Eros An Aesperii-Crimarii

Early life
HeroCrime28 was born in an unknown village in Nieden. HeroCrime28 when he got older decided to leave his village, to wander in a world of which he knew nothing about. Wandering through a spruce forest, he came upon a sunken ruin, of what once had been a great city, with massive ships and impressive buildings: houses, apartments, castles and palaces all sunken under the sea, which made massive pillars of water on the roofs of the highest buildings, which impressed and terrified the wanderer, him never having seen anything like it. HeroCrime did not know then, but he had accidentally stumbled on the sunken ruins of the cursed old capital of the Empire of Escharia. Having no choice but to swim through the city or turn back the way he came, HeroCrime foolishly chose to swim through the cursed ruins. Almost as soon as he went into the waters, dark clouds started forming above, yet HeroCrime thought nothing of it and pursed on. As time went by, the dark clouds started pouring rain, and that rain turned into a storm. This storm was nothing like HeroCrime had ever seen; lightning hitting the water pillars, waves crashing into the

ruins and pushing HeroCrime around, hitting him just as he tried to grab on the tops of towers sticking out of the ocean below, as if commanded by ancient forces. All of this tired HeroCrime, as he tried to save himself from being claimed by the ocean but to no avail, and as his forces left his body, he accepted his fate and stopped fighting, passing out.

Yet, Death would not claim him, as his story still needed to continue. HeroCrime woke up, finding himself on a shore. As he got up, he noticed that the climate was colder than the one he left, meaning he had probably gone up north. As he wandered through the hills seeking shelter, HeroCrime found a city, with great stone walls and farms surrounding it. Outside of the city was a man, who approached HeroCrime, introducing himself as then he asked HeroCrime who he was and what his intentions were. HeroCrime introduced himself and told Pipo of Alfuna his story about how he got here. Pipo of Alfuna, seeing that the wanderer needed help, he brought HeroCrime inside the city. While they walked Pipo of Alfuna told HeroCrime about where he was, informing him that he was in the capital of the great viking nation of Skjoldrbrodir, which to this day HeroCrime28 still doesn’t know how to spell. Pipo told HeroCrime of the culture and the history of the nation, and about its leader and founder AC0N, all of which interested HeroCrime. As they made their way into a house in the town, HeroCrime28 requested to join the town and nation, which Pipo of Alfuna accepted.

Skjoldrbrodir - Limura War
(This account of the war is mostly lore, the experiences have been heavily romanticized, don't take it as absolute fact)

HeroCrime spent the next few days in Ustokol, recovering from the hardships he had faced, not going much out of his home. Once he had gotten back his strengths, Pipo invited HeroCrime to join him in his the colonization of the new lands of Eldham, for Skjoldrbrodir, which HeroCrime happily accepted. Excited for adventures to come, HeroCrime boarded the next ship to Eldham, and after a few weeks of voyage, he finally arrived to Steinborg, the mountain capital of kjoldrbrodir's territories in Eldham. There, in the next weeks, HeroCrime came to know other citizens of Skjoldbrodir such has: Kai999, Drunk_Frog, tasty_breadstick Ezee8, BalloonDwarf and others. Kai999, tasty_breadstick Drunk_Frog would become great long time friends of his. HeroCrime, tasty_breadstick and PipoH1PPO would temporarly create the Le Mafia as a meme, with them as the 3 godfathers. The organization that sadly hasn't survived to this day. In these weeks HeroCrime would also learn of the nation's religion, Nostikur, a Valdic religion worshipping a vast pantheon of gods, however HeroCrime, being an atheist, and with it's believers in the nation already questioning the religion's beliefs, which will lead to the Nyr Nostikur split and it becoming the official religion of the nation after the war, chose not to convert.

However, HeroCrime28 joined Eldham in time of great tensions in the world between Skjoldrbrodir and Limuria, as the two were at odds for trade routes and the eastern lands of the continent of Phoros.

Even though diplomatic solutions were tried, the tension was palpable and the Skjoldrbrodir population was favorable to war, with most citizens being thristy for glory and plunder of the Lemur's land, the people of Skjoldrbrodir prepared for war. HeroCrime, following this spirit, every day HeroCrime would go out in the field, training with Kai999 and the other citizens of Skjoldrbrodir, getting his combat skills ready for battle. In this time HeroCrime would also go mining, both in the Overworld and Nether, getting diamond gear for himself and enough gold to build a small fortune, which he hoped to use to settle east if the Limurian lands were conquered.

Yet one day diplomacy seemed to have prevailed. That was until the Cowboys attacked. The Cowboys were a group of bandits that had settled in North-West Phoros, and taking advantage of the tension and instability, they raided Steinborg and several other towns of Skjoldrbrodir. The Cowboys also raided the Limurians, and cause of this both sides started blaming the other for the attacks, and war was declared by Skjoldbrodir’s leader AC0N.

Both sides began gathering troops, ready to battle. The military leadership of Skjoldrbrodir decided that it had to make the first move, take Limuria’s capital and win the war quickly.

The day of the attack came, HeroCrime, nervous for his first battle, put on his new diamond armor, took up his just forged sword and shield, and slowly reached the Steinborg’s gates, where the citizens of Skjoldrbrodir were gathering. Some matched HeroCrime’s humor, a few had worse humor, with fear reeking from them, while most were in a better mood than HeroCrime, those ones, having already been in battles, didn’t share HeroCrime’s nervousness or the fear of Death others had. One thing everyone had in common though was one thing: they were going to fight for Skjoldrbrodir and it’s glory, or die trying. One of the people in a better mood was Kai9999, that being one of the most experienced fighters of the Skjoldrbrodir army, was leading the army as Hersir of the nation. Seeing HeroCrime’s nervousness, he came up to HeroCrime and they spoke. “First time?” Kai asked him, “Yeah” HeroCrime responded, “I was given two pieces of advice on my first battle, want to hear them?”, “Sure why not” HeroCrime replied, “Always move forward and stick them by the pointy end, I was given this advice on my first battle, always followed it, never needed anything else, understand?”HeroCrime nodded and Kai, after wishing him luck, went on to make sure everything was ready for the march on Limuria. After some time prepping the army, Pipo opened the gate and the vikings began their march. They marched through the fields of Steinborg, singing songs about plunder and glory, on this mortal plain or in the eternal battle in the heavens, their instrument being the rattling of their armor and the banging of their weapons on the yellow and blue shields. After having crossed the treacherous sands of the badlands of Phoros, the Skjoldrbrodir vikings crossed the Limurian border, reaching a riverbank, there Kai raised his fist, halting the army. “BRING THE BOATS!” Kai commanded, and out of the army lines came vikings, carrying large spruce boats; these men made their to the way to the riverbank and placed the boats on the water. Kai ordered everyone to the boats, once that was done, he stepped on his and began rowing east, the rest followed. The river currents, like a horse carrying its owner, pushed the vikings further and further into the lands of the Lemurs, a land of jungles, swamps and trees such as HeroCrime had never seen, with humid air creating fog that would have made an ambush predictable, but not foreseeable on the moment. Cause of this the vikings were all on high alert, grasping their shields and swords, expecting an arrow to fly, and for their possible last stand to start at any moment. Yet no ambushes were made, then the currents started slowing, meaning that the vikings had almost made it to the river delta, where the Lemur’s capital of Rothersdam was located.

At this point, Kai landed his boat the riverbank, at the entrance of an oak forest, the rest of his men followed suit, docking their boats on the sands that formed the borders of the water. After everyone got off, the vikings began marching into the forest, where at a wall made of boulders, they met their allies.

Having organized the troops, Kai climbed on top of a boulder and began his speech to his men: “MEN OF SKJOLD! Vikings with no fear. Today we fight the Lemurs, to show them that the Valdics will not tolerate their shenanigans, will not bow down to their demands, but will remain strong, and take whats ours of right or die trying! May the Nostikur gods bless us, and may we bring them and this nation glory. So men, FIGHT!” A loud cheer surged from the crowd, so loud that the Lemurs in their huts probably heard it, shivering in fear, and like this the nervousness that had accompanied HeroCrime through the entire journey disappeared. The army began climbing the boulders, which as soon as crossed brought the courtyards outside the walls of Rothersdam, walls that stood high as mountains, looming over the men. As soon as the vikings stepped on the yard, they were meet with berry bushes and cobwebs blocking their way. HeroCrime rushed forward, shield high and sword in hand, dead set on taking the walls. HeroCrime got through the first set of berry bushes and cobwebs along with a few viking and allied warriors, however they were met with arrow fire from atop the walls, which killed a few warriors and injured some, including HeroCrime, though not much. Crawling through the mud and dirt of the yard, after some time, HeroCrime made it to the walls of Rothersdam along with allied soldiers, who had brought ladders to climb the wall. Under the arrow fire of the Lemurs, HeroCrime and the other men began climbing the walls. While climbing, HeroCrime looked around him, seeing the other men beginning to cross the berry bush and cobweb packets, then he looked up and saw men climbing, he saw one fall, struck by an arrow to the head, his body falling and getting impaled in the rocks below. Seeing this, HeroCrime knew he could not fail and continued his climb, reaching the top of the wall after sometime, being one of the first to do so. There a Lemur was getting his loading his bow preparing to strike the new arrival, HeroCrime swiftly swung his sword at the bow, knocking out of the archer’s hands, who looked up at HeroCrime. There was fear in his eyes, knowing that he would have now died at the hand of the invader, which he did, as HeroCrime stabbed him just a moment later. As the archer bleed on the floor of the walls, HeroCrime thought about what he had just done. He had committed his first kill. In his mind, HeroCrime found no pleasure in the act, with a side of him being disgusted at what he had just done, yet he acknowledged that it was necessary, as this was war. As he looked around  him, he saw that the rest of the Skjoldrbrodir’s army was beginning to arrive, slaughtering the rest of the Lemurs. As HeroCrime came to his senses and began to walk down the stairways into the town below, where more soldiers were waiting for them. HeroCrime tried his best, but being to new to fighting, he didn’t get any further kills that day, just injuring a few Lemur soldiers and getting injured himself, though not seriously enough to stop him from fighting. As the fighting came to a close, a shout was heard in a distance: “This isn’t a Lemur!”, confused at this statement, HeroCrime approached the position where the shout had come from. There a soldier, ally of Skjoldrbrodir, was kneeling, analyzing a body of an enemy soldier. “This his a mercenary” the soldier said, standing up, to then approach another body, which he stared at for a few seconds before concluding: “They are all mercenaries!”. And so it was discovered that the Lemurs had all fled the city, leaving mercenaries to die for it. Everyone was at first shocked by this fact, then they began laughing at the cowardice of the Lemurs, and so the sacking of Rothersdam began. Huts were looted, chests in the court yard were sized, and a couple of armored horses were stolen. However most of the treasure was poor, having the Lemurs taken their valuables with them before the siege and locking what was left behind iron bars, which the soldiers were not able to break. HeroCrime explored the area and partook in the sacking. While he was walking, handling the poor loot he had got, he noticed a soldier in full netherite coming towards him, however him having a banner marking him as an ally, HeroCrime thought little of it, that was until the man sped up his pace, unsheathed his netherite sword and stabbed HeroCrime, setting him on fire due to the enchants. HeroCrime in those moments of pain wondered “Why did he attack me?”, and that’s when he noticed that he had dropped his shield in the sacking, the shield that marked him as a Skjoldrbrodir viking, making him unrecognizable from the Lemurs’ mercenaries. HeroCrime jumped into the river, trying to put out the fire, then the rest was blurry.

He felt himself getting dragged, then he saw trees, after that he felt heath, and suddenly cold. HeroCrime opened his eyes, his vision, which was a bit blurry soon picked up the pace and he saw that he was in his apartment in Steinborg, in his woolen bed, covered in bandages in patches. HeroCrime tried to sit up, but as he did, his whole abdomen fell in pain, and so he stopped and continued to look around. There were flowers beside his bed, along with empty bowls of what smelled like soup. HeroCrime then heard cranking to his left, when it stopped, Drunk_Frog, his neighbor had just come up the stairs, carrying soup, though stopped in shock, once he saw HeroCrime’s eyes were open. HeroCrime tried to speak, but all that came up was a faint sigh; it didn’t really matter though, as Drunk_Frog had rushed out of the room the moment he had seen HeroCrime awake. A few minutes passed before HeroCrime heard that cranking on the stairs again, this time it was Pipo. “How are you?” Pipo asked, HeroCrime tried to answer but again his mouth gave nothing but a sigh, “Can’t speak uh?” Pipo then asked him, to which HeroCrime nodded. Pipo explained to HeroCrime that he had been in a coma for about a year, recovering from his injuries. The siege of Rothersdam had been declared a tie, since technically no Lemurs were killed, then the Lemurs went on the offensive, launching an attack on Steinborg, but Skjoldrbrodir stood strong, and they were repelled. Having lost the war, the Lemurs were forced out of their land and fled to form will become the Zamotz Federation, therefore the lands of the east were annexed by the vikings, making Skjoldrbrodir the major power in Phoros.

Recovery and Urba:

HeroCrime took a year to fully recover from his wounds (Was on summer holiday in IRL), and the poison left an ugly scar on his face that could reopen if he exposed it too much, so he wore a black mask on his mouth to cover it. After recovering, HeroCrime traveled to the furthest east point of Phoros and founded the town of Urba with the small wealth he made mining. Excited, he began building his town. The peninsula he chose had the sea on the east, connecting to the seas of Phoros, and a river to the west connecting to the entire continent with the north of the town holding the mouth of the river, making it a prime position for trading; south the town was shielded by hills, making it, along with the river and sea, an easy position to defend. HeroCrime began by building a little headquarter inside a cave in a badlands hill, once that was done, HeroCrime built a dock hoping that soon he would be able to exploit the position of the town to make a trade hub. HeroCrime went on to build walls and a couple of homes, and the town had some initial success but due to inactivity of the citizens and problems with the region's Jarl led to the ultimately failing, forcing HeroCrime to retire from the region in shame. After leaving the area of Urba, he went to the desert town of Uracil, lead by his good friend Kai, where HeroCrime made a home and started planning on town improvements and renovations to its walls.

Time in business:

(This section will have little lore, as romanticizing business dealings in a coherent story is difficult and the story a lot longer than it needs to be)

While HeroCrime was in Uracil, spices were discovered in the worlds of Rathnir and Eldham, and seeing the new market that had opened up, HeroCrime decided grasp the new opportunity and farm spices, founding the Skjold. East Company along with Kai and Pipo to sell them. HeroCrime got to work, using the the architectural skills he had gained while working on Urba, he designed a huge farm with the perfect conditions to farm cumin, a spice native to the desert. HeroCrime began building his farm, using the modest tools he had to dig at the heights were cumin grew. It was hard work, work that took many months, work that HeroCrime did mostly alone, with only his friend Inferno_alex helping once in a while, however once he was done, it became a farm able produce hundreds of cumin spices per hour. Once beginning the sale of cumin, HeroCrime found modest success, selling it many companies across the world of Eldham, even getting hired in a few companies in a few companies to handle book-work and finances, getting paid well for his work. However spice farming was hard work, and the profits in HeroCrime's opinion were too little; he was ambitious, not content to only have the scraps. He tried to get his company enlisted in the Eldham Monetary Fund, at the time the biggest and only stock market on Stoneworks at the time, a bank backed by the Empire of Uraka, where company owners made enormous amounts of money from investments given to them by common-folk, rich men and noblemen alike. HeroCrime applied for his company to have stocks sold on the market, but was rejected for being too new of company. Meanwhile, the Skjold. East Company become a branch of Yulb'Serve in exchanfe for 20% of the supply giant. HeroCrime became good friends with the CEO of Yulb'Serve, Flymetothemoon, who would help him expand profits of his enterprise. Around the same time HeroCrime began investing his new money in the stock market, making decent returns. Almost an year passed, and in this time HeroCrime had come to manage the Eldham and Rathnir Stock Exchange, the Eldham Monetary Fund's main competitor, under the Imperial Bryennus Bank, lead by player Nexus Bryennus. HeroCrime there developed a new method for managing stock price calculation, the Crimian method, in which the stock price wasn't determined by bidding, but by supply and demand. This method proved successful in guaranteeing stable growth for bigger companies, but caused major stock bubbles in smaller companies, which because of their cheap price, became overbought and rose in price without improvement or growth, however these companies were soon kicked from the market by HeroCrime before investors could lose major money on them. HeroCrime at this time felt on top of the world, he had good jobs bringing him steady incomes, and while the Skjold. East Company was beginning to fail as the spice market began to die, HeroCrime still had the reserves in stock of Yulb'Serve he could rely on to profit if the company failed. It was going good for HeroCrime, and around that time he approached Flymetothemoon to sell his stock in Yulb'Serve, which would have been worth around 600k at the time. Instead Flymetothemoon revealed to HeroCrime a project he was working on along with other major supply companies. With this project he met many of his future friends and collaborators in business: FortyTwo2 Aurelan, Admiral Fluffy, and Viper, these were not the only people involved, but the ones HeroCrime grew closest to. Many of the major supply companies of Eldham, to fight against the almost monopoly that the Pawn Shop of Imperius had on the market, came together to propose a merge of their resources and staff, and HeroCrime being a major shareholder of Yulb'Serve, would have a percentage of this new company. HeroCrime took an active part in the project to earn his percentage, as this felt like just the thing he needed to fill his ambition, and he urged, along with a few others, to also involve Imperial Bryennus Bank in the project, as he already had worked for the bank and felt like they would a good addition to the new corporation, as they were the biggest bank in Eldham after the Eldham Monetary Fund (EMF). Nexus, the bank's CEO, threw a hard bargain, wanting half of the shares of the new corporation, a term that none of the other shareholders wanted to accept. After many hours of the negotiations, HeroCrime and Admiral_Fluffy got Nexus down to 35%, which jumped to to 40% after the bank purchased one of the minor partners in the project and bringing other important figures into the company: Aldous Bryennus and his wife. Many were happy of this compromise and the deal proceeded, and a few months later, after all legal terms were discussed and signed, Syndicate was born.

HeroCrime was chosen as CEO of the new company, despite being the youngest member of the group being just 18, putting him in charge of overseeing the final parts of the merge and logistics. However, the company immediately faced problems. Almost all of the companies were listed in EMF, and having now their own stock market, needed to withdraw. EMF wasn't very open to this idea and negotiations began. At first Nexus and Viper were sent, however Nexus was enraged by EMF's threats and began shouting threats of his own, much to Viper's horror, threats that none of the shareholders had agreed to and which most opposed. Viper tried to salvage the situation but was clumped in with Nexus as a toxic negotiator and his reputation in EMF's eyes was ruined. HeroCrime enraged by Nexus' impulsive behavior, banished him from the negotiating table and took matters in his own hands. He met with the EMF negotiators, but offended by Nexus, they began treating HeroCrime with no respect and spouting threats, using Nexus' behavior as justification. HeroCrime answered each time with patience and a calmly explained that Nexus' behavior wasn't representative of the Board's feelings and that the threats he made weren't approved by any person of authority, opening up negotiations to terms favorable to both companies and the investors of the various companies involved. But after days of negotiations, and of back and forth between EMF and Syndicate, HeroCrime began to get pissed off at the behavior of EMF negotiators, which despite his attempts at reconciliation, just kept increasing the toxicity directed at HeroCrime and weren't taking negotiations seriously, even threatening Urakan intervention multiple times to shut down the new company with force. After a week of negotiations (An IRL week), HeroCrime lost it and shouted that if EMF wasn't going to take the negotiations seriously, Syndicate might as well leave without terms. In reply EMF negotiators told HeroCrime not to take things seriously and to "chill", laughing at his face. HeroCrime seeing this was going nowhere and offended by the negotiators behavior, withdrew from negotiations and handed them to Admiral_Fluffy, which was an individual respected by both parties involved. At the same time negotiations were taking place two major things happened:

Imperial Bryennus Bank was thought to be one of the most stable and profitable banks of Stoneworks, with many loans, accounts and creditors, with a large liquidity pool. It was a facade: many of the loans were unprofitable or unenforceable, many of its accounts had money missing, the bank owed thousands to investors in dividends and it was a million dollars in debt. Aldous, owner of the bank, was surprised, as Nexus had been hiding his own incompetence from Aldous, and Nexus was kicked after some discussion away from Syndicate. There were discussions about kicking out the bank from Syndicate, however the takeover had already begun and it would have been bad for the image of the company to dump the bank, as it would show incompetence and it would damaged account holders and investors by destroying their savings. Plans began to be formulated to bail out the bank and stabilizing its finances, and it was determined that Viper and FortyTwo2 would bail out the bank by liquidating their assets.

Second that happened was that Brainstormkid, owner of Storm Yakuza, a prestigious brewing company, was included in the project, however since he was retiring, he sold his company to HeroCrime who made into a Syndicate Partner, but keeping it independent for personal gain. HeroCrime however found the company in decline and had to spend a lot of time to make sure it didn't collapse.

Meanwhile, negotiations were going on, Admiral_Fluffy was making progress with EMF, but the Monetary Fund kept making outrageous demands beyond basic refunds to investors, insisting that they get a percentage of the new corporation and be refunded more than other investors despite owning having just a 2% in the companies that had joined Syndicate. On top of that, they began a defamation campaign against Syndicate, using their massive discord to make announcements that Syndicate were trying to cheat investors out of money (Despite Syndicate having publicly stated many times their intention to refund investors and convert the shares of investors who wanted shares in this company), of being scammers, accusing them of not delivering goods to customers, but considering the sale of goods hadn't begun this was just pure slander, which greatly offended HeroCrime and other shareholders. EMF then attacked Imperial Bryennus bank with their announcements, but giving the state of the bank at the time, couldn't be really considered defamatory. Syndicate knew they had to strike back, this was when Aldous introduced HeroCrime and FortyTwo2 to The Big Man, an influential Stoneworks player who had contacts in the organized crime, politics and most importantly for Syndicate, a newspaper guild, from which he could launch a defamatory campaign against EMF to counter the one against Syndicate, in exchange for shares in Syndicate, but not publicly, as The Big Man said he would have preferred to operate in secret. HeroCrime agreed to the terms and had The Big Man's money laundered in one Syndicates subsidiary companies, where data wasn't public. This in HeroCrime's opinion was shady, but he had come too far let the business fail now, so he continued working with The Big Man, with who he would form a friendship with, and prepared together the defamation articles against EMF, using some dirt on the company he had gotten through corporate espionage. However, before the articles were published, Admiral_Fluffy reached a deal with EMF which was approved by both sides: Syndicate would refund all investors and would not list on any stock market for a month, plus they would pay a "Departure Fee" to EMF coming up to 100k on top on the stock refunds to the fund.

With the EMF negotiations out of the way, the company began working on logistics, HeroCrime made a new city in Skjoldrbrodir, Nova Urba (In honor of his last city). to host the headquarters and farms of the corporation, and with the help of Castellan Abner and his new Vanguard Finance group, Syndicate begun fixing their finances. However while the planning of logistics went smoothly, none of the board had the desire, or time, to build the farms or do the orders, and weren't able to find employees. HeroCrime tried to encourage people to work and hired a new Head of Logistics, not being able to begin work himself (HeroCrime was failing school in IRL, making him unable to have the time to get on server and actually build stuff, limiting him to Discord planning.). Things only got worse as Viper and FortyTwo2 withdrew their funds from the liquidity pool, against HeroCrime's orders, to make investments that they insisted would make better returns for Syndicate, HeroCrime furious and losing hope in the project, stepped down as CEO but was convinced into returning by Admiral_Fluffy, who knew that HeroCrime was the only one who could try to salvage the situation. First thing HeroCrime did was try to fix the liquidity issue; first he got a loan of 500k from Vanguard, which would have covered the amounts missing from the bank accounts of Imperial Bryennus Bank, then he ordered Viper and FortyTwo2 to liquidate their assets to pay for the stock refunds; liquidating the assets would take time but refunds could be postponed for a while. Meanwhile HeroCrime realized that the bank was not sustainable and sold it to the next major shareholder after Bryennus family, offloading the problem to someone else, and for an amount that could cover the loan plus offer some extra liquidity to the company. Just as the situation seemed solved, and HeroCrime was washing in relief, another major problem arose: Cause of his inactivity on the server, HeroCrime was kicked from Nova Urba, where the money had been deposited, the new owner, the CFO of the company, had quit the server a week earlier and wasn't answering HeroCrime's DMs on Discord, and staff, due to server rules, weren't able to transfer the claim or the funds without approval of the owner of the claim. The fund problem could have been solved if the executives began operations and taking orders from customers, but none did, and the funds of Viper and FortyTwo2 couldn't be liquidated in time. The claim got deleted for inactivity, the funds were gone, the loans to Vanguard defaulted and Syndicate declared bankruptcy, leading to its collapse. Syndicate, merger of the top supply companies of Eldham, who united to take down the Imperius monopoly, now collapsed, leading to the absolute monopoly of the Pawn Shop of Imperius over the supply sector of the Stoneworks economy, losing investors hundreds of thousands, some millions, of their money, starting a domino effect that would lead to collapse of EMF later on.