Some things about the Bank of Acumin had not changed since before the Pox, the fire, and the devastating vysstichi onslaught. Even before the Compact, its building had been shaped wholly from living vegetation, its roughly circular walls and rounded roof framed from druidically-shaped trees, paneled with mats of thickly interwoven vines, and insulated with luxuriant layers of springy leaves. The main entrance was secured only by a few crisscrossing vines, which would move aside as if of their own volition to allow vistors in or out. A sign, now battered and weathered, still hung above the doorway displaying the two piles of coins that signified the building's unlikely-seeming function.
Within, flowers that managed somewhow to bloom without regard to season brightened the brown-and-green interior walls with vibrant reds, whites, and purples, and the floors were carpeted with a soft, thick turf that stayed both short and lush without tending. Without need of windows, green-tinted light managed to suffuse from outside through the walls and ceiling whenever the suns were up. There were no sconces for torches, nor hooks for lamps, and the bank simply closed when there was not enough natural light to operate by.
But some things *had* changed. Behind a counter that resembled built-in wicker furniture with leaves on it sat a weary, somber, old human woman. Not all the weeds in the bank were green, for this woman wore the habit of a widow. Her husband had run the bank when Acumin knew better days, but the violence and catastrophe of recent eras had been too much for him, and he was no more. His widow and his bank had survived, and both managed to continue as best as they could the task of managing the village's meager funds.
Built into the floor somewhere behind the counter was one of the few exceptions to the all-natural building code of Acumin: a thick vault door that led down into a brick-lined basement in which the remains of Acumin's gold wealth lay secured.
A small, grubby, tattered flyer, still propped up on the teller's desk by a few small vines, displayed in faded writing the services of the bank, from exchanging crowns into bank notes to storing money and adding interest. Scrawled in loose handwriting below the services was a note that read "Now hiring clerks. Good pay." The notice had not been accurate for a long time, but the widow had never bothered to update it.
Of late, the bank had been pressed into other services besides its traditional ones; its storage vaults had become a place to store goods and money from visiting caravans, and as a result, their wagons loaded with wares tended to converge outside the bank building, and the merchants who met there often simply did business on the spot, in the absence of a location more formally dedicated to such transactions. Under the circumstances it was the most efficient, or at least the most expedient, arrangement.
Originally written by Loudmouth w/ help from GM Poe; revised and edited by Desmodus
Linear Mode
