Next,” said the clerk, and the queue lurched ahead. A waif stum­bled to the counter. Over­sized boots; mousy brown bangs. A wine stain around one eye. A bat­tered, sheathed cut­lass in her thin fin­gers, wor­ry­ing the leather.

Behind the grille, the clerk cast her a rheumy stare.

“Not much to look at, are you?” A cig­a­rette wob­bled in his mus­tache. “Have you worked with the Com­pa­ny before?”

“No,” she said.

“Name?” he sighed, pluck­ing up a pen.

“Mel Bin­ter of Fir Reach.”

The clerk scrib­bled in a ledger. Lit­tle wafts of smoke curled from his mouth. Dox­bells spi­raled towards the ceil­ing. “License?” he said, drib­bling ash. 

“I haven’t one yet,” said Mel. The scab­bard creaked in her hands.

“Two crowns.”

A pouch jin­gled on the wood­en counter. A hand swiped it behind the grille and emp­tied it. He divid­ed coins with a yel­low fin­ger­tip, scud­ding them into groups: Sev­er­al cop­per half­pen­nies, six­ty sil­ver pence, four shillings, and a sin­gle iron­bound gold­en pound. A week’s wages. * With a scale and caliper, he mea­sured the pound’s weight and diam­e­ter, then har­rumphed, rang open a till, and tipped the coins in. From a stack of fresh leather folds, he select­ed one, stamped its inner page with an elab­o­rate broad green imprint, and slid it over the counter. “Sign this and keep it,” he said. Mel scratched some­thing incom­pre­hen­si­ble. “And see the pho­tograv­ist next for your head­shot.” He coughed. “Now, you sign­ing on to a ven­ture?”

“Yes,” said Mel, tak­ing the leather fold.

“Lead­er’s name?” said the clerk, pro­duc­ing anoth­er ledger and begin­ning to scrib­ble.

“Mar­cazy Hado­cland of Norole.”

The clerk removed the cig­a­rette from his lips. He blinked slow­ly twice at her. “Hado­cland’s lead­ing the ven­ture to Lieudepur Climb,” he said, inclin­ing his head. “It’s the third attempt.”

Mel shift­ed, held her sword and license close. “I know,” she trem­bled.

“It’s your skin, Lass,” said the clerk, shak­ing his head. He fas­tened the smoke back in his mouth and pro­duced a doc­u­ment, begin­ning to read aloud.

“For this ven­ture, the share for a cut­ter with no stand­ing with the com­pa­ny is point two per­cent of extract­ed yield. Share increas­es com­men­su­rate with fatal­i­ties, should they have no will. Tiber and Fel­lowes pro­vide no assur­ance to the safe­ty of this ven­ture or the nature of the tasks you may be required to per­form. Do you agree to these terms?”

“Yes,” said Mel.

“All right. This copy­’s for you.” He slid an enve­lope over. Mel took it. “Thank you,” she said. The clerk did­n’t meet her gaze. She turned from the counter.

“Lass,” said the clerk, sud­den­ly.

Mel looked back.

“Good luck.”

The stars ran fast as a sec­ond-hand. Scud­ding pin­holes in the black dome of heav­en. The world below flick­ered with rac­ing flame, unfilled by any moon.

Under the flick­er-light, they camped in a crum­bling bar­ti­zan. A round­ed tur­ret, jut­ted from a black­stone wall, sit­u­at­ed high over clois­ters, bat­tle­ments, and turn­pikes. Over a non­sense of for­ti­fi­ca­tion. Stair­ways and wind­ing embank­ments descend­ed ever low­er into bleak fast­ness. Citadels, tur­rets, and bas­tions in height­en­ing ranks over­head, shud­der­ing with light, linked by mean­der­ing para­pets. A chill per­vad­ed, musty with the ozone of bro­ken stone.

Mel turned away from the crust­ed para­pet, shiv­er­ing in a jack­cloth coat. “Reck­on we’re out­world for cer­tain, this time,” she declared.

The oth­er four cut­ters hud­dled round a squat camp stove. Idling, shiv­er­ing. Nurs­ing a steam­ing pot of dumplings.

“Lili­bet will get us out. Aar­timetrist to the res­cue, as always. Right Lili?” mused a brown mouse, test­ing a wet dumpling.

“Non, non,” splut­tered Lili­bet, spit­ting water into her can­teen. “Speak not of it. If I sum­mon the thought before it is need­ed, I will waste it. My brain will fail us in the moment and—” She ges­tured as if scat­ter­ing grain. “We will be lost for­ev­er.”

“Come off it,” scoffed a red­head­ed, freck­led Awnling with three fin­gers on his left hand. He fum­bled a greasy black gun­spring, re-assem­bling the bolt sled. “You always talk like there’s mag­ic to it. There ain’t no mag­ic in art’me­try. We all know that,” he nod­ded.

“Mar­cazy, you con­nard, you are still mak­ing me think of it. You will kill us all.” Lili­bet wag­gled a crooked fin­ger at him.

“Let’s try a change of sub­ject, Marc,” gummed the mouse through a mouth­ful of hot dumpling. “How’s about this: How’d you lot become des­per­a­dos, eh? Been three ven­tures togeth­er in two sea­sons. Plen­ty dead along the way. Just us left, and I still don’t know what’s wrong with any of you.” He prof­fered a steam­ing bowl at Marc. “You first.”

“Alright,” sighed Mar­cazy, set­ting down his assem­bled gun and tak­ing the dumplings. He blew at the steam and mused. “Well, me folks grow cour­gettes down in Kesselshire. Want­ed me to take up the farm when they was old. Take care of ’em. But I nev­er much cared for squash, you know. Nor for farm­ing. Nor for me mum beltin’ me, nor me dad not car­ing. So when I turned 16, I said feck ’em. I stole the mon­ey in the tea tin and stole off to Draum on the next train. Start­ed as a green­leaf. I’m 31 now, I think. Been lead­ing ven­tures these last five years, since I got stand­ing-three with T n’ F.” He chewed a dumpling. “Comes easy, I sup­pose.”

“Could’ve been a cour­gette baron,” quipped Lili­bet, slurp­ing broth.

Mar­cazy shrugged. Set­tling down, Mel looked at him, meet­ing his eyes, and then away. Down at the dilap­i­dat­ed cut­lass on her gun­belt, in its leather pol­ished by wor­ry­ing. She pulled it close in her lap. The stars flick­ered on.

“Lord, is that soup?” said a fourth lump near the fire, untan­gling from its sleep­ing bag. Sour feet waft­ed with­out. The oth­er cut­ters rolled their eyes.

“You’re a right mess, Cin­gle,” said Mel. “It’s ord dumplings and chick­en, any­way.”

Cin­gle’s face was crusty, bare­ly vis­i­ble between mound­ed locs and a nose-high mot­ley of padded armor. “Feck­ing excel­lent. Two please.”

“I had bet you were dead,” frowned Lili­bet down her long nose. “Do you remem­ber falling off that ram­part?”

“Not the fog­gi­est. Give that bowl over, Dar­ling, would ya? Ta. Bless you. Still hot.”

“We were recount­ing how we all got into cut­ter­ing, Cin­gle,” said Mar­cazy.

“Oh, bloody hell. You don’t want to know that.”

“Sure we do,” said the mouse.

“I do not,” said Lili­bet.

Cin­gle plowed on. “Well, since you asked. I used to be a bad per­son. Believe it or not. Died for me crimes, I did, but the Lord gave me a sec­ond chance, and I’m using it now to do good upon the world, seek­ing Her in the dark­est places. I will enter Her cru­cible and emerge change’d and pure of heart.” They nod­ded soul­ful­ly.

“Lord, spare me this merde,” whined Lili­bet, hands clasped in mock prayer. Cin­gle made a face at her.

“What about you then, Lili?” said Dar­ling, the mouse, pass­ing the oth­er bowls.

“Euh,” groaned Lili­bet. “Well, it is quite bor­ing.” She leaned sky­ward on her back­pack, face flick­er­ing in the not-can­dle­light, absent­ly pluck­ing locks from her plait. “I was raised in an orphan­age in Empereaux, between Comtés Lanc and de L’laqua. I was a lucky child, real­ly, being in a group home and not the Streets. But the place shut down when I was twelve, and we were all sold. I went for a plat­inum glo­ria.”

“That’s child slav­ery, Lili. † That’s bloody awful,” choked Marc, drib­bling broth.

Lili­bet laughed. “Peut-être que. Per­haps. You know what is sil­ly? I let that go to my head. I was worth a whole glo­ria. I was so cocky then.” She sighed. “Any­way, some Lea­han cut­ters thought I was worth it. For a link­er. I was the health­i­est of the bunch. They thought I’d last longest.” She kept tug­ging at her hair, thought­less­ly undo­ing the braids with scarred fin­gers. “I out­last­ed them. Two ven­tures in, they were all crushed in an Agadese tomb. I had gone first, but the pres­sure plate must have been weight­ed for adults, so I did­n’t trig­ger it. When it reset, I was so sur­prised by how flat they were that I stopped being fright­ened. Even their guns were flat. But not these.” She raised her left hand towards the too-fast stars. Knot­ty and swollen, dig­its veined with white sur­gi­cal scars.

“You took knuck­le­bones off them?” said Mel, hud­dled in her armored coat, back to the cold stone. Her eyes were wide, and even the plum mark around one eye showed pale.

“Oh yes. And all their mon­ey.” She laughed, look­ing at them all, hair wild. She took up her dumpling bowl. “What about you then, Dar­ling Smalls?” She grinned at the mouse. “What is your trag­ic entry to the ven­tur­ing indus­try, hmm?”

“Ugh, I sup­pose I start­ed it,” said the mouse, pro­duc­ing a hand­ker­chief and briskly groom­ing with it. Nose to neck in a blur of fur and silk. “I’m the youngest of thir­teen sib­li—” He was inter­rupt­ed by Cin­gle, laugh­ing crude­ly.

“Shut up, Priest. It’s not very Lord­ly, laugh­ing at a stereo­type,” snapped Dar­ling. “Any­way, even mouse fam­i­lies aren’t usu­al­ly so large, so I was quite for­got­ten as the last child. We were city mice. Had prac­ti­cal­ly half a hun­dred rel­a­tives around in the rooms over the shop. My fam­i­ly were con­fec­tion­ers, you see. Employed the clan.”

“So that’s why you hate sweets,” remarked Mar­cazy, pick­ing his teeth.

“Quite. So, one day, when I was per­haps, oh, sev­en­teen, I was feel­ing quite bleak of heart. For­got­ten by the world, you see. I won­dered if any­one’d notice if I van­ished. I went down to the con­sor­tium and signed on as a bur­glar for a prac­ti­cal­ly sui­ci­dal ven­ture. Hor­ri­ble busi­ness in some pro­to-Firl­ish com­plex under the munic­i­pal sew­ers. I hoped to die.” He tugged his whiskers thought­ful­ly. “But I did­n’t. I rather excelled. Whole place was over­run with armored plague, and I smug­gled out half the gold while the grues clanked around look­ing for my mates. After that, I got quite addict­ed. And proud of my skills. Made four crowns, then skipped town. Not seen my fam­i­ly since.” He shrugged. “And here I am with you mis­er­able lot.” He grinned a mouth­ful of yel­low rodent incisors.

“I’ll miss you if you van­ish, Smalls. And your dumplings,” said Mar­cazy. He clapped the mouse on his maille-lined jack­et. “You count on that.”

“I prob­a­bly would, too,” sighed Lili­bet.

“That’s enough!” said the mouse, wav­ing them off. “I can’t stand sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty.” He looked at Mel. “You’re last, Mel Binder. What’s dri­ven you to cut­ter­ing?”

Mel star­tled. She rose, boot­nails scrap­ing. “Oh. It’s bor­ing. Like Lili said, but mine’s actu­al­ly bor­ing. Bor­ing as dirt. Let’s eat, shall we?” The rat­ty scab­bard creaked in her hands.

“Not so fast, Lass,” said Cin­gle, ladling broth. “We is eat­ing. It’s your turn to talk. We already spilled our guts. Only fair.” Dar­ling nod­ded, whiskers bob­bing.

Mel looked at Mar­cazy, who returned vague, blue-eyed con­fu­sion at her blanch-cheeked stare.

“Well, uh, I read too many pulps last year and thought I’d try it out. That’s all.”

“Bol­locks,” declared Cin­gle. “A Priest knows a liar when they smell once, and you stink. Con­fess, young Mel.”

“You stink, Fanat­ic! That’s all you’ll get from me.” She shout­ed, abrupt­ly storm­ing for the dark of the wall. She turned round the stone arch and out the shel­tered bar­ti­zan. A chill draft entered in her wake.

The remain­ing four chewed a moment, faces alight by strob­ing stars, gaz­ing upon their bowls. In the dis­tance, a brat­tle of falling stone echoed unwit­nessed in cas­tle depths.

“My fookin’ eye­balls hurt,” griped Cin­gle.

“Shut up,” snapped Mar­cazy. They all glared at the Priest. “You lot stay put. I’ll get her back. She’ll be eat­en out there, alone.” He rose, steel faulds and bootheels clack­ing, and fol­lowed out.

The black­stone para­pet was striped by tow­ers’ shad­ows. A kilo­me­ter long or more. Mar­cazy’s heels rever­ber­at­ed, over­lap­ping into the for­ti­fied non­sense. Mel sat a dozen meters down its length in the dark­ened lee of a mer­lon. Chin tucked to gor­get, eyes low, grip­ping and twist­ing the decrepit cut­lass scab­bard like a chick­en neck.

He crouched beside her with a huff and a clat­ter. “Feck Cin­gle,” he said. “I’ll not sign them on the next.”

Silence for a while. Creak­ing leather. The whis­tle of chill wind laden with stony, wet geosmin, like after a rain.

Mel sighed. “You’re the only one I’ve known who feels the same way about it.”

“Bout what? Cut­ter­ing?”

“Aye. Like it comes nat­ur­al.”

“Sup­pose so. But I reck­on Lili and Dar­ling feel the same. Like they were made for it. They’ve been through plen­ty.”

She frowned. A moment passed. “You’re not going to ask me, right?”

“No.” He shook his head.

“Thanks.” She relin­quished the cut­lass. It clat­tered soft­ly in the leather. “They say it’s the most impor­tant job in the world, you know.”

“I’ve heard that, eye.”

“And it’s prob­a­bly the worst job you can do. You see things you can’t for­get, and get wounds that don’t heal, and every­one we do it with dies or goes mad.”

“True.”

“But it’s the only thing I’ve got. It’s the only thing that fits. ‘N you’re the only one I’ve got in it that I trust.” She met his gaze. “So I don’t want to cock it up by telling my truth, because if you hear it, you won’t like me any­more.”

Her face was scat­tered with scars. White ones over the wine-stained eye. Pink ones over the pale cheek oppo­site, still spot­ted with suture holes. Tear tracks cov­ered both, shiny with star-flick­er.

“I lied, too,” said Mar­cazy, low­ly,

“What?”

“Aye. Ain’t no cour­gette baron.”

“Then what are yo—” She stopped, then smiled. He did too.

“Some­thing much worse. You would­n’t like me if you knew,” he said, ris­ing, offer­ing a hand.

“So you’re a cut­ter?”

“Aye. A cut­ter.”

“Mill­field!”

A brown fold­er slapped onto Mil­field­’s desk. The gust flut­tered papers and dis­rupt­ed the over­full ash­tray. “Isn’t this your case?”

Mill­field gazed at it. Eyes unfo­cused and veiny under her green visor. She opened the fold­er. “Yes, Direc­tor. This one’s mine,” she said, weari­ly. “ ‘Inves­ti­ga­tion of unknown high alti­tude for­ti­fi­ca­tions.’ Uncracked tombs sus­pect­ed.”

“If you know it, why is the case file two months out of date?” A fist thumped the desk­top. An inkpen rolled away.

“They’re not back, Mas­ter. No con­tact since embarka­tion.”

A huff. “From stand­ing-three expe­di­tion­ers? This was rat­ed ‘low effort.’ They should be back. Who are these clowns you put on my ven­ture, Mill­field?”

“Hado­cland and Com­pa­ny. They resolved the Lieudepur Climb raid. Saved the third attempt. They’re a sea­soned moun­tain crew, I swear.”

Anoth­er huff. “Well, it appears they’re a dead crew, now. No one lives two months in the high Gorathi­ans.” A fin­ger jabbed at the open fold­er. “Mark it ‘unre­solved’ and scrape up anoth­er crew of stand­ing-threes. Intes­tate assets only. Forth­with, please—ten thou­sand pounds of our autumn bud­get went into that assay. I’ll not have your lack of ini­tia­tive squan­der­ing it.”

“But, if stand­ing-threes could­n’t han­dle it, should­n’t we send a crew of fours?”

An exas­per­at­ed sigh. “All nine stand­ing fours in Ges­selchundt are occu­pied in the Nauss­ian deba­cle.”

“What about six threes?”

“Blimey, Mill­field. Send a dozen threes for all I care. So long as they’ve no next of kin. I won’t have death dues eat­ing into my bud­get.” The Direc­tor turned to leave.

“But—”

“For feck­’s sake, Mill­field. Find them. Send them.” A cold stare.

“They’re only cut­ters.”

12356

The gold mines of the Coast are long ago aban­doned. They are deplet­ed or dug per­ilous­ly close the labyrinthine Under­world. New mines are not dug: The prospects are too mea­ger; the locales too wild.

But gold yet lies beneath the sur­face of the world. It was buried there by ancient hands. Interred in the dark and elab­o­rate depths of tombs: the tes­ta­ment-realms of an occult and calami­tous world his­to­ry defend­ed by ancient sor­ceries and undy­ing mon­sters. †† These tombs are bur­ial places craft­ed not mere­ly for extinct cul­tures’ hon­ored dead but for the secrets that end­ed their civilizations⁠—for tech­nolo­gies and evi­dences too shame­ful to bear the light of day but too beau­ti­ful and too seduc­tive to destroy. In these, the Coastal econ­o­my has found fresh specie aplen­ty, and in extract­ing it engen­dered an indus­try to define the mod­ern world: Adven­ture cap­i­tal.

Adven­ture cap­i­tal relies on hired cut­ters: Tomb raiders, vio­lence-work­ers, and des­per­a­dos. ‡ Mer­ce­nar­ies, bur­glars, mad­men, thrill seek­ers. Charmed by promis­es of trea­sure beyond imag­in­ing, they embark on ven­tures to the edges of the world and beyond; to the worst places built and buried by humankind.

They embark at the behest of hun­gry banks. The fat finan­cial titans of the Coast, vicious­ly com­pet­i­tive, who in the year 3.221 formed the Lit­toral Adven­ture Cap­i­tal Com­pact, an inter­na­tion­al­ly rat­i­fied finan­cial agree­ment grant­i­ng them unlim­it­ed autho­riza­tion to con­duct “spec­u­la­tive cap­i­tal expe­di­tions,” in any ter­ri­to­ry where­in they are char­tered to accept deposit. Over 229 years, this com­pact has bloat­ed them with wealth, mak­ing the banks might­i­er and rich­er than many of the king­doms they stron­garmed into sign­ing two cen­turies ago. ‡‡

The Com­pact marked a philo­soph­i­cal rever­sal in the per­cep­tion of world his­to­ry. § Where­as the far­away past was once disdained—its struc­tures and mate­r­i­al leav­ings feared, shunned, ignored; stud­ied only by grim wiz­ards; and deemed the dis­taste­ful rem­nant of evil eras rife with sor­cery, slav­ery, and human loss—the Com­pact insist­ed on rev­e­la­tion. On exploita­tion. On pro­found cap­i­tal­iza­tion upon what had been ignored.

For those that accept­ed this doc­trine, the Coast itself was trans­formed: A land­scape poxy with its own mem­o­ries became a cor­nu­copia of vir­gin wealth: Under every major city slept a Colossean under­struc­ture laden with lost tech­nolo­gies. With­in every for­bid­den for­est lan­guished gild­ed Idran plea­sure-domes. Atop every ghast­ly peak wait­ed a cas­tle sprawl filthy with bygone coin and sealed armories. Under this phi­los­o­phy, the Coast pre­sent­ed seem­ing­ly every­where what is now called land wealth, or “immo­bile archaïc estate,” rich for the tak­ing. Sud­den­ly, emp­ty gold mines were of least con­cern, and acqui­si­tion of land wealth rights, eas­i­ly bought from unwit­ting lords and mon­archs, became the order of the day.

229 years of adven­ture cap­i­tal have elapsed in a fren­zy of spec­u­la­tion, expe­di­tion, and extrac­tion. In this time, the prac­tice has influ­enced sociopo­lit­i­cal, tech­no­log­i­cal, and reli­gious change.

The Renascent Peri­od, deemed the begin­ning of the Mod­ern Era and a tri­umph of progress, was steeply accel­er­at­ed by the effects of the ven­tur­ing econ­o­my. §§ Sci­en­tif­ic advances were buoyed not only by the demands of ear­ly cutters—who required supe­ri­or arms, armor, and med­i­cine to with­stand increas­ing­ly dire tombs—but by the suc­ces­sion of wars start­ed by and against decay­ing king­doms weak­ened by the finan­cial depre­da­tions of adven­ture cap­i­tal­ists, who in their ruth­less pro­cure­ment of land wealth ensured the break­age and fail­ure of all par­ties unwill­ing to sell. Dur­ing this time, South­ern banks encour­aged grow­ing desire for a recon­quista of the South­east­ern wilder­ness by Avethans, secur­ing ear­ly land wealth claims in what are now the Viceroy­al­ties of Alagór. In 3.252, Tiber and Fel­lowes bequeathed a mas­sive sum to the Firl­ish Crown’s new­ly-estab­lished ward rangers, and in return received the land wealth of 500,000 square kilo­me­ters of North­ern moor­land. By the year 3.300, 66% of all land wealth with­in 100 km of the con­ti­nen­tal shore belonged to just four banks.

Lat­er, the Indus­tri­al Enlight­en­ment and coin­cid­ing Renascent Era were guid­ed and pro­mot­ed by the ven­tur­ing econ­o­my. Con­tin­ued expan­sion into the East­ern march­lands, rich with land wealth but out­side of prac­ti­cal reach, was facil­i­tat­ed by the banks’ sub­stan­tial spon­sor­ship of rail devel­op­ment. Sim­i­lar­ly, the race to replace whale oil with cetasene as the Coast’s fuel was a con­comi­tant effort to feed said trains. Polit­i­cal­ly, the pop­u­lar destruc­tion of long­stand­ing monar­chies and resul­tant con­cen­tra­tion of Coastal pow­er dur­ing the Renascence was as much the effort of ide­o­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion­ar­ies as the banks back­ing them, eager to hoist new nations more amenable to the exploita­tion of under­ly­ing tombs. Most notably among these, the Empereaussin Domin­ion itself—which sup­plant­ed five stub­born elder monarchies—condensed pow­er in the south­ern Mid­dle King­doms under an Emper­ess friend­ly to Péri­dot Firm, a Com­pact mem­ber and spon­sor of the Emper­ess’s blood­line through­out the uni­fi­ca­tion wars.

Today, the Com­pact is a tri­umph of exploita­tion. Entrenched by cen­turies of med­dling, the banks are res­olute, inex­tri­ca­ble, and their pur­suit of adven­ture cap­i­tal shows no signs of slow­ing. Indeed, the Coast enjoys a Gild­ed Age at their behest, brim­ming with wealth and tech­nol­o­gy; and its peo­ple are enrap­tured by the flow­ing lucre of the “ven­ture rush.”

More folk than ever trend East, towards the wilder­lands of high adven­ture. Per­ilous and beau­ti­ful realms, many not entire­ly belong­ing to the world at all, dead­ly prox­i­mal the oth­er­world and to rar­er out­world climes. This wild East is the fringe of mod­ern civ­i­liza­tion, but it was not always this way: Civ­i­liza­tion exist­ed there for eons, but now lies lost, aban­doned to the Oth­er, to insane weath­er, and to con­querors long dead in their thrones. ‖ These the lost stages of his­to­ry, upon which mil­len­nia of deeds were played, fair and foul alike, and they demand recon­quest.

Pop­u­lar sup­port for East­ward expan­sion is at an all-time high, and the banks enjoy pro­found sup­port in pur­su­ing it. “Imper­a­tive des­tiny,” the philo­soph­i­cal-polit­i­cal ide­ol­o­gy of reconquest—existentially imper­a­tive and des­tined in cer­tain­ty should civ­i­liza­tion’s progress con­tin­ue apace—is the eas­i­est belief a Coastal pow­er could pos­si­bly back; and, so long as expe­di­tions trend east and mon­ey flows west, they need not ques­tion the meth­ods of its pur­suit.

Few have object­ed to adven­ture cap­i­tal’s posi­tion at the polit­i­cal fore­front of recon­quest and econ­o­my. Few ques­tion the prac­tice at all. The three great pow­ers could hard­ly object if they want­ed to, con­joined as they are to a Com­pact bank apiece: Fir­lund has Tiber & Fel­lowes, Empereaux lies with Péri­dot Firm, and Alagór is entwined with both Man­til­la Prof­i­teers and Lagão Trea­sury. These part­ner­ships are the source of the world’s mon­ey: The coun­tries mint the coins, and adven­ture cap­i­tal pro­duces the bul­lion they’re struck from. There’s no escap­ing one’s own mon­e­tary sys­tem.

But some have tried. Cimar­ron, Alagór’s rebel­lious moun­tain neighbor—succeeded from the penin­su­lar empire a cen­tu­ry ago—attempted to adopt a fiat cur­ren­cy in 3.435. The Crimar­rona réi was print­ed on paper and held no lit­er­al bul­lion val­ue. Mere months after issue, the beloved Syon of Cimar­ron, heir to the coun­try’s con­sti­tu­tion­al monar­chy, was cap­tured by pirates off the coast of Ecca and not returned until the Exec­u­tive Cab­i­net fin­ished unre­lat­ed deal­ings in con­fer­ence with Lagão Trea­sury, in which the Cab­i­net agreed to mod­i­fy its new mon­e­tary plans, stak­ing the val­ue of the réi on a func­tion of total wealth extract­ed from Agadese tombs with­in the coun­try’s board­ers. Just three years lat­er, Edmund D’Ar­cy, head of the so-called Min­er­al Cau­cus of the Low­er Crown of Fir­lund, dar­ing­ly cham­pi­oned a sep­a­ratist stance ver­sus Tiber & Fel­lowes, demand­ing, con­vinc­ing­ly, that Fir­lund pri­va­tize and inde­pen­dent­ly prospect its land wealth and lease claims to banks by auc­tion. D’Ar­cy per­ished by defen­es­tra­tion after form­ing a sub­stan­tial fol­low­ing with­in the Low­er Crown, and was posthu­mous­ly impli­cat­ed in traf­fick­ing rag­dolls. Most recent­ly, the nation of Lothrheim passed a dar­ing pro­hi­bi­tion­ist bill ban­ning the prac­tice of adven­ture cap­i­tal with­in its bor­ders, effec­tive­ly expelling all cut­ters from employ. This enraged the banks and soon saw Lothrheim embroiled in the first con­ti­nen­tal war in a cen­tu­ry, forced to retal­i­ate against Domin­ion troops mus­tered on its bor­ders by a Péri­dot-goad­ed Empereaux. Though the Lothrheimer Diet­stag antic­i­pat­ed war, under­go­ing thor­ough mil­i­ta­riza­tion in the pre­ced­ing years, the ongo­ing con­flict turns ever poor­er in their favor, and even its fast ally, the Firl­ish Crown, is sus­pect­ed to con­spire against the Lothrheimer cause.

The world runs on adven­ture cap­i­tal. It runs on tombs—on its own guilty past—and on its own peo­ple. On the brave, the fool­ish, the delud­ed, the fanat­ic, and the des­per­ate. It con­sumes them like fuel. It’s a blood-indus­try, but no one sees the sausage-mak­ing. No one sees the meat grinder. No one sees the cut­ters’ work.

Land wealth does not extract itself. Tomb doors do not dyna­mite them­selves, nor undy­ing guardians spon­ta­neous­ly die, elab­o­rate traps unwind, or wilder­ness reach­es grow near­er. Some­one must light the fuse, do the killing, undo the snares, endure the trek. Some­one must per­ish, must be killed, must die, must suc­cumb. Cut­ters do these things.

Theirs is the most impor­tant job in the world. Yet the aver­age cit­i­zen knows noth­ing of ven­tur­ing. The cut­ter’s strug­gle is san­i­tized or unknow­able. The papers do not speak of it in real terms—cutters delve the past, and the past is ter­ri­fy­ing to under­stand. The pulps do not depict them faith­ful­ly, either; they are writ­ten by delud­ed, shel­tered fic­tion­ists who ped­dle shock and sen­sa­tion but whose mere per­vert intel­lects can­not hold a can­dle to the true scale, opu­lence, or deprav­i­ty of ancient sor­cery.

Indeed, by the time the land wealth reach­es the citizenry—or, more like­ly, doesn’t—it is removed entire­ly from its ori­gin. Extract­ed, melt­ed, and reworked into mod­ern coin. In the cru­cible, the blood-mon­ey becomes clean, the flesh and sweat of cut­ters mere slag. The rich, the “aris­tos,” know more about ven­tur­ing. They jeal­ous­ly dec­o­rate their homes and halls with the pil­fered finer­ies of past civ­i­liza­tions, wish­ing for an antique past they should not wish to have lived; but they still scarce­ly regard the cut­ter, save to cri­tique the dam­ages inflict­ed by them in haul­ing up some trea­sured bust or urn. Magi­cians and neosor­cer­ers know cut­ters best. They may even appre­ci­ate the ven­tur­ing art, so essen­tial is it in fur­nish­ing their own prac­tice. They are the chiefest employ­ers of cut­ters, out­side the banks, and often the cru­elest.

Despite an untrue reck­on­ing of their caste, folk do love the cut­ter. As a folk­loric fig­ure, at least. As a sort of dar­ing out­law, leather-clad out­sider, death-defy­ing rene­gade, or sexy punk. They like the fig­ure depict­ed in the pulps and the bank adver­tise­ments more often than the real thing. The real thing is a vio­lence work­er and a bur­glar at best. An unmoored, dis­turbed crea­ture engaged in an extend­ed final lurch between life and death, usu­al­ly. Often strange-look­ing, poor­ly behaved, cov­ered in wounds, and crock full of drugs, hex­es, mias­ma, bad luck, and sor­ceries. Yet, even these freaks have their charms. More than enough youths and dis­qui­et souls have stolen away with a cut­ter gang, enchant­ed by a sin­gle night of sto­ries and drink­ing.

What dri­ves one to be a cut­ter? In a bru­tal indus­tri­al­ized soci­ety, it is not a hard choice. It may even seem a bet­ter job than most—though none could know the truth. Bet­ter a cut­ter than a min­er, stoop­ing and scraped and chok­ing on lead-mine vapors. Bet­ter a cut­ter than a mud­lark, cut up by glass and crabs and knee-deep in river­flank sewage. Bet­ter a cut­ter than a chem­i­cal work­er, bound up in ban­dages; burned red and nose­less by the bru­tal bleach­es and lyes of indus­try. Bet­ter a cut­ter than chimeysweep, cramped and jammed and suf­fo­cat­ed down mean­der­ing tall­town chim­neys, cook­ing halfway to death. Bet­ter than a whaler, sure­ly, far out­world beyond the frozen Gate of Sloe, borne on bru­tal war­ships to duel the club­bing, scream­ing titan-things the liars still call whales.

More are dri­ven to cut­ter­ing every year, and from every walk of life. Many are dis­charged sol­diers; easy enough to con­tin­ue a life on the edge of vio­lence. Some are crim­i­nals flee­ing to ven­ture rush boom­towns to ply new ide­olo­gies or escape unjust laws. Many more are fool­ish, ide­al­ist com­mon­ers depart­ing the fam­i­ly farm for cer­tain doom. Some­how, ever more are bored aris­to­crats blessed with coin for arms and armor and no great deal of sense. 

More every year, sim­i­lar only by their shared pro­fes­sion.

Accord­ing to leaked T&F per­son­nel data, 56% of all cut­ters per­ish on their first ven­ture. 83% by their sec­ond. Only two tenths of a per­cent sur­vive to stand­ing 4, which is yet one point removed from the final lev­el, the only lev­el to offer a pen­sion.

51% of all land wealth extract­ed in the year 3.449 was tak­en in by the top 10 per­cent of cut­ters. The high earn­ers. The aces. The barest, rarest few to sur­vive the ven­tur­ing econ­o­my at length. Strange souls. Sin­gu­lar. Grown grotesque and anom­alous, more like the crea­tures of the ancient world than not. They are the true chil­dren of the Gild­ed Age; seem­ing­ly born to ven­ture.

To do the most impor­tant job in the world.

venturing

Ven­tur­ing is the occu­pa­tion of cut­ters. It is the prac­ti­cal, extrac­tive process behind adven­ture cap­i­tal.

A ven­tur­ing license marks all legit­i­mate cut­ters. It is required to par­take in legal ven­tures. At the price of two gold­en crowns, such a doc­u­ment is a major pur­chase. ‖‖ It serves as your mode of iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with their bank. ¶ With it, they track their stand­ing, their spe­cial­iza­tion, and their num­ber of suc­cess­ful ven­tures embarked on. High­er stand­ing is award­ed to effec­tive cut­ters, who are grant­ed a high­er share of prof­it yield­ed from ven­tures, among oth­er ben­e­fits.

Obtain your license at an indi­vid­ual bank loca­tion or a con­sor­tium: A sort of spe­cial­ized inland “port” for ven­tur­ing, where­in one ore more banks main­tain coun­ters, offices, and the var­i­ous sup­port­ing facil­i­ties behind issu­ing ven­tures and receiv­ing loot. Con­sor­tia are high-secu­ri­ty, and no degree of strong-arm­ing or coer­cion will be tol­er­at­ed of bank clerks by you or oth­er hooli­gans. Once paid up, you will be pho­tograved, fin­ger­print­ed, made to fill you particulars—if you can write. If not, a scriven­er will be made available—handed copies of all these docue­ments fold­ed into your fresh license, and declared ready to ven­ture.

Sign­ing on to a ven­ture is a mere mat­ter of will­ing­ness. You’ll sign on with some oth­er cut­ters. Whether or not you know them is of no mat­ter to the bank. All they care is if you meet the min­i­mum stand­ing lev­el rat­ed for the ven­ture. Sim­ply accept the state­ment of hazard—usually con­tain­ing the known risk, effort, and yield of the venture—and hear your con­tract­ed share and terms of com­ple­tion. Embark with­in the agreed upon time. The rest is up to you. If you are ill-equipped, you like­ly die. If you are dis-ori­ent­ed, you like­ly die. If you are unused to vio­lence and per­il, you like­ly die.

The dan­gers encoun­tered on your ven­ture depend on the gen­era of tomb to crack: Agadese tombs are lay­ered with all manor of traps. Idran ruins are unspeak­ably old, lav­ish, and typ­i­cal­ly guard­ed above­ground by beast­men. Nauss­ian sub­ter­ranean com­plex­es and moun­tain fortress­es are among the most ter­ri­fy­ing to raid; they risk of con­nect­ing to the near-inescapable Under­world. 

Assum­ing you do sur­vive and meet the stan­dards of com­ple­tion, return to the con­sor­tium with any agreed-upon deliv­er­ables. Usu­al­ly, a mod­est return due is paid imme­di­ate­ly, along with your award­ed increase in stand­ing. A week or so lat­er, after the ven­ture site has been assayed for its full value—for so-called “degild­ing” or “scrap­ing” by bank structuralists—you receive the rest of your share.

What do you do next? Do you take your pay­out and return to ordi­nary, mun­dane life? Or do you, addled by per­il and glimpses of the ancient world lard­ed in rich­es and ornate guilt, imme­di­ate­ly sign on to anoth­er? It’s not so easy going back; being nor­mal again.

You’re a cut­ter now, and cut­ters do not die of old age.

other CUTTER facts

• Some cut­ters raid tombs on an unli­censed basis, a prac­tice known as “free­boot­ing,” a despised prac­tice dis­cour­aged by banks—who like­ly own, or claim, the land wealth being free­boot­ed. Free­boot­ers risk encoun­ter­ing legit­i­mate com­pe­ti­tion, who have license to kill free­boot­ers and often do. Fur­ther, banks pro­vide incen­tives to any­one, cut­ters includ­ed, who report uncracked tombs. Dis­count­ed or com­pli­men­ta­ry licens­es are offered to those pre­sent­ing an unknown tomb. A bank will claim they already knew of it, of course, and offers n o dis­cov­ery dues.

Note

Are cut­ters sup­posed to be “real­is­tic adven­tur­ers?” They are verisim­i­lar adven­tur­ers. They are a caste with as ground­ed a place in their world as cow­boys and pirates have, myth­i­cal­ly, in ours.

This arti­cle was sub­stan­tial­ly reworked and expand­ed on 07/20/26.

More on cut­ters and banks:

• All the Mon­ey in the World
• A Land of Plen­ty
• A Promise of Wealth
• A Mot­ley Crew
• Boots, Buck­ets, and Back­packs
• The Com­pe­ti­tion

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