Chương 41: Chapter 40 - Desperation

A few days after Lord Grivalt had handed over his portion of the investment to the enterprising merchant, which they were guessing constituted the bulk of his remaining wealth, Dustin suggested they begin opening up the competing businesses to stymie Lord Grivalt's ability to generate income. To help preserve the business relationship for now, he had suggested they open those businesses under a third party name, something that couldn't be traced back to House Yountal.

For the time being, it was better if Lord Grivalt still considered them as allies. Kiara had loved the idea, and Dustin moved forward with it quickly. By the end of the week, the storefronts were purchased, and employees were stocking the shelves. They would open the first of the following week. At the academy, Kiara won two of her spars that week, which she was proud of. She ended the week with 28 points, and was no longer the bottom of the class.

She made improvements in her mastery of Wind Form and Air Form, but wasn't quite to the point yet of feeling like they were second nature. They still didn't fit quite perfectly into her mental schematic of the other four sword forms that she had mastered. They also received their first weekly update from the entrepreneur whose dream venture they had funded. A copy of the same letter had been delivered to Lord Grivalt, as he was one of the only two investors involved. Greetings, House Yountal and House Grivalt.

I hope and expect that this letter finds you all in good health. As promised, a summary of the week's progress is contained herein. The expedition moved forward as expected the first two days out of Easton. Our planned route took us to the war-contested region of Lowmarsh, where conditions were worse than expected. We unfortunately lost one wagon in an unavoidable accident, and had to leave it behind. Not to worry!

We purchased another at the next town, which only used a small portion of the funds we had originally planned for acquiring sellable goods. The original route, however, now seems untenable. We will work our way north, away from Lowmarsh, and move through Westfall instead. The new route should only add an extra week or so to the journey, and we expect to make healthy progress in the upcoming days. I will write again a week from today.

The additional travel distance for the courier to traverse may delay your receipt of that letter by an additional day or two. Your partner in business, Damian Tenor Dustin had seemed rather pleased with the contents of the letter. He had excitedly explained to Kiara that the extra travel time and wasted funds would both urge Lord Grivalt towards desperation, as he was relying heavily on this investment panning out as planned. Sure enough, a few days after that letter, they received one from Lord Grivalt as well.

It was addressed directly to Shian, rather than Dustin. Lady Yountal, Having transacted previously in the matter of purchasing servant debts from my estate, I wanted to provide an updated list of possible servants that you might wish to purchase. Let us know if any of these names catch your eye.

Mickey Hansen, age 29 Ronald Dunsun, age 43 Jeffrey Thrawn, age 41 Jace Thrawn, age 19 Joseph Norton, age 25 Spencer Dentin, age 28 Lance Brighton, age 22 Gentry Dunsun, age 42 (and male child age 3, Gabriel) Elisa Hansen, age 25 Selena Thrawn, age 59 Candice Thrawn, age 18 The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Jen Forthright, age 40 Elsa Forthright, age 19 Avery Forthright, age 17 All the best, Lord Grivalt Dustin had studied that letter for quite some time, with a look of consternation on his face. Kiara eventually asked him what was wrong.

"A lot," he said. He breathed in deeply and sighed. He pointed to the name Candice Thrawn in the letter.

"The Thrawn family was one that I looked into last time. I learned they had a young daughter at the estate too, so we passed on them to avoid splitting up the family. Now he's including her here."

"That's a good thing, right?" Kiara asked.

"Now we can pay off their debts and free them from the Grivalt estate?" He nodded.

"Good for them, yes. I'm concerned about why her name was left off the list last time in the first place." Kiara froze. She hadn't thought too deeply yet about what criteria Lord Grivalt might be using to determine which names to put on the list. Why keep a young woman at the estate when her entire family was being offered for sale? Why wasn't Ava's name included on this list when the rest of Kiara's family was? Dustin watched her closely for her reaction.

After a moment, he interrupted her thoughts with another comment.

"Another concern is how many names he's including on the list now. This is more than half of the servants he has left. What would happen if we purchased all of these debts?" It was a good question. One that merited consideration. Lord Grivalt was unlikely to let his estate fall apart, which meant he would likely conscript new servants from the lands under his rule. He could jump up fake charges against them like he had with Kiara, and force them into indentured servitude like he had her family.

Was this approach they had taken hurting innocent people? It was certainly helping the ones they rescued, but they might be inadvertently harming others on the back end of things. By pumping money into this system, they were offering Lord Grivalt incentive to continue enslaving his people. Kiara shuddered. She reminded herself of the long term goal here. To break Grivalt's finances to the point that he had to answer to Baron Norshod himself.

The Baron was the only one that could truly take away his power, by removing him from a position of authority. That would likely only happen if Grivalt fell behind on his own taxes. Buying servants from his estate didn't necessarily help further that goal. It was really only the fastest way to rescue her own family, but not all of them were included in the proffered list. Once they were, she would certainly move forward to rescue them, but in the meantime they had to stay focused on taking him down instead.

She briefly considered again heading over there in person and putting her improved fighting skills to use, but she knew that would only lead to bigger problems. If she took matters into her own hands like that, unprovoked, then she would have to answer to Baron Norshod herself, which was far beyond her capacity right now. They decided not to pay off any more servant debts for now, and sent a simple reply letter to Lord Grivalt indicating such.

Kiara found herself tracking the passage of time based on the semester at the academy, as she spent a good chunk of time there every day. In week four of the semester, she won another two spars, and was able to teach at the beginner's class twice. She ended the week with 39 points. She was only a few points behind Ron, who had 43. He was winning one or two spars each week.

While that was impressive, considering they were both fairly new to the intermediate class, she hadn't noticed nearly as much progress from him as she had experienced herself. He had been winning that many since week 1, while it was a new experience for her. She figured she had now passed him in skill, if only just barely. She idly wondered if they sparred ten times now, how many matches she would win. She hoped to catch up to him in points soon as well.

The second letter from the merchant entrepreneur arrived one day late, as he had predicted in the previous letter. Dustin was once again very happy with the contents. To House Yountal and House Grivalt. Greetings from Westfall. The past week saw us move further north, as expected. An unexpected bandit attack took us by surprise. Our small group was easily overpowered, and most of our meager belongings were taken.

Luckily, they didn't think to check the inner lining of my undergarments, where I always keep my storage ring, which currently holds the funds for our expedition. The event taught me the valuable lesson of always traveling with protection. We have hired a large mercenary guard group to accompany us as we travel further west. The cost of the guards is high, but I'm sure you'll agree that it's much less expensive than losing the entire investment to a future attack.

The money going to the guard unit will impact the final profit margins that we all originally anticipated, but it's a necessary expense,, as you can see. No delays presented themselves this week, other than the single day we lost to the bandit raid. I do, however, wonder how much additional time we will lose returning south to the port of Herendall once we reach the coast. I remain cautiously optimistic for our final outcome. I'll provide an update next week.

Damian Tenor Not surprisingly, Lord Grivalt wrote to her a few days after, asking if she had reconsidered purchasing any additional servants from him. He confessed in the letter that an unknown competitor had opened in the wine market, and admitted that his finances were tighter than he would like. The hiccups in their large investment venture had him searching for ways to recoup some of his losses, and he hoped that 'his dear friends at House Yountal' would consider helping him out 'just this once.'

Dustin did some digging, and found that Baron Norshod collected taxes at the end of each month from the lesser nobles under him. With the month end approaching, he suspected that Lord Grivalt was feeling the pressure financially. He cautioned her that her response might carry more weight than she intended right now. She decided that this might be the perfect opportunity to get her family out from under his wicked thumb. If he was feeling the pressure, then she might be able to leverage that to her advantage.