The Xanthic Emporium

[Aznar]

It was a bright sunny day when he saw man sitting at an office in Britain, seemingly busy with the signing of important looking documents and giving orders to men entering and leaving the office all the time, as if the man was the queen bee and the men were his worker bees.
He entered the office, taking note of all the activity and he immediately knew he had found what he was looking for. He had learned the queen bee's name and also the name of his freshly founded company. There was so much potential, he could just smell it. Grudgingly he had accepted that his traveling days were over, especially after the last fiasco that almost destroyed the world, so he had decided that he would settle down a bit and help to make this new company a success. Never had he liked the prospect of dying from utter boredom.
"Nuryah!" he said.
Nuryah looked up from his desk and looked him over. "Who are you?"
"I will tell you my name later, but first you must know what I can do for you."
Nuryah rubbed his chin and said, "a proposal? Interesting. Please, go on."
"It may seem that your company is going to take off with a flying start and believe me, by all measures it will. You will make good deals and you will employ many people. You might even prosper for a few years."
"But?" Nuryah asked.
"Good thing you asked. A young goldfish will only survive and grow stronger if the sharks are kept at bay. And believe me, sharks there will be."
"You make no sense old man, speak clearly please," Nuryah said.
"I offer you intelligence and influence. If you hire me, you will only have to worry about the business end of your company, and I will worry about any sharks that might decide to take swim around in your merrilly expanding pond."
"If you are talking about taking measures against the competition, then I'm not interested. I already have that covered," Nuryah said
"Yes I know you do, except that the person you hired to keep the sharks at bay, is in fact employed by the greatest shark of them all. The DeMauno Shop."
Nuryah looked uncomfortable for the first time in the conversation when he said, "do you have proof of this?"
He smiled and nodded. "I have proof and more. Meet me at the harbor at midnight." With that he turned around and took a step toward the door.
"Wait!" Nuryah shouted.
He smiled a bit and then turned around, expecting what Nuryah was about to say.
"How do I know this isn't a trap?" Nuryah asked.
"You don't," he said and started to around again when Nuryah said, "at least tell me your name then!"
"My friends call me Aznar. You may call me magister,"
Aznar took great joy in seeing the surprised look on Nuryah's face.