“Whoa, slow down there. Investing? In someone you literally just met? That sounds like you’re trying to abuse a skill I don’t know about.”
Gil nods in agreement. “I can see how it’d sound that way, but if our positions were reversed, you’d probably be saying the same thing. Once you get to my level, you use more than triple-digits of Worth every day. To you, that’s a serious fight against a monster from your nightmares. To me, it’s Wednesday.”
I grunt and lean back without confirming or denying his words.
“You don’t need to say anything–I’ve lived what I’m talking about. And all these things–these cheap things–have severe requirements to them. Most of them only work on stats below five, then ten, and so on until you’re getting to debilitatingly expensive stat points.” He taps his Class Card for emphasis. “I can’t use pretty much everything I’m carrying for low clearance levels, and if I have to forgo a few hundred Worth to make sure you’re alive long enough to get on your own two feet, it’s a wonderful investment for me.”
“Uh-huh. It still doesn’t explain why I’d risk myself accepting random shit from you.”
“Don’t you worry yourself over that–you wouldn’t be accepting anything for free. I’d just be selling it to you for a… clearance price.” He makes a snipping motion with one of his hands. “No strings attached. If you prefer, you could think of it as a human to human discount. From the only shopkeeper in the world who can actually offer discounts.”
Now that… that is an interesting little tidbit. “Is that because you’re the only Merchant who has a shop like this, or because you’re the only shop that isn’t bound to the system?”
Gil smiles like he’s still holding onto a secret. “Both.”
Oh. Well, that doesn’t change anything, I guess. I’m still a little reluctant to trust this random guy who appeared through the system’s own systems, but if he’s going to make it possible to survive these two weeks, then I guess I can risk it a little. Hell, I’ve got an alien shellfish on my head who can somehow speak into my brain. Trusting a human should be a lot easier than trusting that.
“I’ll bite, but I want a little bit of info first.”
Gil sips his tea and motions for me to go on.
I gesture at the potions beside me. “These were paid for by a ticket the system gave me. Does that mean you lost Worth, or are you supplied with these things by the system to exchange for tickets?”
He waggles his hand indeterminately. “That depends. I can put together packages and mark them as exchangeable for clearance tickets, but the system has to approve each and every one. If I don’t have anything suitable to exchange for the clearance level of any specific person who comes in, then the system marks stuff I’ve already got on the shelves as ‘exchangeable for tickets’ and reimburses me the raw value of that item if it gets chosen. Which is a lot lower than what I could sell it for.”
“So you have a reason to go out and make packages like this one.”
“Exactly. As long as the system thinks they’re worth 50 Worth per clearance level of the person, it approves them. So I have a backroom filled with things that are actually useful, a mechanism that detects what clearance level the person opening the door is, and a spell that puts out a package from that stuff worthy of their level while also submitting it for system approval.”
“Because otherwise you might end up selling things you’ve seriously marked up for less than they’re actually worth. Smart. Kind of makes me want to see what a store run by someone who isn’t looking to make a profit looks like, though.”
“Oh, pfft, you don’t want to see that.” Gil waves his hand dismissively. “You’ll just see the same old cloned supplies and fairly common weapons slash spells slash skills. With me, you might end up paying a little bit more, but you get an infinitely better selection. …Well, you will get a better selection when I can actually sell you valuable things.”
I frown at that choice of words. “You can’t sell me valuable things? Why?”
“Obviously it’s your clearance level. You can’t carry anything in your inventory more than five levels above your own, and you can’t even claim ownership of something ten levels above your own. So I’m stuck working with only a few levels of stuff–and I don’t carry a whole bunch for brand new people. You’re not the most profitable bunch, you see.”
He glances down next to my chair with an eyebrow raise of ‘see what I mean?’.
I follow his eyes down at the shark-dog and chuckle in agreement. “Point taken. And I’m assuming you can’t just give me Worth, and that I can’t just sell everything you gave me right back to you?”
“Unfortunately right. Once I sell something, I can’t buy it back. Period. And Worth can only be exchanged for goods or services within the realm of what that good or service should cost–probably to stop someone like me from powerleveling someone like you. There’s more, but it’s not important enough to worry about until way higher clearances.”
Damn the system and its understandable limitations. Now instead of instantly fulfilling the requirements for my overarching quest, I have to actually work for my Worth. Someone’s probably found a loophole, but they wouldn’t have any reason to contact me. Since… they’re probably already max level with a bunch of max level friends.
“Wait–how are you going to ‘invest’ in me if you can’t just give me shit?” I point out. “Need I remind you that you’re the one who told me not to sell those potted plants?”
“Don’t you worry your shellfish-adorned little head–I know what I’m doing. Like I said; I can sell you anything within the realm of its actual Worth. It just so happens that when things are worth so little, I can get away with making them cost you almost nothing. Like that inventory coin. I had it listed at seventy-eight worth, and you bought it for a fraction of that.”
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Not a bad deal at all, actually. It’s not like it’s biting into his bottom line, either–he’s probably making hundreds of Worth worth of profit from selling stuff to higher-level people. If not thousands. And there’s definitely aspects to his skill that I physically can’t know right now that let him abuse it to the absolute maximum.
Like if he partnered with someone with a class that could… say… make potions. Like the ones I’m drinking right now. He could set up a store in some dangerous high-population area, the potion-maker could supply him en-masse with potions, and the both of them make out like bandits. Even more reason to believe him.
“Alright, you’ve worn me down. I’ll let you sell me things for an exorbitant discount. But first, how much are you buying the shark-dog for? And…” I expel all the scrap everdriftwood from my inventory. “This crap–I mean pre-broken wood–too.”
He kicks away a plank, then offers me his Class Card. I tap my own to it, and just like that, I’m seventy-five Worth richer. Not quite as much as I’d been expecting, but a damn good chunk of change for what amounted to inventory clutter.
“Fifty of that was for the dog, and the other twenty-five was out of pity for the poor wood. But don’t bring me any more scrap, please. It’s broken enough that I can barely justify buying it, no matter how much it’d be worth whole.”
“Noted.” I say as I tuck away my card, which is now very close to my next Worth threshold. “So what happens when I hit my next threshold? Do I come right back here?”
Gil chuckles and shakes his head. “No way, no how. You got extremely lucky, catching me when I opened for the day, but now I’m marking you as a… ‘special customer’. You’ll come back here once you hit clearance ten, twenty, thirty, and so on–but not one level before that. So stock up on everything you need before the two-hour time limit kicks you out.”
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After giving my legs and arm twenty minutes to heal, which was accompanied by some alright conversation on my side and frustratingly system-censored conversation on Gil’s, it’s finally time to do the shopping. I wiggle my toes to make sure they’re still attached and sigh in relief as I stand up, motioning for him to lead the way to what he thinks will be useful for me.
“If I hadn’t already sold it to you, my first recommendation would be an inventory upgrade.” He explains as he runs his hand along a shelf packed to the brim with brightly coloured raw materials. “But that’s the main style of thing we’re going to give you–powerups that boost your system’s capabilities. Like this puppy.”
He turns on his heel and snatches a chunk of ice that looks like it’s been carved into a mass of multi-pupiled eyeballs.
“This is all-seeing ice. If you use it on your system, it’ll give you the ability to identify things from a much greater range and slightly reduce the cost to identify them. It’ll also give you some kind of quest when you use it which rewards you with one Mind point. Sure it costs Worth to activate, but you’ll save way more in the long run.”
Before I can say anything, he tosses the chunk of ice to me and hurries away from the raw materials. I close my mouth and walk after him, moving the uncomfortably cold thing from hand to hand to keep myself from freezing. And… urgh, it feels and looks like it’s always staring at me.
“Next, you’ll need a system upgrade that lets you purchase stats, inventory space, and other upgrades without having to come to a shop. It’s one of the most important ones, since you can finesse the right time to pass a threshold by buying things to delay it. Everyone else gets something like this when they finish their tutorial, but us Worth classes get completely screwed out of it.”
Gil hums excitedly to himself as he pours over a shelf filled with old books, most of which are written in strange languages that I don’t even slightly recognize. Each of them seems to be bound in material that shouldn’t be used to bind books–gemstone, solid smoke, seawater, and one even looks like it’s made out of motion blur.
Before Gil can make a decision, dark awareness points me towards a ratty tome on one of the upper shelves. It looks like it’s made of scuffed glass with tiny bits of colour strewn throughout, and the writing looks frighteningly similar to the stuff that was on Pearl’s stand.
“What about that one?” I ask, pointing to the tome Pearl pointed out to me. “Would it work?”
He stops humming and follows my finger up to the book. “The one written in shellraiser? I honestly don’t know–I can’t read shellraiser, and the system doesn’t automatically translate it. Ooh, was that one of your rewards for killing the risen grave?”
“Yes.” I say without any further explanation.
He nods and pulls down the book. “If you say so. I can bring the all-seeing ice down to thirty-eight Worth, and this book to…” his eyebrows shoot to the roof as he checks his Class Card. “Nine-thousand, eight hundred, seventy-six Worth. But with an unknown modifier for if you speak shellraiser. Holy guacamole, how is anyone supposed to get this thing before they find another system upgrade manual?”
“Speak shellraiser?”
“Ha-ha.” He says dryly and places the book in my open hand. “Open it to the first page and read the title. I’ll tell you if the cost goes down to a point I can actually sell it.”
The glass is warm against my fingers. All the little pits and gouges feel like stories of their own, and the pure white writing on the cover still looks like nothing to me. Then the awareness seeps into my mind, calming and familiar, and the words come to me as easily as English.
Saga of the Shattered Shell
Pearl gasps quietly into my mind as I carefully open the glass cover. On the first page is a few small lines of text, followed by a signature that doesn’t translate. It turns blurry as all hell and hurts to look at.
“To all my loved ones, those who despised me, and those who knew me not. This is my tale.” I read carefully. “Though history may be rewritten to paint me in a myriad of different colours, know that I am a woman who wore every palette. Every tint, every shade. No matter who they tell you I am, these bindings hold the true tale.”
I rub my eyes and look away from the blur. “And the rest’s all Mind-stat blurry. So what’s the damage, Gil? …Gil?”
I look up at him, and what greets me is a slack-jawed stare of awe. But not at me–at his own Class Card. Another prompting snaps him out of it, and he snaps his card shut along with his jaw.
“A hundred Worth. It… went down to a hundred Worth. From almost ten thousand.” He mutters in disbelief. “It’s almost like the book wants you to have it. Who am I to stand between that kind of weird connection?”
He shakes his head and sighs. “That’s going to put a little dent in my profits for the month. But that’s the price I pay for keeping my word, I guess. I’ll sell it to you on one condition–you use that book before you leave this building. Actually, I want to see you use everything I sell you. Including this.”
He swipes his hand over his Class Card, and the sound of something smacking lightly against a wooden shelf rings out from the other side of the shop. A small rectangular box appears in his hand, and he shoves it at me before I can say anything.
I place the all-seeing ice on top of the box and bite my lip. “Do I have enough Worth to pay for all this?”
“A hundred and seventy.” Gil says flatly, but there’s something under his placid expression. Something childlike and vibrant. “It’ll leave you with almost nothing, but as long as you don’t go crazy with spending, you’ll be fine. …Oh, that means you’ll have to delay using the all-seeing ice, since it costs fifty Worth to use. …And the seals, which will cost thirty-five Worth per. Actually, only the book should be free to upgrade your system with.”
I shift awkwardly until I’m holding the book in one hand and the other two things in the other. “Thanks for the warning, shopkeep. So, are you going to tell me how to use this thing, or is the system going to tell me I need a higher Mind stat for that info?”