Chapter 4
The trip back through the woods to the ruins took about an hour. The group was tired as we entered the clearing but perked up a little bit seeing the defensible location. The Soldiers set up a defensive perimeter. And Toalson and the healer walked up to me. “ Good find Jack, we should be safe here for tonight”. The healer frowned “ yes, but we are going to have problems. The Orebreakers are fine but the prisoners are showing signs of major fatigue, some low level exposure and one has a really nasty infection.” she lowered her voice “ I asked around, we only have enough potions to keep the infection at bay for maybe 3 days without the right potions or more powerful healer.”
She looked over at me “Sorry I’m Kiara a Class 3 combat healer on detachment from the Royal Medical Corps”. I introduced myself then asked “ what kind of potions do you have? I might be able to help.” She pulled a vial of red liquid like the mine but duller out of a pouch on her hip. “ We only have common health potions for stabilizing injuries, not any cure disease potions unfortunately.” I remembered the medical room and realized it was probably full of different types of potions. I pulled one of the ones I had in the shoulder bag out “what about this one?”
Kiara took it, looked at it confused for a moment then mumbled under her breath a green glow lit up around the vial. “ Interesting, this is a high quality healing potion mixed with a water purification potion, despite being mixed it still seems more effective then what we are issued.”
I finally realized that all those potions in the medical room were probably made from this world using machine precision and exact measurements from our world to increase the quality. Toalson had asked Kiara a question then looked at me “ I can authorize seven gold for that vial if you're willing to let us use it, Kiara thinks it will be enough to get Hendersons hand functional again.” I nodded thinking about the shelf full of those in the medical room and realizing just how much wealth was in there. “ That is alright with me.” Toalson nodded. “ Good, now I just need to find a way to keep everyone warm and dry during our trip. My men have camping supplies but I don't have enough for the civilians, or food.” not like these guys can just drive to walmart I thought to myself then stopped.
“ I can help with that. I think it would take me about two hours, maybe a little more and I may be able to help with the potions but there's a small problem. The potions are close by but I have a lot of private things between here and there and I don’t know which ones I have.” Kiara looked at Toalson who hesitated for a moment before nodding “ I offer a Healer's Oath to respect your privacy” I looked back and forth between the two “ what does that mean?” Kiara explained it to me, the healer's oath was something like doctor patient confidentiality backed up magically, it was an oath sworn on the healers magical power that prevented the healer from revealing the patients personal information, it had a few loopholes built in such as if the information could help save another life, violent crimes etc. basically it boiled down to a smuggler or thief was safe to go see a public healer where a street tuff running a protection racket would have no such protections and need to find private healer.
I had no way to verify if it was true but I chose to believe them and called Igni. I led Kiara to the hatch and opened it up. Turning on the flashlight I led us to the small armory door. I opened the door and we stepped inside. “Oh my this is, these weapons and this armor this is incredible no wonder you were nervous of others seeing this! The magic armor here alone is worth a fortune.” I looked at her while unloading the rifle and hanging it up, and taking off my plate carrier I did decide to holster my pistol on my hip. “Magic armor, really what does it do?” she looked at me as if it was weird I didn’t know what my own armor did, which made since. “ I don’t know you would have to ask an enchanter” I nodded. That made a certain amount of sense.
We left the armory and went over to the medical room and opened it up, turning on the lights Kiara had seemed only minorly interested in, making me think they had a similar system available. Kiara seemed in awe of the stockpile of potions and medicines “ I will be honest I have no Idea what any of this is or what it does, so how about a deal you can take whatever you need for half its value you if you tell me what this stuff is and how much its worth on average.” We agreed and she quickly got to work.
We got to work Kiara knew most of the potions off hand. My handwriting was terrible but I took down the names, a quick description of what they did and an estimated price from an established town. Kiara took two cure disease potions, one greater healing potion she explained she could use half to heal the last injured soldier and dilute the other half to distribute between the others to clear up some minor injuries. As an extra thank you I gave her two more over her protest apparently greater health potions normally required years of training to make and were worth 30 gold two months pay for her position.
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“ Look, I know you will use them to help the soldiers and civilians out there if it makes you too uncomfortable to accept them as a personal gift, how about as a donation to the Royal Healing Corps?” For some reason this immediately resolved her hesitation. I felt like I had just dodged some odd cultural bullet. I led her back out of the complex and back to ruins. A quick word to Toalson and she ran off towards the civilians. “ Thank you again Jack, you're doing so much for us without a quest or anything.” I shrugged “ hey I live here and it's important to help your neighbors. Besides, you're paying me back so it's not a big deal.” Toalson and I chatted for a few minutes while I made sure Kiara wasn’t going to need anything else before I left.
Eventually she rejoined us “ thank you again Sir Mikelson the Potions should hold everyone over until we can get to the fort” Toalson looked at me with surprise, catching the honorific that Kiara had added. “ Just Jack is still fine, mage lieutenant. I will take my leave now to go gather those supplies for your people.” Toalson nodded and glanced back and forth between me and Kiara before seeming to decide it was none of his business.
Igni and I returned back to the cabin. I grabbed my keys and wallet and headed out to the car. Igni hopped into the car and I turned the vehicle around and we headed down the driveway. “ We will need to go to Omak for this Igni” I checked the clock and it was about four in the afternoon. I only had about five hundred dollars in my bank account between camping supplies and food. It was going to be tight.
I spent the next twenty minutes trying to plan out the budgeting when I saw a billboard on the side of the road for a Sal’s Pawnshop. Normally I would completely Ignore something like that but there was some text on the sign that caught my attention. “Cash for scrap gold in under an hour” I read out loud to Igni remembering the coins that Toalson had given me. I pulled over into a nearby parking lot and put the address into the mapping program.
I pulled into the parking lot and got out. Igni gave me a puppy dog look and I looked back and forth trying to decide if she was allowed to come in. I decided for the first visit I had better not. “Sorry Igni, I'm not sure if you're allowed in here.” Igni sat down with what I swear was a huff, I chuckled to myself and walked into the store.
A bell rang as I walked into the store, the older man behind the counter called out “ hello welcome to Sal’s Pawnshop and yes my name is actually Sal how can I help you today?” I walked over to the counter. “Hello Sal I’m Jack and I got an odd one for you.” Sal smiled “ no worries son I get a lot of odd around here what do you have?” I grabbed the coin bag from my pocket and pulled out three of the coins and made up a believable story “ I just inherited my grandfather's place up in Concuanlly he was into a lot of old timey stuff like forging and what not. He left behind a few gold coins he seems to have made in the style similar to the old British coins. I don’t know if its real gold or not but I only see the need to keep one as a memento and I brought a few with me to see if they are worth anything.” I handed him one of the coins.
Sal frowned “ if these are really only privately made even if they are real gold I can only give you the scrap value you know that right?” when I nodded he continued “ and because I’ve had angry customers come back before you are aware I will have to offer less then those online brokers? The only advantage is I can pay today in cash.” this time I responded with more words. “ yeah I know I need to go make some big camping purchases today before I leave town for a few days so I can’t really wait for those online guys.” Sal nodded. “ Ok then let's test it. The quickest and most conclusive three tests are magnetic, weight and density, and acid lets start with a magnetic.” Sal pulled out a magnet and ran it over the coin, nothing happened. “ good ok next if you're ok with destructive tests I can try the acid test. It's the easiest and most reliable but if it's not full gold it could damage the product.” I agreed and took out two more coins so Sal could test all of the ones I planned to sell him.
He took out some gloves and a bottle from under the counter. After putting the gloves on he took out an eye dropper and with one last nod from me applied a drop to each coin and I held my breath, a few moments past before Sal stood back up “good news that's solid gold right their son!” He cleaned them off real quick then got out a scale. “ Hmmm, slightly heavier than a troy ounce but not by much.” He pulled out a calculator and did some math then checked his computer. “ gold is 2558.80 today by the ounce, as I said I can't offer you as much as the online places I normally do 60% but with your coins slightly larger size I’ll do 62% and round it to three ounces so for the three so that's .” he paused typing some stuff in “ 4605. 84 I hate small changes so lets say 4606?” I nodded slowly, that was as much as I made in two months of work. I could kill one hobgoblin a month and still make a profit, an Idea began to take root in my mind. I shook hands with Sal and he took the coins to the back and brought me out a brown paper bag. “ 46 hundreds a five and a one sir, thanks for coming in.” I thanked him and staggered back to my car, I gave my head a quick shake to focus. I still had things to get done before I could focus on the windfall I had coming my way.