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Chapter 12 - Taxes (part 2)

Baara bit her lip, before apparently deciding not to engage with Mary. She turned to Josh fully. “A sufficiently large organization, informed of these laws ahead of time, could pay the license fee and then be in profit in, oh...” She looked as if she was making some calculations in her head. “A month or so? Based on what we sold yesterday, I mean.”

Josh wasn't sure that their profits were a good baseline, but then again they didn't have any others. “The fines are where they get us.”

She nodded. “Delving without a license is a reasonable fine. In fact, if it was the only fine, people might accept it as a cost of doing business.” She flipped to a specific page. “However, selling without a license quickly ramps up the cost. It starts with a small flat fine, but then turns into direct seizure of profits, and finally jail time or exile.” She looked up helplessly. “I don't think we have enough credits between all of us to pay.”

“Wait.” Darius stepped forward, a frown on his face. “You said the first offense is a small fine. How could—”

“Each individual sale is counted as a separate offense,” Baara said apologetically. Josh and the others had given her a few crates of historical artifacts and gathered plants. Depending on how strictly the town counted—and Josh would hazard a guess that they counted every individual spore—they might be well into the dozens of offenses already.

Darius closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “I see. So we have already reached the jail time penalty, but they will oh so graciously allow us to just pay our fines and be done with it.”

“Uh...” Baara shuffled through the papers again. “...yes?”

There was more muttering from the other adults and older teenagers. Even those without a head for economics had caught on to the kind of bullying that they were finding themselves subject to.

“There has to be a loophole,” Mary said. She shook her head. “A big giant loophole that you can drive a lorry through. There's no way this town could have lasted more than a week with rules this strict! How many of the people here are legally founding families?”

“It doesn't matter,” Darius said, shaking his head. “Regulations like this, so strict so as to be practically a blanket ban, are not truly an effort to collect money. This is all an attempt to convince us to leave the village.”

“Or work under the locals.”

Everyone turned to Ruth. She looked around, surprised at the attention. “What?” she asked, confused. “That's the loophole, isn't it? Baara said operating without a license is a cheap fine. So we can delve down into the pit, then come up and give the stuff to a local to sell. Call them our business partner, I guess. We get to dodge the taxes, but all our money is in the hands of a local.”

Josh paused. “I didn't even think of that.” He wasn't an economist. He turned to Darius. “Would that work?”

“For us? I don't know. We don't have any friends here yet. For the village? Perhaps.”

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“Maybe we should—” Josh began, but he was interrupted.

“Maybe we should find somewhere else to jaw about it, yeah?” Mary asked. She looked at the nearby adults, and then the places where the kids thought they were hiding. “This place is a bit exposed, innit?”

Josh grimaced. “OI!” he shouted. “You lot all have jobs to do! Get to it!” He nodded at Baara. “C'mon. Let's talk.”

They ended up in the room that had been designated as belonging to Josh. Mary was gleeful in declaring that “no one would ever expect anything important to happen here.” She also made eyes between him and Ruth, which he ignored.

The five of them stood in the room. Baara shared the papers with Darius.

“Wot are our options?” Josh asked. “Any chance we have the credits to pay?”

“We might have a chance,” Baara said cautiously. “Most of the parents, um, they gave their kids all their money before...” She trailed off. After a moment, she rallied. “Yes, we could pay it off.”

“Alright.” Mary ticked off on her fingers. “Pay it off, run away. Those our only options?”

Ruth pouted. “We could find a sponsor!”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Sure. Three options.” She didn't hold up another finger for that one.

“I am not certain that would work, at least in the short term.” Darius looked contemplative. “We still have the fines to worry about.”

“I, um, really don't like the idea of uprooting the kids again,” Baara said. She looked around at them all. She might be nominally the leader of the refugees, but she clearly felt like a child out of her depth here.

Which she was. The fact that someone as young as her had ended up in charge was either a sign of how bad things had gotten or a hint at some leadership ability that Josh hadn't noticed yet.

“We could just do a runner,” Mary said. “The four of us, I mean. Make it all public, make it so we take the debt with us.”

Baara grimaced. “I am not sure that would work. And even if it did...” She shook her head. Some steel entered her voice, and Josh was finally reminded of her mother. “That would be a poor reward for what you have done for us.”

Everyone fell silent at that. Josh suspected that they were thinking the same as he was.

She had no idea what they had done. It was their fault that the monsters had come to Gilroy Crossing. The elf had been searching for them, and it was their upgrade of the citystone specifically that seemed to have been the final catalyst.

Josh figured that Ruth blamed herself for that. He glanced over and saw her looking forlorn. Yeah, he'd have to talk to her. The citystone wasn't her fault. He was the one who had pushed for it. He needed to make sure she didn't get crushed under the weight of his mistakes.

“There is a fourth option,” Josh said at last. He tried to count it off on his fingers... only to remember he didn't have enough. He flinched. His missing fingers throbbed again. He forced himself to continue. “We've been playing it safe so far. That's what got us blindsided at Gilroy. We need to be pushing harder, grinding our levels, taking advantage of our unique classes.”

Ruth nodded, though Josh figured she hadn't put all the pieces together yet. Darius nodded too, and Josh figured he had put all the pieces together. Baara just looked lost.

Mary, however, glared at him with narrow eyes. “What,” she said carefully, “are you suggesting?”

Josh shrugged. “It's simple, innit? We need full access to the citystone.” He took a breath, then let it out. “We need to conquer this village.”

Mary started laughing.