Mary's PoV

Mary loved her job, she could do most of it from the comfort of her own home. She was in charge of handling all correspondence out of Mr. Montgomery's email account. Overall it was a very simple job.

Each email was to be examined and if it met a certain criteria it was either to be forwarded to someone else, printed and then sent by mail, or printed and then hand delivered to Mr. Montgomery himself. That last bit was the only time she actually had to leave her house, and Mr. Montgomery followed a strict schedule and usually didn't want his correspondence till around noon.

After finishing with the bulk of her job she moved on to the unpleasant part. The junk mail. Her job required her to examine the contents of every email, which unfortunately included the junk mail. She sighed looking at the dozen or so emails.

Just as usual about half were 'male enhancement' ads and adult websites, and the rest were a mixed bag. Mary efficiently went through them, verified the contents did not meet her criteria and deleted them.

Mary started going through the rest of them and deleting them one by one. That is until she came to the second to last one. Opening it she found no flashy pictures or colorful text. The title simply read "New Wonder Drug!"

She rolled her eyes at the title and scanned over the contents. It promised the ability to cure almost anything. Obviously a hoax. Unfortunately it met one of the criterias. Any new drugs that could cure a particular set of ailments were to be sent to another email. She tagged the email the lowest priority code and sent it on its way.

After opening and deleting the final email she started formatting the computer. Even using an antivirus something could always get through, so she was told to format and reinstall the operating system after every email session. It also significantly decreased the risk factor of someone breaking into the valuable email address. Still, it was an easy job. With two different stacks of papers she made her way to her car.

Mary was a bit sad to see that everyday Mr. Montgomery got a little worse. How much longer would she have this job? She liked the old man, he was firm but he treated everyone with respect. Looking sadly back at her house, she wondered if she would be able to afford it if Mr. Montgomery died. Mary pulled out of her driveway and started her favorite part of the day. It was coffee time!

***

John's PoV

John was a research specialist who had been employed to check the validity of claims made by drug companies. He found it surprising how many companies tried to fudge their results, but he knew all of the tricks.

All of them wanted more research money but he was the gate guard. So he would request results of their current trials, and then proceed to call them back an hour later pointing out half a dozen points that would skew the data so much so as to be called useless.

He was even beginning to develop a reputation. A couple times doctors would call only to be surprised when he told them his name. Then invariably excuses were made and they would hang up. John liked those, they were quick.

John moved to the final email which was tagged the lowest priority code. He laughed, looks like another kindred soul with the same marching orders. The email was obviously bogus but he still had to follow up on it. He could have just sent a reply email, but there was a phone number on there as well.

He found the strategy of calling these types of emails more effective. When they didn't answer the phone he would just leave a vague voice message. The ball would be back in their court and he could tag the job as finished. It wasn't full proof but worked a hell of a lot better than emails. They almost always responded back to emails.

Calling up the phone number he was surprised that it actually was picked up. Clearing his throat he said "My name is John. I am calling back to you about an email concerning a wonder drug. Am I talking to the right person?"

After he asked the question the person on the other end of the line cheered and said "I am a genius! Not even a day and it worked!"

Annoyed John said "So I take it this is the right person?"

The man answered "Yea, this is the right guy. Name is Jim!"

John said "Tell me about your drug."

He responded "Sure thing. So far the tests that I have done show that it can regrow lost limbs and cure blindness, and it should cure just about anything else."

Sighing, John said "Could you email me your research data?"

Answering, the man said "Uhh. Research data? Don't really have much of that. If you want I can cut off my finger again and video it this time."

John massaged his temples. He already knew what he would see if he asked for the video. It would just be some movie magic bull showing a finger missing and then reappearing. Man he really wanted to blow the guy off but the terms of his contract were very clear.

Look into any leads. He was fairly sure most of them were audits to make sure he was doing his job. The super wealthy worked in weird ways.

How many crazy quacks had he visited over the last year? Looks like he would have to chalk up another one. John asked "Where are you located? Maybe I can view your experiment in person."

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Jim responded with an address that was only a couple hours away. Nice. He wouldn't have to get a plane ticket this time. John responded back saying "Are you available this afternoon?"

He was hoping the promptness would throw the fellow off, but he didn't skip a beet and said "Sure thing! See you then!"

John hung up and he had a real headache. He took some aspirin out and got it down with a glass of water. Looks like he had an appointment to keep.

***

Jim's PoV

Jim was doing a mental happy dance! He was a genius! Not even 24 hours after putting out the email, he had a bite! In hindsight maybe he should have asked for a little more information about who John worked for. Didn't matter, he would be here in a couple hours anyway. The luck was with him today!

If this venture was successful he wondered if he could market all the other restorative potions in his inventory. Remedy Potions cured all status effects, combined with any grade of Healing Potion and they would probably perform rather similarly to Elixirs.

After all, medicine was not like turn based combat. And better yet, there were many potion vendors that sold Remedy Potions as normal stock unlike the ultra rare Elixir. If things turned out well, maybe he should try to hire a Potion Maker? It sounded like easy money.

Jim stretched leisurely as he had the best night's sleep in awhile. Things were looking up! It was nice being home instead of hiding in some crappy hotel. His phone was ringing and he looked down and saw it was Charlotte. Picking up he asked "What's up?"

Charlotte said "Before I go on this wild goose chase of trying to sell all this silver, could you tell me where it is? If I'm going to try to sell something, I need to know where it is."

Jim asked "Where do you want it to be?"

"Seriously, Jim?"

"Super Serious!"

Sighing Charlotte said "I have an empty storage unit with a combination lock on it. I was planning on selling my house once I got demoted. I'll text you the location and combination for the lock. Give me a call back when it is there."

Jim still had a couple hours and the storage place wasn't that far away, so he figured he could knock that out before John came.

Jim ended the call saying "Thanks Charlotte!"

He wasn't sure if it was his imagination but she might have been trying to say something back to him. Oh well, he would call her back in less than an hour.

On his way to the storage unit he got the life-giving liquid named coffee. Delicious.

Arriving not too much later he popped the lock off of the unit and walked inside. Without much thought he went over to the furthest corner from the door and then dragged and dropped all of his gil in silver in the corner.

Just like the last time the first coin appeared in his hand, then as he moved away the second coin appeared in the previous location of his hand. Then a third fell and a fourth. Jim slowly backed away as coin after coin clinked on the ground.

At first there was a trickle of coins coming from the point. And then the trickle turned into a stream. And finally it turned into a flood. Jim was almost too late when he started running towards the door and slammed it closed.

Popping the lock back on the door he took a seat on the opposite hall while his legs trembled. He gulped as he felt the vibrations in the ground and heard the clinking of coins on the other side of the door.

It took ten minutes before the sounds stopped. Jim looked through the seam where the door met the frame and saw that the room was almost fully filled. He gulped. He was almost a casualty of "Death by Silver."

Looking at his watch he had an hour to get back to his house. He sent Charlotte a text that the silver was in the storage unit and went back home.

***

John's PoV

He pulled up to the house exactly at noon. John checked his phone and verified that this was the correct address. Getting out of his car he was about to knock on the door when it opened.

John blinked. The man was built. Normally he felt fairly confident in his hand to hand skills but he patted his pistol on his center back holster reassuringly. The man who he could only assume was Jim said with a bright smile, "Welcome to my house! Do you want me to cut off my finger or yours?"

"Huh?"

Jim said "For the experiment. Unless you have any aches or pains? Should work on that too, but if you want a show we can always cut off a finger or two."

The man was nuts. John got the feeling that if he didn't change the conversation the man would pull a knife and come after him. After all he did say cut. Interrupting he said "How about we dispense with the cutting. You take a dose, and if you don't drop dead, I'll take a dose."

Confused the man asked "How is that going to prove that it works? And I really only have a limited supply of these things. There are 88 left and once they're gone, that's it."

John said "Look I just don't want anyone to get hurt. How about we slow this down a bit. Tell me about the drug."

Jim shrugged and showed him his finger. He could clearly see that the skin coloring of the left pinky was different. The man said "I cut this off."

He started wiggling the oddly colored finger and said "And after I took one of those it grew back."

John looked at the sparkling red liquid Jim indicated that was on the counter. It was beautiful but he had a feeling that it was just dyed water with some glitter in it. In the back of his mind he wondered if an auditor would be this nuts. He remembered the tale of his fired predecessor because of a failed audit. John sure as hell didn't want to lose his cushy job like that.

He glanced at his phone and pulled up his contact list for poison control. He had his reasons.

Wanting to be done with this farce he grabbed the red vial the man pointed to and downed it. Jim smiled at him. Still John kept his thumb on the call button for poison control as he focused on his body. After he didn't topple over that very second Jim asked, "How are you feeling?"

John was about to respond but his mouth felt funny. The liquid went down smooth but for some reason it felt like he had little pebbles in his mouth. Discreetly he turned around and spit into his hand, only to be confounded by what he saw. Looking into his palm he saw his fake tooth along with about a dozen fillings were in his hand.

The man watched him and then commented "Wow! It even does dental work too! That's great!"

Confused, John used his tongue to probe his teeth to find they were all there. The places where the fillings should be were filled in, and the final proof was his shiney new tooth. Jim helpfully pointed him to a bathroom and he used the mirror to examine the tooth. It was really bright white compared to his other discolored teeth.

Turning back to Jim he said "What have you done?"

Jim shrugged and said "Told you, it heals just about anything. So can we talk money? I really need about 40 million dollars."

40 million? He would have called the man nuts if he was not looking at the debris in his hands. Was it some kind of trick? He would have to visit his dentist. In a daze he handed Jim his card and walked back to his car.

As he was leaving Jim yelled "Low low price of 40 million dollars! Really, I need the money!"

John shook his head. If he confirmed the results, he might actually get it.