IV. And Ethic's Void

13th of Cylus 721

The cities and villages of Melrath are as varied and diverse as they come. The capital of Raelia is the the jewel of this western kingdom, playing host to a merchants, artisans, Aesir priests, as well as a cut throat political landscape dominated by the nobles of Raelia. To the south in the depths of the Myrkvior Forest lies Melrath's second largest, and oldest city, Fensalir. Here people have learned to live alongside spirits and the natural world by maintaining their loyalty to traditions laid down the first Melrathi. To the east lies the small fishing village of Noatun, and to the western mountains rests the Mer city of Verimeer, the brewing town of Alivilda and the alpine village Vormund.
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Peake
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Posts: 333
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2016 2:17 am
Race: Human
Profession: A**hole
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IV. And Ethic's Void

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13th of Cylus, 721


Previous thread


With Peake’s announcement came the attention he was due but that had drifted from him. It wasn’t only Glynt looking with that foxy gaze, nor Mad-Eye Barb with his characteristic lunacy. Peake looked around. Between the brim of the top hat and the curtain of smoke, the Hatter’s eyes shone with a dangerous gleam. On the banister, the Charmer watched amused and even supportive, almost as if he was to stand up and go congratulate Peake with a pat on the back. The only one neither following nor interested was the Rogue, who had contorted himself into a lotus pose, fully immersed in his own book. Even Melrathi propaganda was bound to be more entertaining than thorough accounting.
“Go on,” Glynt replied. “What did you see?”
“Apart from the obvious disorder, by the time our friend behind the counter took over, you had given up trying to keep this organization accounted. It’s clear there was a transition between the first and second book wherein you chose to no longer be as thorough with the ledgers as you should’ve been. Instead of accounting from day to day, or from operation to operation, you choose to bulk it up and pack it into twenty trials at a time. Did I interpret that correctly?”
“You did. What else?”
“You’ve made several mistakes. First of all, you did keep a ledger – at first, at least – wherein you recorded the stored wealth for the Reserves and whatever other account you were tracking, plus its changes. However, you missed a key component: tracking the expenses themselves.” Peake puffed some smoke as a pause, wherein Glynt’s eyes expressed a need for clarification. “Alcohol, for example. That’s an expense you’ve been paying for, at the very least, 22 years. The proper approach, the thorough approach, I’d say would be to track how much the expense Alcohol, or A, amounted to per season, cycle or arc. The time frame is up to you, or your accountant. Another example would be commissions per member job, or jobs for the Reserves themselves as a whole – I can’t quite know how it works unless I’m informed. The point is it is almost crucial to keep a ledger of those expenses or profits.”
“I feel it’d be nice to know, yes, but a waste of time,” Glynt argued.
“It is a lot of time, yes,” Peake agreed, leaning forward. He opened the first book and pointed to the bent page he had been perusing with a fat finger. “However, all this book does is track the balance of this, the Treasure, so to speak. Imagine you’ve got pockets and you keep track of how much money goes into them. Then you go to the market, and the tavern, and the whorehouse, but you don’t ask for a price, look at the price tag, nor keep a receipt. You can fill your hands with groceries, drink yourself to death, but in the whorehouse you’re kicked out for lack of funds.” Peake leaned back again and drew a smirk beneath his beard. “Then you fuck yourself and save a little money.”
Glynt cackled with Peake, the Charmer joining in, the Hatter unsheathing a grin and Barb throwing a grunt.
“The point is,” Peake resumed once the laughter had died. Glynt’s interest seemed to have peaked. “You’d need to keep track of those constants in your books, preferably in a separate book which is, again, even more work, but one you’ll use to guide yourself through your pockets, coffers, property, investments and every other place you might project your wealth – and doing so without getting scammed. From them, and on the time frame of your choosing, you can balance the ledgers and assume strategies to increase profits or decrease expenses. With those sums and that co-correlation, you keep your business ground. Time frames are, again, of your choosing, but on a mercenary company wherein work is not stable, you’d need to choose a timeframe suited to your needs.”
“What would you do?” Glynt re-lit his pipe, eyeing Peake.
“Depends on the business. A business with a lot more income, or positive additions to the ledgers require very little upkeep. If you’re running a fish market, you can do it per fortnight or even more. One with more projected wealth wherein wealth is not attained in the moment, such as an artisan that buys a lot of materials to make a sword to put in the store front, requires more upkeep to keep investing - or projecting the wealth, however you want to frame it – he’d need a smaller timeframe to operate, like a seven-trial period. Less if his room for maneuver, or his available wealth if you want to think it that way, is limited. Again, for the reserves I’d choose a smaller cycle. A seven-trial cycle would be a good start, then after a season or two you can choose a smaller or bigger one based on number of operations.”
Glynt crossed his legs, sipped some wine, and nodded wisely to himself. He seemed interested, temporary out with his thoughts, before he snapped back. “You said the books are void. You mean because of Barb’s accounting?” Barb grunted at that, again, draining his whiskey.
“Obviously, there is no sort of accounting going on here,” Peake replied, lifting an old, crumped paper that read ‘MNY BOOZ 25G’ for Barb to see. “Which means your accounting has been lost to time, your ledgers are unknown, your capital is unknown, your total value is unknown and even your own pockets are confused as if their wealth are yours, the Reserves’, or taxes. Furthermore, I’ve spotted two clerical errors in your books. Here,” Peake returned with the book, pointed with a finger, then pushed it over towards Glynt. “And here,” Peake pointed to the second book’s mistake. “Notice the subtraction is incorrect.”
“Interesting,” Glynt remarked.
“Interesting but dangerous. At least, I think so. Is there a Mercenary Guild or something representing you?”
“No such thing in Melrath, friend,” Glynt replied. “They’d rather set the mountains on fire than allow such to exist.”
“I imagined. In Ry--- others parts of the world, there exist guilds overwatching a certain sector of businesses. It tends to be customary to keep a busines accounted so that the guild may control its growth or decline. Another thing: are you familiar with how taxation works in Melrath?”
“Not quite, no,” Glynt confessed. There was something refreshing about his humbleness.
“Turns out it’s a very unfair sort of business,” Peake pondered. “It’s a universal high flat amount then summed to a very small percentage of total income, which only starves the simpletons and lets the big fish eat everything in their wake.”
“That’s how it’s always been, Peake Maxos. Here more than everywhere else. Does that upset you? Glynt asked roguishly.
“I don’t fucking care,” Peake replied, curt, drawing smoke and tossing some ash down on the ground. “The point is, the bigger your business the less you’ll feel it. And even still, if you choose to submit your tax sooner that the taxation period – which is an arc or 492 trials – you receive a small discount on the percentage taxation, which means less tax to pay in the end. For that you require proper accounting, which brings me back to your books and how they are void. Since you’ve failed to keep track of your business’ value, and this new… eh, accounting, does you no favors, you’ve lost any real chance to either submit early tax, invest or project your wealth, or even work because you don’t know what you own. Obviously, you have got coin stored because you live here still, and you’re not foreclosed, but you can’t afford to hire a new mercenary or two without gambling away all you have. It is all because you don’t know what you have, you don’t know what you earn, you don’t know what you owe and you don’t know when the treasury will break. You may feel your pockets full, but they may be full of pebbles so that not even a cheap street whore will yank your cock.”

Silence. Nobody had much to say, nor much to argue. Could be disinterest. The cigars, cigarettes and pipes died down, and only the cackling of the fireplace remained to keep the group company.
“No, no, no!” called out the Rogue. Everyone turned towards him. He was rocking back and forth in his bed, eventually leaning down and contorting his legs up on the mattress above like a bad girl reenacting her naughty dreams. “… why did you do it, Hawahart? Why…” he pleaded with his novel.
Peake looked back towards Glynt, they locked eyes for a moment, made no comment then got back to business.
“I don’t think it’s that serious,” Glynt admitted. “We’re doing just fine.”
“You’re doing fine because you’ve got work, but we’re talking about your retirement,” Peake reasoned. “If you want expansion, you need accounting, but expansion is not what I promised you.”
“And that involves hiring you as an accountant, correct?”
“It involves me, yes,” Peake leaned closer. He tossed the cigar to the ground and snuffed it with his boot. “I’ll measure your wealth, appraise everything you own, take account for everything in this Hall and its every member, and when everything has been measured, I will make sure you, Glynt, earn far more than you’ve earned before. I will make sure your retirement is sweet as milk and honey. I will make sure you can go to Raelia with full pockets and fuck a snob up the bum until she’s certain she’ll be shitting pure bars of gold. I’ll make sure your men are judged by what they are and get paid what they’re owe, and I’ll make sure that this Hall will no longer be den for smoke and mirrors. I will make you rich, Glynt, and if so you want, I will make you more famous and influential than even Mister Novel over there can picture.”

Finally, Peake leaned back and rested his case. “That is my offer.”
Again a silence had fallen. Glynt considered this, considered Peake’s character, his mannerisms, and his words.
“And you’ll do this out of the kindness of your heart, yes?”
“Yes,” Peake confirmed. “But I'll accept a fortune as a gift.”

word count: 1787
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Pig Boy
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Re: IV. And Ethic's Void

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Peake

Experience: 10 No magic xp

Knowledge:

Knowledge:

Business Management: Accounting Time Frames
Business Management: Choosing Accouting Time Frames
Business Management: Tracking Expenses Over Time
Business Management: Melrath Tax Strategy
Persuasion: Repetition of previous statements
Persuasion: Round Argument

Non-skill:

Melrath: Tax System
Melrath: Unfair to lower class

Renown: none

Skill Usage: Appropriate to level. Just some basic math really, I guess, with attention to detail.

Loot/Losses: none

Injuries/Conditions: none

Consequences: none

Comments: It becomes very apparent how woefully underserved this mercenary company is in the financial department, when they fail to account for their alcohol/entertainment budget. *facepalms* Still, sometimes it takes a 'civilized' eye from Rynmere to tell the dregs of Melrath the error of their ways :lol:

Well written again, and I look forward to the next installment.

I'm enjoying Peake's injection of some good old-fashioned Rynmerish ambition into this ragtag mercenary band, as he explains the more they make, the more they can keep.

If you have any concerns about this review, please PM me about them.
word count: 175
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