No sooner had the words left her mouth when she heard the sound, a thump almost drowned out by the boiler, the engines, and the thickness of the hull. But faint as it was, she recognized the sound of a steam cannon being fired.
“They're shooting?”
“They are,” Shane replied. He paused for a few seconds. “But they're not shooting at us.”
Brandon watched, fascinated as the three patrol boats converged on the other vessel. Apparently it was a smuggler ship, because the three guild vessels lit it up with their searchlights and opened fire.
He heard the thump of steam cannons and saw geysers of water being kicked up near the smuggler's craft. The ship zigzagged, trying to escape the scene, but with three enemy ships coming at it from different angles it would be difficult.
Brandon also noted that it moved sluggishly. By his estimation the smuggler's ship was tailored for carrying cargo, with a greater capacity than their own ship, but also less agile and with a lower top speed. That might cost them against the relatively speedy and agile patrol craft the Iron Guild used.
But it also meant their attention was focused on one spot. And if they played their cards right, this could be the opportunity they needed.
He leaned over toward the speaker tube. “They're completely focused on the other ship. I don't think they see us. This might be our best chance to slip by them and get to Beylan.”
“I hear you. We're about a mile outside the exclusion zone, and Bailey just stoked the boiler,” Shane said. “Let's get out of here and get to port.”
Brandon watched the fireworks for a few minutes as the patrol vessels closed in on the hapless ship. A shell exploded near the stern, blossoming into flame and rocking the ship with its shockwave. As the guild ships closed in around it their own vessel slipped away into the darkness, taking full advantage of the distraction.
He turned back and resumed his watch, keeping his eyes peeled for any signs of trouble. They were likely clear, but Brandon still didn't feel at ease. The fate of the other ship weighed heavily in his mind. A few minutes delay, one wrong turn and that could have been them.
He hated to admit it, but they had gotten extremely lucky.
Chapter Four
Whatever trouble Shane's crew had gone through the previous night, the sheer pandemonium they caused in the marketplace made it all worth it.
It started out innocently enough. Shane and the rest of the crew unloaded their cargo at the docks, put it in the general storage warehouses and then went to the marketplace to set the price. As planned they put the vanthum ore on sale at its normal price, before the guild had started their trade war against all others. Then they stepped back and waited.
It took a few minutes, but it was well worth the wait. Clockwork drones adjusted the brass numbers on a huge board, detailing the commodities available, their prices, and the amount in stock. The first buyer to notice the change acted like they thought they were seeing things, and then tried to act as discretely as possible, but then more and more customers saw the prices.
Chaos ensued. The crew had to step back to avoid being crushed by the onslaught of players rushing to buy the resources before they were all gone. Their ship hadn't carried a large load, but it was still enough to supply vanthum for scores of normal projects.
He saw a few members of the Iron Guild standing in shock, looking around and trying to figure out what had just happened. One of them was pushed aside in the crush trying to get to the purchasing counters.
“Don't smile,” Kelvin said, his face stoic. “That'll give us away.”
Shane nodded and turned to leave. They had gotten what they had come here for, and they'd pick up their profits later when the crowd had died down. Kelvin was right, too. He didn't want to look suspicious, not with Iron Guild members and agents everywhere.
They left, joining the throng of other players that had given up on shopping when the surge happened. More players pushed past them, trying to get into the exchange in the vain hope of getting their hands on cheap ore.
“Huh, it's like I'm working in the middle of the crush on Black Friday,” Bailey commented as they walked.
“Oh, you had to go through that too?” Brandon said.
Shane tried not to laugh. The image of the Iron Guild members stuck in their mind. Business as usual, until someone decided to go in and completely upset the balance. There were always smugglers that sold their goods below the going market value, but this kind of disparity was almost unheard of.
They'd be scrambling to figure out the culprit, but Shane had taken great pains to keep them anonymous. They had reached port last night, but didn't bother to unload their cargo until today. When they put the vanthum ore up for sale on the market they did so anonymously, trading a bit of coin for secrecy. And since they hadn't been spotted or stopped by any guild ships the enemy had no way to know they were responsible.
“So. What do we do now?” Brandon said.
“We can head back to the ship and do a little maintenance,” he said. “And then once things have died down we can come back and get our earnings. Then we can see if we can afford any upgrades to the ship.”
“I have to say, investing in the engines was a good idea,” Bailey said as they traveled down the main boulevard toward the southern harbor. “This model runs pretty sweet without having to do much tinkering. It handled the extra pressure we put on it without any problems, and it probably had enough to stand a bit more.”
“But there's always ways that we can improve it,” Shane said.
“Of course. There's the matter of extra power when we need it. If we modify a smaller backup hopper to feed fire crystals in we can get a ton of extra power whenever we need it, and it should take less than a minute.”
“Fire crystals aren't exactly cheap,” Kelvin said.
“Nothing good ever is.”
“And don't they put a lot of stress on the boilers?” Brandon asked.
“Yeah, and that's the issue. It wears out components much faster, and if you stress it too much it's likely to explode.”
“Taking you with it, the engine, and leaving us dead in the water at the worst possible moment,” Shane said. “Plus, that kind of modification isn't going to be cheap either. We can do it, but can we afford to supply the materials we need after we finish it?”
Bailey shrugged. “I dunno.”
“Well, then I suggest we hold off on that for now. Our configuration seems to be good for our purposes. There's no need for us to rush things and throw our money away on things that are only going to give us a marginal edge.”
“Marginal edges are what this world is built on,” Kelvin said.
“Yes, and the people that are chasing after those marginal edges do it because they can afford it. Beggars can't be choosers.”
“We're not beggars.”
“Not right now we aren't but we're in a position where that can change very quickly. And I don't want to risk losing everything right now. At the very least we can save up the money for a replacement ship, if it comes to that. And-”
Shane didn't get to complete his thought, because someone bumped into him and almost bowled him over. He struggled to keep himself from falling, but the stranger grabbed him and held him up.
“Sorry,” he said, and then a moment later he was gone. Shane turned to follow him, but he never got a good look at the other's face or appearance. With so many people walking down the boulevard at once it would be impossible to find him.
He turned back toward their destination and was about to step forward when he felt something crinkling in his coat pocket. Shane reached in and pulled out the piece of paper. It was a note.
No, he realized upon further inspection. It wasn't a note. It was a flier, a recruiting poster for a guild. The Rho Trading Company, or so the flier named them. Shane had never heard of them, but the flier had an address on it.
“That's in Low Falmath,” Kelvin said after Shane handed him the paper. “Interesting place.”
>
“Isn't that one of the lawless zones?” Shane asked.
“Nowhere in the city is completely lawless. But it is one of the more dangerous places, yes.”
Beylan sprawled over a wide area, and while most of the city was completely safe there were a few districts where player-versus-player combat could occur. The NPC constables would eventually intervene, but in some spots they were slow enough to let street fights unfold between rival factions for quite some time. Many players avoided those districts entirely.
But for a small company that needed an office in order to exist, those districts had extremely low rent. Any organization that wanted to use multiple ships needed to have an office to operate from, but the spaces near the dockyards and in the high-class districts were prohibitively expensive.
Shane felt lucky that they didn't need to bother with one, since the four of them only needed to operate one ship. If they wanted to make a guild, though, they needed access to an office. But what was the purpose of the flier?
“I guess we go and see?” Bailey said after he asked them all that question.
“Could just be a recruitment drive,” Brandon said.
“If it's a recruitment drive then they would have just handed out a flier. They wouldn't have gone through all this trouble of concealing it,” Bailey said. “Seems like they want to keep this quiet.”
“Is it an ambush?”
“Who's going to bother to ambush us? And it's not like we have much to steal,” Shane said. “We'll go armed, of course, and expecting trouble.”
“Is there anything else on there? A time? Any other notes?” Brandon asked.
Shane looked over the flier again. “I don't see anything. Looks like just a regular printed handout.”
“Then what are we doing?”
He looked around at the other three. “Well, I think there's only one thing to do. I guess we own them a visit.”
The trip to Low Falmath proved uneventful. There were plenty of other players going about their business around and inside the district, but none of them paid his group any heed. To them they were probably just another set of faces in the crowd.
Nighttime might be a different story, however, and Shane didn't want to let his guard down. The entire situation seemed abnormal to him. What was the guild, and why were they bothering with such secrecy? His left hand tapped the hilt of his cutlass. If they ran into trouble…
His party had only brought their close-combat weapons with them. Carrying steam-powered weapons meant lugging around a boiler as well, a back-mounted unit that burned coal or fire crystal dust and fed the steam through a hose into the weapon. They had plenty of power, but the units could be cumbersome, slow to reload, and were generally a hassle to deal with. Their limitations meant close-combat weapons were still very much needed, and any skilled player had at least a passable ability with them.
Shane favored his cutlass for its balance and utility in a variety of situations. It didn't have the reach of some other weapons, but it could be wielded in tight spaces, and each swing had plenty of weight behind it.
“So this is it,” Kelvin said, stopping in front of a brick-faced building. “There's our address, and there's the sign for the Rho Trading Company.”
Shane looked over the building. The brick looked worn and probably needed a good scrubbing. It fit in with the surrounding area, grungy, somewhat unkempt, and unassuming. If he had been walking by he would have passed it without a second glance, but now…
“So, are we going in?”
“We're going in,” Shane said. “But let's be careful.”
“Well then, fearless leader. You can go first,” Bailey said.
Shane scowled, but he moved in front. “What, are you scared that you're not going to be able to fight your way out if you're first?”
“Of course I can. But I'd rather that you take all the pointy bits first.”
“We all would,” Kelvin grinned.
“Whatever.”
Shane stepped up to the door, took a deep breath, and then opened it up and stepped inside the building.
The interior surprised him. He had expected it to be sparsely decorated, matching the mean look of the exterior, but the inside of the building was relatively clean. The woodwork inside had been polished and stained, the walls papered with a green pattern, and there was plenty of light from the windows and from the lamps within.
“Can I help you?” a brown-haired woman asked from behind the desk, wearing a green tunic with the guild's symbol emblazoned on the left.
Shane stepped forward. “We were given this, and it caught our interest.”
She took the flier and looked it over. “Ah yes, one of our advertisements. Are you interested in joining the guild?”
Shane looked at the others. “Perhaps.”
“OK then. Hold on a minute and I'll see if our guild-master is here.”
Shane stood awkwardly for a few moments after the woman disappeared down a hallway. He didn't want to say anything, not when there might be so many pairs of ears listening.
“He's in,” she said, returning a minute later. “Please follow me.”
Shane and the rest of the crew fell in behind her and followed her down the hallway to a door at the end. The woman ushered them inside and quietly closed the door. He focused his attention forward, past the desk toward the man sitting behind it.
He had short black hair, a tattoo around his neck, and when he stood Shane could see his height and bulk. Definitely a brute temperament, he thought.
“Welcome, welcome,” he said, leaning across the desk and shaking their hands. “I hear that you found us through one of our advertisements. I'm Alex, the master of this guild.”
They introduced themselves, and Alex beckoned for them to sit down.
“So,” he continued, “I hear that you're interested in joining the Rho Trading Company.”
“Possibly. But we were curious about it, at the very least,” Shane said.
“I see. If it's not too much trouble, may I ask you a few questions?”
“Of course, but can we do likewise?”
Alex gave them a disarming smile. “Of course. And you should ask your questions first. You're the ones that will be joining us.”
“OK then.” Shane paused, then looked over at Kelvin.
“What's the guild's main source of income, if you don't mind me asking?”
“Of course. We trade in various goods through our shipping channels, and we also have land-based resource gathering, fishing, and the other standard ways to make money.”
“Legally?”
Alex laughed. “But of course. You wouldn't want us running afoul of the Iron Guild, would you?”
“How large is the guild?” Brandon asked.
“Small. Only about twenty members at the moment. Enough for us to make our own small impact, but not enough to wield the influence of some of the other guilds.”
“Or to make the money that they are,” Bailey said, glancing around at the office.
Alex laughed again. “Ah, that's very true. Low Falmath isn't exactly the best place to set up shop, but the rents are generally cheap, and once you're established people tend to leave you alone. And the guild doesn't interfere. This is the fringes to them. Why concern themselves with this place when there are so many other things for them to worry about?”
Shane nodded. “I see?
“Now, may I ask you a question?”
“Of course. What can we answer?”
“You wouldn't happen to be involved in any illegal trade at the moment, would you? Say, for instance, smuggling?”
The question completely floored him, and Shane struggled to come up with a response. What could he say? More importantly, did Alex know something, or was he just making a shot in the dark? Shane didn't think that anyone had seen them last night, but…
“That's an interesting question,” Kelvin spoke up. “But of course we aren't. The guild would blow us out of the water for smuggling. Eve
ryone knows that.”
“Everyone knows that. And yet, some of them insist on doing it anyhow. The rewards are too tempting for them, apparently.”
“Quite.”
“But are you certain that you're not involved in any illegal trade?”
“Yes.”
“Even if we were, why would we tell you that?” Bailey said. “Why even bother asking that question?”
Alex grinned. “Ah, you've got me there. Very well. We can stop dancing around the issue right now. You're smugglers. I know that for a fact.”
“Do you have anything beyond just saying that?” Shane asked.
“We have… information.”
“Care to be any more specific than that?”
“Getting there. We had a ship out on the water last night, running ore between Tengra and Beylan.”
“Do you have a permit for that?”
“No.”
The frankness of the remark surprised him. “So… you just admitted to being a smuggler. What's stopping us from going to the Iron Guild and ratting you out?”
“That is a problem, isn't it? But you're in a similar position. And we have our ways to escape their notice. I wonder if you'd be so fortunate.”
Shane took a deep breath. “Fine. So what do you want from us? Dragging us all the way here, and then dumping it all on us?”
“I'm sorry?”
“I didn't think that person running into me was a coincidence, and I'm pretty sure that you're responsible. So what do you want?”
“It's not about wanting,” Alex said. “It's about what the guild can do for you, and how you can help the guild. You're smuggling, and that's very dangerous. You might not have noticed it, but you've attracted some form of attention.
Shane frowned. “How?”
“The guild pays attention to even the smallest details. It's how they've become so dominant. Fortunately for us, the Rho Trading Company is completely legitimate, at least in their eyes. And we keep it that way. There's no suspicion on us, because we never do anything illegal.”
“Except the smuggling,” Bailey said.
Rising Tide: A LitRPG Novel (Age of Steam Book 1) Page 4
