Fiona was less than amused the next day that Greg hadn’t been able to find any way to skirt around this immense financial pickle. Her appointment at the warehouse viewing wasn’t until later in the afternoon, and she tapped on the floor with her boot, while humming. She was currently sitting in his tiny office that also had his apartment, just a few streets over from where she lived.
Except, it wasn’t in the nice part of town. The brickwork looked older, had fewer straight lines, and she was pretty sure she could smell mildew somewhere. She could hear the mice scurrying in the walls, with her sensitive ears. Really industrious mice, by the sound of it–were they renovating in there?
Being reborn in a world with super sensitive ears when she had never had them before had been intense. Tiny noises became big noises, and big noises became painful noises. But after a while, she was able to start tuning things out.
Except for the mice. She shook her head after Greg had broken the news to her. “So, the tax law is solid.”
“I know, Fiona, I’m sorry. He’s got you good. This rule goes back a while, it's just never been used except for once. Dragon hoards are technically classed as historical finds, hence applicable taxes get heaped on. Even if liquid assets are lacking. I’m not sure why you can't just dump it as a donation. I feel like this rule was a carve-out for someone who irritated Bertha the second, when it was signed.”
Greg leaned back from his notes and folders, looking resigned. Greg wasn’t as savvy as Bonnie with her arcanist technology and still used papers. But he was pretty good at it, and effortlessly slid between files, all carefully indexed and clipped to where he needed, and occasionally used his arcanist pad. The closest equivalent she had to it, was a magical tablet that could recall indexes of pages.
Fiona leaned in on his simple, but well crafted desk. “It sounds like he has an axe to grind with me. I don't even know why he hates me, because everyone loves me!” She says with a soft huff. “Except Doug. He's probably terrified of me.”
“Yes, smacking around a dragon with a magic hammer like a pinball, tends to have that effect,” he murmured while digging through his notes. He slid a paper over to her. “But, I think Barry's treasurer has over-appraised the items. We have one bit of ammo against this.”
“How much?”
“He overshot by thirty percent, when I looked at comparable items. Or more. This is something we can fight in court,” Greg said with a faint smile. He loved his numbers, almost as much as she did. “But, that’s still reducing it by only twenty-three percent, to…one point two million, and thirty-one thousand gold. Rounding to the nearest thousand,” he added with a droll look on his face.
“It’s still egg on his face,” she argued, and glanced down at the tawny-colored dress jacket, dark vest, and that vivid green tie that matched her shining eyes. She couldn’t help but feel proud of this one, it made her look professional–and cute. Greg couldn’t look away from it, and the ladies were barely accented while wearing this one, too! She tapped the sheet of paper, and contemplated how to proceed. “We need an appraiser of our own to go to bat for us.”
“And accredited,” Greg added. “With King Barry as the current controller of the throne of Fiefdala, he can thumb his nose at the court and gum us up for weeks or months. But, it can be contested eventually. Even he can't stop the law.”
“Not the dummy I took him for,” she muttered. “Alright, what else?”
“Well, a few other items. I think you need a roommate, to reduce your expenses,” he suggested politely. She saw red when he mentioned this, and raised herself to a standing position.
“What? No, it’s my space, Greg! I fought for it! And I love Grammy, she’s such a dear to me and Tucker! I don’t want to give up my space!” she slammed her hand down on the desk, and she swore she heard a small cracking sound. As did Greg, who gingerly pulled the paper away.
“Fiona, you have to. You still need to make a living, while getting rid of this burden. I’m digging into how they assessed this so badly. Or, how they were even able to claim this is taxable income that the Kingdom can claim. Why did the dragon have no liquid assets, anyway?”
“Yeah, that was a weird thing. Dragons–the smart ones, anyway–get obsessive about gold, and they put it in giant piles in their lairs. Lord Sadface had none, it’s like he was going broke!” She pondered this interesting tidbit, and grunted. “I mean, at this point, it would have been easier to just pretend I didn’t see the loot.”
“Want my unofficial advice?” he asked while tossing his pen on his desk, and rubbing his temples gently. “Take the loot and run, find another kingdom that isn’t going to yank your chain, Fiona. I wouldn’t blame you for wanting to expatriate the hard-earned gains.”
She leered at him, fists balled up. “Literal tax evasion? Oh, hell no, Greg! This man has thrown a gauntlet at my face, and I’m coming back at him with a world-shattering sledgehammer!”
“He’s the King, Fiona,” Greg pointed out with a sigh. “You can’t beat this problem in the face with a hammer.”
“I wasn’t being literal,” she responded in a quieter tone, then pondered the thought for a moment. “I mean, I could do that, I can just set the hammer to humiliate mode–”
“No, Fiona.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose and examined more papers while he continued to call out the terrible idea. “While King Greybeard may be sympathetic to your plight, considering his frigid relationship with his son Barry, there's this to consider. He upheld the law impartially. If the law is correct, you may be stuck with this. Unfair as it might appear. Though, I do question the impartial enforcement of said law. Honestly speaking, I wouldn’t blame you for high-tailing it after this treatment–
"I'm not leaving. I'm not caving to that creep. I have a home, I have a pet, I have friends here. He is not chasing me away from a place I love and people I care about, because I can’t do that twice in two lifetimes," she stated defiantly. "You can't put a price on that, Greg. Option's off the table forever, taking the money and running. It's never gonna happen."
"I..do share in your impassioned attitude," he said softly, a few seconds later. "I wish others in similar circumstances had such tenacity."
She sat down in the chair, and glared at the unfriendly numbers. There had to be an out, there always was a way! “What about business expenses? Can I claim those?”
“For the items you do have paper proof, yes. I think we can reduce the bill by another hundred thousand.”
“Victory!” She could finally smile as she slowly chipped this away. “Damage to my equipment. I went through a slew of items that were the worse for wear.”
“Done. Give me the repair bills.” She fished out every paper receipt she had, and he smiled. “Bonnie came through. Glad she was keeping your paperwork.”
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“New rule, don't let me forget the paperwork. The last thing I need is giving the tax office anything to nail me on. How much of it applies?” she inquired.
“It's fifty percent of bills, subtracted from your gross income. It helps to the tube of…” he furrowed his brow. “Another thirty thousand? You're rough with equipment.”
“Killing monsters and not getting killed in turn gets expensive, even with near-misses. And I had to chug potions of stave-off-dying more than a few times,” she explained. “The early days were rough.”
“More progress, good, these will hold up in an inquiry. But, we need the appraiser to make a true dent in the valuation of the hoard,” he added while furrowing his brow. “I still say it’s less effort to just take the loot and run. By the way, you were correct in your initial outburst. No pawn shop in town has the capital to pay you face value for these items. Not all at once. High-end clientele, or other means of income are needed to offload these items.”
“Welp, guess we’re going to plan ‘B’ then, which is to beat him at his own game,” she declared. “Barry’s cheating. I know a cheater when I smell one, and I smell grease emanating from every pore of his body,” she uttered with conviction. “I bet Barry was running some crooked scheme that went badly, knowing that guy. It’s why the kingdom's treasury is short. So, he has to cover it, before Daddy dearest gets back. And I drew the short straw.”
“That’s pure speculation, Fiona, you don’t have proof of that. Accusing royalty of crimes, and backing them up, needs to have absolutely ironclad proof. The courts would not be kind to those accusing the monarchy of criminal activities, and not having the ammo on that one to sustain it,” he cautioned. But then, he tapped his pen, and tilted his head to the side. “You know what, that is an odd thing that he said yesterday. If the treasury was short, why haven’t we heard anything about it?”
“See, you do think he’s scummy!” she exclaimed as she laid back in her chair, arms propping the back of her head. “We can play that angle in the long term, he’s being a cheater mc-cheat-face!”
“Yes, Fiona, we can, if we find proof of that. I wish you had brought back the dragon lord with you as a prisoner, so we could see where else he stashed gold. That might have been tangible, too,” he added with a quick note on his papers. “Other than those items, you also need to trim down your other expenses. I know McFly’s is cheap, but I know your habits. You have a little bit of an impulse control problem.”
“No, I don’t!” she protested, and gave him a needling stare. “Girls have their needs, Greg! And those needs must be fulfilled, like snacks! Those are must-haves! Or people get hit with large, heavy objects!”
“Yes, and what of those new boots you’re wearing that I’m assessing is probably a few hundred gold of expenditures?” he asked dryly, while propping up his head with his arm and elbow. She blinked in surprise.
“You noticed?”
“I do notice these things, Miss Swiftheart. Not because I'm paid to, either,” he added in a rather pointed statement. “You must have some restraint for the time being, or you won’t have enough money to make payments on the interim bills.”
“Cute boots are a must! They’re made of leather from a Grinorian mole! They’re ugly as sin and a pest to crops, so when I get rid of them, it’s doing the world a favor, and providing cute boots as a bonus!” she declared with a flourish. She then showed off the calf-length dark boots, with a small silver buckle. “Plus, they’re so cozy! I can run in them, and go kick people in the face, if it requires it!”
“Fiona, please, have some restraint,” he groaned, and gently thumped his forehead on the desk.
He must be trying to scare away the scurrying mice in the walls, Fiona thought as she watched this strange spectacle. “Alright, I’ll try, in the meantime, we should go. Bonnie said she’d meet us there at four o’clock. And don’t hurt your head, Greg! You do numbers faster than me, and I need your head intact.”
“Oh, bother,” he muttered from the safety of his desk, before sitting up, and steepling his fingers in a subtle meditative pose. “Please, let me remind you that this is not a guarantee, and that this place may be beyond your means to afford, barring a loan.”
“Loans? Yeah, nah. I’d like to avoid those if I can,” she stated hesitantly. “You know what a payday loan is?”
“No, but based on your tone, I can guess it is not a good kind of sound lending policy.”
“It’s like…when you’re short on money, before your next gold deposit? And then there’s this guy in a seedy office who promises to lend you money until that big fat stack of coins comes out, and they take a percentage?” she explained, while trying to sound calm. “And when you do the math, the interest rate is like six hundred percent a year?”
Greg blinked, and rubbed his temples. “Are we speaking from experience? Because, I don’t like that idea at all. Working with underground elements sounds like a terrible plan. Please tell me you didn’t take these out before.”
“Oh, you know, psssh…once. Maybe twice?” she proposed with a twirl of her hand. At least in this lifetime. Damn, that would be a total buzzkill, if my debts followed me to the next life.
Once again, Greg found a home for his forehead on his desk, along with a soft groan. “I begin to see where some of your financial troubles started, Fiona.”
“Oh, don’t be dense! My business ran fine! I just spent a liiiittle more than I could afford sometimes, in a personal capacity.” Fiona said with a grimace. Greg looked her skeptically. "Fine, no more shoes, no more cozy clothes, and no jacuzzi. I am fighting all my urges on this, until we are positive cash revenue."
"Good. That should help." Another line through his notebook.
Fiona sighed. "Yeah, at least I'm taking this to heart now. Too bad I didn’t learn that lesson before I died the first time.”
“That reminds me, we never finished that discussion,” he said while straightening up. “Just an idea, summonings would have some kind of record by the mage responsible. Maybe you were pulled at the last second? I mean, would you even want to go–”
“Go back? Oh, hell no, Greg. I died kind of unfulfilled. I mean I’m pretty sure I died, that truck sure was coming at me really fast,” she said before frowning. She hadn’t considered if she’d died or not.
“Fiona…you told me to let this one rest. Some summons have been able to return home, and–”
“Greg. There is nothing waiting for me, back there, assuming I even could go back,” she stated in a deathly calm voice. She still didn’t have an answer to a fundamental question:
Where did her new body come from? She glanced down at herself, and her lithe, but deceptively strong form. It both was…and wasn’t, like her old self. Nah, I earned this through hard work. But, should I have given this more thought than this by now? I got Tucker, Bonnie, Greg, and all my other besties! New life is the best life!
She pursed her lips continued to speak before Greg could stop her. “Look, so what if some weirdo from Florida in a bathrobe and a bad hat brought me here? I’ve been having a blast! Minus that gold-hoarding, blonde-haired dweeb sitting in a chair too big to fit him!”
“Fiona, I worry you may have incurred a debt you can’t afford to not pay off,” he said with dread. She was worried he was going to do that head-banging, mouse ward spell again, but he instead just looked at her warily–even concerned. “Summonings are rare, require immense resources, and people don’t get summoned for no reason. Who was there to summon you.”
She put up her hands in exasperation. “No one, that’s the thing! No one was there to greet me when I woke up. No one cared who I was, when I signed up at the adventurer’s guild, either. No one asked questions once I started stacking up monster hides,” she added with a roll of her shoulders. “What, you think they’re gonna make a transmigrational tax service next, in case I die before I pay off this bogus debt?”
“I wouldn’t put it beyond King Barry, no. Alright, let’s stop stalling, and go find Bonnie. We need to really look into this one, later,” he said before getting up from his chair.
She figured he was being too worrisome. She hadn’t opted to come here, and certainly didn’t sign a deal with some dude with horns and a contract written in blood. Mom would never have taught her to do that. So it should be fine, right?