“Hooray! Hooray fah Johah!” Weaver Ortson’s words were a slurry of mumbled praise and dripping sarcasm. The Grandmaster of the Heroes’ Guild in the Freedlands rocked back and forth like a tree in a breeze. The goblet he raised in mock salute would have dribbled wine everywhere had he not had the foresight to drain it as soon as it was filled.
“Sit down, man!” hissed an ancient Dwarf from the seat next to him. Looking at Fenrir Goldson called to mind a barrow king in a suit, with his emaciated frame, skin like spotted paper, scraggy remnants of a long white beard, and a disdain for all living mortals. “Good gods, Ortson, have you no dignity?” he rasped.
“I’d think you know better than that by now.” The leathery Halfling next to Goldson gave a short laugh. Bolbi Baggs was merely ancient, which made him the younger of the duo that helmed the Goldson Baggs Group. “But do sit down, Ortson. The king is about to speak.”
Weaver slumped into his velvet chair and looked with bleary eyes at a gleaming figure standing in the middle of the stage. King Johan’s heavy armor was decorated with enough gold to gild a palace. His flaxen hair and crimson cape blew in an otherwise imperceptible wind, the product of expensive magical glamours. The mages had done well with the cosmetic enchantments; the deep, purple scars that a liche’s magic had left across the king’s face were barely noticeable, even with the opera house’s heavy lights beaming down on him. When he laughed, it was like the clarion call of a trumpet leading to war. When he spoke, almost every mouth in the great auditorium fell silent.
Almost.
“This drivel again?” Goldson hissed to Baggs a few minutes into the king’s speech.
“The gods will smile upon us if he’s just here to review familiar themes.” Baggs swirled a snifter of brandy as he watched Johan raise a fist to the crowd. “For all we know, he’ll be letting us know about another terrible merger we’re to do, or disrupting trade with the Empire for no good reason again.”
Goldson snorted.
As a king, Johan approached the kingdom’s levers of power much the way a barbarian with a sledgehammer might approach a Gnomish steam engine: quickly, brutally, and without any consideration for the way things were supposed to work or the wreckage he left behind. Companies were told what business decisions they would make. Nobles were given new duties on whims. Guildmasters and union leaders found themselves scrambling to respond to royal edicts. Those that didn’t comply found themselves publicly scorned and sometimes privately sequestered in Andarun’s dungeon. Those that did roll along with the edicts endured a different sort of punishment, which mostly involved struggling to stop losing giltin hand over fist while maintaining ostensible compliance with the king’s decisions.
All of Andarun’s high society dreaded these sudden decrees. And everyone knew Johan’s favorite medium for delivering them was the Speech.
The topology of the Speech followed the same well-worn contours every time Johan gave it. It had all the structure and preparation of a stream of thought, and it poured out of the paladin king in a torrent of quips and jokes, wistful remembrances and nostalgic entreaties, boasts and bravado. Yet beneath the gleaming smiles and trumpeting laughter ran an undercurrent of discontent.
“When I slayed the noctomancer Detarr Ur’Mayan or the council of Orc warlords, I didn’t need to worry about their paperwork.” Johan smiled wistfully into the distance as he spoke, as though he could see better times just over the far horizon. “We knew what was right back then! Things were simpler.”
The crowd cheered. Weaver toasted, presumably cued by the applause rather than any agreement with—or awareness of—Johan’s words. Goldson and Baggs shifted in their seats, bracing themselves for what would come next. Such an appeal to selective nostalgia and general righteousness was almost invariably followed by some decree or suggestion that wouldn’t fix the problem, but certainly seemed connected to today’s woes in the minds of the enthralled masses.
“That’s why it’s time for me to go back to professional heroics,” Johan said. “To assemble a team, and fight for justice once more! Andarun, meet your new heroes, the Golden Dawn!”
The crowd erupted into their most ecstatic cries yet as curtains parted and five new heroes walked onto the stage. Stage lights gleamed on golden armor emblazoned with suns and rays of light.
Baggs smiled at his partner. “No new edicts for us,” he predicted. “And much better than the tax hike you feared, Goldson.”
The old Dwarf scowled down at the stage. “They look like a bunch of ragged miscreants in expensive armor,” he growled.
“That’s professional heroes for you,” said Baggs.
Goldson shook his head and muttered something lost in the roar of the crowd, unconvinced. The audience didn’t quiet enough for the Dwarf to speak until Johan was done introducing his new party and started heaping superlatives on them.
“What is the matter, Goldson?” Baggs asked, troubled by his partner’s pensive expression.
“Do we know who these people are?” Goldson said.
“Who cares?” said the Halfling. “I’d have expected you to be happy to skip the details. Or at least no more unhappy than normal.”
Goldson shot him an impatient glare. “Our firm, Mr. Baggs, has long enjoyed a special relationship with the crown and the guild. When Handor was king, we knew the kingdom’s position on everything. We advised. We provided support, and in most cases, we earned a decent margin on it,” said Goldson. He nodded down to the five heroes standing behind the king. “Who are those lot? Why are we financing them? What opportunity are they pursuing, and why weren’t we presented with it? Does this pertain to the king’s secretive business in the Royal Archives, or does it mean he has new plans for our, ah, joint venture?”
Baggs’ mouth set in a deep frown as he listened. “It’s been apparent for quite some time that Johan is the proverbial tiger that we have caught by the tail, Mr. Goldson.”
Goldson sipped his drink and nodded in agreement.
“Still, I think you’ll agree that in such a situation, the key is, metaphorically speaking, to not get caught and to not let go.” Baggs took a sip of his own brandy. “Our only course is to ride the beast as best we can.”
“Of course. But I should like to better know where we’re going,” grumbled the old Dwarf. “Johan’s loyalty to Handor always had its limits. We should assume his alignment with our interests is… similarly constrained.”
“Naturally,” murmured the Halfling. He spoke up and turned to the drunken guildmaster. “Weaver? What do you know about this so-called party of heroes the king has assembled?”
Weaver Ortson was refilling his glass and sloshed a little wine onto the crimson carpet at the mention of his name. “Jus’… jus’ shigned the papersh,” he slurred.
“You do know something, though,” Baggs pressed.
“Jus’ shigned some papersh…” Ortson shook his head. His hands trembled as he poured. “I jus’ shigned…”
“Thrice curse it, man! What did you sign!” barked Goldson.
Yet Ortson said nothing useful. It was unclear whether this was because the guildmaster possessed a particular determination to keep a secret or because he was inebriated to the point of amnesia. It was also irrelevant; all of the bankers’ attempts to badger the man only yielded incoherent mumblings and some stains on the carpet.
“Leave him,” Baggs growled to Goldson eventually. “He’s useless to us like this.”
“As if that’s different from the norm,” grumbled the Dwarf. He stared down at the stage, where the king promised that he and his party of heroes would protect the people from the threat of the Red Horde. “Something is afoot, Mr. Baggs. Uncertain times are ahead.”
“I suspect you’re correct, Mr. Goldson,” said Baggs, turning back to the stage with a grimace. “And nothing is worse for the market than uncertainty.”
Feista Hrurk’s favorite thing about trading on the Wall was the uncertainty. The possibilities. The potential. The sense that, as much as the bankers and brokers wanted to know what the market would do next, anything could happen here once the bell rang and commerce was set loose upon society. She took a deep breath and savored the thrill of the market. It felt like an electric tingle buzzing from the fuzz on her ears down to the tip of her tail.
She watched the traders and brokers mill about in the shadow of the great stone edifice. The Wall was constructed such that its top remained mostly level, while its bottom dropped with each tier of the city down the mountain. It towered over the buildings and streets down at the Base, but was no taller than a hedge fence up on the ninth and tenth tiers.
On the Sixth Tier, the Wall was still taller than many of the buildings next to it—even taller than the great dome of the Andarun Stock Exchange. The exchange’s clerks had erected a great signboard above the trading grounds, built with long slats that could have numbers and letters slotted into and out of them. A large crew of Kobolds, House Gnomes, and Goblins dashed over a network of ladders and girders surrounding the sign, swapping out letters and numbers as prices rose and fell.
