01:10 p.m. - At Stoneveil Trading House, Dawnspire.
Snowmelt drips from the iron gutters. The Stoneveil crest hangs over the lintel, a stag skull flanked by two chained scales. Porters swing bales past like they own the street.
Aidan (straightening his vest): "We go in clean. You do not crowd me unless I tap twice."
Ryan adjusts the rainbow jacket on his shoulders, the colors loud under the gray sky. The porter by the door flinches like the cloth hurts his eyes.
(This day he kept the image, the jacket stuck while my name was forgotten like an NPC forgetting players. Safe from spotlight did its weird job.)
Aidan steps through heavy oak, the lobby warm with dye‑steam and coin‑smell. The counter clerk looks up, fingers still on a tally stick.
Aidan (placing a folded writ): "Aidan Thorne. Owner, Technologia Company. I meet Odrik Stoneveil now. My adviser attends."
Clerk (wetting a reed): "Master Stoneveil takes appointments—"
Aidan (tapping the wax): "This is an audit notice from the Merchant Guild. It times today. We keep the noise small if he meets us now."
Clerk glances at the seal, blanches, and slides off the stool.
Clerk (rising fast): "I fetch him. Please wait inside. The conference room is warm."
Aidan nods once. He glances at the jacket, then at Ryan's face as if a word hangs just out of reach.
Aidan (low): "Odd coat. The founder wore one like that when he… never mind. Keep your slate ready."
(His mind won't pull the name. Mine sits on his tongue and refuses to be caught. Good.)
The clerk returns with a stiff bow and leads them down a runnered hall. Voices thrum behind walls. The door opens with a soft scrape.
01:20 p.m. - At Conference Room, Stoneveil Trading House, Dawnspire.
The table is long, oil‑shined, three chairs face each other like pieces on a board. Odrik Stoneveil looms in the doorway and shuts it with a lazy push. He rolls his shoulders as if he brought the room in with him.
Odrik (grinning without warmth): "To what do I owe this joy, Thorne? Come to kneel? Or cry?"
Aidan pulls a chair and sits square. He sets a small leather folio between them and opens it to the clean first page.
Aidan (plain): "Return the prototype you stole. The jig set. The engine sheets. We end this later with a receipt."
Odrik barks a laugh that doesn't reach his eyes.
Odrik (spreads his hands): "You have no fucking proof. Why should I believe your noise? And if I did have your toys, what do I get? You can't do a godsdamned thing to me without ink. No ink? No crime."
Ryan leans back, palms on the armrests. He meets Odrik's eyes and speaks soft, almost bored.
Ryan (calm): "I have evidence."
The words land like iron in snow. Odrik's grin flickers.
Odrik (snaps): "From where?"
Ryan lifts a palm, fingers counting one to three.
Ryan (even): "Your boy Saren signed out of our yard twice after midnight. Fogs for a rope burn on his glove, wrong side. He placed a clean smudge on a cylinder sheet you copied at Bromar's, top right margin. Your chest seal recast shows a bubble on the lower ring. And the Kestrel clerk who wasn't Perri moved the south gate watch for one quarter hour. I do not need more lines."
Aidan shifts. He tracks Ryan's words with that quick ledger‑mind of his.
Aidan (under his breath): "Rope burn. Bubble. Quarter hour. That matches our gate log."
Odrik's tongue slicks his teeth. He tries to swing the blade back.
Odrik (leans in): "Even if you know a name—you think he talks? Spies don't sing."
Ryan folds two fingers down, leaving his index like a nail.
Ryan (flat): "He sang."
Odrik flinches.
Ryan lifts his folio and flips a page that shows nothing but space to Odrik. He does not need ink with the way doubt drains from the air when he speaks.
Ryan (measured): "Here is the game as I see it. We build for the crown now. We carry war work. You sell… whatever you can move. You choke roads. You copy wrappers and scratch our name on cheap. You send boys to frighten our girls to tears outside the rope‑walk. That is not fair play."
Odrik smirks and looks to Aidan for traction, to find one eye he can catch.
Aidan does not blink.
Aidan (dry): "We keep receipts. And we have the Guild Mark on our tins. Your counter‑mark scratches nick the edge at eight strokes to a turn. I can spot your work blind."
Odrik works his jaw like a dog with a crack bone.
Odrik (growls): "You throw big words and threats. The Guild? The Guard? The King? None of them bite me if there's no meat on the hook. You want my ear? Put coin or blade on the table."
Ryan slides one gold crown onto the oak. It spins once and settles with a bright ring. Odrik snorts.
Odrik (contempt tight): "One gold? Fuck off."
Ryan does not touch the coin again. He taps it once with a nail.
Ryan (level): "Peppercorn consideration. Binding. Today's deal stands on this coin. You transfer Stoneveil's shop and ledgers to Technologia. We assume your lawful debts to suppliers, not your bribes. In return we file a consent statement with the Guild that marks you as a Crown witness on counterfeiters. Not the head. A witness. You keep your skin. You leave Dawnspire for one season. No naming on the boards. You live."
Odrik blinks once, heavy.
Odrik (scoffs): "Mad. Even if I wanted to, my place is worth 2,000 gold if it's worth one. That coin would not buy my piss bucket."
Ryan turns the coin with a fingertip. He smiles a little, the kind of smile that makes space feel small.
Ryan (soft): "We can make more than that in a quarter. With your presses honest and our engine line clean, we pass two hundred crossbows a day and put nibs into every clerk's box from here to the Azure Sea. Your shop without you will do more than your shop with you. We both know it."
Ryan's eyes flick for a heartbeat. He holds his face smooth.
Ryan (a breath, then firm): "We can hit the numbers. We have the writ. Two hundred a day is ordered if we scale. We have shifts planned. You are in our way, not our path."
(Oversell. I oversell. But the way his eyes read fear, not sums—the mandate holds steady. Safe from doubt cuts the hooks off his questions.)
Odrik's fingers drum, a quick fearful beat. He bares teeth.
Odrik (defiant, thin): "Say I do not bend. You push the Guild. You make noise with the King. I still have friends. The Temple—"
Ryan leans forward, rainbow sleeve loud against dark wood.
Ryan (quiet): "The Temple bled in its nave. Their chief bled wrong. That sanctuary stinks of the dead. Who do you think fed them? The lists like your name full. You have a long gift history, Odrik. If the King asks, the Guild will show it. The Guild is under the King's hand now. Who feeds a wrong Temple does not find shelter when a court looks for names."
Odrik's mouth opens. No sound. He swallows.
Odrik (rough): "You don't know a godsdamned thing about my books."
Ryan pushes a folded paper across the table. It shows one line, heavy ink, nothing more: NOTICE OF RANDOM AUDIT — STONEVEIL TRADING HOUSE — PACKAGING, METALS, AND WAGE BOOKS. Guild seal black.
Ryan (flat): "We do this quiet with a consent order. Or we do it loud with an audit cart at your door, two ward‑ink men who pull wrappers and mark the floor where the line breaks. Loud draws rats. Rats draw blades. Your choice."
Odrik's hands twitch. He glances at the windows like the street will hear him.
Odrik (snarls, then falters): "You threaten me in my house."
Ryan's voice drops further, no weight on it at all.
Ryan (mild): "No. We offer you an exit. Saren names you. The chest seal names you. The quarter hour at the south gate names you. The city does not need your kind while it digs out ash. But we can use your presses. You can keep your life. One gold, Odrik. That coin buys silence, witness status, and passage out. Refuse, and we put names on boards. The King will ask. The Guild will answer. Your friends turn their cups away."
Odrik's chair scrapes, sudden. His face blotches red.
Odrik (screaming): ! "You don't run this godsdamned city! I have crews in every lane! I've paid priests more coin than you've seen in your life!"
Ryan taps the coin again. It rings like a bell.
Ryan (patient): "Every battle has rules. You broke them. You cut our supply routes. You sold false tins that cut the hands of poor scribes. You sent boys after our workers. We don't need a priest to bow to truth, Odrik. We need ink and a witness. You give us both by choice. Or we take them from the fire."
Odrik's breath rasps. He clutches at numbers that won't stay.
Odrik (hoarse): "If I sign—I don't die?"
Ryan nods once, short.
Ryan (practical): "You live and you leave. We put it in ink. 'Technologia will speak if asked to keep Stoneveil free of the rope.' You do not come back till the thaw after next. You do not write letters to stir boys with knives. You drop your counterfeit nib line. We fold your presses into our books. We do not burn your name on the boards."
Odrik sags into the chair. He looks very small, hunched over the big table. Sweat beads at his hairline.
Odrik (small): "No jail?"
Ryan slides a second paper: a short, tidy assignment and consent order with three blanks: Seller, Buyer, Consideration.
Ryan (firm): "No jail if you keep this clean. You will let us take your wage books and supplier ledgers. We will pay your lawful invoices that keep little folk fed. We will not pay your knife men. This is one gold, and our bond with the Guild. Your part is to sign and to walk."
Odrik's hands shake. He reaches for a reed. It scratches once on the page and stops. He stares at the coin.
Odrik (whisper): "One?"
Ryan nudges the coin with one finger until it rests against the assignment.
Ryan (gentle): "One. One is enough to bind if both parties agree."
Odrik sucks a breath and signs. The strokes are ugly, but they are his. He shoves the reed back and presses heel to eye like the room hurts.
Odrik (broken): "Gods damn you. Fuck you. Take it. Just—"
Aidan flips the page to the second line and writes Technologia Company in clean block. He reaches into his vest and sets his signet on the wax. Press. Seal.
Aidan (to Ryan): "Witness."
Ryan signs under the line with a steady hand. He folds the paper, sets the coin atop it, and puts both in Aidan's folio.
Aidan stands. He pulls a small envelope and slides it across.
Aidan (clipped): "Here. A pass to the East Road postern. It buys you one cart and a day's head start. If you are in Dawnspire after sunup tomorrow, I pull the pass back and call the cart to the Guild."
Odrik looks at the envelope like it might bite. He gathers it. He cannot meet their eyes.
Odrik (muttering): "You two think you've won. You think new rules save you. Nothing stays clean."
Ryan pauses at the door. He glances once around the room, then back at Odrik. The rainbow sleeve flashes as he lifts a hand in farewell.
Ryan (soft): "Keep your hands clean tomorrow and the day after. That is how things stay."
They step out into the hall. The clerk turns his face to the wall and pretends to study a stain.
02:05 p.m. - At Stoneveil Steps, Dawnspire.
Cold air bit their cheeks. Street noise filled the space fear had sucked out inside.
Aidan walked three paces with the folio clamped in his fist. He stopped and eyed the coin mark through the leather like he could see it.
Aidan (stunned): "You walked him from a wall to a table with one gold."
Ryan shrugged, hands deep in his pockets.
Aidan barked a short laugh and shook his head—half relief, half disbelief.
Aidan (to the point): "You fed him fear like it was bread. He ate it. How?"
Ryan watched a boy kick slush into a gutter and point at the new concrete slab beyond it.
Ryan (low): "He fights unfair. I told him we wouldn't. Then I showed him how we could. He understood that language."
Aidan studied Ryan's face, line by line, the way he read a ledger for hidden costs. He chewed the thought and swallowed.
Aidan (slow): "You run the floor like you own it. You knew the gate log. You knew how to develop a company. And you walk into my room and build a Steam Engine Version 2 that clears a choke I wrestled with for a week."
Ryan looked at his hands.
I hated the pyre. I hate lies. But a one‑gold lie that saves lives beats a two‑thousand truth that kills them.
Aidan stepped half a pace closer, voice low and steady.
Aidan (honest): "I took you for a clever hand who could hold a wrench and sketch neat lines. Now I think you are… more. I do not like to be blind. You told me to let you handle this. You did. You want more weight?"
Ryan tilted his head.
Ryan (plain): "Why don't you promote me to a more important role?"
Aidan snorted and looked at the sky as if the name might write itself there.
Aidan (wry): "What would I even write? 'Elric' on the door? The founder kept the ownership papers. I can't pull his name out of my skull. I know he founded Technologia. I remember a ridiculous coat. I do not remember his face or name. If you hand me proof, the Guild will take it. If you hand me smoke, I will put you outside and bar the door."
Ryan drew the folio from Aidan's hand, flipped the flap, and eased a second paper free from an inner sleeve. It was old but not tired—smelled of wax and a little smoke. The top line read: Technologia Company — Founding Instrument. The next: Founder: Ryan Mercer.
Aidan stared. He blinked once, twice. He looked at Ryan like he might speak.
Aidan (careful): "What is your surname, Mr Elric?"
Ryan held his gaze.
Ryan (clear): "Elric Mercer. Heir of the Mercer line. Son of the previous owner."
Aidan's mouth opened and shut. He looked down at the name on the contract again—Mercer. Snowmelt licked his boots; the city shouted around them. His hands shook, just once.
Aidan (loud, shocked): "Mercer."