The stench of sour ale and burnt seal meat clung to the air of The Bleeding Tankard, a ramshackle tavern wedged between Harbor's End's fish market and the Dead Zone docks. Kael slumped in a shadowed corner, fiddling with the silver coins Veyra had "gifted" him. Each bore the crest of the Kingdom of Fallen Grace—a leviathan coiled around a crown—but the edges were dented, the faces worn smooth by decades of desperate hands.
Ten silvers.
Enough to buy Garrick's silence for a week. Maybe.
A drunk sailor lurched past, his copper coins clattering onto the floor. Kael's eyes narrowed.
Coppers—jagged, green-tinged discs stamped with crude anchors. Worth ten dollars each, barely enough to buy moldy bread. Silvers—smooth, palm-sized ovals worth a hundred. Golds… he'd never held one, but he'd heard the stories: crescent-shaped ingots embossed with saintly faces, each worth ten thousand dollars. A king's ransom, traded only by nobles and the Five Great Banks.
"Oi! Boy!" The bartender, a hulking woman with a kraken tattoo swallowing her neck, slammed a chipped mug onto Kael's table. "You drinkin' or starin'?"
Kael slid a silver across the wood. "Information. Where can I spend these without Tideknights sniffing?"
She pocketed the coin, grinning with iron-capped teeth. "Try the Drowned Market. But watch for the Banks' leeches. They'll gut you for a cut."
Hidden in the belly of a half-sunken galleon, the Drowned Market thrived. Stallkeepers hawked smuggled essence cores, Tideweave knockoffs, and weapons forged from Dead Zone scrap. The air buzzed with hagglers shouting in a pidgin of sea-tongue and trader's cant.
Kael paused at a stall draped in stolen naval flags. Behind it, a wizened Marine Cousin—her gills flaring with each breath—eyed his silver coins.
"Fallen Grace silvers," she hissed, tapping the leviathan engraving. "Banks'll take thirty percent."
"Why?" Kael scowled.
"Five Great Banks mint all coins. Use foreign currency?" She gestured to her neck gills, stained blue from essence fumes. "They call it… disrespect."
She pointed to a stall across the aisle, its banner marked with a five-pointed star—the Banks' symbol. A banker in a starched gray coat scrutinized a merchant's gold crescent under a jeweler's loupe.
"Essence cores or Bank notes only," the banker droned. "No raw coin."
Kael's jaw tightened. Of course. The Banks didn't just control money—they were the money.
Currency of the Western Continent
The Five Great Banks ruled the continent's veins:
Coin Hierarchy:
Copper Anchors ($10): Used by sailors, beggars. Corroded easily.
Silver Leviathans ($100): Standard trade. Stamped with kingdom crests.
Gold Saints ($10,000): Reserved for nobles, bulk essence trades.
The Exchange:
Banks sold coins for essence cores (1 Beast-core = 5 silvers; 1 Abomination-core = 1 gold).
"Foreign" coins (like Kael's Fallen Grace silvers) were taxed 30% at Bank stalls.
Power:
The Banks funded Dead Zone expeditions, skimming cores from every haul.
No kingdom minted coins—only the Banks. Disloyalty meant economic suffocation.
The Essence Tax
Kael approached the Bank stall, Veyra's silvers clutched in his fist. The banker—a pale man with ink-stained fingers—didn't look up.
"Conversion rate?" Kael muttered.
"Thirty percent." The banker pointed to a sign:
FOREIGN SILVERS: 70% VALUE. ESSENCE CORE DEPOSIT REQUIRED.
"Deposit?"
"All exchanges need a core pledge. To ensure… loyalty." The banker smiled thinly. "No core? No coins."
Kael's stolen Beast-core burned in his pocket. Use it, and the Banks track you. Sell it, and Marrow's Tideknights find you.
"Next!" the banker snapped.
A fisherman shuffled forward, dropping a Monster-core (jagged, pulsing red) onto the counter. The banker stamped a Bank note, emblazoned with the five-pointed star.
Essence is the real currency, Kael realized. Coins are just pretty lies.
As Kael slipped away, a hand clamped his shoulder.
"Thieving rats shouldn't play with silver," sneered a Tideknight, his gauntlet crackling with essence. Two more blocked the exit.
Kael's mind raced. Fight here, and the Banks ban you. Run, and they chase.
Then—a familiar voice, humming off-key.
A girl in a patched sailor's coat ducked under the Tideknight's arm, her braided seaweed hair swinging. "Oops!" She "tripped," spilling a basket of rotten crabs onto the guards.
"Move, idiot!" she hissed at Kael, her light brown eyes gleaming.
He didn't argue.
They weaved through the market, the girl laughing as Tideknights slipped on crab guts. She led Kael into a narrow alley, where the stink of Dead Zone rot masked their trail.
"Who the hell are you?" Kael panted.
"Mara." She tossed him a copper anchor. "For luck. Banks hate those."
He frowned. "Why help me?"
She grinned, nodding at his silver-stuffed pocket. "You're bad at this. I'm bored. Seemed fun."
Before he could retort, she vanished into the crowd, singing a shanty:
"Gold for the saints,
Silver for the drowned,
But the Banks'll choke ya
Till you're essence-bound!"
That night, Kael dumped the silvers onto Garrick's table.
"Banks'll hunt you for these," his father grunted, thumbing a coin. "Should've traded for cores."
"With what? Your empty bottles?"
Garrick's fist slammed down, making the coins jump. "You think this is a game? The Banks own the air you breathe. Cross them, and you'll wish the Tideknights got you first."
Kael pocketed the silvers, the Marine Cousin's warning echoing. "She'll drown you in hope."