Mr. Saturnus Reviews the Numbers

Mr. Saturnus reviewed the two-month financial summary his analysts had compiled, mustache twitching with mounting displeasure as he worked through the figures a second time.

"...This cannot be correct," he said, tapping the report firmly. "Two months at zero percent. Her reserves should be showing genuine strain by now. Every projection we ran suggested she would need to raise rates again within six weeks at the absolute latest."

"Her reserves haven't fallen, sir. If anything, they've grown slightly," the lead analyst confirmed, uncomfortable delivering the news.

Saturnus set the report down, mustache bristling. "...Grown. While loaning money for free. Explain that to me, because on paper, that is simply not possible."

The analyst hesitated, then pulled up a second document. "...It appears the loans themselves aren't the source of her stability, sir. We've been tracking this incorrectly. Her guild's merchandise revenue has tripled over the same period, and she's acquired exclusive rights to some manner of alchemical tonic. Pink Salmon, it's called. It's become something of a cultural phenomenon."

"...A tonic," Saturnus repeated, flat.

"It temporarily tints the skin pink, sir. The tint itself is purely cosmetic. The tonic increases stamina regeneration by thirty-five percent for an hour, but the side effect appears to be what's actually fashionable."

Saturnus stared at the analyst, his mustache going still as the absurdity of the situation settled in.

"...She is funding a zero-percent rate war," he said, "using profits from selling decorative pink drinks and plush toys."

"...That does appear to be the mechanism, sir."

"And some of the money we assumed would remain outside her network," Saturnus continued, "is finding its way straight back through her storefronts whenever those borrowers spend with her guild."

"That would appear to be the case, sir."

Saturnus sat back, staring at the ceiling, something approaching genuine defeat beginning to show.

"...We have been fighting a rate war," he said, mostly to himself, "against someone whose bank is only one part of how she makes money."

"...Shall we consider adjusting our strategy, sir?"

Saturnus was quiet, running through every option available, every possible counter, and finding, to his mounting frustration, that none of them addressed the underlying problem at all.

"...We do not have anything comparable," he said, flat. "We finance merchants. We lease property. We facilitate trade. We have never needed to manufacture demand around an exclusive product line of our own."

"...Should we consider acquiring one, sir?"

Saturnus looked at the analyst as though the suggestion had personally wounded him.

"...We are the Merchant's Consortium. We have operated for generations by controlling the infrastructure of commerce. I refuse to believe our survival now depends on finding our own version of a pink beverage."

"...Understood, sir."

Saturnus stroked his mustache, the familiar gesture doing little to steady him this time.

"...Pull every resource we have," he said, resolve settling grimly into place despite the mounting evidence against him. "We will not lower ourselves to selling trinkets. We will simply outlast her through sheer, disciplined patience. Every siege eventually breaks the besieger, given enough time."

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The analyst glanced at the two months of unbroken figures already sitting on the desk between them, said nothing, and excused himself instead.

Nettle made the rounds personally, visiting individual Consortium-affiliated vendors one by one, starting with a modest storefront near Tabula Rosa's central market, run by a weary-looking merchant who'd clearly been fielding complaints from frustrated customers for weeks.

"...I'd like to offer you something," Nettle said with her usual easy, disarming confidence. "Join Low-Key Financing. Move your business banking over to us, and I'll guarantee you a steady, exclusive supply of Pink Salmon to sell directly from your own storefront. Demand's been climbing steadily. I imagine it would do wonders for your foot traffic."

The merchant considered the offer with interest, looking toward the steady stream of customers passing by, several already sporting the faint, fashionable pink tint that had become almost common lately.

"...That's a tempting offer," he admitted. "But my shop itself is owned by the Merchant's Consortium. I don't control the property. I just operate within it, under their terms."

Nettle smiled, delighted.

"...So if you were assigned a different building instead?" she said, casual, as though the suggestion had only just occurred to her.

The merchant blinked. "...I'm sorry?"

"I own property across most major settlements," Nettle said, breezy. "Storefronts, warehouse space, the occasional unused building I've picked up without any particular plan for it. If the Consortium's property is the only thing tying you to their terms, that's a remarkably solvable problem."

The merchant stared at her, the shape of the offer landing. "...You're offering to relocate my entire business."

"I'm offering you an alternative to being trapped by a landlord who also happens to be your only banking option," Nettle corrected, still smiling. "Move your operation to a space I control, bank with Low-Key Financing, sell Pink Salmon through my supply chain, and you're free of the Consortium's terms altogether. No more split loyalty. No more watching your own guild eat into whatever profit you manage to earn."

"...Wouldn't that just be trading one landlord for another?"

Nettle's smile widened. "Not if you own the building."

The merchant blinked. "...I'm sorry?"

"I'll sell you one of mine. Low-Key Financing can handle the mortgage, fair rate, fixed terms. When you've paid it off, the storefront is yours."

He thought about that for a moment.

"...You have zero-percent interest rates at the moment."

Nettle paused. "Yes."

"Couldn't I just borrow the money from you and use the loan to buy the property from you?"

Silence.

Nettle stared at him.

The merchant shifted slightly. "...Is that not allowed?"

Her grin returned. "No, that's allowed."

"...Really?"

"Even at zero percent, you still have to repay the principal on a fixed schedule," Nettle said. "As long as the loan's outstanding, I want your business banking with Low-Key. Once it's paid off, you're free to take your accounts wherever you like."

"...And Pink Salmon?"

"I'd like you selling it," Nettle said. "But that's supply, not ownership. You make money on it, I make money on it, everybody goes home happy."

The merchant weighed the offer, looking back toward the passing customers, several openly grumbling about the Consortium's own recent, halfhearted rate adjustments.

"...I'll need to think about it," he said, though his tone suggested the thinking wouldn't take especially long.

"Take your time," Nettle said, unbothered, already moving toward her next stop. "I've got plenty of empty buildings, and plenty of Pink Salmon. I'm not going anywhere."

She made the same offer at four more storefronts that afternoon, and by the time she'd finished her rounds, two merchants had already begun making arrangements to relocate.

Word reached Mr. Saturnus within the week, delivered once again by the same nervous junior clerk.

"...She's poaching our own vendors," he said, disbelieving, staring at the growing list of relocated storefronts. "Not through the loans. Not through the rates. She's simply offering them somewhere else to exist, outside our control."

"Our lease terms have made several vendors... receptive to alternatives, sir."

Saturnus pressed both hands over his face, mustache drooping with the specific despair of a man watching an opponent solve problems he hadn't even realized were problems until precisely this moment.

"...We own the buildings," he said, muffled. "We control the property. That was supposed to be our advantage. Our leverage."

"Guild Leader Nettle simply has enough buildings of her own, sir."

Saturnus lowered his hands, staring at the ceiling with the weary realization of a man who'd spent his career assuming certain advantages were permanent, only to discover, rather suddenly, that they'd never been as secure as he'd believed.

"...We thought owning the buildings meant they couldn't leave us," he said. "She doesn't need to take that leverage away. She only needs to give them somewhere better to go."

"...Shall we consider revising our property agreements, sir? Perhaps offering more favorable terms to retain our current vendors?"

Saturnus let the question hang, the fight draining out of him in the face of an opponent who'd apparently never once needed to defeat him directly, only to make every alternative more attractive than what he could offer.

"...Yes," he said, tired. "I suppose we shall have to."