7.21

  “One-hundred and fifty-five. The Merchant of Lies is a very amiable person. After I told Yoseph to wish for immortality, my debts have all disappeared!

  Side note: I have a pure gold statue for sale. He looks a bit ugly and terribly betrayed, but could be a good conversation starter.” - Excerpt from Elvis’s Enchiridion of Encounters.

  It would be pushing it to say our reaction was stunned silence. Noam bent over, holding his belly as his entire body shook. Tai was similarly hunched, but was holding her head instead. Utoqa regarded everything with usual apathy, which I could only envy as Celine and I were the ones left stunned.

  Only when Noam’s shaking doubled in intensity did I break out of it. “I… We will need a private moment to register this.”

  Tou Domski nodded. “I understand. It is a deeply disturbing sight. What kind of people would so blatantly steal things?”

  ‘You people!’ I retorted internally, but kept my actual mouth shut. Someone really should praise my self control.

  Noam fell to the ground shaking, his grinning mouth cracked open for a moment before Tai noticed and pounced, muzzling his mouth and turning whatever sound into a choke.

  “Please,” Tou wiped a tear at the edge of his eye, “Use one of the meeting rooms. I need a moment myself.”

  So with Tai dragging Noam, we entered one of the meeting rooms and locked the door behind us. Tai finally released Noam and he burst into laughter. The man could no longer contain himself as he rolled over the floor holding his belly. His laughter constant given that his passives let him skip breathing.

  “So we’re so not doing this right?” I asked as Noam laughed in the background.

  Tai looked immensely embarrassed and conflicted, “Grandma only let me go because we agreed to do this…” Noam rolled into her legs and she kicked him back, he didn’t even notice with how hard he was laughing.

  “Ask her to change?” Celine suggested.

  “I’m more worried she sends us on an even more miserable quest,” Tai held her head, as if suddenly enlightened. “Oh my god this is how she’s getting back at me.”

  With her realization, I began connecting the dots as well. “She wants you to abandon your Path with an example of why blindly following norms can be bad?” I held my chin in thought. Tai’s grandmother was the one who mapped our journey to the elven capital, all those villages and towns we passed through were suggested by her. “This method is actually pretty clever.”

  “Hehekeke…” Noam pulled himself up with one of the tables. He wheezed heavily, his laughing fit had overwhelmed his Breathless passive and he needed a few deep breaths to collect himself. “Hehe… Dusts, I’m surprised you didn’t immediately: ‘Umm actually,’ that guy.”

  I shook my head. “I thought about it, but I’m starting to realize some arguments are best avoided.”

  Noam beamed like a proud father, “Look at you! Growing up from being a redditor.”

  I ignored him. “Your grandma’s point has been made, hasn’t it? Just tell her you learned your lesson and continue on.”

  “Aren’t you guys seeing the obvious?” Noam stated with a smirk. “This is the Elven Museum of Natural History.”

  “What’s your point?” Tai asked.

  He gestured broadly to the meeting room, which I only now noticed was rather expensive looking. He raised one finger, “Well, first off, they’re rich.” He raised another finger, “And second, they’re elves.”

  “How does them being elves change anything?” Celine asked.

  Noam gestured to Tai, “Remember how Tai was alright with us spending years in Taebut for Glascoin’s fake debt?”

  “So you’re saying it may take up to a decade?” Tou Domski asked.

  Noam nodded, “Maybe even two. The dwarves are dastardly thieves and getting anything from their grubby hands will be difficult. We will begin investigations right away, but understand that this is not an easy undertaking.”

  “Eight decades even,” Tai added.

  “And to be clear we aren’t getting the actual structure of the museum back,” I stressed. “We are not equipped logistically to bring back a third of a building.”

  Tou Domski nodded, “I understand, the museum can wait a few decades so long as our relics are rightfully returned.”

  Noam and I glanced at each other. “There are a lot of operational costs, so we will require half the payment up front,” I stated in my most neutral tone.

  “I’ll pay your rates and you can claim the bounties on the relics once you bring them back,” Tou scoffed. “We are a government institution, such expenses are trivial.”

  And that’s how we ended up leaving the museum, arms laden with bags of gold.

  Tai hesitated on the steps. “Are you sure this is ok?”

  “Hey they steal way more from other people, this is just giving back to community,” Noam beamed.

  I shrugged, “And it’s his fault for not signing a contract.” Not that I ever even mentioned it was possibility. That clearly didn’t convince Tai, but after numerous examples of why the Museum didn’t deserve the money, she found no real way to refute it.

  “To be clear we are going to give most of this away,” I added on, to which Noam answered with a frown. I already knew his question. “Noam being amoral assholes worked when it was just the two of us, but we have friends with consciences now.”

  Tai rolled her eyes, “Gee I’m glad we’re the reason why you two aren’t dicks.”

  “Hey I’ve been your conscience for years now!” Noam argued.

  “And you do a terrible job at it. Any proper organization needs clear standards or it fails long term.” The bags were heavy so I handed mine off to Utoqa.

  “So robbing robbers is fine but not keeping the robbers money?” Tai asked as she took two.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Yes,” I answered. Not to mention my actual reason which was that remaining austere kept our karma in check. Running around with bags of money was too risky, at least until some significant misfortune befell us to balance our negative luck back to neutral.

  “We should send it to Taebut’s Hearth Church,” Celine suggested.

  I raised an eyebrow, prompting her to continue.

  “We still owe Governor Hye for killing her men, directly giving her money and calling it repayment is too insensitive, but we were involved with Glascoin and the kids at the Hearth Church, so we have reason to see it restored.”

  I rubbed my chin. “Masking repayment as an infrastructure donation? Ok, best idea we’ve got.” By the rules of Karma, Taebut’s Hearth Church should be due a good turn. It seems we would be the deliverer of it.

  Noam made a sly smile, “All this is nice, but how much are we actually keeping?”

  I side eyed him, he knew me well, latching onto my use of the word ‘most’. “We’ll purchase some more armor upgrades. My bark armor scales with my own level, so I’m good. We’re also all lacking in protection against non-physical magic attacks.”

  “Like my curses…” Celine whispered, looking off into the distance.

  “Can you make protection charms Celine?” Tai asked.

  She shook her head, “Only very specialized ones…” She added after a pause, “I can sever the current dolls and make weaker ones where the range is lower, but won’t curse you in the same way.”

  I thought about it, then shook my head. “No, the long range support nature of your abilities is your best strength. There is no need to unspecialize to become a more generic healer type.” Not to mention the significant synergies between an area prepper / control type like me.

  Noam swung an arm around me while grinning towards Celine, “And what’s the most important reason?”

  “Being closer to the melee puts you at greater risk,” I stated as I pushed his arm off. “There is no need to risk your life.”

  “Especially in solidarity,” Noam added.

  “Hmm?” I asked.

  “He means that Celine shouldn’t risk her life just because she feels useless,” Tai plomped her hands on Celine and my heads, ruffling my cap and Celine’s green hair. “Both of you two are so clueless sometimes.”

  Utoqa broke his silence, gesturing to the necklace Celine wore. “You have my tooth, use it.”

  “Oh yeah, Utoqa you can make protection charms right?” Noam asked.

  “I need material.”

  “We’re all in agreement then? Armor upgrades for everyone and some magical protections,” I asked. There were nods all around, which I was glad for. I knew we should stay poor until our bad luck passed, but we still needed to prepare against whatever misfortune will befell us.

  “We still need to head in the vague direction of the relics right?” Noam asked.

  I nodded, “If possible we should still do some cursory investigation- and at least maintain that we have it as a secondary priority or sidequest. But right now without any other pressing jobs to do we will have to prioritize it as a matter of appearance.”

  “We can get info on monster material while we’re in Taebut,” Celine added.

  “Alright, let’s head there first.”

  A Wayshard later and we were back in Taebut. After subtracting the cost of new armor, Celine and I handled the donation to an overworked Governor Hye, then regrouped with everyone else at Melinda’s morgue.

  We opened the door to find a three tiered piggy back ride with Tai, Noam, and Johnny. Tai at the bottom with Noam on her shoulders and Johnny on Noam’s shoulder. All the while Utoqa and Melinda sat at a table in focused discussion.

  Tai saw us and waved, evidentally the wrong move as she lost balanced and the two above fell, but before Noam could catch himself and Johnny an invisible force caught the two in midair.

  Johnny was laughing and smiling. Beside me, Celine smiled as well.

  Melinda waved us forward. She gestured to an empty seat at the table, I almost sat there before she said, “Mr Smith’s an adventurer like you. He says there’s monsters which fits your friends needs, but they’re rather rare this time of year.”

  Ah, forgot about her ghosts. I turned to the empty seat even though I could see no one there, “If you have knowledge of them, are there any in markets?” A known monster that could be made into protective charms was likely commercial.

  A moment of silence passed.

  Johnny leapt and hugged Celine, then turned to Melinda, “Dustin can’t see ghosts right now, you have to say what Mr Smith said!”

  “Ah!” Melinda bowed her head to me, “Sorry about that, I keep forgetting! Yes Mr Smith said that the new Scarlet Samsara guild should have some!”

  Noam groaned, “Not those guys again.”

  I ruffled Johnny’s hair. “They were well intentioned when they tried to grab Johnny. Them being social disasters about it is a separate matter.”

  Noam scratched his head, “I shouldn’t go, I tortured one of them while we were fighting, and I fucked up a lot of them.”

  “I need to examine the material,” Utoqa said.

  We all turned to him. Utoqa didn’t mean anything with that phrase, but I mentally imagined him ripping and tearing through ranks of the Samsara guild. Yeah, having him be there would be an implied threat. Even more so than Noam since he did the large bulk of the fighting.

  “Maybe you should stay back until we work out a preliminary deal,” Celine gently suggested, evidentally having gone through the same thought process. “We need to gauge interest first, there’s a chance they may not be selling.”

  Tai joined us, “Just us three then?”

  I glanced towards Celine, who nodded her assent. “Just us three.”

  Scarlet Samsara was based in a retired inn. The place was no doubted gifted to them by Governor Hye to speed up their guild application. As such it was almost empty, and the few people there were still in the midst of cleaning when we arrived.

  “Dustin my friend!” The World’s ash covered face popped out of the unlit fireplace. He tossed a rag and chimney duster to the side. “You’re back!”

  For some odd reason he considered me his friend after I beat his ass by cheating then completely locked down his person with the contract.

  Their mage, Eleanor was less happy. “And so soon as well.”

  “We could come at a later date?” Celine suggested.

  Eleanor put away her mop, “Take a seat, what do you want?”

  “We heard we could buy slip scale gecko hides from you guys,” Tai said.

  “Of course we do-” The World’s mouth was slapped shut by Eleanor.

  “What could you pay?” the mage asked, staring at me.

  “Money, services, or items,” I threaded my fingers together. “If you need our help in any quest we can oblige, we can also trade some excess gear we have.”

  “We have our own adventurers,” she shot back.

  Celine glanced between her and me, as if wanting to say something. Celine was looking at me meaningfully, which led me to examining Eleanor’s expression closer.

  She was focused on me.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked.

  She crossed her arms. “That contract you cast, I ran an analysis ritual on it.”

  The World slapped her shoulder, “Come on Elly! It was all a big misunderstanding! Let’s let bygones be bygones.”

  She ignored him and continued, “That contract didn’t have the power to completely suppress all of World’s stats.”

  I watched her. She was focused, a far cry from how Noam said she acted when they first fought each other in the tavern. Now that I thought about it, she caught on unusually quickly when we had our truce. That line of thought recalled what she said back then, ‘They killed Elirian, Jaquaks, Kadrian, Lathel!’

  So that was the shape of it huh. Eleanor had an awakening, at the tavern she regarded this virtual world as a game. But after Noam and Utoqa killed those guards on the way out, guards she likely knew, she realized she needed to take things more seriously.

  So I gave her a concession, “The power of the contract scales with the amount and power of the witnesses to it.” I eyed her knowingly, “And we were beside a Hearth Church.”

  She mulled over it, then tsked. “So that’s the trick huh.”

  I nodded even though it was a half truth. Certainly Lorn could’ve been witness to the contract, but I would not rely on something dependent on proximity to a Church. The last clause of that contract was: This agreement will be held with all watching members and their gods as witnesses.

  And I personally knew that the god Historian saw through everyone’s eyes.

  “You’re using that contract to control that swamp elemental, right?” she asked, referring to the toad. “And you use your domain skill to summon them.”

  “Less control and more employment. I do pay him with my mana,” I corrected.

  Eleanor’s eyes gleamed, “Then our price is this, I want you to assist our guild members in getting familiars.”

  I narrowed my eyes. She really was clever, she’s realized the weakness of Travelers. How we’ll massively plateau in power once our leveling slows down due to exponential experience requirements, and was trying to make up for it with alternative progression methods.

  Like I did.

  “I won’t let you guys contract demons or devils, those guys are too nasty. I won’t allow any contracts that are malicious to others, nor will I help you guys draft the specific wording. If you are tricked by the fae or something similar that is entirely on you.”

  Eleanor nodded, “Agreed.”

  We shook on it and acquired our magic protections.