Joanna caught me in the parking lot as I was leaving work on Friday. "OK, I've been thinking things over," she said, looking a bit nervous, but not quite as nervous as I felt, because I'd been thinking things over too and wondered what would happen if she and I ended up reaching two different conclusions.

"Yeah?"

"Aaaaand..." she hesitated, squirming a little, before rapidly blurting out, "Ithinkitsprobablynotthebestidearightnow."

I let out a deep sigh. "...I agree."

"You do?"

"Don't get me wrong. I like you, and I'm here for you when you need me. But right now my life is kind of crazy-complicated and this would be one more thing. Plus, I'm just recently coming off a rough breakup, things are kind of raw emotionally, and you deserve better than to be my rebound."

She nodded. "Thanks. Hey, bond me your phone?" she asked, pulling hers out. I held mine up, and we exchanged contact info. "Just in case I need someone to play Chanaq'era Street with sometime. See you tomorrow!" And she got in her car and drove off.

Tomorrow. Back to the dungeon that started all this mess. Yeah, just what I was looking forward to.

Thankfully, that part ended up not happening. I woke up to an æmail from Torrin apologizing for the late notice, but he had just heard from the Guild that the dungeon was still closed for maintenance, so no delve today. So I again found myself with a day full of unexpected free time.

After giving it a bit of thought, I decided to head back to House Kametan Jewelers and accept their offer. I had looked over the paperwork and didn't see anything that looked terrible, or that looked too arcane to understand without a lawyer for that matter, and I didn't really need to shop the competition when I was already being quoted far more cash than I ever expected I'd get for the gems. And honestly, my main goal was to get this over with, not to squeeze every last silver I possibly could out of it.

I called them up and made an appointment to meet with Doubrakan Gibson in an hour, then gathered the gems and the paperwork and drove over. The dwarf walked me back to his office, looking delighted to see me. "Mr. Webb, back so soon! With good news, I presume?"

I smiled at him as I took a seat. "I'd like to take you up on your offer. But first..." I handed him the ruby. "Here's the other one. What can you tell me about it?"

He spent a few minutes looking it over, as thoroughly as he had the sapphire, then looked over at me and nodded. "Water-aspected as well. Sell these two together, as a set, and you'd gross four million easily. Possibly as high as fifteen."

I nodded. "How confident are you that you could find a buyer and broker the sale?"

Gibson chuckled. "There are always buyers. Our lawyers won't let me formally guarantee you a minimum of four million, but I would if I could, you have my word on that."

"And how long do you expect the process to take?"

He held up both hands, cupped, in a "balance scale" gesture. "How strongly do you value getting the best price versus cashing out quickly?"

"Good question. Walk me through the tradeoffs?"

"Well, it's quite possible I could find an interested purchaser within a week, but I wouldn't bet on it. Within a month, I'm confident I could get one or two. Might not get the best offer from them, though. Give me three months and I can have a dozen interested parties bidding on it, driving the price up. Seven months from now, we have a highly exclusive House Kametan auction coming up, and these stones could be listed as a lot there. I expect at least a hundred elite members of the antiquities community to be in attendance, from all across the world. Your best bet at getting the maximal price lies with the auction, but I can understand if that's a long wait for you."

I nodded. "You have a valid point there; I'm not exactly a deep-pocketed member of high society myself. Which makes me wonder—"

"You want an advance."

I chuckled. "You've dealt with this before, huh?"

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

"Told you last time, your situation isn't quite as unique as you think. Do you have an amount in mind?"

Should I? "You're the appraiser. And apparently the authorized agent of House Kametan."

"This is true," was all he said.

I thought about it for a moment. "You said this is all-but-guaranteed to bring in four million. How about... ten percent of that?" Can't go wrong with a nice round number, right?

He nodded. "That sounds reasonable. May I ask what you intend to do with it?"

"Why?"

Gibson gave me a little smile. "If you're unused to dealing with matters of finance, there may be nuances you're unaware of. I can offer some free advice, if I know what advice to give."

"Fair enough. Got some debts to pay off, and then, probably buy a house."

"You looking at that advance as the house, or as the down payment?"

"I haven't researched the local real-estate scene yet. I'm relatively new in town, but I've definitely heard that housing prices in Chitothia are pretty high."

"You're not wrong there, lad," he said.

"So... let's say I wanted to really live it up. Not saying I do, but hypothetically, if I want a mansion, what are the nuances?"

"You look at anything even remotely high-end, just a down payment won't be enough, no matter how good of a payment it may be. The bankers will want all manner of evidence to satisfy them that you can come up with the rest of it."

"Which I can't. Yet."

"Right. And unless I thoroughly miss my guess, your income is decent but not nearly what they'd be looking for to fulfill a mortgage of that size?"

I just nodded.

"If that's really what you're after, I could draft up a letter. Basic stuff. To whom it may concern, House Kametan is acting as Mr. Webb's agent in selling valuable property, we estimate with the highest confidence that he will have blah blah blah liquidity by such-and-such a date. Signed, bonded, notarized, very official. This does, of course, diminish to some extent the anonymity you said you value."

"All right. And if I'm looking for something more modest? Let's go to the other extreme. I'm single, not looking to change that anytime soon. I don't really need a lot of house; I just want to not throw a bunch of rent money into a sphere of annihilation every month."

"Well, depending on your debts, you may or may not have enough left over to buy a place outright. I'm not a real estate agent. But you'd definitely have enough to put a good dent in the price if nothing else, and your salary should cover what's left without any need for further assurances from us.

"Either way, the single most important piece of advice I can give you is the old cliché, don't spend it all in one place. You're about to become independently wealthy, lad. Do some research online about the pitfalls that come with that, why lottery winners so commonly end up destitute, and so on. Talk with a professional accountant or financial adviser; they'll have far more experience in these things than I do."

I nodded. "Thanks. Didn't expect this level of concern for my overall well-being."

"Is it really that surprising? You go bankrupt, we never see you again. But if we help you out a bit, treat you well, earn your trust... let's just say a young man with your sort of luck is exactly the type of person we'd love to have as a loyal repeat customer!"

That earned a laugh from me. "Makes sense I guess."

He pulled out a rune tablet and started drafting up a new agreement. "All right. Standard selling-agent contract. Items in question, these two stones. Advance of 400,000 crowns. Timeline?"

"Not sure. I like the 3-month option. I also like the auction idea but I'm not really sold on it yet. Can you make it flexible and give me some time to think that choice over?"

"Not too long, lad; once we start soliciting bidders, and particularly if we actually receive a bid, it reflects poorly on us if we pull that out from under them and send it to the auction instead. But I could give you a week."

"All right, let's do that."

He nodded. "Three-month solicitation of buyers, to be put into effect one week from today, with the option for you to freely specify otherwise during that week. And here you are." He scribed off a copy of the contract and handed it to me. "Feel free to look it over."

I pulled out my copy of the original and cast Difference, and it highlighted for me that other than the details he had mentioned in personalizing this contract, the two were identical. "Looks good to me. What's the procedure here? Do I just sign and you sign and that's it, or...?"

He shook his head. "We take it to Legal to sign in front of our notary. I draft that banker's letter for you, if you want it. Then we go to the vault to stash the stones, to Finance to cut you the advance check, and then you're a free man."

They had a vault? That probably shouldn't have surprised me, I guess. "Sounds good." Mr. Gibson hadn't done anything so far that struck me as sleazy or dishonorable, so I let him lead me from one part of the jeweler's back-office area to another, filling out forms here and there, and within twenty minutes we were done.

"Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Webb," Doubrakan Gibson said as he shook my hand.

"Likewise," I said. I was a bit surprised to realize that it was actually true. Dealing with him had been very straightforward and reasonable when it could easily have been otherwise, and I appreciated that.

I wonder, if he'd had any inkling how much crap their association with me would end up dragging House Kametan through, if he'd still have signed that contract. But I was as blissfully unaware of future events as anyone else as I made my way out to the parking lot.

"Hey! HEY! BRAD!" Just as I was about to get in my car, I looked up as someone called out to me from across the street.

Looking over, I saw a half-elven woman smiling brightly and waving at me. My heart both fluttered and wrenched at the same time. I really had no idea how to feel.

What in the Abyss was Vivian doing here?