Dante: Preparations

The morning light was crisp and clean. The town, which had seemed sleepy and small the night before, bustled quietly with an even method to it. The tempo of the town was one that had its rituals and its functions, a town which was busy with the daily repetitive activities of its denizens.

But despite its sleepiness and size, the presence of the Lord, or rather, Lady Wei had attracted one very important institution: The Bank Imperium.

Dante walked crisply in his red-stained clothing, the cool air of the morning refreshing in his lungs. He wore his conical hat low over his eyes, masking his identity from those around him. Fortunately, most of the crowd was doing the same, and he attracted little attention. Ahead he could see the hanging banner from a raised pole of the Bank Imperium: a round yellow circle on a white field, representing a gold coin, with two black sword silhouettes crossing it. The main street of the town crossed in front of him, filled with wagons and pedestrians with heavy loads on their backs.

It was also full of beggars.

Dante walked past the first few, noting the cripple, the leper, and two others who pretended to be both. He stopped at the corner of the street, looking down at a boy. He was huddled in a ball, keeping his head low from those walking by. He wore a simple blue robe that was tattered and frayed, with long dark hair matted and dirty. He was leaning against something set on the ground, but it was covered by a drab brown blanket, full of dust. Dante stood over the boy, casting a shadow on him for a moment, until he looked up.

"Oh, it's you!" The boy said with a burst of excitement, grinning. He stood up quickly, sweeping the blanket off his belongings, revealing the pair of bags underneath. "I brought them here without any trouble, just as you asked." He stooped down and propped the bags up, dusting them off with his filthy hands as he did. The two bags were very different in size and shape. One was long and cylindrical, about half of Dante's height. It was made of a loose canvas and stuffed with clothing. The other was smaller, and fit easily on Dante's back with the single leather strap that would stripe diagonally across his chest like a bandoleer.

Dante rested the clothing bag on his leg as he swung the pack over one shoulder, rummaging through the contents. He was reassured when he found what he was looking for, and then pulled a hefty sack of money from within.

"You don't need to count it, I swear I didn't take any!" The boy seemed very defensive, and suddenly very afraid. He probably had taken something, but Dante expected it. After all, travelling was difficult. Perhaps he needed extra food, or maybe he bought himself a ride on the back of a wagon for a length. The bags weren't exceptionally heavy, but the size of them would make for an awkward journey, certainly.

Dante tossed him the bag. "Here. Good work." The boy's eyes widened, shocked at the amount. "But don't spend it foolishly. Find a trade, buy yourself an apprenticeship."

"I-I will! Thank you!" The boy said, almost yelling, though his street instincts had already tucked the heavy bag into his robe. Dante hefted the clothing bag with his left hand, hanging it over his shoulder, and headed toward the bank.

"Wait!" The boy called. Dante stopped, but did not turn. "What about this?"

Dante knew what he was talking about. It was a twelve inch long hunting knife, exceptionally sharp. Made from the finest steel of Aldennia in the southwest, a bonus gift from his last job. An excellent weapon, probably worth quite a bit of money in the mercenary markets. "Keep it."

Dante didn't wait for the boy's reactions as he crossed the busy main street, heading on toward the Bank Imperium. A bystander might have interpreted his action as generous.

They were not.

In all honesty, the amount he gave the boy, though more than he expected, was cheap for a courier. Had he hired an armed man to do it, he could've expected to pay three times as much. But, paying an armed man to carry his belongings would've defeated the purpose. For starters, he was an armed man. More importantly, he needed stealth. No one was going to look for him, or his belongings, with a small begging boy.

He stood in line for only a few minutes inside the white stone building of the bank imperium. He was escorted by one of the bank's armed guards to a wooden table, where an older man waited patiently for him. He was wearing blue and purple robes, as bankers tended to do across the land, and had several large ledgers piled on the desk to either side of him, an a thin quill with an inkwell. The quill was in sad shape, nearly stripped of the lines of fine feathers, the ink stained half-way up the length of the writing instrument. The banker's right hand was stained with ink along his fingers.

"Good morning, sire." The banker said, smiling warmly. He was an older man, bald save for the wreath of white hair adorning the back of his head. "Your identification, if you please."

Dante sat down, leaning the large bag of clothing against the chair. He could feel the stiff length that was his sword on the inside of the bag; he had hidden it to prevent it from being taken by security at the entrance. He swung the smaller bag onto his lap, and dug into it, pulling out the leather bound set of documents, setting it on the table. He then lifted his conical hat and set it on the ground next to the chair opposite of his bag.

The banker flipped through the document casually and then took Dante's left hand in his hands. On the pad of Dante's left thumb was a tattoo. Black lines scriggled and crossed each other along it, an almost random arrangement of markings.

They were not.

On the document was a matching inscription of his tattoo, which the banker compared. Satisfied with Dante's documentation and identity, he quickly flipped through one of the massive ledgers, whistling softly to himself as the sheaves of yellowed pages flipped to and fro. He seemed satisfied at one page and ran his finger up and down along the pages, scanning the entries.

The banker's eyes widened, as they always did. "Well, sire Mirako, I will be more than glad to assist you." The banker said, sliding a blank length of paper in front of him and reaching for his quill. "But I must warn you, we are a small branch, and we will only be able to accommodate you to a certain degree."

"I understand." Dante replied blankly. Of course they would, a bank in a city this small couldn't even cover one fourth of his account amount if he chose to withdraw the entire sum. Not that he did. "It's simple, really. I need six hundred total. Four in paper marks, two in coins. In the coins, one hundred in gold, the other hundred divided into silver and copper. I also need to place an allowance on my account, another three hundred. I will be making a large purchase and would prefer to use a slip of withdrawal with this particular vendor."

The banker was scribbling furiously with one hand, and snapped a few times with his left hand. A young man, no older than a teenager, rushed over to his side. The banker handed him the paper, whispered something into his ear, and the young man rushed off. "Yes sire, this shall be attended to immediately. Will there be anything else?"

Dante shook his head and gathered up his hat and his bag. "When will be able to pick this up?"

"Within an hour." The banker replied cheerfully.

"Very well. Good day." Dante strolled through the bank directly, slicing a path through the crowd in line. He had to admit to himself he was impressed a bank of this size would be able to gather six hundred so quickly. It would definitely be a hindrance to the local bank for the next few days, but perhaps the shipment was due in soon and would cause no problems. He was about to allow himself a rare moment of daydreaming, to let his thoughts drift as he wondered how to spend the next hour, when his eye caught the shape of someone he didn't expect to see.

"Withdrawing money? So soon after? Doesn't seem wise, does it?" The voice was low and sound like gravel, with a heavy gravitas not fitting the half century he had lived.

"No choice." Dante replied shortly.