Chapter 433: Brother Boren

Days passed as the Guild continued to be busy and full of people, the Grand Complex had settled into a kind of controlled disorder that Sage was beginning to recognize as normal.

Nearly a thousand Warriors now passed through the registration counters each day, although not all completed the process immediately.

The Grand Guild Hall rarely fell quiet anymore. Warriors stood in lines, Guild clerks carried records between counters, parties argued over missions, and the broad avenues outside were crowded from morning until evening.

Sage was reviewing the morning registration figures with Boren near the main hall when a disturbance began outside. It wasn’t the sound of fighting.

The guards weren’t drawing weapons, and nobody was shouting for a healer. Instead, people were moving aside while an absurdly decorated carriage rolled through the Grand Complex as though its owner had mistaken the Guild avenue for the entrance to a royal estate.

The carriage was lacquered deep red, edged with gold, and pulled by six enormous white horses wearing silver-plated harnesses. Sage lowered the report in his hand and watched the procession stop directly before the Grand Guild Hall.

"Do we charge people for blocking the entrance?" Boren asked.

"We might start."

The carriage door opened, and the man who emerged made the carriage look restrained.

He was tremendously fat, perhaps even broader than Boren, and dressed in layers of dark purple and crimson silk embroidered with golden vines. Despite his size, he moved quickly, using a gold-headed cane more as decoration than support. Two servants hurried behind him while another struggled with a wooden chest.

A Guild clerk approached Sage from the entrance, visibly uncertain whether she should be impressed or alarmed. "Guildmaster, Chairman Garen Holtweiss of the Holtweiss Merchant Consortium has arrived. He says he wishes to speak with you."

Beside Sage, Boren became completely still.

Sage glanced at him. "You know him?"

"No." Boren hurriedly shook his head in denial.

The answer came too quickly.

Boren turned around.

Sage watched him begin walking toward the nearest side corridor with the determined pace of a man who had suddenly remembered an urgent duty somewhere very far away. He made it six steps.

"Brother Boren!"

The voice thundered through the Grand Guild Hall.

Boren stopped.

Several Knights near the registration counters turned to look. Mina, who had been sitting on the edge of a fountain outside eating a pastry, appeared through the doors immediately.

Garen Holtweiss spread both arms and hurried forward with surprising speed. "Brother! My round-bellied brother! You came to the Royal Capital and didn’t send me a single letter?"

Boren slowly turned, wearing the expression of a condemned man. "Garen."

Garen embraced him before he could escape. Garen slapped Boren’s back hard enough to make his coat shake and loudly declared that his dear brother had somehow become even more handsome since Riverdale.

"We are not brothers," Boren said once he managed to free himself.

Garen looked genuinely wounded. "You wound me."

"We aren’t even related."

"Does blood decide brotherhood?"

"In this case, yes."

Garen placed a hand over his heart before turning toward Sage. "Guildmaster Alistair, do you hear how cruelly he treats me after everything we’ve survived together?"

Boren stared at him. "We negotiated mission prices."

"Together."

"You tried to lower us twice the rate." Boren rubbed his temples.

"And you defeated me magnificently. That was when I knew we were brothers." Garen shrugged his shoulders.

Mina covered her mouth, but her shoulders were shaking.

Sage understood why Boren had attempted to escape.

"You left this part out," Sage said.

Boren shot him a glance and said. "I was hoping it would stay in Riverdale."

Garen laughed so loudly that people across the hall looked over again. "Impossible! Fate has reunited us."

Boren muttered something about fate needing better judgment.

Sage led them upstairs before the entrance became a spectacle, although Garen managed to turn the walk into one anyway. By the time they reached the upper gallery overlooking the Grand Complex, the ridiculous merchant’s expression had changed.

He counted.

Sage noticed it almost immediately.

Garen watched the lines entering the Grand Guild Hall, the Warriors moving toward the Mana Tower and the wagons carrying goods toward the warehouses. His gaze lingered on the Exchange before shifting toward the distant roofs of the Dining Quarter.

When Sage invited him into a meeting chamber, Garen sat down, accepted tea and stopped behaving like a man who had crossed half the Capital merely to torment Boren.

"How many Warriors entered your gates yesterday?" he asked.

"Just over nine thousand visitors. Registrations were slightly above a thousand."

"And the tower?"

"Full through most of the day."

"The restaurants?"

"Four are open. Maura wants two more prepared."

Garen’s fingers began tapping against his cup. "Hotel?"

"More than half the opened rooms were occupied last night."

"Exchange?"

"Growing."

Garen smiled.

Boren groaned. "That’s his money face."

"I have many faces."

"That one means you’re calculating how much everyone in the room is worth."

Garen ignored him and asked Sage whether he understood what he’d built.

Sage replied that he understood the Guild well enough, but Garen shook his head. "I’m not speaking about the Guild. I’m speaking about the market surrounding it."

He leaned forward, and for the first time since arriving, there was nothing foolish about him. "A thousand new registrations each day means a thousand more people with reasons to return. They need food, rooms, weapons, armor, medicine, materials, training and somewhere to sell what they bring back. Your Exchange doesn’t merely buy monster parts. It gathers buyers and sellers in the same place."

Sage listened.

Garen continued, pointing through the window toward the Dining Quarter. Twelve restaurants meant grain, meat, fish, spices, wine, firewood and kitchen supplies arriving constantly. The hotel required linens, furniture, candles, soap, food and repairs. The Smithing Complex consumed ores, coal, leather and monster materials. The Alchemy halls required herbs, glassware and ingredients from across the Kingdom. The Mana Tower drew Warriors who then spent coin elsewhere before leaving.

Then there was the Auction House.

Garen’s smile widened when Sage mentioned it hadn’t properly opened yet. "Good."

"Why is that good?"

"Because I want to be here when it does."

Boren closed his eyes.

Garen ignored him again. The Holtweiss Merchant Consortium already moved goods between several Regions, maintained warehouses in major cities and operated caravans across important roads.

If the Adventurer Guild truly intended to establish branches throughout the Kingdom, Garen saw something beyond the Capital Headquarters. Every branch would create demand.

Every Regional Headquarters would gather Warriors, missions, monster materials and merchants. If those branches eventually shared information about prices and supplies, a merchant working with the Guild could learn where goods were scarce before rivals hundreds of miles away even heard there was a shortage.

"Your Guild could change how goods move through the Kingdom," Garen said.

Sage studied him more carefully.

"What do you want?" Sage asked.

Garen smiled. "To make money."

"Obviously."

"And I prefer making money beside something growing rather than something dying." Garen said.

That answer interested Sage.

Garen didn’t ask for control of the Exchange or exclusive rights over Guild trade. He was too experienced for such an obvious demand. Instead, he proposed beginning with supply agreements.

Holtweiss caravans could provide food, metal, cloth, lamp oil and other goods the Headquarters consumed constantly. In return, the consortium wanted fair access to future merchant spaces and the opportunity to bid on large Guild purchases.

"No exclusivity," Sage said.

"Naturally."

Boren snorted. "He means he’ll ask again later."

"I admire persistence."

"You admire coin."

"Coin rewards persistence."

Mina, who had somehow followed them upstairs without being invited, looked between the two fat men and finally asked, "Are you sure you’re not brothers?"

Boren pointed toward the door. "Leave."

Garen burst into laughter.

By the time the meeting ended, Sage had agreed only to begin negotiations, but that seemed enough for Garen. He rose, adjusted his purple coat and clasped Sage’s forearm before declaring that the Holtweiss Merchant Consortium looked forward to doing business with the Adventurer Guild.

Then he turned toward Boren with an expression of such overwhelming affection that Boren immediately stepped backward.

"Brother Boren, we must dine tonight."

"No."

"I know an excellent restaurant."

"No."

"My treat."

Boren hesitated.

Garen’s eyes gleamed.

Sage watched the struggle last several seconds before Boren muttered, "What kind of restaurant?"

Garen threw an arm around his shoulders and led him toward the door.

Sage remained beside the window, watching the crowded Grand Complex below. The Guild had gained thousands of Adventurers in two weeks. Now, without Sage seeking one out, one of the Capital’s major merchants had walked through his gates and seen opportunity where others saw disruption.

For the first time since arriving in the Royal Capital, Sage had gained a powerful ally from the merchant world.

Judging by Boren’s suffering, the alliance was going to be loud.