Thomas stood as Edward looked at the shops around him brimming with goods and riches. Commodities of such beauty and importance that people dreamt of Achieving as they sailed in the oceans.
" How come I not know of this place? King of Seas? Call me the King of Seas and then show me this? Things like these exist under my nose and I never know about them."
"Humility is a virtue, Edward. There is a lot you don't know. I didn't know you had the 'King of the Seas" thing get to your head. Moreover, this place is different from yours to know. It is our secret treasure we won't let you, and in fact, any outsider knows about it.
It was indeed true that such a place, with abundant resources and countless secrets, needed to be kept a secret. But it made one wonder how such a place remained hidden from the rest of the world, even though it was right before them. The wall around it was just a mere formality, providing an illusion of protection.
Edward wonders and nods at Thomas to walk him around the town and they both begin their journey to the mystery of the black market.
"It's wonderful."
They remain on the tip of Edward's tongue and he sees left and right across the streets, people selling parts of broken ships, and flags of different nations alongside them. Guns of all sorts fill up in the shops, alongside jewellery and a few shops for escorts and pleasure time but he does not faze, his face remains stoic looking at the surroundings.
"Want to know more about its functioning? The market and its workers, I mean? You are curious to learn it."
Thomas talks from his left inviting a conversation as he senses Edward's curiosity that his face hides, Edward agrees with a nod.
"The place within the domain of the people who know and understand its purpose call it 'Thief's Heaven', a place where ideals of supreme liberty and freedom are guaranteed to the people who need it the most."
Edward chimes at the declaration, it sounded very comical to him.
"Ah yes, a place to guarantee security and do business with the people who steal from you and sell you back at a price? Even make laws to protect them and spend a workforce to keep them guarded? and they need liberty the most? Are you making a fool of me?"
"No, Edward you are very right. To buy from the people who steal at a lower price is the true function of this place, we spend a good amount on maintaining this place too, but you were wrong about one point."
To this Edward just steals a glance at Thomas, who stares into the world in front of him and a sight grin bears on his face.
"This place's thieves do not steal from us, they steal from you-" he pauses making his words cut deeper.
"They steal from you, your fellow pirates, the British, the French, the Asian dynasty.
If you have visited every place in the world you will everything grand that is a part of their world."
Edward keeps moving smirking but his eyes are now sharp at every glance, as if searching for something that was stolen from him, his awareness and hostility in his eyes were overflowing.
"So, you mean you hire these thieves to go out in the world and bring them here. To sell, you buy all you need at a lower cost and these thieves get all they want."
"Again, you were wrong about one thing Edward. We don't hire these people. They work for us on their wishes."
"..."
"Thieves are not like any other problem of civilization. Unlike barbarians who use women for pleasure only and kill others for their mental satisfaction most steal because they are broken inside. You need to heal what's broken and they happily work for you."
"Heal!" Edward laughs. "I know to press their wounds and then act like you heal them. You leave them even more broken and you use this broken piece for your dirty work and get an easy piece of pie through it."
"See as you may like, I did catch many of those here. We talk to them and learn about their mind's understanding. We know their loyalty and their customs their insecurities before they work for us and at the end of it all they are happy."
Edward gazes at his feet and hears the word happy, he looks around and notices the smiles on the thief faces who sell at their stores and it all connects.
"Slaves. That is all you create."
"Don't try to make us the criminal here, Many of the successful marketmen retire and live with a family in a year or two. It is undeniably the best use of one's ability.
"I know about Foal's mind meditation techniques so do not play with Thomas. I know from what I am surrounded by."
Thomas's eyebrows rise, yet he looks comfortable, nodding his head forward as he expected Edward to know it.
"It is a effective method, a pinch of salt, water, music and ten doses of a single drug and a fake story. Never will the person even during the time of end try to break your loyalty. "
"Making them experience hell is the only thing to get your work out of them ain't it? Have you ever taken a single dose of drugs? Because I have and I can tell it's brutal."
"I did. I took about four doses of the procedure. I am not under some delusion that I am doing God's work but I do what is necessary for the improvement."
Edward smiles at Thomas's words, his ignorance and arrogance disgusting him to his core.
"Do you the procedure's last step? Or do you just know its name alone?"
"The last step before the tenth dose, you whisper in the ear of the person, "You work according to the words first hear after waking up." and inject them with the final dose. It creates a hallucination in the person's mind which controls them by creating fake memories, you whisper in their ears while giving the previous doses and in the end, they wake up and you create an oath of God with him."
Edward nods and approves of the working of the mediation told by Thomas and rage begins to swell in his eyes as he talks.
"Say what you want about Foal, a money-hungry monster, a pride-filled bastard, an old man who is responsible for the biggest calamity to suffer this nation. His mediation did surpass our controlling techniques."
" 'our?'"
" The ten doses, those dreams about my father and mother. My never-existent sister, house of sweet memories. Their shouts, screams and then they.... It took me more than you will ever know, to break that oath."
"You have been through the entire mediation and then somehow, broke the oath?!"
Thomas's eyes look at Edward for the first time since they entered, suddenly Edward seems so significant to him, he is powerful, physically but now Thomas would never dare question his mental health.
"I am dying to Learn your story, Edward. You are much more than I thought, what does the web of your life hide?"
"The longer you live around me. The lesser you know me. Knowledge is never-ending and the one who searches for everything will die suffering from coldness and fear of darkness of the world-"
Edwards stops as he glances at a small bird crying in its cage, it moves from one side to another, as the eyes of the bird and parrot meet Edward.
" Birds of Mightiest in the Western Seas."
Edward reads the sign of the shop, where he sees his parrot trapped away from him.
"Time to meet an old friend."
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