The Fool's gilded dream part 3
Lord Barrett stood in the flickering torchlight of a secret trading post on the edge of the Silt-Pass. Across from him sat a man known only as The Broker—a smuggler who specialized in moving things that didn't officially exist.
"I need passage for three hundred crates," Barrett hissed, slamming a heavy, glowing gold bar onto the table. The metal was so soft it slightly deformed against the wood. "And I need a mercenary cohort to escort them. Payment is upfront. This bar alone could buy your entire fleet of wagons."
The Broker didn't reach for the gold. Instead, he pulled a small, glass vial of blue liquid from his vest and poured a single drop onto the bar.
The gold didn't react. It didn't sizzle. But the blue liquid turned a sickly, muddy brown.
"I can't take this, My Lord," The Broker said, his voice flat.
Barrett froze. "What? It's pure. It's four nines! It's the highest grade in the hemisphere!"
"It's 'contraband grade,' is what it is," The Broker replied, pushing the bar back toward Barrett with two fingers. "The morning heralds just arrived from the capital. King Leornars has issued an Emergency Currency Reclassification. Any gold found without the High Spire's official mana-stamp is officially labeled 'Alchemical Dross'—hazardous counterfeit."
"Counterfeit?!" Barrett's face turned a violent shade of purple. "I dug this from the heart of the Iron-Spine myself! It's more real than the coins in your pocket!"
"In this Empire, reality is whatever Leornars puts a decimal point behind," The Broker countered. "He's just flooded the district with 'Government Gold'—low-grade alloy that looks exactly like this. He's crashed the price. Right now, in the Southern markets, a pound of this stuff won't even buy you a loaf of stale bread. People are using it as doorstops."
The Weight of Nothing
Barrett staggered back, his hands trembling. "He... he can't. He doesn't have the authority to change the laws of physics!"
"He didn't change physics, My Lord. He changed the ledger," The Broker said, standing up to leave. "Copper is the only thing the mercenaries are accepting now. If you want to move those crates, I'll need forty tons of copper. Otherwise, you're just a man sitting on a pile of very heavy rocks."
"Wait!" Barrett lunged forward, grabbing another bar. "I have millions! Millions!"
"You have a mountain of debt," The Broker said over his shoulder. "The Auditor didn't just devalue your gold; he put a 'Seizure-on-Sight' bounty on it. Anyone caught holding this specific purity grade is being charged with Economic Sabotage. If I were you, I'd start running before the Black Phoenix guards follow the glow."
The Auditor's Shadow
Barrett fell to his knees in the dirt, clutching the gold bar to his chest. It was warm—almost mocking him with its stored sunlight.
"Three hundred million..." he whispered, his voice breaking. "I was a King..."
The hidden warehouse beneath the Silt-Pass was a cathedral of light, filled with stacked bars of gold that reached toward the damp ceiling. But inside, the air tasted of salt and terror.
"What do you mean it's worthless?!"
Lord Barrett's scream cracked, echoing off the metallic walls. He grabbed a handful of a messenger's tunic, shaking the man until his teeth rattled. "It's gold! It's the foundation of the world! It is the blood of the earth itself!"
"Not anymore, My Lord!" the messenger stammered, his eyes wide with panic. "The decree... it came from the High Spire. King Leornars Servs Avrem has declared all raw gold from this sector 'toxic contraband.' He's flooded the markets with alchemical fakes. The merchants won't touch it. They say it's a 'biological and economic hazard'!"
Barrett let go, stumbling back against a pile of his treasure. The gold felt cold against his skin. "That's impossible... he can't just change what value is!"
"He did, sir! Copper is the new trade standard for the quarter. They're calling gold 'the fool's stone.' You're... you're poorer than the beggars at the gate, My Lord. You're holding three hundred million units of dead weight."
A sudden, rhythmic thud vibrated through the floorboards. It wasn't the sound of a battering ram; it was the sound of authority.
The heavy iron doors didn't shatter—they simply folded inward, the metal groaning as if the atmospheric pressure had suddenly tripled. Through the settling dust, a silhouette emerged, sharp and unyielding.
The Audit Begins
Leornars stepped into the warehouse, his silver-buckled boots clicking softly on the stone. Flanking him were Stacian, clutching a ledger, and Avryl, who looked like she was suppressed a yawn of pure boredom. Behind them, the violet eyes of the Imperial Golems flickered in the dark, their massive forms casting shadows that swallowed the gold's glow.
"Lord Barrett," Leornars said, his voice a calm, terrifying murmur. "I see you've been busy with your 'retirement.' My office was concerned you'd find yourself bored without your mills."
Barrett looked up, his face a mask of sweat and soot. "You... you demon. You did this. You broke the world's logic just to spite me!"
"Spite is an emotional variable, Barrett. I don't use it in my equations," Leornars replied, stepping toward a stack of bars. "I simply audited your new venture. It seems you are in possession of three hundred million units of illegal, unregistered contraband. This is a severe breach of the National Resource Act."
"It's mine! I dug it! I bled for it!" Barrett shrieked. He lunged for a gold bar on the floor, his fingers clawing at the metal as if it could save him.
Thwack.
In a blur of motion, Avryl's boot connected with Barrett's chest. The sound of air leaving his lungs was sharp. She pinned him to the floor with a single foot, leaning forward with a predatory glint in her eyes. "The Auditor is speaking, maggot. If you interrupt him again, I'll subtract your tongue from your face."
The Final Ledger
Leornars picked up a bar of gold, turning it over in his hand. The light reflected off his cold, silver eyes.
"You intended to use this to build a throne," Leornars said, looking down at the broken man. "You wanted to isolate yourself from the math of the world, to exist in a space where my laws couldn't reach you. But you forgot one thing."
Barrett wheezed, his eyes bulging. "What...?"
"The world is my ledger. And there are no blank pages."
Leornars turned to Stacian. "Now that the merchant is in custody and the 'contamination' has been successfully contained, issue a secondary decree. Restore gold's value to the national standard immediately. Declare the alchemical gold 'recalled' due to stability issues."
Stacian's pen flew across his scroll. "And the disposition of these assets, My Lord?"
"Transfer the entire deposit to the Avangard Social Fund," Leornars commanded. "This gold will fund five hundred new orphanages and the total emancipation of the slave-markets in the neutral zones. It appears Barrett's greed has just fed an entire generation."
"You... you're a monster," Barrett wheezed from under Avryl's boot. "You stole my life's work for a charity project?"
"No," Leornars said, dropping the gold bar back onto the pile with a dismissive clang. He turned to leave as the Golems began to haul away the crates. "I am the Auditor. And your debt to society has finally been paid in full. With interest."
As they stepped out of the cavern into the crisp morning air, the sun was just beginning to crest over the foothills. Leornars paused, taking a breath of the cool wind.
"Stacian, update the projections for the Southern districts," he said, adjusting his gloves. "The poverty rate should drop by 4\% by next Tuesday. It seems Lord Barrett was a very 'productive' citizen after all. See that he gets a nice, damp cell with a view of a copper mine."
Stacian bowed. "A fitting irony, My Lord."