The iron collar was heavier than it looked.
Every step Tom took rattled the short length of chain connecting his neck to the wagon's rear rail, the sound rippling through the street like a bell toll—not for the city, but for his freedom.
Ka-chink. Ka-chink.
Crowds whispered as the debt-slave procession passed. Merchants in fine robes glanced over from the comfort of their shopfronts; beggars watched with the hollow hunger of those one bad day away from joining the line. Few made eye contact with the chained. Debt in Westmarch City was a disease—contagious, shameful, and terminal for most.
Tom kept his gaze fixed ahead.
If he looked down, he would see the fraying soles of his boots; if he looked up, he would see the banners of the Merchant Guild fluttering from the marble towers—mocking him with their gold-stitched prosperity.
Two months ago, he'd had a home. Not much of one, but four walls, a roof, and a mother's quiet humming by the fire. His father… well, that man's genius for making promises had always outweighed his skill at keeping them. By the time winter hit, the debts had stacked higher than their shop sign.
And now his father was gone. Disappeared on some "urgent trade deal" halfway across the continent. Likely dead. And the creditors didn't wait for funerals.
They had taken the house first. Then the shop. Then his mother's health, strained by the cold and hunger of the street. Now, all that was left to seize was him.
"Lot Number Six," the bailiff barked as they reached the auction square.
A clerk with an ink-stained nose started muttering measurements and "sale value" guesses to another man holding a ledger thicker than a priest's bible.
The sun was merciless on his neck as he was pushed onto the raised platform. Tom narrowed his eyes against the glare.
From here, he could see the whole square—stalls selling roasted chestnuts, jewelers hawking amulets, auctioneers shouting prices for spices and silks—wealth everywhere, but none of it his.
"Eighteen years old, healthy build," the bailiff announced to the small crowd of buyers. "Can read and count. Starting bid, four gold crowns."
Four crowns.
That was the value of his arms, his legs, and his ability to do sums.
A bid came immediately from a baker near the front. Another from a bearded overseer.
The numbers crawled up until, with a final grunt, the baker dropped out and Tom was sold to the overseer for nine crowns.
It was strange—he thought he'd feel despair in that moment. But instead, all he felt was… a spark of anger. Not hot and wild; cold and sharp. The kind that sits in your bones and whispers never again.
The overseer walked him to the waiting cart where the day's purchases were bound and tagged like cargo. He was just settling onto the bench when a familiar cough caught his ear.
"Tom…"
He froze. Turned.
At the edge of the square stood his mother.
Her once-lustrous hair was faded and tied back in a rag. Her figure, once strong from years of lifting ledger books and merchandise, was leaner, frailer. She shouldn't even be walking—the winter cough had nearly taken her.
And yet she had come.
She stepped forward, ignoring the shouts to clear the lane, and pressed something small and metallic into his bound hands.
A coin. Old.
Its gold surface was warm despite the morning chill, engraved with an unfamiliar crest—a coiled dragon around a sunburst.
"Your grandfather…" Her voice was a rasp. "Said this would protect us one day. Keep it. Promise me."
Before he could answer, the overseer yanked him back. The cart jolted forward, and the chains tugged him away until the crowd and his mother blurred into the dust.
He looked down at the coin in his palm.
For a second, the engraved dragon seemed to shift. Its eye flared—just a trick of the light, surely—but the warmth in the metal was no trick. It pulsed once, twice… like a heartbeat.
That night, lying on straw in the worker barracks of the overseer's mill, Tom turned the coin over and over in the dim lamplight.
On the third turn, he noticed something odd: a hairline seam running along its rim.
He pressed it.
Click.
Light bled from the seam, rising in thin golden threads, weaving a shimmering pattern in the air until it formed a translucent rectangle before his eyes.
[ Bloodline Treasury System Activated ]
[ Dynasty Bloodline Detected: Varrow Merchant Lineage ]
[ System Initiating… ]
Tom stared, convinced exhaustion was finally making him hallucinate.
[ Core Functions Unlocked:
— Passive Gold Interest Generation (1% daily on held coins)
— Debt Reduction Aura (creditors will reduce demands by 20%)
— Ancestral Vault I: Location Granted ]
A small map appeared in the air—a simple diagram of Westmarch City with a red X near Merchant's Row.
Tom's heart pounded. Merchant's Row… That was the most expensive street in the city. His family had never owned property there.
And yet, the system was telling him that something of his—no, of his ancestor's—waited there.
[ Legacy Mission Unlocked:
"Retrieve the contents of Ancestral Vault I—Status: Time-Locked, Requires Bloodline Key." ]
He looked at the coin again.
The dragon's eye glowed faintly, pulsing in rhythm with the golden threads.
It wasn't magic in the sense the mages used.
No—this was wealth, distilled into power. A system not for killing enemies with swords or summoning fire, but for controlling the most dangerous weapon of all: gold.
Somewhere deep inside, the cold spark of anger fanned into something larger, fiercer.
The overseer might own his contract.
The guild might own the city.
But for the first time in months, Tom owned something.
He closed his fist around the coin and felt the golden heat spread through his fingers.
"Alright," he whispered to no one. "Let's see what you can do."