The news of the total failure on the fourth-floor locked deposit stone stand didn’t spread through official announcements.
It spread like wildfire carried by the panicked whispers of the twenty senior elders and merchant princes who had witnessed the disaster with their own eyes.
Within twelve minutes, the grand trading pit of the Commodity Exchange dropped into a total, shrieking pandemonium.
“The trade ring’s clearing accounts are frozen!” a foreign broker screamed, dropping his wooden bidding tablets and shoving through the crowd toward the exit. “The master ring at the Pavilion showed zero balance! They have no silver!”
“Default! The Golden-Sable Trade ring is defaulting!” another trader howled, clutching a thick sheaf of yellow promissory notes to his chest. “Get to the teller cages! Redeem your notes before the gates drop!”
Four thousand wealthy merchants, foreign trade envoys, and local shopkeepers stampeded out of the exchange tiered arena like a herd of panicked cattle.
They poured into the central marble boulevard of the Heavenly Spire district, a shouting, shoving ocean of silk robes, waving yellow promissory notes in the air, charging toward the fortified brass pavilions of the trade ring’s currency brokerages.
“Redeem our silver!” the mob roared, their voices merging into an ear-splitting, terrifying wall of sound that shook the tile roof edges of the riverfront buildings. “Open the cages! Pay the silver!”
