The Other Banker of Ninetails

Yeowang has tracked the Doctor of Tolbana down. It's not rocket science, particularly not for the Banker of Ninetails. Not that anyone knows her as that, though she runs the only modern bank in the game. There are a few players who do advances on adventuring gains, loaning out improved gear for a cut of profits, but nothing formal like a bank. But she also gets news, because she keeps her ears open, and because gold loosens lips. She is wearing a white blouse and a slim blue skirt, with a matching jacket. Something more formal than her normal adventuring attire. Something, in fact, like a business suit.

"Doctor," she begins. "You came to Ninetails looking for a banker, but not for banking." Her tone is curious, and her attire does say 'Banker'. "Of course that's your right, and I imagine you don't hurt for money with all the Tower's resources behind you. But I admit to wondering why. Or what sort of information they can offer you? I don't know as much as I'd like about this world, and I am hoping you will be more forthcoming than the Landers, who often have odd perspectives and misguided priorities." Which is about the nicest way to explain the Palace Landers, or bankers who want a bag of gold for each question.

Prophylaxis has only a few sets of travelling clothes, which he alternates in accordance to the passing of the seasons. Though it's odd to think that he had to 'travel' to reach what should ostensibly be his 'home' in this world, the fact is that his true home-away-from-home is located in a tower far off in the distance. Home is what you make of it, and he has made the Scale Emblem's holdings in the Tower great indeed.

Still wearing a hat and robes, though. That isn't at all going to change.

"Mmm?" Prophylaxis asks, stirring from where he'd been scribbling studiously in a notepad. He blinks at the somewhat familiar banker, realizing that the 'doctor' she was asking for is in fact himself. "Ah, well, there are some secrets that can only be known by those who have lived the history of this world. I merely came here in the hopes of exchanging a few temporal treasures for some of those secrets. But those goods were still worth quite a pretty penny, and I'd like to get some kind of return on my investment if at all possible. Soooo~" The Doctor smiles, "I'd be willing to share, if you'd be able to give me a few morsels of information too."

Yeowang smiles widely, and nods gravely, apparently finding the willingness to exchange information a good thing. "You are, of course, correct. One must have a much deeper connection to the world to gain certain pieces of knowledge. I, myself, know this all too well. All the moreso because the history of this world was in some parts made by those acting in various roles and in other parts clearly written by writers of such fiction as fills game brochures. But I have learned a few things, and of course money talks, as they say." She inclines her head and says, "But unlike many in my Alliance, I bear no ill will to you or your people, and am quite willing to cooperate. Tell me what you wish to know, then?"

Prophylaxis has very little dislike for those Adventurers who do not choose to spend a majority of their time in the Tower. First and foremost, he has always been a doctor, after all. "Good, good," Prophylaxis nods. "Well, all things considered, I think we could probably exchange information of equivalent value. For example, what I learned seems to have just fulfilled the requirements for the first stage of my quest to Legendary Sage of Mercantilism. I suspect that you've tread a similar road yourself already? So I figure trading whatever we have each learned at that stage is equitable."

Yeowang arches a brow, and nods slowly. "Of course I came into this game world with some mercantile skill, but in order to gain more, or to prove I was worthy, perhaps, it was suggested I locate founding documents related to mercantile pursuits. It took quite a bit of searching, both because the documents were obscure and not noteworthy, in and of themselves, and then, in fact, not documents at all. Of value only for their historical context. The founding documents were verbal agreements for the a sale of a slave, and a transaction selling land for money. If you find this of some value, I hope you will let me know what that is, it seems to be to be simply a thing that happened hundreds or thousands of years gone by, when things were different societally. I think if there is any written record to it, it was to come to an agreement between people not at the same place, and not for the purpose of formalizing the transaction."

"Mmm, that would depend! Do you have the items on you now?" Prophylaxis asks with a curious quirk of the brow. "I'm not certain historical documents would be sufficient to satisfy the conditions of the quest. I'd certainly searched high and low for historical paperwork and only came up with something that the quest found acceptable when it was something of true value. If you wouldn't mind, I could take a look? Perhaps my knowledge might shed some light on this mystery."

Yeowang shakes her head slowly. "I think perhaps the agreements were verbal only, and I'm not sure how they are accounted founding documents, but simply learning of them advanced my quest to find founding documents of mercantile. They were mentioned in a document I -did- find, and I can show you, if you would like?" She rummages through her inventory, digging into a not-often-used section to withdraw some ancient, aged documents that reference the transactions she spoke of. (Result of a Scripture roll of 10 and a negotiatoin roll of 17.)

"Interesting," Prophylaxis murmurs, "An agreement that was only verbal and that's all. The first trades of anything at all, maybe? Perhaps that paper of yours might be able to provide some more context." The doctor receives the aged documents and very carefully begins to flip through their contents, analyzing them as he goes.

This might take a little bit.

As the Doctor looks over Yeowang's old documents, which don't seem to have any more significance than has been stated, she says, "Although I'll tell you another thing I learned about banking, peripherally about banking anyhow, and it /may/ hold more significance to our problems with the Palace Landers." Which is a bit of an understatement, but she goes on to explain, seems she's not the type that needs information extracted by clever words, or gold. Unlike other bankers.

"The city of Lumina Cloth maintains a social ranking or hierarchy based on weath. The contacts we made through the Uncrowned rebels in the Palace Lands include the number three on that list. No one sees the number one on that list, but it is known that they live in a high tower, a skyscraper, and one almost impossible to scale, and very hard to see into with telescopes or the like. I expect the Kunie is there, though I have no way to confirm, and no way to infiltrate. My own wealth would not even attract the notice of anyone at their level, were I to bind myself there, which would of course be a collosally bad idea for many reasons.

"I'm familiar with someone who serves a high-ranking member of Lumina Cloth's hierarchy," Prophylaxis answers with a thoughtful nod. "And I suspect that the person he serves is Number One, judging by how hush-hush things are. But when we had attempted to buy up property in the area to start an embassy, we saw pushback from basically everyone. There's some real bad history with Adventurers trying to take over everything from the Landers over there, so I'm not surprised." From what he'd heard, the ruckus they caused was bad enough to push even the most conservative Lander leaders to back the Crown plan. And now they're all in /this/ mess.

"Getting into the Lumina Cloth hierarchy would be rough even at the best of times. But maybe the trick is to work with someone who's already a citizen of the kingdom? Technically speaking, if we made enough money on this end and leveraged that wealth as a temporary loan to such an individual, they could potentially push into the high ranks of society and thereby give us an in into the building. If you really suspect the Kunie to be where you think they are. Have you consulted with any Oracles or Loremasters?"

The doctor straightens and shrugs his shoulders. "Right. My turn. So I inquired as to how the banks all coordinate in the way that they do. As it turns out, they're making use of some very interesting loopholes in the banking system to send messages and ensure that they all remain lock-step in setting prices, exchanging currencies and the like. The way it works is based on Alvish magic. The item storage of every bank in every Root Town is linked. If you're a member of an organization with a group storage bin registered with the bank, you can withdraw items stored in the bin, no matter where or by whom it was originally deposited. In other words, messages can be written and stored, and thereafter withdrawn by a recipient elsewhere and read almost instantly without the need for Oracle or Chimlink. So putting this together..."

Prophylaxis smiles, "If for example, we could coordinate with a friendly Lander in Lumina Cloth through this system-- which would necessarily operate securely and in secret-- we could make some interesting things happen rather covertly, don't you think?"

The doctor IS a schemer, after all. He just happens to be one of the friendlier ones.

"The question is I'm not sure how to best go about lending that money while minimizing our own risk. It'd be a real pain if our partner was coerced into taking our gold or just decided to cut and run. You have any ideas?"

Yeowang hrms. "Well. That's an interesting thing, and I'd love to have access to technology like that. Sadly, the Ninetails Bank, /my bank/, does not have access to anything like that. But we do have access to a considerable amount of cash, and we're the only /lending/ bank in the game. There's a couple player loanshark type operations, but probably not worth dealing with. But I imagine we -could- dump a pile of cash on Ino Hatsuse, who's number three. I wasn't able to speak to him, though that was before pulling the trigger on a big cash advance. That may get his attention. His granddaughter is quite bright and not above talking to adventurers."

She hrms, "You -do- know why they hate players so much, right?" she checks. She had thought that that information had been shared, but maybe not, if Proph doesn't know, that's important to share. As far as asking Loremasters, she wonders, "What sort of thing might a Loremaster know? Generally, I have to be in the presence of a person I need information about...."

"The danger with just giving him a bunch of money is that it could easily up and vanish, whether he's forced to by outside circumstances or otherwise. If someone developed some kind of promissary note that functioned /like/ gold but could be remotely revoked, that'd be a different thing, but... In this circumstance, if this is our plan, then all we'd be able to do is to trust him," Prophylaxis says with a helpless shrug, "It's one hell of a gamble. But if it works, we might be able to liberate Lumina Cloth without spilling a drop of blood."

"Oh, of course. There was a war," the doctor gestures vaguely at the empty air. "Adventurers wanted to seize power and went to war over it. Is the summary, anyway." Then: "I figured it might be possible to Loremaster the building itself. But if not, then we'd need to find some other way of ascertaining the Kunie's location. Why is it that you think it's in that skyscraper? It may be the most heavily defended location in the city, but most of the Kunie we've found so far had been well hidden in locations that you'd be very hard pressed to think were even significant."

Yeowang nods about the danger of loaning, and says, "If there's any mechanism for enforcing a promissory note, I don't know what it is. It may be in the realm of Data Drain to extract a person's cash unwillingly, and that does seem like an interesting experiment, if you know any Data Drainers. The one in NWA, I wouldn't place any faith in." She seems fairly positive about that. "But I think I wouldn't object to issuing a formal loan to Ino Hatsuse if that can get us into a meeting with the Kunie. I understand you were able to uncrown the one in Mac Anu, so it seems that it can be done."

As to the war between Landers and Players in the Palace Lands, she says, "Adventurers wanted to sieze power because they thought that the way to log out was somehow held by the Landers, or possibly by the city or by the Kunie. They thought they had to do it, in order to escape the game. I can only imagine how that seemed to the Landers, though, a mob of desperate players trying to take over. They can't comprehend logging out, so they don't know what we've lost." As far as Loremastering the building, she says, "I am much better at players than places, but I know who to ask about loremastering places."

"I'd like to run the plan by Ino myself before we finalize anything. We might not even have enough collective financial weight to tilt the scales, for that matter. That might require some... aggressive business practices. It's not like the nobles would be interested in lending money. The Landers seem positively repulsed by the idea of 'borrowing' anything." Prophylaxis grunts in mild frustration, but ultimately shrugs. It's not like they can do anything about something so ingrained in Lander culture. "...Well. I think the first step is amassing as much wealth as we can and making contact with Ino Hatsuse about the plan. Anything that follows is up in the air. Though we can certainly liberate the Kunie once we get our hands on the crown."

As for Yeowang's revelations about the war, Prophylaxis nods. "...I can see why they would have thought so. The Kunie hold the keys to the Chaos Gates. It'd stand to reason that they might be the ones keeping us in here. But I doubt it, now. If they had that ability, I'm sure they would have suggested just sending the Adventurers of the Palace Lands home. Either they were unable or were not allowed." Rules govern much in this world. "Mm, keep me posted. I'd be interested in hearing the details of how you put together a lending bank as well. Could be useful to set up one of our own in the tower to help fund local projects."

Yeowang agrees about running the plan by Ino Hatsuse before planning too far. "I agree. And no, my financial weight wouldn't even be noticed in Lumina Cloth, I'm afraid. I don't know how much I could bump Hatsuse's wealth even if I leveraged the bank as far as it would go." She looks skeptical about the Landers being repulsed by the idea of borrowing. "Maybe over there?" she guesses. But she nods about amassing wealth, as much as possible.

She nods about the Kunie's holding the keys to exiting the game being a reasonable guess. "The one, I could have sworn we were in downdown Tokyo," she admits. "But you're right, it would have been simpler to send them home, /if that were possible/. I believe we are a process spun off of the main game, existing purely as data, so I do not think there is a home to go to, which is why I am not with you trying to escape," she explains. "I think that's why perceptions seemed sharper when this game started: not that the game was improved, but we, the players, are simulated, and if the sensory inputs exactly match what we're simulated to receive, it must seem sharper. But my lending bank has been running for almost two years. If you need a loan, I can help you out." She chuckles.

"Ahaha, well that's certainly a possibility. I'm not willing to write off the potential of going home just yet though. It may be that the situation is far more complicated than any of us have realized, but until we know for sure there's no way home, I feel it's my responsibility as a doctor to ensure that one is found. Too many lives at risk otherwise." Although he's also putting lives at risk looking for the way out to begin with. Still, search the Scale Emblem continues to do.

"I'm pretty short on cash after my recent trades, but I should be fine in time. I'm more interested in finding out how you make sure that debtors aren't just running off with your loot."

"As to how we make sure no one renegs on a debt," Yeowang explains, then executes a complicated and powerful kick at at the air, but had it struck a target, the damage would have been staggering. Almost certainly one of the most powerful attacks in the game. "Surprisingly, no one seems interested in finding out." But she's a Shadowfist, so she can track targets also, making running out on her bank a poor proposition in any event. Small wonder no one's tried to bail on a loan, but she does vet the borrowers, so there's a degree of control. No point in loaning to someone who might vanish on you.

As far as not having given up on getting out of the game, she says, "My father runs the most powerful corporation in Korea. If I were trapped in a game /for a week/, he would have bought the comnpany that owned the servers, gutted it, and everyone trapped in the game would have been freed by the end of the week. But I applaud your effort to make sure. If there /is/ an out, I absolutely want to leave as well. So please be as sure as you can."

That sure is a heck of a kick, yep. Thankfully this isn't a PVP zone and she didn't actually make contact with anyone, or the Guardians probably would have just spawned. But fortunately, they did not. "Fair enough. I wasn't sure if you were running a personal police force too, or something like that. Guess not! Works for me, though."

As for getting out-- or not-- the doctor shrugs. "Or there's something keeping them from being able to retrieve us. Really, there are too many possibilities. I'll keep you posted though."

Yeowang shrugs about ways to retrieve us. "I do not know much about the intricacies of computers. My father employs people for that, and I imagine they are doing what may be done. As they say, money talks. But there are possibilities, there are always possibilities. I would not have guessed that when my friend clipped Jae Gu with her bike, my life would take this turn, to be sure."

But she -was- careful that her demonstration move would not be interpreted as hostile by the Guardians, that would have been a bad deal for her. "I do not have time to run a personal police force when I have the Red Chain going everywhere," she says with a smirk. Surely Doc knows about the Red Chain? In RL, there's the Red Cross, but here, the applicable holy symbol here is the chain of the Beautiful One.