This fic may , at times, be either have a high T to a low M rating, but when a particular chapter is going to be M, it will say so at the top of the chapter. A rated M chapter probobly won't have a large affect on the story though. The first 3 chapters will set up the story, and after that it will be more like a third and first person narrative, rather than just straight summery.
Disclaimer : I do not own the setting, some of the charactors, nor the time frame of the story. They all belong to J. R. R. Tolkien and estate, and to New Line Cinema.
Chapter 1: The Dragon's Birth
"Please tell me! Please! I'm old enough now!" a little girl whined.
"Alright, alright!" an old man replied. "Just stop that infernal whining."
"Oh thank you Uncle Alwhich! Thank you!"
"Let me sit down, and get me something to drink, it'll be quite a long tale."
As the young girl ran off to fetch Alwhich something to drink, Alwhich prepared to relate his story.
It had been several years since Alwhich even thought about his family, and many of his memories were not plesant ones. As he recollected his thoughts, he promised himself that he would not cry at any point during his story. "Only the weak cry." he thought to himself.
"I've got you some well water. Can you start the story now?" the young girl asked.
"Alright. This will be a long tale, so get yourself a chair and make yourself comfortable." Alwhich said.
"600 years ago," Alwhich began, "in the sea kingdom of Beirland, the syndicate was formed by my family, but we didn't start as a syndicate. We started in the export business. Over the next 50 years or such, we consolidated our power, and began to dominate the export business. Every export from ships to lumber to silver spoons went through us. Being a small sea kingdom, Beirland was totally reliant on imports, and to pay for imports of food, and raw materials, Beirland became Middle-Earth's largest supplier of ships, ship repair materials, and spoons. At the time Beirland had several such family companies, and was reliant on the money, power and influence each family wielded.
Then along came the 143 king, King Armiscus. he wanted the government to regain its former strength, and that meant taking power away from the companies. That was not a popular decision. Many families, instead of losing their land, money, power ect., fled to other nations. Some went to Rohan, to the lands in the distant east, to Harad, north to Agmar and Arnor, and some fled to Gondor. My family went to Gondor, where setting up a new business was near impossible. There were established companies that dealt with different aspects of the economy, and Gondor's military was strong. "
Here Alwhich paused to take a drink, and to catch his breath. The young girl was listening intently, and absorbed each word.
"Go on uncle. Go on." she said impatiently.
"It was during this time that Gondor went through a change in government. The old steward, Boromir, was old and sickly, and so his first son, Cirion, took the rod of stewards and began his rule of the white tower. Between the political unrest and the drop in te price of parchment, fine swords, and high quality coth, the merchants and the merchant guild were forced to, charge less for the items soldm and therefore pay their employees less and produce cheaper quality goods. As products lost their respectibility, my family saw an oppertunity.
There were four brothers at the time, Cimban, Torlic, Crazon, and my ancestor, Listhfor. Looking over the city, each brother saw a void in an occupation that each exceeded in. Cimban was a soldier. Each of his waking thoughts went along the lines of "Gondor's military is strong, but they have a distinct lack of heavy calvery" or "If I had to defend Osgiliath, I would position skirmishers here..."
Torlic was a gambling master. He knew how to swindle other men into handing over money, and think they were ahead of the house. Gondor had very strict laws about gambling, yet there were still the underground gambling parlors and race tracks,, and they usually operated under the cover of night. Gondor's miliatary used to conduct raids from time to time, but the declining trade from the north and east was beginning to hurt the White Citidel's treasury. Mathmatics was Torlic's speciality, posessing the knowledge to preform complex equasions in his mind.
Crazon was a logistics expert. Wielding an exact knowledge of how long an ox cart would take to go to Rohan and come back with a cartfull of hay was just the beginning of his abilities. He also had a mathmatical mind, and, while torlic would calculate expense, Crazon would see how dangerous, and how useful a purchace would be and how long it would take to arive and make a profit.
The final brother, Listhfor, dealt primarily in food imports. Gondor, being a large city, had a group of merchants to take care of keeping the city fed at low cost, but over time, the merchants and the officials who oversaw that the city had ample supplies of foodstuff, became corrupt, accepted bribes, and ended up being sacked by the government for short selling vital supplies. Using money borrowed from Torlic, who hd already set up several very popular gambling houses, Listhfor began to fill the vaccum left by the food merchants, and ended up controlling 45% of Gondor's food before his death.
Each brother soon became the best in his respective positions in Gondor, and as Cirion needed rich, powerful advisiors, each was ushered into the corridors of power. However, finding the bureaucracy between the steward and the city elders too much to deal with, the brothers decided, by vote, to control the city from the shadows. So no brother and his family would grow too much and overpower the rest, each brother swore an oath. The oath was accompanied by a small slit on the wrist by a silver hilted knife, in accordance with the tradition in Bierland when an oath was taken."
"Wait. Are you saying that you cut yourself when you make an oath?" the girl asked.
"Yes, I am. It may seem strange here in the North, but in the western sea kingdoms that is standard practice." Alwhich said. "In fact, I remember the time that my friends and I decided to..."
"Uncle Alwhich!"
"What? Oh sorry, I must have gotten off topic. Where was I?"
"Something oath."
"Good to see you are paying attention. Oath, taken, oh! I know where we are.
All four of the brothers and their famlies, from their wives to their youngest sons gathered in a dark room. Each brother stood in front of the fireplace, the sole source of light. And with the patriarch of the family (the father of the brothers) as a witness, each of the brothers swore the oath, cut their wrist, and collected the blood in a cup.
"I, Listhfor, son of Beirland, do hereby swear to retain the bonds of blood, to, when needed, provide supportand services needed by my family. I also swear to keep my bloodline pure, to not mix with Gondor, Rohan or any blood other than that from Beirland. From this day forward I shall, to the best of my abilities and resources, protect my brothers, assist mybrothers, guide my brothers, and a light up the darkness. This I do swear, as the blood of the Kasagar syndicate, the Dyrint syndicate, the Amor syndicate flows into the cup that I drink from, thus I swear as the founding member of the Red Dragon Syndicate!"
Thank you for reading! Please review. Thanks!