Role

Chapter 2

Vree sat on the balcony in the dry air of her Hamsah home. Seagulls
from the nearby Open Sea circled overhead on a wind that also seemed
to carry with it the unmistakable scent of salt water.

She opened the first merchant report and couldn't help but smile. It
seemed the price of a few specific spices were raising due to politics
in Seantryn. Well, she didn't have anything to do with the politics,
but it wasn't coincidence thanks to some early informants, she had a
surplus of said specific spices in a warehouse at the docks. It seemed
with prices at their highest, it was time to release her surplus and
reap the profits.

She moved onto the second report. It seemed a certain famed shrimping
vessel was suddenly having issues with pirates outside of Arkham. Oddly,
the pirates had never attacked, but they sailed so close that the captain
no longer risked venturing there and was forced to offload huge volumes
of shrimp at the Hamsah Seaport for a huge loss. Alright, this one maybe
was her fault and she couldn't help but let out a small laugh of victory.
Never mind that said "pirates" wouldn't harm a fly and she just happened
to have taken ownership in the majority of seafood buyers at the Seaport...

Vree opened the last report, her smile halting as a sickening feeling
wrenched her stomach. A few thugs, thugs she employed, had went much too far.
They were suppose to only be harassing the outlying townships, forcing them
closer to the city and the trade and commerce it provided, but no...

...It had all went wrong, much too far, and now fires THEY had started raced
towards the city from the north where it could easily burn. She dropped her
face into her hands. There was much she would do, and had done, to turn a
profit, but never this. She would NOT bring harm to the city itself and she
would NOT play a part in the cause of this disaster. Quickly she gathered
herself, taking from a secret hiding place a gold purse that would be large
enough to buy all the water invokers she would need and determined to set
things right.