"Deal?" Phelps squinted at me with the world's squintiest eyes. "Did I miss some offer in all that blathering?"

At least he wasn't as stupid as he looked. Or was he? "Yep. Sorry. I forget that sometimes I say things in my head without saying them aloud."

Phelps stared at me. I batted my eyes back at him.

He didn't seem phased. "Well?"

So much for my high Charisma skill. "Oh! Right. The offer. Yes, sorry. So, my grandfather's dying wish was that he wanted me to own this exact building. It's where, ah..." I looked around, frowning. In for a penny, in for a pound. "He grew up."

"In my building?"

"Yep. Many a moon ago."

The landlord laughed thinly. "I just built this place 'bout five years ago."

I bit my tongue. If this place was built five years ago, I was my own grandfather. This building had seen as many sunrises as I did, and maybe even a few more dozen.

It had also seen a lot of shit. Like, maybe not figuratively, but this was definitely one of those places that fit the 'if walls could talk' phrase. I was actually super curious what they would say. Maybe someone got murdered here. Was I okay with owning the murder restaurant?

"Look now, Mister Emerson -"

"Sorry, sorry. Still just Harper."

"Right you are. But ain't believing for one minute that your grandfather is dead. Nor do I think he done grown up in this building. What I do know is that your fancy little stories ain't gonna work on me." Phelps literally grabbed his pants by the waistband and hoisted them up as he spoke. I'd never seen a real person do that. It was... disturbing. I wished he never did it again. "Now the price per month for this building is 20 gold. Take it or leave it."

If I'd have had a drink, I would have done a spit take.

Economics aren't my thing. Maybe that was why I'd gotten into my previously mentioned load of debt. But I knew a deal when I saw it, or knew when I was being swindled.

In Kinon, the big city about six leagues to the north that I'd, mm, 'escaped from' (no, I didn't sneak out under the cover of darkness, who told you that?), 20 gold a month could get you a two bedroom house, a courtesan at least once a week, and mostly enough food to eat twice a day. Maybe only once, if you wanted something a little nicer. Or some booze to wash it all down with. I'd completed many quests in my life that were worth well less than 20 gold and most of them had risked bodyparts.

What the hell kind of backwoods bullshit was this?

"Do you have other buyers lined up, Mister Phelps?"

He glared at me, as if I were asking some sort of trick question. So of course I played into it. I smiled eerily, and tipped him a wink.

"Why yes I do."

"I think you're bullshitting me, Mister Phelps."

"It don't matter if I am or if I ain't. Twenty gold pieces a month is the offer, and that's either what you're gonna give me, or you can go back to wherever it is you came from and find something there."

He was decidedly uglier when he was angry, but I didn't tell him that. Things were already going way the wrong way here. "I believe we got off on the wrong foot, Mister Phelps..."

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"Pah. There was no right foot to start on. I know yer type, alright. Here I am, running myself a legitimate business, and some adventurer comes a calling looking for the same accommodations he gets in the bigger cities. Well we don't accommodate nothing here. We don't have thousands of gold pouring into our lives each day, making things easier. We've gotta supply our own and make our way. Things get more expensive out here. If you wanna be here, you gotta adjust your expectations."

I waited for a long moment after he stopped speaking. He was breathing really heavy. I hoped his heart wasn't going to explode. Or, maybe I did? If he just keeled over right now, could I convince someone he bequeathed me the building before he breathed his last?

But my dreams didn't come true. The color fled from his face after his tirade, and eventually his breathing returned to normal.

"You feel better now?"

"A might bit."

"Good. Now, before you started insulting me, without even knowing if what you were accusing me of was true, I had wanted to make you an offer on this place. Maybe not twenty gold, but still a fair value. But... well... if you've got other offers, and you obviously don't like me so much, perhaps I'll just find another place to look."

Phelps didn't bite. Instead he just shrugged and started walking for the door. "Suit yourself, Mister Emerson."

"Harper."

"Does it matter?"

Shit. He had me there. And while I absolutely thought this was a ripoff, and I couldn't imagine things being so much more expensive so far from the capital, I also couldn't afford to let this go. If I had to walk to another town I would die.

"Fine. Twenty gold a month."

He stopped, halfway to the door, but he didn't turn around. "Money is due upfront."

Shit.

I don't know why, but I was hoping he'd let me get a month under my belt first. Be able to make a name for myself, get the restaurant up and running. Because otherwise...

"Fine," I said, even though I didn't know how the hell I was going to pay for it. "I'll need a day, however."

"And the building might be here when ya return. As you said, I got other offers and I don't put holds on good paying Mystic Falls folks for some out-of-town adventurer who's just gonna slip off into the night when things don't go his way."

Did I have 'debt evader' tattooed across my forehead? Was there some debuff I couldn't see? I would have asked, but Phelps would have known he was right, if there wasn't. And I really didn't want to give this asshole any satisfaction for being right.

When I didn't say anything in return, Phelps tossed me a little wave over his shoulder and left the building.

Out of curiosity, I opened the building's menu. It was all grayed out with a "you don't have ownership rights for this property" in diagonal text, just like I'd expected. Phelps wasn't going to give an inch.

"Well, shit," I said a loud. How the hell was I going to get this done now?

"That didn't go exactly great," a small voice said from my collar. Mel emerged, looking as perfect as ever, even though she'd been crouching under cloth for the last twenty or so odd minutes. Not a strand of her golden hair was out of place, and she looked well rested.

I wondered if she got any sleep or if she just listened to me catastrophically fail that entire encounter.

"Yeah, well, he's an ass."

"And a swindler. What smells so bad?"

"I think it might be me."

The little pixie laughed. "Don't get me wrong - you smell like absolute ass. But I think it's something in here." She flitted around on tiny golden wings, and then returned back to me to hover a few inches away from my face. Just close enough that I had to go cross eyed to look at her. "We could do better than this."

"Mel, I'm broke. Hell, I'm beyond broke. I don't think we can do better. It just goes downhill from here."

"Alright then, smart guy, how are you going to pay 20 gold up front?"

I looked away from her. Both because I didn't want to face her building anger, and because I didn't want her to see what I did next.

I opened my inventory.

Not much stared back at me. A few lumps of some sort of bark I'd foraged that hadn't been the worst thing to eat. A bedroll that was more patches than padding.

And a set of gleaming armor, a beautifully made sword, and a buckler that had saved my ass more times than I could count.

Duncan might have been a lot of things (most of them being an asshole) but he supplied his little peons well.

In Kinon, this whole get up set me back a few hundred gold, and just put me more in debt to Duncan than I was already. But out here? If the economy was such shit that I could get this tiny little place for 20 gold a month, it was bound to get me something good. As long as I had a buyer.

"I think I have an idea," I finally said aloud, closing my inventory and turning back to Mel. "But you aren't going to like it."