The eyes of many expectant Merchants were trained on Kotori,

[Why are you making me do this Fawk!] She panicked

She noticed him smirking in a corner

[He’s teasing me!]

The answer was quite simple. Fawks had long suspected that Kotori was bad at dealing with large groups of people. He was having her speak to test her ability to speak to a crowd.

“Hello…” Kotori managed to finally squeak out.

“The information about Gerard is that… he’s involved with the sweet leaf trade…”

Once Kotori was done speaking she instantly shrunk behind Layla and Umi.

The merchant seemed confused.

“So what? Those Atlean merchants haven’t ever been clean. Even if we know he’s dealing illegal goods it doesn’t matter.” A merchant said

“Ahh, but we have proof,” Fawks said

“This girl over here brought me information that I can say with a strong certainty is true. I will need to investigate the matter further but we have a lead to bringing down those Atlean merchants.” Fawks explained.

A low murmur went through the crowd

“But how does this get us a majority on the sea lord council!” One of the Eris merchant’s yell

Fawks smiled,

“We’re going to steal their market share!”

The merchants gave a confused look

“What do you mean?” Another asked

“If we get rid of all the Atlean seats we can use their resources to take control of 50% of the commerce in the city. Once that happens, we’ll have parity on the seating.”

“That still isn’t a majority!” a voice called out from the crowd

“Ah, but it is” Fawks said

The merchants looked like they were lost.

“My countrymen, we are the smallest faction, but you know what we have that the Faramouth and Atlean merchants do not?” Fawks said

Several voices shouted out giving answers.

“We have a majority stake in the spice trade”

“I guess, our boats are better equipped at long trade?”

“We have cuter girls!”

“No!” Fawks shouted at all the suggestions

“We are united! The Atlean and Faramouth merchants’ scheme against each other, but we do not squabble the success of our business in this city relies on our small amount of merchants to stay together! We will let the wolves eat each other and the sheep will rise!” Fawks said

“When we are equal in seating the Faramouth Merchants will still be infighting, but we will be coordinating with each other!”

The sound of the crowd seemed to grow in excitement as Fawks explain his scheme.

Kotori watch in bemusement. Fawks was quite good at controlling a crowd and the way he was manipulating their emotions was perfect. Kotori was beginning to realized Fawks was much more than he appeared

[If this guy really the third prince, he acts like he should be the king. I wonder why he’s not trying to gain the throne.] Kotori thought. Fawks had told her that he wasn’t really interested in the throne and that he would let his brothers figure it out.

The scheme he had made wasn’t bad either. The Eris merchants only had one representative which was Fawks which mean they had to stick together. They also respected him which means that any new representatives would likely follow in his footsteps.

If they could get some information on Mr. Gerard then they could blackmail him into giving them information on another Faramouth sea lord. By slowly turning all the merchants against each other the seats would grow empty as the merchants got caught in scandals or were imprisoned.

Seats in the council were determined by market share, so if the Eris merchants could fill in the gaps created by the loss of the Atlean Sea Lords fast enough then they would gain those seats. Of course, this requires the Atlean merchants to work extremely hard to get that stake in market share to begin with.

This was why Fawks was spending the time to tell the merchants now so that they could continue to coordinate in the future.

The merchants seemed to be satisfied with the plan.

“Umu, this sounds good I will begin to make preparations”

“I will begin preparing capital as well”

It was almost like the merchants were getting ready for war. Which in a sense, they kind of were. This was the battleground of the merchants. Trying to gain the most money was how they operated.

“Oh and of course, we must keep this secret,” Fawks said

The merchants all nodded. They had no reason to betray Fawks, if he was able to get them a majority on the sea lord council nothing would be able to sway them.

The merchants soon filed out of the building all of them excitedly chattering about what they were going to do.

As soon as the last merchant left Fawks seemed to deflate.

“Ah, so tiresome.” He said to himself

“Did I mess up? What if they were just trying to be nice? Mother would do so much better than me” He said still talking to himself

[Wait,] Kotori thought

[Don’t tell me he has public speaking anxiety too!]

Kitsura

Ironically, despite being mostly a shut-in, I don't have any public speaking anxiety. It's never really been something that bothered me.