Enlightened Empire

Chapter 451: Walled Desert

Depression, loneliness. A dying star in the night sky, surrounded by darkness. A walled desert, surrounded by fertile land. These were Brym's first thoughts after a look at his empty shop. All along the walls and atop the shelves, items worth thousands of Sila were lined up, all of them desirable to the people of the city just outside the door. Yet not one of them was here to be enticed by these wares, not one would waste their hard-earned silver on his luxury goods. It was enough to make a grown man weep.

"Vice-president, you are finally here!" one of only two men in the shop — both of them shopkeepers — shouted. From behind his counter, the arcavian native charged towards Brym and hugged the shop's owner with tears in his eyes. "Vice-president, I don't know what to do. Everyone's gone. All those coins out there, and none of them are jumping into our coffers."

Brym had almost laughed at the man's tearful dramatization, but the last sentence made him feel somber as well. How dare these coins stay out of their possession?

"You're Alyn, right?" he confirmed, and thought: Yet another Alyn.

He knew the names of all his employees. Even though he hadn't been here in years, he still remembered them well. Luckily, the two in here were easy to keep apart, since the teary-eyed shopkeeper was an Arcavian, while the quiet one behind the counter was a Medalan.

With a timid nod, Alyn confirmed his identity, before Brym continued.

"There's no need to worry, Alyn. There is a solution to every problem. Please calm down first."

Brym did his best to project confidence in his voice while he brushed off the clingy subordinate at the same time. Then, he turned towards the second shopkeeper, who was still standing behind the counter and watching his colleague's farce with a disapproving frown.

"Titu, do we have any tea?" Brym asked the man who had been aggressively named after the late emperor.

"Of course, master," Titu replied with a fawning smile. "In case special guests arrive, we always keep some Golden Chutwa Tea stocked. I will make set up a pot right away. Please simply relax and enjoy."

"Make one for your friend as well, Titu. Drinking tea calms the nerves. From the look of things, he will need it more than me," Brym added with a smile.

"Very well," Titu confirmed with a more polite bow than necessary, before he disappeared in the storage area in the back of the shop.

Although he himself was nervous about the strange intruders outside the door, Brym knew that he had to remain calm. Strangely, when faced with one subordinate who was about to lose his mind — and a second who only seemed to care about his boss' impression of him, rather than the future of the shop — Brym truly calmed down, rather than worry more. After all, his calm was needed here, and he was confident that he could overcome this hurdle, the same way he had overcome countless hurdles before.

While he was waiting for the tea, Brym shepherded his distraught subordinate to a sitting area intended for high-value customers towards the back of the room. Once Brym had finally come to a rest, his fellow traveler finally spoke up again, possibly after waiting for this very moment of rest.

"Seems like you have things under control here," Inti said. All the while, she strolled through the shop and touched this and that as if she didn't care about the mess in his shop at all.

"Not quite, but I'm getting there,"

Brym returned with a wry smile. He didn't even know what was happening yet. How could he truly have things under control?

"You still want me to check with the ghosts?" she asked, as if his polite understatement had been a serious claim of control. She couldn't really think that her help wasn't needed here, right? Or was she just teasing him?

"Please, if you could," he openly admitted. There was no shame in asking for help, especially from someone he had been feeding for the past three months. It was time for this girl to carry some of the burden as well.

"There is just one issue: It appears this place is under surveillance, so I doubt our contacts here are still active. I will have to check the secondary contact point in the city," Inti explained.

That means traveling outside, Brym added in his head. With the outside of the shop opaque like a thick fog, that seemed like a dangerous move.

"Can you handle it by yourself?" he thus asked with a frown.

"Of course," the girl's carefree smile hardly filled Brym with confidence. Although Inti was an experienced warrior and spy, she was also too arrogant for her own good.

"Please take four of the guards with you, just in case," he said out of concern, and pointed to the six guards they had brought along. By now, they were standing by the door just inside the shop, where they acted as a silent deterrent against the scholars outside.

"I said I can handle it," Inti repeated, now in an annoyed, almost offended tone. However, Brym had learned how to handle the lady's moods over the past few months.

"Of course you do, Lady Inti. Still, it would make me feel calmer if I knew that you had additional protection with you," he rephrased his previous concerns. Since his offer had now become a request, Inti had no more reason to decline.

"Fine then," she finally relented.

"Thank you for easing my nerves," Brym responded with a carefree smile of his own. By the time Inti left, the tea arrived as well. Some empty small talk about the quality of the leaves and the hardness of the water later, Alyn the shopkeeper had finally calmed down. Thus, Brym was ready to start collecting information.

"So you're telling me these scholars appeared out of nowhere, and just closed down the shop of their own accord," Brym summarized his subordinate's explanation. "Did they talk to you, or explain anything before they started blocking the entrance?"

"Not a word, vice-president," Alyn replied first. In the process, his head shook from side to side like a rattle toy. "They just showed up with their clubs in front of the shop and drove away anyone who wanted to enter. We took some coin and tried to persuade them away, but they didn't seem interested. At first, they weren't even interested in telling us why our shop was closed down."

"We attempted to grease the gears, if you will. Usually, a bit of coin goes a long way to removing a problem, as you have graciously taught us, master," Titu added, and took a calculated sip of his tea. "Those scholars stared at all the silver greedily, but their leader declined us before the others could accept."

"We all but had to shove the money into his hands, acting like it was a little regard from his dear students," Alyn continued, with a face as if he couldn't stand the bitter tea, though he was probably just thinking about the lost money again.

"Only then did the scholar accept, and graciously informed us of our 'crimes'. In essence, he repeated the same phrases he used in front of the shop earlier, as if he had memorized them. Since then, nothing has changed. Even though they have accepted our money, they haven't moved away one step."

"Usually, the crooks at least have the integrity to act on a bribe," Alyn added in the end.

"They're here all day?" Brym probed further.

He couldn't quite believe that these people would waste their time standing in front of a shop all day for no reward. If they only appeared around noon, for example, he could always just change his business hours and continue operating around the restriction. However, Titu's next reply foiled Brym's plan before it could fully form.

"All day," the shopkeeper unfortunately confirmed. "They come in waves, from morning till night. So long as someone is left in the store, a group of them will always be present outside. These days, they've even come inside around noon and shamelessly asked for 'payment', to buy some food."

"Payment?" an intrigued Brym leaned forward. Usually, the fastest way to the truth was to follow the money. Who was paying these fake scholars, and why? Yet once again, the answer left him disappointed.

"Please do not get excited, vice-president. We're the ones paying, and we get nothing in return," a distraught Alyn said. "They argue that our presence prevents them from performing their higher duties elsewhere. So, since the lives of scholars are so valuable, they should be compensated for their lost time."

"Unbelievable." Brym shook his head. The shamelessness on display almost made him laugh. "Aren't those robber methods?"

"If they aren't real robbers poorly disguised as scholars, then they may as well be," Titu commented. "There is no difference."

For a few seconds, silence filled the room, as Brym stared at the slowly rising smoke from his expensive tea. Apparently, they had to deal with a thoroughly unreasonable desperadoes this time, not exactly his forte. He much rather dealt with smart people with something to lose. After all, smart people were predictable, and more likely to cut their losses, or strike deals. Idiots like the ones outside couldn't be reasoned with, and that worried Brym.

"Not that I have high hopes, but what is the local lord saying about this harassment?" he tried again. Predictably, his two workers shook their heads.

"We've tried informing House Gratidia," Alyn explained. "However, we haven't even seen the lord so far. We paid a lot of silver to the patrol warriors of the house, on top of our usual payments. Only then did we find a few guards who were unhappy with the scholars running rampant in the city. They told us more."

"In fact, many local nobles are unhappy with the scholars," Titu added. "though apparently, these are direct orders from Challwala. In other words, these people outside have come here on direct order from the King of the North. Unfortunately, Gratidia is a weak house, which needs protection from the norther court. After their defection, the the central kingdom would be out for revenge after all. So the local lord is unlikely to act against the scholars. Apparently, he is currently pretending to be away on a trip to the countryside. Thus, he has an excused for his inaction towards his people, and he will not need to confront the norther king who is currently supplanting Lord Gratidia's authority in his own estate."

Finally, Brym had a better image of the politics within Rhodanos, though it didn't make him any happier.

"What a mess." he simply concluded, and rubbed his aching temples. For now, he didn't have the energy to think up a solution, so he opted for small talk instead. "Since you can't solve it yourselves, why not message the main branch?"

"These people appeared a mere trium ago, master," Titu explained. "However, we have written a report and sent it back a while back. By now, it may have already arrived at the main branch."

"We're desperate for help, vice-president." Alyn added, and already looked like he was about to cry again, tea or not.

"Indeed. While a bit dramatic, we truly are out of options, and humbly ask for Master Brym's guidance." Compared to his colleague, Alyn was more composed, and lowered his head to the minister like a servant.

If he had to pick, Brym preferred the whiny subordinate who seemed to care more about money than about Brym to the careerist. Though this wasn't the time to play favorites. Both were asking for the same thing after all. Unfortunately, it wasn't a thing he could provide, at least not yet. Thus, he could only sigh and deny their requests.

"This might shock you, my friends, but I am no miracle worker. Maybe if big brother was here, he would have long thought up a brilliant strategy to reverse our fortunes. However, I am not my big brother, and not capable of such creative solutions. All I can do is work earnestly, and see if we have overlooked an avenue which will lead us out of this mess."

When their pleas were rejected, both shopkeepers had the same reaction, for the first time since Brym had appeared here. Both of them looked devastated, as if they were watching a treasure chest sink into the ocean. In response, their boss offered a reassuring smile, to make sure morale wouldn't collapse completely. After all, while he didn't have Corco's brilliant strategies, he had his own way of doing things.

"No need to look so down," he said. "I already have a few leads we can follow, all of which look promising. I can guarantee you: If only one of them proves fruitful, we will find a way out of your dilemma. First, we'll have to see what our ghostly friends have to say. Maybe after that, we will already have some light to pierce through this darkness."