“Hellooo Not-Tavi!” Greebil’s nails-on-chalkboard voice called out as soon as I’d appeared. The interior of the Infernal Contract was still dimly lit by candles, but now it had more in the way of decorations. I had arrived in the center of what looked like a classic pentagram style summoning circle, which appeared to be drawn in blood on the bare concrete floor.
Directly in front of me a sign stood supported on a thin gold stand, it read “Renovations in progress, please pardon our dust.”
Greebil now stood behind a counter made of dark wood. It was covered with old books and papers and little trinkets. It managed to look dusty, even though I was pretty sure that it hadn’t existed a couple days ago.
There were a few free-standing bookshelves in the room with us, but there were no books on them. The entire place looked barren, but it had more furniture than I remembered from the last time I was here.
From directly behind me a cold voice spoke. “Ah, a… customer.”
I didn’t jump, as I’d been half expecting something like this from the last time I’d been here. I’d also been able to see him on my minimap and had felt his location with Hands of Night. I decided to play along, if the theme of this place was creepy and intimidating, I could fit right in.
Instead of turning around I activated Shadow Step to my exact location but facing backwards. Then I allowed my cloak of shadows to flow around me, back into its normal position. The effect was subtle, especially in a dark room, but I hoped it looked like my face was emerging from the shadows already looking at the person who’d greeted me.
At first, I maintained the effect of keeping only my mouth clearly visible, then willed the darkness away from my eyes. I cocked my head, regarding the man behind me with some interest. I was pretty sure I was looking at my first sentient undead. Scan told me his name and primary title, so I decided to introduce myself.
“Arcanist Varalis Mavin, the Undying. Nice to meet you. You can call me Nyx.”
I said his full title specifically because I knew Scan wouldn’t show up in his log. Normal examinations didn’t reveal titles, so I wanted him to wonder how I knew who he was.
The shopkeeper narrowed his eyes and stared at me for a few long moments before responding. Then I got a notification that I’d been affected by Greater Identify. Whatever that told him seemed to cause him even more consternation, and he began walking around me as I continued to stand in the center of the summoning circle.
After a full circuit around me he finally spoke. “Very interesting, I’ll admit. However, I regret to inform you that the Infernal Contract is currently closed except to followers of The Lord Adversary. I see you have his blessing, but you are not a member of his faction, so you will need to return later when the public areas of the store are ready.”
I formed a claw of shadow and withdrew the VIP membership card in between two taloned fingers. In the dark room it looked very much like the card was simply hanging in midair, except that the shadows that formed the claw and skeletal arm it was attached to were unusually still in the flickering candle light, giving the distinct impression that something was there but making it difficult to make out details.
Earlier in the day Bea had helped me do some experimentation to figure out how all this looked to other people compared to what I saw. My character sheet also did a reasonable job of showing what I looked like using standard vision, so I had a good idea of what effect I was conveying. Unfortunately, I had no idea what sensory skills he had available to him.
My own vision of the shadows was like looking at something that was only visible to a single eye - I could see them, but I could also see past them. At the same time, I also had Dark Vision, but this didn’t seem to work on controlled shadows.
If he had Dark Vision, he could see exactly what I was doing with my shadows, which I hoped was intimidating since he wouldn’t be able to see through them. On the other hand, if he had some better form of vision I might look really silly right now.
Unfortunately, he didn’t give me any hints as to what he was seeing. He simply took the card out of the air with one pale hand, looking at it curiously. Then he looked up at me, eyes widening slightly.
“What did you say your name was again?” He asked.
“I didn’t. I said you could call me Nyx. The name on the card is accurate though.”
This clearly didn’t answer all his questions, but he handed the card back to me regardless, allowing my shadow hand to take it from him with no sign of surprise.
“That card grants you access to the same resources available to The Lord Adversary’s followers. Before I show you to the back room, I must know… what are you exactly?”
I chuckled. “You first. I’ve got you pegged for undead of some sort, did you get your hand on Nemesis?”
He scoffed. “Hardly. I didn’t require that toy to complete my apotheosis. I’d never trust something like that with something so important. I don’t know who made it, nor for what purpose, so it cannot be trusted.”
He shook his head in disgust. “Only those of lesser talent need such shortcuts. No, I am a true Revenant. Eventually I may decide to pursue lichdom, but for now I see no need to house my spirit outside my body.”
He started circling around me again. “Now what are you exactly? It’s rare that I run across something I can’t place.”
I gave him a laconic shrug, pretty sure he could see it at this point. “I’m just a goblin with some fancy titles.” I didn’t feel like elaborating on my sub-species, its ability to keep me alive through anything was an ace in the hole I didn’t want people to know about.
“Just a goblin? Surely not. What of your class?”
“Shadow Thief,” I told him. “I’d be surprised if you’d heard of it since I discovered it.”
“Ah… That explains it. You’re a class founder. Fascinating… You must have selected the Master & Apprentice path as well, considering your title. Unfortunate, but all too common among the darker paths. Still very impressive, it has been decades since the last class discovery that I am aware of.”
“If I were you, I’d bet on seeing more soon. I’m not going to be the only Traveler to discover a class, lots of us are huge nerds, and before long somebody is going to work out how to make spreadsheets with magic,” I told him, only half joking.
The Adversary knew about slideshows and had apparently given a PowerPoint presentation about me to some very confused gods. I had to assume he must know what an extreme existential threat to the integrity of the System spreadsheets represented. He had surely planned for it. This guy on the other hand probably had no idea what I was talking about.
The revenant stopped his restless circling and seemed to really look at me for the first time. His eyes were small and black as night. Under his gaze I felt more exposed than when I’d been walking around almost naked earlier. What had been curiosity was now something else. Uncertainty? Respect? Possibly even fear?
“You know of the dark arts? Interesting… I had heard that some Travelers would know of them, but I discounted it as unfounded rumor.”
“The dark arts?” I asked. Then I reconsidered. “You know what, no. That’s a perfect name for them. Never mind.”
“You call them something different in your world?” he asked.
“I’m pretty sure we call them project managers,” I said, then I shook my head. “No, that’s not right. I’m not sure there’s any one name for it, more like several different names for different sets of skill… Kinda like classes actually. Like, you might be anything from an Office Manager to a Data Analyst.”
“Office Manager… Data Analyst… I am unfamiliar with these classes…” He sounded out the unfamiliar terms, and after a moment I realized I’d said them in English. Now that I’d realized it the words felt odd in my mouth.
It was weird, like I couldn’t understand what I’d just said even though I knew exactly what they were. It seemed that whatever translation effect I had in place as a Traveler had failed to come up with an adequate way to translate the jobs I’d described. Instead, it had just used the actual proper names in English. Interestingly “project managers” had been translated, but just as its literal meaning and lacking all the cultural associations.
“Let's just stick with the dark arts,” I told him. “Like I said, it fits.”
He stared at me for another moment before speaking again. “Maven,” he said. “You may call me Maven, or Arcanist Maven. I don’t use my given name.” Then he turned and walked into the darkness past Greebil’s desk. “Follow.”
I jogged after him. He moved deceptively quickly on those long legs of his, and I didn’t have my movement speed increasing title equipped right now. I glanced at Greebil as I passed by and found him dusting the counter.
Literally he was dusting the counter. He had a handful of dust and was taking pinches of it and was sprinkling it over parts of the counter. A third hand that didn’t have a clear point of origin was artfully arranging a cobweb.
I shook my head and caught up to Maven as he reached an open doorway about two-thirds covered by a thin black cloth. From my perspective nearer to the ground I could see into the room fairly easily, but I didn’t bother pointing this out to him. Above the door was a carved wooden sign that read “Member’s Only.”
Maven gestured towards the doorway. “Enter, but be sure you are holding that card of yours when you do… if you value your life.”
I walked forward, holding my membership card in my real hand, just in case. The black cloth brushed against my head but didn’t impede my progress. However, as I passed under it, I felt a mild tingling sensation. I had to wonder what would have happened if I hadn’t been holding my membership card.
This room was better lit than the previous one, which hadn’t been apparent until I stepped inside. It had more bookshelves against the walls, but they were stacked full of large tomes. These didn’t seem to be the focus of the room however, as there were also multiple glass display cases arranged in a two by two grid occupying the majority of the floorspace.
Maven entered the room behind me with a whisper of cloth on cloth as he passed through the doorway. “This is the inner sanctum. It is here that the most valuable treasure of all is held… knowledge.”
He stepped past me, gesturing expansively with his arms as he turned to face me. “Behold, forbidden tomes, ancient secrets, lost histories, and forgotten skills. Here is the old made new again. Here rests the last words of dead worlds and prophecies of those not yet born.”
I lifted an ear at the flowery description, then walked over to the nearest display case. I had to stand on the tips of my toes to get a good angle to look at it, but inside was a book I’d seen once before. It was called Malgorithms & Spell Structures, and it was the first thing Greebil had tried to sell me the last time I’d been here. This display case contained several other similar seeming books, all quite heavy looking.
“So, you sell skill books?” I asked Maven. “Is that all?”
The revenant shook his head. “Of course not. Do you see these shelves?” He motioned to the bookshelves lining every wall. “These are histories, biographies, myths, and legends. These are not available for purchase, but if you have The Lord’s favor you may expend it here to read these banned works. We have a reading room right through there, and you may take notes if you so wish.” He nodded towards one wall, where a door was literally built into a bookshelf.
“So, this is like, some kind of private library that you rent out? That’s an interesting business model. What’s it cost to use?”
“The cost of knowledge depends on the value I have assigned it. In this room, the shelves are stocked with books requiring only a single Least Blessing.” He motioned towards yet another door. “Through there you will find deeper and darker knowledge, and each door you pass along that route will cost you a Minor Blessing simply to open the door, for the knowledge of what lies within is valuable by itself. Fear not, for the cost is paid only once.”
Maven walked between the display cases as he spoke. “Within each successive room you will find books which require ever greater blessings to read. You will also find display cases such as these.” He ran his long pale fingers across a glass case. “Once you have purchased access to a book, you may make use of a reading room for four hours, which may be extended indefinitely at the cost of a Least Blessing for every additional four-hour increment.”
He turned to face me again, seeming to study me. “The display cases list their own pricing, which may be in scarabs or blessings or both. They contain magical texts. Skill Books, Class Scrolls, and even Holy Scripts. However there is one other thing you can purchase here, and it is the most valuable of all… Me.”
“You?” I asked. He certainly had a high opinion of himself.
“Yes… You may purchase my services as a researcher. For the cost of a single scarab, I will research a topic or question for you, locating volumes within our collection which contain relevant information. I will provide you with a brief report on these, listing what material we possess and where it may be found. For two scarabs, I will fully report on and summarize the information I find, as well as provide suggestions for optimal further reading should a summary be insufficient.”
I noticed that the skill book in the case in front of me had a price tag below it, and I saw that this book and each of the others in the display case had both a scarab cost and a blessing cost associated with it. The Malgorithms book cost three scarabs and a lesser blessing. I remembered hearing that blessings were required to buy anything here, but for some reason I’d thought that my VIP card would bypass that. Maven quickly disabused me of that idea.
“The card gets you access to this room and these services, nothing more. You are to be treated as though you were a follower of The Lord Adversary, even though you have unwisely chosen not to venerate him. However even true followers must spend blessings to avail themselves of our services, and nothing you see here may exit the Infernal Contract. If you buy a skill book or scroll, it must be used here, then returned to the shelf for the next reader if not consumed. Only knowledge may leave this place.”
I pondered that as I took a stroll down the aisles of display cases. Between Sam’s and the Fair Deal, I’d been wondering what the Infernal Contract could offer for sale that wouldn’t be covered by those two. It seemed that the answer was knowledge.
That said, something didn’t quite sit right with me. Greebil had sold me a reality seed when I’d come here before, something I’d since come to realize was an incredibly powerful crafting component at the very least, and apparently what you needed to create a dungeon. Not to mention its uses in summoning and feeding daemons. Where was the stuff like that?
“So, knowledge and skills, huh?” I asked Maven. “Is that all? Don’t get me wrong, I understand the value of those things, but I was expecting to see some rare and valuable weapons, crafting ingredients, and so on. Isn’t this essentially the go-to place for The Adversary’s agents to shop for rewards?”
Maven gave me a small, thin-lipped smile. “You are not wrong, and your confusion is understandable… I have been delayed in my renovation efforts. What you have failed to realize is that The Lord Adversary is perfectly content to allow anyone with enough blessings to purchase such things. Within a week you will find the public areas of this establishment will contain exactly the sort of items you no doubt expected when you came here. Only the knowledge contained here has extra restrictions.”
The implication here was that The Adversary considered the knowledge to be more valuable than even rare and powerful items on the level of reality seeds. I glanced around at the books on the walls, not far from my head was a four-volume set of thick books labeled “Daemon Summoning for Doofuses,” however as I looked around, I noticed that many of the books appeared to have nothing at all to do with daemons.
Just glancing about I noticed multiple encyclopedias, what looked like a child’s picture book, an unbound folio with no visible label, a worryingly thick book labeled “Monster Breeding, an Illustrated Guide” and what appeared to be the actual Necronomicon.
That last one was in the display case next to me. Considering the display cases seemed to be reserved for skill books this was somewhat concerning. Maven noticed the direction of my attention and glided over to stand across from me on the other side of the case.
“Ah yes, one of my personal favorites.” With a soft click the display case popped open, and he reached in and picked up the flesh-bound book. “I like to read through it occasionally, it’s like an old friend coming over to visit…” He ran a finger down the length of the cover, tracing the contours of the screaming face stitched into the cover with an almost loving caress.
I couldn’t help it, I shuddered. I’d been trying so hard not to let him creep me out, but this was too much. He noticed my reaction and smiled. “If you were wondering, this is how I became a revenant. It contains not just class skills, but species ones as well, and reading it can satisfy the prerequisites for several undead species skills. With your shadow skills you should consider reading it, undeath would suit you I think.”
“Uh, no thanks… I’m good,” I told him.
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I had no interest in becoming an undead of any sort. I’d already gotten to experience it briefly while using Devour Essence on the ghoul spirit that was still in my soul-space. It was similar to withdrawing into my soul gem, and now that I considered it, that was probably what first tipped me off that my original self no longer qualified as being strictly alive. If I became fully undead there would be no relief from that cold state of mind.
I watched Maven trace a finger down the spine of the book before gently laying it back in the display case. Perhaps there were things that could engender feelings in the undead, but I had a feeling that I really didn’t want to know what those things were. That did remind me of something I wanted to confirm though.
“So, is just learning an undead skill enough to make you undead? Or is there something more to it?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Only some species skills can grant such a change, Undeath is the basic skill you must learn to become any type of undead, but alone it merely transforms you into a zombie of your original species. You need a subspecies to become one of the greater undead. This tome can teach you several, and all that knowledge can be yours for a very reasonable four scarabs and a single lesser blessing.” He leaned in closer to me as he spoke, lowering his voice as he did so until he was practically whispering in my ear.
I pulled away from him, trying not to show my disgust. “No thanks, I tried that for a bit, and it wasn’t my thing.”
I started walking for the door. I needed a break from this guy, and even though I was interested in the knowledge held here, I didn’t see a need for it right this moment.
“Tell you what, give me a heads up when you get the rest of your stock set up. I don’t want to make any major purchases until I can see all my options.”
Maven didn’t follow me as I pushed aside the black cloth and stepped back into the main room. I started walking for the “summoning circle” painted on the floor before realizing that even if this was an exit, I didn’t need it. I was headed to the Fair Deal next, so I just opened my menu to travel there directly, giving Greebil a friendly wave as I left.
***
I popped into the Fair Deal in the usual entry position and took a moment to indulge in a good long shudder to get it out of my system. As I recovered, I noticed that something was wrong here. The cashier girl wasn’t behind the counter.
I looked around for her and found her furiously scrubbing one of the display cases containing elemental essences. She hadn’t even noticed me come in.
“Uh, hi?” I asked, mostly just to let her know I was here.
She jumped and spun to face me, looking panicked. When she figured out who was speaking to her, she took another look around as though expecting someone else to be hiding behind one of the display cases. Not finding anyone, she finally addressed me.
“Hi! I mean… Welcome to the Fair Deal, where you’ll get what you deserve! How can I help you today?”
Had she just quoted one of those insipid marketing catch phrases at me? What was wrong with her?
“Are you ok?” I asked, genuinely worried.
“I’m great!” she said, still looking around nervously. “What can I help you find today?”
Her customer service voice was so painfully fake that I winced to hear it. “I, uh, was just going to buy some progression points… are you sure you’re ok?” Then in a lower volume I added, “Blink twice if you’re in danger and can’t talk.”
She did blink, but apparently only in surprise at my comment. “What? Oh. No, nothing like that.” She glanced behind me again, then oddly turned to look towards the bathroom before looking down at me again. “He’s not going to come looking for you again, is he?”
“He who?” I asked. “Oh, do you mean The Adversary? Nah, I doubt it.”
She sagged in relief, leaning against the display case she’d just been furiously polishing. “Oh thank fuck.”
“He chew you out for slacking or something? What’s up?” I asked her.
She gave me a disdainful look that was much more in character. “Are you dumb or something? He’s The Adversary. The Administrator, King of Devils, God of Evil, and Lord of Lies. If he so much as looked at me wrong, I’d fucking die. He’s not supposed to even be here. He never comes here. This is in fact the last place he should ever be in all of Crucible, yet somehow he ended up in our fucking bathroom yesterday and I still don’t know why!”
She’d started out calmly enough, but by the end her voice had gone up an octave and the panicked crazy look had reappeared in her eyes.
“Do you know why? He wanted to talk to you, right? Please tell me he didn’t walk in on you fucking that dude in bathroom.”
“What? No! He just wanted to talk to me about a bug report I submitted. I was just talking to that guy. The bathroom was a convenient place to have a private conversation.”
“Yeah? Well next time you need to have a ‘private conversation’ do it somewhere else. I’m not going to clean up after that shit. Also, that guy was pissed you didn’t give him what he paid for, so if he shows up again you better be prepared to put out or get out.”
She shook her head in disgust. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fucking succubus and he pays some weird shadow girl in a bathroom to fuck him? He deserves to get screwed and not in the way he was looking for.”
What the hell was she talking about? She thought that Richard guy had paid me for sex? I could understand the whole bathroom thing, but why… I suddenly remembered that I’d stolen Richard’s scarab token while he’d been unconscious. I’d planned on giving it back if he wasn’t a jerk and would have done so if The Adversary hadn’t interrupted our meeting. No wonder he was mad at me. Whoops. I was going to get a reputation for stealing those things.
“I still don’t get it, is it really that big a deal that The Adversary was in here? He seemed to like you. He talked about you and your sister like a fond uncle,” I said, hoping to calm her down a bit.
Rhel’s blue skin lightened several shades before my eyes, and she turned her slump into a full-on slide down the side of the display case, coming to rest in a seated position on the floor.
“Oh fuck, he knows about my sister? Why does he know about my sister? What did that bitch do? Gods I’m so fucked…”
“Come on, it can’t be that bad,” I told her, immediately earning another withering glare.
This gave me an idea however. If she was so convinced The Adversary was going to smite her out of existence, then maybe I could use this as an opportunity to make a new friend.
“Listen,” I told her. “I’ll tell you what. He really likes me. If you help me out a bit here, I’ll personally put in a good word for you next time I talk to him.”
Faint hope flickered across her face but was quickly masked by distrust. She drew away from me and squinted through the shadows concealing the details of my appearance.
“Help you? With what?” she asked.
“Nothing big. Just help me check out with the stuff I’m here to buy and keep an eye out for that guy who’s mad at me. If you see him again tell him I didn’t intend to steal his scarab and that he can have it back if sees me again. I plan to come here a couple times a day. If you can get him a message wherever he is in Astra, that would be even better. I’m not actually sure he can get back here without his token.”
“That’s it, just deliver a message and do my fucking job?” she asked, incredulously.
“Yeah, simple.” I held out my hand to her, both to shake and to help her up, but she didn’t take it just yet. She still looked suspicious, as though I were trying to pull one over on her.
“Look, I don’t know what you think I’m trying to pull on you, but could it really be any worse than your current situation?”
She winced, but still didn’t take my hand. “I’m just trying to figure out if you are getting more out of this than I can see, or if your so-called ‘good word’ isn’t worth shit.”
I withdrew my hand and rested it on my hip as I considered her. This was such a weird reaction all around, but I was starting to understand. I’d been treating her like a human, but she wasn’t.
If half the Earth mythology around devils could be trusted, deals with devils were supposed to be both complicated and predatory. Usually, it was the devil that got the good end of the bargain, but the girl in front of me was literally a level 15 cashier. She was likely very inexperienced and expected to be taken advantage of. I needed to put this into a context she could understand.
“Alright, you caught me.” I said, giving her a cheeky grin. “I didn’t say what I’d tell him, did I? I could have just said I liked your piercings, or something like that, huh? Can’t blame a girl for trying though, right?”
Her face lit up with triumph as I confirmed her completely inaccurate paranoia. “You bitch, I knew it! I’d have been stuck delivering that message basically for free.” Oddly she didn’t seem angry about this, just pleased with herself.
I nodded. “Yeah, well, let's hash out a real deal alright? I still want that message delivered, but if you want me to advocate on your behalf, I’m going to need more from you. I’m not so sure you can afford to pay.”
I took out my VIP card and swapped my title over to Quality Assurance Specialist, showing both to her. As I did so, I noticed that the card updated to show my currently displayed title. Apparently, it was going to match up to whatever my display name was at the moment. That was convenient.
“As you can see, he values my opinions. Knowing that, do you think you can afford my help?”
Rhel looked truly uncertain for the first time. “Shit, I thought you were blowing smoke up my ass on that too, but he might actually listen to you…”
She played around with her tongue piercing for a moment while she thought. I could tell I was speaking her language now, but she hadn’t been prepared for me to be able to offer her a real solution to her apparently imaginary problem.
I decided the best way for me to handle this was to let her figure it out, so I walked away, feigning lack of interest. “Let me know if you think of a way to pay me,” I told her, before heading toward the reason I’d come here in the first place.
The Fair Deal had a number of “basics” for sale, including crafting components and various consumables. I was here to buy something even more basic though - raw progression points.
I’d recently spent many of my available progression points, and now that I had a crafting skill that required them to use. I wanted to stockpile extra points both to test my crafting abilities and for emergency purchases of skills in my next dungeon crawl.
Thankfully, the Fair Deal had universal progression points on sale at a hundred to one ratio, which seemed a little crazy to me with my pocket full of scarabs. If I wanted to, I could buy hundreds of progression points right now and essentially power level myself.
I came to a halt in front of the display labeled “Vial of Experience” - it was just as I remembered it from my first trip here. Each display case was sealed shut, but there was a clear plastic card holder attached to each one next to the sign describing the item.
Each card had a picture of the item on it, along with its name and cost, as well as a QR code that I assumed was to be scanned at the register. I grabbed two cards out of the card holder, then flipped one over to see if anything was on the back.
The back of the card had a copy of the item description and instructions to take it to the counter, but nothing particularly interesting. What did catch my notice though was the second card I’d picked up. It was different from the first one.
Specifically, the price on this card was twice as much as the first card at two scarabs for a single vial. I looked at both cards again to be sure I hadn’t mixed up the price, but sure enough the first card was cheaper than the second.
Looking at the cards still in the card holder, I saw something even more disturbing. The next card on display also had a different price listed, and it was up to three scarabs. I glanced at the sign on the case and saw that it had changed to match the price shown on the cards still in the case.
Apparently, there was some sort of automatic supply and demand scaling at work here. I might need to slow down my purchasing and wait for a restock or something - I didn’t want to pay twice or even three times as much if I didn’t have to.
I was curious as to what the maximum price was, so I took a card from the back of the stack and had a look. To my surprise, it had a three on it, and when I looked at the first card it now had a four. I put the card back, and the front card immediately changed to a three again, as did the main display sign.
Interesting, and also somewhat alarming. I held onto my two cards for the moment. I didn’t want to pay double for the second vial, but I would if restocks were rare. It would be better to buy some of these things at their lowest prices and then hoard them rather than needing to pay extra when other people started buying them.
The rich get richer for a reason, after all, and right now, I was indisputably rich.
I walked back over to Rhelrya, intent on questioning the devil girl. “How often do you restock things around here? Is there a fixed schedule, and if so, what day is restocking day?”
Rhel looked up at me from her seated position on the floor. In this position she was just slightly shorter than me if you didn’t count her horns. Her expression changed from worried to confused as my question registered.
“Restock? What the fuck are you talking about? The displays are just illusions, we teleport the goods in from the warehouse whenever someone buys something. Why would we need to restock?”
Now it was my turn to be confused. “What’s with the cards going up in price the more you take then? When does it reset?”
Now a knowing smirk spread across her face. “What makes you think they reset?”
“Are you saying that if I buy these two vials right now, everyone else is going to have to pay three or more scarabs to buy the rest of them?” I asked, incredulous. If that was the case, I was going to be buying a lot of stuff right now before the prices went out of control.
She shook her head, looking genuinely happy for possibly the first time since I’d met her. “No, I’m saying that if you buy those right now, the next time you want to buy one it’s going to cost three scarabs. Everybody gets their own tab.”
She motioned around expansively, voice dripping with sarcasm. “It’s called the Fair Deal, not the Good Deal. The more you want of any specific thing, the more you have to pay for it.”
It was my turn to slump against a display case. “Shit,” I said, letting myself slide to the floor across from her. This put a whole different perspective on this place, and as it turned out I wasn’t nearly as wealthy as I thought I was.
“Does it ever reset?” I asked her, daring to hope.
“Thought you were a rich bitch huh?” she said, clearly enjoying this. “Nah it doesn’t reset… but we do sometimes run sales. We haven’t done any since I started here but that kind of thing is the only way to get your original price back after you buy something.”
I looked at the two cards in my hands. This was a problem. Not only was this pricing mechanism something I couldn’t exploit, but it also meant that in the long run I was most likely going to effectively lose access to the Fair Deal outside of whatever sales they happened to run.
I would not be able to count on it as a quick way to get access to whatever resources I happened to need at that moment. The sales would no-doubt end up being very valuable in the long term, but I was starting to understand how this place worked now and I had a feeling…
“These sales… Do they work the same way? Can everyone take advantage of them or is it a ‘while supplies last’ kind of deal?” I asked, already sure of the answer.
“First come, first serve,” she said, grinning nearly as evil a grin as I could manage. “Limited time offers. I think they even print out physical coupons sometimes.”
Her grin wavered a bit as her words failed to have the expected negative effect on my mood. Instead, I’d started grinning as well.
“Good news. I just figured out how you can pay me,” I told her, showing off more sharp teeth than your average shark as the shadows swelled around me.
***
I left the Fair Deal nearly two hours later, with a copy of the contract Rhel and I had hashed out between us and signed in our own blood. I’d ended up purchasing a single vial of experience which I drank right in the store, and a single greater fire essence to use as a crafting component.
Sam had made a good point earlier when he mentioned I could likely make an effective flaming sword out of the greatsword in my inventory, given its built-in ability to channel flames. Using something like the Heart of Fire on it would be a waste, but I wanted to test the crafting process and see how much something like this would cost.
The fire essence also had another purpose, which had occurred to me as I was trying to decide if it was worth buying it. For that, I retreated to the bathroom with my purchases, remembering to use the women’s bathroom this time, as this next part had the potential to be messy and definitely wasn’t something I could do in my jail cell.
My plan was to take a bite out of the essence with Devour Essence and see what it got me.
I’d been thinking about that ability as only working on spirits, but on reflection that’s not what it said. In fact, the only reason I could use it on spirits was because of the title I’d gotten that also bestowed the skill.
Now that I knew more about how souls and spirits worked, I was realizing that this was a more versatile skill than I’d originally thought, and if the wording was accurate, I suspected that I could use it on just about anything in my soul-space if I didn’t mind damaging it. I was already making plans to try eating dungeon loot that wasn’t useful to our group, but this test would be a proof of concept on that idea.
First though, I needed to look at the crafting system. I suspected taking a bite out of the fire essence would weaken it or otherwise affect its usability in crafting. If possible, I wanted to see how much of an effect it would have.
Figuring out how to activate the Soul Forge took a moment but was simple enough once I figured it out. It was, of course, conceptual - I just had to imagine merging any two items in my soul-space and an entirely new window would open with crafting options.
Once I got the hang of it, I played around with a few different things in my inventory, seeing how merging them with the fire essence would work. The crafting UI didn’t provide complete information, nor did it guarantee specific results, but it did list some basics like the name of the item that would be created, and it gave some statistics for the likelihood of specific properties being on the new item, as well as the general crafting success chance.
These numbers, as well as some others that varied based on the type of item I was trying to create, were somewhat under my control. I found that I could add or remove progression points in targeted ways to increase or decrease probabilities, and even flat values like damage and armor values.
With some experimentation I discovered that the base items, or perhaps their tiers, set the base values for all the stats an individual item had. For example, when I paired any of my miscellaneous clothing items with the fire essence, they’d all end up with roughly equivalent quantities of fire resistance and a fireproof material property.
However, when I tried it with my headband, which was tier 3 instead of tier 0 like everything else, the starting values for each variable were a good bit higher. I also noticed that adjustments I made to the items seemed to cost the same amount even if one item had a higher starting value than another, but the more changes I made, the more they all cost.
Adding 10% extra fire resistance to my underwear cost the same as adding 10% extra fire resistance to my headband. Never mind that the base value for the underwear had been 5% and the headband had started off at 20%. Interestingly, subtracting from properties cost just as much as adding, even when the properties were beneficial.
There were also other less combat relevant aspects I could tweak as well. These tended to be fairly cheap to manipulate but consisted of properties like “warmth” and “comfort” on the clothing items. Each of the items also had weird properties that always seemed to start at either a 0% chance of being part of the final item or had an effective power level of zero.
After running across several of these, I realized that they were loose conceptual connections that I could try and bolster with progression points, but which wouldn’t naturally be added. Two examples of this were “hotness” and “lit” - both of which I assumed were only available because of the conceptual connection between those slang terms and their reference to fire.
As funny as it might be to make magically sexy underwear, I had better things to spend my progression points on right now. That said, it was nice to know I had the option, even if the thought of merging in earth essence to create magically soiled panties might have made me gag a bit.
By default, the greatsword called Gratuitous Violence when merged with the greater fire essence was going to get a staggering 50% of its damage added as extra fire damage. It also had the property “Ever-Burning” at 100% chance. The cost without tweaking anything was only ten progression points.
For comparison, using my chest wrappings as a base cost the same amount and only gave the standard 5% fire resistance buff and fireproof material property. It seemed that Sam had been correct again when he said that high quality materials could actually reduce the price of crafting.
I backed out of the crafting window and started to get ready for my next experiment. It was time to take a bite out of this fire essence and see what happened. Just in case I turned on a faucet to have a ready source of water nearby in case this ended up being a spicy meal.
Then I braced myself and activated Devour Essence, as the world went mad.