Underkeeper

The Crafters’ District was in shambles. As he made his way through, Bernt saw broken windows and beaten-down doors everywhere. It looked like the kobolds had looted everything they could—or perhaps a few of the residents had helped themselves in the aftermath. Bernt hadn’t experienced life on the street, but he’d been close enough to see what people would do if they thought they could get away with it.

Of course, many of the shops survived with only minimal damage. A few had heavy security doors and iron bars set into the windows that could keep out rampaging kobolds just as well as would-be burglars. Others looked as vulnerable as any other building on their street, but hadn’t been seriously damaged. This confused Bernt, until he noticed the bloodstains on or in front of many of them. Their owners had fought, and apparently quite a few had done well enough to drive the attackers away.

It made sense, he supposed. Adventurers and soldiers tended to retire young—and many did so with enough savings to their name to try their hand at business. As long as they’d gotten a few friends together and weren’t accosted in large numbers, experienced fighters wouldn’t need to run from kobolds.

Turning a corner, he caught sight of his destination—Master Alchemist Theresa’s Shop. The army had cleared the bodies—mostly kobolds—from the streets last night, but apparently not here. It made sense. They would probably be too heavy for the cart, and they weren’t going to spread any diseases at this point.

There were eight statues in front of the shop, though not all of them were still standing. Two of the stone kobolds had toppled, and one lay broken into three pieces among scattered glass shards. Bernt guessed they’d been moving when they were petrified and ended up in unbalanced positions.

Bernt swallowed, his stomach fluttering. He was about to go in there and confront this woman. She couldn’t hurt him, not openly, anyway. But this was still a powerful reminder of what he was dealing with.

It would be fine, he told himself. He could feel the note in his pocket with Ed’s instructions, as well as a writ in triplicate, signed by Ed, that granted him the right to negotiate in this matter. That wasn’t to say the archmage trusted him to manage the negotiations on his own. That was what the note was for.

He’d memorized the entire procedure. How could he not? It wasn’t long, and he’d been nervously rehearsing it every waking minute since last night.

Give her the price, hear her response, and offer her the olive branch. First the stick, then the carrot. Or at least a smaller stick. Whatever. It was simple.

He reached the door and knocked twice. Then he entered.

The inside of the shop looked exactly as it had the last time he’d been here. The proprietor, Theresa, was sitting at a desk, noting something down in a ledger. Unlike last time, though, her apprentice was nowhere in evidence. At Bernt’s entry, she looked up and her eyes narrowed.

“The young Underkeeper… what are you doing here?” Her gaze moved down to his hand and she smirked ever so slightly. “I hope your hand has recovered well…”

Bernt kept himself from grimacing at her. His hand still hurt quite a bit, actually, but that was because of the battle yesterday. He hoped it was, anyway… Could her weird metal have affected his spirit somehow?

It couldn’t. He was sure it couldn’t. Besides, he hadn’t felt anything until the battle. This wasn’t the time for this kind of thinking. If it didn’t go away, he’d find someone who knew alchemy to ask about it. Someone who wasn’t Theresa. He vividly remembered the way he’d slapped the filthy poison metal into her hand as his fingers began to tingle. He doubted she would be any kind of help.

“It’s like new, thanks to the treatment you so graciously provided,” he said, doing his best to imitate the tone he imagined someone like Iriala might take with the woman. He wanted to mention her own hand—but he couldn’t think of a way to phrase it that wouldn’t make him sound petty. Good enough, he supposed, that she probably had to use an expensive potion on herself as well.

He waited for her to speak, but she didn’t answer right away. So, he launched into his script.

“Ahem. My employer has been informed that you’re having trouble sourcing castrum root for an unusually large government order. I’ve been sent to explore if an arrangement can be made to solve your little problem.”

Theresa’s eyes bulged for a moment, but she had herself under control again so quickly that Bernt wondered if he’d imagined it. Regarding him with a neutrally professional expression, she folded her hands on the desk and raised a single eyebrow.

“Oh?”

Bernt breathed and focused on not talking too quickly. He would sound nervous, and delivery was important. Well, it was important for one very specific reason. If he sounded nervous, she would see him as nothing but a frightened messenger boy. That wasn’t what he wanted. He was acting in an official capacity here. He had a writ and everything!

Remembering that writ, he pulled it out and handed her the copy labeled “Customer.”

“I’ve been empowered to negotiate on behalf of Archmage Thurdred in this matter.” He cleared his throat and adopted a more confident tone—more like what he’d practiced at home last night. “We have just over thirty-one pounds of unprocessed root that we are prepared to sell to you for 2400 gold marks.”

The alchemist threw back her head and laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh, but she did sound genuinely amused. After a few seconds, she stopped, still chuckling a little, and pretended to wipe a tear from her eye.

“Ah, lovely. I needed that after a day like yesterday. That’s a very tempting offer, I’m sure.” Her expression sobered as she went on. “But if the Underkeepers would like to sell us castrum root, they’ll have to do it for the standard two gold, five silver marks per pound. Did the old man forget that your order is a part of the government?”

Now, though, it was Bernt’s turn to offer a smile.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” he said, fighting to keep his smile from turning too devious. “It seems that there was a bit of confusion—I’m sure it’s my robes. I’m not actually here to represent the Underkeepers. If you’ll take a look at the writ there, you’ll see that I’m negotiating on behalf of Archmage Thurdred. Privately, I mean.”

While there was no practical difference between Ed and the Underkeepers in political terms, the same wasn’t true when it came to business. Ed had bought the roots with his own money, and he was the one selling. He watched as Theresa’s jaw clenched and she looked back down at the paper, which she hadn’t bothered to read before.

“That bitch!” she hissed to herself. It took Bernt a moment to realize she was probably cursing Iriala. A few seconds later, she looked back up at him, narrowing her eyes in thought again.

Bernt kept quiet, doing his best to keep his face impassive. Ed had stressed the importance of keeping your mouth shut when it was time for your opponent to feel uncomfortable, but it was much harder than it had sounded. This just didn’t feel like a natural place in a conversation to clam up. Fortunately, there also wasn’t anything helpful he could say—not that he could think of.

“I’ll give you ten gold marks per pound,” she finally said, voice grating through clenched teeth. “That should be more than generous enough.”

Bernt let out a slow breath. She had made a counteroffer—that was the first hurdle crossed.

This was where things became a little… complicated. They were talking business now, but Ed had emphasized to him that this was also politics. Bernt had talked about the specifics of the negotiation with Ed last night, and Fiora had coached him through it again this morning, just to be sure. He was here to send a message to the alchemists, but also to de-escalate the overall situation. They couldn’t afford to make enemies—even if Bernt personally probably wouldn’t be any alchemist’s favorite customer after this.

Outmaneuvering them with the castrum root was meant to show the Alchemists that they needed to take the Underkeepers seriously. That part was already done. Iriala’s involvement alone had already done much to bolster their position in this respect as well—it showed they weren’t without friends.

Now, Bernt was here for two reasons—to extract a penalty for the petty hostility the alchemists had shown and the indirect attack on him personally, and to attempt to normalize the relationship between the two organizations.

That meant he had to be careful not to push Theresa into real financial difficulties, but she still had to feel it. It had to be significant, but not too much. Worse, if they didn’t come to a deal and the guild actually lost their exclusivity rights in the city, the Underkeepers would get the hostile attention of the entire Alchemists’ Guild, throughout the entire realm. That was a conflict they did not want.

Ed had given Bernt a minimum price to take from Theresa, but he hadn’t given him an upper limit. Most likely, he assumed Theresa would have little trouble in haggling him down. But Bernt wasn’t about to let her take control of the conversation like this.

She was still lowballing him, trying to make him think in terms of the castrum roots. Implicit in this negotiation was a threat to the alchemists’ exclusivity rights in the city. That was worth far more than any amount of castrum root. Now that he was confronted with the moment of truth, though, he wasn’t sure how to counter.

He hesitated, then decided to go high.

“We understand that this is a difficult time,” he said, gesturing around him, at the city in general. “In acknowledgment of your financial difficulties, the archmage permitted me to offer you a price of 1500 gold marks along with a three-month payment plan.”

Theresa snorted. “Your arrogance is going to get you into trouble sooner or later, young Underkeeper. I’ve made you a very generous offer. Giving me condescension in return is… ungrateful.”

His rage slipped its leash. It was her tone more than her words that did it. For weeks, Bernt’s life had been defined by fear, frustration and desperation. And all the while, the Alchemists’ Guild had been there to make his life just that much more complicated, frustrating, and terrifying. Before he knew what he was doing, he’d taken a step toward her, right up to her desk.

“Ungrateful?!” he hissed. “You sabotaged city infrastructure for weeks and you poisoned me! And you did it because I wrote a routine dumping citation for an absolute asshole of an alchemist. The slimes that he spawned clogged the pipes of twenty-three homes and seriously injured several adventurers! And he did it to save a couple of silver! You’re lucky that we’re offering you a deal at all! We could have just destroyed the damned roots!”

Theresa was leaning back now, eyes exaggeratedly wide in mock surprise. Then she leaned forward and clucked at him in a motherly fashion.

“Oh dear. Do you need me to wait a moment for you to calm down?” She watched him for a moment as he gathered himself. “I know just as well as you or your boss that you aren’t actually going to squeeze us out of the city. The Underkeepers have martial responsibilities now, and you can’t afford to rely on random unlicensed alchemists to supply you with potions and elixirs any more than the military or any of the guilds can. Give me a reasonable offer or get the hells out of my shop.”

Bernt swallowed. He’d screwed it up. By losing his temper, he’d given up control of the conversation—which he’d only arguably had in the first place. Now she’d called him out and given him an ultimatum.

He needed to give her a deal she would take. But if he just dropped the price now, he would look like a coward as well as an idiot.

But… this was exactly why Ed had given him that safe, minimum price. It was designed to be palatable to the alchemists while still ensuring that the Underkeepers’ point was made.

He opened his mouth to propose it, but then closed it again as a thought struck him. A new idea. This could work. Better yet, he might be able to take two birds with one stone.

“Well?” Theresa glared at him. “You look like a fish. What is it?”

Bernt smiled, regaining his composure.

“You’re right, of course,” he said, doing his best to sound gracious. “I can offer you a more reasonable price—I can take off another five hundred gold marks in exchange for just one tiny favor…”

It was still a lot of money. More, in fact, than Bernt had earned in his entire working life so far, and even a little more than Ed’s minimum. But, while it was a very steep fine, it wouldn’t actually put the guild in a tight spot. Theresa could probably pay it out of her own pocket, if she had to.

Seeing her expression, Bernt thought she would decline and throw him out. But despite her sour face, she didn’t.

“What kind of favor, exactly?”