When the gawkers realized the impromptu spectacle of Cerise getting lost to her skills was over, they went back to their business.
As the far more subdued group resumed their cross city trek, Cerise's mother handed Cerise her belt pocket back, only with the twine that had held it to her belt neatly sliced. The pocket held only food, and the [Healer] in Cerise regretted that her mother had recovered it. The boy that had Light Fingered her pocket had been hungry enough to eat rot.
She did not say that, though. Her parents could not abide thieves, no matter the reason. Her mother had probably scolded the boy before letting him go, and releasing him would have had more to do with his age than his circumstances.
After some awkward silence, Cerise's mother started up a conversation with Miss Sanyel and Gohren about their plans for the near future. Both planned to stay in the city for a couple weeks before returning to the road. Their life was far too migratory to maintain a home, so they traveled with a leg locker that held their processions, and roomed in places like the Tradesman's Rest when they did stay in one place for any great length of time. For them, that meant a week.
Mykhal asked the question she felt too horrible to voice. "Do you have any plans to give up the traveling life?"
Miss Sanyel laughed. "Not I! My husband died years back and our children are grown and scattered with wanderlust. Even if I stop running a caravan, I'll probably trade it for riding off to see my children. It is a morbid idea, I suppose, but I find the thought of dying on the road a comfort."
Gohren laughed. "Not for me! One day, I'll be ready to start my own family, and I'll have coin set aside enough by then to transfer over to a [Trainer's] life. It's why I work on my Teaching skills so much."
"You mean like a weapons trainer for [Warriors]?" Mykhal asked.
"Combat classes, yes, but I prefer seeing more [Guards] then [Warriors] prosper," Gohren answered.
Cerise's parents were quite taken with Gohren's planned career change, asking about who would be his students? Who might pay for his services? And, would he build a place for his trainings or hold lessons in his students' homes?
His students were likely to be youths not yet old enough for their first class and those newly classed. Such arrangements were common in cities and more prosperous towns. He might even get some Free Lancers looking for help in getting unlocked skills over to be learned.
Cerise tentatively offered, "You could set a standard price for the lessons, a bit higher than you would need to make to cover your costs and wages, and offer a discount to guardsmen with companies or consortiums that you like, maybe even for new patrollers or guardsmen of the Hirsel who want a bit of extra training. Then you would be focusing on helping more guards, right?"
Gohren smiled at her, and Cerise relaxed a bit more. "I already plan to do something of the sort."
"Well, do you think any of the bigger groups would pay you to offer a deeper discount? That way they can claim the discount as an agreement on their people's behalf, and give them a reason to promote your training services to their people. It could even just be a symbolic amount," Cerise offered.
Miss Sanyel laughed. "That's thinking like a [Merchant]!"
Gohren chuckled, and Cerise knew the guard sergeant had forgiven her.
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The finances of the hirsellands of Treborant were handled at an administrative building near the Hirsel of Treborant's primary estate, which was itself central to the city of Va'Treborant. The buildings here were made of stone and the walls all radiated mana to Cerise's Mana Sensing skill. She wanted to ask about that, but worried that it might be a strange thing to ask about.
Mykhal just asked. "Are the walls magic? They look like magic."
They were, indeed, according to Miss Sanyel.
Many of the Honorables, the untitled family of nobles, were far enough removed from the inheriting family line that they had to take up trades. They turned out most of the working [Mages] in Druerjan, and quite a lot of [Mages] sought out [Elementalist] classes.
[Rune Smiths] would work with [Earth Mages] to build wards into the more important buildings and defenses of the town or city, and the [Mages] would seal in the rune wards to prevent people from using skills like Mana Sight to deconstruct the runes.
One concurrence was that if a building was important enough to rune ward, it was owned by someone rich enough to afford tailoring the ward covers. There were still limits to what could be done, but seeing buildings that supported lush gardens up the walls, or adorned with impossible seeming flourishes as they got closer to the Hirselland fiscal heart was commonplace. The one building with a flowing geometric pattern circling around the building in a constant state of movement was not commonplace, however.
The Hirsel's administrative complex, a set of three buildings that formed half of a hexagon, forewent the gardens and flourishes. Instead, the central building ascended to a towering height, and all three appeared to be made of solid marble but for large, public entrances. The marble was gold-streaked dove gray.
Gohren, his spirits restored nearly to the level before Cerise's skill-driven bout of insanity, waved them off. Miss Sanyel took them to the left side building. In the lobby of that building, she paused briefly before a sign listing various administrative tasks: Finance-Collections, Finance-Assessments, Finance-Levies, Finance-Claimants, Disputes-Complaints, Disputes-Adjudicators, and more that Cerise did not have time to read.
Miss Sanyel touched the listing for Finance-Claimants and a light blue, softly glowing line appeared on the floor, moving forward at a steady walking pace. "Follow the line," Miss Sanyel said, her tone hushed. "Move along the right side of the corridors."
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
"Why the right?" Her mother asked.
"The guards are trained to use their left arm for shields, and it is easier for them to defend people who are between them and the walls. It's becoming the standard of manners in this hirselland, at least, and we're going to claim monies from the hirselland, which is near where people have to go to clear up their accounts of levies or make payments for fines and such like. The guards here are as much a deterrent to those with sour feelings as a ready response when someone refuses to accept that their disputes need to be scheduled for hearings, and not violently expressed."
Cerise's mother stopped in surprise abruptly enough that her father bumped into her, and Cerise and Mykhal into him. Miss Sanyel kept walking while they sorted themselves out and hurried to catch up.
"Freeman raise their hand against their liege's representatives?" Cerise's mother asked when they were close enough she could whisper it.
"I think it's more the low strata Honorables, but every now and again fools are born to Freeman. The higher strata take their dealings to the main building, and I don't know what happens there."
They had no more time for questions, though, as they arrived in a room four bow-lengths deep and five wide. There were three sets of counters, and four doors out of the room. Their leading light took them past the counters to the farthest door, which opened when the line reached it. A small placard on the door read "Claimants".
As Miss Sanyel had said, there were guards, both in the room through which they passed, and in the room into which they entered. Cerise felt their scrutiny as waves of Identify-tinted mana broke over her.
Miss Sanyel held out a guiding hand -- pointing, Cerise had learned in the caravan, could trigger skills that sensed hostilities -- and said, "Mykhal and I should stay back as the receipts are not for us."
Cerise's father pulled out a sheaf of papers. When her parents ducked their heads and grimaced thankful smiles to Miss Sanyel, Cerise knew they were feeling overawed, too. She squeaked out a hushed, "Thank you for your guidance, Miss Sanyel," before following after her parents.
This room was closer to three bow-lengths and square, and the counter at the far end was more of a long window looking into another room entirely. A stone filigree allowed only two hands of clearance at the bottom to pass things back and forth, though the filigree allowed them to see and speak with the person behind the counter.
A sign set into the floor instructed them to wait to be called forward. Cerise caught her father before he could head directly to the window. The man behind the counter window glanced up at Cerise's quiet explanation to her father. "Thank you, Miss. Come forward, please."
So they did, and her father handed over the sheaf of papers. The clerk sorted the papers into two piles and pushed one back. "These are Letters of Recommendation from Sir Fenrick and Honorable Mister Ethrick. Have you any experience with such?"
Cerise's father shook his head. "No, Honorable Mister."
"You keep them. Present them where appropriate for someone to read over and verify the imprimatur, but you keep them." The man looked sternly at her father, who nodded. At that, his expression relax. "And it's Mister, no Honorable. Now, these receipts are for one [Healer] and two [Laborer] aides. Who is whom?"
"My daughter Cerise is [Healer] classed, and my wife Bergin and I helped as we could when the good Sir's patrol was in need, good Mister."
The counter man nodded, his gaze on his side of the filigree. Cerise's Mana Sensing gave her the impression of a yellow glow.
"Do you verify?" The counter man asked, his gaze moving between Cerise and her mother. Both said yes. The counter man smiled, a more genuine polite smile. "The receipt says you are not bound to our Hirsel or any noble bound to him so there are a few extra affirmations I need to process these receipts. I will be doing some running about back here, so please step to the side for the moment. I will call for Rhene's party when I have everything ready. Ah! Do you have a coin box with you to take payments?"
Cerise's father shook his head. "Not to hand," he began.
"The receipt mentions one should be provided if needed, so I'll get that sorted. It might be a few rush marks." The counter man waited for them to move off before he called someone to "take the counter" and departed.
One rush mark turned into three. In that time, five more claimants entered the room. Two had gone already, and two stood in a queue while the third was at the counter when the counter man who had taken their receipts returned. The claimant at the counter raised her voice. "Pay me what I'm due, damn you!"
The guards reacted, two stepping up to flank her and the other two putting hands to their sheathed clubs and blocking the door. The one nearest laid a palm over a plate on the wall, and the door glowed red.
The woman growled at the guards. "I'm not stupid! I'm owed money, just like that receipt says!"
"Then you should have gotten a contract to claim this person's receipts because you are not the person who may claim them," the man at the counter snapped. "Not made out to you, no contract allowing you to claim on the recipient's behalf, no proof you did not steal them, no payment!"
"Fine! Give it back so I can--"
"No! It goes to Unclaimed Receipts and you can answer the inquisitors there with contract in hand!"
A short tussle ensued, and the woman was escorted out of the room.
The next person in the queue started to move up, but their counter man said, "Please return to the line, Mister."
The man frowned, but did as asked, glancing at the guards returning to their stations.
"Rhene's party, please approach," their counter man called, replacing his stand-in.
The men in the queue grew sour expressions. The man at the counter loudly said, "Thank you for allowing us to see to other claimants while I took care of the more time-consuming aspects of your receipts. I'm sure everyone appreciates the time they have been spared waiting." In a more confidential tone, the counter man asked, "Can any of you read?"
"I can, but Cerise is better," her mother answered.
"Please read this for your parents. If all is in order, please make your marks, one to each contract of receipt."
Cerise read them out, but softly as she saw the amounts. The receipts they were to sign stated they would not use the funds given them to deliberately bring harm to the Hirsel of Treborant, his vassals, servants, peasants, serfs, or others in the course of their employment by the Hirsel, with the sole exemption being immediate self-defense from unlawful acts. Some part in the depths of Cerise's soul wanted to quibble over the wording.
Her mother and father received a silver leaf. Cerise, though, received two silver branches, one leaf, and six grand coppers for her services, plus another eight grand and nine large coppers for her materials and maintenance of tools.
It was the first time for Cerise to make her mark, but she had been present when Miss Sanyel explained the process to Mykhal. Contract papers were specially prepared by someone with the Contract skill, mostly [Merchant] and [Scribe] type classes. The parties to a contract, an odd phrasing to Cerise and her family, had only to activate a skill targeting the paper for their mark to appear. It would carry a hint of their unique mana signature. Contract pages prepared by decently skilled people would indicate if one of the signatories broke the contract, and those by highly skilled people showed who was in breach and which penalty clauses were applicable. Most of the time, pages of broken contracts changed color. Sometimes a signer's mark did, but that also altered the mana signature.
Cerise's mother's mark reminded Cerise of a home with a smoking chimney. Her father's looked like a pickax crossed over a hammer. For her mark, she used her Triage skill, and she watched as a sleeping beast took shape with its tail curling to the right. Mykhal's mark on the contract with the Nykimopia Consortium had been a four toed paw print with a bow and drawn arrow encased in the paw print.
Once the counter man received the receipt contracts he pushed over a coin box. "I took the liberty of using smaller coins to make the equivalent amounts."
Cerise's father ducked his head. "Thank you for the consideration, good Mister."