Soul Bound

1        Soul Bound

1.3      Making a Splash

1.3.1    An Obligated Noble

1.3.1.14 Pantalone needs persuading

7:45 am, Saturday June 10th, 2045

5 bells of the afternoon watch

Zerday full, 14th day of the month of KrevinBelember, A2F1600

On entering the room Claudio’s seneschal had set aside for the conference, they found Marco chatting with an official Lady Pia had brought along from The Azioni, the stock exchange whose head, Ugolino Trinci, was Lady Pia’s husband as well as being the Marquis di Torello, the highest ranked noble in the city, and the leader of the city’s ruling council.

Pantalone had also arrived at the scheduled time, and was now impatiently strutting around the large circular table in the center of the hall like a proddy cockerel, bent forwards so much his chest and toes arrived level with each seat a second or so before his tail of his gown.

The gown was the sleeveless sort she’d seen worn only by academics or clergy in arlife, and was made of a midnight black velvet that matched the close fitting skull cap he wore with aggressive precision, its point extending down at the dead center of his forehead. The cap did nothing to distract away from his more memorable facial features: the hairy eyebrows, the beaky nose, the measly mouth and the pointed chin-puff beard that extended out to fully a dozen centimeters in front of his chin, giving the whole face a side-profile like that of a quarter moon.

The dramatic effect was only enhanced by the rich scarlet colour of his doublet and hose, and the way he clasped his spindly arms behind his back except when using them to gesticulate. There was no doubt he had charisma, of the sort put on by actors or worn naturally by business leaders accustomed to attention and to getting their own way. It was only when he stood opposite Claudio to be introduced as “Viscount Avaro Pantalone, President of the Bancario and Grand Warden of the Illustrious Company of the Hall of Goldsmiths” that she noticed his short stature and extreme old age.

In the meeting that followed, she found herself envying Tomsk, who’d opted to go off with Tori to be introduced to the guards and learn more about mercenaries and their group tactics. Pantalone was obviously sharp, and was unfailingly polite to Claudio who, as Count of the Mercato district that held the guild halls, was not only socially higher than Pantalone, but also his direct superior. To almost everyone else in the room, however, he made it quite clear that he considered them to be unreliable idiots who should be assumed to be wasting his valuable time until proven otherwise. When Alderney or Bungo spoke, half the time he interrupted them as though deaf or sure he knew what they had been about to say. The other half he demanded evidence, and looked to Claudio or his own self-effacing private secretary before accepting it.

The exception was Wellington, who put into practice the training he’d been receiving from Marco in how to deal with Torello’s merchants. He matched Pantalone with cool precision and utter certainty, snapping back with lists of dates, names or numbers almost before Pantalone could open his mouth to raise a question. Wellington didn’t talk about morality or emotions, but instead tied every concern he raised to money and long term profitability.

Claudio had retained a poker face throughout, not reining Pantalone in, to the point where Kafana wondered whether the cunning count was using his subordinate as a stalking-horse, to avoid having to personally throw doubt upon his guests, but Bulgaria reassured her in private chat that, according to the social dynamics skills he’d gained, Claudio genuinely respected the acuity of Pantalone’s opinion, and would need to depend upon his wholehearted cooperation if big changes had to be made to Torello’s financial system.

She endured, biting her tongue and speaking as little as possible, until finally Pantalone asked his private secretary (who’d been quietly been taking copious notes in beautiful flowing copperplate, open inkwell by his side) to summarise the agreed situation, before they took a break then discussed solutions. She had system round the numbers and put it into an orglife document which she shared with the other wombles, so she could study it at leisure during the break and read their private annotations:

Issue : Providing vessels for Adventurers and the effect upon food production.

When the only world was Droob, during the height of Aeon Portentis, before the arrogance of the Blue Emperor led to scattering of the peoples there were over 600 million imperial citizens, split between the 6 races acknowledged by Cov, Dro, Mor, Rac, Lun and Zer.

EVIDENCE : a third hand copy of a census taken in the year A1F0372

Morob currently holds 120 million Zeradan and 80 million Lunadan, of whom 40 million live as Adventurers, bound to active questers from the World of Spirits.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Bungo, verified by truth artifact

Covob currently holds 80 million Covadan citizens, split between the 6 regions still held by organised governments, and maybe another 20 million of the acknowledged races, in the unclaimed lands or incursions.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Lord Landi, who would not venture to place a number upon the lawless Krevadan and Beladan, whose strongholds in the Transylvanian Incursion (and the surrounding lands long stolen by them) have never yet been fully scouted.

The Federation of Etruscan City States has a population of 10 million, split between 5 cities (If you include the fortress city of Costante, that stands against the chaos of the East and is, by treaty, neutral and equally supported by all the 6 regions.) The lands controlled by Torello have a population of 2 million subjects, including 200 thousand living in the city itself.

To provide food for those 2 million requires 1.25 million of them to help plant fields, herd livestock, fish, hunt or gather from the wild. Lord Landi, as Count Mercato, is responsible for the 30,000 residents of his district in the city, another 25,000 resident in Bensagra (the principal town of his area which, with a little guidance, is ruled by Herberto), 25,000 more split between five other towns run by Viscounts and 30,000 in the smaller towns, outposts and settlements run by the Barons. Most of those under him (280,000 of them) are rural, living in the farms, hamlets and villages of his Baronet’s feifs. The same goes for the other Counts of Torello - most people live close to the land, and adding more mouths to feed requires carefully planning if mass starvation, or crushing debt to pay for imports, is to be avoided.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Lord Landi’s seneschal

#Bungo: The man wouldn’t shut up. He tried to give us the precise tonnage and acres held by each individual fief. Did anyone else notice the way he pronounced each number with triumph of a stage magician finally producing a rabbit from his top hat?

#Kafana: I think he was just overjoyed that anyone would listen, the poor man.

The World of Spirits contains, quote, “More than 8 billion of us” unquote, of whom 400 million currently have the ability to visit Morob, and 20 million who also currently have the ability to visit Covob, should they so choose to. Over the next 2 years, an additional 80 million will gain the ability to visit Covob.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Alderney, verified by truth artifact

#Wellington: That’s 2 years in-game time which is just over 6 months in arlife so late January

More than 4000 spirits have been summoned to the lands controlled by Torello, with one third of those being active on any particular day, and about half of them resident in the city itself. That is expected to increase, with over 80,000 spirits being summoned during the next year and another 300,000 in the year after that. But it could easily turn out to be twice or triple that number. Bulgaria claimed the deities would not like the reasons for that uncertainty to be explained.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Bulgaria, verified by truth artifact

384,000 productive subjects of Torello, turned into low level vagrant vigilantes over the next 2 years? Possibly 15 million across the whole of Covob? Madness! We cannot afford to lose that many farmers working the fields, let along reliable crafters or other even more important people. Not even were we to retake Morea!

EVIDENCE: testimony of my Lord, Viscount Pantalone

At that point, Alderney had tried to contradict Pantalone about Adventurer crafters being unreliable, and had enthused about the speed at which she was levelling and the things she’d soon be able to make. Unfortunately, instead of shutting Pantalone up, this had triggered another rant from him:

Issue : Speed of levelling.

When it comes to specialist professions, whether that’s coopering or accountancy, about 1% of our population has both the inclination and potential to become a talented amateur. How far a man may progress beyond journeyman before old age sets in, depends upon how long and fast he works, the pride he takes in improving himself, and certain natural talents or attunements granted at birth by the deities. These vary enormously between individuals, but inside a predictable progression if you consider the population as a whole. 10% of amateurs level at twice the speed normal for most amateurs. 1% level at 4 times the speed, 1 in 1000 at 8 times the speed, and so forth. Those who attain rank get listened to because they deserve it; they have worked hard and everyone knows that, because there is no alternative route. Yet now we see some adventurers shooting through journeymanships in a matter of weeks. How long before they become grandmasters, demanding our obedience and upsetting the social hierarchy? Why should the population respect the authority normally attached to their level, if they’ve not been seen to work as hard as we did?

EVIDENCE: testimony of my Lord, Viscount Pantalone

#Bungo: He’d blow his top if he knew it was just a game to us, or that players can pay money for premium accounts that grant the ability to quadruple any experience you gain during the first 6 hours of gameplay each day, just by staying logged out for long enough, between play sessions. Most players in Morob are over level 60, and even casual players can do that in less than a year of arlife play. Dedicated players can do it in under a month.

My Lord, perhaps you have forgotten the earlier mention of the spirit world’s larger population? By your numbers, you would expect maybe 20 people out of 2 million Torellans to gain experience at 8 times the base rate, in any particular craft. Whereas 80,000 adventurers out of 8 billion people is already a rarity of 1 in 100,000 and those who have talents that might be useful in Covob are more likely to be keen to arrive early. Just from those numbers alone, you should expect an adventurer who picks a specialty to gain experience much much faster than a normal Covodan journeyman or master.

EVIDENCE: An interim report, submitted by Wellington, from High Master Flavio of CoThEx’s Questology Group, comparing the frequency of high attunement scores between adventurer and non-adventurer apprentice candidates presenting themselves at the Mage Tower.

#Bungo: Did you see his face when you suggested he’d forgotten something? It looked like he bit into a lemon! Now I know why you asked me to get that from Flavio.

My Lord Pantalone, it is common knowledge that the form a vessel’s body takes when first united with a questing spirit is not the same as that of the vessel’s original body but, quite understandably, few yet realise that the form is also not that of the questing spirit - it is freely chosen, and many pick a form full of youthful energy that does not match their own hard own years of experience from working back on their own world. Despite her looks, I assure you that Alderney’s skill with a smith’s hammer is something she gained honestly through hard years of practice.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Bulgaria, verified by truth artifact

It isn’t just my experience. The world of the spirits is more advanced than Covob in some things, and less advanced in others, but as an Adventurer I gain the benefit of information from both of them, and being the first to see where two techniques can complement each other. If Torello supports its adventurers, it is in for a true renaissance - not just a slow recovery from the knowledge lost when the empire fell but a period of rapid innovation that may even surpass those heights - a rebirth of exploring the new and never tried. Hope! Unbounded potential!...

EVIDENCE : testimony of Alderney, unverified

At this point, Pantalone derailed the discussion yet again, demanding to know how much more advanced, and what this would mean in practice.

Issue : Technology transfer.

How much more advanced? It is hard to say. Time doesn’t move at the same speed for us, and the more a society knows, the faster it accumulates yet more knowledge, because how to accumulate knowledge quickly is one of the things it knows more about. In some areas, like making certain types of machinery, I’d say your world now is at a level that our world was 18 generations ago? The difference is smaller in most areas, though.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Alderney, unverified

#Alderney: I got a warning from System about losing reputation for using Earth concepts around an NPC, the first time I tried answering that question. I couldn’t say that while they’re generally like Europeans from the year 1600, their healing is better than ours in the year 2045, without saying we don’t have magic or deities.

My Lord, Count Landi, now you have learned more of these adventurers, are you sure you wish to continue supporting the priests of Cov in their summoning such sources of chaos to our lands? How can the guilds carry out their responsibility to their members and the city, when they have no way to control what adventurers produce or the rate at which they introduce destabilising innovations that change our very society? How can our financial markets calculate a fair price for a company that may be put out of business at any moment? How can we rely upon the value of our coins remaining stable, if adventurers keep depositing tallero bars of no known provenance, or discovering ancient piles of buried gold?

EVIDENCE: testimony of my Lord, Viscount Pantalone

Can we afford not to? Despite the disruption, we can be sure that the mayors of the League of Free Cities from the Teutonic region will jump at the chance to learn how to produce goods faster and cheaper than we can. We must assume that any techniques held privately by guilds in Torellos, such as the secret of how the glassblowers silver their mirrors, are likely to be quickly spread or surpassed, whether or not the priests keep summoning.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Lord Landi

This finally led onto a discussion of how quickly adventurers could spread information between regions, which Kafana had naively thought was the only problem they’d come to discuss. After the welcome they’d so far received as adventurers in Torello, except from a few grumpy sailors, she hadn’t expected such a wide ranging inquisition questioning whether to allow them at all.

Issue : Uneven speed of communicating market data.

I am informed by my guests that many adventurers have the ability to share what they see on Covob, in such a way that it can be seen just minutes or hours later by other adventurers, no matter how far away those other adventurers are. This is not dissimilar to the advantage my ancestors had for a while, due to their monopoly upon homing gyrfalcons. I have asked Marco to review for us the impact from that and any lessons that may be relevant to our current situation.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Lord Landi

My Lord, Count Landi, your wisdom is beyond question. But these journeymen, these apprentices, claim to be able to do what even the greatest of archmages have not been able to do since Monvoisin the Shaker? Is it not far more likely that your guests are trying to deceive us, in order to defraud the merchants and nobles of Torello of yet more money? The claim is extraordinary, and so must be the evidence confirming it before I will accept it. Artifacts can be subverted, and even apparent blessing of the deities is not an objective fact I can lay before investors to justify the measures that countering such a threat would take.

EVIDENCE: testimony of my Lord, Viscount Pantalone

Lord Pantalone, I have taken on Wellington Fiducia as my journeyman as a trader in Equitable Guild of Creditworthy Merchants. As is standard, I have kept a comprehensive record of his proposed trades and investments, both real and hypothetical, which have been as prudent and as profitable as any master could wish. Seven days ago, he visited me and gave me a letter containing a prediction about the following day and a hypothetical trade he could place to take advantage of it. On his suggestion, I had a mage check the letter, then sealed it and deposited it in our Vault. I take oath, upon the Honour of House Landi, that the letter remained untampered until I opened it two days later, to read and verify the prediction.

EVIDENCE : testimony of Marco, trade factor representing House Landi in Torello

Any man may make a prediction, and have an even chance of it coming true.

EVIDENCE: testimony of my Lord, Viscount Pantalone

Lord Pantalone, the prediction was very detailed. He didn’t just predict the unannounced arrival of two cargo knarr that had been escorted from the Scandic Union by the war drakkar, the Ormurinn Langi. He listed the precise cargo and tonnage, and a crew manifest that included the correct name of a last minute substitute made for a bear-sark who was lost to a Huldufólk mound. Not only that. At my request, he has twice more repeated a demonstration of this ability, with carracks I picked that were due in from Batille and from Kyiv via Costante and Pentapolis. On both occasions, every detail he gave has been verified to be correct, and he provided more than sufficient details to allow any trader to double his stake. I would rate the chances of this being explained by coincidence, fraud, or any known means of long range transport or communication, to be sufficiently low that I would be prepared to stake all my personal wealth on it, against one bronze Osella coin. I note in passing that my impression of Wellington is that he is an honourable man who cares about the stability of Torello’s financial system, and I will be pleased to stand sponsor for his recognition as a Master. He detailed his trade only hypothetically, despite having management of sufficient funds to have bankrupted at least two brokerages if he had chosen to. You should listen to him, Lord Pantalone - he is not your enemy, and could be a valuable ally for you.

EVIDENCE: documents originally from Wellington, delivered by Marco along with their signed and witnessed timestamps, and step by step transcript of the verification Marco had carried out.

After that, Pantalone started listening without interrupting, concentrating ferociously, and progress became swift.