He didn’t react immediately, curling tendrils of smoke rising from his pipe, and for a moment I thought he hadn’t heard his wife - deaf, maybe. But then he turned and, smiling with half of his mouth, said only “Naomi.”

“Dad,” she said back.

The room wasn’t very big with all six of us inside, but Gad wasn’t very big, either. He was short for a man - much shorter than his wife in her current state - wore strange glasses, and was dressed in some sort of tunic, highly decorated, beneath which was a series of robes that came nearly to his feet, which were bare. The robes were loose, yet the tunic was tight and hugged his midsection - which wasn’t exactly muscular - and despite being inside he wore a gray coat over the top of it all.

His face was a similar mix, pale skin drawn taut in around his cheekbones, tighter still the skin of his wide forehead, exposed by a high hairline, and yet loose around his jaw and where the skin drooped from his ears. His nose was the most pristine of his features - if he had been on Earth, I would have guessed he’d gotten work done on it. His nose was the sun of his face, and the further you went from it, the more exposed the skin was to the cold embrace of sagging age. If I saw only his nose and seeking eyes, I’d have guessed he was twenty. If I saw only his ears and neck, I’d have guessed seventy.

Yasmin scoffed. “Gad!” she said, with one of those tones which had carved grooves into the throat, like I could recall of my mom using when my dad was still around. “What kind of welcome is that?! This is your daughter. At least say that you are happy to see her home safe.”

“I am happy to see you home safe,” he said exactly, the half-smile widening slightly.

“Like, thanks,” Naomi responded.

“You are hopeless,” Yasmin said. “Hopeless. Don’t you want to know what happened? Aren’t you wondering who these guests are?”

Gad stared at his wife for a time. I had the distinct feeling that he was holding himself back from simply saying “no.” Finally something in his face softened.

“Of course,” he said. “Yes. Tell me, Naomi, who are your friends?”

I butted in. “Nice to meet you, sir.” The sir sounded weird but I was kissing ass, what can you do? “I am Miles. We are adventurers who traveled with your daughter recently. We have saved her life many times, and came her to ensure she made it home safe.”

Gad turned his gaze to me as I spoke, and his eyes seemed to bore holes into my own. He was looking for something there.

“You want a reward,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

“Gad!” Yasmin exclaimed again. “Where are your manners? These are our guests, and they have saved our dear Naomi. You will hear them out before making such crude remarks.”

“Fine,” he said, and I saw a little of Naomi’s likeness. “But let us eat, then. I am sure our guests are starving, and this room is no place to lounge.”

So we were led out of the room, down another series of winding halls, and into a dining room - one we had not yet seen. It was small, meant clearly for more private gatherings that the larger one I’d seen earlier. The table could seat eight at most. We all took our seats, Yasmin and Gad on opposite ends, the four remaining split two each on either length.

Servants were called in by Yasmin, and we were served a lunch of cold meats, fruits, and a crimson-colored drink served warm, which looked like thin blood but tasted sweet. Yasmin repeatedly apologized for not having something grander prepared, and assured us that we would have a real feast later, but we all agreed that the food was delicious, regardless.

Finally Cadoc and Amaia introduced themselves as well. Cadoc began to recount our adventures, and although I appreciated the aggrandizing he was doing, he was taking too long. I interrupted and made Amaia recount our time with Naomi instead, and that proved to be a significantly shortened version. I was ready to interrupt her once she got to the betrayal and collar stuff, but she never mentioned it.

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“What a story!” Yasmin exclaimed. I was seated just to her left, and she leaned over towards me as she spoke. “I can’t believe you are a fellow body-mage, Miles, and yet you destroyed a dungeon core. I can tell already you are the type not to let anything get in your way.”

She leaned even closer, placed one hand on my shoulder, and whispered into my ear. “I love that in a man.”

Her voice made me shudder, and I looked hurriedly towards Gad.

Fuck, I thought. I’m probably blushing. I’m sure a cultural thing, being this physical with strangers, like Europeans kissing or shit like that, but if Gad sees me blushing, he might get the wrong idea. I want a reward, not a duel.

But he wasn’t looking at me or his wife. He was staring at some point on the table, eyes vacant. By the time he looked up, Yasmin’s hand had thankfully retreated.

“I see,” Gad said, hands interlaced before him on the table. “And so you made your way here, since my Naomi had promised you a reward.”

“They’re my friends, Dad,” Naomi said. “They didn’t just come for money. Like, I wasn’t even sure that we had money, y’know?”

“And did you tell them that?” he asked.

Naomi shrunk in her seat. “Like, eventually.”

“I see,” Gad repeated. He turned his eyes to me again. “Miles, yes? Your friend mentioned something about you owing a large sum of money. You are here for money?”

I was flustered, and rather than lie, said simply, “yes.”

Gad’s eyes were searching mine again, but it seemed that this time, he found what he was looking for, because his usual half-smile broke into a full grin. “I see,” he said. “Honest. I can appreciate that.

“Here is the problem,” he said. “You have saved my daughter, from the sounds of it. You saved her from those Kalamuzi scum, from worm-drakes, as you called them, even simply from starvation and thirst. You accomplished this through great violence, ingenuity, and drive. Do I have that right so far?”

I would add hatred, I thought, and take out ingenuity, but I only nodded.

“Then I do owe you a debt,” he said. “And I always pay my debts, you understand. I have much I could offer you. Esoteric knowledge, remarkable artifacts, potions with powers you’ve never witnessed. Delicacies, fine wines, even a room here in our manor I could offer you for as long as you wished it. For you and your companions. If you are a man of baser needs, that could be arranged as well.

“But you are indebted to another just as I am indebted to you, so none of this likely interests you. You want money, am I right?”

I nodded again. As good as all of those things sounded, I had debts to pay. My life would be ruined otherwise, and who knew how much of any other sort of reward I could use on Earth. “Yes,” I said.

“That, there, is the problem.” Gad said. “I can offer you many things, but I cannot offer you money. But you are interested only in money. We are at an impasse.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” I said. “But why can’t you offer me money? I mean…”

“I am rich,” Gad said. “That is what you are saying, right? I am rich, so why can I not give you money?

“Naomi may have filled you in on the details, Miles, but more likely she has not. Our family was very successful before, in Vildnet. If things were now as they were then, I would have showered you with gold and riches for saving my daughter. But those scum attacked us,” he yelled, and at this he slammed his fist on the table. It was the most emotion I’d seen from him. The dishes near him jumped, even knocking over a glass with broke on the floor.

He hardly seemed to notice, and a servant hurried over to collect the fragments.

“We were driven out of Vildnet,” he said. “All of us were. Those savages, those, those damned monsters drove us out of our home. Most in the town were killed. In fact, we were likely the only survivors, as I have heard of no others, and that only because we have made a habit of being prepared for the worst. You must do so, living close to the Edge.

“We have started over here in Coernet, and we have used every last bit of coin we had to build back to what we have today. It is meager compared to what we had, but we have regained much.

“So to answer your question, Miles, I cannot give you money because I do not have money. All of my gold has been invested. This manor, the shop, the inventory for the shop, the wages for the workers - all of my money is there. It does not sit in some coffer somewhere so that I may pay ransoms or be stolen from, or even, as now, that I might pay what I owe.

“But I like you, Miles, and I am impressed by you and your party. And as I said, I always pay my debts. So, if you need money so badly, I have come up with an offer that may suit us both.

“Will you work for me?”

I snorted, out of surprise more that anything. “I’m not really looking for a job,” I said. Then, thinking on it a little more, I added, “what does it pay?”

Gad smiled again. “We paddle in the same boat, Miles. I will have my clerk write you the terms. But it will pay well. Fifteen gold a month, if all goes exceptionally well. At least seven, even if it doesn’t.”

I tried to remember how much money that was. A halfgold got me $250, right? And if a fullgold is $500, fifteen gold was eight grand.

Eight times twelve is ninety-sex. Ninety-six thousand a year. That’s more than I make working for Dimen-X.

But it would still take me over a decade to repay it all. Too slow.

“That isn’t enough,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

Gad laughed. “Perfect,” he said. “I knew you were the right man for the job. That is exactly the response I was hoping for. If you had accepted it, I would have lost all respect for you. I can pay you more, Miles, if you can help me. Twenty gold, twenty-five, even thirty gold a month.”

Whenever he said gold, I just replaced the word in my head with thousand. Thirty thousand a month. What is my monthly payment at? Twenty-five?

“I am truly sorry,” I said. “But that still is not enough for me to stick around here for long. The amount I owe is much larger than that. I’d be better off finding another dungeon and selling what I find. Otherwise I’d be working for you for years and years.”

“Who said anything about staying here?” Gad said. “You do these things for me, and you can come and go as you please. I need you to help me set up certain systems. Once those systems are in place, you just come back here whenever you feel like collecting your cut. You understand?”

Passive income, I thought to myself. That’s what people called it back on Earth. Passive income. Make money while you sleep. Of course, on Earth they were always scams.

But if I could really make thirty thousand a month doing nothing, at least I could fucking relax for once. I wouldn’t have to be scrambling, getting through entire fucking dungeons every time I need to pay the month. Maybe Dimen-X would even let me come home, and I could just return once a month to collect my money. Or wait, no, that’s dangerous. Maybe I could get Cadoc or Amaia to send it over every month. I don’t know, we’d think of something.

Maybe I could even go find Tom.

I smiled. “Tell me more.”