Mark of the Fool
Chapter 547: Lucia's Story

“The coin you and your friend, Khalik, gave me was the most I’d had in a long time.” Lucia sipped a cup of coffee that smelled of something a little stronger. “Back then, I managed to avoid debt, but I could never save much either.”

“Yeah, with how much it costs to live in this city? I’m not surprised.” Alex sipped a cup of tea, loaded with heaps of sugar.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Lucia growled, her eyes growing dead. “When you’re just making ends meet, expenses compound. Food is relatively cheap in Generasi, but rent isn’t. Not even for a tiny box of a room in a rooming house.”

A bitter expression took her face. “With a landlady that…well, let’s not go there. We’d be here all day—”

“She was a bully?”

“Yes!” Lucia said emphatically.

“Trust me, I know the type.”

“Yes, well, she was awful, but the rent she charged was even worse. And because the rent was so high, you don’t eat as often as you should. Because of that, you get sick easier. And that means medicine, which is more coin…you get my point. I didn’t get into debt, but my savings could have fit in the palm of my hand. Until—”

She traced the cup’s rim with a single finger. “—you gave me that coin.”

“Yeah, but,” Alex looked around the room again. “All this is worth a lot more than thirty gold.”

“That coin was just the beginning,” Lucia sighed dreamily, looking lost in memories. “When I got home, I thought about all the things I could do with that much coin: proper meals, maybe a better place to live for a bit…but…” She shook her head. “But, that would have been only temporary. I even thought about leaving the city, but no matter where I went, thirty gold would be gone like dust in the wind. So I decided to hold on to it until I figured out what to do.”

She looked at Alex. “And then one day, I saw you with your golem. Claygon, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“And that inspired me: you took a mana vampire into the university. And a little later, you had a fully operational war-golem. I might be a dropout, but I took enough alchemy classes to guess what you’d done. You did drain that mana vampire for your golem, right? After you pumped it full of raw energy from the mana vents?”

Alex cleared his throat. “Well, no point in trying to be coy, cuz…y’know…you were right there. Yeah, that’s what I did.”

She snapped her fingers. “I knew it! And I found that inspiring.”

Alex blinked. “Lots of people would have found it horrifying, I think…well, maybe less than I thought.” He remembered Baelin’s endless laughter at what he’d done to the mana vampire.

“Others might find it horrifying, but I found it inspiring: you took a terrible situation and turned it into gold. So, I decided to try and do the same. I had that seed money, and never wanted to be poor again.”

Alex nodded. “I can understand that. Boy can I ever understand that. So…then what’d you do with your coin? Invest it? Start funding a business? Thirty gold isn’t much to do that with.”

“I know.” She smiled wickedly. “And that’s why I gambled with it. On you.”

Silence fell. “What? Gambled on me? How?”

“Well, I was sitting on that coin for a good few months…” Lucia said. “And then imagine my surprise when I found out that some people—some people who defeated a mana vampire in their first year, and who also put down a monster incursion in the countryside—were going to enter the Games of Roal.”

“Oh…oh! Oooooooh!” Alex sat up straight. “You bet on us?”

“With every coin you gave me. It seemed poetic,” she chuckled, taking a long triumphant sip of her coffee. “There were lots of good teams in the Games last year. I didn’t usually pay much attention to them before, but when I heard that some students I’d taken to the Barrens one interesting night would be in them, things changed.”

Her eyes brimmed with malicious glee. “And you know what? They were almost all first years. The odds were against you for most of your events, despite the mana vampire and the incident in the countryside, but I’d seen just what you did to that mana vampire. So, I took those thirty gold coins and put everything on Khalik in the Duel by Proxy, and when he won, I won!”

Lucia’s smile grew wider. “And then I took what I’d won, and put it on you in your Duel by Proxy. And I won. I bet on your big shark friend in the Great Water Hunt. And won again. I didn’t bet on you in the Great Land Hunt, though. I didn’t bet on anybody in that event.”

Alex looked at her in surprise. “Yeah, we lost that one…lucky you didn’t bet. But why didn’t you?”

“Because I’d ferried Wolud Ranier a couple of times before,” she said. “One time, he and his friends were going back to campus after a night of drinking in town. On the way back, one of them said he’d lost his coin purse somewhere between the tavern and my boat. Ranier had me turn the boat around so he could go back and look for it. He actually found it in under five minutes. I don’t know how he did it, but that gave me enough doubt not to place the bet.”

“Good read,” Alex said, a little impressed. It seemed that Lucia had fairly good judgement.

“I was lucky,” Lucia admitted. “But I did put everything on your friends for the Grand Melee and I won again.”

Alex winced. “Did…did you bet on us in the Grand Battle?”

Lucia paused, almost in embarrassment. “No.”

“Damn good call, but why didn’t you bet on us?”

“I was there for your fight with Tyris Goldtooth. Vesuvius is a monster and I knew she’d be looking for you. The other teams also saw you as a threat, and if they ganged up… I didn’t know if youhad it in you tobeat them back then. So I didn’t bet.”

“That’s a relief!” Alex clapped. “You’ve got damned good judgement.”

“Maybe. I think it was more luck: I made a lot of money and got out. Haven’t gambled since,” she said. “Your thirty gold coin grew a couple of extra zeros behind it in a few days. But, that still wouldn’t have gone far in Generasi. So I left. Quit my job and went to the Rhinean Empire where funds go farther. A lot farther.”

Alex couldn’t help but admire her initiative, he was impressed. “Then you turned what you already had into a fortune, right?”

“Not at first. I took about a month to myself. Ate well, stayed in nice inns, went to beaches…I’d been living like a corpse. I needed to live again. After that, though? It was time to start making money. And that’s when you inspired me again.”

“How?”

“You and your friends faced those demons on Oreca’s Fall like some warriors out of legend. Everyone in the tournament did. So I decided to start facing my demons too. I was good at alchemy before the incident at the university and vowed I’d never touch it again. But what happens if we let out demons just stop our lives? And—Sorry, this is the first time I’m telling this story, do you mind?”

“No, not at all, this is crazy, keep going!” Alex said.

Lucia winced. “You know, I spent every year in that gondola wishing that everyone around me would just shut up. Now I’m the one that won’t shut up. Life is strange. Anyway, it took me a bit, but I managed to get a good alchemy set together and push through my fear enough to make some of the more simple potions I knew from school, once I got the rust off. And then I travelled, offering my services to places in the Empire that didn’t have access to an alchemist: the very rural areas. I worked cheap and built my reputation, once word got around, I charged more.”

She looked up at a painting of a caravel on rough seas hanging above a fireplace. “I hired assistants and we increased production, but I really hit it when I started working with your people: the Thameish folk living in the Empire. They needed services, and they had coin to spend. There were plenty of other merchants around, but not that many alchemists. And that’s when I realised something else. Lots of the Thameish wanted goods from Generasi…and I knew a little something about getting people and products from one place to the other. I’d already set up shipping for my own goods, so it was simple to create a merchant lane right from Generasi to the Thameish in the northern part of the Rhinean Empire.”

Lucia spread her hands. “And boom, business just exploded. I’ve added another zero to my fortune, and in a year or two, I hope to add another one.”

“That’s…that’s great!” Alex was excited for her. “I’m so happy you managed to turn your life around. Seriously, I mean…you just…transformed yourself. That’s pretty incredible!”

She laughed, surprising him. Even with her transformation, it still felt strange seeing her laugh. “Thank you, I think it’s incredible too. But I discovered one thing about myself: I like making coin more than I like making potions.”

“Fair enough, coin spends better…and uh, tends to be less volatile.”

“Depends on how you spend it,” she said, leaning forward. “Which brings me to why I wanted to meet with you. In a nutshell, you built a golem out of a mana vampire in your first year. Anyone with half a brain can see that you’re going to be a brilliant alchemist: are you planning to go into business? I heard you work for Shale in some high position now, and you bought that old bakery and started turning it around. You’ve obviously been making some money, are you thinking about crafting magical items for the market?”

Alex couldn’t fight the smile that bloomed on his face. “You could…say that.”

“Good. Well, I want to work with you to bring them to people,” she said simply. “I talked with your employee, Troy. He seemed very happy working for you, so I think you’d be good to work with. The arrangement would be simple: you make whatever you want and sell it, or let me sell it. In return, I become your exclusive shipping company. I’ve already purchased a caravel and I’m alchemically treating it to cut through the water as fast as anything.”

“Lowering friction?”

“Right. I also have routes, employees and guards that go right from the Thameish area in the Rhinean Empire, down to Port Mausarr. I have one warehouse, and I’m working on another. Business is growing, and I think my network would help you. In return for exclusivity, I’d lower my price. By a lot.”

“It almost sounds too good to be true.”

“I brought contracts as proof to confirm everything I told you, and I came back to Generasi on my ship. My staff are in other rooms here in the hotel. We’ll give you more proof than you’ll know what to do with.”

“Right…so you want me to make stuff, and you would bring it to buyers?”

“To people outside of Generasi. There’s an entire world out there that would benefit from alchemical items. It’s very rare that people can get their hands on things of that sort: in places with low ambient mana, you need a powerful wizard. But, what if we bring what people want directly to their homes?”

“It sounds like you’re talking about building an empire.” Alex leaned forward.

“Yes. Yes I am,” she said with growing excitement. “There are a few other merchant houses that ship Generasian products, but very few have a connection with an alchemist as proficient as you. If we do this, we could make a killing.”

“A lot of killings.” Alex stroked his chin, giving her proposal deep thought.

A part of him realised that—in some ways—what she was offering wouldn’t be necessary once he mastered the Traveller’s power: he could simply teleport his goods wherever he wanted.

But, on closer consideration, there was more value here than it appeared on the surface.

A plan began to form in his mind.

He could already hear stacks of gold clinking together.

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