Julius Anguil

The wealthiest man in Forven by his own means rather than by family, and the owner of the run of warehouses wedged between the two lake docks: two of them, and a third small enough that it might only have been an office. The paint on them was good once and had cracked. From those doors the Ten Lashes moved their cargo, which is what they called the people, and kept a considerable stock of the sedative that was burned to keep them quiet.

The Warehouses Between the Docks

The first anyone in the company saw of him, nobody had a name for. On his first evening in Forven, Mikhail stopped to shake a stone out of his boot by those warehouses and watched a well-dressed man oversee them: a captain took him aside for a short, quiet conversation, put a hand on his shoulder to seal whatever it was, and got a look back that wanted the hand off. The man gave Mikhail an appraising glance as he passed and no greeting of any kind.

The name came from Forven’s captain of the guard the next day, when Mikhail reported Cleven Gemsmith missing. If anybody knew about a captain with a whip tattooed on him, it would be Julius, since Julius owned the warehouses down that way; and the guard captain would look into it because this was not the business Forven wanted a name for, with relations to Loshev fine enough as they stood and no reason to sour them.

What He Was For

Ashtara Walnut laid out the whole organization in exchange for her exile, and Julius came fifth or sixth on her list, paired with Gu, the captain of Forven’s guard, who saw to it that anything bearing the seal of Forven went unexamined the rest of the way downriver. Julius held the warehouses and the stores. Her estimate of him was not a compliment: he would squeal, he was a worm, throw him on the end of a hook and he would do his job. Captain Jack confirmed the shape of it from the other end, and the money above all of them was Beltran Grayeras’.

Campaign Updates

By the time the company reached Forven he was in custody, and Kiras Hallo told them plainly what that was worth. He owned the implicated warehouses, he had been seen chumming with Torr, and he had a defense manufactured for every single charge, so he would very likely be found innocent. Jaden, who had worn the chains his buildings stored, told Mikhail privately that she meant to kill him herself if he walked, and go east into the woods afterward. She did not, on Mikhail’s word alone. His trial slid to mid-spring, into a four-week window after the last snow melted, and she left Forven rather than be near him for it.

What ruined him was a rescue. Cazzik and the mage who fled with him had hired outsiders to break Julius out of the guardhouse, and then cloaked figures with armor moving under the cloth returned the pair of them to Forven, the mage gagged with every finger broken. Cut off from their hired men, they tried to pass word through another prisoner. A guard overheard it, was offered a bribe, refused it, and the infiltrators were taken. Five sat in the cells after that, with all their trials set and the evidence a great deal worse than it had been.

Since then he has been an item of business rather than a man. Forven keeps no death penalty, so the company set about having Loshev buy him: Kurvroc was flattered into sponsoring the transfer, four councilors were brought round, and about fifty gold a head was the figure floated. Forven’s captain refused on principle to send any of them to Haudh-Gwenn, given the part that city had played in the trade. The exchange has moved at the speed of a thing nobody is paid to hurry: Forven’s councilors would rather keep their prisoners, and only coin moves them. He is still in the cell.