Chapter 81 - Banking

It may have been Autumn, but the sky was clear, and standing out in the open was
pretty uncomfortable and boring. I tried to take my mind off it by thinking about
banks.
The fact that Fantasyland didn’t have banks was an itch at the back of my mind that I
couldn’t scratch. They didn’t even have the concept. Felicia and Kyle had just looked
blankly at me when I brought up the idea. They knew about loans, sure, but loans
here were done on a personal basis. Either you got a loan from a rich friend, with the
understanding that you’d pay it back when you could - possibly with interest,
depending on how a good a friend they were.
Or, they weren’t a friend, they were just rich. Much like when the Mafia loaned you
money, they now owned you until the loan was repaid. That was mostly a game for
Nobles, and it was part of their poor reputation. There was some middle-ground —
guilds would occasionally loan startup funds to a member who was just starting —
but those cases were practically family already.
The people here didn’t think they were missing out, but I was sure that there were a
lot of growth opportunities that were being lost. I wasn’t sure why they didn’t have
banks, but I did have an idea that it was all due to the Dungeons.
History wasn’t my subject, but the Firm loved playing up its connection to the past.
There had been a display of the history of banks in our lobby for twelve weeks, so I’d
picked up a few things. Banks had developed out of the medieval profession of
money-changing.
You have to understand that by modern standards — and perhaps even by their own
standards — monetary systems in medieval times were just insane. Never mind the
fact that every Kingdom, Principality, or independent city felt the need to issue its
own currency. We have that issue today. In those days though, there were no
standards — for any country — about the size, purity or denomination of its coins
over time. If you were lucky, they might stay the same for the reign of a single King.
But that was very much the exception. Most Kings varied the currency according to
their finances and the current value of precious metals — which varied hugely as
different mines were discovered or tapped out.
Given how long coins lasted, even if you were just dealing with a single countries
currency, there could easily be fifty or a hundred different coins that you needed to
know the value of if you wanted to trade. It took a professional to handle that sort of
complexity.
So money changing became a niche, difficult, but insanely profitable occupation.
After all, if you’re the person who knows the value of both sides of the trade, and the
other guy doesn’t… well, it becomes what my old boss used to call a moderately
favourable trading environment.
Now, if you’re trading money, you need to store a lot of it, which means you need a
lot of security to keep people from stealing it. Pretty soon, the money changers were
the best-protected places in town, and they set up a side business in storing other
peoples money. At first they charged for the service, but then they realised that they
could lend the money out, started paying interest, and there you have your banks.
So why didn’t it happen here? Well first of all, no money-changers. Nobody minted
coins in this world - they all came from dungeons. And while rulers could customise
the name and design of the coins through the [Territory Status] interface, they all had
the same weights and purity.
Second of all, while this world did build vaults for security, the great majority of
fortunes were kept in peoples pockets. Or at least in their spatial bags attached to
their belt. Spatial bags weren’t cheap, but once you hit the point where you were
carrying hundreds of platinum coins around, it made sense to just get a bag and keep
them all in there.
Vaults were seen in this society as something for organisations that needed to control
access the fortune, but didn’t want to restrict it to just one person. I suppose we
should have counted ourselves lucky that Baron Marseau had just locked his fortune
up and not taken it with him.
Which left me in a bit of quandary, as I wanted to encourage development in Talnier,
but that took money. So much money. More money than the Town Council had
available. We did have taxes, but that was all going on other things… like what was
happening today.
“Talnier welcomes the brave and gallant Royal forces sent from the King himself to
protect us…”
The mayor was making a pretty speech, while the rest of us stood on the dais and
tried to look happy at the bunch of extra mouths to feed. Well, it wasn’t like they’d be
doing nothing.
Additional Defense detected - 1 Territory Point awarded.

New Threat detected - Hector Rodakis
Well, shit. I’d expected the troops to be a mixed bag, but this suggested that the
Captain was going to be actively trying to take control of the city from me. Despite
my trade agreement efforts, the Tribal Council hadn’t disappeared from my list of
threats. At least we had some more defences, and I had some more Territory points. I
hadn’t gotten any more when we’d added the illicit funds to the treasury, leading me
to guess that I got one point for each 50,000 gold added. Hopefully I didn’t lose them
when we spent the money.
I eyed the new threat to my rule as he joined us on the dais to get introduced to the
people and ourselves. Wait, I didn’t like the sound of that. The threat to our fledgeling
democracy — that sounded better.
He was a big guy, blonde and blue eyed with face that was… rugged, I guess. Strong
chin, clean-shaven. He looked every inch what a military hero was supposed to look
like. Considering that his men had marched up here in just a day or two, he had the
stats to back it up.
We exchanged names, bowed or curtseyed as required, and then the mayor started
explaining where they would be quartered. We’d be providing the upkeep, which
meant housing, feeding and clothing them. They had their own uniforms at the
moment of course, but we’d be washing them fixing them, and providing new ones as
required. They’d be taking care of their own armaments, but they might well be
monopolising our existing weapon-smith.
We needed to expand our weapon production, which got me back to thinking about
encouraging development — and banks. I let the procession leave me behind as they
headed up to the new barracks, while I thought about it.
Making it a function of the Council was the wrong idea, I thought. Not just because I
wasn’t a Communist, but because when I thought about the idea of setting up a bank,
I started to smell the possibility of money. A bank without competition would be
fantastically profitable, and I wanted those profits to belong to me.
But I didn’t have enough money. Given the novelty of the idea (and the lack of
support from the Crown), I wouldn’t be able to loan more than I had. In fact, I’d
probably have to keep a massively inefficient stockpile until people got used to the
idea. And that was assuming I could get people to keep their money with me.
I needed investors. The solution to, and cause of, most of a firm’s financial
difficulties. Nobles were out, of course. There weren’t any here and I couldn’t trust
them besides. Adventurers though… they certainly earned money quickly, but they
tended to spend it just as quickly. They’d probably appreciate the idea of a steady
cash flow, if I presented it right.
***
“What do you mean you’re going to solve your literacy problems?” Felicia asked.
“You don’t have a problem with literacy?”
“There aren’t enough people with [Scribe], is my problem,” I explained.
“Oh right, you were going to set up a school or something?” she said, casting her
mind back to my plans in Anchorbury.
“That was the old plan,” I said excitedly. “Now, I can create a new profession that
unlocks [Scribe] and [Calculate] — and doesn’t have any pre-requisites!”
“Can you do that?” she asked sceptically. “Wouldn’t someone already have tried?”
“I think there’s a general consensus that too many wizards are bad for a Kingdom,” I
said. “And the best way to keep people from being wizards is to keep them from
reading.”
“Are they bad for the country?”
I shrugged. “When I say consensus, I’m talking about between the King and his
predecessors — oh, and I guess some Nobles might have access to this interface as
well.”
“So you figure that they’re wrong.”
“I feel sure that isn’t an unpopular opinion. Now, hang on a sec while I go through
the interface and see if it is possible. I want to run through it with you before I
commit to it.”
I opened up [Territory Status] and went into the [Professions] tab, and selected [New]
Profession Name: [ ]
Profession Description: [ ]
Pre-requisites: [Level 2] [Stat-based] [Skill Based] [Special]
Skill Unlocks: [ ] [ ] [ ] [+] [-]
Skill Bonus: [ ] [ ] [ ] [+] [-]
Special: [+]
Territory Point Cost: 3
Development Point Cost: 5
I played around with the options for a bit. There seemed to be a template for each
value of Level pre-requisite, changing the number of skills and, as it went higher,
changing the Development point cost. Pre-requisites lowered the Territory point cost,
but I didn’t want too many of those. Soon I had something like a [Profession]
Profession Name: [Talnier Official]

Profession Description: [Bringing civilisation to the world, one ledger at a time]
Pre-requisites: [Level 2] [INT 4] [None] [None]
Skill Unlocks: [Scribe] [Calculate] [ ] [+] [-]
Skill Bonus: [Bargain] [Persuade] [ ] [+] [-]
Special: [+]
Four was the minimum requisite for stats, and saved me one point. Now I had to
decide on another two skills, or get rid of them and have a minimalist profession. I
tried it out and saw some odd stuff. When I removed the Skill Unlock, the Territory
Point cost went down by one, but when I removed the Skill Bonus, the Territory Point
cost went up to four, while the Development cost went down to zero.
A [Profession] that was free to take did appeal, but I didn’t have four Territory points
at the moment, so I added the skills back in again, and went looking at the skill list. It
wasn’t long before I found the perfect skill.

Skill Unlocks: [Scribe] [Calculate] [Bureaucracy] [+] [-]
Skill Bonus: [Bargain] [Persuade] [Bureaucracy] [+] [-]
Special: [+]
Putting the same skill in both slots reduced the cost as well, I saw.
“What do you think?” I asked Felicia. I made an illusion of what I was seeing.
“What does the [Bureaucracy] skill do?” She asked. I could tell she was looking at
the skill description as she asked.
[Bureaucracy] : Skill for managing and navigating professional organisations.

“How do you navigate an organisation?” she asked incredulously.
“Eh, it’s about knowing what forms to fill out and who to talk to, to get things done,”
I said. “Probably things like filing and developing procedures to get things done as
well.”
“I see… Did you want to add in a language?”
“There isn’t a language skill, I checked.”
“No, languages are bought with Development points. Some professions have a bonus
that would normally be bought with Development points. I’ve never seen a profession
with a language, but it should be possible, and you want to promote ties with the
Tribes, right?
“Right,” I said. That was what the Special section was for. I went into it, and found
that I could, indeed, add a language. I could even…

Skill Unlocks: [Scribe] [Calculate] [Bureaucracy] [+] [-]
Skill Bonus: [Bargain] [Persuade] [Bureaucracy] [+] [-]
Special: Language: Lattoran/Tribal Common [+]
If they didn’t know Latorran, they’d get it, while if they did, they’d get Tribal
Common.
“So you take the profession, and all of a sudden you speak Tribal?” I said.
“That’s how languages work,” Felicia said, like it was just common sense.

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It may have been Autumn, but the sky was clear, and standing out in the open was

Additional Defense detected - 1 Territory Point awarded.

Profession Name: [Talnier Official]

Profession Name: [Talnier Official]

[Bureaucracy] : Skill for managing and navigating professional organisations.

Profession Name: [Talnier Official]

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