“What do I do even do with this information?” Grizz sighed as he once more picked up the documents and started reading over them. Orou slithered next to him, putting his head on Grizz’s shoulder and reading the documents. Unfortunately, all that Orou got was a list of names and numbers, which made no sense to Orou. Orou flickered his tongue at Grizz and used his fangs to point at the various names and numbers, looking expectantly at Grizz. He didn’t react at first but once he saw and understood what Orou was doing, he responded.
“While there’s no note or anything of the sort written here, it’s a ledger containing all of the major trades the revolutionaries have done ever since they were created. If you look here, you’ll see that they’ve acquired several crates of weapons and armor from Shaemor, that is, the neighboring human kingdom just across the border. What I don’t understand is how they have so many funds on their hands, this ledger details trade deals worth millions of blood crystals.” Grizz pointed towards one of the numbers at the top of the list and exclaimed in shock.
“It’s like they’ve been preparing for years and only now did they pull the trigger. If these numbers are true, they’re as well equipped as the king’s army, not to mention whatever strange magic they’re using on their soldiers. If I was a betting beastman, I would bet on the fact that the shaman was the one responsible for the creation of the strange line,” Grizz pondered the situation for a few seconds before continuing: “Now that we’ve stolen this from him, I’m sure that the shaman won’t stop hunting for us until he’s dead. We’re likely on his hit list already, simply from delivering the black line to the king.”
Grizz flashed a smile and looked to Orou, saying to him: “Thankfully, I’m a master of disguise and you can alert me of whatever strange magic the shaman can cast. If he can find us despite that fact, we can always simply fight him, you know a few strange spells yourself, don’t you?” Grizz happily rubbed Orou’s head which Orou now understood as a sign of affection. Using his forked tongue, Orou licked his palm, to which Grizz responded by giggling and touching Orou on his nose.
“The problem is - what do I do with this information? If I showed this to the king, the shaman would likely be killed and if he escaped, he would be denounced for all times. We could also arrange a meeting with the shaman and blackmail him, though that’s a very dangerous game to play. The safest option would be to sell it to a third party, one of the gangs perhaps, but I’m not lacking in crystals and this piece of news could impact the entire revolution, it’s too important to pass it on to some nobodies.” Grizz continued scratching Orou’s head while thinking of a solution to the problem that had suddenly presented itself.
Seeing that Grizz was taking the matter seriously, Orou decided to try and think of a solution himself. Simply basing it off of what he had seen of Grizz, Orou thought that the choice would be simple. He always wanted more to himself and he had already said that he didn’t want to involve himself in this whole mess, so the best option would be to sell it off. Of course, if Orou had a say in this whole matter, approaching the shaman and blackmailing him for various spells and secrets would be the best option, but Orou could also understand why Grizz thought of it as a dangerous matter. Orou had seen first hand both the trickery of humans and beastman, trusting the shaman to do as he was told was simply nonsense.
Ten minutes passed in complete silence before Grizz finally put the papers back in his backpack and said out loud: “It’s not like we have to decide it right now. Let’s take care of all the other matters before thinking of what to do with this.” Orou looked outside and saw that it was most likely well past midnight. Seeing what Orou was doing, Grizz piped up: “We won’t do it right now silly, even thieves and crooks have to sleep you know. You should try properly sleeping sometimes, wander around in the dream world and see what you can find.”
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
Orou was quite confused about Grizz’s last statement, but it looked like he had no intention to explain anything as he started heading off towards the bedroom. Orou imagined another world besides the spirit world for a few minutes and wondered if the dream he had was related to what Grizz had said, absentmindedly heading towards the bedroom and slithering next to Grizz. Orou wanted to nudge Grizz and ask him to explain himself, but as Orou slithered up on the bed, he saw that Grizz had already passed out and was loudly snoring.
Orou wasn’t sure how Grizz had managed to fall asleep as quickly as he had, but looking at Grizz’s sleepy body, Orou decided to try and fall asleep. His mind kept wondering about the dream world and he was annoyed by the fact that he wasn’t currently practicing spells, but after some amount of time, he managed to drift off to sleep.
He woke up several hours later, his mind completely blank. Try as he might remember what he dreamt of, he could only draw blanks. Orou looked over at Grizz, who was already up and moving about in the shop, writing down something on several pieces of paper, leaving a note with some number next to each one of jewelry pieces.
As Orou started slithering over, Grizz turned his head and yelled out: “The sun is already high in the sky, how can one snake sleep for so long? I’ve been waiting for you for hours. Come on, we’ve got plenty of matters to take care of.” Looking outside the window, Orou confirmed what Grizz said and confusedly slithered next to him, thinking about why he had slept for so long. Now that he thought about it, his thoughts were a bit clearer and his body seemed to be refreshed and full of energy. Now that he thought about it, perhaps he hadn’t had a proper rest in quite some time.
Clearing his mind of all distracting thoughts, he started following Grizz to a place they had once visited, the tavern where they met Mar. Just as last time, Grizz slipped the bartender a few blood crystals and waited for some time. This time, it didn’t take as long for Mar to arrive, after five to ten minutes, he had already waltzed into the tavern and had sat down next to Grizz and Orou. With a cheerful smile, he said to Grizz: “So, what do you want this time? You can always ask me anything if you’ve got more of the stuff you gave me last time.”
Grizz put down his glass of some vile alcohol and said to Mar: “I don’t need much from you, only some of your answers,” he coughed a few times and opened his backpack, pulling out the schematics of the castle. Laying them out on the table, he looked at mar and continued: “Where did you get this?” Mar looked confused for a few seconds as he pondered something and hesitantly, he replied to Grizz: “I got it from one of the higher-ups, Dan was his name. Told me his spies have the latest information on the castle.”
Grizz nodded up and down before completely dropping the matter, which confused Mar even more than he was already. The two of them started talking about various places to pawn off stolen goods and which places were safe, which places were ready to kill you for anything valuable. Finally, after several minutes of talking and several minutes of Orou not paying much attention, they arrived at a topic which interested Orou.
“Do you know of anyone, who deals with magical goods? Preferably someone, who could crack a magically enchanted safe and someone, who will keep shush about the goods brought to him,” Grizz looked down at Orou and smiled before returning back to his conversation. Mar scratched his chin and looked down into his drink for a minute or so before replying: “Yeah, I know of a guy. His name is Rial, a strange fellow who is locked up in his house most of the time. Rumors are that he researches strange occultic magic, though no one knows if that's true or not. We get him highly illegal magic stuff and he helps us resolve all of our magic related problems.”
Mar started describing the direction to Rial’s house, though Orou lost track of them half-way through. Knowing Grizz, they’ll be lost for a couple of hours before finally getting to the damn thing. With that, Grizz waved Mar goodbye, not forgetting to slip Mar a few crystals for his assistance. Walking out of the tavern, he said to Orou: “I don’t have a clue where to go, but we’ll find him eventually.”