Cassius Ramsen, the young Guildmaster of Emerald Crust sat frowning at his desk. “Help me understand, why are we getting penalized now? We have been circumventing these regulations for decades.” The office from where he presided over his guild had been his father’s, and retained the signs of opulence from a time long past. The polished pillars were streaked with gold and silver along the edges, and tasteful paintings from renowned painters adorned the walls.

  The slick-haired consultant sitting opposite to him wiped his face with a pristine white kerchief. “Our best guess would be that you have done something else that has earned you the ire of the God King.”

  Cassius fidgeted with a small dataslab in the corner of the desk, while the consultant wiped an imaginary stain off his impeccably tailored attire. “So you are saying that he could have known about the corners we have been cutting all along…” Sleep had evaded the young leader for many nights now, and dark circles were gaining prominence on his once handsome face.

  The consultant knew he was hedging on possibilities, but all his investigation over the last few days had yielded nothing else. He nodded, “And he just chose not to take any action because the scale of violations were not deemed worthy of the Protectorate’s attention. But if something else that you have done in the near past has angered him, for which he may not have evidence to prosecute you…”

  “He can get back to us through other means.” Cassius connected the dots.

  “That would be our best guess. We would recommend performing a deep inspection of operations across your departments and aborting anything that go against the Irvanian founding principles.” The consultant’s penetrating gaze was almost accusatory.

  Cassius felt his temple throbbing. He did not really need to perform a deeper inspection. He knew exactly what could have angered the galactic monarch. The consultant they had hired knew nothing of the Project Azaroth, but a secret team within their organization had recently started collaborating with Helicon and, following a template labeled AX-149, they had bulk manufactured a defensive aegis that could be retrofitted into the rebel warcrafts. The designs that Helicon had supplied for this project had been far beyond in complexity compared to what the rebel groups usually dealt with. In the hindsight, it should have been obvious to Cassius that the designs could have been originated from an Irvanian source. Could they have been stolen from the Protectorate itself?

  Few months back, this decision had seemed like a practical solution for their mounting financial troubles. Collaborating with rebel groups always carried immense risk, but they were close to defaulting on loans they had accumulated. They had been careful in compartmentalizing the operations of this group, but now it seemed like somehow the God King had still tracked this project back to their guild.

  If Cassius had been smarter, he would have anticipated this possibility long ago. Only a hundred or so guilds in the empire had the infrastructure and testing support system to manufacture a military project of that scale, and the timeframe of the production, the rate of delivery and the rate of defects in the deliverables statistically eliminated most other candidates. Emerald Crust may have hidden the specifics of one group, but the God King had access to the supply chain data across all known universe. Through a series of statistical aggregations of resources flowing in and out across all departments of all guilds, it was not difficult for him to pinpoint that there was an unexplained deficit in Emerald Crust’s reported deliverables. The careful accounting tricks that the guild had employed to paper over these anomalies had no chance of fooling the God King. The deficit did not align with the resources they were consuming, the by-products they had generated, anomalies they had reported or the waste products they had discarded. But, they did align quite well with the timeline of rebel groups getting access to hitherto unknown sophisticated machinery.

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  But of course, if Cassius had been smarter, he would not have ended up in this financially decrepit situation in the first place, where he would be desperate enough to rely on rebel groups to save his company. When he had received a fortune from his father in inheritance, he surprisingly found himself at the helm of the guild at a rather young age. At the time, the guild had been flourishing. But given his inexperience, he had continued to fall into traps set by his competitors over the years since, and failed to foresee or adapt to the changing market trends. So within ten years, the name Emerald Crust had transformed from a well respected household name to something of a laughingstock among businessmen of the empire.

  Now, desperation mounting, Cassius decided to approach the problem from a different angle. Perhaps there was still a way to save the guild. “Off the books, do you know of any other guilds which may also have displeased the God king in the near past?” He asked the consultant, his brows knit.

  This was not a line of conversation the advisor had expected. But after a bit of thought, tapping through his tablet, he paused at a listing that was all too familiar. “Why, the Ortimus conglomerate, of course. Nothing has been made public yet, but if the gossip in the online forums are to be believed, they have done something to deeply offend the God King too. The Protectorate scrutiny on their operations have drastically grown over the last few months.”

  “Thank you, Leutus,” Cassius stood up. “You have given me much to think about. I’ll ask my subordinates to get started on this investigation,” he lied.

  Once the consultant had left, Cassius spent the next hour methodically delving through the market reports and open bids. After he had formulated a new plan of action, he called up Galvius, his associate. “We need to abort Project Azaroth.”

  “But Sir, we have already incurred the costs for the next batch of production,” Galvius was alarmed, "And Helicon may retaliate once they get this news."

  "They won't risk doing something utterly stupid and risk the Protectorate's wrath."

  “And what are we going to do about the upcoming loan deadline?”

  “We still have thirty-five batches of Zythramine shipment for Ortimus planned, yes? If the reports in front of me are correct,” Cassius zoomed into the inventory overview, “we have already manufactured ten batches ahead of time which are ready to be shipped.”

  “Yes, but what does Zythramine have anything to do with…”

  Cassius cut off his subordinate, “We will sell that to Nomtheon.” He tapped through the listing, navigating to the marketplace broadcast he had bookmarked - a high-priority emergency bid that had caught his attention. “They are planning to aggressively expand in Sector 93 and are willing to pay a premium. In advance.”

  “But what about our five-year contract with Ortimus?” Galvius found himself increasingly concerned with the direction of this conversation.

  “Deliver their batch as scheduled. But partially substitute it with a lower quality fuel. The remainder in expenses should enable us to offer an early partial payment to the loaner, and we will be able to appeal to them for an extension.”

  “Ortimus will not take this kind of fraud lightly…”

  “I am certain of it.” Cassius gritted his teeth.

  “But Sir, if they retaliate in court, it could mean the end of our guild.” Galvius insisted, his apprehension growing.

  “I have a feeling we will be able to delay their legal proceedings.” Cassius was playing a dangerous game, but he was a hustler through and through. “Ortimus has fallen out of the God King’s favor, and our lawyers would be able to take advantage of that in court.” All he needed was a few more months of time. Or so he thought, completely unaware of the chaos that his life was about to get plunged into.

  “Do it.” Cassius disconnected.