Five minutes later, I dispatched the other three hapless goblins. That time around I felt a bit better and remembered to remove all their ears as proof of my subjugation. All the goblins carried superior quality weapons evidently made for small hands, but their swords lacked personalisation and weren’t embellished with any gilding or inlays. I didn’t need to be a blacksmith to notice someone made those swords with goblins in mind. I had a feeling that was going to be a long day.
By the time I returned to the guild, the sun lay just on the horizon, and we were about two hours away from darkness.
“Hi Shane, I see you’ve managed to dispatch quite a few goblins, rabbits, and wolves today.”
“Yeah, today was pretty full on. I delved a bit deeper into the forest today and kept bumping into small goblin patrols.”
“Are you taking it easier tomorrow?”
“Probably. I’ll just do the usual trapping then head back earlier.”
“That’s a good idea. Some of our adventuring teams ran into goblins, a couple of teams even evaded some ogres.”
I could only nod in agreement. I was weary of running into larger hordes of them. She counted out the subjugation money in front of me.
“Well, you’ve got seven forest rabbits making it forty-nine silvers. Then you have twelve goblins at twenty silvers each, making 240 silvers, or two small gold and forty silvers. Did you notice one of the goblin’s ears had a small gold earring?”
“I did. Does that mean something?”
“Didn’t you read your beginners handbook?”
I shook my head. I didn’t remember getting anything like that. Olivia sighed in frustration.
“I remember now, you didn’t go through the normal induction process.”
Why did her statement imply it was my fault?
“Those sorts of earrings are normally made of gold so you can decide to either keep it to sell somewhere else. The guild buys things like that at market price minus a small handling fee. I can weigh it and process it for you if you like?”
At that stage I had no ruddy idea where to start looking for a gold merchant. Schneider might help me, but would he do that for one measly gold ring? I trusted Olivia to look out for my interests, especially after my initial run in with the guild. I still felt a bit bad about my leveraging the situation using my influence in the palace, but the service I received from the guild up to then was par excellence. I let Olivia weigh the gold in a unit system that seemed to contain official weights of sorts. She then converted my gold ring to ten silvers, bringing my total sum of money for the day to forty-nine plus two hundred and forty and ten silvers to two small gold and ninety-nine silvers. A nice sum indeed, however there were still three wolf carcasses to deal with. Since I started trapping wolves, their numbers had decreased in the area. However, rabbit numbers continued to increase. Perhaps I was upsetting some ecological balance in the forest near the farmlands? I decided to move my hunting grounds somewhere else just to keep me from becoming too familiar with the environment. Familiarity bred complacency and complacency in that world led to death, something I always needed to be aware of.
“For the wolves I can only pay you tomorrow since you’ve asked us to skin them professionally and we can only do that in the morning.”
I arrived a bit late and skinning them professionally took some time. I tried to skin a wolf myself once, but Olivia quickly termed my attempt as a ‘holy’ wolf fur. They guild didn’t pay much for sanctified furs, so I kept it and turned it into my first attempt at sowing some wolf fur mittens. Yeah, I wouldn’t bet my hands on the efficacy of those mittens in winter. In the end I decided to hand them to someone not likely to have a pair of mittens in the winter. Perhaps someone could give me sowing lessons first. University, God bless it, didn’t think to add leatherwork into my mechanical curriculum. A major oversight I could ask them to correct if I ever got the chance to go back again.
My business with Olivia still wasn’t complete yet because I still needed to sell those goblin swords. Olivia just shrugged her shoulders.
“I’m sorry Shane, there isn’t much of a market for these swords unless you’re looking to give them to children or sell them as scrap. At most I can give you one silver for each of them.”
I guessed I could turn them into arrow heads or small knives perhaps, so I decided to keep them instead. I wasn’t in the mood for walking around with ninety-nine silvers with me, even if it was in my pocket dimension because I also didn’t want to flash that around too much either.
“Olivia. If I give you one silver, could you turn my subjugation rewards into three small gold?”
She kindly changed the coins for me. As was part of my new modus operandi when dealing with gold coins I appraised all three small gold coins to confirm whether they were legit, and I found no problem with them. A question suddenly occurred to me.
“Olivia, have you guys had any problems with fake gold coins?”
She started at my question.
“Hush, please don’t say that too loud. It’s not that we don’t have a problem with it, but we don’t want people to get the wrong idea if they hear us talking about it.”
I nodded with wise understanding although I had no idea what the size of the problem was. Luckily, she saved me the trouble of asking the question as she started to quietly explain in a muted voice.
“The guild has increasingly refused gold from some patrons because of fake gold. It’s so bad that we don’t accept quests anymore until the gold for the reward has been inspected first and sealed.”
Whichever way you looked at it, the city was facing serious problems if that much fake gold was in circulation.
“How do you determine what is fake or not?”
I mean it wasn’t a problem for me to figure out fake from real, but what about them?
She rolled her eyes to emphasise the issue.
“We weigh all the gold first then do a hardness test. Weight doesn’t always help but hardness seems to be the best way to check, although that isn’t guaranteed either. To be honest, we are still getting fake coins sneaking through.”
I could see Archimedes coming to the rescue.
“Have you tried determining the volume?”
“Heh, why would we want to do that?”
Mm, it seemed a bit of understanding was needed, but I wasn’t going to give that information away for free.
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“I’ve a straightforward way to determine fake gold coins accurately. Let me speak to the guild master tomorrow and I’ll trade it to you for the right price.”
Olivia considered my offer with a slight bit of hesitation. It stretched her belief that I could do something where all the brains of the guild couldn’t. At the end of the day, she couldn’t say no because if it turned out to be worth it, she would gain significant notoriety with the guild for finding a solution to their biggest problem.
“Very well, I’ll set up a meeting for when you arrive tomorrow morning.”
Yes, I knew providence would eventually find me. One man’s problem was another man’s solution, and why shouldn’t I capitalise on that? I left the guild with my three small gold feeling chuffed with myself, not a bad haul for one day’s work I’d say. I left the guild in the dusk of the setting sun while totally enthralled by the money I made for the day’s hunting. Additionally, thoughts about what I would trade for that fake coin identification ran deep in my thoughts. So much so that I didn’t pay any attention to my surroundings and nearly bumped into an annoying person standing directly in front of me.
“Dear adventurer sir, I can see you are tired, having no doubt worked hard today. I promise I’ll not waste a moment of your precious time.”
Looking at the man, he looked like the sort of guy parents encouraged their children to stay away from. Why did he smell like a sleazy merchant. I mean he literarily smelled of rank sweat and dust, not the best way for him to approach his sales. Despite his odoriferous presence it didn’t offset from the salesman he was. He didn’t give me a chance to shrug him off.
“Would you like to own a young female slave to help you out with your chores?”
“Huh?”
Of all the things I thought I would ever hear in my life that wasn’t one of them. Alcohol, weapons, gold or horses, heck even dehydrated goblin heads, anything but slaves.
He misinterpreted my moment of silence as earnest consideration, so he eagerly pressed forward with his sales pitch.
“I imagine that after such a busy day of adventuring, you would love nothing better than to relax while being served your heart’s desire? You can have that all for a small once-off cost then nothing else but a little food, water, and a bed in the stable.”
Okay, I confess that I liked the part about relaxing while being served blah, blah, blah, but my interest waned when he mentioned that second point about the slave sleeping in the stable. Obviously, the slave trader didn’t know me well enough, otherwise he wouldn’t have offered that last bit to me. Perhaps I imagined things, but his sales pitch became a little desperate. He had no doubt been travelling a while and now he was desperately trying to sell off the last of his slaves. My obviously disinterested demeanour made him realise he was about to lose a sale, and that’s when he pulled out a female slave from behind him. The rusted chain in his hand attached to what I assumed was a slave collar on her neck. Other than the fact that he peddled in slaves, it also bugged me that he first tried to sell me the slave and when that failed, only then did he produce the goods as if he didn’t think the slave’s appearance would convince me. Or perhaps I seriously misjudged the man, and he left the best until last. His slave stood about five foot four inches high and wore a beige, abaya-chiffon type dress with a hoody covering her head. Even in the dimming twilight, her clothing failed to conceal everything. I seriously doubted she picked out that clothing. She looked down at the ground at her bare feet as if shy, making it difficult for me to get a good look at her face. I assumed she was younger than me judging by her height, and the size of her hands and feet.
“I’m afraid this one is the last of my slave stock, from here we are on our way to the mines to sell her off.”
Goodness, being a slave was a tough life, I had no idea what working in the mines was like, but it couldn’t be good. I mean what fantasy story do you know where it depicted a slave miner as being a sought-after job. Even worse, the man spoke about her in the third person, as if he were selling a horse. I felt sorry for her even if I doubted the man’s integrity and trumped-up sob-story. True, I thought she might be able to do some of the usual chores for me that I didn’t get around to, although at the time I gave little thought as to what those things might be. I admitted it sounded appealing, but my common sense kicked in and I decided to leave well alone. Sensing his sales opportunity sliding away, the slave trader seamlessly moved to the lower level of subterfuge. The merchant unexpectedly bartered with me.
“How much would master be willing to pay for this slave, only thirty gold?”
Since when did I become a master? Shouldn’t I be the one asking for a price, and only if I was interested? Besides, I didn’t have that sort of gold. Did I look like someone who did? Better to put him off a sale using my old tried and tested method with that elvish girl in Obon.
“I don’t have enough gold. I only have three gold on me now.”
Three gold, the thin line between me and hunger. I couldn’t rely on earning that much again in a single day, let alone a handful of days.
“Sold.”
He produced a big toothy grin, with some teeth missing and a gold tooth replacement. For a moment I thought I missed something important and replayed the tape of my life a few seconds back to see what had transpired.
“What?”
“Isn’t it a bargain? Once in a lifetime deal…”
“Hey, are you kidding me. I didn’t buy anything!”
“Oh yes, but you did. You made a counteroffer to my honest offer, and I accepted. We’ve made a sale. Feel free to dispute it at a merchant’s guild tribunal but then you might find its you that ends up in a slave collar for challenging the guild. My recommendation is to accept it as it is and move on if you know what I mean.”
No, I didn’t know what he meant. Why that short little, dim witted, vile monster…
“Besides, the slave is witness to the deal and will testify to the sale under oath.”
I looked at the slave, who glared directly back at me. I could have sworn if I didn’t know women better that she was fuming.
“Yes. Master entered into a sale agreement with the slave trader.”
She softly hissed in a monosyllabic tone. Despite her obvious hostility, one word stuck on me.
“Master? You mean me?”
I said pointing to myself.
“Yes master.”
By then the sinking feeling in my gut reached epic proportions. Thoughts of what a conundrum I was in circulated like eddies in my head.
“What if I sell her back to you for less?”
“Oh no sir, we have a no-return policy, also if we were to do that our reputation would suffer as a result.”
The irony hit me like a hammer, did he even have any reputation that it could suffer? I didn’t give up.
“I want to cancel the slave contract,”
“500 gold pieces to cancel a contract as per the Labour Slave Act, article F, item four.”
Why did he even know that information?
“You’re kidding me?”
“No, the kingdom has extremely strict laws about slave contracts. Breaking a contract is breaking the kingdom’s laws. Besides if the slave is a wanted criminal then it would not be a fitting punishment if a recently owned slave was immediately set free.”
Hang on, I’d never asked why this girl was a slave in the first place. My situation potentially worsened.
“What if she’s some sort of murderer?”
“Oh no, she isn’t a criminal. But I would be careful to keep her in plain sight if you get my meaning.”
“No, I don’t get your meaning at all and just what must I do with her now?”
“Whatever you want to do, after all, she belongs to you now. I must get ready to leave Shimmerstal tomorrow. Sign this release document and pay the agreed sum.”
His ‘master’ honorifics disappeared like a mafioso’s sense of humour. About half an hour later I was still sitting on the steps in the small square with my face in my hands, a female slave attached to a chain and no inkling of what to do with her. However, my plans panned out, I had no intention of leading her around like a pet dog, so eventually I did the only other thing I could. I disconnected the chain from her slave collar and allowed her to go free.
A blinding light flashed inside my eyes causing me momentary loss of my senses. Muted colours of blue and brown alternated in my vision as I sensed myself tumbling in the air and then the hard ground knocked the breath out of me. I nearly passed out, but I managed to painfully roll onto my knees, battling to regain my breath. Mercifully I survived whatever hit me on the chin, judging from the pain under jaw. My brain felt groggy, but Commander Karato knocked enough sense into me during my morning bashing sessions for me to know when to retreat. Sensing another imminent attack on me, I reflexively rolled into a ball to protect my stomach. The next blow hit me heavily on the shins instantly followed by an excruciating pain in my legs. I rolled away, hoping to miss the next painful blow from the bloody monster attacking me. A screaming noise emanated from the slave. But she wasn’t screaming in fear or agony, she seemed to be shouting at me.
“Are you a freaking idiot? Why did I have to end up with you?”
It confused me. Did she just attack me?
“Are you so stupid you couldn’t see it?”
What is she talking about?
“I’m going to make you wish you never bought me you pervert.”
I couldn’t fathom why she would say that because I wasn’t a pervert. When her cape dropped off her head, I noticed her face for the first time. In striking contrast to the ugly collar that marred her fine neck, she looked stunningly beautiful and almost human except for her cat ears placed slightly higher on her head. She was a catkin, slightly shorter than me and with short, chestnut brown, lightly curled hair. If it wasn’t for the fact that she was trying to kill me, I would have been quite happy to take the time to know her better.
“As a slave I can’t kill you, but nothing stops me from beating you to the edge of death!”