To Xander’s surprise, there was a well-established banking system, that, by various skills and artifices managed to keep their branches relatively up to date on account information, though it could take up to a week for some of the more far-flung banks. He could set up an account with the bank that his new broker would have access to and deposit funds as he wished into that account for the broker to continue managing for him. The profits from his managed investments would go into a different account under his name that would act more like a savings account which he could also deposit personal funds into that he didn’t want to invest.
Picking up their payment from the guild was an easy affair, the payment and confirmation of completion having had plenty of time to make its way through the paper pushing of the guild in the three days that they’d spent at the Vitrax estate. Their next stop was in a middle-class area, full of small shops and boutiques. Graffus led them to a thin, two-story building with a sign on the door reading Ironshoulder Investment and Brokerage. Graffus knocked on the door heavily, and was answered by a “Come in!” from the other side.
Graffus threw the door open congenially, saying “Cousin! I’ve got some clients for you,” with a laugh.
The dwarf sitting at a desk with papers piled high groaned. “Graffus! I swear you only come by to bring me more work! Can’t you ever just… oh I don’t know, visit for once in your gods damned life?” The dwarf said this with some humor behind it, lessening the vitriol that would normally come with such words.
“Oh come now, Kreglin, I know you’re always on the lookout for more clients. Besides, these are my teammates! I couldn’t, in good conscience, take them anywhere else.”
“Hi, Kreglin,” Atrax waved. “How’s my account looking?”
“Well enough, this year’s harvest and subsequent distillation has been good, so your investments in brewing have made a good return already.”
“Wait,” Xander said. “Your broker is also your cousin?”
Graffus laughed at the question. “What self-respecting dwarf doesn’t have a cousin that works in finance?”
“… Is that some kind of stereotype I don’t know about yet?” Xander asked, confused.
Kreglin interjected, explaining to Xander. “Being long-lived, investments are an attractive proposition to us dwarves. Though we’re really fifth cousins. The Steelshoulder clan is a widespread one. ‘Fifth cousin’ just doesn’t quite roll off the tongue like ‘cousin’ does, though. There’re a lot of us in finance, actually. I’m surprised you didn’t know that already, what, are you a [Godsmarked] or something?”
“Actually, I am.”
“Graffus!” Kreglin said accusingly at his cousin. “You’re just now helping him get set up with an account?”
Graffus held his hands up defensively, “Hey, hey, to be fair, this is only his third contract, and we’ve been busy! But ah, Xander just recently came into a bit of money, and was asking about investments, which is what brought us here.”
“… How much is a ‘bit?’” Kreglin asked, suspiciously.
Xander looked around, nervously. “Uhm… a platinum?”
“A PLATINUM?! You’ve been wandering the city with a platinum coin?”
“Well, I did just get it today, we only stopped by the guild to pick up our payment for a contract before we came here.”
Kreglin massaged the bridge of his nose. “Oh, Graffus. What have you brought me? Well, I suppose at least you haven’t been walking around with a target on your back for too long. You haven’t told anyone about it, right? Walking around with that kind of coin is just begging to be robbed.”
“No, no, I haven’t mentioned it to anyone, besides my teammates, who were there when I got paid anyways.”
“Good. Honestly, I don’t even want to know how you got it,” Kreglin said. “First things first, we are taking you to the bank to open an account for you and me to begin your investing, assuming you are accepting me as your broker, yes?”
“Uhm, yeah. Sure. If Graffus and Atrax are both satisfied, that’s a good enough endorsement for me.”
“Excellent! Well then, Mister Xander, did I hear that from Graffus correctly?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, Mister Xander, we shall go to the bank forthright and get that coin off the street and set to making money for us both.”
“Oh,” Graffus interjected. “I forgot to mention. Frazay and Gabrelle want to start accounts too.”
“Please don’t tell me they have a platinum coin, too…”
Graffus shrugged. “Probably not?”
The process of setting up the accounts at the nearby branch of the kingdom’s bank was smoothly navigated by Kreglin, who seemed to know every worker there. He clearly spent time in the establishment. Xander’s platinum coin needed to be verified by the tellers, who had all gathered round, marveling at the rare site. Apparently, coins were embedded with some kind of anticounterfeiting magic which could be checked by the bank. Once that was finished and the coin came back clean, the one thousand gold it was worth was credited to his account. Gabrelle also created her accounts, and Frazay added Kreglin as a manager to her bank account, deciding to invest everything that was stored there. Xander felt much lighter now that the coin was no longer weighing down his metaphorical pockets. He’d had it stashed in his inventory, not his real pocket, of course.
The party once more made their way to Robert’s. The innkeeper actually recognized them this time, informing them that they only had space if two of them were willing to double up. Frazay and Gabrelle volunteered, with the promise that next time they needed to double up like that, it wouldn’t be them. They resolved that tomorrow they would make their way back to the guild and look for more contracts. Gabrelle pushed for a contract that would take them farther out from the city, and Xander had agreed with her. He wanted to get to do some more exploring. He’d come to enjoy traveling with his teammates.
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They awoke bright and early the next morning to head to the guild and scope out contracts. At this hour, the guild was not nearly so busy, and all five of them began scouring the noticeboards, looking for anything interesting. Not long into their search, they were interrupted by Gabrelle saying, “Oooh, what about this one, guys?”
They gathered around Gabrelle, who was pointing at an exploration contract that must have been pinned that day. There was a call for a small team to clear out what was theorized to be some kind of ancient temple far to the South, in the jungles of Krepash. The researchers were already onsite, but the original mercenary contingent had given up after a few attempts at making it past the traps that seemed to fill the temple. That team had left soon after the regular guards for the camp had arrived, leaving the project in limbo.
“I think this one would lend itself well to our team,” Atrax commented.
“But…” Xander began.
“I’ve always wanted to see the jungle!” Gabrelle said, excitedly.
“What about…” Xander started once more.
“And Xander should have no problem disarming traps, right Xander?” Frazay asked.
“Uhmm… Big spiders?” He responded. “I mean, yeah. I can disarm traps, I’d think. But… aren’t there giant spiders there?”
“Yeah, what of it?” Frazay asked.
“I don’t like giant spiders…”
“Oh, don’t be a baby,” Graffus ribbed. “We can handle a few spiders.”
Xander resolved to actually make a flamethrower during their travels.
The contract was pulled from the board, and the clerk at the counter provided them with a slip of paper with details of a river boat that would take them to the coast, where they could take another, larger, boat down the coast of the continent, which Xander still didn’t know the name of, down to Krepash, far outside of the Kingdom of Dardin. All told, it would be roughly two months of travel, but the pay was good enough to justify it. The reward had been increased since the previous team had been unable to complete it. The travel time would also give Xander a chance to work on his flamethrower, or as he was mentally dubbing it, the ‘Spider Killer 5000,’ as well as various other ideas and projects.
The mercenaries took the next day to ensure that they were well supplied with food and any various tools that they felt might be needed. Gabrelle in particular bought a few things beyond just food: a new kit for stitching up wounds, in the case that she was unable to heal them closed, a metal container containing several different wide acting antivenoms, and a very well-made leather pouch that she could place various herbs and plants within.
“I hear there are lots of interesting medicinal plants in the jungles of Krepash, so this will be a great opportunity to get some experience in my [Herbalist] class,” Gabrelle explained, when Xander had questioned the multipocketed bag.
The day after their supply run, they met the captain of the ship that they would be taking down the river, which Xander learned was also named Anlet, though he wasn’t sure if the city was named after the river, or the river after the city, and the mercenaries, their horses, Freyja, and a large amount of raw meat that Xander had bought, were loaded onto the ship. With the permission of the captain, Xander had made a quick detour to a smith and bought several ingots of iron, so that he could make a large, refrigerated metal box for Freyja’s food. The only stipulation to being allowed to build the box on the ship was that he also had to leave it there. Xander expected that this was highly skewed in the captain’s benefit, but he didn’t mind all that much. It was just a box with a hinged lid and some ice runes. It took him less than an hour to make, and he’d save money not having to buy smaller amounts of food at every stop. For her part, Freyja didn’t seem to mind her meat cold, and, in fact, quite liked it frozen on occasion, the solid hunks of meat providing her with an interesting challenge to overcome, distracting her from her boredom of being shipbound.
Atrax, of course, spend his time reading, as well as researching temples to the South in some books he’d bought before they left. Frazay mostly occupied herself with bowfishing, having tied some twine to one of her physical arrows, keeping the diet of the mercenaries, and Freyja, more varied. Graffus trained Gabrelle hard. Every day, they were out on the deck of the boat, running through combat drills, or sparring. A few of the sailors and other passengers even began taking up watching their bouts, and Xander saw a few bets here and there placed on when Gabrelle would land a hit on Graffus. After two solid weeks of training multiple hours a day, every day, with no breaks, Gabrelle ended one of the bouts with a cheer. Not only had she finally managed to land a hit on Graffus, tricking him into blocking with a feint before swinging out and catching him in the knee with the stick she was using for training, the achievement of overcoming that block, as well as the vicious training routine, had granted a third class to her: [Follower of the Hammer]. It apparently boosted her abilities with hammers, maces, and other blunt weapons, much like Xander’s [Weapons of War] granted him skill towards the usage of weapons. She also gained some skills that would allow her to imbue her strikes with extra damage and effects.
For his part, Xander bent his nose to the grindstone in designing a runically operated flamethrower. The tank itself was simple, being just an aluminum drum that he could strap to his back, with a rubber tube that was clad in more aluminum leading to what was causing him frustration: the actual thrower for his flamethrower. After several days of trial and error, he finally settled upon a design. The device, which would be held from the top by a handle jutting out of it, allowing it to be held against the bottom of the arm, contained a runically powered pump. When a knob was twisted to complete the circuit, the pump, which was essentially a fan with movement runes engraved upon it, would begin to spin, drawing the liquid from the tube into the cavity of the pump, and then out of the narrowed nozzle of the tip of the flame thrower. A small rod with a flame rune that would also activate when the circuit was activated would ignite the fuel as it left the nozzle. A one-way flap valve with a spring that opened when the fluid began to flow out of the nozzle prevented most of the issues he’d had with the fuel slowly dribbling out of the tip when the pump was not being used. There was still a small amount that leaked out after it was turned off, but it no longer leaked the entire time. For fuel, he decided to continue using dragon’s tar. It was sticky already and just the right consistency, and didn’t cost too much for him to fill up the tank with [Improved Creation]. His final test involved him going to the edge of the ship and activating the weapon, causing a stream of flaming dragon’s tar to jet out the nozzle, leaving an oily, fiery trail behind the ship as he drained the entire tank dry. With the power of the pump, which he’d densely engraved with movement runes, and fully powered, and the narrowing of the nozzle increasing he pressure of the fluid, he was able to achieve a range of about seventy five feet with his flamethrower, if he angled it upwards a little. He was quite pleased. Atrax had told him that he would put him out of a job at this rate.
The next project Xander wanted to work on, now that he could incinerate any spiders he saw, was improving the resistance of his armor to blunt impacts. The momentum reducing arrays on his armor would surely help, but ever since the incident with the crossbow bolt, he’d been wary of being struck again with so much force. The power a skill could put behind something was insane. The idea he had was to bond his armor with a layer of foam, copied from the foam pads of his ACH, so that the force of a blow taken by his armor would be reduced. It was a quick fix to apply, though he had to rework some sections of his armor due to the fact that it sat further off of his body now. His helmet was designed with suspension already, so it only received padding on the sides.