A Step Down
As one of the largest loan sharks in Lanthanor, Abrams had been sipping the costliest wine in the country when he had been notified of the message from the Palace which was inviting all the prominent people in his line of work for a meeting.
The only reason that he had been able to keep his business thriving for so long had been that he had always spent as much as needed to be kept up-to-date on the decisions of the government.
For instance, when all the wine importers and bar owners had been called to the Palace, he had guessed that the Kingdom would mostly impose sanctions, as it was common knowledge that Lanthanor was in need of money.
Hence, he had hastened to collect all the loans given to bar-owners before the meeting even took place.
His reasoning had been simple: if sanctions were placed, the profits in the business would go down, meaning that it would be more difficult for those who had taken the loans to pay the interest.