The Farmer - Day 14
“I’m sorry, Mister Tiller, but there’s simply nothing I can do!”
Tiller sat in the banker’s office. It was as nice a room as he had seen since he arrived in Scape. Carpeted floors, wallpaper on the walls, a shining dark wood desk. A window behind him looked out onto the inner section of Main Street, the museum visible opposite.
Behind the desk sat a slender, fox-faced humanoid. Fox-faced in the literal sense. This was a being Tiller had come to know as vul. The race seemed to come in two categories: hulking, brutish figures known as lower-vuls, and slender, intelligent beings called higher-vuls.
Sullatrix, dressed in a decadent three-piece suit, was a higher-vul.
Tiller leaned in. “There must be something you can do. This is… it’s really important to my business.”
Sullatrix leaned back in his chair, shaking his head as sadly as a doctor sharing the worst of news. “I’m sorry, Mister Tiller. If there was anything I could do, I assure you I would. I am an officer of this bank, and my duty is to the shareholders. I cannot, much as I personally find you to be perfectly trustworthy, extend financing. You’re unknown in the area and you have no security.”
Tiller said, “But if you give me the money I’ll buy the composter, and that can be security, like a mortgage.”
Sullatrix shook his head sadly and kept shaking it, as if that action alone could convey understanding. “The composter is portable wealth. What is to stop a transient fellow such as yourself simply departing with the item and never returning? As much as I am very certain you wouldn’t do such a thing, I simply can’t expose my shareholders to such a risk.”
Tiller said, “But I’m not transient, I’ve never even been anywhere else.”
Sullatrix sighed. “I simply can’t. You’re not known to us. We’ve never had dealings. You’ve never taken a loan and repaid it, there’s no history here. You have no roots, no ties.”
“But I’m starting a farm! Listen, I can put together 300, maybe even 400 coins. I just need the rest. That’s a loan-to-value ratio of… really big!”
“The exposure, Mister Tiller, the exposure would be irresponsible of me.”
Tiller slumped back in his chair. If he had turned his head at that moment and looked out the window, he would have seen Reader walking past, talking animatedly with Grim.
Tiller stiffened. He very much wanted to turn his head now and find out what a Reader was, and what a Grim was, but he was still trying vainly to win over the banker.
“Vainly?”
Sullatrix said, “What was that?”
“Nothing, nothing, just… thinking out loud. Mr. Sullatrix, what would it take for me to qualify for taking a loan from your establishment?”
Sullatrix said, “A prior relationship, ties to the town, or non-portable security.”
Tiller said, “Like a farm?”
Sullatrix smiled thinly, the first vestiges of annoyance starting to flicker. “A true ongoing concern, with proper investment, structures, yes. A patch of wild ground that’s been ploughed and planted, no, sir, I am afraid not.”
Tiller opened and closed his mouth like a fish. “There’s… there’s nothing I can do…”
Sullatrix looked at a pocket watch that hung from a gold chain on his suit. Sounding increasingly disingenuous, he said, “It seems there’s not. I truly wish there was some way I could extend to you the credit you seek, but in your situation, as it stands right now, there’s simply no way for us to move forward. Perhaps in a year’s time, when you’ve improved this little business of yours and have turned it into a real asset.”
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Tiller clenched his fists at his side and suppressed an angry tremor. He wanted to tell the fox-man that in a year’s time he would have long been nitrified, having been passed through the digestive tracts of a family of ogres.
He swallowed the impulse. He didn’t know when he might need a relationship with the banker. Seeing that his efforts were wasted and that the most he could achieve at this point was further souring, he stood up. “Well… maybe I’ll do that. Thank you for your time, Mr. Sullatrix.”
Sullatrix stood as well, offering a hand. “Certainly. Please, don’t hesitate to return should your circumstances change. Or if you’d like to make a deposit. We offer a rate of 1% on deposits, the best in the region.”
Tiller arched an eyebrow. “You only pay one percent in interest?”
Sullatrix looked dazed at the suggestion. “Pay… on deposits? Mr. Tiller, we charge one percent. Pay? On a deposit? How quaint. Does the baker pay you for the bread you eat? You jest, I’m sure, but I fail to see the humor.”
Tiller blinked. It made sense. This was a different, less mature economy. The bank offered security for valuables. Still, it made his mind run through the future, when he would hopefully be holding millions of coins. Would he keep them here and pay tens of thousands of gold in interest? Per year, hopefully, though for all he knew the rate was monthly.
Sullatrix gestured towards the door. “Well, we look forward to seeing you again. And, please, don’t forget your, um… shovel.”
As Tiller stepped onto the street he felt a sudden kinetic impact. A figure walked into him, or he into it. He had an awareness of billowing black robes. The collision was surprisingly solid, the form under the cloak bulky and angular.
Tiller spluttered, “Oooph. Sorry, I didn’t…”
Tiller froze. The black cloak bore a deep hood, shrouding the face beneath in shadow, but in the daylight he caught a glimmer of what looked like bone. And red eyes glowed beneath the cowl. Tiller stuttered, taking a step backward. He had met enough creatures in Scape to know that appearances didn’t have to match personality. Ogres could be dairy farmers, goblins could be traders. Yet there was something terribly ominous about those eyes that made him pause, even here on the public street in the evening light. It made him glad of the shovel in his hand.
The hooded head fixed on him, the red eyes seeming to go wide. The head drifted to look at a building across the street. Tiller couldn’t look away from the being, but he knew that was the side of the street with the museum, the library, the clinic. The head swung back to him, its interest seeming to be greater than offense at their collision. Again it went to the building beyond and back to him.
Tiller’s grip on the shovel tightened. He felt distinctly like the mouse before the cat. He felt like prey.
It raised an arm to shove him back. As it did, the sleeve of the robe shifted and he saw the shine of an iron band beyond the dark gloves. He stepped back out of its way, his fear deeper as he realized how much stronger this thing was than he was.
But it moved away from him, drifting across the street. Tiller watched it go. It moved with an uneven gait, stepping obviously lower on its left side. It continued its strange lurching motion towards the library and drifted inside.
Tiller stood for a long moment afterward. The thing had seemed so threatening, so ominous. He wondered for a moment if he should warn someone that the thing was in there. But he had an awareness that the library was where the magic types hung out. And he supposed there had been that kind of vibe about the being.
“Maybe it was like a necromancer or some shit… Is that kind of thing okay… I don’t want to be judgmental… Best stay out of it, Tiller. You don’t have this place figured all the way out yet.”
Tiller passed the remaining time in the two general stores. Cutter had given him 100 coins and he had found 12 on Bonk’s corpse. He bought seeds, sacks, and rope. He wanted to buy the axe, but he wanted to retain as much cash as he could in case they did find a way to afford the composter.
He visited Glick and tried every gambit to arrange a discount or a loan-purchase arrangement for the composter. That failing, he attempted to persuade the goblin storekeeper to let him take the item on a free trial, or to let him rent it. Like the banker, he could see a reluctance borne in no small part by the fact that he was an outsider. To these people he had arrived from nowhere, drifting in one day, and so could just as easily disappear some day, taking valuables with him, rental agreement or no.
Tiller set out on his own to cross the Barren. The sun was slinking low in the sky and he doubted he would make it all the way back before dark arrived.
As the town of Medley faded into the distance behind him and he found himself truly exposed and alone in the vast empty whiteness, he thought again of the black-robed figure with the red eyes. It had been surprised by him in some way. Deeply interested.
He thought of the figure and the reality that he would spend the last hour or so of his walk home in the darkness and shivered.
