Business was fantastic in the capitol, that's for sure. Whether I was milking the bourgeoisie of their riches with trinkets or inflated security consultations, every day felt like a successful one. I had made a name for myself in the next forty years to the point that I found myself inundated with requests on a daily basis. I often faced some difficult decisions among the people who competed for my time. But this didn't always mean I was financially secure. I had unfortunately acquired a bit of a dangerous gambling habit that left me broke between jobs. When my wallet was lean, I would be forced to ignore the people who really needed me in favor of the clients who paid better. This is how the first step to my defining achievement came to be.
...
I would have taken all of the jobs I was given if I could, but the fact that I couldn't never became more clear than during the Archknight Rebellion. Seth Ryan, one of the Mages of Destiny, came to me one night after the store closed and tried to hire me to rescue a group of refugees that Templars had plucked from Katrine, but he wasn't offering much. On the other hand, I was already making plans to complete a commission piece for a wealthy client. I was to embed some rubies into a leather collar for her pet.
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Yes, I had figured what she meant, considering the size she requested. The problem was, I was no leatherworker, so I would have to commission someone else to make the collar, then attach the stones. Rents were due the next week and I couldn't dig up two chips to rub together. So, I'm sure you can imagine which job I chose to focus on.
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Well, I can tell you I never heard the end of it. Some girl from Katrine who had grown sweet on one of the refugees stormed into my shop when she heard I would be making the collar instead of helping her friends. Her name was Moruay Rainwalker and she was the daughter of an ambassador of Katrine. I would have thrown her out of the shop, but in the course of her ranting to me about how many more people could have made the collar than helped with the refugees' plight, she revealed something useful. She herself was a leatherworker who was more than capable of taking the job. It was then that the solution to this dilemma clicked. Maybe if I had a little more help, there wouldn't be any reason I couldn't do both. Why take her abuse, I told her, when we could help each other?
...
So I gave her some money for supplies and lent her my shop to complete my commission while promising to look into the refugee crisis. As it turned out, templars under Royal Command, had raided the island following a tip that the Mages of Destiny had been seen there. There had been a minor skirmish with an offshoot group called the Holy Key Knights who were forerunners of the Goodwill Company. That caused the templars to lose their shit and arrest a shit ton of people. Locals, refugees, Key Knights and, unfortunately, the Second Archknight were rounded up and held in a prison ark anchored a mile off the coast of Karatal. This made the source of the Mage's desperation clear. I had previously told him that I couldn't be bothered to save his brother.
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I know. If Moruay hadn't changed my mind, we'd be living in a different world by now to be sure. Not that I was particularly moved by his cause at the time. The Geosian Regime was terrible in plenty of ways to the truly living, but there was no better time to be a sai'mul in Resta. By the time the Second Archknight came along, we were making the decision to stay here in droves and the Geosians supported this notion because crying to Salica about how lonely we are without the gods wasn't necessarily part of their expectations for us.
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I'm not defending them. I'm only saying that sai'mul benefited from their reign. Before they came along, we never had anything resembling a community in our own homeland. We were more connected to the people of Resta back then because the Geosians were more willing to tolerate our existence there.
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Well, I took the job for the same reason I take most of my jobs. To me, it didn't matter that the Mages of Destiny weren't rich. I had a service that I particularly enjoyed providing and they had something to trade for it. I made their mentor, who is now our king, Kyle Baldus swear to preserve the progress that the sai'mul had made in Restan society under his enemies before signing the contract. With that, I gathered some people to steal a templar ship and sailed to this prison ark, The Sundial.
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Now, the people I'd gathered to help me weren't exceptional fighters by any measure, but they were good for sailing the ship and worked within our budget. I had the Mages of Destiny at my back, and they were some help, but I ended up doing a lot of the heavy lifting. While I held the attention of the prison guards, those kids did some sneaking around until they could free the Archknight. Fortunately, that fool boy decided that he wanted to spring everyone. So, we found ourselves fighting the Geosians for control of the ship. Once we had it, the Archknight pulled up its anchor and ran it aground somewhere on Resta's north shore while I returned the smaller vessel we had stolen.
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After everything that had happened there, I had honestly forgotten about being paid. That job was one hell of an exhilarating experience. When I returned to my store, I was more interested in seeing if my other job was complete. Moruay had managed to put everything together according to my client's wishes far more quickly than I had ever pictured. She had even taken the liberty of attempting to set the stones for me. That bit was sloppily done, though. I had to fix that.
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She was thrilled to hear that the man she was waiting to hear from was safe and considered the work she did for me to be a small price to pay for his return. They got together after the Archknight Rebellion was over and moved into the city to be with him. This left her in need of work and living close to someone who was already familiar with her skills. So, I hired my first employee in hopes of expanding my business and ensuring no one ever had to go without help again.
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