Quinn, Helena, Alexia walked with Gair and Ixquic as they traversed the complicated maze that was Monolith.
"Fun fact about the bank," said Gair, "its first location was in a mountain, as literally in a mountain. Ixquic, tell them about it."
Ixquic, who walked along with Helena and Alexia, who were behind Quinn and Gair, spoke about the history of the bank, "The founder, two dwarves — Bromrag and Dhummak, they craved the mountain to create the bank's first headquarters, and because the entire place was a single structure made from rock-cutting, they named it Monolith."
Gair half-chuckled, "Technically, it was something in dwarven, but I, for my life, can't pronounce it, and so couldn't most of our clients, so they changed it to Monolith."
"What happened to the place in the mountains?" asked Quinn.
"Landslide," said Gair
"Damn, must be rocky."
Gair laughed, "Yes, it must have been rocky, good one."
"So dwarves founded Monolith, huh. Then how did you become a part-owner?" asked Quinn.
"Well, I have been part of the bank for a long time, obviously one of its best people, and after working so long here and playing the right moves, the stars aligned, and they rewarded with me a minor ownership," said Gair before sighing. "Though I don't like the extra work they piled upon me. I swear they only gave me the swig of the blood so they could dump work on me."
Which told Quinn nothing, but from his impression of the Vampire, he probably would have derailed a person or two's career (probably much more) to get to his position.
"Office politics," said Quinn, "must be tough."
"You have no idea, kid."
Quinn noticed that the corridors were slanting downwards slightly for a while now. He was sure they had long left the surface and were underground. Soon, the walls turned into dungeon-ish with rough rock walls, only the floor remained smooth and flat. Soon, they reached an elevator with a shutter-type door and walls and floors, which had tiny holes through which one could see.
A stocky-dwarf with fizzled hair and pointy beard sat outside, slumped into a chair with feet hanging forward. When he saw the group approach, he stood up.
"Arsek, how're you doing today?" asked Gair in German.
"Master Gair, rare to see you in the mines," said the newly-identified Arsek replied in German but with a bulkish accent.
"You know how it is; it's good down to the mines and sniff all that gold behind the doors," said Gair before taking out a key. "I would like to use the elevator."
Arsek eyed the key and then the group — mainly Quinn, Helena, and Alexia, who weren't part of Monolith. "As you ask, Master Gair." Arsek pulled the shutter open, inviting the group inside.
Inside, Arsek took out a ring hoop with dozens of keys and deftly detached a key from it. In front of him, beside the door, where yet again tens of keyholes without any indicators marking them. Arsek took the key and inserted it in one of the unmarked keyholes before looking at Gair, who inserted his key into the sole keyhole on his side of the door. With a nod to each other, they turned the keys, and an earthen yellow trail of magic cruised through the elevator's body.
The elevator began moving down with a tiny tremor before stopping and speeding right horizontally and then in several different directions on both vertical and horizontal axes.
"Arsek, tell our guests here a little something about the elevator."
The dwarf looked at the three non-Monolithites and puffed his chest as he spoke, "The elevator's special. To wake the baby," he caressed the wall, "you need two key — employee man one, and other from elevator man like me. Without two, the elevator not moving."
He pointed at the unmarked keyholes. "Employee man key go into one hole, but elevator man needs to choose right key and right hole to start the elevator," he said with pride before growing somber. "Only elevator maker knows how elevator move, and no one else, so only right key in right hole take people to the right place."
After a while, the elevator opened, and the group exited the elevator with Arsek sitting on another chair placed outside the elevator.
"Don't think less of dwarves," said Gair. "They're highly intelligent, master of magical engineering and construction. But most of them prefer to stay with their own kind, and for that reason, they aren't well-versed in human languages. If you heard them in dwarven, you'd realize how smart they are."
Quinn nodded in understanding, realizing why Arsek spoke in German. Basel was in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, after all.
"I never thought less of them," said Quinn, recalling an experience from his travels with his grandfather. "I remember talking to a dwarf who was proficient in English, and he was one of the most well-spoken and smart people I had encountered."
"It's good that you understand," said Gair; the Vampire had developed a soft spot of the dwarven-kind in a bank that had a large dwarf population. "We have arrived at your new vault."
Ixquic stepped forward, took out her wand, and with a cast, the door split into numerous cubes that crawled to the sides, leaving a passage open to the vault. A gust of wind came rushing from behind, entering the vault, leaving them with a cold shiver.
"Shall we," said Gair and stepped inside.
"I'll be waiting here; please call for me if you desire my assistance," said Helena.
Quinn nodded and entered the vault behind Gair. He felt a magic scan him as he stepped through the threshold.
"All yours," said Gair, pointing at the empty vault.
Quinn observed the space, "Hmm, this is going to be barely enough. Oh, well, I'm sure you guys will figure it out." He set down this briefcase on the floor; the briefcase expanded to a larger size when Quinn flipped the top open. He looked at Gair, "May I draw my wand?"
"Be my guest."
Quinn drew his fake wand and said, "Stand back." He made a light swing before stepping back himself.
When nothing after a few breaths of time, Gair said, "Is there something—"
With a threatening rumble that shook the briefcase, a geyser of glimmering gold coins came bursting out, spraying in whatever direction Quinn pointed his fake-wand to.
"Hmm, this reminds me of where I piss in the toilet bowl," said Gair.
"Vampire can urinate?"
"Of course, we can. I, at my base, still have human-like physiology."
"Is it true that Vampires can heal by drinking blood?"
Gair glanced at Quinn for a brief second before returning to the gold shower. "Yes, we can. Every Vampire has the ability, but not all can do it."
"What do you mean?"
"We feed on blood to sate the thirst for it. But the damned thirst never really subsides, so Vampires who can't control the thirst just end up drinking the blood without using it for healing. It's common in young ones who don't have the experience, but there are a few old ones who give in to the thirst and never control it — well, those guys are usually put down because of their drinking sprees."
"Have you ever gone on one?"
Gair laughed in reply — a fake laugh that had been used so much that it had turned real.
"How much did you bring?" asked Gair, looking at the five gold mountains that reached the ceiling, with a sixth one in progress.
"I'm pretty sure we sent the exact amount, didn't you get it?"
"I leave that sort of stuff to my people. I pay them for a reason."
"This room's just big enough; when I'm done, there'll be barely enough to walk around."
"How did you get this much money, kid? When I was your age, I would lose my mind if someone gave me a couple of galleons?"
"I took it from a man who didn't need it anymore."
"Seriously?"
"Don't worry, he's dead.. . and short, he's short."
".. ."
- (Scene Break) -
Outside the vault, Helena and Alexia peered inside at the gold coins spraying out with a sculpture coming out once in a while.
"That's a lot of money," Alexia said with fingers touching her parted lips, "and all of that is Quinn's, and his alone?"
"That seems to be the case," said Helena with surprise on her face. She knew about another account in Monolith that gained royalty amounts from various West products.
"Wow, that's a lot for someone Quinn's age," said Alexia, wondering what it would be like to have that much money.
"Yet that's not even the tip of the iceberg that is West's wealth," said Helena.
Alexia nodded. She usually worked in the finance department and knew the amount of money processed through the thousands of transactions every day.
Helena shook her head when she saw Alexia's nod. "No, even the amount we handle here is the true extent of the West's wealth. It's just one part of it — a big part of their European business, but not the true view of wealth.
Do you know there exists a class even among the uber-rich?"
"Eh," Alexia uttered in confusion, "a class.. . in those people, I don't understand."
"Even I didn't understand it before I reached a certain point in my career," said Helena. "But there are three classes of uber-rich — the lower class, the middle class, and the upper class."
Alexia furrowed her brows. "I.. . I don't understand. Aren't people or families with that much money.. . just rich?"
"They are rich, with more money they would need in their lifetimes, there isn't any doubt in that, but that doesn't mean that all of them are equal," said Helena. "The lower class are the people who have their wealth tied into one business; for example, if all of West wealth was tied into MagiFax, then they'd be of the lower class of uber-rich."
"Why is that lower class? Isn't MagiFax huge? My mother said that it changed how things happened in her company."
"Yes, MagiFax is revolutionary, but that makes West wealth limited to MagiFax. If, for some reason, MagiFax became obsolete because something better came along, or if the MagiFax services deteriorated, then the worth of the business would crash, and that would reduce the wealth of the company."
While Alexia couldn't see MagiFax failing, she nodded at the hypothetical situation. "Then how do you resolve that?" she asked.
"You become a middle class of uber-rich," said Helena as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
".. . Madam Berenberg."
"Don't look at me like that; let me explain, and it will make sense," said Helena chuckling. "Middle class of uber-rich is when you don't put all your eggs in one basket. When a person's wealth doesn't come from one source, but from many different sources."
"Oh! I understand!" said Alexia, her voice causing Helena to lean away a bit. "West family is middle class, aren't they? They have so many businesses, so even if one of them fails, the rest of the business would still bring in the money, so they don't have to worry about losing all their wealth as it is distributed."
Alexia recalled MagiFax, MLE, Lunar Developer, which were just the latest, and there were so many more industries that West had been operating in for decades.
"Right on the bell, you're correct," said Helena. "The middle-class uber-rich don't have to worry as their wealth is so widely distributed that even if they lose many of their business, they would be secured. The middle-class uber-rich have seemingly unlimited amounts of cash; they can have huge political influence if they choose to exercise their power, and their wealth continues to accumulate no matter how hard they try to give it away."
Helena was sure that when it came to pure business, no one had a better positioning than Wests as they were not only diversified through industries, they were diversified through countries, which provided them a layer of diversification that was quite unparalleled in the magical communities.
"But you're wrong in one thing, Alexia," said Helena. "Wests aren't a middle class; they are of the upper class of uber-rich."
By now, Ixquic had scooted near the two ladies to listen to the interesting talk.
"The upper class are the true old money elite that has been wealthy for generations. They are royals or nobility or from a lineage of wealth that extends back to recorded history. They don't own companies; they own countries. They are Saudi royals, or Russian oligarchs, or European nobility, or American old money. These people don't use banks like Monolith or hire people like us who manage their wealth for them. Why? Because their wealth is much harder to quantify. You can work out business value quite easily, and there you have it, the worth of a lower class or upper class.
"But upper class don't hold wealth like this," Helena chuckled. "Imagine having a nation's national treasury as their bank balance. They directly own state enterprises that aren't open for the general public to buy. They might own the very land the country was built on. Need some money to spend? Write a letter to the country's treasury department, and the nation will personally become your walking wallet.
"These families' wealth is also highly stable because they are so well-diversified, and the only way to make them broke is to bring down an entire country. As for political influence? They either pull the strings from the shadows or are directly head of the state."
Alexia seemed blown away. "But why haven't I heard of such people?"
"Because they try their hardest to stay hidden. People like these are backward or poor countries, and it wouldn't look good if you are spending money when your country is struggling with poverty," explained Helena. "But have you head of Abates of Italy?"
"Lia's mother's family?" said Alexia.
"Yes, they're a family that has been there before Italy was established. They might not have power in the muggle part of the country, but when it comes to the magical part, there's nothing bigger than Abate in the country. They, like the Wests, run a few businesses, and even these businesses might be on a decline; that's just a front that the family runs to do something. Even if all those businesses went down, it wouldn't affect Abates one it."
"Then.. . the West?" asked Ixquic, speaking for the first time.
Helena looked at the silent girl, "It was around the same time your boss started to work with the Wests when the then family's head started to invest in poorer countries. Under his rule, Wests essentially brought out magical parts of those countries and rose from your standard middle-class to upper-class.
"His next-generation solidified the position. George West, who came after the solidification, chose to focus on actual business as those countries could be left alone to grow and only required guidance once in a while. His son, Adam West, ventured into the muggle world, but that halted because of his untimely death. Lia West, the next in line, seems to focus on the magical world because of the recent influx of new innovative products.
"Though her younger brother," Helena pointed to Quinn inside the vault, "Quinn West seems to have asked for someone who'd help him invest his newly gained wealth into the muggle world. It seems that Wests are going to gain another layer of diversification with this new generation."
The three, who all worked for Wests, looked at the West inside, still spewing gold, witnessing a part of the lineage bigger than they seemed and only truly known to those with elite status or those in the right places.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn West - MC - You love gold? I have mountains of it.
Idris Gair - Part-owner of Monolith - Oh boy, that mountain looks like it's about to fall.. . on me.
Helena Berenberg - Search her surname - Phew, that was a lot speaking.
Quinn, Helena, Alexia walked with Gair and Ixquic as they traversed the complicated maze that was Monolith.
"Fun fact about the bank," said Gair, "its first location was in a mountain, as literally in a mountain. Ixquic, tell them about it."
Ixquic, who walked along with Helena and Alexia, who were behind Quinn and Gair, spoke about the history of the bank, "The founder, two dwarves — Bromrag and Dhummak, they craved the mountain to create the bank's first headquarters, and because the entire place was a single structure made from rock-cutting, they named it Monolith."
Gair half-chuckled, "Technically, it was something in dwarven, but I, for my life, can't pronounce it, and so couldn't most of our clients, so they changed it to Monolith."
"What happened to the place in the mountains?" asked Quinn.
"Landslide," said Gair
"Damn, must be rocky."
Gair laughed, "Yes, it must have been rocky, good one."
"So dwarves founded Monolith, huh. Then how did you become a part-owner?" asked Quinn.
"Well, I have been part of the bank for a long time, obviously one of its best people, and after working so long here and playing the right moves, the stars aligned, and they rewarded with me a minor ownership," said Gair before sighing. "Though I don't like the extra work they piled upon me. I swear they only gave me the swig of the blood so they could dump work on me."
Which told Quinn nothing, but from his impression of the Vampire, he probably would have derailed a person or two's career (probably much more) to get to his position.
"Office politics," said Quinn, "must be tough."
"You have no idea, kid."
Quinn noticed that the corridors were slanting downwards slightly for a while now. He was sure they had long left the surface and were underground. Soon, the walls turned into dungeon-ish with rough rock walls, only the floor remained smooth and flat. Soon, they reached an elevator with a shutter-type door and walls and floors, which had tiny holes through which one could see.
A stocky-dwarf with fizzled hair and pointy beard sat outside, slumped into a chair with feet hanging forward. When he saw the group approach, he stood up.
"Arsek, how're you doing today?" asked Gair in German.
"Master Gair, rare to see you in the mines," said the newly-identified Arsek replied in German but with a bulkish accent.
"You know how it is; it's good down to the mines and sniff all that gold behind the doors," said Gair before taking out a key. "I would like to use the elevator."
Arsek eyed the key and then the group — mainly Quinn, Helena, and Alexia, who weren't part of Monolith. "As you ask, Master Gair." Arsek pulled the shutter open, inviting the group inside.
Inside, Arsek took out a ring hoop with dozens of keys and deftly detached a key from it. In front of him, beside the door, where yet again tens of keyholes without any indicators marking them. Arsek took the key and inserted it in one of the unmarked keyholes before looking at Gair, who inserted his key into the sole keyhole on his side of the door. With a nod to each other, they turned the keys, and an earthen yellow trail of magic cruised through the elevator's body.
The elevator began moving down with a tiny tremor before stopping and speeding right horizontally and then in several different directions on both vertical and horizontal axes.
"Arsek, tell our guests here a little something about the elevator."
The dwarf looked at the three non-Monolithites and puffed his chest as he spoke, "The elevator's special. To wake the baby," he caressed the wall, "you need two key — employee man one, and other from elevator man like me. Without two, the elevator not moving."
He pointed at the unmarked keyholes. "Employee man key go into one hole, but elevator man needs to choose right key and right hole to start the elevator," he said with pride before growing somber. "Only elevator maker knows how elevator move, and no one else, so only right key in right hole take people to the right place."
After a while, the elevator opened, and the group exited the elevator with Arsek sitting on another chair placed outside the elevator.
"Don't think less of dwarves," said Gair. "They're highly intelligent, master of magical engineering and construction. But most of them prefer to stay with their own kind, and for that reason, they aren't well-versed in human languages. If you heard them in dwarven, you'd realize how smart they are."
Quinn nodded in understanding, realizing why Arsek spoke in German. Basel was in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, after all.
"I never thought less of them," said Quinn, recalling an experience from his travels with his grandfather. "I remember talking to a dwarf who was proficient in English, and he was one of the most well-spoken and smart people I had encountered."
"It's good that you understand," said Gair; the Vampire had developed a soft spot of the dwarven-kind in a bank that had a large dwarf population. "We have arrived at your new vault."
Ixquic stepped forward, took out her wand, and with a cast, the door split into numerous cubes that crawled to the sides, leaving a passage open to the vault. A gust of wind came rushing from behind, entering the vault, leaving them with a cold shiver.
"Shall we," said Gair and stepped inside.
"I'll be waiting here; please call for me if you desire my assistance," said Helena.
Quinn nodded and entered the vault behind Gair. He felt a magic scan him as he stepped through the threshold.
"All yours," said Gair, pointing at the empty vault.
Quinn observed the space, "Hmm, this is going to be barely enough. Oh, well, I'm sure you guys will figure it out." He set down this briefcase on the floor; the briefcase expanded to a larger size when Quinn flipped the top open. He looked at Gair, "May I draw my wand?"
"Be my guest."
Quinn drew his fake wand and said, "Stand back." He made a light swing before stepping back himself.
When nothing after a few breaths of time, Gair said, "Is there something—"
With a threatening rumble that shook the briefcase, a geyser of glimmering gold coins came bursting out, spraying in whatever direction Quinn pointed his fake-wand to.
"Hmm, this reminds me of where I piss in the toilet bowl," said Gair.
"Vampire can urinate?"
"Of course, we can. I, at my base, still have human-like physiology."
"Is it true that Vampires can heal by drinking blood?"
Gair glanced at Quinn for a brief second before returning to the gold shower. "Yes, we can. Every Vampire has the ability, but not all can do it."
"What do you mean?"
"We feed on blood to sate the thirst for it. But the damned thirst never really subsides, so Vampires who can't control the thirst just end up drinking the blood without using it for healing. It's common in young ones who don't have the experience, but there are a few old ones who give in to the thirst and never control it — well, those guys are usually put down because of their drinking sprees."
"Have you ever gone on one?"
Gair laughed in reply — a fake laugh that had been used so much that it had turned real.
"How much did you bring?" asked Gair, looking at the five gold mountains that reached the ceiling, with a sixth one in progress.
"I'm pretty sure we sent the exact amount, didn't you get it?"
"I leave that sort of stuff to my people. I pay them for a reason."
"This room's just big enough; when I'm done, there'll be barely enough to walk around."
"How did you get this much money, kid? When I was your age, I would lose my mind if someone gave me a couple of galleons?"
"I took it from a man who didn't need it anymore."
"Seriously?"
"Don't worry, he's dead.. . and short, he's short."
".. ."
- (Scene Break) -
Outside the vault, Helena and Alexia peered inside at the gold coins spraying out with a sculpture coming out once in a while.
"That's a lot of money," Alexia said with fingers touching her parted lips, "and all of that is Quinn's, and his alone?"
"That seems to be the case," said Helena with surprise on her face. She knew about another account in Monolith that gained royalty amounts from various West products.
"Wow, that's a lot for someone Quinn's age," said Alexia, wondering what it would be like to have that much money.
"Yet that's not even the tip of the iceberg that is West's wealth," said Helena.
Alexia nodded. She usually worked in the finance department and knew the amount of money processed through the thousands of transactions every day.
Helena shook her head when she saw Alexia's nod. "No, even the amount we handle here is the true extent of the West's wealth. It's just one part of it — a big part of their European business, but not the true view of wealth.
Do you know there exists a class even among the uber-rich?"
"Eh," Alexia uttered in confusion, "a class.. . in those people, I don't understand."
"Even I didn't understand it before I reached a certain point in my career," said Helena. "But there are three classes of uber-rich — the lower class, the middle class, and the upper class."
Alexia furrowed her brows. "I.. . I don't understand. Aren't people or families with that much money.. . just rich?"
"They are rich, with more money they would need in their lifetimes, there isn't any doubt in that, but that doesn't mean that all of them are equal," said Helena. "The lower class are the people who have their wealth tied into one business; for example, if all of West wealth was tied into MagiFax, then they'd be of the lower class of uber-rich."
"Why is that lower class? Isn't MagiFax huge? My mother said that it changed how things happened in her company."
"Yes, MagiFax is revolutionary, but that makes West wealth limited to MagiFax. If, for some reason, MagiFax became obsolete because something better came along, or if the MagiFax services deteriorated, then the worth of the business would crash, and that would reduce the wealth of the company."
While Alexia couldn't see MagiFax failing, she nodded at the hypothetical situation. "Then how do you resolve that?" she asked.
"You become a middle class of uber-rich," said Helena as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
".. . Madam Berenberg."
"Don't look at me like that; let me explain, and it will make sense," said Helena chuckling. "Middle class of uber-rich is when you don't put all your eggs in one basket. When a person's wealth doesn't come from one source, but from many different sources."
"Oh! I understand!" said Alexia, her voice causing Helena to lean away a bit. "West family is middle class, aren't they? They have so many businesses, so even if one of them fails, the rest of the business would still bring in the money, so they don't have to worry about losing all their wealth as it is distributed."
Alexia recalled MagiFax, MLE, Lunar Developer, which were just the latest, and there were so many more industries that West had been operating in for decades.
"Right on the bell, you're correct," said Helena. "The middle-class uber-rich don't have to worry as their wealth is so widely distributed that even if they lose many of their business, they would be secured. The middle-class uber-rich have seemingly unlimited amounts of cash; they can have huge political influence if they choose to exercise their power, and their wealth continues to accumulate no matter how hard they try to give it away."
Helena was sure that when it came to pure business, no one had a better positioning than Wests as they were not only diversified through industries, they were diversified through countries, which provided them a layer of diversification that was quite unparalleled in the magical communities.
"But you're wrong in one thing, Alexia," said Helena. "Wests aren't a middle class; they are of the upper class of uber-rich."
By now, Ixquic had scooted near the two ladies to listen to the interesting talk.
"The upper class are the true old money elite that has been wealthy for generations. They are royals or nobility or from a lineage of wealth that extends back to recorded history. They don't own companies; they own countries. They are Saudi royals, or Russian oligarchs, or European nobility, or American old money. These people don't use banks like Monolith or hire people like us who manage their wealth for them. Why? Because their wealth is much harder to quantify. You can work out business value quite easily, and there you have it, the worth of a lower class or upper class.
"But upper class don't hold wealth like this," Helena chuckled. "Imagine having a nation's national treasury as their bank balance. They directly own state enterprises that aren't open for the general public to buy. They might own the very land the country was built on. Need some money to spend? Write a letter to the country's treasury department, and the nation will personally become your walking wallet.
"These families' wealth is also highly stable because they are so well-diversified, and the only way to make them broke is to bring down an entire country. As for political influence? They either pull the strings from the shadows or are directly head of the state."
Alexia seemed blown away. "But why haven't I heard of such people?"
"Because they try their hardest to stay hidden. People like these are backward or poor countries, and it wouldn't look good if you are spending money when your country is struggling with poverty," explained Helena. "But have you head of Abates of Italy?"
"Lia's mother's family?" said Alexia.
"Yes, they're a family that has been there before Italy was established. They might not have power in the muggle part of the country, but when it comes to the magical part, there's nothing bigger than Abate in the country. They, like the Wests, run a few businesses, and even these businesses might be on a decline; that's just a front that the family runs to do something. Even if all those businesses went down, it wouldn't affect Abates one it."
"Then.. . the West?" asked Ixquic, speaking for the first time.
Helena looked at the silent girl, "It was around the same time your boss started to work with the Wests when the then family's head started to invest in poorer countries. Under his rule, Wests essentially brought out magical parts of those countries and rose from your standard middle-class to upper-class.
"His next-generation solidified the position. George West, who came after the solidification, chose to focus on actual business as those countries could be left alone to grow and only required guidance once in a while. His son, Adam West, ventured into the muggle world, but that halted because of his untimely death. Lia West, the next in line, seems to focus on the magical world because of the recent influx of new innovative products.
"Though her younger brother," Helena pointed to Quinn inside the vault, "Quinn West seems to have asked for someone who'd help him invest his newly gained wealth into the muggle world. It seems that Wests are going to gain another layer of diversification with this new generation."
The three, who all worked for Wests, looked at the West inside, still spewing gold, witnessing a part of the lineage bigger than they seemed and only truly known to those with elite status or those in the right places.
-*-*-*-*-*-
Quinn West - MC - You love gold? I have mountains of it.
Idris Gair - Part-owner of Monolith - Oh boy, that mountain looks like it's about to fall.. . on me.
Helena Berenberg - Search her surname - Phew, that was a lot speaking.
