"So, apparently, I'm technically just possessing my bodies." Thomas commented as the four of them walked through town, heading for the Raider outpost to turn in their bounties and get the money they needed to pay for the land for their business. "At least, according to the System."
"How so?" Andrew asked, frowning slightly.
"I'm not sure… I guess I don't technically own my body? Like, I'm in it, I'm controlling it, but it isn't me?" Thomas replied, scratching his head with a slight frown of his own. "I can jump in and out pretty easily…"
"So… you're a ghost?" Greg asked, cocking his head.
"An elemental, actually." Thomas sighed.
"An elemental?" Chris raised an eyebrow. "Of what element?"
"Origin, apparently." Thomas shrugged.
Chris grunted. "Interesting."
"So, did you pick up any new abilities from it?" Greg asked.
Thomas nodded. "Sort of. Apparently I can absorb Energy from my surroundings and the bodies I'm possessing. Haven't quite figured out how though… I mean, I have ways of converting Energy using my system, but that doesn't cover the Energy in my surroundings, plus it implies there should be a way to do it without the system. Though it does help to know that any Energy I convert will regenerate… doesn't do that in the other Worlds."
"Wait… convert into points?" Andrew asked.
"Yup." Thomas grinned. "It's not a perfect conversion, but I get about ten percent of it."
"And it still regenerates like normal?" Andrew continued.
"Mhmm." Thomas nodded, his grin growing wider.
"Well, fuck you too." Andrew grumbled.
Thomas rolled his eyes. "Dude, I just said you could do it through the system. You guys can probably do this too."
Andrew blinked. "Oh."
Greg rubbed his hands together. "Think of all the new skills I can pick up!"
"Dude, you need to stop." Thomas frowned at him. "Seriously, just advance your Class already! You already got a freaking bullshit trait out of it!"
"Ah, but I could get more bullshit traits out of it." Greg smirked. "I think I'm going to go for some kind of weapon master thing next."
"Dude, that-" Thomas cut off, realizing that if Greg got a trait like that, he could absolutely get it for himself as well. The Creator trait only cost a hundred points, which was more than worth it for what it offered. "That- is a pretty good idea, go for it."
Greg chuckled. "As if you were going to stop me. Definitely have to take advantage of that Energy conversion though… particularly since my thing lets me drain other Energy regeneration to increase my own."
Andrew's expression twisted. "Damn it, you all suck." He grumbled.
Thomas shook his head. "Dude, explore your ability more. I'm sure you have just as much bullshit going for you as we do. You just have to actually look for it."
Andrew groaned. "But everything my ability wants to do involves killing people."
"If I could point something out." Chris interjected. "This only really helps us in this World, because this is the only one where our Energy regenerates. You, however, can take a core from this World into any of the others, giving you this ability wherever you go."
Andrew blinked. "Huh…"
"See? Explore a little." Thomas grinned, giving him a pat on the back.
Andrew grunted, his expression still twisted, but taking on a more thoughtful bent. He had been neglecting his ability a bit… focusing more on developing his magic than his Essence abilities. Part of that was because his Essence Magister Class hadn't actually given him any new Essence skills yet. All his Class skills were magic focused. At least, he thought they were magic focused… skills like Multitasking and Precision definitely helped with his spell weaving, while doing little to nothing for his Essence. Essence didn't care how you arranged it. Maybe… though maybe if he used it to make cores? Andrew clicked his tongue. Thomas was right. He did need to explore his ability more.
"We need to turn in our bounties." Chris announced as they arrived at the Raider outpost, waking up the attendant who was once again sleeping on the desk.
"Who- wha- oh, you-" She blinked. "You… already have something to turn in?"
Chris nodded, a stack of papers appearing in his hand as he placed them on the desk. "We completed all these."
The attendant frowned, taking the papers and starting to leaf through them, her eyes widening as she did. "These- these are all the bounties in Obleck!"
"Yeah. We did them all." Chris replied.
"You- but- it's been a day!" The attendant exclaimed. "You couldn't have completed them all!"
"We can. We did." Chris retorted. "Do you need to see the heads?"
The attendant paled. "That- I- uh, hold on, I have…" She began to search through her desk, before pulling out some sort of rod. "Aha! Okay, how do I…" She muttered to herself, sending some Energy into the rod, moving it around until it began to glow. "Got it! Okay, just hold the other end and send some of your Energy in." Chris gave the rod a look, before shrugging and doing as she said, feeling a vague connection form between them as he did. "Okay, now, do you affirm that you have completed all these bounties?"
"I do." Chris nodded.
The attendant frowned. "You attest that you have killed each and every one of these monsters?"
Chris paused as he quickly crushed all the bounties in his world. "I do."
The attendant hesitated. "Really? In a day?!?"
"We're very good." Chris smirked slightly.
The attendant shook her head. "You'd have to be." She muttered as she took the rod back. "Okay, you passed the Rod of Truth, so I can give you half the bounties now, but you'll still have to wait for independent confirmation from a scouting team for the other half. Should only take a week or two." She explained as she put the rod back, turning to her computer and getting all the bounties turned in. "Huh… You haven't connected your bank account yet?"
"We don't have a bank account." Chris shrugged.
"Oh…" She trailed off. "Uh… I don't-" She trailed off, frowning at her computer screen. "I- can print you a check? I think?" She hesitated. "Do you guys want to just go set up a bank account real quick? I don't even know if that machine works anymore, and if I mess this up, you guys might lose the payment all together. I mean, you'll just have to deal with the guild's financial department, but that could take months, while the bank will take you like an hour, tops."
"The problem is that we don't exactly have legal identities…" Greg commented. "Don't think the bank would be too happy about that."
The attendant blinked. "That- uh, I don't think that would be an issue? You can take your guild license and open a team account, instead of personal ones. Technically the account will be owned by the team instead of you, but since you four are the only ones in the team… it shouldn't be an issue?"
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They shared a few looks before shrugging. "Sure, why not. We'll be back soon." Greg agreed.
As the attendant had suggested, setting up a team account wasn't an issue. All they had to do was provide their guild identification, and the bank took care of the rest. It helped that all they wanted was a checking account, so they didn't need to deal with savings or investing or anything. Just signing a few forms saying the bank could hold their money, and depositing the cash they got from Frank as well. Then it was right back to the outpost to give the attendant the account information, linking it to their team and finally getting the money transferred over to them. Finally, they went over to the real-estate office and finalized the purchase of the land.
"Freaking finally!" Greg groaned. "Fuck I hate paperwork."
"You didn't even do the paperwork, I did." Thomas rolled his eyes.
"Which just goes to show how much I hate it! Even watching someone do paperwork is like a rusty nail digging through my brain!" Greg retorted.
"Come on, let's go see our new land." Chris shook his head, leading the way to their new purchase. It didn't take too long before they were standing before a rundown building sitting on about an acre worth of land.
"Well… I honestly can't tell whether this is worth three hundred thousand or not." Andrew frowned.
"It's zoned for business, which raises the price, but… yeah, if we weren't who we are, this probably would have been a bad investment." Thomas muttered.
"No wonder they were okay with just taking the cash." Andrew sighed.
"I mean, it's cash… they set a price, we paid it. Even if it was good land I think they would have gone for it." Chris pointed out. "Though obviously we would have needed more cash in that case."
"Who cares? We're land owners!" Greg announced with a cackle.
"I'm already a world owner." Chris commented.
"Yeah, but can you run a business out of it?" Greg retorted.
"You've been to my diner." Chris frowned.
Greg paused. "Okay, fair. Though I'm not sure if it counts if you don't actually charge anyone anything."
"It counts because I could charge people, I just don't see the need to." Chris retorted.
"It's also only for people in your world though." Thomas interjected. "I mean, sure, you could set up portals, but you'd still technically need the land for the portal, so without owning outside land, you can't really run a business in your world."
"Unless he did something like door to door sales… oh, or hand out those cards, and open a portal whenever someone rips them!" Andrew offered. "That'd work."
"True…" Thomas muttered. "How would taxes work for that?"
Chris snorted. "I'd like to see them try to take my money."
"Hey, taxes are an important foundation of a functioning society." Thomas countered. "We need shit like roads and cops and whatnot, and private funds would compromise the integrity of it all. Not that we don't compromise the integrity of it all anyway, but still, having roads and cops beholden to whoever happens to be paying for them at the moment would leave a lot of gaps for corruption. Some things are not well governed by the free market."
"Fair, but if I'm not using roads or cops, why should I pay for them?" Chris retorted.
"Because being a part of a society isn't about what you do personally but what contributes to the communal good as a whole." Thomas replied. "Even if you don't use roads or cops, the people you depend on for business do, and by facilitating their needs, they will continue to support you with their business."
"That sounds like some commie shit to me." Greg chuckled.
Thomas rolled his eyes. "It isn't communist to recognize that we live in a community and what benefits one benefits the whole. Ironically, what communists usually fail to realize is that what hurts the individual also hurts the community. Thinking that people succeeding is somehow a bad thing just makes sure you have a society where no one succeeds."
Greg shrugged. "Eh, fair, I guess. Never been much for politics."
"If I opt out of society, can I keep my money?" Chris asked, cocking his head.
"If you opt out of society, money would be pointless." Thomas retorted.
"Hmmm… fine, I'll pay taxes." Chris sighed.
"Well, before we get to that, we should probably actually have a business." Greg commented, cracking his fingers as he sent clouds of smoke out to dissolve all the structures. "Let's see what we can make of all this."
"Oy! You got a permit for that!" A voice cried out as Greg got to work. They turned to see an old man sitting outside what looked like some kind of general shop, glaring at them.
"We… own the land?" Andrew replied hesitantly.
The man humphed. "You still need permits to alter any of the existing structures!"
"We're not altering it, we're demolishing it." Chris commented.
"Guys, I can't handle any more paperwork." Greg groaned.
"How is it with all the people we've gathered, we've never picked up an administrator?" Thomas frowned.
"I mean, we did just get a large influx of people… maybe one of them has administrative skills?" Andrew offered.
"That doesn't exactly help us at the moment, now does it?" Thomas commented.
"Hey old guy! You want to be young and immortal in exchange for handling permits for us!?!" Greg yelled.
"Greg, we can't just recruit people because we don't want to deal with something." Thomas sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Greg cocked his head. "Why not?"
"The fuck are you talking about?!?" The old man yelled back.
"We- fuck, hold on." Greg grumbled, walking over towards the old man. "Chris, you come to. He might need examples."
"Wait, we haven't even decided if we're actually doing this yet!" Thomas protested.
"And again, why wouldn't we?" Greg retorted. "He obviously cares about the permits and whatnot, and if he's willing to do them for us in exchange for immortality or whatever, why not do it?"
"Because he sounds like a crotchety old asshole and I don't think it's a good idea to make a crotchety old asshole immortal!" Thomas countered.
"He has a point." Chris commented.
Greg grimaced. "That actually is a good point… but also, I really don't want to deal with permits."
"So how about we offer whoever is in charge of all this immortality instead?" Andrew offered. "I mean, if anyone can take care of this crap for us, it's them."
"See, now that's problem solving." Greg grinned.
"How about we offer something other than immortality." Thomas sighed, shaking his head. "I mean, that's our big thing! It shouldn't be our initial offer! I mean, who knows what the guy needs? Maybe we could help him remodel his house. Or, I dunno, just fucking pay him! We still have like four hundred grand you know."
"Should we have considered buying a better plot of land?" Andrew frowned.
"We don't need better land, we just need land, period." Chris replied. "We can turn this land into whatever we want."
"You know, as long as we have the permits." Thomas added.
"Fucking hell." Greg sighed. "Alright, so how much should we pay him? A hundred grand?"
"No, dude, just like a thousand! Max! Start at a hundred bucks." Thomas replied, shaking his head. "You're hiring someone for like a few hours of work, not buying a car."
"I dunno… I wouldn't deal with permits for anything less than a hundred grand." Greg muttered.
"That's why we're paying someone else to do it." Thomas rolled his eyes.
"Ostensibly." Chris shrugged. "He still might say no."
"Right, let's go and see, eh?" Greg nodded, continuing to make his way over to the old man who was still giving them weird looks. "Hey, so, about those permits." Greg began as he got close. "If we paid you, would you be willing to take care of them for us?"
The old man raised an eyebrow at them. "I'm willing to help you take care of the permits, for free, but you can't live your life paying others to do work you're perfectly capable of doing yourself."
"That is… blatantly false." Thomas frowned. "The entire reason we have money is to pay people to do things we don't want to do. So we don't have to make our own clothes or grow our own food."
The old man frowned at him. "All I'm saying is that having money is no reason to start getting lazy. Permits aren't so hard that you need to go paying people to do them for you."
"It isn't that they're hard, it's that they're boring." Greg grumbled. "I swear, if I could destroy all the paperwork in the world… oh wait, I can." Greg paused. "Hmmm…"
"Greg, we are not using our godlike powers to destroy paperwork." Thomas groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"I know we shouldn't, but it's so tempting!" Greg replied.
"Y'all are some strange boys." The old man commented.
"You have no idea." Andrew sighed.
"Fuck it, I'll deal with the paperwork." Chris shook his head, done with this argument. "Come on old man, show me how it's done."
"My name is Marshall." The old man grumbled, getting up. "This way." He waved for Chris to follow, the two of them heading off to get everything done.
"That man's a hero." Greg muttered seriously, giving Chris a salute, only for him to give him the finger over his shoulder. "Alright, I'm going to get everything smoked so once we have the permits we can just do it."
"I'll design the building." Thomas nodded.
"I'll… take care of the vermin?" Andrew offered hesitantly.
Thomas patted him on the back. "Don't forget to experiment."