A sinister susurration passed through the office, as though the walls themselves muttered dread secrets. The glowlamps flickered and swayed in a wind Gorm couldn’t feel, casting deepening shadows about the office.
“Quiet!” Heraldin hissed, pulling the Dwarf back from the doorway. Gaist dropped into a low crouch, a mace and short sword suddenly at the ready.
A few of the workers’ heads swiveled mechanically toward the door, but they gave no other indication that they saw the heroes in the doorway.
“Get off me!” Gorm growled as he waved Heraldin’s hands away. “Are ye seriously tellin’ me ye got your pantaloons in a pinch because some rich folk bought out the guild?”
“Not just any rich folk,” said Heraldin. “Private equity. The Dark Money. It moves like a predator through the undercurrents of the market, and once it has a business in its tentacles, it slowly drains the very soul from it.”
Gorm peered back into the beige hell. It certainly looked devoid of any spiritual vitality. “By investing in ’em?” he asked, still skeptical.
“I believe you’ve heard of the Ten Cent Transportable Edibles Company?” Heraldin asked.
“Ten cent beef rolls?” asked Gorm.
“Once, yes. The Ten Cent Transportable Edibles Company made their good name selling beef rolls throughout the city, and by all accounts built a considerable fortune,” said the bard. “But their good name and that fortune is what private equity firms wanted, and a few years ago the Dark Money bought up their stock and took them private. The new owners implemented processes and procedures, replaced the accountants, and charged Ten Cent a considerable management fee to ‘keep things running.’ And then, they started loading it with debt. The Dark Money borrowed huge sums, put the debts on the Ten Cent Transportable Edibles Company’s balance sheet, and used the funds to pursue another acquisition.”
Gorm shrugged. It all sounded complex and esoteric, and not especially relevant to his favorite nostalgic snack. “Don’t see why—”
“How does a company survive shouldering enough debt to buy an even bigger company? They cut costs. They strive to make things predictable! They stick it to the customer! Under the burden of Dark Money’s loans, Ten Cent Edibles fired all of their vendors and moved to a franchise model. They started buying day-old buns from a wholesaler in the Base instead of baking their own. They somehow found a way to source lower-grade meat. The art of making a good beef roll was reduced to a handbook of cost-cutting procedures dictated to contract franchisees. And when all of that wasn’t enough—”
“They raised their prices through the roof,” the Dwarf finished, looking back into the office. He thought he saw something creeping through the shadows on the beige walls, but it could have been a trick of the eye in the sputtering light of the cheap glowstones.
“I heard they started charging for condiments last summer,” said Heraldin.
“Ye gods.” Gorm stared in horror as visions of climbing prices and deteriorating beef rolls flashed before his mind’s eye. “That’s criminal.”
“No, it’s not. Disgusting, amoral, an abomination unto a city’s favorite meal on the go, yes, but all very, very legal.” The bard shook his head and looked back at the clerks mindlessly stamping their paperwork. “So it was with the Thieves’ Guild thirty years ago. When I was but a lad in stockings, they were the greatest rogues in all of Arth. Their guildmasters were said to sit atop a mound of loot that rivaled the Great Vault of Andarun. By the time I picked my first lock, the top thieves in the guild had sold their interests to private investors and retired to some ivory beach on the Teagem Sea. The Dark Money plundered the thieves’ wealth and saddled the guild with debt to fund new ventures, new acquisitions. And once the guild was nearly bankrupt, the new managers took steps to reduce costs.”
“Never thought of petty crime as havin’ much expenses,” said Gorm.
“It doesn’t,” said Heraldin. “In thieving, reducing costs means cutting risks. They started by forbidding employees to carry weapons on jobs to reduce payments for survivor benefits. Then there were lists of restricted targets and procedural handbooks for safer operations. Eventually, they forbade employees from stealing to slash budget line items for bribery and bail.”
Gorm’s face screwed up in confusion. “How’s that work for thieves?”
“It doesn’t.” Heraldin gave a rueful chuckle. “No self-respecting vagabond could abide their strictures, and they bled talent like a stabbed mark. Their fall led to the rise of Benny Hookhand and Fish-legs Lemmy and Sue the Golem—all of the gangs and crime rings that rule the city’s underside today were built by ex-guild operatives. Only the dregs remained, operating a crumbling shell of the Thieves’ Guild.”
“Bones,” swore Gorm, watching the nearest clerk review a slip of parchment. A fly landed on the woman’s face. She didn’t so much as blink. “What are we doin’ here, then?”
“Selling information was always part of the Thieves’ Guild’s business,” said the bard. “It’s still a good place to learn about the comings and goings in any market—stock, commodity, underground, or black—and one where we don’t need to worry about any competent thief recognizing us. It’s our best bet to find out who is moving the flame olives about, and where. But be on your guard! Don’t speak of anything you love, any business you frequent, and art you admire, lest the Dark Money learn of it! Private equity’s greed and power know no bounds!”
Another sibilant whisper echoed through the office.
“Aye,” said Gorm, warily. “Aye. So what do we do?”
“You’ve bought information before, yes?” asked Heraldin. “Paid gold for rumors at taverns and such?”
“‘Course.”
“It’s just like that, without any soul.” The bard stepped carefully into the room. “Come on, you’ll see.”
They sidled up to a pine desk near the front of the pack, indistinguishable from every other save for a small, brass plaque that read “CUSTOMER INQUIRIES” and the two chairs set in front of it. Heraldin slid into one of the seats with the oily grace of an informant sidling up to a back-alley bar. Gorm followed his lead, and Gaist stood behind them, alert and wary.
The customer inquiry attendant, an olive-skinned Human with mousy hair and a tweed suit, gave no indication that she noticed the three men who had arrived at her desk. She didn’t so much as look up from her current sheet of parchment.
Gorm looked to Heraldin, who gave an encouraging nod and cocked his head toward the inattentive attendant. The Dwarf cleared his throat and attempted the customary greeting for purchasing covert intelligence. “I hear you’re the one to see for information.”
He was pleasantly surprised when she responded in turn, albeit without looking up from her parchment. “I might be. If the price is right,” she intoned, her voice flat and emotionless.
This was more familiar territory. Gorm dropped a heavy purse of coins on the table with a smirk. “I trust this will be sufficient.”
The attendant stamped her document with one hand and used the other to tap one of several small sheets of parchment that had been nailed to the front of her desk. It read, “THANK YOU FOR USING EXACT CHANGE.”
“Er, I don’t know—”
She rapped her finger on another page, headlined “STANDARD RATES.” Below it was a long list of esoteric terms and figures.
Gorm read aloud as he glanced over the rate table. “Intermarket exchange rates, three silver multiplied by one-half risk factor. Commodity or labor sourcing, seven giltin multiplied by three times risk factor. Associate identification, thirty giltin multiplied by risk factor.” He shot Heraldin a desperate look. “Eh, I don’t… I mean, can’t I just say what I’m looking for and get the price?”
The attendant sighed heavily and nodded.
“We’re lookin’ to find out who’s been movin’ Imperial flame olives from Kesh into the Freedlands, and where the shipments are goin’,” said Gorm.
“Commodity movements, rare goods, company identifiers only, multiple destinations,” the clerk declared mechanically. She consulted a small slip of parchment in one of the piles on her desk. “Risk factor of… three.” Another pause to slide some beads around an abacus set beside her outbox. “Sixty-eight giltin, four silver, and two copper.”
“Right.” Gorm counted out the coins and arranged them in neat piles.
The attendant looked over the payment, gave a small nod, and began wordlessly writing on a sheet of parchment covered in woodcut text. When the form was filled out, she pounded it with two separate stamps, placed the document in her outbox, and rang a small bell. “Responses,” she said, as though this was somehow self-explanatory, and returned to the documents she had been examining earlier.
