On the way back, they wrote down their observations of the two fractures, as well as summarized the drops, and described the fancier ones.
These lists would be the most important thing in Sam’s negotiations with the man ruling the Silvercrest family.
He even set aside several samples from all the ores and other miscellaneous materials to show the man.
Outside of the Storage Cavern, they were met by a group of guards arrayed around the portly official, who just stood there, wiping sweat off his forehead, while nervously glancing around. As if he was expecting to be jumped any time by angry adventurers.
Sam made sure to reassure him, but after he mentioned that they had delved into the fracture, the guards interrupted their discussion and rushed into the caverns, to confirm the information. The poor official was left out there, surrounded by Sam’s team.
Instead of continuing the conversation, he said a hasty goodbye and rushed after the guards, leaving Sam and his team chuckling as they continued their trek toward Ironwood City.
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Inside the city, they dispersed, with each of them having different things on their to-do list.
Dan was planning on heading to the Mage Tower to talk to the mages who specialized in fire magic for something. He told Sam that he was looking for more potent fire spells. Sam had to bite his lip to prevent immediately telling his friend where to acquire several rather potent ones. ‘Maybe I could nudge things in a way that he will find them…’
Clarissa was also heading back to the Healing Guild, as thanks to her level-up, she was eligible to learn several new spells after some kind of test.
Sam could only nod upon hearing that. Learning new spells in most guilds was not as easy as reaching the required levels. You had to prove to the people there that you were capable of wielding the powers of those spells and skills. This was doubly so for healers, who if miscast something could kill people.
The other Sam wasn’t big on healing, as getting good at healing was much harder than most basic magical arts. Plus, by the time the person whose memories he inherited transitioned into the information business, the guild’s secrets were locked up tighter than a nun’s knickers.
And seeing the power most high-leveled healers held, they kept their mouths shut.
Katie didn’t say what she planned to do, but he saw that she was heading toward the training area of the city, so Sam suspected there would be some training dummies being destroyed in the near future.
Sam did a quick stop at the Auction House, unloading the useless loot, then went by the headquarters where he dumped the rest of the useful loot on Lucy’s secretary, before entering her office.
As always, she was sitting behind her desk, in her immaculate dress, working away at the ludicrous amount of paperwork.
However, before he could greet her, something captured his attention.
On one of the walls was a painting.
A painting showing Lucy, wearing a black and white period-appropriate dress, with one of her ravens sitting on her shoulder, looking demurely at the painter. Basically, she looked like some kind of Poe fangirl.
Sam looked at the painting and then back at Lucy. He simply raised a hand and pointed at the art decorating the wall.
“What is that?”
His administrative-inclined friend looked away bashfully, and a small spattering of rosy color appeared on her face.
“Quest. Don’t even ask…”
“Huh… that’s new…” he spoke out loud inwardly trying to comb through his inherited memories for a quest like that, but in the end, he came up with nothing.
He turned away from the painting and sat down on one of the chairs in front of Lucy’s desk.
“Was it worth it?” he asked absentmindedly as he took out the information gathered about the fractures.
She gave a non-committal shrug. “I got what I wanted…”
“Well, at least there is that,” Sam agreed with her as he handed over a copy of the information. “Not to change the subject. But here is the info we got from the fractures.”
She took the documents and gave them a quick read.
“Katie sent me a rather panicky sorry message…” she asked with a frown. “What was that about?”
Sam just waved his hand. “Nothing much. Turns out there was already a group of people at the second big fracture we found. Their leader was her brother. Then, after we agreed to give the fracture a go together, they decided to kill us before the boss.”
“Were they in a guild?”
“Rich types, so yes.”
“Which one?”
“Steel Lions…” It was hard to miss Lucy’s wince. “What?”
“I went and talked to the workshop you wanted me to recruit.”
“Three Rose Petals?”
“Yes. Them. They got signed by the Steel Lions right before I arrived.”
Sam thought about it for a little while, then he asked a question.
“Do you think the information that you’re going to talk to them leaked?”
Lucy shook her head.
“Nobody had any idea I’d do it.”
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Sam began drumming on the elbow support on his chair while processing the information. Finally, he just shrugged.
“Oh well. Happens…”
Lucy let out a small, relieved sigh.
Sam raised an eyebrow in a questioning manner. “What?”
“I thought you would be angry…” Lucy admitted hesitantly.
“Ehh… More annoyed than angry. They were making really good swords,” Sam answered with a grin. “Plus, I’m pretty sure Katie’s daddy is bankrolling Steel Lions. Her brother probably has to follow his orders.”
Lucy looked into his eyes. “Do you want me to go after them?”
Sam returned the look with a thankful smile. “No need to go that hard. Just make sure they don’t gain too much hold on the area…”
“Mhhmm…” was the response from the woman sitting across from him as she made several notes on a fresh piece of paper.
For the next half a minute, there was silence as both of them stewed in their thoughts. It was finally broken by Sam.
“How are we with the expansion?” he asked, changing the topic. Lucy knew more about economics than him, even with two sets of memories clanging around in his skull.
Lucy gave him a look, then took up a set of documents that seemed to be prepared for this exact question.
“We are almost done in Brightwood. We set up one shopping center and one Heavenly Forest branch. We also reached out and bought buildings that have been unused for a while. One is set to be a theater for rent, while the other is for displaying art. I’m still looking for a person to take over its management.”
“Excellent work! Other places?”
“Set up a few shopping centers in production towns. Also started expanding to Deepanchor as it is the nearest connection to the water trade for us.”
“How is it going?”
Lucy waved her hand from side to side. “Middling. They are mostly sea folk, so it’s hard to get in.” She took a deep breath and appeared to think about it for a moment. “We’ll probably need you to go there and do your magic.”
Sam gave it a quick thought. Deepanchor was one of the biggest commercial harbors in the kingdom. The only one bigger was the one that sat next to the capital of the kingdom. There were several quests there that would be profitable. Hell, he even knew the location of several pirate treasures. Not that it was a big secret in the future that would never happen. A group of friends found one of them, then opened a bar-slash-restaurant on the small sandy island where it was found. They named it the Big Treasure, and the story of the pirate treasure was put up on the wall with the tastefully (and slightly exaggerated) hand-woven tapestry. It became a sort of neutral ground, where people on opposite sides could meet up and hash out their differences, or for big meetings between people who didn’t fully trust each other.
Simultaneously, it started a pirate treasure frenzy that revealed the location of several other treasures.
However, sailing randomly amongst lonely and uninhabited islands could wait.
He had something else to do before that.
“I’ll add it to the list. However, let’s talk about the contract with the Silvercrest family.”
Lucy nodded, put away the documents containing the details of their burgeoning economic empire, and retrieved another set.
She shuffled it around a little as she began to speak. “So, I went over the details, and I have a few ideas about what to ask and how…”
Sam leaned back in his chair and listened intently.
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Donning his fanciest clothing, he once again headed for the Silvercrest manor.
Thankfully, the guards and the staff knew him well, so the entry procedure went without a hitch and within minutes, escorted by the old butler, he stood in front of the lord’s desk, while the giant man’s wife sat next to the window, idly sipping tea.
Though Sam dared not to underestimate the pair. They were successful enough that some people sought out very dark magic to bring them down.
“Samuel, my friend! Welcome to my home!” exclaimed the lord in his loud voice. “What brings you here?”
“I finished the survey at the mining outpost and I’m here for the report,” he said respectfully.
The man, however, frowned.
“Didn’t we agree on the full survey of my holdings?”
“Yes, sir. But what I found necessitated a report right now.”
An eyebrow rose on the man’s face. “Oh? Do tell!”
Sam reached into his pocket and retrieved a scroll he had prepared before, then he raised it up a little so that the lord could see it. “With your permission?”
“Go ahead, my friend!” the giant man yelled with an excited grin and motioned at his desk.
Sam nodded in thanks, stepped forward, and spread out the map of the mining outpost with the locations of the fractures marked on them.
He began talking while pointing at the symbols one by one.
“These ones are fractures that vanished after clearing them once, and those are the ones that didn’t. As you can see, we found two. One rather deep, and the other…”
“At the Storage Cavern,” finished the lord for him.
“Yes, sir. And we weren’t the only ones.”
“Indeed, I heard the report.” Nodded the older man as he scrutinized the map. “Do you think the other guilds are going to fight for the right to ‘own’ the fractures?”
Sam eyed the man as he was once again reminded that despite being so goofy and martial-focused, the man was no fool.
“Indeed, sir. If you act now, we can avoid all that fighting and make enough money that would make a dragon jealous.”
The man just hummed thoughtfully.
Sam wanting to strike while the iron was hot, retrieved a box from his inventory, then placed it on the desk while opening it.
“These are the materials we found in the permanent fractures.”
The giant lord looked up from the map and at the samples. He reached out and with his giant hand picked up a few samples and raised them in front of his eyes. Sam could feel several smaller mana pulses originating from him. ‘Some kind of analyzing spell…’
After several minutes of examinations, the lord of the manor placed the ore samples into the box, closed the top, and turned to Sam with a giant grin.
“Let’s negotiate!”
Sam nodded and simply dismissed the notification that popped up as he girded his loins and entered the battle of wits.
[You completed the quest: Reap what you sow!]
[As a reward you are able to negotiate a contract with the Silvercrest family. Good luck!]
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After several hours, Sam left the manor with reams of papers and an agreement with the Silvercrest lord that they would both sleep on the details and get together the next day to sign the contract if there were no issues.
He quickly dumped the documents on Lucy, then retreated to his own apartment in the headquarters. Soon it would be time to log out, and he decided to log out early as he had a few things to do.
As usual, he got comfortable with Lucky, then following several minutes of enjoying the wolf’s luxurious fur, he hit the logout button.
In the real world, he placed the headset in its place and went about his day. Ablutions and some exercises, then a little food, before returning to his work.
He dealt with the usual emails and Shadowland messages before starting on the auction.
After the RMT was announced, Future Unknown made it possible to open up an auction hall, that people could only access with invitation links. They would appear there as their characters, but it would only be cosmetic. No stats or skills could be used there.
The auction house even offered the services of several auctioneers if the renter didn’t have one they wanted to use.
Thus, Sam logged into the game’s website and went about organizing one of these auctions. Thankfully, he knew he could at least trust the anonymity that Future Unknown provided. Not that he trusted them, but he trusted that they would keep his identity from others. There were some really powerful or important (or rich) people playing. The company made sure that everyone’s identity was treated the same.
After setting up so that everybody would show up in a black robe, just for the funsies, and setting the basic layout and size of the auction hall, he went through the auctioneers and choose a busty blonde, that according to notes, knew how to hype the crowd up.
With everything set up, he created the invitation link that would be granted individually after the person logged in with their Magic Unbound account. So, people couldn’t share their invitation links.
Then he created a post on Shadowland, and set the price high so that people could feel important as they got the invitation links.
The moment the post went live, he watched with a smirk as the money kept rolling in. On another tab, he watched one of the popular social media sites as people began immediately boasting about getting a link.
With that done, he stood up from his chair and headed for his jacket. He needed to touch a little grass…