As Alix headed down the rings to the Lower District, he realised there was something he had forgotten to do before leaving the castle. The merchant that had been coming to buy potions off of him would arrive expecting another shipment which wouldn’t be available. The coin in his pocket was from the previous bountiful sales, a weight that guilted him into descending one more level once he reached the Lower District, to the seventh ring, the Merchant’s District.

When no more Imperator’s showed up at his gate, Alix began to trust Javin more, and Javin trusted him in turn as his profits grew. Alix insisted in hearing exactly what he was doing with the potions, and through his stories Alix learned of the shop Javin ran in Galdea. He reached the street he knew the shop to be on, and realised he had passed by it before, but it was so non-descript that he hadn’t noticed it. It had no decoration or sign to say what sort of shop it was, other than a simple sign that read Javins.

Alix stepped into the shop. His first impression of the place was that it must be closed. The shelves were almost bare. From the amount of potions Alix had sold Javin only recently, the shelves should have been teeming with all Antidotes and Healing Potions. His last purchase had been particularly sizeable, the demand for his new stock of potions only increasing as word spread.

There was one other person in the shop with Javin, a customer, and they didn’t sound like they were having a good day.

“Please Javin, you must have something,” the man pleaded, oblivious to Alix’s entrance. “I’m losing business, I need some of those-“

Javin loudly cleared his throat, and the man suddenly noticed they weren’t alone anymore.

“Listen Pentos, as you can see I am all sold out.” Javin stared at the man pointedly until he begrudgingly left the shop. Then Javin turned to Alix. “I’m sorry, I was just about to close,” he said, swinging on his voluminous coat. “If you are looking for something in particular and it’s not urgent, why don’t you try again in a week?”

“Oh, I forgot I was wearing this,” Alix said, realising Javin wouldn’t be able to recognise him while wearing the illusion ring. He pulled off the ring and the illusion dropped.

Javin almost dropped to the floor in fright at the sight of him, but after a gasp he quickly ran to the door and bolted it shut.

“What in the Naether are you doing here?” Javin furiously whispered.

Despite their continuing business relationship, he still hadn’t allowed the man to enter the walls of the castle. He had tried to keep him as separate from the dark elves and the demons as possible and he had refrained from talking to him about his relationship with Tifayn.

“I just thought I’d get out and see the world. Why does everyone expect me to stay locked up in that castle forever?”

“Well…that’s not what I meant. I meant what are you doing here, in Galdea, where the king has forbidden you from entering and anyone from doing business with you. If anyone sees you here I will be ruined.”

“No one will see me. I’m sure only a handful of people know what I actually look like anyway. Besides, this way it’s easier for us to do business. You don’t need to drive out to the mountain anymore. Speaking of, what happened to all your stock? You should still have plenty left from the last sale.”

Javin peaked out on the street through slatted windows to make sure Pentos had left and no one else was about to visit him unexpectedly before he replied.

“I had to get rid of them all,” he said in a low voice. “It was that idiot Pentos’ fault. I was about to give him an earful before you came in. You know I was shifting the potions mostly through my network in the outlying villages. There they are slightly watered down, and then sold on again and spread out throughout the city in smaller quantities. No one has noticed they are cut and they still adorn the shelves of the richer shopping districts, selling for ridiculous amounts. I stupidly broke the cardinal rule of not drawing attention to myself when things were going so well and I decided to stock my shop with your wares as well. Word quickly got out that they rivalled the mysterious antidotes of last years plague. That was when Pentos showed up and bought my entire stock. His shop has been failing so he put every last bit of gold he had into buying up the whole batch.

“I didn’t think anything of it until an Imperator came to visit me. Pentos, that stupid bastard, had the stupid idea to claim that these potions were even better than the ones from before, which drew the wrong attention. He denies it, but I’m sure Pentos pointed the Imperators in my direction when they came calling on him. I am a paying member of the Merchant’s Guild, so they had no right to see my books or demand that I answer their questions, which were all about how my stock had suddenly and drastically increased in quality.”

“What did you tell them?” Alix asked, suddenly realising how dangerous it had been for him to come here.

“I told them there was nothing illegal about having good quality wares. That’s a merchant’s job after all. Now, I don’t mean to be rude, but if you are going to be in Galdea I would prefer if it wasn’t hiding out in my shop. I really was just about to close, I’ve got head up to the Adventurer’s Guild,” Javin said, unlocking the shop door and ushering him out.

“The Adventurer’s Guild? I’ve just joined up there. What business do you have with them?”

“I have a job I want to post.” Javin locked the door again behind them and took off up the street, taking great strides to get as much space between him and Alix as he could, but Alix was taller than the merchant and easily able to keep up.

“A job? Anything I might be interested in?”

“No, I don’t expect anyone will actually accept it.” Javin suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to Alix. “You know, I think this actually might just be the perfect job for you.”

“Oh really? What is it?”

“I’m trying to cover my tracks, and what’s good for me is good for you. If the Imperator’s are going to accuse me of peddling in higher quality wares than I have been previously known for, then I’ll start doing just that. The job is for resource gathering for extremely rare materials.”

“Sounds easy enough. Why did you think no one would accept it?”

“Because the resources I’m asking for might as well not even exist. Here, have a look.” Javin handed over a slip of parchment.

Job: Hunter Class - Rank F

Reward: Lesser Encrusted Ingot

Looking for people to gather the following materials for the purposes of apothecarial manufacturing. No experience necessary. No time limit. Locations unknown.

* Diamond Sphinx Tears

* Titania Pollen

* Harpie Egg

* Terron Ossia

* Gorgonic Excrement

* Atranoch Essence

~ Javins - Merchant’s Guild #779

Alix didn’t understand most of what he was reading but a few things did make sense. It was a rank that he was able to accept, and the reward sounded great, although he had never heard of a lesser encrusted ingot before.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“So these things are all pretty hard to find?” Alix asked as he handed back the parchment.

“Hard? Most of them I’ve only read about in ancient bestiaries which are more fairytale than fact, and some I’m pretty sure I misremembered. The first one doesn’t exist at all. I was passing through a remote village when the local drunk tried to sell me what he claimed were Diamond Sphinx Tears. Turned out he had just pissed in a vial and tried to sell it off for more beer money.”

“Why the hell should I take this job then? I came here to actually learn some things, but you might as well ask me to go off and find you some tartan paint, or wild haggis. This is a waste of my time.”

Javin’s brow furrowed at the unfamiliar terms, but he didn’t question it. He was used to Alix’s unusual phrases and speech patterns by now, and knew that he wouldn’t understand any explanation anyway.

“Calm down for a moment. If you think about it, this job is perfect for you. It gets you out of the city and gives you a pretext to go anywhere you like.”

“That still doesn’t help me Javin. I don’t have time to wander about aimlessly.”

Javin sighed with exasperation. “Look, you aren’t understanding me. This is what’s known as a filler job. Let me give you an example. It’s an exaggeration, but it will help you to understand. Say there’s a Rank S job for slaying a dragon, which is highly illegal without the proper permissions, but you are only Rank F. The reward would set you up for life, but you can’t afford the deposit, and even if you could, you aren’t a high enough rank to accept the job. Yes, you can technically take any job up to Rank B as you are, but Rank A and above have different rules. Only a Rank S, or a large party of Rank A adventurers, can take on a Rank S job. But say you are an archer and you have in your possession an Instant Kill Dragon Arrow. That isn’t a real thing, but bear with me. You have this arrow, and you know you can kill the dragon. So what do you do? You take the filler job that you can accept, go kill the dragon, then return and claim the reward.”

“That seems like a convoluted way of doing things. Why can’t I just kill the dragon? Why do I have to accept the filler job first? I was able to fulfil a load of resource gathering jobs already without accepting them first, I just happened to have the stuff on me already.”

Javin rubbed at his temples, as if he was trying to explain something as simple as two plus two, but Alix kept asking why water was wet instead.

“Like I said, the rules for Rank A and above jobs are different, but there are other rules that apply depending on the class of job as well. Those other jobs you already completed were Gatherer Class. For those you could walk down the street and buy the materials from a street vendor then hand them back in at the guild for a loss. No one cares. Killing a dragon would be a Hunter Class, and they are not so simple to fulfil. The deposits are larger and the requirements are harder. You can’t just walk in with the dragon and claim the reward without first having been contracted on a Hunter Class job, but, if you are on a different Hunter Class job, and you just so happen to run into the dragon, and just so happen to kill it, you can forfeit the reward of your original job to the Guild and claim the reward for slaying the dragon. It causes a lot of headaches and paperwork of course. If someone else has already accepted and paid for the job then everyone needs to be interviewed to make sure there was no skulduggery involved. You also need to compensate them for their losses, but with such a large reward it doesn’t matter. You see what I’m saying? It’s a convoluted but legal loophole in the Adventurer’s Guild, one that many used to advance quickly through the ranks. So take this job, find a different one that you know you can handle, as I’m sure you will be able to easily handle all Rank S jobs already, and then go off and do that one instead. It gets you out of the city, and I can breathe easier.”

Alix’s head spun as he tried to unwrap the mess Javin had just laid out for him. I’ll have to ask Evory if the Guild has a rulebook or something…

It makes sense in a roundabout sort of way, but he hadn’t paid much attention to the higher ranked jobs. Jumping in and clearing a few Rank S jobs as a beginner would just attract the kind of attention he wanted to avoid. At the very least, it would give him the excuse to head out and investigate the shipwreck the other party had managed to grab the contract for. If he could beat them to it…

“Alright, give me the job and I’ll get out of here,” Alix said, sticking his hand out for the parchment.

“Hold on a moment, I need to get this up to the Adventurer’s Guild first and log it officially, otherwise it’s useless.”

Alix groaned at the thought of so soon returning up the three steep rings to the Guild’s District but he followed after as Javin quickly took off.

As they walked Alix asked him what the encrusted ingot reward actually was. He assumed that it would be against the rules to offer a reward that didn’t exist, even if the job itself was an impossible task.

Javin withdrew a small wooden box from the wild contraption that was his merchants backpack, a mass of leather, wood and strong clothes that held everything he could ever need in his daily work; spare vials, books, examination equipment, scales, and money. He unlocked the box from a skeleton key held around his neck and showed Alix the contents, after pulling him into a shaded alley first.

“Coins are fine enough for low value transactions, but once you get up to bigger purchases, coins become cumbersome to carry. Ingots and gems are desired then, but Encrusted Ingots are even better.”

Within the box lay a large silver ingot that at first reminded Alix of a Chinese sycee. They were supposed to resemble a womans shoe or a boat, but Alix had always thought they looked more like fancy hats. This one was fat and rounded, probably one hundred grams in weight at least, and inlaid in the surface were trillion cut shining white gemstones. A large stamp in the centre, some sort of makers mark or Guild sigil wrapped in artful linework, completed the design.

“Very nice.” I wonder what a Greater Encrusted Ingot must look like… “How much is this worth?”

“Around eight thousand gold coins.”

“Why are you carrying around something so valuable? Are you not worried it will get stolen?”

“Don’t worry about that, I have a few tricks of my own. Anyone other than me that tries to open any pocket, box or lock of my pack will be in for a nasty surprise. You never know when you might come across something you just have to buy. I actually brought that expecting to trade it with you for your potions but you asked for food instead.”

If you had shown me this first I might have changed my mind. “Maybe next time then. I’m sure I can whip up something that you have never seen before.”

“Maybe, but I don’t want anything like that lying around my shop just now. Get out there for a bit and let everything cool down, then come back and talk to me.”

Evory wasn’t happy to see Alix back so soon, but after a momentary lapse, the fake smile was plastered all over her face again. She ignored Alix and turned to Javin instead. “How can I help you sir?”

“I’d like to post this job,” Javin said, handing over the piece of paper.

“Of course.” Evory took the paper and as she read the contents her smile visibly slipped. She looked like she was about to throw it back in his face, which was firmly staring at her chest. It seemed she knew exactly what sort of job it was, but Evory was taking her new role with unexpected seriousness.

Javin turned to leave, but Evory wasn’t about to let him go that easily. “One moment sir, the Guild has recently updated it’s procedures. We now require a ten percent downpayment on the offered reward. Too many customers reneging on payment. I hope you can understand.”

Javin’s face soured, but he reached back into his pack and took out, not eight hundred gold coins, but a few more pouches and a box. The box contained a set of scales with a small abacus built into the lid. He ran through a few quick calculations, then picked a few weights out of the box and added them to one side of the scale. On the other he placed a selection of gemstones, of different colours but all the same cut, until the scales balanced.

“These briolette cut gemstones should suffice,” Javin said as he carefully placed them inside a velvet bag and handed them over.

Evory’s smile returned, and she stamped the paper with a red APPROVED guild stamp.

“Excellent, I’ll hang this up immediately.”

“Actually, I’d like to take that if I can,” Alix said, before anyone else in the room got a chance to read the new job.

Evory started to protest but caught herself in time and turned it into a clearing of the throat.

Master, this job is a joke! He probably just came in here to stare at me like all the others.

I know it’s a joke, but it gives me an excuse to check out that ship, hopefully before that other party gets there.

Very clever master. How did you figure that out?

This is the merchant that has been buying potions from me at the castle. I guess you never met before with your new job. Don’t go too hard on him.

I can restrain myself. The Magician’s Guild sustains-

“Of course sir!” Evory suddenly cut herself off. “The deposit for this job will be ten silver coins.

What was that about magician’s, Evory?

Nothing!

Alix handed over the ten silver coins and Evory quickly added In Progress stamp to the parchment.

“Thank you. If you will excuse me, I need to deposit these in the safe,” Evory said, taking the gems and silver and heading through a door to a back room.

Javin watched her go, but Alix couldn’t tell if he was sad to see her or the gemstones leaving.

“Well, thanks for the help. I’ve still got to find somewhere to sleep, and I really need to grab a few things before I go as well. Last time I was here, I think my purchases were a little too grand,” Alix said under his breath. He still had Xilian and Primal Ruin stored away, but he couldn’t go around wielding them as a low ranking adventurer. He had to find some more suitable equipment. But first, he had to find an inn, preferably one with a bar. Javin saved him some time by suggesting one that would suit his needs perfectly so he set off back down towards the sixth ring.