Interlude DCCCXC: Weaving Gilded Patterns
Of Silk and Gilded Threads
Twenty Third Day of the Second Month 294 AC
It did not take Hermetia long after she started receiving invitations to the sorties, hunts, and other entertainments of the Golds to realize that they were far more disciplined than the Tigers ever were. It made sense she supposed, they were older as a political faction than Volantis itself and they were used to working in a city in which enchantment and arcane glibness were not only common, they often came from sources that the magic of the Spheres would struggle to counter or even recognize.
For one thing, when she remarked upon an interesting knotwork design on the wrist of Guildmaster Neios, she was regaled with a very matter of fact explanation of a series of blood-bonds and soul deep magics that bound the leadership together with at least three others chosen not by preference, but lot and chance. Thus there would always be someone aware if one of them was subverted, not only by direct enchantment but sorcerous persuasion. New friends, lovers, even taking in a ward had to be verified by other members of the inner circle, called the Golden Stairs, which was not stairs at all but some sort of strange spiral, involving mathematics Hermeria did not have the time nor truly the desire to learn.
Whatever the case the upper echelons of the Golds were more like a cult without god than a gathering of political interests. With relatively few electors and a stable guild membership the Golds had survived as the conservative pole of politics in the City of Splendid Waves by simply being resilient to subversion and scandal. The saying in the Mirror Market was 'the Golds are greedy, but at least you can trust 'em to be greedy for themselves and not some dragon's hoard or squid's schemes'.
That was not so say they were monolithic, far from it. They did after all represent financial interests of the city's most profitable enterprises and it was by their profits, not their numbers, that they retained their prominence in the politics of Vialesk.
It did not escape her notice that the most enthusiastic invitations and the most lavish events were from the Silk-Weavers and their guildmistress, a truly ancient teleriel with skin not pulled taunt over delicate bones and hair not silver as she had seen many times among her kin, but snow-white with age. Guildmistress Viel saw in the Empire not merely a source of buyers for her finer than Yi Tish silk, but also a place she could expand production to.
Just the notion of vast coastal shelves with firm sandy bottoms going on for hundreds of leagues was positively entrancing for farming the delicate shellfish from which sea silk could be produced. Heremetia had no doubt the guild could far outproduce native triton businesses and produce silk so fine it would once have been the pride of princes at prices a craftsmen or trader of middling wealth could afford.
The question was if they should allow enterprises from the Endless Ocean to catch root in the oceans under the sun. There would be a moment of rapid expansion under the Guild's experienced hand, then likely a crash in prices and in products. The guild would be able to re-structure itself on arcane silks, like that which made up Hermatia's own gloves, bought on the Plane of Earth, but still woven with silk from the Endless Ocean. Enchanter quality silk had to be woven and even grown with magic. For now however the question was how to maintain the prices of mundane silk. How does Heremtia respond to the Silk-Weavers interest in expanding operations to the Prime Material once the Terminus is complete?
[] Encourage it
-[] Write in how
[] Discourage it
-[] Write in how
[] Write in
OOC: The Golds have other factions and personages of note, but this is who Hermedia rolled up for her first insignificant meeting.
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