainly in the capital all turn around, their influence remained as strong as ever in their territories.

Carmen took another long draw from the pipe and continued to explain the details of their cooperation.

“Indeed, with the [Blackroot Plague] looming over our heads, the main priority for the time being is to secure as much food as possible and store it before the infection makes it inedible.

When catastrophe strikes, all infected food will have to get burned and prices are going to skyrocket, perhaps even lead to starvation once it runs out.

It’s difficult for the Guild to secure the needed amount, not to mention another issue.”

If any of the employees at the [Red Night Palace] saw their boss patiently explaining an issue and going into the details instead of barking orders and assuming that her followers would figure it out or lose their job, they would probably have to pick up their jaws from the floor.

“Food is a good that’s traded in large amounts normally. No one raises an eye when a trading house buys five carts or ten carts of grain.

But circumstances change once the involved quantity nears strategic levels.

The kingdom forbids the amassing of resources needed to stage an uprising or wage a war against a noble, one of which happens to be food.

You can buy weapons freely in any forge, yet inspectors will quickly arrive once you order enough swords to outfit an army.

It’s like that for any good involved in a campaign that can threaten the supremacy of the kingdom and their nobles.”

Nisha perked up at this small tidbit of knowledge, it was entirely new to her.

The elf saw the point in preventing private and unknown entities gathering enough resources to sustain a prolonged armed conflict, it stabilized the security of the entire kingdom.

Nipping any potential rebellion in the bud allowed the wealth and security in Leandar to remain stable and rising over the turns.

 

“Normally, the laws around this issue are not needed in most cases and hardly interfere with the day to day workings of nobles, citizens and the [Thieves Guild].

In fact, I don’t even remember the last time there was news about the kingdom needing to step in to prevent a rebellion.

The problem, currently, comes from the fact that it is not yet public knowledge that there will be an outbreak of the plague soon.

Laws don’t account for emergency situations, and the people in charge of keeping the peace are not high enough in the hierarchy to get early notice about the coming crisis.

It makes it hard for the Guild to amass grain and other food, there’s a chance that a noble who knows about the plague will confiscate everything under the pretense of preventing a rebellion by seizing the supplies.

Similarly, everyone of the Duke rank and some of the Counts should have heard at least some rumors of a looming danger, which will make it much harder to procure food from their territories, especially as time passes and the plague surfaces.

The only good thing is that the noble households do not have quite as many adherents to their retinue and the supplies needed to sustain themselves are on an entirely different scale compared to the needs of the [Thieves Guild].

At least we do not have to compete directly with them to purchase as much as possible.”

Carmen finished the content of her pipe and brought out a bottle from a locked drawer in her desk, filling her glass and downing it entirely in one gulp.

She did not look quite as cheerful anymore as usual, but not quite desperate as well.

For a Seat of the Guild, the coming crisis was just another tough assignment she had to manage.

“Now that you have a rough overview of the issue, you can probably see why the [Thieves Guild] agreed to work with you.

As a major noble, the purchase restrictions do not apply to a Merchant House backed by you and as a Dharnas, you have more contacts to remote villages and rural areas than us.

In case that the [Blackroot Plague] does not spread so far, it’s far easier for you to procure supplies that are not tainted, and probably cheaper too.

After a discussion with all the relevant Seats, I can now give you a concrete offer towards your proposal.

Five hundred gold coins worth of food.

You have to provide us with that amount of food from cities outside of Thurgau, for free.

Once the plague spreads further than the capital or starvation drives the price of food to twice the current amount, the Guild will place orders through you at cost price, no profit margin for your merchant house.

In return, the [Thieves Guild] will exempt your business from being targeted by major operations or protection fees for five turns.

Of course, pickpockets and petty thieves that see your place as an easy target are still your concern, but that’s something every merchant has to deal with.

To let you in on a little secret, usually the duration would at most be two or three turns, but the crisis this time is an opportunity for you.

Think about it, it’s about one hundred gold per turn in exchange for an exemption and silent protection from dishonest methods employed by competing businesses.

Despite looking expensive, the [Thieves Guild] will not grant an exemption to any trader or noble, it’s already a very favorable proposition.

Do you agree to the conditions?”

 

The uneasy air melted away as the [Golden Heel] finished narrating and refocused her attention on the elf before her.

Although she said it was a secret, Sera Carmen exerted some of her influence to extend the period of exemption from two to five turns.

As one of the few female Seats in the history of the [Thieves Guild], she knew that the others pushed the job of negotiating with a Dharnas to her since both of them were women.

Secretly, they looked down on female powerhouses.

Giving a small favor to an outside party paled in comparison to annoying the other Seats.

Nisha, on the other hand, evaluated the offer in her mind.

Starting a Merchant House together with Annabelle and Lydia came to be as a rather coincidental development.

Spending five hundred gold was not a tough decision either, with the items appearing in her bedroom every night, the dragon hoarded an enormous fortune of coins inside her [Inner Space].

More importantly, the [Thieves Guild] fundamentally operated as an illegal organization and cooperating with them posed a risk to her identity as a Dharnas noble.

If evidence surfaced that she had dealings with an underground establishment like the [Red Night Palace], it would also reflect badly on Henry and Luthais.

Contrary to that, almost every business had to have some agreement with the thieves, otherwise their operations would face hindrances at every turn.

Even the kingdom ignored the Guild, content to let them do their own policing of all the criminal elements in the city.

Eventually, Nisha came to a decision and pulled out a stack of coins out of her dress, ten in total.

She placed it on top of the desk between her and the [Golden Heel] and presented her hand to seal the deal.

Carmen felt some surprise to see a small fortune suddenly pile up in front of her.

Instead of directly shaking the small and dainty palm, the older woman appraised the elf in a completely new light.

Most nobles from the younger generation had some spending money, but never more than a couple of golds.

Even if the girl started saving from the moment of her birth, amassing that much money meant that she relied on other sources than her own family, making the prospect of a Merchant House founded by such an individual much more attractive.

Slowly, she took the offered hand and kept it in her own.

“Deal, then.

I want to ask you something, though. Do you always carry so much gold on your person?

Initially, my guess was that you might need to discuss the cost of the deal with your partners first, not that you can pay it all on the spot.”

Hidden behind her words was the assumption that the capital of the elf and her associates might have a much larger reserve of wealth and their scope of operation exceeded the assumptions of the [Thieves Guild].

Nisha did not mind the extended shake and flashed a bright smile at the [Golden Heel].

“Rather than hesitate and flinch at spending money to run a business, I think I should treat the money as an investment and see it as payment for the information about the [Blackroot Plague].

And I also learnt some valuable lessons from Miss Velvet, I might have to visit her again in the future.”