The palace was beautiful: paintings, statues, luxury carpets, you name it. The royal gala was happening at the Grand Hall, it was spacious enough to host all of the nobles and important people, and it even had space for buffet tables. The tables were so full of food and drinks that it looked like something might break.

Some people were gossiping, some people were dancing, others just eating. King of Spiders was doing none of that, he was busy trying to sway Vumbeldor to buy his other wares, actually the two weren’t even in the Grand Hall, but outside in the garden. A red armour, a mixture of cloth and metal, adorned a straw dummy.

“This one is fire resistant. A simple Fire spell, won’t even put a mark on it.” He took a scroll out and invoked the spell. “[Fire Arrow]”

The fiery projectile flew, hit the chest piece and simply dispersed into motes of light.

Vumbeldor nodded, and the apprentices following the magus began clapping.

“And this one is ice resistant. [Ice Arrow]” The scroll burned in blue flames projecting another projectile. Much the same, it didn’t leave a mark on the armour.

The apprentices clapped again.

“Can I?” Vumbeldor inquired.

“Help yourself.” He was confident in the merchandise.

“[Fire Blast]” The armour was doused in the shower of flames. “Oh, it didn’t melt.”

“Nope. Reinforced +2.”

“Well, then. [Fire Rend]” The mage increased the difficulty.

The armour plates glowed hot and the cloth looked crispy, but the armour weathered the assault.

“Okay, now I’m impressed. [Phoenix: Greater]” It was a type of summoning magic. A large bird composed of fire manifested in front of the mage and then slammed its corporeal body into the armour. Vumbeldor’s forehead was wet from sweat, it wasn’t because of the heat from the fires, but the strain from the spell. “Ah, finally. Good!” He said with relief looking at the smouldering pile of molten metal and disintegrated cloth.

The apprentices clapped.

“I assume, the other one is just as good?” Vumbeldor looked at the blue armour.

It wasn’t. He didn’t have any Ice Spirit Stones, nor Ice Attribute cloth.

“It’s good enough. So interested in buying the sets?” He asked with hope.

“Only if you’re selling a countermeasure in easily destroying them. To use Phoenix is excessive, most can’t cast anything near this complicated.” Vumbeldor looked at his apprentices, the bunch had apologetic faces.

“Countermeasure, why? I guess those are elemental armours so a standard ballista bolt should do the job.”

“Ha, there is no armour unpenetrable by that! I need a trick to destroy armours like these, that’s what I’m really interested.”

So did he want the armour or the magic to destroy them? – That was something for the King of Spiders to figure out.

“The solution is quite simple, we attack the weakness.” He motioned for the spider to prepare a new set. “This is a frost grenade,” he threw it to apply Frozen on the armour. “Hit it.” He asked the spider to slam the armour hard. The chest piece shattered in half, exposing the red cloth.

He just exposed the vulnerability, and in other words, made his own product less appealing. However, as an honest merchant, he thought that his customer had the right to know it, after all someone will be wearing this for their protection.

“That’s great! Exactly what I was looking for. If you sell the countermeasure with the armour we’ll buy them.”

“Really? Alright!” The need for countermeasure was odd, but whatever. “And for the frost armour.” He took out a fire grenade. “Well, the armour has some inbuilt magic resistance, Fire Arrow wouldn’t be enough. So we have to use this.” He threw a grenade at the armour.

The armour more or less survived, but the straw dummy burned to a crisp.

“Oh!” The Vumbeldor sounded mighty impressed. “Forget the frost armour, I want those grenades.”

It only took him a second to realise that he didn’t want to sell the fire grenades. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what that sticky oil and scorching heat would do to a human – the weapon was just too nasty. “No can do, fire grenades are not for sale, that was just an example.” And he rather would keep powerful weapons to himself.

“A shame, but I understand. I won’t need frost armours, there aren’t that many ice magi around anyway. So how about a hundred sets of fire armour, plus a thousand grenades.”

“A hundred? I’m not dropping the price any less…” He knew the armours were exquisite, superior design and all that, so he had no plans to sell them any cheaper.

“That’s fine, the Covenant will pay. Unlike the Kingdom our coffers are full.” Vumbeldor boasted with a nasty grin.

That was an obscene amount of money, those were enchanted so each set was already 10 000g each. A hundred of them would be 1 000 000g; that’s a lot of gold! That would make him a millionaire.

“Why the long face? Do you need to see our secret treasury or something? Worry not, it will be the coin we pay you.” Vumbeldor assured knowing that some would stoop low to offer payment in hard-to-liquidate assets such as land or horses, or even promissory shipment of grain.

“No, I just... I don’t have a hundred sets on me here.” Nor a thousand grenades.

“I’m sure you’ll be able to deliver.”

That he will. “Sure, with the next shipment of TomGrape?”

“Yes, that works for us.” Vumbeldor raised his arm for a shake.

He took and shook it. “Pleasure doing business.”

“The pleasure is all mine.” Vumbeldor shook the hand firmly. “Now, excuse me, I’m off to my tower.” He took the apprentices and disappeared in one of the exits.

He didn’t like that conspiratory look on the old man’s face, it just didn't fit him. But what was the Covenant plotting? Well, obviously to use the armour to wage war. Did he care? No, not really, but he cared enough not to sell fire grenades to them.

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With the shady black room dealings done, he was back in the Grand Hall.

The Lamia Queen was doing her part, or he assumed she was. The lamia was completely surrounded by a group of young men. The alchemists had a strong grasp on the market, and competing with them was tough. Her job was to try and push the mana potions to the merchants. That was the condition if she wanted to come with him, and learning the human language; which she did at an amazing speed.

“And this is-sss the fruit we make the potions-sss out of, sss.” She displayed PurpleM in her hand.

The young men ‘Oh’-ed and ‘Ah’ed for some reason, as if impressed. Those weren’t the merchants! – he observed. The fat merchants were already done devouring half of the food by the buffet tables. The group of men ogling at the Lamia were just deadbeat nobles!

Sure, from the very start, the Lamia Queen received a very warm welcome here. It was surprising because she was from a monster race, so he expected prejudice and all that, but that just hasn’t happened. A good thing really, but somehow he was becoming jealous, he didn’t like the looks these men were giving to his wife.

He approached the group, glaring at the obviously enamoured nobles.

“What is it again?” A noble stared at the stone bottle dumbly.

“I told you, sss, a magic potion.”

The man scratched his head, clearly out of his element. “I’ll buy them.”

“Really. Sss!” She hissed happily.

“Yeah, sure, I’m rich, this is nothing.”

“My family is wealthier, I’ll buy them at a better price!” Another offered trying to impress.

A sweaty youth came back with his father. “Father!” The young man was barely a man and the father was practically all wrinkles.

“Okay, okay.” Father spoke slowly. “Miss, we’ll buy an entire stock!”

“But you’ll have to come for dinner with me and finalise the deal.” The youth interjected.

“She’s MARRIED!” The King of Spiders had to remind everyone by projecting the full Authority of the King.

The old man glared at his son. “I apologise for this embarrassment.” He bowed and then slapped the youth on the back of the head.

Following this ‘reminder’ a few other nobles decided to make themselves scarce. But others remained persistent, feigning their continued interest in potions.

“SSS!” Lamia hissed. “I had this. Let me do it.” She spoke in her native speech.

“Fine, I’ll let you deal with it.” He knew that this was just needless jealousy getting to him, and the lamia could use a life lesson.

The nobles continued to outbid each other to flex their wealth. Well, as long as the potions sell it should be alright. So he left the lamia to do her thing.

Further away, a Human King, Aurelius II, was stuffing himself full of food at a nearby table. The Black Hand Covenant didn’t even try to keep the fact that this was just a puppet from him, the King of Spiders. But the rest of the nobles seemed fooled enough, or they just didn’t care. Anyway, he approached the King to give him his hellos, as King to a King.

“Greetings, King Aurelius II, I see even you enjoy my fruits.”

The fat man was stuffing the dish made out of the TomGrape into his mouth.

“How dare you to disturb the…” Aurelius II gazed away from his ever-emptier platter ever so slightly. “Sorcerer!” He sounded surprised. “My apologies, my mind was preoccupied with important matters of the state.”

“Ah, yes. I’ve heard from the guests that there is a looming famine.” He had just found out today, if he knew before… it doesn't matter now.

“That and other calamities.”

“War?” He guessed.

The King’s eyes filled with shock and fear. “You know?”

“Well, Vumbeldor wasn’t quite discreet if you know what I mean.” Buying all that armour and grenades.

“That old fart!” He stuffed a fat scoop of food in his mouth, swallowed and continued, “Doing dealings behind my back.”

Oops, maybe the King wasn’t supposed to know. Oh well…

“Listen, Sorcerer, how about the do a deal of our own?” Aurelius II stopped eating looking serious for a moment.

“What do you have in mind?” He asked curious.

“You’re an evil magus, he’s an evil magus… How do I become one?”

“Evil? I don’t think you need a hand with that, ha-ha.” He only joked.

“No not that. A magus. Isn’t there a way? I want to increase my power, for obvious reasons. I’ll pay any price. And mind you, I know what I am, and even if in the name only, still I’m the King.” The man spoke fast, too fast making him short on breath and his face red. “And I do have power and resources. You might know of the dust and emptiness in the royal treasury, no doubt that old fart told you about it. But I have plenty, tucked away in a safe place if you know what I mean.” He finished speaking and grabbed the jug full of wine.

For a moment he thought the King might get a stroke.

“Money talk aside, I heard that you must be born a mage.” He looked at the King, and judging from his expression he knew that bit of information too. “But, there are devices, scrolls and other things which could be used by anyone.”

“Like your flying war chariot?”

“That’s a Flying Throne.” He corrected "And, no, that needs continuous mana injection. But scrolls, enchanted arrows, and the like, do not.”

“What use an arrow is to me…”

Yeah, he was right, the chubby King probably didn’t know how to use a bow, or any enchanted weapon.

“Sure, yeah, but you still can fire a scroll, it's quite easy. A demonstration perhaps? I have a few on me.”

“I guess it’s something.”

The two walked back to the garden. King Aurelius II looked at the molten pile of metal and other destruction with interest but didn’t say anything.

“So I have a few.” He began taking out all of the scrolls he and the Drow had made. “Just read the name, aim the spell and that’s it.”

The king took a scroll and turned it around a few times, there was a complicated expression on the chubby face.

“Oh, right. Spider Chirp. It says Dark Bolt.”

The scroll burned and the spell formed. “Wow!” Aurelius II let the burning scroll go.

The wild bolt flew into a tree and withered an innocent squirrel; which was just there watching, and definitely not spying.

Yeah, it was the King of Spiders who unwillingly activated the scroll. This was the drawback of his scrolls, you can’t speak their name next to them or they would activate. Or at least, he couldn’t. Magic worked in mysterious ways!

“Amazing! I’m an evil magus now! Dark spells and all.”

He provided a fresh scroll to Aurelius II. He used it properly this time, even hitting the dummy survivor.

“Another.” The King demanded.

“No problem.” He had loads of them stored in Magical Inventory, by this point, the Drow were practically printing these scrolls.

“So the way it works: the scroll stores the spell and the mana in the enchanted vellum, you speak the spell’s name to invoke it and Bob’s your uncle. No need to be a mage, or have any mana.” He explained. “But you know that already.” It’s not like the scroll-making is some sort of a mystery. “I bet, you can buy better ones from your magical shops, so I’m willing to give you a special King’s discount.” He pushed the deal ahead.

“Bob who? Eh? No, we don’t.” Aurelius stared confused. “Not scrolls like these… Is this Bob the one who makes them?”

Well, Vumbeldor didn’t say a thing when he used these scrolls, so something didn’t add up.

“Forget the Bob. So you don’t have them in shops?” He just had assumed they would.

“That’s clearly a Demonic Language.” Aurelius II pointed at the runes on the scroll. “Why would we.”

“Spider Chirp. That’s a langue of Spiders, my language. But never mind that. So are you interested in buying?”

“Hell, Yeah!” The man shook vigorously, there was this childish excitement on that middle-aged face. “This makes me effectively a dark magus.”

“I have scrolls of other affinities.”

“I’ll buy them all.”

“It will be expensive.”

“I’ll buy them all! Just don’t tell the old fart.” Aurelius repeated.

“I guess… I guess I won’t. If he doesn’t ask that is.”

This was just a side hustle anyway, no need to sabotage anything with the Black Hand. And it's not as if the mage forbade him to do side deals, no, he was here because he was given the privilege to peddle his wares in the Human Kingdom without the Black Hand taking a cut. With some limitations of course, namely Blue Cloth; and he had so much more than simply fabric to trade.

The fat King began stuffing the scrolls under his tunic.

“Wait, let me write you the invocation on these.” How else would he know how to use it otherwise?

“Oh, yeah, right.” The look on Aurelius II face became distant. “He-he, I can already imagine their faces… I’ll smite those fools, he-he.” He was far off in some distant illusionary land.

“You better pay me for these you know.”

“…” The Human King ‘came back’. “Of course, and handsomely so, fear not. You’ll get your coins before you leave.”

“And if you run out of the scrolls just give me a buzz on a communication orb.”

“Yeah, yeah, I have a loyal mage to help me to use it. [Fire Arrow].” He burned a dummy survivor to a crisp.

The palace garden was looking more like a war zone with each passing hour. A shame, but not really his business, so he left the King to enjoy the sparkles of magic, and headed back to the royal gala.

“Ha-ha-ha…[Nature Arrow] He-he-he.” The fat King laughed cheerily throwing spells in wild abandon and destroying the garden.

The Great Hall was still busy with activity, but as the feasting went on certain things were bound to happen. No, it wasn’t about the drunken noble who tripped and smashed the table. Everyone watched a scene unfold and to his shock, the two in the centre of attention were one of his spider bodyguards and a noble knight. He recognised the knight in shiny armour, they have been introduced, he was the Commander of the Ordin of Aurum.

“Fight me you coward!” Commander pushed the spider.

The spider chirped something no one could understand.

“It’s a Duel! Come on!” Commander challenged again.

Instead of reacting in shock, as they should, the nobles were placing bets; Lamia Queen included.