Warrior of the Void Book 1, Chapter 19

Priests of The Twins are expected to serve as unbiased arbiters of mercantile practices. There are two manners by which our order accomplishes this: Either the study of tomes, records and books to ensure no laws are broken, and that the rightful price is paid to those who ought to receive it. Or, by becoming an expert of the concerned craft.

Most opt to simply limit themselves to being arbiters of contracts, for stepping upon the path of the tradecraft or fieldcraft is a most demanding thing as the expected expertise in these domains does not preclude one’s priestly obligations. Yet, I, and my brothers, hope that you will find yourself part of the clergy that decides to take such burden upon themselves.

In the interest of cultivating such notions, Ul’dah is home to three of the Tradescraft Guilds of Eorzea*: The Weaver, the Goldsmith and the Alchemist Guild. As well as the Fieldcraft Guild of the Miners**. Your task is to visit all four and see if any new trade disputes have arisen***. Once you have done so, we invite you to spend a bell or two familiarising yourself with the craft should you wish to.

That part was as neat as could be, but turning over the paper, there were a handful of sloppy chicken scratches that clarified a few things.

*There are eight tradesguilds in the realm of Eorzea. Those in Ul’dah as well as the Blacksmith, Armorer, Culinarian, Carpenter and Leatherworker guild. The other five can be found in other city states, but are equally valid options should they catch your fancy.

**There are two fieldcraft guilds, the miner’s guild (who is a branch of the Amajina & Sons Mineral Concern in all but name) in Ul’dah and the Botanist’s guild (to whom concerns of lumber and gathering plants falls to) in Gridania.

***They are to be given over to the front desk at the guild, thank you.
May as well do them in the order they were listed. Except with the Miner’s Guild first, since she had plans for the Alchemist’s Guild and so better to save it for last. All three of them were barely a stone’s throw from each other on the map, how long could that take?

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As it turned out, too long. It would take too long.

As she walked back underground to find the Guilds, Muur had expected to come back up to the open air. Just a quick trip underground, a few flights of stairs to climb, and she’d be on the other side of the city.

…

Right?

No.

Because Ul’dah wasn’t a One Thousand and One Nights city. It was a god damn dwarven hold wearing arabian clothes.

An hour in, and he was still going down. 

“Oh, it’s thatta way. Just keep an ear out for the pickaxes lass.” One of the Brass Blades she’d asked for directions had told her. Because, clearly she’d taken a wrong turn somewhere. She thought he’d misspoke, and meant ‘Keep an eye out.’

But no, no he did not. Standing no less than seven stories below ground, on the doorstep of the Miner’s Guild, she could hear them hammering at rocks. Pushing open the door, she was met by a large open room abuzz with activity.

Below the section she stood in, two dozen people were either shouting orders, or singing a work song as they pushed minecarts the size of an ox laden with ores. She spied one of the carts being brought into some sort of loading dock, and three rugged looking men

descended onto it. Using shovels and scoops, they unloaded it with gusto until some unseen criteria was fulfilled. Pulling a safety pin, one of them grabbed a set of handles on the side and pulled, he spinned the skip along an axis, sending what was left of its contents into an awaiting funnel that sent the contents into a number of wooden boxes.

Now empty, the cart was re-locked and sent back to a large turntable, where a new crew of three grabbed it and hooked it to a crude-looking miniature steam engine. The process repeated itself until five carts were attached. One of the workers jumped onto the engine and pulled on a number of levers and dials that sent the contraption chugging along into a yawning tunnel that led further down into the earth. “First time seein’ this, ‘venturer? If yer lookin’ fer work, Guild’s lookin’ fer new sets of hands.”

“Aye….” Muur said airly, before snapping herself back to focus and to business, “Sorry, I’m here from the Ossuary, to check if any trade disputes have cropped up.”

“Ah, a new runner eh?” The voice belonged to a surprisingly short hyur with fiery red hair,  “An’ one of a race I ain’t seen down ‘ere. Somethin’ happened to Tatapio? His liver gave out?”

“Probably not, the Guildmasters just have me running errands to get a feel for the city.” The lizard wizard replied with a shake of her head. Not like she could say for sure beyond the fact that she very much wasn’t a permanent replacement. 

“Ah, so his liver did give out,” The girl said with a shrug, before waving Muur towards a counter, “Well, welcome to the miner’s guild. I’d give ye a quick rundown of the place, but we’ve hit a gold’n mithril vein in the lower levels biggest find in the era– It’d be why Tatapio had to drink his weight in booze. Bastard bet the mines under Ul’dah were tapped out,” Tapping the desk with coal stained fingers, she nodded towards Muur, “Oi, pass the lass the whiner’s papers, would ya?”

The poor, haggard looking and clearly sleep-deprived clerk nodded dumbly, “Y’z mam.”

“So,” Orders given and acknowledged, the redhead turned back to the Au’ra, “While they find those, ye got any question I might be able to answer?”

“Did someone figure out there were veins worth digging under the city after it was built, or did the mine come before the city?” Muur asked after a moment’s thought.

“Eh, depends on who ye ask. Some folks say it was the first, other say it was the second,” Shrugging, the Hyur reached around the counter to pick up a drinking skin, “All I know is that after a while, the city started to grow down, as well as up. This place here? Used t’be a minin’ shaft. I’d wager it’ll be turned into a new city district in a few years. Back t’yer question tho? Personally, I’m of the opinion that some bloke dug out a cellar an’ found himself a collection of shiny rocks.”

“It’d figure. Especially with all that stuff about sand to gold people like to crow about, could see it as the start of the saying.” The lizard woman grunted in agreement, glancing over to the guy meant to give her the papers. 

The poor man in question offered her a small stack of a dozen papers. Glancing at them as she left the guild - and doing her best to power through the ear-piercing cacophony behind her -, Muur noticed that all of the disputes concerned adventurers, and boiled down to a ‘He said, She said’ argument about payments…

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Leaving the Goldsmith’s Guild behind, Muur realized a number of things. First being that there were over twelve ‘layers’ to Ul’dah’s sprawling underground portion… that were inhabited. According to some of the locals, parts of it went even deeper than that.

Second, was that of the many things that they were, adventurers made for poor merchants. Each of the Guilds had something to pass onto her, and the vast majority concerned adventurers complaining about service, equipment or commissions. Both as the ones paying for them, and as the ones being paid to provide them.

Sighing, the Au’Ra steeled herself for one last sortie into the city’s bowels. She just had to find the Alchemist’s Guild, and she’d be done, “Oh, the alchemists? That’d be over in the Husting Strips, I think. Just take a left here and keep goin’ straight to get to the Gold Court, it’s that one big fountain place. And then just look for the stairs headin’ up.”

Following the woman’s direction was as easy as breathing, and Muur didn’t take long to reach the Gold Court. And boy did it deserve its name. Less due to how much gold was on display - though there was plenty of that - and more thanks to the sheer opulence of the place.

The court itself was a massive circular plaza, easily as large as a ballroom in a renaissance’s palace, paved in nothing less than the fanciest of marble. The walls were embellished, but failed to be quite as ostentatious as having the equivalent of a small football field covered in marble. What gripped her attention immediately though was the sunlight.

Streaming down from above was natural light reaching down into a place easily… two? Stories below ground if her mental map was accurate. The first she’d seen of the stuff since heading into the lower levels of the city to find the miner’s guild. The other, and maybe more impressive, thing that really caught her attention was the gargantuan fountain that stood in the middle of the enclosed plaza.

Well, ‘stood’ wasn’t quite accurate. No, the damn thing was floating a good two meters in the air above a basin that had been worked into the ground. The water fixture was compsode of a cluster of inverted spires and peaks made from sandstone, but seeded with panels of a redder stone, inlaid with brilliant gold as to form complex geometrical patterns all across their length.

Lifting her head up, Muur saw that the assembly became thicker the higher it went– and that it just went on and on and on, reaching from here all the way to the very top of whatever building she now stood in. Making it good… six of seven stories tall? Squinting, she noticed that the top was anchored to the ceiling by a number of stone brackets that glittered in the sun– more gold no doubt.

All of this made it quite the statement piece. But it was nothing to how the water flowed, not just through the stone itself in order to land into the pond-like basin beneath in the form of four small waterfalls, but also along external canals carven along the surface of the upside down towers so that it could feed the multitude of plants and other greeneries that flourished along their exterior.

In contrast to the awe inspiring sight, the sound it made was little more than a pleasant whisper. The crystal clear liquid didn’t make some sort of deafening loud sound as it cascaded down, and instead formed the relaxing melody of a small stream winding along great mountain peaks.

“‘Scuze me.” The sound of someone stepping to her side to leave the plaza then brought her attention to those she shared it with. They were relatively few in numbers, no more than three dozen by her estimate, and she could separate them into two groups.

The first were the rich. And were by far the majority, anywhere she looked, she could see the cream of the crop - at least where their bank account was concerned - sitting and chatting. Some sat on a bench worked into the basin, others at tables served by members of the second group of individuals. That was to say: waiters, cooks and shopkeepers.

There were decidedly less of them, but they were no less fancy than their richly dressed patrons. Here she could see a man manning the 1%’s version of a food cart and pouring steaming tea in glasses that almost looked to be made from ice crystals. There, a man taking some of the most mouth watering pastries she’d ever see off of a tray to serve them to a group of giggling women, and all the way on the other side of the fountain, she saw a woman hawking her wares of, no doubt, beyond expensive jewelry.

As nice as it was though, she had a job to do. One that took her to a set of stairs that went up.

 
And up.

And up.

And up.

A glance at the placards on the wall confirmed that, yes. This was the way to the strip. Well… She could only hope that it wasn’t too far up the tower– or whatever this place even was.

The climb started easily enough, the carpeted steps were rather short, enough that each of her strides ate up two or three of them at a time. Thanks to that, reaching the first floor was neither hard, nor long. The problems started when a glance at the signs on the first floor’s landing told her that the Husting Strip was higher still, leaving her no option but to keep going.

When she reached the second floor, the scene repeated itself, the sign taunting her by withholding just how high she’d have to climb. Something that she was quickly getting tired of, and so were her legs if the slight tension she could feel in her muscles was any indication.

The fourth floor was when things completely went off the rails. Her feet were loudly complaining by feeling like every movement was stretching her muscles to the limit, apparently climbing stairs used a different group than walking, who knew?

When she eventually reached the final floor, her legs honestly felt like they were about to fall off, “Halt adventurer,” Which made being stopped by a man wearing a white tabard on top of a suit of armour rather annoying, “What purpose do you have in the Husting Strip?”

“I’m on an errand from the Ossuary, picking up trade dispute papers.” Muur parroted, her breathing forcefully kept steady and controlled.

“Ah, one of the adventurer hopefuls,” The lalafel said with a nod, “The Alchemy Guild I’d wager?”

“Aye. Pays to know how to make your own potions and antidotes, too, so it’s two birds with one stone.” The lizard wizard said as she studiously ignored the burning agony radiating from her legs. It wasn’t even strong enough to muddle her thoughts.

“Huh, planning to learn a craft yourself? I suppose it’d make dealing with lack of sellsword work easier,” Turning around, the armored potato gestured to their right, “You’ll want to take the right path here. It’ll lead to the strip’s aetheryte shard, you’ll want to attune to it if you want to spare yourself the climb next time. Then take a right until you come to another set of stairs, they’ll take you to the guild. It’ll have another shard. If the stairs don’t make a L and lead to a large door, you’ll have gone too far, or the wrong way. That’s the Royal Promenade, where her Highness resides.”

“Thanks.” Muur replied shortly if not unkindly, giving him a nod before going back to trudging forward. Following his instructions, the lizard attuned herself to the shard and passed by a number of richly dressed people on her way to the guild. This area was very much where the upper crust of Ul’dah’s society resided, or at least spent their time.

Interestingly, the Guild was almost quaint in how it presented itself. The plaza that led to it was shaped like a roman atrium, letting in the sun’s light, but beside two large flags stamped with the guild’s symbol (a sort of pyramid on legs) that flew along the pillars that supported the sunshade, there didn’t seem to be anything special to it.