"Tell me what you just muttered under your breath, old man, or I will have the guards throw your remaining good hand into the industrial furnace," Ghina said, leaning forward until the shadow of her wide leather hat completely blocked the flickering gaslight.
Richter slowly dropped to his knees, letting his wooden staff clatter against the dirty stone floor of the warehouse office. He cradled his deformed, rigid right hand against his chest, chest heaving as if he were completely paralyzed by terror. He forced his body to shake, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the polished tips of her high leather boots.
"I said nothing against you, merciful mistress," Richter whimpered, his voice cracking perfectly into a high, pathetic wheeze. "I was only repeating the inventory numbers. My head is slow. The heat in the lower docks makes my mind spin."
Ghina scoffed, tapping her leather whip against her palm with a sharp, rhythmic sound that echoed off the damp iron walls. "Your mind better not spin when it comes to my cargo. Galileo is raising the transit taxes again, and I do not have the patience to deal with an incompetent, crippled dog."
"I can help you increase the revenue, mistress," Richter said softly, keeping his tone hesitant and small.
Ghina paused, her hand freezing in mid-air. She stared down at the ragged, dirt-caked figure kneeling before her, a look of profound disbelief crossing her sharp features. "You? A pathetic beggar who can barely drag his own leg across the courtyard? What could you possibly know about increasing transit revenue?"
"My father used to be a low-level clerk for the old excavation guilds, mistress," Richter murmured, letting his chin drop toward his chest to look as submissive as possible. "Before he passed away in the deeper tunnels, he always talked about a hidden reserve. A secret vault containing pure, unprocessed Cruor fluid."
Ghina took a step closer, the tip of her leather whip pressing firmly against the center of Richter's forehead, forcing him to look up. "If you are lying to me to save yourself from a beating, I will personally ensure you never walk again. What kind of reserve?"
"It is an official emergency cache, mistress," Richter explained, his eyes widening to project an image of genuine, naive fear. "The old guilds buried it before Galileo took over the sector. It is worth thousands of gold sovereigns. My father left me the specific coordinates and the mechanical decryption keys. He told me it was the only thing of value he ever possessed."
"Why didn't you dig it up yourself if you knew where it was?" Ghina asked, her eyes narrowing as her sharp mind began to calculate the immense economic value of the claim.
"Look at me, mistress," Richter whispered, gesturing weakly with his deformed, clawed right fingers. "I am too weak to turn an iron wrench, let alone dig through the heavy iron-reinforced foundations of the lower sectors. If I went there alone, the scrap thieves would murder me for the clothes on my back. But you have men. You have the power to claim it."
Ghina slowly lowered her whip, her expression shifting from irritation to an intense, calculating curiosity. She walked over to her heavy oak desk, her fingers tapping against a leather-bound ledger. The financial pressure from Galileo's corporate monopoly was growing heavier every day, and the prospect of an independent, untaxed source of raw Cruor material was exactly the miracle she needed to save her smuggling route from total bankruptcy.
"If this cache truly exists, it could change everything," Ghina muttered, speaking more to herself than to the servant kneeling before her. She turned around, her gaze locking onto Richter with a predatory intensity. "Where exactly is this vault located?"
"It is buried beneath the abandoned pumping station at the edge of the southern drainage canal, mistress," Richter replied, shifting his weight to make his rigid back look stiff and awkward. "But the outer security door is locked with an old mechanical pressure system. It cannot be forced open with regular explosives. It requires a specific fluid-pressure sequence that only my father's notes can unlock."
"And where are these notes now?" Ghina demanded, her tone becoming increasingly urgent as her greed took complete control of her judgment.
Richter reached into the deepest folds of his tattered burlap cloak, using his left hand to draw out a small, heavily stained notebook. The pages were yellowed and brittle, covered in complex mathematical formulas and precise mechanical drawings of steam valves. He had carefully prepared the fake document during his lonely nights in the iron crate, using his old engineering knowledge to create a completely fictional vault blueprint that looked absolutely authentic to an amateur observer.
"They are right here, mistress," Richter said, extending the small book with a trembling hand. "I can decode the sequence for your men whenever you are ready to begin the excavation."
Ghina snatched the notebook from his grip, flipping through the pages with frantic speed. Her eyes widened as she recognized the technical symbols of the old excavation guilds, symbols that had completely vanished from the market since Galileo had established his corporate empire. She didn't see a trap; she only saw an immense mountain of gold that could buy her complete independence from the Upper Docks.
"This is incredible," Ghina whispered, a slow, triumphal smile breaking across her face. She looked down at Richter, her condescension returning tenfold as she realized how easily she could exploit this helpless creature. "You really are a stupid, grateful fool, aren't you? You are giving away a fortune just for a few scraps of bread."
"A dead man cannot spend gold, mistress," Richter replied, lowering his head until his forehead almost touched the floor. "I only want a safe place to sleep and enough food to survive the winter. If the mistress is wealthy, then Richter will be safe."
Ghina laughed loudly, a cruel, mocking sound that echoed through the dark office space. "Yes, you will be very safe under my protection. From now on, you answer only to me. You will move your things into the small storage room directly behind my private quarters. I don't want any of the other scrapper crews seeing you or asking you questions about these formulas."
"Thank you, mistress," Richter whimpered, scrambling to pick up his wooden staff as he prepared to leave. "I will do exactly as you command."
"Go back to the warehouse floor and finish sorting the iron bolts for now," Ghina ordered, dismissively waving her hand as she sat back down at her desk, her attention already completely absorbed by the technical drawings in the notebook. "I will call for you when the midnight shift begins."
Richter bowed multiple times, dragging his right foot heavily across the stone floor as he exited the office. The moment the heavy iron door clicked shut behind him, the pathetic, trembling expression on his face vanished completely. His eyes grew cold and sharp, reflecting the dull green glow of the overhead steam lamps that lined the dark corridor.
He walked down the long hallway, exaggerating his limp whenever he passed one of Ghina's armed guards, but his mind was fully focused on the mathematical execution of his plan. Ghina's greed had blinded her to the most basic logical flaw in the story: an old excavation clerk would never have had access to high-grade Cruor storage keys. But because she was being suffocated by Galileo's rising transit taxes, she was willing to believe any lie that offered a quick escape from her financial ruin.
"She is completely hooked," Richter thought, his lips straightening into a firm, unyielding line as he entered the dark storage warehouse. "She is already planning how to use the treasure to bypass Galileo's network."
Over the next several days, the dynamic within the distribution center shifted precisely according to Richter's design. Ghina began to ignore the routine shipping reports from Galileo's district managers, frequently canceling her scheduled meetings with the high-tier corporate couriers. She spent hours locked in her office, studying the fake notebook and demanding that Richter explain the intricate pressure mechanics of the southern drainage systems.
"The pressure valves must be opened in a perfect counter-clockwise sequence, mistress," Richter explained during one of their late-night sessions, pointing a dirty finger at a fictional diagram. "If the pressure drops below three atmospheres, the inner storage tanks will self-destruct, destroying the raw Cruor fluid instantly."
"Then we will proceed with absolute caution," Ghina stated, her fingers tightening around her gold quill. She looked up at her enforcer, who was standing by the door with a worried expression. "Cancel the payment for the Sector 9 locks this week. We need to divert all our available capital to hire extra digging crews for the southern canal."
"But mistress," the enforcer countered, stepping forward anxiously. "If we withhold the transit taxes, Galileo will notice immediately. His elite enforcers will come down to investigate our warehouses."
"Let them come," Ghina sneered, her voice full of an arrogant, unearned confidence. "By the time they realize what we are doing, we will already have enough raw Cruor to buy our own private security force. We won't need to beg Galileo for permission to operate in this city anymore."
Richter stood quietly in the corner, his tattered cloak concealing the slow, dark satisfaction that was building within his chest. Ghina was completely cutting herself off from her primary business connections, alienating the very corporate powers that kept her syndicate safe from total destruction. She was wrapping the rope around her own neck, completely convinced that the helpless, crippled slave beside her was the one holding the other end.
"You are moving too fast, Ghina," Richter thought, his eyes tracking the frantic movements of her pen across the financial ledgers. "You are spending money you don't have, based on a treasure that doesn't exist."
The economic impact of her decisions was immediate. Within a week, the lower docks were buzzing with rumors that Ghina's syndicate was preparing for a massive relocation project. The local laborers were being paid double to move heavy excavation equipment toward the southern borders, drawing the attention away from the northern shipping lanes. Ghina was entirely focused on the golden bait, completely unaware that her aggressive, erratic movements were creating a massive wave of instability within the criminal underworld of Aethelgard.
On the fifth night of the preparations, Ghina called Richter into her private chambers, her desk covered in official legal documents and financial contracts. Her face was pale from lack of sleep, but her eyes burned with a frantic, desperate energy that bordered on madness.
"The excavation crews are in position," Ghina said, her voice dropping to a sharp whisper as she locked the door behind him. "But there is a legal complication with the territory rights. The southern drainage canal is registered under an old custom house law that requires a legal family signature to authorize any sub-surface drilling."
Richter tilted his head, playing the role of the confused servant perfectly. "A family signature, mistress? I don't understand these upper-city laws."
"It means that because your father was the original registered clerk for that sector, the rights can only be claimed by someone who holds a legal domestic partnership with his estate," Ghina explained, her eyes tracking his face to see if he understood the true weight of her words. She stepped closer, her tone becoming smooth and dangerously manipulative. "To claim that gold before Galileo finds out, you and I need to sign a formal, traditional marriage contract."
Richter let his jaw drop, his eyes widening in a display of utter shock and unworthiness. "A marriage contract? With me? But mistress, I am just a broken beggar. I am nothing but garbage in the mud. I am not fit to be your husband."
"It is a legal formality, you i***t," Ghina hissed, grabbing his tattered collar and pulling him close until he could smell the expensive perfume hiding her sour sweat. "You will be my husband in name only. A legal partner so I can sign the drilling permits. You will still sleep in the storage room, and you will still clean my boots. Do you understand me?"
"Yes, mistress," Richter whispered, trembling violently as if her proximity were terrifying him. "Whatever the mistress wants. I will sign anything you place before me."
Ghina pushed him away with a look of intense disgust, smoothing down her silk vest. "Good. The legal scribes are preparing the traditional paperwork for tomorrow night. We will sign the documents in the main assembly hall, away from the prying eyes of the other syndicates."
"I will be ready, mistress," Richter said, bowing low as he slowly backed out of the room, his wooden staff tapping rhythmically against the stone floor.
As he walked down the dark, deserted alleyways of the distribution center toward his small storage space, Richter felt a cold, sharp laughter rising in his throat. The trap was fully set, and the bait of gold had worked even better than his initial calculations had predicted. Ghina was so consumed by her desire to conquer the market that she was willing to legally bind her own family name to a nameless, crippled ghost from the slums.
He entered his small room, sitting down on the pile of oily rags that served as his bed. He reached behind his back, his fingers tracing the rigid, twisted lines of the copper wire that still held his skin together under his cloak. The pain was still there, a constant, low throb that kept him firmly anchored to reality.
"Tomorrow night, Galileo will realize that his taxes are missing," Richter whispered into the darkness, his voice cold, steady, and entirely human. "And Ghina will realize that the gold she was hunting for was nothing but a velvet noose."
Aksara