"One hundred and fifty gold solidi."
The boy's voice cut through the dry, salty winds of Caesarea Maritima. "If you intend to offer a copper less, I'd rather trek across Judea on foot and knock on the Palios' door. They actually know how to value a masterpiece when it's staring them in the face."
Flavius, the merchant, let out a low growl. His face turned a deep crimson under the relentless sun of 462 AD. He loathed the brat's arrogance, but his eyes betrayed him—drifting repeatedly toward the black silhouette anchored at the pier. The Scipio didn't look like a ship; it looked like a bared blade, forged to slice through any storm.
"She'll sink during the first gale, kid!" Flavius pointed a pudgy finger at the sleek hull. "She's too narrow. Where are the oars? Where is the flat bottom for stability? You haven't built a ship; you've built a floating coffin."
Lucas gave a dry smirk, his salt-chapped lips curling. The glint in his fourteen-year-old eyes held the unshakable confidence of a man who, in a past life, had commanded the construction of entire naval armadas.
"She won't capsize, Flavius, because she doesn't just float—she dominates the sea. While your grain haulers bob like corks, the Scipio has a deep keel and strategically placed stone ballast. The center of buoyancy keeps her steady at an equilibrium no shipwright in this Empire could even begin to calculate."
Lucas gestured toward the masts, where triangular sails fluttered in the breeze.
"And those lateen sails? They allow her to tack against the wind. While your competitors waste weeks waiting for a favorable breeze, the Scipio will have already delivered its cargo and returned. Furthermore..." Lucas paused for dramatic effect. "She doesn't need rows of galley slaves. Slaves eat, Flavius. Slaves die. Most importantly, slaves take up the space where you could be stacking silk, salt, or spices. My ship gives that space back to you for free."
"One hundred and twenty solidi," the merchant barked, finally surrendering to the logic of profit. "That's enough gold to buy an entire villa with servants. It's a fair price, even for an experimental toy like yours. And I want the right of first refusal on your next build."
Lucas dramatically pressed the back of his hand to his forehead. "Then we have a problem. My father's shipyard is booked solid with orders for the next two years." He crossed his arms, watching the fish bite the hook. "Unless... a merchant with as many holdings as yourself decides to lease me those marshlands north of the harbor. I'll turn that swamp into a private shipyard and deliver your second ship in six months."
Flavius hesitated. That land was useless for farming—a breeding ground for mosquitoes and mud. A cunning smile stretched across his fat cheeks.
"I'll lease you the land, you Little Demon. But not for free: I want twenty percent of the profit from every ship you sell for the next ten years."
Lucas bit his tongue. Damn... this ancient version of Scrooge McDuck wants to swallow my entire profit margin! — he thought, feeling a pang of pain in his entrepreneur's soul.
After a heartbeat of hesitation, he reached out and shook the man's hand, sealing the pact.
The walk home reeked of sweat, fried fish, and—suddenly—fear. In the central market, a crowd surged around an exhausted messenger, his clothes caked in the dust of weeks on the road.
"The West has fallen!" the man screamed, his voice breaking into a dry sob. "The barbarians have taken the Seven Hills! Rome has fallen!"
Panic spread like wildfire through dry straw. To the citizens of Caesarea, this was the end of civilization—the collapse of the eternal. To Lucas, it was just a paragraph from the history books he used to read to his grandkids in his previous life. But here, reality was bloody. The Eastern Roman Empire was now alone.
"The world is ending..." whispered Marcus, Lucas's younger brother, clutching his tunic with trembling fingers.
"A city falls on the other side of the sea and you're already surrendering to fear?" Lucas asked, his voice steady enough to anchor his brother. "Rome is more than marble and hills, Marcus. It's a legacy. It takes more than a few barbarians to erase an Empire from history."
Lucas spoke with a calm that bordered on cynical, feeling the solid weight of the coin box against his chest. He knew the fall of the West was inevitable, but the East still had centuries of life left—if it knew how to defend itself.
He also knew that selling ships wouldn't be enough. In this world, power was defined by blood. There were the Magi, nobles who moved mountains with their minds, and the Heroas, warriors capable of splitting oak trees with their bare hands. To the world, Lucas was just a 'commoner' human.
Or so they thought.
Passing through a dark alley, he spotted the carcass of a stray dog, withered by hunger. Lucas stopped for a second. He felt that familiar pressure at the base of his skull—the cold vibration that didn't belong to the land of the living: [Necromancy]. It wasn't like the vibrant, flashy magic of the Constantinopolitan mages; it was silent, heavy, and charged with dark static.
He closed his eyes and sent a pulse of his will. The dead animal didn't bark, but its hind legs jerked. Bones cracked as the carcass clumsily attempted to obey the mental command to "rise." The beast stared at Lucas with milky, glazed eyes.
Still not enough strength, Lucas thought, a metallic taste filling his mouth. He had been training in secret since he was eight, weaving his will into inanimate objects and dead flesh while other boys played.
He needed that new shipyard in the swamp. Not just for the ships, but because he needed a sanctuary where he could practice his Craft without the stench of decay alerting the neighbors. If he were discovered, they wouldn't call him a "prodigy"—he'd be a heretic burned in the public square.
When they finally crossed the threshold of their home, Lucas's siblings erupted in cheers.
"Father! We sold the Scipio! One hundred and twenty solidi!"
Lucas smiled, allowing himself to lower his guard for one fatal moment. It was his first mistake of the day.
BONK!
A heavy wooden rolling pin slammed into the top of his head with the precision of a war hammer.
"You missed prayer and dinner!" Esther, his eldest sister, roared, her flour-covered hands on her hips. "I don't care if you sold the entire Empire, the stew is getting cold!"
Lucas staggered, rubbing the lump already forming on his head. There were some things, like the fury of a hungry sister, that were forces of nature even engineering and Necromancy couldn't control.