1              Soul Bound

1.2            Taking Control

1.2.1          An Icy Welcome

1.2.1.7        Trusted currencies

First things first.

Kafana: {Minion, tell Alderney: the meeting about the ownership of the items from The Immortals has just finished, we got the lot, including the stuff to be auctioned; I’m on my way, and can you do a victory dance for me, because everyone will look at me strangely if I stand on a table to do one here?}

[From Alderney: I dare you to get your violin out and play that song from Fiddler on the Roof.]

She looked around her, and managed to snag a list of the items being held for auction, and paged through it slowly.

{Sys, please save a copy of that as a virtual document named LOOT and share it with the party.}

{Minion, can you stick a copy of that in The Burrow where Alderney can see it?}

[Yes, Nadine. Done.]

Kafana: {Minion, tell her: Beast! No, don’t tempt me. It is my turn to tempt you. Check out the loot list I’ve sent you. And I’ll play it for you later if and only if I get to see a recording of you dancing it up!}

She quietly left the room, narrowly avoiding being cornered again by Massimo, then thought and poked her head back in.

Kafana: “I do apologise for hurrying off, but I have a big event to organise today. To thank you for your efforts despite the early start and to make up for my rudeness, allow me to extend to each of you a V.I.P. invitation to attend the celebration at the Plaza of the Public, at 4 bells of the afternoon watch, where I will personally ensure you get a chance to experience the new delights that will be on offer there.” she lowered her voice, as though in confidence “Of course, I can trust that you all understand it is a festive occasion, and that it would be totally unfair to the upcoming star of the legal profession, Laureato Emmanuelle Giambrone, not to mention offensive socially, to try to talk business with me when she is not present.”

She then waved and left again before they had a chance to reply.

[Upgrading skill “Intimidate” to “Iron Fist” - you have learned a little subtlety, and can wield it in a velvet glove, if you choose.]

[Skill “Iron Fist” has reached level 11.]

Kafana: {Tomsk, how are you doing?}

Tomsk: {Waiting for you in the Plaza of Peace. The monks like the aura here so much, Dino asked wistfully if I could teach them how to recreate it.}

Kafana: {I think I’m a guardian now. Sort of? I don’t know if it is one of their powers connected with creating new Sanctums. I don’t know enough, full stop. Tell you what, I’ll create a ‘suggested reading list’ in the event queue for bored Vessels, and everybody can add to it.}

{Sys, create such a list please and add books about: Guardians, Devils, the effects of being banned from an Abyssal Realm, the effects of your spirit not being considered a valid currency, anything about local musical traditions from nursery rhymes to great choral works, and how to raise your social status.}

By the time she’d finished adding books to the list, and the other had chipped in, she had reached the plaza. Tomsk was over by the central fountain, and had the monks trying to catch stray drops of water on the ends of their staves. They did it in total silence, their movements flowing as smoothly as the water itself. As one, they turned and bowed to her, then moved into a protective formation around her.

Tomsk gave a nod of approval. “Welcome back to the lands of the living, Madame Kafana Sincero.” then, less formally, “Sorry I didn’t get back sooner. I’ve been giving them a bit of practice fighting monsters, out beyond the villages. They are naturals when it comes to developing party skills, as they do everything together in harmony. They’re going to be your body guards for today.”

He offered her his arm, and they started walking towards the Plaza of the Founders, which had the Watch Tower and the Goldsmiths Guild.

Tomsk: “I looked through the loot you posted. Amazing. What do you plan to do with it all? For that matter, what are your plans for today? You’ve had a rough time.”

Kafana: “I don’t know. I’m still processing. Obviously, anything the party wants, we’ll keep. And I’d like to give some gifts to the people who’ve helped. But that still leaves an enormous amount. What do you think we should do?”

Tomsk looked thoughtful. “Don’t make any big decisions now, if you can put them off a day or two. Wait until you’re in a better frame of mind to consider it carefully. Wellington probably has an expert system that can advise you.”

Kafana: “Give me a minute.”

{Balthazar: new project “Sapiogenesis”. I want to spawn off a new expert system, named “Melchior”, specialised in ethics and finance, to advise me on things like auctions, fair loot division and investment opportunities that do well and do good. Wellington’s going to be sanity checking what I’ve done, and I’d like to impress him with the care and professionalism with which Melchior has been crafted. Can you consult with Minion, and maybe Robin (Wellington’s expert system) and come up with a design ready for me to give the go ahead to, that you’re all happy with?}

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Balthazar: [I will start the project, keep you apprised of progress and request clarification of your intent as necessary.]

Kafana, trying to sound casual, hoping to impress Tomsk: “No need to bother him, I’ve got one of my own. What sort of items are you interested in? On a quick scan it looked to me like mostly weapons and armour.”

Tomsk: {Let’s take this to group chat. Alderney notified the others you were on your way, and they should be online now and waiting outside the Dove. I’ll copy her in and pass on any comments.}

Bungo: {*yawn* I just want to curl up and go to sleep. Alderney’s being mean to me.}

Bulgaria: {All right, sweethearts, what are you waiting for? Breakfast in bed? Another glorious day in the Party! A day in the Party is like a day on the farm. Every meal's a banquet! Every paycheque a fortune! Every formation a parade! I love the Party!}

Bungo: {Yikes! Don’t doooo that.}

Kafana: {Thanks, Bulgaria. I need all the laughs I can get today. I feel fragile. My plan for today is to do as little as possible, and preserve my sanity long enough for the gelato to launch. But I think the party’s plan should include helping Wellington find a mentor that suits him. And I really ought to have a go at trying to remove the curse on Vittoria. But other than that? I don’t know. Something stress-free like visiting the Vecci and playing football, so we can get Bungo his mentor too?}

Bungo: {Talking of fortunes, I saw a note in Kafana’s document under currency, saying that the Watch Tower had 87 Tallero in store for us. How much is that? I’ve not seen them when shopping.}

Wellington: {The currency system is a little complex, I’ve got a summary you can look at: COINS.}

She looked it up:

Osella - ornate bronze coins with a variety of religious and patriotic designs. The value of the material is higher than the value of the coin, so only the designs considered to be especially pretty or lucky remain. Most often seen nailed over doors and beds.

Ducato - small silver coins, showing an image of the Marquis of Torello at time of issue.

Soldo - large septagonal silver coins with a simple geometric design. Easy for fraudsters to clip pieces off the edges and re-stamp, so rarely used in practice because people insist upon weighing them.

Florin - small gold coin, showing an iconic view of the city that issued it, common across the Etruscan City States.

Scudo - large octagonal gold coin, that a past Marquis devalued by mixing with other metals when trying to raise funds for a war. Considered unlucky. Contracts often specify that it is not a valid means of payment.

Zecchi - an international currency dating back to the Hellenic Empire. The coins are made from a platinum-iridium alloy available from just one mine, that disappeared because of the Alpinus incursion, so the supply is finite. They are similar to the city pass discs, in that they’re actually tiny indestructible artifacts, spelled to be hard to lose or steal. When you touch two valid coins together they ring with a distinctive chime that makes them impossible to counterfeit.

Tallero - mithril split into bars of a defined weight and purity, that mages can verify using a standard detection spell. They are kept in heavily defended vaults, and the actual trading is carried out by both parties sending a signed and witnessed notification of ownership change to the vault owner.

Bungo: {OK, but what are they worth? What can I buy with one?}

Bulgaria: {1 ducato will buy you three chicken eggs.}

Tomsk: {1 florin is worth 100 ducato. It will get you a fat healthy adult pig, a year’s wages for a scullery maid at a village inn though they’d get food, board and clothes on top, or a really good meal at the Speckled Dove.}

Bulgaria: {1 zecchi is worth 100 florins. It will get you a trained war horse for a knight, a house with an attached workshop and sales area on the outskirts of Mercato or a barge suitable for carrying goods up river. 3 zecchi will get you either a piece of rare armour crafted by a high master mage, or a fully equipped armoury and the services of a master armourer for a year.}

Wellington: {1 tallero is currently worth 100 zecchi. Probably because the world has just been launched and the developers wanted to make it easy for the players. If we dump all our tallero on the market, that would probably change the rate, so we’d only get 80 or even just 50 zecchi per tallero. But, currently, 1 tallero will pay the dowry of a Baron’s daughter. 2 tallero will buy you a sea-faring trading ship, 5 tallero will buy you a small rural castle, 50 tallero will buy you a fully furnished palazzo in a good part of Alto and the staff to run it.}

Kafana: {So what are resurrection potions, and the things on the auction list worth?}

Wellington: {Good question. In the past resurrection potions have made somewhere between half a zecchi and 1.5 zecchi each, depending on how threatened people feel. Useful artifacts go for at least 10 zecchi, epics for 40+ zecchi and a legendary has never gone for under 1 tallero with the upper end of that range being very variable, depending upon what an individual bidder needs and how badly. But it is fair to say that every item on the list is one that The Immortals’ team of analysts thought would be worth more than 1 tallero to someone, or they’d have had their mule soul bind a tallero bar instead.}

Bungo: {So I’m rich?}

Tomsk: {No, Bungo. Kafana is the one who is rich. We are her loyal retainers who, if we are lucky, may be allowed some spending money, the better to uphold her glory.}

Kafana: {Hush you. We’re nearly at the Dove, so annotate the LOOT document with what you don’t want auctioned and why, and I’ll give Wellington a free hand to devise a strategy on what to do with the rest that won’t crash any markets, but will give him some seed capital. As to what gets done with the proceeds, I’m shelving that discussion until I’m feeling more together, so feel free to buy small stuff, but no going around purchasing racing stables or small castles, k? We’re probably going to have to give up half of it in taxes or something.}

Wellington: {Can do. Don’t forget to allocate your stat points. I’d suggest a minimum of 100 CON, 150 for Bungo and Tomsk.}

{Sys, bring my CON up to 100 please, and add 25 to DEX and to INT.}

[Done. You have 128 stat points unallocated.]