AnneNuri owned pretty much everything in the commercial section of the district, yet Kaiz felt no fear stepping into it. They were all outward operations, meant for non-students. Even alumni would do their business in the academy itself. So while he did get a number of looks and a few greetings, no one sought a conversation.
He happily reached his first destination with zero awkward interactions to his name. That happiness hastily fled as he heard a ridiculous price.
“Eleven gold? Randal. More than a darkgold for a three volume set?”
The middle-aged bookkeeper shrugged, “It’s a rare set.” He gestured to the rest of the sparsely populated shelf, “Medical literature is hard to come by. I would be surprised if anyone else has more than one of the three.”
Kaiz would need to confirm that, “It wouldn’t be the first time the others’ stock has surprised you.”
Randal coughed, “We all wish we were all-knowing, but we are all wrong from time to time. Nevertheless, in this case I’m confident of their scarcity.”
“I’m sure you are. Unfortunately, my confidence in you is also somewhat scarce.”
Randal chuckled, “If that were true, you wouldn’t still come to me first.”
They both walked back to the main desk as Randal carried the set. He’d hold it for the day, giving Kaiz the opportunity to shop around. The fact he didn’t offer a ‘walk out’ deal meant that he was rather confident that Kaiz would struggle to find the full set. That soured Kaiz's mood a bit.
Though it was true that his mercantile nature meant that he could never have Kaiz’s full trust, it was that same nature that made him the most knowledgeable about the state of the literature market.
It only took an hour scouring the district to prove Randal’s knowledge correct. Mostly.
Four? Impossible
Only four shops had any of the books, and three of them only had one. Kaiz didn’t truly need the whole series at this very moment, just the volume dealing with the chest, but none of the three had it. They only kept the first volume, the brain, in stock.
The last shop, Ruth’s, did have the full set. Though the price she offered it for was the most ridiculous.
The other three sell an individual book for anywhere between 70 and 80 bigsilvers. Averaging that out to 75 and assuming they had all three, that would be 225 big silvers. That’s 9 gold. Including the three-tenths markup for selling the full set and we’re at.. 11.7 gold. Knock off a fifteenth for being Honored and that's... just under 10 gold. Hm. Randal trying to cheat me out of a gold aside, that’s still about a darkgold. How can Ruth sell it for only 4 gold? She’s usually the most expensive..
Kaiz felt like some foul play must have been at hand. While prices could vary that wildly between different markets, especially for niche products, they never did within District 13. They all worked for the academy, they had the resources and connections to at least know rough estimates of value.
On the other hand, they all worked for the academy. The scandal of being caught selling a fake to an Honored would destroy them. Ruth was the oldest of the lot, Kaiz couldn’t see someone as seasoned as her pulling such a pointless ploy.
Even if Kaiz himself was a fake.
“Sir?”
Kaiz turned toward the leaning clerk, “Apologies, in thought. You said Ruth isn’t available?”
The young woman, the latest rendition of ‘lustful librarian’ that Ruth employed, fixed her posture, “Senior Jung is currently occupied with a meeting, but I’m more than equipped to answer any of your inquiries regarding this series.” She placed her hand on her moderately exposed bosom, “I have personally read through it twice.”
Kaiz didn’t doubt that, just as he didn’t doubt the clandestine nature of Ruth’s ‘meeting’, but he did doubt that she’d be capable of explaining the circumstances behind the pricing. He had no interest in attempting to confirm those doubts either, there were other customers who would have a far more pleasant time being seduced.
There was nothing urgent for him to attend to, or stopping him from simply waiting for Ruth to finish ravaging whichever of her mentees she’d taken a fancy to recently. She’d find him when she was done. So, he sent the clerk on her way and moved to browse the texts that did have free previews.
Within twenty minutes, and while he was nose deep in a recounting of a spar between the previous king and a Skkornish general, two hands found themselves on his rear.
“I would appreciate it if you stopped harassing your customers.”
The youthful centenarian cackled, “I would appreciate it if you wore tighter pants!”
Kaiz sighed as the bright red woman enjoyed her joke far more than a scholar of her stature should.
“You get almost double the discount you should in exchange, yet always with the complaints.”
Kaiz extricated himself from Ruth’s grasp, “When your prices are daylight robbery, such discounts only reduce them to reasonable ripoffs.”
“More complaints. You always manage to be the unhappiest in the room.”
Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.
He furrowed his brows.
“Anyhow. Restoration and Remedies was it? Mana Circuits? I assume you’re concerned about the price.”
Kaiz felt the desire to respond to her previous comment, but he let it die, “Four gold?”
“If a young lady found herself preoccupied, but dearly wished to have a meeting with the ever elusive Herr Kaizer Neufang, how would she do it?”
Kaiz’s eyelids immediately fell, “By setting a price so ridiculous he’d be forced to wait for her?”
The deviant had the gall to pat his head, “Good, good.”
He put down the pamphlet he had been reading and headed toward the exit.
“I never said the price wasn’t real.”
He paused.
“Assuming you’ve found it somewhere else, I imagine the most they discounted it for was a darkgold. In essence, I’m offering to pay you six gold to listen to a request of mine.”
Kaiz turned around, “Listen, or accept?”
She smiled.
A handful of minutes later, she didn’t, “You could be in a completely different city and send the letter!”
Kaiz reiterated his statement, “I’m not saying I couldn’t. Sending the letter isn’t the problem. I’m saying if my name is recognized on the letter then they’ll refuse the recommendation immediately.”
Ruth’s request was actually a fairly simple one, if Kaiz was truly who he pretended to be. She wanted one of her girls currently at AnneNuri to get permission to move from on-campus to off-campus. A graduated Honored had many avenues to accomplish that. The simplest would be putting in a letter of recommendation to get her a job at Ruthful Repositories.
Kaiz obviously couldn’t do that.
Ruth, equally obviously unaware, found the lack of a simple ‘yes’ frustrating, “Adolar is not so unoccupied that he'd have time to meddle in something so insignificant.”
“The headmaster might not be, but you know better than I how favored his granddaughter is at the academy. I did not become a black sheep because he deemed it so. It was her friends, followers, and admirers.”
Thankfully, he had a ready made excuse. The same excuse for why he, an ‘Honored’, shopped outside the academy. He’d fought with the Headmaster’s granddaughter, an actual true story, and thus was forced to never show his face on campus again.
He didn’t want to miss out on the deal though.
He took the pre-written letter from Ruth's desk, “I will try. I can’t promise anything, but I have a proposal.”
“Go on.”
“I’ll take one edition now and send the letter. If everything goes smoothly, within a month your girl will be here and I’ll return to collect the other two. If it fails, then when I return I’ll pay for the other two at a non-discounted price.”
Ruth stretched to the side in her lounge seat, “That sounds fair enough. But.” She eyed Kaiz, “It also sounds like you don’t plan on paying four gold for that one volume.”
Kaiz kept his eyes focused on her pupils, “Of course not. If all goes well, two gold today then two gold on pick up.”
“Hmm.” She made a show of pondering, “If all doesn’t, which you seem so sure it won’t, then you play two gold for a third of the series.”
“Consider it my fee for the attempt.”
“Three gold.”
Kaiz put the letter back, “Sending this is not without risk.”
She gave him a skeptical look, “More risk than coming to 13?”
“Dramatically. Here, I’m showing them that they’ve successfully put me in my place. I’m on the outside. Sending this.” He tapped the letter, “Is flexing the power of my position.”
Ruth groaned, but accepted his reasoning, “Fine. Two gold it is.”
They shook hands and moments later Kaiz left with both the letter and Restoration and Remedies: Mana Circuits, Ribcage.
A fantastic result for Kaiz.
Once out of the brothel masquerading as a place of legitimate learning, he made haste. Partly because he was eager to dive into the book, but also because he’d spent quite a long time in the city. Lyn aside, within the walls was supposed to be the safer of the two options. Kaiz had never felt that way. Whether there was any place he felt safe was debatable, but he certainly didn’t feel it when there were sandstone walls on all four sides of him.
As soon as he left the city and returned to the familiar setting of dirt and poverty, he found a covert corner and switched clothes. He didn’t plan on being seen for long, but he could never be too careful. Though, a tinge of chagrin did tickle him as it took less than a minute to reach the nearest hatch.
His home hid in the tiny forest to the north west. An hour away at walking pace, even more by tunnel. Kaiz had no intentions of walking.
Fifteen minutes later, he approached the end of the tunnel. Eagerness had gnawed at him the entire jog. He couldn’t wait to get back to his work. Unfortunately, he’d have to.
“Finally. Took longer than expected.”
Viz leaned against the side of the wall, his sword attached to his belt. He always wore his enchanted gambeson-like armor, many wondered if he slept in it, but he rarely brought his blade with him. That was a bad sign.
Worse still, he had Kaiz’s mask and boots.
He tossed the mask, “Hurry. Put them on. There’s a change of cloths on your boots”
Kaiz caught it, noting its glow was brighter, but did no such thing, “You’re going to have to start explaining.”
“You have a guest, but they’re only here to see Akelan. Pretty sure you don’t want them to meet Kaizer.”
That stunned Kaiz, “At my home?”
“Yep. Wild that they managed to lock you down.” The goat ignored the very clear concern in both Kaiz’s face and voice and started climbing up the hatch, “But they have a huge job for us.”
Kaiz calmed a bit. His mind raced to all kinds of horrid developments, but a job was on the far lighter side of things. Showing up at his door was a power play, a negotiation tactic, not a death threat. It was still a terrible situation. Even if his identity was currently safe, his home being discovered threw everything in disarray regardless. It just meant his and the crew’s survival were not immediately at risk.
Another secret lost…
Running away roared in his mind anyway. It always felt the safest option in the face of unknowns. He tempered himself and ignored it, though. Viz was here. For him to come himself, armed and claiming the job was huge, whoever was offering it must be a lion to their paltry pond viper. Kaiz couldn’t afford to let their interest as a client turn into anything else.
He would just have to figure out how to pick up the pieces after.
Firm as his resolve was, his heart still pounded as he slipped into his persona. His temperance didn’t stop the worries about the short and long term future from plaguing him as he slid into his boots and climbed up the ladder.
Out the sun, but never out the desert.