[Busted] Ooze Witch Diaries 4.2 (Patreon)

4.2

It has been a fortnight since my last entry. I have been busy coordinating trade negotiations and playing my part in Diacyst’s scheme that I nary had a free moment to myself. It is only now that I am able to compose my thoughts well enough to grip my quill and scrawl them upon parchment. It has been a truly dizzying affair and one I am glad to receive a respite from.

My interactions with Gabrin have yielded at least some morsel of information. For instance, his insistence on meeting him on the edge of the eastern quarter to conduct our business told me that he has some apprehension of allowing me too close to the slums. I attempted to pry, but he remains tight lipped on what goes on there. I can only surmise that his missing finger may have something to do with it. But that does beg the question, is he keeping all merchants he’s interacting with away from the slums, or only me?

The price of iron has remained relatively stable in the city as of late, no doubt due to the ministrations of Diacyst and his faction. Had this been a simpler affair, the Steel Trading Company could have flooded the market with iron and pushed out Boheme Trading Company from Placedo’s business. I’m sure my Brother thought as much when he first came to the city, before learning about the regulations surrounding its market.

I did some digging into city records to get a better picture of the business in Placedo. It took some finagling, but I was able to talk one of the clerks into letting me have a look around after dropping Diacyst’s name. To think that he has that much pull that just his name would open doors for me. Regardless, I had a job to do. From the records, it appears that a few years ago, the city council passed laws surrounding the distribution of ores on the public market. In them, they stipulated that any merchant attempting to trade more than 2000 Milan worth of ores on the market must receive a writ of authenticity from city officials to continue operating within the city’s market. Given how far Diacyst’s influence ran, it wouldn’t surprise me if he had most of the council in his back pocket at this point.

It was inspired in its underhandedness. By requiring a writ of authenticity to perform mass trade of ore into the city, it would stifle a rival company from encroaching on their territory. The requirements for qualifying for a writ were often exhaustive as city officials would be forced to inspect not only the quality of the ore brought into the city for the next year, but the finances of the company attempting to make headway. And if the city officials found fault with the quality of either the ore or the company’s books, they would be able to drag the process out even further. That did not even take into consideration the fees to even bring forth the inspection for a write, or that the finances would be revealed to parties friendly to the Boheme Trading Company. It was a bureaucratic nightmare, but one that served Diacyst’s designs for the city.

Continued research on the city records would show that Boheme Trading Company had been in the city of Placedo a couple years prior to the passage of the law, and that they could be grandfathered into receiving their writ without going through the process. Another clear example of the favoritism that the city showed Boheme Trading Company. It would be through this that they could dominate the markets, forcing other ore merchants to cut their losses on the Black Market, a market which was already cornered by Diacyst.

The question there was how he managed to gain such an iron grip over the Black Market. Thieves weren’t known for their compliance when it came to Merchants, but somehow the Boheme Trading Company was able to wrangle even them to a degree. It was my belief that to solve this quandary would be the lynchpin in blowing this entire conspiracy wide open.

Jeru’s dalliances in the taverns helped provide further insight into the city. While the alcohol wasn’t anything special, the gossip had been, in Jeru’s words, “To die for.”

I was incredulous about this but bid for him to share what he had learned. From his accounting, Jeru found that there had been a bit of a dust up on the underbelly of the city where some of the existing Thieves’ Guilds were getting crowded out from the city proper. While this might have been seen as a win for the City Guard, a more careful eye would discern that it was the presence of a new player on the scene. Starting back several years, when the refugee exodus from the nation formerly known as Ullah had reached its peak, a group of criminals snuck into Placedo and began establishing themselves amongst the refugees that trickled into the slums. Almost immediately, they began pushing their weight around the slums and setting up a number of seedy “business” ventures like drug dens and prostitution rings. Rumor had it that they kept their depravities away from the refugees and focused on the existing populace to predate upon. When they were approached by the existing Thieves’ Guilds to arrange an understanding, these outsiders responded with overwhelming violence, enough to push back against the thieves. While it would be an exaggeration to say that the streets ran red with blood, the sudden push took the Thieves’ Guilds by surprise and left them struggling to recover. And that’s when the City Guard would ramp up their efforts. With the Thieves on the back foot, the Guard took advantage of that and managed to clean up the streets, leaving the criminals from Ullah to dominate the Black Market.

The picture was coming into better focus. For the City Guard to strike the criminal element right as the Thieves’ Guilds were left exposed? This had all the designs of a coordinated strike, leading me to theorize that the City Guard and the criminals from former Ullah had been in contact with each other. Still, I was missing some pertinent details. Why would the City Guard work with such invaders in the first place? What did my Brother find out that required the powers that be to destroy his sanity? And what of the Mistress’ findings, had she found some other clues to help break this case wide open? Even with the time spent over these past days, it feels like we’re still only scratching at the surface of something grander.

-        Joseph de Steel