The Gilded Veins of Fortune part 1

The Cost of Trust
Gallapa. The northern coast wind always smelled of salt, rust, and stale coin. Ships groaned against the docks as men shouted prices, curses, and lies in equal measure. If the Valeria had a heartbeat, it pulsed here — through the clinking of trade seals and the shuffle of hands exchanging gold.

I wasn’t looking for trouble that morning. I’d come to the docks to sell a few trinkets from my last venture — a chipped amulet, a claw from something that might’ve once been alive, and a crate of spices half-ruined by seawater. But trouble, as always, arrived early and loud.

A woman in crimson trade robes was shouting at a pair of city guards. Her voice carried over the harbor noise — sharp, furious, and desperate.

“You think I want compensation? The cargo was insured through the Consortium! You can’t expect me to pay tariffs for goods I don’t even have!”

The guards exchanged looks that said they’d rather be anywhere else. One shrugged and muttered something about “regulations.” The woman pressed her hands against her temples, as if trying to keep her head from splitting.

I don’t know why I stepped forward. Maybe boredom. Maybe curiosity. Maybe I’d just seen that look before — the look of someone losing everything to red tape.

“Rough morning?” I asked.

She glared at me, the way merchants do when they’re measuring a stranger’s worth. After a moment, her expression softened, just slightly.

“You could say that. Name’s Sera Denholm. My shipment was taken by bandits along the coastal road. Silverfin spices, whole shipment gone. The guards won’t lift a finger.”

“Because the Consortium won’t cover your losses unless you recover the cargo yourself,” I guessed.

She blinked, surprised. “You’ve dealt with them before.”

“Let’s just say I’ve been cheated by enough guilds to recognize their scent.”

That earned a small laugh — the kind you give someone who’s right but you wish wasn’t.

“There’s a cave near the cliffs east of here,” she said. “That’s where they stash stolen freight before selling it. If you can recover my goods, I’ll make it worth your while. And maybe… maybe the Consortium will notice your efficiency.”

I thought about it. Easy job, decent pay. I’d handled worse for less.

The cave wasn’t far, but it was damp and stank of salt rot and mold. I followed the tracks — boot prints and drag marks — to a narrow tunnel where a flicker of torchlight betrayed careless thieves. Three of them, drunk on their luck.

They didn’t see me until the first fell.

Steel and panic have a similar sound — that sharp intake of breath before everything turns to noise. When it was over, the torches kept burning, but no one was left to tend them.

The cargo crates were there, stamped with the sigil of the Gilded Consortium — twin scales balanced over a coin. The boxes were heavier than I expected, filled with pungent spice sealed in glass jars. Someone would’ve paid well for these, had I been a worse person.

But I wasn’t working for pirates. Not today.

By the time I returned to Gallapa, dusk had settled, and the gulls had gone quiet. Sera was pacing by her stall, wringing her hands like she expected bad news.

When she saw me dragging the crate, her eyes widened.
“You actually found them?”

“Bandits were careless,” I said. “You might want to label your shipments better. ‘Spices’ sounds too much like ‘quick coin.’”

She laughed softly, then exhaled in relief.
“You’ve done more than the guards ever did. I owe you.”

She gestured toward a tall man watching from the shadows beneath a canvas awning — thin, clean-shaven, wearing the layered blue silks of an upper guild factor.
“That’s Dalen Morra. My superior. He’ll want to meet you.”

Morra approached with the quiet confidence of someone used to control. His eyes were pale, calculating, but not unkind.

“You’re the one who retrieved Denholm’s shipment,” he said. “Most freelancers wouldn’t bother unless there was coin in it.”

“There was,” I replied. “But the job was cleaner than I expected. Your seals were untouched. Bandits didn’t even break them.”

Morra tilted his head. “Interesting. Then they weren’t after the cargo. They were after us.”

He smiled faintly, as though that thought amused him more than it should.

“Gallapa needs capable hands. And the Consortium rewards loyalty… and discretion. Come by the counting house tomorrow. Let’s see if your talents can turn a profit.”

He handed me a stamped document — a minor trade permit, embossed with the gold seal of the Gilded Consortium— allowing me to buy and sell among Consortium merchants.

As I walked away, the sea wind caught the paper, making it flutter like a fragile promise.

The Consortium’s doors are open for me, and their eyes are watching.

I told myself it was just business. But deep down, I already knew — the Gilded Consortium dealt in more than cargo and coin.

They dealt in secrets. And I’d just delivered my first one.

Cargo of Shadows
Gallapa’s docks never sleep. Even at night, you can hear the cranes creak and the sea hiss against the hulls — the empire’s heartbeats counted in coin and cargo. I was beginning to learn that every crate carried a secret, and some were heavier than others.

Factor Dalen Morra summoned me again, his expression calm as a pond’s surface — but I could see the ripples beneath. “One of our ships, The Silver Gull, docked last night,” he told me. “Paperwork says textiles. My instincts say trouble. Check the manifests. Quietly.”

So I did.

The manifest scrolls smelled of salt and ink — hundreds of lines, each declaring “honest goods.” But one line stood out: Shipment Eastwind — destination: undisclosed. The wax seal beside it was wrong. Too fresh. Too… nervous.

When I confronted the warehouse foreman, he tried to look busy stacking crates that didn’t need stacking. Sweat ran down his temple faster than his lies did. “Must be a clerical error,” he said. I’ve heard more convincing lines from a drunk bard.

Following the trail through the back storerooms, I found it — a heavy crate shoved behind sacks of salt, faintly glowing through its seams. The sigil burned with a subtle pulse of arcane residue. Inside was a sealed chest — carved mahogany, branded Eastwind Trading Company.

Only one problem: Eastwind went bankrupt five years ago.

Before I could open it, I heard footsteps — heavy boots, purposeful. A pair of dockhands entered, pretending to carry manifests but gripping daggers under their sleeves. I didn’t stay long enough to see which reached for me first.

By the time I brought the chest to Dalen Morra, he was already waiting — as if he knew. He inspected the cargo for only a moment before snapping the lid shut again.

“You didn’t see this,” he said, tone smooth but firm. “Captain Braska Carnege — pirate broker. He’s been using counterfeit Consortium seals to move goods. But let’s not make waves where the tide runs deep, yes?”

He slid me a small pouch of gold and a key stamped with the guild’s insignia — a Guild Ledger Key, meant for vaults I wasn’t supposed to know existed.

I walked away wondering how deep this “quiet” conspiracy really went — and whether Morra’s calm smile hid loyalty or complicity.

The Pirate’s Ledger
Dalen Morra handed me a sealed envelope before I even spoke. “Cindar’s Rest,” he said. “Bring me the ledger. Don’t read it. Don’t die.”

That was all the briefing I got. Typical.

Cindar’s Rest was a graveyard of sails — jagged masts rising from the surf like bones. The island reeked of tar, rum, and regret. I tied my skiff to a half-sunken dock and climbed through the fog. The lighthouse loomed ahead, its upper lantern long shattered, now a nest for gulls and ghosts alike.

The pirates had turned the ruins into their lair. Broken crates and burnt timbers littered the sand, and between them, faint red runes pulsed — etched into wood, metal, even bone. I brushed my fingers across one; it hummed, alive with the same kind of wrongness I’d felt during the smuggling job. Inked contracts — maybe even bound souls.

“Deals even death can’t break,” Morra had said. I was starting to understand.

I slipped past the first few sentries — drunk and half-asleep near a fire pit — but the deeper I went, the clearer it became: these weren’t the swaggering kind of pirates. They were scared. The air hung heavy with something watching.

And then, I found him.

Captain Braska Carnege — the infamous broker himself — slouched against a throne made of driftwood and stolen gold. He grinned when he saw me, teeth like broken coins.

“The guild thought they could buy my silence. But I’ve made a better bargain. My partner keeps his promises… in blood and coin alike!” Braska said.

The air split. Runes flared across the floorboards. A shadow clawed its way out of the cracks, dragging barnacles and gold chains. A demon — bloated and sea-slick, its voice like waves crashing in reverse. “All debts… must be paid.”

Braska tried to command it, waving a talisman like a leash — but the demon only laughed before it swallowed him whole.

The fight that followed was a blur of fire and seawater. The creature fought like the tide — relentless, pulling me down again and again. But when I drove my blade through its heart, it screamed like a storm breaking. Its body shattered into ash and molten coin, scattering across the wet stone. I picked up its sword, a cutlass with engraving that read Cindar. Who was Cindar? Just another mystery I didn’t know yet.

When the light faded, the runes stopped glowing. The island felt empty again — quiet, almost mournful.

I found the ledger among the wreckage: sharkskin cover, damp pages that shimmered faintly with residual enchantment. Some entries shifted when I looked at them, like they were alive — names written in contracts bound to something darker than gold.

I didn’t linger.

Back in Gallapa, Dalen Morra listened in silence. He didn’t even blink when I mentioned the demon. Just took the ledger, wiped dust from its cover, and tucked it into a drawer that already looked too full of secrets.

“We trade in everything,” he murmured, “even faith and folly. Forget the island. Cindar’s Rest was never on any map.”

He handed me a dagger — curved and elegant, the kind meant for silencing whispers — and enough coin to keep me quiet. For now.

The Price of Secrets
Dalen Morra called me into his office after sundown. The shutters were closed, the lamps low, and even the smell of ink seemed subdued — as if the room itself knew to keep quiet.

He didn’t offer a chair. Just stared at a single candle flame like it held the whole world’s balance.

“Something’s gone wrong in the Consortium,” he said finally. “And not the usual kind of wrong. I need proof before the Inquisition finds it first.”

He slid a key across the table — small, bronze, heavy. “Seymor’s private study. Tonight.”

No explanations, no denials, just that same cold calculation in his eyes. I pocketed the key and left before he could change his mind.

The Merchant Hall
Gallapa’s Merchant Hall looked different at night. By day, it shone like the empire’s pride — glass domes, marble floors, coins clinking in every corridor. But under moonlight, it was a carcass. The gold filigree caught torchlight like veins of fire, and the silence pressed in until even my boots sounded guilty.

The guards outside Seymor’s door didn’t stop me. One nodded, almost imperceptibly — as though someone had already paid for my passage.

The lock turned smooth and silent. Inside, incense hung in the air, sweet and cloying… but beneath it, something else. Sulfur. The kind of smell that sticks to your soul more than your clothes.

Faint red sigils crawled across the marble when I raised a light spell — nearly invisible otherwise. They pulsed, like veins. Like the floor itself was bleeding gold.

Seymor’s desk was immaculate — of course it was. Nothing in the drawers but perfectly balanced ledgers, each line a lie written in pristine ink. But one loose board under the carpet gave way when I stepped on it. Beneath, I found the first real truth.

The Coded Letters
Dozens of letters, tied together with red thread. They weren’t written in normal ink — the words shimmered when I turned them under the candlelight, rearranging themselves like they didn’t want to be read.

The name “Ashen Broker” appeared more than once. I’d heard that title before, murmured in taverns by smugglers who’d drunk past fear. A demon of bargains, they said. He’d give a man wealth for years of his life, trading days like coins until there was nothing left to spend.

The letters called it “The Exchange of Flesh and Fortune.”

Even now, my hands feel cold remembering that phrase.

The Hidden Archive
A crack behind the bookshelf caught my attention — a false seam that opened into darkness. Beyond it, a stairwell spiraled downward into the buried bones of the old city beneath Gallapa.

The air changed the deeper I went. Damp stone gave way to something older — walls carved with merchant crests twisted into monstrous shapes. The echo of my steps didn’t sound human.

And then I found it: the archive.

Shelves lined with black-bound ledgers, their covers pulsing faintly like heartbeats. The ink on their spines shimmered when I passed — alive and watching.

At the far end of the vault sat a chest sealed with black wax and gold thread. Its lock bore the same sigil I’d seen in the coded letters.

When I touched it, the seal broke.

And something stepped out.

The Bound Scribe
It wasn’t flesh and blood; it was paper and ink and whispering madness, shaped like a man but hollow, its body written with trade oaths and pacts.

“Good evening. I am The Bound Scribe. Profit is peace… and peace is debt unpaid…” the creature bellowed.

It attacked with razor-thin quills that hissed like serpents. Every strike carried a whisper — contracts I couldn’t understand, languages older than the empire.

I drove my blade through its chest and watched ink spill like blood. The thing screamed — a thousand voices at once — then collapsed into a heap of ash and torn parchment.

Among the remains, one page survived: Seymor’s signature,is name bound beside the seal of the Ashen Broker.

Proof enough to hang a man. Or damn a guild.