"You had a film crew ready?" Bob asked as a microphone was clipped into the collar of his armor.
"I didn't think you'd actually say no," Yorrick replied.
Bob shook his head and sighed, then slid Monroe from his Makres, holding the super-sized floof in his arms as another microphone was clipped to the big Maine-coon's armor.
"Why are we putting a microphone on Monroe?" Bob asked, directing his question to the woman who appeared to be in charge, or at least she was the one directing everyone else.
"Honestly, Bob, can I call you Bob? Monroe has a bigger following than you do, and while you're the one who can speak English, the more we can capture Monroe being adorable, or of you two being adorable together, the better," she replied.
"Ok," Bob said doubtfully.
"Trust the producers' Bob," Yorrick adjusted robes. "I hate wearing these things," he whispered, "why can't I have a staff of office, or a nice amulet, or those insignia your military uses? No, I have to wear hot, restrictive robes."
Bob cocked his head. "Are you telling me you don't have some sort of climate control going? Because honestly it's pretty warm here."
"Well, yes," Yorrick admitted, "but if I didn't they'd be hot, scratchy and restrictive," he grumbled.
"Alright people, we're good for sound, Mr. Wrathsbane, Bob, please remember that we're plain old humans from Earth," she smiled, "we can't keep up with you, so keep things at a nice slow pace for us."
"Where would you like to start?" Yorrick asked.
"Indentures," Bob replied.
"Alright, let's walk and talk then," Yorrick suggested.
It was weird, trying to walk beside Yorrick and pretend that there weren't twenty people around them, operating half a dozen cameras. Yorrick, of course, didn't seem to have any problems with it.
"So, as we've discussed, the societal structure of the Karcerian Empire is one based on personal accountability. Each citizen is required to pay a tax of one mana crystal equal to or greater than their level, per level, each month. That's less than a days delving. Still, occasionally someone is overtaken by events, or they're simply foolish with their spending, and they aren't able to pay their taxes. The Church of Mor'Noctum has a system in place to pay the taxes for their faithful in exchange for a donation of essence, but not everyone is faithful. If you fail to pay your taxes three months in a row, you are subject to indenture."
"Ignoring how ridiculous it is to not be able to pay what seems like a trivial amount, what happens when they are subjected to indenture?" Bob asked.
"Indenture contracts are auctioned off at the beginning of each month," Yorrick replied. "Once the contract has been sold, the indenture is subject to the terms of the contract. It's rare for someone above level ten to be subject to indenture, as over ninety-percent of indentures are pathless."
"Let's back up a second," Bob said. "Let's say that I had arrived in the Karcerian Empire instead of Greenwold. What would have happened to me?"
"You'd probably have ended up at the Warlocks Guild," Yorrick said, "where we would have gotten you into classes and delving." He sighed and waved his hand, "You're a special case. You would have been providing us with valuable information and insights, which we would have payed you for. Still I take your point. If you reach adulthood without establishing a plan for your future, you'll struggle. Our public Dungeons have not, for the past two hundred years, been fully occupied on the first five floors. You might have to work to find a group, but it should be doable."
"Walk me through it," Bob suggested. "I'm fifteen, I've slacked off, my parents have too many kids, I'm suffering teenage angst so we don't get along, and I'm out the door. What do I do?"
"You head to the Dungeon and look for a group," Yorrick explained. "That'll probably take a few hours, but you don't have a bad reputation, so you'll end up in a group and have a few hours to delve. You'll earn a handful of crystals, and you'll probably overpay for a meal and bed for the night, leaving yourself just as broke at the end of the day as you were at the beginning. The next day will be the same, except you'll meet up with some of the same people, maybe the whole group if you're lucky, and you'll delve for longer. You'll end up a couple crystals ahead that day. At some point during the first week, someone will fuck up. It might be you, it might not, but you'll end up getting hurt, and your savings will vanish when you have to pay to fix it. All those lessons you only half listened to in class about gear and preparation are going to come crashing home, and you'll spend the next six months celebrating each piece of gear you save up for an finally purchase. Six months later, you'll be in lowbie house, sleeping on cot and sharing a bathroom with twenty other people, but you'll have saved up enough crystals to push to level one."
They'd arrived at what was clearly advertised as a public Dungeon, and there were dozens of young people milling about, some of them casting curious glances at Bob and Yorrick.
"So how does that story go wrong, and someone end up indentured?" Bob asked.
"You stick with a bad group, or you're just unskilled, or unlucky, and you get hurt badly enough, often enough to not be able to afford healing, and you can't delve. Or you barely scrape by, getting healed up, but unable to pay your taxes," he shrugged. "It's never something that's planned, it just happens."
"So you miss three months, unable to scrape up single mana crystal, which seems incredibly unlikely, and then what happens?" Bob asked.
"You're flagged. Can't go anywhere or buy anything without the Guard being notified, and when they are, they come pick you up. They take you to a holding cell, where you're interviewed. Once your attributes and skills have been documented, a contract is created, requiring you to pay off your past due taxes, as well as the costs of the indenture process, which," Yorrick sighed, "represent the bulk of the debt. A level one indenture is, depending on circumstances, on the hook for five hundred to a thousand mana crystals."
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"How?" Bob asked.
"Two hundred crystals to the empire for having to track you down, normally another two hundred for a regeneration ritual, as if you were in good shape you'd have been delving, another hundred to the Guard for apprehending you and holding you. It can go higher, depending, but that's the base. Then the contracts are auctioned off. The buyer has the right to request up twice the purchase price of the contract as the buyout for the indenture."
"Who buys a contract for a level one person?" Bob asked.
"It depends on where you've allocated your attributes and your skills, as well as your willingness to commit to allocating your future levels," Yorrick sat down on a bench, gesturing for Bob to join him.
"The thing about indenture, is that it isn't the worst thing that can happen to you," Yorrick sighed. "If you are indentured, you're going to get, I believe the saying goes, 'Three hots and a cot.'" He gestured towards the teenagers, all of whom had moved away from group of camera wielders and their subjects. "Some of these kids are getting one cold and a blanket on the floor. Sure you're in it for a year or two, but it's likely better than where you were."
"So if I'm not willing to allocate my stats and skills, where am I?" Bob asked.
"Depends on where you put your stats and skills. If you are looking towards something that one of the noble houses has a plan for, you'll get picked up by them. Tradition is that they get first pick. If you're headed down the path of a spell caster, you'll either end up indentured to the Warlocks Guild or the Church. If you went down a physical combat path, you'll end up at the Crimson Bulwark. If you're not headed down any of those, the Emperor will take your contract." He shook his head. "No matter what, you're looking at a minimum of one year working off your debt. Repeat offenders are very rare."
Yorrick smiled. "Full disclosure. I was indentured when I was level four. I was with a group that shouldn't have been together, as we were all bad. I was overly aggressive, our beacon refused to actually take the skill, and our healer took regeneration instead of anima blast because 'it was more efficient.' I lost a leg, and then an arm. And then a leg again," he shook his head and laughed wryly. "I was not good at delving. Could have used a few lessons from you," he rocked his shoulder into Bob's. "I was indentured, but due to my bad attitude, the none of the noble houses wanted me. The Warlocks Guild didn't like my attitude either, but I was an arcanist, and the Guild doesn't like to see an arcanist who is demonstrably bad at delving, so they indentured me. I agreed to the attribute and skill allocation, as they basically matched what I was planning to do anyway, and then I spent five years having proper delving techniques beaten into my very stubborn head. I kept adding to the costs of my buyout everytime I needed a regeneration ritual, and it took sixteen rituals before I finally started listening."
Bob grimaced. His blessing wasn't kicking in, so he knew Yorrick was telling the truth.
"My sins are Wrath and Pride," Yorrick sighed, "it took years for me to own them, rather than allowing them to own me." He shook his head, "But you're looking for a first hand view of the indenture system, so why don't we head to my old stomping grounds." Yorrick stood up and gestured for Bob to join him as they kept walking, this time towards the towers that Bob knew housed the Warlocks Guild.
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The housing for the Warlocks Guild indentures was located beneath the central spire. It was barracks style, triple bunk beds with barely two feet between them, and a triple set of drawers at the end of each to hold their meager possessions. Yorrick cast a silencing spell on the group as they walked through, explaining beforehand that there were day and night shifts. The mess hall was serving dinner to the night shift, and it was effectively nuitrional sludge. It looked like predigested oatmeal.
"The food alone is enough to motivate most indentures to learn," Yorrick grinned.
The Church had a similar arrangement, although the food was recognizable as actual food. Some sort of stew, which didn't look or smell particularly delicious, but seemed more edible than the sludge the Warlocks Guild offered.
The Bulwark's barracks were a bit more spacious, likely owing to the gear stand each indenture used.
The Emperor's arrangements were the worst. The bunks were stacked six high, with only two between each, which had to make sleeping in them like sleeping in a coffin. The mess hall also featured a return to the sludge favored by the Warlocks Guild.
"The Emperor ends up taking more than half of the indentures, and at the lowest rates," Yorrick explained. "So it's in your best interest, as an indenture, to make a deal and be indentured just about anywhere else. All of this is taught the year we graduate," he continued as they exited the cramped and humble indenture's quarters. "It's not a secret, and while no one expects it to happen to them, if it does, they know the process."
"What is the average indenture rate?" Bob asked.
"Less than one percent of the population," Yorrick replied. "Over ninety percent of indentures are due to failures to pay their taxes, and the vast majority of those are low levels, who learn from the experience and never go through it again. The other ten percent are criminals, and they represent the higher levels who are indentured. Those contracts are almost exclusively purchased by the Noble Houses who get a bargain compared to what they'd have to pay someone with their skills."
"Which Noble house are we going to visit?" Bob asked.
Bob caught the grimace on Yorrick's face. "House Colvern, the First Council," he replied.
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Bob didn't like the idea of Nobility. Inherited power was, in his mind, power unearned. The Nobles in the Empire were required to meet a certain standard to sit on the council and represent their house, but that did not mean it was a meritocracy, it just meant that the Noble scions were carried by competent people who were paid to ensure they were kept whole.
The smarmy asshole who greeted them at the entrance to the House Colvern compound was practically a walking cliche. He looked down his nose at Bob, gave Yorrick a sneer of disdain, and completely ignored the camera crew with the exception of a lecherous leer towards one young woman who looked distinctly uncomfortable as the man, who was easily twice her age, took several seconds to look her up and down.
After imperiously gesturing for them to follow him to the indentures quarters, he strode away, leaving the camera crew scrambling to keep pace.
Bob very deliberately walked more slowly than their escort. "Does that guy not know who you are?" He asked Yorrick quietly.
"He's aware," Yorrick replied.
"I'm kind of surprised you didn't just pimp slap him," Bob admitted, "with the whole Wrath and Pride thing you've got going."
"I own my Wrath and my Pride," Yorrick grinned, "although he does test both."
The man, who had yet to introduce himself, was waiting impatiently at a the door to a long, low building.
The Colvern estate had, thus far, been subtly ostentatious. The buildings were tall, and so heavily windowed that Bob wondered if magic was required to ensure structural stability. The buildings were all multistoried, and seemed almost tower-like, an impression heightened by the walkways that stretched between them.
"This place reminds me of the Warlocks Guild," Bob commented as the man fumed.
"Until a few hundred years ago, the High Seat of the Warlocks Guild had, with few exceptions, been a scion of House Colvern," Yorrick replied. "They stylized their estate to reflect that. Then I came along." He shook his head in mock sadness. "Sadly my successor isn't a Colvern either, so it looks like they're going to end up either restyling, or acknowledging that their chosen architecture is a tribute to past glories."
The man snarled at Yorrick and threw open the doors, stomping into the dimly lit room beyond.
Bob winced as the unpleasant smell of unwashed bodies, and something even more rank that he couldn't quite identify, wafted out of the door.
One of the cameramen gagged.
Yorrick grimaced. "I saved the worst for last," he offered, and then walked through the door.