Guild, Coin and Debt
The eight walked past the many buildings with broken windows and broken wooden doors and made their way from the outskirts of the city, where many buildings were abandoned, towards the direction of the fourth wall, where the buildings became more tolerable, where windows were sealed off tight, doors were nailed into hinges, and the worst anyone could complain about would be a leaky roof or a skulking rat beneath wooden boards. They moved past people with grim faces trying to sell them days-old food, past a drunk trying and failing to get back up on his feet and leftover human feces that smelled as they passed by many of the dark alleys.
These are things a modern-day person like him would have never thought of coming across.
On one of the streets, a dead body was left on the side of the building, clearly dead, eyes staring blankly in the distance, flies making his nose, eyes and mouth their home, and the smell... He shattered. He could only cover his mouth to prevent the bile that threatened to make him feel even worse. The dead body had an identical smell to that of human waste and urine.
“Where are we going?” Marcus asked, trying to keep a musk on his face and not show any agitation.
“We are going to the guild,” Gabe, the skinny-looking boy, answered.
“Like Merchants guild.”
“The boy looked at him curiously, getting a thoughtful look on his face.
“No, there is no such thing in the lower wards. There is only a hunter's guild in the fourth wall and a merchant's guild beyond the third wall.”
“Then what is your guild?”
“Our guild is the Rat's guild; we protect each other,” Zek said in a rough, loud voice from behind Marcus.
“The Rats Guild?” He asked, cocking his head to the side, "What is that?” To the big boy's dismay, he did not get the chance to answer, Clara spoke up, and he hung his head.
“No more questions, we are nearly there, you’ll see,” Clara said from the front of the group.
The rats guild was, to put it kindly, a large warehouse that resembled a hunger, with wooden and stone pillars supporting the earth above where the structure had been dug into the mountain. A less amiable man would have called it a large cave with supporting pillars, living burrows in all corners, and makeshift tents set up in the dark spaces where one could get some rest.
It was a messy place to be in; it reminded Marcus of a lunch hall filled with children fighting, Sleeping, Eating, and, in some cases, partaking in sins of the flesh due to the lack of adult supervision, the oldest of whom was nineteen or in their early twenties.
On the side were different stalls run by shady-looking men and women, who exchanged their coins for whispered secrets or well-concealed items.
“Follow me, we’ll find a place to sit and I‘ll get us something to eat,” Clara said.
Like any other group, the eight sat on the ground, and Clara went ahead, dividing the dried meat she had bought as they walked through the guild building among her friends. The two Goliath children got the most, followed by Clara and Gabe, then the girl and the other two boys. Lastly was him, and to his dismay, he got three strips of dried jerky, which was less than what everyone else got. Marcus looked at the small, thin pieces of meat a foot more or less in length, and slowly, he nibbled on them as he looked around at the rest of the group and children in the sizable cave-like warehouse. Looking at the two Goliath children, he saw their skin was grey in tone. It had become one of his curiosities for some time during the walk.
“What are you? Marcus asked, causing everyone to stop their chewy struggle with the jerky and look between him and the two siblings.
“Their father was a Goliath, and that’s why they look like that,” Gabe said, drawing his attention away from the pair, who made as little eye contact as possible.
“Wait so there are Humans, Aasimar and Goliath people?”
“Yes,” Clara said, “have you been living under a rock or something. And you don't have to be rude.”
“Where I'm from there are only humans.”
The group stopped eating and laughing and looked at him with confused expressions. He realized perhaps he should keep quiet until he knew more.
"Only humans? then was it your mother or father?"
Marcus looked confused. "What?"
"The aasimar was it your mother or your father?" Clara asked.
"Neither."
"Clara, Don't," Gabe said, shaking his head. At the end of the day, they had seen many like him, leaving in denial and hoping their reality was some sort of Dream.
"So you have never seen magic or the other races." she recounted, looking at him pitifully.
'Yes. ' After all, he had never seen magic or the other sorts of people. Marcus then knew if he wanted to learn more about this world, it would be better if he shut his mouth, and observe rather than speak.
Switching their attention back to their hard strips of jerky, Marcus saw a small group of half-giant kids approaching them from the wall; they pushed aside anyone who got in their way, moving as though they owned the ground they stepped on. It was not only him who saw the movement of the four boys. Zek, Geneve and Clara all tensed up, slowly taking bites of their strips of meat. The group moved forward, stopping when they stepped in the middle of a small dysfunctioning group that had taken Marcus in.
The four were like Zek and Geneve in appearance, only much bulkier, more well fed and with dark strips of the goliath. The four looked around at their group, their eyes lingering on small rations they were all eating.
"Zek, Geneve, what are you doing with these weaklings? They can’t even feed themselves.' The large child’s eyes rested on Marcus and the jerky he was chewing on.
“So Clara, do you got our coin,” the largest of the boys asked, stepping in front of her.
“Not today Agmak I don’t have your coin.”
Agmak looked around at the small rations the eight were eating and cursed, “This is horse shit, Zek. You should come with us. I will even forget about the coin you owe me.
“They told you they weren’t gonna join you.” She stood defiantly in front of the large boy.
“They cost us the job and a lot of coin. You know it’s two copper to keep them on your team.”
Marcus slowly lifted his elbow, his eyes never leaving the side of the boy's head. He nudged Gabe in the shoulder and whispered, trying not to draw the attention of the four large boys, "What are they talking about?”
Seeing his interest, Gabe leaned in closer to whisper, “Agmak and his friends were doing a job with the two, and you didn’t hear this from me, but Geneve… she doesn’t do well under pressure. She froze and dropped the bag with a necklace that could buy Agmak and the rest of his boys enough rations for months until the next tide.”
“How much do they owe him?”
“Don’t know,” Gabe shrugged,” but Clara’s been doing her best to keep them off Zek and Geneve.”
Suddenly, the air around them went dry, and the temperature around Clara grew, causing Gabe and Marcus to look up at the girl.
Clara stood in front of Agmak, her hands tense at her sides and her fingers glowing like hot coals as she looked up at him.
“Are you sure you want to fight me,” Agmak looked down at Clara with a smug grin on his face that only grew weary as his eye darted to Clara’s red-hot fingers.
“That’s innate magic.” Gabe whispered to Marcus as the boy looked at Clara admiringly.
“That’s enough. You two, if you are going to fight, take it outside or to the pit.” A cold voice spoke loud enough that everyone in this part of the warehouse could hear him, and as quickly as it had begun, the two backed down, resorting only to glares.
"Agmak, she keeps her word. You will have your coin.” the older voice reminded the other boy.
Marcus turned to see the speaker, and in the distance, a figure in all black walked through the crowded cloth tents. He stood on a raised mound of earth and looked at them with unconcerned eyes. The man was tall and had a thin frame, but what actually gave him an edge that made Marcus’s spine tingle was the nonchalance of his posture and the way he spoke, knowing that nobody would say anything to oppose him. With a flagon of ale in his hand, he looked around and stumbled across the cave towards the stalls that made up a sort of counter setting where many orphans and those with a coin in the southern lower wards come to sell and buy.
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“Who is he?” Marcus looked up at the lanky man walking away.
“He is the guild master, don't get on his bad side, and If you get a chance to work a job he places with the merchants, do it right and you will be making as much coin as anyone in the lower cities.”
“You said Clara needs coin , how do ,uhm ,the members of the guild make coin then?”
“Ohh that’s really easy. You can just do what you want. The guild is for protection but you could sell them anything if you can get your hands on it and there is also the protection fee. The guild pays a lot of coin for items from the houses of nobles and even better if you can tell them secrets about nobles.” Gabe bit and tore off a stripe of jerky.
“And how do we do that?”
“Only members of the guild who can use magic normally take those jobs.”
“So we can’t help her.”
Gabe shrugged,” if you have magic maybe you can help her get coin.”
“What if she can’t pay them or refuse to pay them?”
Gabe looked at him and shook his head. “Zek and Geneve are Goliath. If she can’t help them pay they will find someone else to help them pay.”
“Gabe and Marcus come with me,” Clara said, turning into their makeshift tent, the one Clara and her friends slept in.
“Gabe, how much coin do we have?”
The small boy looked up and raised his fingers, counting in his head.
“Not enough coin, we can help Zek and Geneve pay but we won’t have enough for days after that.”
Clara shook her head and held her hands by her sides, trying not to lash out. She turned her eyes to Marcus. “What can you do? Do you have magic?”
“Magic ?” Marcus looked confused, but Gabe was quick to respond.
“I don’t think he knows if he can do magic.”
‘Of course I think I know what magic is but do I believe it no. not at all.’
Clara unfolded the rag running diagonal across her shoulder and waist and pulled out a folded brownish paper, gesturing for Marcus to take it.
Marcus, looking confused, reached out for the paper with his hand unfolded and looked at its contents. Confused, he turned it over, and the same was true for the other side. He looked up at her, and Clara’s irritation was so bland that Gabe could see it.
The thin boy walked over to Marcus, looked down at the paper, and then back up at him.
“That’s Katch paper, you push your magic in it and the paper displays what your affinities are.”
Gabe turned, blocking Clara’s view, and started a whispered conversation with the other boy.
Clara watched them huddle together like mischievous rats and waited for Gabe to tell her the results of whatever they were talking about.
Marcus looked at the paper, turned it over and still looked confused. “And how do I do that?" he asked, keeping a sceptical eye on the other boy.
“Like this,” Gabe grabbed the Katch paper from Marcus’s hand and held it on his own.
He shut his eyes, and with a mighty effort of concentration, his face turned red. For all his effort, the paper showed no changes, but it remained blank. Just when Marcus was starting to doubt what the other boy was attempting to show him, the brownish paper started to glow, and words began to appear, symbols and runes forming detailed complexity. It would have been hard for someone to make out the mix of symbols and words, but Marcus was a software engineer, and sure, looking at code for eight hours a day was headache-inducing, but the symbols on the paper felt flat without that intimidating factor of code when you looked at it without context or understanding what it turns did.
The paper looked like a DaVinci note with words and illustrated symbols. “That’s very tough for someone like me. See that,” he pointed to the symbols on the left. These are the types of magic, and these are the affinity patterns, " he pointed to the third part that was written in numbers. This is the amount of power for each affinity.”
Marcus looked at the paper, concentrating on trying to understand the complex writing on the paper.
“Don’t worry; this is not that impressive; I am not a mage,” he said, pointing at the symbols and the corresponding numbers.
After understanding what Gabe had explained, this is what was written on the paper in brief form.
The sections that the magic wrote in the middle were descriptions of the magic and spell and runic formations that the affinities were a part of or used for, like a personal recorded history. He explained that if he were to master a spell, it would appear in this section of the katch paper in the form of a complex spell formation that would disappear over time if it was not reinforced.
“You can use elemental and arcane spells then?” Marcus asked.
“No I can't, I don't have enough power in either affinity.”
“Are you two done talking like little gossiping girls?” Clara pulled the two boys apart and looked down at the paper. She read the name on the paper. “Is he showing what to do?”
“Yes, I think I get it.”
“Well, go on let’s see!” she pushed the paper towards Marcus, the letters symbols and numbers all disappeared as soon as it left Gabe’s hands.
Marcus grabbed the paper and held it before himself,” he focused on the paper trying to see the words but nothing happened.“I don’t think it's working. Am I doing this wrong?” He looked from Gabe’s face to Clara's.
“No, you have to send your magic into the katch paper if you want anything to happen," she pointed out.
He looked blankly at the two and tried to imagine himself pouring his magic into the paper.
After a while, and minutes of trying and failing, Marcus soon realised that he didn't know how to inject magic in the paper, “Is this supposed to feel like anything.”
“It's supposed to feel like heat from a campfire," Clara said.
“No, that's only because she has an innate spell ability of fire. I have heard it's also supposed to feel like a cold or a shock. Did you feel anything like that?”
“No,” Marcus said trying to concentrate, “how did it feel for you?” he looked at Clara.
“The first time I did it was in the winter in the cold. I wanted to warm myself and ‘bum!’ my hand caught on fire,” Clara said.
“When I did it felt like a buzzing that moved through my body. And into the paper.”
“Like a buzzing,” he looked at Gabe, who nodded smugly in response.
“Keep the katch paper. Keep trying until you can do it, she said. Let's go to the fourth wall. We'll sleep here and go to the wall in the morning.
__________
It took most of the day's hours for the group to reach the outskirts of the wall. Marcus soon came to realise that Srok was as large as any medieval city, with many people living ordinary but poor lives with poorer standards, water drawn from the wells dull and murky, and people preferred to stay in their houses, bodies that died in the street were left for the vultures until the guards forced people out of neighboring homes to clean and dump them out into the Ashfields. During the hours they took to reach the fourth wall, they slept in small abandoned shacks, and with no coin in their name, Clara had ordered the boys Nel and Linus to find them something to eat.
For orphaned kids like them, finding food was relatively easy in a way. The water that flowed from the higher stratum of the mountain's peaks was dammed at every wall and used in the cesspits and trenches to move the waste from the higher walls and Cities on the mountain to the base in the lower cities, then the waste was left to drain into the forgotten forest.
The two boys found one of the trench's holes, and Nel laid down his legs facing the trenches. Linus held a stone brick on the other end of the trench, Marcus watched as the two waited, and they stayed still, and Marcus watched a large rat the size of a rabbit curiously sniff at the opening; it slowly and cautiously moved its head out and sniffed the air. The large rat reached Nel’s feet and sniffed it. The rat nibbled at the boy's feet, and Linus, who was crouched down on the other end of the trench, swung down the brick onto the rat's sizable head.
"Yesss! There we did it," Linus said, grabbing the large rat. "Here, catch it, and make sure you cut it nice and good," he threw it towards Zek. The large boy grabbed the creature midair and started to skin it with a small knife he pulled out from under his tunic.
‘Is this how the people, the children of this world, live feeding on rats when they cannot afford to buy food? What about sickness? What happens when they fall sick. On the other end of the narrow alley, Clara started a fire with her magic, and they huddled around it for warmth. Skewed on a stick, the large rat was put on the fire to roast. That night, Marcus did not eat, going through the next day on an empty stomach.
Next to the Fourth wall but still within the fifth wall boundaries, the buildings were well maintained, and the streets were kept clean. Interestingly enough, none of the buildings were homes or Manors of wealth; they were a facade of civility, they were brothels, shady merchant buildings, and detestable tavern buildings. A place where all the rich came to play without consequence.
“Gabe, take Marcus to the streets to see how he does in the markets. They may be willing to give him more because he is an Aasimar half-blood.”
“Wait, are we going to ask for something,” Marcus looked around at them.
“No,” Gabe scratched his head pitifully, “we are going to beg for coins in the market and if we are lucky even butchers will have leftover meat to give as well.”
"Can’t we work for the coins? It’s better than begging." Clara, Zek and Geneve all looked down.
"Listen, no one is willing to employ a half-blood especially one who can't do anything," Gabe said with a lopsided grimace.
"Marcus, we can’t start doing that. Just do as Gabe does. It’s much safer for everyone." Clara said, "It's safer than searching the Ashfields."
The two moved towards the gate in the fourth wall that led towards the fourth upper stratum of the city; the land was not flat enough to allow for cleanly constructed stairways. Instead, stairs were built on the steep slope mounds, and where the ground was easy to walk upon, the ground was left to slope upwards naturally, the two moved past the prison fortress, as Gabe had called it .
It was a large circular building that was made of black stone and rose above almost every other building in the area and was filled with local militia guards, idly standing guard. The fortress prison was lodged into the soil and anchored the surrounding ground like a plant's root and in the distance, the stairs continued up and led to the fourth wall's gate.
The guards idly looked at the two boys passing through the gate and did nothing to stop them, but the whipping posts that stood next to them reminded him that if they did not return by the late hours, they would be subjected to lashes and the bloody body of the barely breathing man tied to one of the posts did nothing to ease his worries.
