Chapter 16 Good Question.

“Hey boss.” James greeted Isaac wearily. “Thanks for the save.”

“Yeah, thanks again for going after this idiot.” Lenny added.

“I take care of my own.” Isaac replied and offered James a hand to help him to his feet.

“Um, here, miss lady-boss.” Lenny said to Lenna while handing her the bottomless bag. “It’s full.” He added in a whisper.

“Thanks.” Lenna replied and threw the strap over her shoulder.

James took Isaac’s offered hand and was drug to his feet. It looked like the rogue was still in pain and quite stiff. “Thanks boss.”

“I’ve got something I want to run by you.” Isaac said to James and started walking in the direction of the brothers’ house.

“Oh?” James asked. He was genuinely surprised that Isaac was asking him for his input. “What do ya need?”

“Well, I have come across the deeds to all of Mr. Nobody’s properties in town.” Isaac began. “I was thinking of having Lenny reopen Tic’s.” Isaac offered. “Change the name of course. He’d need to figure out his own network and how to get rid of fenced items but I think it could prove beneficial. For all of us.”

James was silent for a long moment while he thought about the offer. Having a location that was frequented by thieves was always good on the information gathering front but there was always a risk of someone important tracking down something that had been ‘lost’. Fences tended to make a good amount of money so the offer was tempting but there was a certain risk involved. “Can I think about it? Talk it over with the kid?” James asked.

Isaac nodded. “Yeah. I’ll leave the deed with you when we leave. If you decide you don’t want it just return it when we return.” Isaac replied. “I’d prefer it if you made your decision within a few weeks though. If you end up not wanting it, I’ll need to sell it and the longer it’s closed the less valuable it’ll be.”

“I’ll have an answer for you by the time you get back.” James assured him. “Where are you goin’ anyway?”

“The five of us hit all four of Mr. Nobody’s locations in town. I stuck the guards on cleanup duty for the missing personnel, again, in town.” Isaac gave James a look that seemed to say: ‘Use your brain and figure it out.’

James nodded slowly. “They have other locations and more people then?” He inferred. “Where? Sapphirestone?”

“Probably.” Isaac agreed. “But those aren’t my problem.” He shook his head. “Ben’s End and Outpost Charles are my problem.”

“You’re going deeper eh.” James replied. “I’ll be honest boss, this place creeps me out enough. Being under a few million tons of rock is bad enough when I can see the exit.” He nodded in the general direction of the dwarven fortress that was the exit to the Outerworld.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Isaac shrugged. “I just try not to think about it.” He said noncommittally. “I’ve been deeper than either of those places before and wasn’t crushed under the surface of the planet. I won’t say we’ll be fine because that’s tempting fate but the drow cities have stood for thousands of years down here.”

“Whatever works for you boss.” James replied. “You don’t happen to have another healing potion do you?”

Isaac chuckled and shook his head. “No, you and Thomas drank them all. I still don’t know what they taste like.”

“Lucky you.” James grumbled. “Not all of us are immortal.”

“Mortality isn’t that bad.” Isaac replied with an easy smile. “As long as you have better luck than I did, you’ll be fine.”

James’s face contorted in a thoughtful and confused expression. “Then you did?” He repeated. “Were you mortal once and died boss?”

Isaac nodded and looked up towards the ceiling of the massive cavern. “Yeah. I was killed by a god messing with things they weren’t supposed to be messing with. I was accidental collateral damage at best.” He sighed. “But honestly, I think that was the best thing to have ever happened to me.”

“Dying?” James asked incredulously.

“A lot of things happened and I ended up here.” Isaac replied and then nodded towards Lenna. “With her.” He flashed James a grin.

James looked over his shoulder at Lenna and then back to Isaac. “I don’t know which one of you is crazier.” He commented. Isaac didn’t reply but smiled a little wider. “We can make it the rest of the way, boss.” James told Isaac. They were only a few blocks away from his house.

“Here, before I forget and lose it.” Lenny said and handed Isaac back his badge. “It worked wonders.”

Isaac nodded and grabbed the badge before tossing it to the side. The badge vanished immediately. “Good.” He looked between the brothers. “Do you have a bank account?”

The brothers looked between each other. “No.” Lenny replied.

“Then how do you want paid?” Isaac questioned.

The brothers’ eyes went wide. “How much are we getting?” Lenny questioned excitedly.

“Let’s go figure it out.” Isaac replied with a grin. “We’ll meet you two in your dining room.”

“Okay.” James squeaked out. He had been informed that Lenny had raided the coin stash in the warehouse and could only imagine how much money he had ‘liberated’.

Isaac put his hand on Lenna’s shoulder and the two of them vanished leaving the brothers in a stupor as they tried to imagine how large their payout would be.

—

“Ninety nine, one hundred.” Isaac counted and moved the pile of gold coins onto the pile sitting next to him. He leaned back and stretched his back out. His eyes panned the room and he could only grin at the obscene amount of coins piled up around them. Three hundred and seventy pounds of coins to be exact. Lenny had been smart while looting. He hit both the gold and platinum coin stores just as hard to keep it from looking too suspicious. It came out to a hundred and eighty three pounds of platinum coins and a hundred and eighty seven pounds of gold ones. It was worth over a hundred thousand gold in total. That wasn’t even counting the platinum bar from Westly’s or whatever was behind the counters at both Westly’s and Tic’s.

“I don’t think I’ll ever see this much money again in my entire life.” James said in awe at the spectacle.

“Let’s split it four ways.” Isaac said. “A quarter for you and Lenny. Thomas, Lenna, and I’ll each get our own shares. I think that’s fair, all things considered.”

James wanted to protest but couldn’t. He and his brother had been helpful but they hadn’t contributed as much individually as the rest of the team. That’s not even taking into account the fact that James needed to be rescued which was never a good look. He sighed. “Yeah. That’s fair.”

Lenny grinned. “So how much is a quarter of it?” He asked excitedly.

“Well, if we do some rounding, and assume you two get whatever money is left at Tic’s, Thomas gets whatever’s left at Westly’s then…” Isaac’s voice trailed off as he did the mental math. “Twenty five thousand four hundred and twenty five.”

“How much would you and the lady-boss get then?” James asked.

“An even thirty thousand each.” Isaac replied. “I’ve decided that you guys can keep the deed to Tic’s regardless. If you don’t want it then you can sell it.”

James nodded. “Sounds fair enough.” He agreed.

“How will we get Thomas his share?” Lenna asked.

Isaac chuckled and looked around at the mounds of coins. “That is a very good question.” He looked up at the ceiling in thought. “We could put it in the safe at Westly’s, the one that didn’t blow up.”

Lenna nodded. “That’s as good an idea as any.” She agreed. “He’s broken into it before.”

“Let’s give Thomas the bar for ten thousand of it.” Isaac replied with a grin.

“The bar from the safe that blew up in his face.” Lenna said flatly.

“That’s the one.” Isaac agreed.

Lenna shook her head. “That poor man.”