Chapter 409: Organization From Evergreen

By the third morning, Sage no longer needed Pax to arrange meetings with property brokers. They had started finding him instead.

The hotel receptionist delivered four messages before breakfast, two more arrived while Sage was eating, and another broker was waiting in the lobby by the time Boren returned from what he insisted was a necessary investigation into the hotel’s breakfast menu.

None of this meant Sage had suddenly become important in the Royal Capital. Pax made that clear after reading through the names on the messages.

Large purchases simply attracted attention, and Sage had spent two days touring properties worth tens of millions of gold coins while openly asking for something considerably larger.

Brokers talked to landowners, landowners talked to merchants, merchants talked to their associates, and somewhere along that chain people had learned that the Adventurer Guild from Evergreen intended to establish its Kingdom Headquarters in the Capital.

To anyone sitting on unwanted land, Sage had become a potential buyer with deep pockets. To merchants, he represented a possible business opportunity.

To minor nobles, he was something worth investigating before deciding whether he mattered. And to several mercenary organizations, the words Adventurer Guild were apparently enough to inspire curiosity.

Pax had already received three separate reports about strangers asking questions. None were particularly alarming. One man had spent half an evening in a tavern asking how many adventurers belonged to the Guild in Evergreen.

Another wanted to know whether Sage intended to recruit inside the Capital. A third had asked a carriage driver which properties Sage had visited.

Pax suspected the first two were connected to mercenary companies, while the third might simply have been another broker trying to determine what kind of land Sage wanted.

"Nobody is following you closely enough for me to consider it surveillance yet," Pax explained as they left the hotel.

He looked exactly as forgettable as before, though today he walked several paces behind

Sage rather than beside him whenever the streets became crowded.

"They’re curious. That’s all. If you purchase land and begin recruiting, that will probably change."

Sage wasn’t surprised. The Warrior District alone contained hundreds of businesses built around armed labor. The Guild had transformed that entire market in Evergreen.

If he successfully established the same system here, someone was eventually going to lose money.

The attention did have one immediate advantage: Sage suddenly had options. Unfortunately, most of them were terrible. One merchant offered an old warehouse complex near the northern markets for forty-two million gold coins.

Pax needed less than an hour to discover that the same property had failed to sell for twenty-three million three months earlier because two warehouses had serious foundation problems.

Another broker advertised a "strategically positioned commercial estate" that turned out to be beside a slaughterhouse and downstream from several tanneries.

Mina smelled it before their carriage even turned onto the street and refused to get out. Boren lasted slightly longer before covering his nose and asking whether Sage planned to attract adventurers or kill them.

A third offer involved land supposedly suitable for immediate construction, except half the property was involved in an inheritance dispute between four siblings and couldn’t legally be transferred until the Royal Court resolved ownership.

By midday, Sage was sitting across from a broker named Marcen in a private room above a busy tea house.

The man wore expensive clothes, spoke with the confidence of someone accustomed to negotiating with wealthy clients and had spent the previous fifteen minutes explaining why a property on the southeastern side of the Capital was worth fifty million gold coins.

The drawings looked impressive. There was enough open ground for several large structures, an existing three-story administrative building and reasonable access to a secondary commercial road.

Sage might even have considered it if Pax hadn’t quietly placed a folded note beside his cup before the meeting began.

Marcen finished describing the area’s future development and smiled. "For an organization entering the Capital for the first time, Guildmaster, you’ll find very few opportunities offering this much land without moving all the way toward the outer walls."

Sage tapped the property document. "Fifty million."

"Forty-nine million eight hundred thousand, technically."

"How much did the current owner pay for it?"

The broker’s smile weakened slightly. "I’m afraid the previous transaction isn’t relevant to the current valuation."

"Eight million six hundred thousand."

Silence settled over the table.

Boren, seated beside Sage, slowly lowered his tea.

Marcen recovered quickly. "That was nearly six years ago. Capital property values have increased significantly since then."

"They have," Sage agreed. "But not by five hundred percent in this district."

The man’s eyes flicked toward Pax for the first time. Pax had spent most of the meeting sitting quietly enough to be mistaken for an assistant.

Sage continued before Marcen could invent another explanation. "The eastern drainage project that was supposed to increase this area’s value was suspended two years ago. Three merchant houses moved their warehouses closer to the southern road afterward. The current owner has been trying to sell for fourteen months, and the last asking price was twenty-one million."

Marcen’s expression finally changed.

Mina leaned toward Boren and whispered loudly enough for everyone to hear, "He’s doing the money face again."

Boren nodded. "Different one. This is the ’someone tried to steal from me’ face."

Sage ignored them. "Twenty-two million."

"Guildmaster, that’s far below...."

"Then we don’t have a deal."

Marcen studied him for several seconds before sitting back. Some of the salesmanship disappeared from his expression, replaced by something closer to professional respect. "I’d heard your Guild expanded quickly. I assumed you were unfamiliar with the Capital market."

"I am unfamiliar with it."

The broker glanced toward Pax.

Sage smiled. "That’s why I hire people who aren’t."

They left without purchasing the property. Marcen promised to speak with the owner about Sage’s offer, although Sage suspected the man would return with something closer to thirty million.

That was fine. He wasn’t desperate enough to chase sellers.

The more important lesson was that Pax’s intelligence network had already begun paying for itself in a city where a single bad negotiation could cost the Guild tens of millions.