“Those fool sons of mine!”
In one of Sarenza City’s countless leisure palaces, a corpulent man sat upon a garish golden throne. He was Zaid, head of House Sarenza, the highest authority in the Mercantile Free State. Servants twitched and whimpered with each incensed outburst and irritated click of his tongue.
“To waste twelve thousand golems in a family squabble, of all things... Don’t they know how much a single primal costs us to unearth?! No, clearly not. Those fools have no idea how much wealth each one creates for us. Time and again, I explained that they’re the most vital piece of our family’s history...yet still, those half-wits lost their entire allotments in one fell swoop! I’d be impressed if it weren’t such a catastrophe!”
Zaid sat with his head in his hands. He had assumed the pose when his servants informed him of his sons’ blunder and refused to move from it since.
In total, Ari and Nhid’s lost golems represented only a fraction of what Sarenza possessed domestically. Considering the countless stone titans secretly lying dormant in House Sarenza’s underground warehouses, their loss wasn’t great enough to be unrecoverable.
But neither was it small enough to be overlooked.
The destroyed primal golems were no common assets; they were the country’s greatest weapon and the backbone of House Sarenza’s legacy. Those who commanded them had tremendous, irreplaceable power at their fingertips. It was for that reason that, since generations past, House Sarenza had shackled excavation experts with exclusive contracts, ensuring that primal golems remained within their family and never reached public circulation.
The golems that did go up for sale were mere replicas, inferior to the originals in every regard, but House Sarenza still advertised them as top of the line. Such commerce added to their riches, while the family’s monopoly on what were actually the best products enabled them to ensure their superior roles and status.
House Sarenza had already been wealthy. They had cut their teeth in the business of moneylending—a lucrative endeavor, to be sure—but collections had proved a laborious task. Then they had purchased their first golems, sold to them by a strange vendor of unknown origins, and everything had changed. Debt collecting became as simple as giving an order. No matter how much money they lent or how high they set their interest, they always got what they were owed.
The vendor—a self-proclaimed excavation specialist—put an exorbitant price on primal golem orders, but House Sarenza considered the fees a mere investment. The profit derived from their new constructs was more than enough to cover their cost.
In the most severe cases, a single spoken command could ensure the deaths of those unable to pay their dues. Though it meant giving up on potential income, it greatly encouraged other debtors to make good on their payments. Those who understood the danger were far more likely to cooperate, no matter the interest rates being thrust upon them.
House Sarenza’s business grew exponentially. In barely any time at all, they found themselves loaning money to any and all comers. People, nationwide merchant companies, and even sovereigns—all feared the threat of the primal golems.
Eventually, House Sarenza ran out of rivals. They siphoned coin from everywhere their influence reached, proliferating their wealth in a never-ending cycle. The golems’ strength of arms presented power, wealth, and even political authority to House Sarenza on a silver platter, and those who had started as a simple merchant family became rulers of the entire desert.
To generations of House Sarenza’s kin, the golems were a mechanism for infinite wealth. They required a steady supply of manastones, but that was barely worth consideration; because they completely lacked autonomy, they could be put to work without pay, meaning there was always more profit to be had.
Zaid continued to ruminate. Golems were the hallmark of the system known as the Mercantile Free State of Sarenza. How had his sons lost their entire allotment, and in such a painfully one-sided battle?
“That blasted King Clays! Who on earth has he sent here?!”
The image taken by his sons’ servant showed two men: Rashid’s bodyguard and a complete stranger. The latter was said to be the City Forgotten by Time’s new proprietor.
Zaid had used every means at his disposal to be rid of his eldest son, but the best he had managed to do was relegate him to some distant corner of the country. There, the boy had lost a Trial, of all things, to their intruder from the Kingdom of Clays. Worse still, that same intruder had shown that he was capable of destroying twelve thousand primal golems practically on his own.
The man’s employer, Princess Lynneburg, and her guard, the Divine Shield, represented sizable threats of their own, but Zaid had at least planned for their arrival. He might have been able to plan for the stranger as well, had he known the first thing about the man.
Already, the stranger was en route to the capital. It hadn’t been long ago that Zaid had used House Sarenza’s authority to summon Rashid and the new proprietor to a meeting—but since then, the simple unease he had felt toward the latter had grown into true terror.
Sarenza City had an ever-present guard of golems deployed in the local area. Their numbers dwarfed the allotment Zaid had given his sons, and they would act on his command at any moment he wished. However, with the information he now had at his disposal, he suspected that he was still as good as defenseless.
The crisis facing House Sarenza threatened to undo the centuries of work that had secured its rise to power. Worse still was the fact that Zaid, the house’s current head, had set the catastrophe in motion, involving himself with the troublesome Kingdom of Clays despite being fully aware of the risk. More than his sons, he was to blame for welcoming such people into his country in the first place.
Never had there been a force strong enough to defeat primal golems with ease—not at home or in any of the nearby nations. House Sarenza had even gone as far as to stamp out anyone with the potential to be a threat, such as the dim-witted beastfolk who still fought with bows, outdated though they were.
Zaid always took his opponents’ strength into consideration. Then he devised plans to strip that power from them, accounting for every single variable in the process. Every time, the outcome was the same: a crushing victory, and the chance to seize every last one of his enemy’s assets. He had taken great care to keep out of harm’s way and stamp out the seeds of competition before they could sprout, all for the sake of his comfortable system. For generations, that was how the family known as House Sarenza had operated.
And yet...
“Who is that man?!”
Because of one stranger—a man whose name Zaid didn’t even know—everything had fallen to pieces. He was starting to regret ignoring his merchant’s instincts.
As far as Zaid was concerned, a merchant stood nothing to gain from being bold. He much preferred the opposite, never engaging in games unless the outcome was utterly certain. Only once he had “settled” the risks would Zaid even consider stepping up to the table. Some mistook that caution for cowardice, but he paid them no mind; he took pride in moving with such great care, and it always won him great profits in the end.
If only Zaid had stuck to his principles, he would never have ended up in his current situation. His plan had originally been to avoid all contact with the Kingdom of Clays. If an offensive had been in the cards, he would have devoted years to gathering information before taking even the smallest of steps.
But in the end, he had acted out of character by issuing them a bold-faced challenge.
It irritated Zaid that he had created the circumstances for his own downfall...but it wasn’t entirely his fault. He had acted on the advice of an outsider. Surely the better part of the blame rested with him.
“Lude! Where’s Lude?!”
The corpulent Zaid, not used to acknowledging his own mistakes, throttled the stem of his wine goblet. His thick hands trembled, and the servants grimaced as his voice echoed through the palace.
Before long, a man in a black hooded cloak made his appearance. He went by the name “Lude” and enjoyed a reputation as one of the most prestigious slavers in Sarenza. He was also an excavation specialist who had shared a contract with House Sarenza for generations.
“You called, Lord Zaid?”
“Bah! Don’t feign ignorance with me!”
Zaid flung his golden goblet in the man’s direction. It sailed past Lude and punched a hole in the painting on the wall behind him, scattering expensive liquor in the process. Servants recoiled and desperately tried to stifle their whimpers.
In contrast to the furious head of House Sarenza, the black-cloaked man looked calm and composed. He remained perfectly still, as though he hadn’t a care in the world.
Zaid clicked his tongue. “Out, all of you. I want to speak with him alone.”
“Y-Yes, sir!”
The servants practically sprinted out of the room, pitying the poor man faced with their master’s wrath. They had never seen Zaid so enraged before.
“Lude. Do you know why I summoned you?”
“I would imagine it concerns my proposal to invite those from the Kingdom of Clays to Sarenza.”
“Indeed. For generations, you have served my family without fault. That’s why I deigned to accommodate your request. Do you remember your promise? That in exchange for King Clays’s musty old relic, you’d give me something of much greater value? That your people would take care of any obstacles that arose in the process? Well, I can’t help but notice that things haven’t gone as you claimed they would.”
“That is an accurate description of the circumstances,” the black-cloaked man said. He showed no signs of worry or unease.
Zaid heaved a sigh. “You speak as though this doesn’t concern you. Traced to the root, this catastrophe is yours to deal with. Need I remind you that I followed your advice and, in breach of precedent, granted King Clays access to the Dungeon of Oblivion? You claimed you would at long last reveal the demonfolk’s whereabouts to House Sarenza—and that you would give that impudent King Clays a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget. Yet here we are. How do you plan to make this right?”