Book 1: Chapter 1 - A First Step

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Shinsou had been listening with a mixture of mild scepticism and strong intrigue towards the goblin Kablah. Once the talking had stopped, and the miniature man had exited to leave them to their task, a cursory check of the latest ledger annotated by the Stonevale Port Authority confirmed what the Telgradian had suspected. There were a number of shady deals that seemed to fit the reasons why a permit had been denied. Having had a hands on role in the Brotherhood’s much more upscaled operations out of Tylmerande, Shinsou was adept enough at his economics to see that there should have been a very healthy income out of these contracts; especially the off-book ones.

“Off the mark,” Shinsou turned to Preston, pointing at the red scribbles. “Kablah is obviously very good at his work, but look at these numbers. He’s as useless as a limp dick at a brothel when it comes to massaging the figures properly. It’s too late now to do anything about the permit on his file, and those red marks will follow him around for a while, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t feed the figures through a different supply line.”

The weather had turned miserable as the rainy season hit Stonevale hard. Through the sound of the driving rain drumming against the thin pane of glass, Shinsou silently mouthed an idea and then shot a sideways glance at Preston, who was seated calmly at the table.

“To get a permit on a fast track, we’ll need to have a business with a solid history. Something untouchable, unquestionable from a trading point of view.” Shinsou paced, placing his hands on his hips. “This is where I come in. I am the leader of the Brotherhood of the Castigars in Corone. Our trade routes originating in Tylmerande were negotiated very thoroughly with many ports around the continent to ensure a favourable outcome for the Brotherhood, and I personally took care of most of the overseas ones. We’ve never defaulted on our tariffs, and we’re…shall we say, careful, about our declarations.”

Money was the very lifeblood of the Brotherhood; it was used to feed the families of the soldiers, buy food and weapons, and pay "maintenance" costs (as Storm called them) to any relevant authorities. Without it, quite simply, they were fucked, as was any business. That’s why they had taken good care of themselves, and why the Telgradian was confident the next part of his plan was to everyone’s mutual benefit.

"Here’s my ‘three step’ proposal," The Telgradian held three fingers up for a visual reference, "One, we convince Kablah to franchise his business and merge it into the Brotherhood’s income stream for better rates than he would earn as a sole trader. He would retain ultimate control, keep the deeds and the name, but his profits and trading history would be amalgamated with ours enough to be able to hide all these little “discrepancies”. Two, we apply for a trading permit in the Brotherhood’s name, which would allow him to sail and distribute however he likes under our flag. He can pay us a small “management fee” to deal with things like port administration."

"And three? Preston asked, producing a notebook from within his jacket.

"The Brotherhood pays you for distribution, and pays you a generous finders fee for any future business. The end result is this; Kablah gets his permit, you get your foot through the door in Stonevale, and the Brotherhood gets a trade route to Stonevale. And, perhaps, a friend or two here."

After the fiasco of losing Whitevale, Shinsou had made sure to do his business right from then on. He had kept himself largely out of operations, and enacted firm, fair rules that the people who dealt with him ostensibly seemed content with. His lips sank around his tumbler of whisky as he tasted the sour-sweet flavour of the liquid. The calm that it brought him settled his lungs and heart into a certain smoothness that aided his decisions.

"Preston, before we carry on," The Telgradian began, his white coat whipping beghind him, "I understand today has been a bit of a whirlwind. This isn't a routine trade deal - you're hemmed in between two people you don't even know, and trying to make the best of the situation. So, here."

Shinsou placed a cloth purse on the round table. Some gold pieces spilled out, their metallic echo music to the trader's ears.

"A good faith payment, for this and future business with the Brotherhood. A thousand gold pieces."

OOC: Shinsou Vaan Osiris transfers 1,000 GP to Preston

[Preston]

Preston looked at the red annotations and sighed. He leaned forward on the table after the door closed and put his head in his hands. The slimy little goblin wanted to off-load his goods but had already burned bridges, and these were the bridges that the authorities knew about. He pushed the papers back and forth casually, almost absently, as his mind wandered. “Why would he even present this to them knowing that there was off-book stuff like this on here?”

The budding merchant had pulled the figures up and was looking through them when Shin spoke. He poked a finger at the red circles and the numbers that were not circled. Some of them were skewed from what Preston could tell and it appeared that whoever had looked over the document had not even caught them. It looked to him, at least, that there was a good profit to be had if there was a loophole that could be exploited.

Shin explained his plan and Preston listened, but not mindlessly. Quite the opposite. Goosebumps were rolling up his arms and the hair on the nape of his neck was standing on end. He had explicitly stated he wanted to lay foundations for the future, but when he began to outline the plan suddenly Preston wondered what bed he was making. The Brotherhood of the Castigars, that was a name that was not without depth.

As a much younger boy, years prior, he had heard the name when they had assaulted Radasanth - his hometown. As far as he knew, and what his father had told him, The Brotherhood were just ’a bunch of knuckleheads’. That was the most damning that Mr. Fletcher would call anyone, and it came with a warning to stay away. Preston listened to Shinsou speak but in the back of his mind wondered if the enemy of The Corone Empire and someone his dad had warned him away from was the best person to be doing business with.

Despite being lost in his own thoughts, he was able to keep up halfway with what was being said. Preston pulled out his notebook and licked the end of his thumb before turning to a blank page. He slipped a quill from his vest pocket and a very small ink well and began jotting down the plan.

Step 1 - ‘Franchise’. By that The Brotherhood takes over. Kablah keeps name, deeds, but books are merged.
Step 2 - Brotherhood trading permit. Will need management fee for port admins
Step 3 - Profit?

He found himself underlining The Brotherhood in second step subconsciously and then noticed that he had written over the same word in step one to make it more bold. when he saw Shin turn in his pace to start back towards him he turned over his notebook and left it open to dry with the pages turned down to the table.

“Well,” he said as the gold coins clammored on the table, “I don’t quite know what to say.” It was the truth. The money before him was a generous gift from a man who was handing out favors to someone he did not know before that night. It was, in a way, making Preston feel uneasy. Especially since his knowledge of the organization that Shinsou represented was one diametrically opposed to the government that he was tied to, and his father was aligned with. There was a bit of a moral dilemma, but Preston needed the money in the moment more than he needed to understand the politics of Corone. “I cannot thank you enough, and I’ll be sure to make the money back enough to pay it back someday soon. I don’t like being in debt one bit.”

“Well it’s not debt -” Shin began but Preston waved him off immediately and began to spread the papers across the table.

“So look at this. Here’s my thoughts.” He pushed the ledger aside and unrolled the other scrolls instead. “This one says that he’s looking at a 50 gold a kilo tariff. I don’t know how they’re calculating that when it’s a tree we’re looking at but with a thousand gold I would only be able to move 20 kilos. I’m going to have to move more than that to make any kind of profit. I need to move a metric ton of wood, and that would be at least 5000 gold in tariffs.”

He sat back in his seat and with laced fingers, bent them backwards to crack them. There was no going to his dad for help on his deals as he had been cut loose to the world. Preston knew he if he put the one thousand gold into the cog rental he could get the lumber back to the Bazaar to sell, it was a matter of paying the tariffs… or…

“So, what if we don’t pay the tariffs? What if we load offshore? I heard in the north they have this place called Neverscale Beach, and there are a bunch of grotto’s up there pirates used to use? Lets just ship out of there and skip the tariffs and permits and everything…” Never. Never in his life had Preston thought about going outside of the law and regulations of trade, but he also had never had to consider how to make thousands of gold in no time at all. “We do one run with a good cog and crew, we pay them off with the thousand gold, and from there we use the profits to finance future trips legit?”