"T-two… centuries…" Aloe started hyperventilating. Her hands trembled, her vision became blurry, her throat hurt, her heart burned.
You should have known, she blamed herself. Of course, society can't advance this fast in only a couple of decades. But a couple of centuries…
Her jaws hung down, her mouth agape, and drool slipping out.
Her mind couldn't comprehend it.
"T-two…" It just didn't make sense. By any means, it didn't. "Centuries…"
How was she still alive? How had she allowed this much time to pass by?
"Is there something wrong, Aloe?" Xochipilli asked before her. The small child had knelt down and grabbed the papers she had dropped, and even if he was handing them back to her, his mannerisms betrayed uneasiness.
No, Aloe stopped her body from trembling and put her back upright. You cannot do that to a child. I am strong. Don't show weakness. Only strength. I am strong. I can do it. Don't show weakness. Display strength. Manifest it.
The vegetable woman took a deep breath and with one hand she picked up the papers she was being offered and with the other she rustled Xochipilli's hair.
"Everything's fine, Xochipilli," Aloe responded with a warm and confident motherly smile. Glamour helped so much with facial expressions that she almost believed it herself.
That everything was under control? No.
"We should get going to that pawn shop," she moved her hand to hold Xochipilli's. "We are attracting a bit of attention by standing here."
The child nodded and followed the tug on his hand. Even if Aloe portrayed utter confidence outwardly thanks to the charm stance, she had never panicked like this before in her life. Spending years in a wet chasm alone already decimated her mind, but spending centuries…
She commended herself for not fainting or puking on the streets, even if she felt very much like doing so.
Two centuries. Two nince-damned centuries. She wanted to cry. Never before in her life had she wanted to cry more ever before in her whole life, and it wasn't for a lack of opportunity. All her mental plans and ideas suddenly collapsed as the time frame gained a zero to the right.
No, not everything is lost, Aloe told herself to calm down. Longevous perennity is a powerful external infusion, I still have my chance. I still can complete my quest. For without it, she was nothing.
Aloe guided Xochipilli out of the main avenue into narrow alleys. They couldn't even be compared to the alleys of Sadina as all the buildings in Selen were several floors higher, meaning that every alley was very very dark. Whilst she didn't have trouble with her passive enhanced sight even without using acuity, the same couldn't be said for Xochipilli. The child put more strength on her grip as she led him across a labyrinth of darkness.
Soon, they reached their destination. It was an entrance in one of the alleys with a few steps into the ground, the door was placed a floor underground.
Even if it was a bit… suspicious of an entrance, it wasn't by any means an off-limits area, and by pushing the door open, they were welcomed with a well-illuminated store.
That was what shook her more: the lighting. Not the pompously decorated room, not the fact that they were underground, but the lighting. There were several lamps placed on the walls across the open room, but she saw no fire. The light was almost as bright as the outside had been on the main avenue, but most importantly, it had a familiar touch to it. Although Aloe wasn't able to point out why.
It didn't take long for a figure to appear behind the counter, and sure enough, it was the man with the mustache and comically large top hat she had seen in the dream. How does the hat not collapse on itself? Even though Aloe had seen how much of the scum the man before her was, she was more worried about his attire. She may have gotten away with murder in the middle of nowhere, but in the heart of the city… that would prove more difficult.
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So she did her best and held her cravings of crushing the man's skull with her hand, not just into pieces, but outright grains.
"Greetings," the suited man half-bowed, "what brings such a delectable lady to a shop as gloomy as mine?"
It would have been easy to go with pleasantries and, perhaps, it would have been the most sensible choice, but she didn't want to interact with this man more than it was needed, so Aloe simply took her drupnarea out and slammed it on the counter, and said, "How much for it?"
"Hm?" The man picked up the small golden coin with his gloved fingers and inspected it closely. "Definitely gold, I can tell that by weight alone, but what makes this coin worth something isn't the gold itself but the history behind it."
Aloe hadn't thought about that, mainly because she had only become aware that she herself was old history not even an hour ago.
"From the engravings on the coin, I can tell it's an Aaliyahn drupnarea, circa six hundred." It irked her how much he was right. "Now, drupnareas only weigh around thirty grams, which is still quite a bit, but a collector may be more interested in it than a goldsmith for its historical value. How about two thousand drupnars?"
The cultivator controlled her expressions perfectly with her glamour. Two thousand drupnars is double the coin's worth, but that would only be in my… age. Heavens, I still can't believe it's been two centuries. Aloe did her best to not think about it, this was not the right moment to do so. I would have accepted if it wasn't because money seems to have been devalued – mostly likely due to inflation – from my time. At best, I have to assume that a drupnarea is ten times as valuable as before because bronze is. So it's likely he has lowballed me significantly.
"It seems I have come here only to be insulted," Aloe snatched the coin from the man's fingers and turned around. "Come on, Xochipilli, we have no business here."
"Wait!" The man didn't even let her take one step. "I admit I have been a bit too brazen with my pricing. Consider the number I have stated as a starting point from the market value of gold."
"Now we are talking," the woman placed the drupnarea back on the counter. "So, what is your offer? This relic," she almost puked uttering that word, "must hold a lot of value for collectors."
"Three thousand drupnars," the man offered.
Aloe tapped on the golden coin. "The worth of this coin remains on the fact that not many drupnareas of that period remain as not many were minted in the first place." The first point was just a guess, but she was sure of the latter.
Her experience as a banker told her that most gold coin – drupnarea or fajatea – would have been long melted into trinkets or bars to store as cold assets, and it was true that not many of them existed in the first place as transactions that big would normally be carried out through bank notes rather than coinage. The only ones who used gold coinage were either boasting nobles or sultanzade throwing away their money.
She was quite familiar with the latter.
"Three fifty," he raised the price ever-so-slightly.
"Scarcity is a good, and it is hard to put a price on it~" Aloe hummed, trying to use a bit of her glamour.
"Four," the top hat man said whilst slightly gritting his teeth.
"Ten thousand drupnars," she countered.
"That's outrageous!" The man slammed his hands on the counter and almost jumped over it. "That's the price what I could sell it fooor…" He instantly noticed his mistake.
Aloe smiled and rejoiced at his error. She could tell the man had lost his composure because of her charm stance. It pained her to use such nefarious arts, but at the same time, she was dealing with vermin. In any case, he should be thanking her for not killing him outright after meeting his eyes.
"So what we say about five thousand?" She circled her finger on the counter. "You could get quite the return on investment."
"I…" The man's gaze switched between the golden coin and her emerald eyes. "You have a deal…" He finally gave in and offered her a hand with slumped shoulders, which she happily accepted.
She almost expected foul play from the handshake, or for the man to call guards, or anything along those lines, but nothing happened. He gave her twenty banknotes like the ones the slaver had on his wallet – though he called them 'bills' – that had a '500' written over them.
Now, she didn't know how much to trust these 'bills' but the texture was very similar to the ones she recovered from the corpse, and it would be weird for the man to trick her with such an exchange. It was more of her not trusting this whole paper currency than doubting the man, after all, papers had no innate value like metal coins did.
Even then, she didn't notice any foul play in the man's behavior. No erratic tics, no sweating, a constant pulse, it would seem just another transaction for him.
After she finished counting the bills, mostly an act as it felt like she should do it, Aloe directed back to him.
"By any chance, wouldn't you know of a tailor?" She handed the money to Xochipilli in the meantime as she had no way of storing it without undoing her precarious clothing. "I am in dire need of a new dress, and this influx of money could be fully dedicated to it."
She chose to say dress instead of clothing as most upstanding women on the streets seemed to wear one, whilst the commoners wore the same shirts and trousers as men.
"Oh, but of course! I know the best tailors in Selen…" The scum of a man was more than glad to give her directions.