A Message from the Captain

A month passed after Colm's birthday with the crew settling back into an easy rhythm. There were small projects, casual visits to the Drowned Court, the occasional roller coaster ride, and nothing demanding the kind of all-consuming attention their larger builds had required.

Nettle was reviewing Low-Key Financing's latest reports at the main branch when a private message appeared.

[Private Message from: Guild Captain — Dorric]"Nettle. We have a problem. The Merchant's Consortium just slashed their interest rates below any level that makes sense for them. I don't think this is normal competition anymore."

Nettle frowned and set down her tea.

Dorric handled most of the guild's day-to-day operations now. He was steady, careful, and not the sort to raise an alarm because one competitor had adjusted a number on a board. If he was messaging her directly, there was probably more behind it.

[Private Message to: Dorric]"How low?"

[Private Message from: Dorric]"Half of ours. Maybe less, depending on the branch. They're not trying to make money on these loans. I think they're trying to burn us out before we establish ourselves any further."

Nettle leaned back in her chair, the comfortable mood of the afternoon giving way to something sharper.

She had always expected resistance. The Consortium had held the lending market with almost no serious competition, and opening six branches under their noses was never going to earn her a polite welcome basket. She had simply expected the first real move to be subtler than this.

[Private Message to: Dorric]"Pull every branch's current numbers. Loan volume, deposits, active accounts, available reserves, everything. I want the full picture before we respond."

[Private Message from: Dorric]"Already compiling it. Give me an hour."

Nettle set the tablet down and looked around the branch she'd built with a mixture of careful planning, shameless confidence, and the goodwill her guild had accumulated across half the continent.

I am definitely going to win, she'd told Arista when the Tabula Rosa branch first opened.

She still believed it.

Believing it and proving it, she was beginning to suspect, were going to be two very different things.

She opened another private message.

[Private Message to: Arista]"Might need to borrow some of that engineering brain of yours. Not for anything mechanical this time. The Consortium has decided it wants a fight, and I'd rather have you thinking about it before I actually need you."

The reply arrived a few minutes later.

[Private Message from: Arista]"Tell me everything. I'm listening."

Nettle smiled at that and started forwarding the important numbers as Dorric sent them through. She had no intention of handing the problem over to Arista. This was still a financial fight, which meant it was Nettle's fight to run. But Arista was exactly the sort of ace she wanted sitting unused in her hand if the Consortium stopped behaving like bankers and started exploiting some obscure piece of game logic instead.

For now, though, they were still speaking in rates and reserves.

That was her territory.

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By late evening, Dorric's reports had turned the desk in front of her into a small war room. Nettle compared deposits against outstanding loans, branch by branch, then laid the Consortium's new rates beside them and worked through how long either side could afford to keep bleeding money.

Her position was better than she had expected.

Low-Key Financing wasn't being supported by banking income alone. Merchandise sales still fed the guild, while deposits gave the branches additional liquidity. More importantly, she had enough actual numbers in front of her to stop guessing and start calculating.

The Consortium, meanwhile, had spent a long time enjoying a market in which nobody had forced them to compete seriously.

Nettle tapped one column with the end of her stylus.

"...They're betting I can't afford a real fight."

The numbers disagreed.

She slept on the decision anyway.

The following morning, all six branches received the same instruction.

[LOW-KEY FINANCING — RATE UPDATE] Effective immediately: 0% interest on all new loans for a limited promotional period.

The announcement spread quickly. Forum threads appeared within the hour, and both players and NPCs began turning up at whichever branch was closest, eager to borrow without paying a single coin in interest.

Nettle watched the first wave of new applications arrive with a satisfaction she kept mostly to herself.

The offer was expensive. That was the point.

The Consortium had decided to test how much pain she could absorb. She was simply answering the question.

News reached the Merchant's Consortium's head office the following day in the hands of a junior clerk who looked as though he would have preferred to deliver almost anything else.

The Consortium's presiding director was a short, broad man with an enormous, immaculately groomed mustache that carried more visible authority than the rest of him combined. He read the report once, then again, before setting it on his desk with great care.

"...Zero percent."

"Yes, sir."

"She's lending money for free."

"The principal still has to be repaid," the clerk said cautiously. "But yes. No interest."

The director gave him a look that made it clear the distinction had not escaped him.

"Her reserves appear substantial," the clerk continued. "Merchandise income, deposits across all six branches—"

"I am aware of her reserves."

The director stroked his mustache and looked back down at the report. The question wasn't whether Low-Key Financing could survive losing interest income for a few weeks. Any competent lender with enough cash could do that. The question was whether Nettle believed she could keep doing it longer than the Consortium could afford to match her.

"Do we know whether this is theater?" he asked.

"Sir?"

"A dramatic rate designed to frighten us into matching it, or an actual commitment to a prolonged price war."

The clerk hesitated. "We don't know."

The director sat back.

That, more than the zero itself, irritated him.

The Consortium had seen challengers before. Small banks appeared, offered generous terms, discovered that enthusiasm did not substitute for reserves, and disappeared again. None had survived long enough to become a structural problem.

Low-Key Financing already had six branches.

That made it different.

"...Should we match her?" the clerk asked.

The director considered it carefully. Matching zero would mean accepting her terms immediately, which was exactly the reaction she was probably hoping to provoke. Refusing to move at all would make the Consortium look slow and overpriced while her branches filled with new customers.

"Cut ours again," he said at last. "Halfway to zero. Enough to show the market we're willing to compete, but not enough to let her dictate the entire field."

The clerk nodded and began making notes.

"And move additional reserves into the branches most directly competing with hers. I want daily reports on deposits, new loans, repayments, and withdrawals."

"Yes, sir."

The director picked up Nettle's announcement one more time, his irritation settling into something colder and more patient.

"She wants a war of attrition," he said. "Fine."

He dismissed the clerk and turned toward the window, already working through how long an upstart banking network could realistically tolerate lending at no interest.

Across the city, Nettle was asking herself the same question about him.

Dorric had updated the projections again by midday. Even after accounting for the surge in new borrowing, the promotional rate remained manageable for now. The cost was real, but so was the pressure it put on the Consortium.

Nettle read the latest figures, then opened the conversation with Arista again.

Her finger hovered over the message field for a moment.

She could ask for ideas now. Arista would almost certainly have several, some of them useful, some of them alarming, and at least one that would somehow involve turning an innocent game mechanic inside out.

Nettle smiled and closed the window without typing.

Not yet.

Arista stayed in reserve.

Nettle still had money, customers, six branches, and an opponent who had finally stopped pretending she wasn't a threat. She wanted to see what she could do with those first.

"...Alright," she murmured, pulling the newest branch reports toward her. "Let's see who actually blinks first."