The Frost King 2 Chapter 2: Supply and Demand, a Yu-Gi-Oh + Don't Starve Crossover fanfic

Chapter 2, everybody! Yes, it took a year—sad to say I'm going to have to announce an indefinite hiatus on this one. Mostly because we're technically living what one of the bigger plot points later on is going to be, so that's kind of killed motivation on it. I'll keep picking at it now and again and come back to it, but for now at least updates are postponed. :\

In ironic notes—I did most of my research on epidemics back in 2019, before this whole mess got started, and did a lot of writing for it then. Going back and looking at my old writing, it's really, really depressing how much I was right on the money as far as behavior was concerned.

Moving on…Rae is quoting Eugene McCarthy—the quote is in Civilization V and feels accurate. Also we should not let kids who have no concept of money go shopping. Rae's also quoting Law Abiding Citizen when she's helping rack up the costs there, and 'toss a kitten' is early 20th century slang. The story of Archimedes I think I first learned in an edutainment game, and it's stuck with me.

There was still plenty of time to decide on who was going to the coronation, as it turned out.

"It's supposed to be on her twenty-first birthday, so they're sending out invitations now to give people time to travel there," Yugi's mom explained. Well, that gave them plenty of time to decide on an RSVP.

In the meantime, the big focus was on the trading party from the south.

The robin that returned from that trip had informed Yami that everyone down south seemed amenable to trade, and seemed very excited about the whole thing to boot. This was all conjecture, however, since the robin hadn't been able to find anyone who spoke bird.

"I guess that's a problem," Yami said, considering.

"Maybe we should start sending them with little tiny letters," Yugi suggested. "Or…like tiny post bags."

"Wilson could make those, right?"

"I guess so?"

"Okay," Willow said, redirecting her attention to the robin. "And I guess we haven't gotten around to naming you yet, then."

That had been a habit of theirs, making sure to name all the birds that frequented the palace. It helped to keep all the little birds constantly flitting in and out of the palace straight. They had decided on Rudy as a good name for the robin when Cardinal-friend came back and said the owls liked the idea of meeting up as well.

"Shouldn't he have come back first, seeing as how owls speak bird?" Yugi asked.

"The owls were having a celebration and it would have been rude to refuse," Yami said, translating the Cardinal's chirps.

"Celebrating owls who play with fire—I like them already," Willow announced.

So the next step was to find Hannah and start sorting out organizing a trading party.

Gazim was included, since he had a good idea of what something was worth. Wilson and Rae, as well, dragged away from their ever-important duties.

Unfortunately, she saw fit to include Mahado, who had unrealistic ideas about trading—mostly that it ought to include something called money.

Yugi and Willow had never been introduced to the idea of being given or giving something inherently useless in exchange for something useful—barter had reigned supreme in Frostmore, mostly exchange of labor. Doing a job the person didn't like in exchange for something they had was common—at least until the supplies had dwindled to near nonexistence and they were forced into community living.

So it was, that the first several minutes of the meeting was spent explaining currency.

"It's about as useless as you can get while still having value," Rae announced, feeling the inside of her cup before accepting the pitcher that Wilson had already checked.

"It is an important aspect of civilization," Mahado countered.

"Remember, children, use your words," Hannah said, rubbing her forehead. "Explain why it's important, and why it's useless."

"If people are willing to give much for something, then that item is not useless," Gazim argued.

"Well yeah, it's shiny," Yugi said. "But it's not exactly more important than food, is it?"

"I still don't get it," Yami agreed, front half sprawled on the table and already looking like he regretted being there.

"Yugi has the general idea," Wilson said, looking at them and focusing most of his addressing to Yugi, Willow, and Yami. "When a cataclysmic event happens to humanity—or to any species—a life gets rendered down to the most important tenets of survival: food and shelter. In Frostmore, money had no value, because you can't eat gold, and it can't keep you warm. It's good for wiring, like I used, but when things started getting tight—well, tighter, the wood used to melt it down was better used keeping us all warm. Money, in that situation, was basically useless.

"But take the Sunlit Kingdom, which is established and has enough food and shelter to go around, no matter how stingy the people running the place are."

"Were we supposed to cater to foreigners who simply barged in and started squatting on our lands?" Mahado asked testily.

"Something between that and killing us on sight would have been good," Wilson countered mildly, not even glancing his way. "Moving on—in cases like this, with supply and demand not being rendered down to the most basic of needs, with a surplus of everything to go around, people start losing sight of how much a thing is worth. When you have plenty of food, something shiny that isn't as common has more value.

"Which brings us to currency, which assigns a basic value to everything and a standardized format with which to pay for it all." Wilson motioned to the rest of the adults—Gazim caught his drift and plunked some coins down. "So if everyone agrees that an apple is worth one of these coins, then we don't have to argue if an apple is worth as much as a pear, or two oranges, or five almonds, or hauling wood for a week. It's just one coin and that's it. Of course, then we get to the part about different kingdoms having different currencies—"

"And inflation, and taxation, and all the other wonderful things that come with bureaucracy," Rae chimed in, sounding like the topic was exhausting her. "Because the one thing that's consistent with any government is that they can't leave well enough alone."

"The lesson was going just fine, thank you," Wilson said testily, looking at her like he was trying very hard not to glare.

"Wasn't it one of our own founding fathers who said that 'the only thing that saves us from bureaucracy is its inefficiency'?"

"No, I'm pretty sure it was one of our later politicians."

"You mean one of them had a brain?"

"Back to the point of this conversation," Hannah announced loudly. "Kids, did any of that sink in?"

Silence.

"Money is pointless?" Willow guessed.

"I still don't get it," Yami said.

"Gold is only good for dragons?" Yugi guessed.

Rudy the robin chirped.

"I'll take it," Hannah sighed. "So what do we know about these people?"

"None of them speak bird," Willow declared, earning a blank look from the adults.

"Let's just assume that's a common trait in people and move on," Wilson said.

"Now hold it, you know what it means to assume," Rae told him.

"What does it mean?" Yami asked.

"Good question—Wilson, you tell him."

"You were the one who started it."

"Not that knowing how to speak bird wouldn't be a useful skill to have," Gazim said to Hannah.

"I know a bird hand signal, does that count?" Hannah asked mildly, causing Rae to snort.

"There was a point to this meeting," Mahado said, rubbing his face with his hands before reaching for his cup.

"Here, drink this," Gazim said, pulling a flask out from under his cloak and handing it to Mahado. "It's stronger."

Yugi and Willow exchanged a glance, decided then and there that they'd never understand adults.

The next month, while waiting for Rudy to deliver the finalizing notes sent back and forth, Willow and Yugi spent trying to find out as much as they could about the southern kingdoms.

Yami agreed to look in the library, since they couldn't read Tan Skin writing. In the meantime, they hit the streets—much to the aggravation of Mahado and a few of the other adults—asking people if they had ever been.

Most people…actually gave them a wide berth—their association with the Frost King made them dangerous. On the positive side, it meant that no one would dare harm them, but…it made questioning people hard.

But it also meant no one told them get lost when they went into the tavern, because Bakura had told Yugi that people tended to be loose-lipped in taverns. Bakura had also said that people stopped paying strict attention to their moneybags once they got drinking, but that was something that they had no interest in—they still had no idea what purpose money truly served, and besides, stealing made Yugi's scalp itch.

The bartender—after he came over with the intention of throwing them out, cursed friend or no—actually turned out to be the best lead they got all morning.

"You don't want to be in here," he told them, shooing them out much more gently than his original intent had been. "You want to go to the market and ask around—the merchants there are the ones who are well-travelled."

And with that he gave them both a bean bun and sent them on their way.

They had finished eating and were ready for a good solid round of questioning once they arrived at the market, but it was more of the same: most people avoided or ignored them, and of the ones who didn't, they all asked the same question:

"Are you going to buy something or what?"

"If I do, will you answer our questions?" Yugi finally asked, exasperated. Getting a straight answer shouldn't be this difficult.

"Sure," the guy said, scratching his cheek.

Yugi looked at the table before glancing at Willow, tapping her hand to get her attention: I don't like any of this stuff.

Neither do I, she 'answered,' before tipping her nose up and walking away.

"Come on, Yugi," she said. "I'm sure some other guy will tell us without making us buy something dumb first."

"Hey!" the guy protested.

"Maybe you'd like my table better, little girl?" a nearby merchant called, waving them over. "Your friend here is the Brother Prince, is he not? He'll be able to buy a lovely piece of jewelry for you while we talk."

Oh. Yugi's minor spike of relief at hearing contractions from the man faded at that mention.

"I could help you clean up or something," Yugi said. "Maybe sweep?"

"Now why would you do that?"

"I'm used to trading, not paying."

"With your coffers filled to the brim with gold?"

Willow suddenly jabbed Yugi in the side, quickly telegraphing her thought—that was right, the palace did have a lot of money, if what Bakura said was true. Granted, it wasn't as much as what the White Dragons had, Bakura had said, but it was probably enough. And it made sense to trade gold for gold, right?

"Okay," Yugi said, startling the man, who had probably no idea at the silent conversation that had just happened. "You can deliver to the palace after you close, right? That way we can pay you then and you don't lose any business here, right?"

"Canny boy," the man said. "So, what would you like, and what would you like to know?"

Yugi asked about the surrounding area as Willow picked through the items on the table.

"I've never heard of anyone going past the gorge," the man said, gesturing to the east. "Most everyone stays on this side of the ravine, and there are no bridges over."

"What about to the south?" Willow asked. "Do you trade with people that way?"

"Ah…trade from the south is getting much more difficult as of late—there's threat of pirates menacing the plains to the south. Anything coming from there is most likely going to be too pricey to afford—they won't come here if they can't move their wares."

Willow and Yugi both groaned.

"Why is that a problem?" the man asked.

"There's a trading party coming here from there, and we wanted to see what sort of thing we could trade," Yugi explained. "But if they won't come…and I guess if it costs too much…." Money was complicated.

The man made an understanding noise before leaning closer. "Listen: the only thing you need to know about trade is supply and demand."

"Hey, that kind of sounds like what Wilson said," Willow said.

The man gestured a little before continuing. "Take my stuff here: you see these opals? No one but me will trade with the thieves to get them, so I'm the only one here with them."

Yugi had heard of the thieves' opals—Bakura had hit a vein of the multicolored gems when he and Teana were digging out their new place with the help of a few sand dragons. Bakura had been thrilled to death because he said opals rendered the wearer invisible and brought good luck. Gazim had been quick to correct, saying that only fire opals rendered the wearer invisible and only opals got honestly brought good luck.

Willow had been the one to notice that a lot of the other thieves who had surged forward at the time had dispersed after Gazim said something.

"And then this, sapphires from the Shallow Seas," the man continued, pointing. "And this amber—in Kish farther south you can't walk without tripping over it. But no one around here has it, so I'm able to charge more, because I went to the trouble of transporting it and taking it to an artisan who can make it into something nice to wear. Do you understand me so far?"

"It's worth something here because it's rare," Willow guessed.

"Exactly. Now, someone to the south at this point, who doesn't have the opportunity to trade with us without great risk—they would want something from around here. Something they would have no opportunity to see otherwise."

Well, that could cover a lot of Wilson's tinkering, Yugi guessed—not gold, since there had been threads of that in the mountains near Frostmore that had interested the adults but not kept their attention, even though it was pretty—so gold was fairly common, Yugi guessed—

Wait.

"I have an idea," Yugi said, nudging Willow. If someone from the south doesn't get to see stuff here, then what about stuff from the ocean? he added silently.

Or Frostmore? Willow returned, before turning back to the confused man.

"I like this one—it's red," she said, pointing at a necklace.

"Good choice—red is a power color," the man said, holding it up for better perusal. "It also has matching earrings and a bracelet."

"Wilson would toss a kitten if you pierced your ears," Yugi said, borrowing one of the gentleman scientist's phrases.

"Ah, but these are from the south, and women there prefer that they clip on."

"Cool," Willow said when the man demonstrated, took the earrings and put them on her ears. "Ow, they pinch."

"I'm told beauty is pain," the man said, shrugging before offering a highly polished plate that acted as a mirror. "What do you think?"

"I look funny," Willow decided.

"You do," Yugi agreed.

"You didn't have to agree with me."

"I didn't?"

"You must always tell a woman she looks nice," the man said, putting the plate down.

"See? He gets it," Willow said, putting the earrings with the necklace and bracelet. "I think I'll take it—wear it to those really special occasions or something like that."

"Very good. Red suits you. Now you," the man said, eyeing Yugi critically. "Maybe blue, or this amethyst here."

"Blue is more Yami's color," Yugi said, looking at the sapphires. "But that is pretty."

"Should you really be wearing jewelry and looking pretty? That's a girl thing," Willow said, standing on her toes to better look the items over. "Besides, Yami would look better with this icy-looking stuff over here."

"So it is true, then?" the man asked. "The Crown Prince is cursed?"

"No," Yugi and Willow answered at the same time.

"Yami's…complicated," Yugi said. "It's a long story, but he's not cursed."

"He just got a hold of some weird magic up north," Willow said.

"Yes, well, weird magic is what we call cursing around here," the man said.

"I thought cursing was those words we're not allowed to say."

That prompted a laugh out of the man, and the rest of the conversation went fairly well.

"I'll be at the palace at sundown," the man said as they started to leave. "You make sure the guards don't turn me away, okay?"

"Okay, we will!" Yugi said, waving as they left him to packing their purchases away for later.

"Well that went well," Willow said, skipping.

"Yeah," Yugi said. "I just wonder how Mahado's going to react when he finds out how much we bought."

Mahado tossed a kitten when he found out.

How was basically Yugi and Willow shooing the guards away when the man came with their purchases and bringing him in, heading down the main hall with the intent of finding someone to ask about the treasure room. Mahado had turned a corner, demanded to know what the man was doing here guards seize him—

"We already covered this," Yugi said. "No seizing—we're paying him."

"So pointing the treasure room out would be nice," Willow said.

"A commoner is not going to the treasure room—it's bad enough a lowly thief got in there," Mahado said, still obviously steaming over Bakura.

"Then you go get it."

"I will not—I'm terribly sorry that these children bothered you, but—"

"That's okay, I can clean the stall for you," Yugi said to the man.

The idea of the Brother Prince cleaning someone's stall was enough to send Mahado scurrying to the treasure room after nearly having a conniption at the bill the man had drafted up.

"Okay, that's a big number there at the bottom," Willow said, looking at the bill once Mahado was gone.

"Travel expenses," the man explained. "Plus hazard pay—as I said, there's pirates hunting the plains in the south."

"Rae told us a story about pirates," Yugi said. "I thought they were on the ocean."

"Usually yes, pirates are limited to water, but recently there have been men in some sort of flying contraption swooping down and plucking wagons straight out of caravans. People tell me that it's hard to negotiate when the alternative is dropping hundreds of feet down to the ground."

"So they're sky pirates," Willow said, sounding intrigued.

"Mahado said something about that," Yugi said, recalling.

"Hey, what happened to my cheap quitting-time whistles?" Rae demanded, coming in. "I finally had to tell Wilson I was done for the day, whether you showed up or not—now I gotta stay here because the Gryphons won't fly at night."

"Sorry," Yugi said, grimacing.

"We had to wait for this guy," Willow said, pointing. "We bought stuff today."

"You have no concept of money, but you bought stuff," Rae said flatly.

"Well, yeah."

"What did you buy?" Rae asked, taking the bill away from her—and then doing a double-take. "Please tell me you misplaced a decimal point."

"Travel expenses, hazard pay, cost of labor," the man said, ticking the things off on his fingers.

"This better be some good whatever—Wilson will pitch a fit so hard they'd hear it back in our homeland."

The man pointed at her but looked at Yugi and Willow. "I've heard of that—the Pale Skin homeland across the Endless Ocean. Now something from there would fetch a pretty price."

"So pretty that nobody would ever sell," Rae said archly. "We went to a lot of trouble to get here. With that in mind, there'd better be a television and radio in that bag of yours."

"Never heard of those, but no—just pretty things for pretty ladies."

"Ooh," Rae noised when he showed her. "Nice—very nice. I like this one," she added, pulling out a necklace that looked like silver chainmail studded with purple gems. "You make this?"

"No, I have an artisan connection who does it all."

"Pass along my complements. And add this to your bill. Mahado's covering, correct?"

Yugi and Willow nodded brightly.

By the time the man had explained the clip-on-earrings—Rae's ears weren't pierced either—Mahado had returned to find that Rae had tacked on a few more expenses.

"And add a thirty-percent gratuity for yourself, my friend," Rae said, nudging the man.

Mahado spluttered, tried to counter—

"Now kids, math class—what is thirty percent of this number?"

Mahado went back to the treasure room as Rae had Yugi and Willow do the math.

"You're going to have to be the one to double-check," she told the man. "Math was never my strong suit."

"You should never admit that to a merchant," the man said.

"No you shouldn't," Wilson said, coming up. "What's going on here?"

"We're teaching the kids supply and demand, maths, marketing, and giving Mahado the shaft," Rae said. "Help me pick out a few more things so Mahado has to go back to get more money."

"Ah," Wilson noised.

So when Mahado came back, they had more for him to go back and get—and again and again and again, over and over and over. Wilson seemed to like a pair of copper rings, while Rae was more taken with the clip-on earrings.

"My mom wore pierced earrings," Rae said. "She tried to get me to pierce mine, but I never would—I could never get past the holes in my ears."

"That does sound painful," Willow agreed.

"She said it wasn't the needle through her ears so much as the ice she had to put on the piercing."

"Yami could do it," Willow said to Yugi.

"Yeah, where is he?" Yugi asked, looking around.

"You are not getting your ears pierced," Wilson said firmly. "Besides, they'll turn your ears green."

"The cheap stuff does," Rae said. "This isn't the cheap stuff, is it?"

"Well I never!" the man said, acting affronted. "Mistaking me for my competitors—for shame."

"How do you tell?" Yugi asked. "And—what if you do it with money? Money's made of gold—can money be faked?"

"All the time," Rae said. "It's called counterfeiting."

"On the positive side, checking gold is much easier than checking the monetary notes we used to use," Wilson said simply. "Thanks to Archimedes, we know that the volume of an object displaces an equal volume of water—so a coin that is lead coated in gold displaces a different volume of water than a coin that is entirely gold."

Yugi and Willow gave him blank looks.

"Oi—look, if you're going to explain it to them, do it right," Rae said. "Archimedes—was asked by his king to figure out if this guy had cheated him out of his gold. The king had asked this guy to make him a crown out of a certain amount of gold, but he thought that maybe the guy had skimped out and used lead with just a bit of gold to coat it, making it weigh the same as a solid gold crown. But there was no way to know how without opening up the crown and ruining it. You with me so far?"

Yugi and Willow nodded.

"So the king goes to Archimedes," Rae continued. "Our equivalent would be Wilson here—"

"Thank you," Wilson said drily.

"And asks him to figure out how to tell the crown was made of solid gold without cutting into it. Now, he can't figure it out, because of course he thinks of the obvious too. And then one day, he's getting into the bath, sees that he filled it too much and the water overflowed when he got in—Wilson, explain this bit."

"And deduced that the amount of water displaced was equivalent to how much of his body he put in," Wilson explained. "That is, how much he weighed wasn't important, but how much space he took up." Wilson waved at Rae when she started to jump in. "So he runs to the king—"

"Naked," Rae put in anyway.

"Naked?" Willow echoed.

"Stark naked," Rae said, grinning as Wilson moaned and buried his face in his hands. "So excited at figuring it all out that he doesn't even bother with clothes or a towel, just runs for the palace as fast as he can, streaking through the streets yelling Eureka! I have found it!"

"You could have mentioned a towel," Wilson moaned.

"I could have," Rae admitted. "But you're more likely to remember a grown man running naked through the streets, aren't you kids?"

"Yes," Yugi and Willow chimed.

"Oh wait," Yugi said. "What happened to the guy who made the crown? Was it all right?"

"As it turns out, no," Rae said. "The guy had skimped and used lead in the crown—since Wilson nerd talk here."

Wilson rolled his eyes. "Since a pound of gold will displace the same volume of water no matter what shape it's in, they were able to test a pound of gold against the crown. The twain did not match and…."

"And the king had the guy who cheated him executed," Rae finished.

There was a beat of silence before they all turned to look at the merchant.

"I assure you, I do not cut my products with cheap substitutes," the merchant maintained. "And if I find out my artisan has, we will be having words about me inadvertently passing off substandard material."

"Good man," Rae said. "And if that's the case—oh look, Mahado's coming back. Let's buy some more."

Yugi and Willow could get behind that.

"What do you think?"

"Why?" Yami asked.

"Because we value your opinion," Willow said, stirring her new acquisitions around and admiring how they glittered in the moonlight and firelight.

"No, I mean why bother buying this stuff?" Yami asked, holding up one of the necklaces. "You're not a dragon, and we have plenty in the treasure rooms."

"We did," Yugi said. "It looked like Mahado gave an awful lot of stuff to that guy."

"You haven't been to the treasure rooms yet, have you?"

"Not yet," Willow said, pulling out another necklace and putting it on. "I think I might need one now though."

"I think I might understand why the adults like trade and stuff so much—that was kind of fun," Yugi said.

"Which reminds me—Rudy came back," Yami said. "He says that the trading party from the south should be here by the end of the month, barring any unforeseen delays."

"Awesome," Willow said. "Hey—me and Yugi had an idea. Since they're from the south, they wouldn't be seeing anything up here that often, right?"

"Right."

"So we trade lots of cool stuff from up here—I'm thinking some shells from the beach."

"Ah. Right," Yami agreed.

"I'm pretty sure they have beaches down south too," Yugi said, watching Willow try on a few rings that slipped off her fingers easily enough—their purchases had gotten nonsensical towards the end. "We need something they don't have, remember? Did you find out anything about down there?" he asked Yami.

"Lots of plains and hills and scrublands, some shallow bodies of water, rocks," Yami said, poking at one of the rings. "Trees, although I'm going to have to ask Lief if he has any cousins down there."

"So like Frostmore."

"Maybe. Only I'm pretty sure there's rocks all over the place."

"And not-Lief trees," Yugi put in.

"True."

"But until we have a better plan, we go to the beach," Willow said. "We go and get really cool shells—like, tomorrow. And then…I don't know, maybe go up to the mountains—there's got to be something up there that's appropriately awesome to trade."

"I think you just want to go to the beach," Yugi accused.

"I do. And come to think of it—what does Frostmore have that I bet you down south doesn't?"

Yugi and Yami stared blankly.

"Is this another trick question?" Yugi asked.

"What's a trick question?" Yami asked.

"It's like a question where you already know the answer. Or is that a rhetorical question?"

"What's a rhetorical question?"

"We'll ask Wilson later," Willow said. "But that was an honest question—what does Frostmore have that down south doesn't?"

Silence.

"Ice?" Yami guessed finally.

"I don't know how we'd keep the ice from melting though," Yugi said. "Unless we sold them Wilson's Ice-O-Matic, but I don't think Wilson's up to making another one just yet."

"And I'm kind of using the one we have," Yami said. "Although it makes me miss Rae's ice trick."

"Hmm," Willow noised, thinking. "Maybe we ought to do the ice trick in front of some of those stuffy advizers—make them think we really are cursed. Ooh, look, we can make ice too!"

"That would freak just about everyone out," Yugi pointed out.

"It would. Let's do it."

And with that, she scooped up her new treasures and ran off.

"Should we stop her?" Yugi asked, already running after her.

"I don't see why," Yami said blithely.

Yes…that was the problem.