In response to reviews I received about last chapter's quality:
If you read last chapter within one to two days of it being posted, or within the first twenty four hours, you may want to look back and re-read it. I made a few changes to it that lengthened the chapter by about 550 words. If you don't care to look back, a quick re-cap will be posted at the end of this chapter.
My fingers are cold, cut up and whatever else comes from a day of outside work, but I'm in the mood to type. So I must, despite the less than ideal standard, let's get going! Of course, I'm going to be typing slowly. I've got a cut about an inch long right on the all important thumb, and it's deep, so deep it still looks open the next day. So yeah...slow...I can't speed mash keys and risk that opening again.
(I can update four days later to say it still looks open, but I can type now more or less quickly.)
This chapter was exceedingly difficult to write for another reason, I just could not get the words to work together. It did not want to flow to my taste, so I forced them out, and thus this chapter will probably show it.
I resurrected an over four year old poll on my profile, asking people to rate me. If you like, you can cast a vote, but it's mainly there for show. I appreciate every vote though. XD
I knew it would happen sooner or later; but so soon? Lemongrass Stains got kicked back down to third place again favorites wise… Bonds Under Ocean Waves has passed it. =S Not asking anyone to try and reclaim it, that would be murder, seeing as Bonds is a How To Train Your Dragon fic, and that section itself is murder trying to stay on the first page.
I've also started another new story, but this is my limit. I just came out of Hiatus, I am not going to do more than three, and trust me, the others, if you look at them, do not have quite the effort I place here, neh?
I doubt anyone there would be as loyal as you guys are. Again I thank you for that.
Book end author notes again. =.=~C.F Winchester
~Lemongrass Stains: Recette's Annual.
Chapter Twelve: Penance
Louie stuck his hand in front of Calliou's nose again and cleared his throat. Calliou narrowed his eyes. Then he looked away from the hand and met Charme. She gave him a rather leery smile with eyes that sparkled. Calliou was not going to get any quarter there...he turned around to look back at Louie.
"I...don't have the money at this moment."
Oh this was rich. Louie grinned. This was richer than his waiting one hundred thousand. His tone waxed on an almost saunter as he illustrated his point with his hands as he spoke.
"Oh, so the big bad mage who told ME not to worry about how he was going to pay me back now says he doesn't have the money? The guy who gave Recette... What was it you said? Ten seconds? Where's the fire now? Pay me. Your rules say you can't loan it from anyone, has to be your own money. YOU made those rules bud."
Calliou frowned and looked to the side, where Arma stood. He wasn't going to get help in that direction either. He hazarded a glance on the other side, but no go, Elan was there. He was boxed in. He sighed and then dug his hands into his pockets.
"Fine, you win. Here."
He tossed a bag at Louie, who caught the rough throw smoothly. Calliou's frown grew deeper at that, but he made no comment. Louie opened the bag and his eyes widened at the pure gold that winked at him. He looked up at Calliou.
"Is this-"
"Oh if you don't believe me ask that counter jockey of yours. It's gold pix you idiot. You never seen it before? Oh wait, no of course not, your money bag must obviously be full or nothing but plain pix, I was stupid to take your bait. Go ahead and laugh."
Louie didn't say a single word to Calliou, but opened the draw string of his own bag and picked out a gleaming silver pix. He tossed it up so it caught in the sun light before catching it again.
"I know about the different values of pix...and I can count just fine."
Having seen Recette do it countless times, he shifted through the coins and gathered up a bunch in his hands, shifting a few out to plunk back in the bag when his fingers caught too many. Using this method to cup them in his hands, he looked at them to make sure before grinning and transferring the amount to his own bag. He did this four more times before he held up four loose coins and stuffed them back in the bag. He tossed it back at Calliou.
"You gave me extra bud. I don't need a tip!"
Calliou gave him a smirk as he caught the nearly empty bag of pix. He stuffed it back into his robes before answering.
"You sure there? Last I checked it was one hundred even in there."
Louie grinned right back.
"Alright then, so give me those then."
"No thanks!"
Louie's grin became even wider; so did Calliou's. Alright, the mage had to admit, he had been caught and throttled good this time. Maybe the swordsman wasn't such a loser character after all. He had his prospects...Calliou looked up as Louie spoke again.
"I've seen Recette count coins enough times. She has this way of knowing exactly the size of a stack with twenty coins. She showed me. So I just did that and counted. It's a lot faster."
He turned to look at Recette after he said this. She was still looking down at Griff, who was only now brushing himself off, now kneeling on the floor.
Recette blinked once at the downed form of Griff picking himself up off the ground. Her mouth twisted again into that squiggly worm. She winced as Griff stood up fully, but managed to keep the movement small, so barely anyone noticed at all. Except Tear. Always Tear. She looked curiously at her for it.
Honestly, Recette was surprised it was not worse. She had pushed herself this entire month. Every night with Charme, almost every morning with Elan, just about every other day these past few weeks with Louie...she was sore. She had woken up this morning sore all over, and tired. She had not gone to Elan this morning...and she wanted to sleep all day today...
...and there was this terrible pain in her lower middle that just made her feel crabby thinking about it. However...as she was about to try and leave the procession that had huddled about Griff, she heard Charme point out to him that "fair was fair" and that he had to pay off Elan's tab.
It was not fair...and she had to stop them from making him pay off that debt...her mind spun it's wheels quickly, trying to come up with an excuse to at least save him some time and she remembered something that could save Griff for a while; and least until she herself had gotten a decent rest... and she spoke up.
"You can't pay off the debt yet."
"Huh?"
Charme turned and looked at Recette. The girl stood a tiny bit straighter, but something was off about her. She seemed a bit sharper than normal, and that was including this past month's experience. Elan answered her.
"Why not?"
"The pub isn't open yet."
This was quite true. However, Charme frowned as she watched Recette slip away. She allowed the fairy to give chase and counted to twenty before following them, the rest of the crowd dispersing their own ways behind her.
Recette was being clipped and snappish, which was not like the girl at all, and if Charme believed in fate she would say her talk came just in time...but she could not chalk that up to fate just yet...she had a feeling something else was on Recette's mind...
She followed the train of people a few spaces behind Tear's fluttering wings, weaving through the people with a practiced ease and rarely stepping off the side of the street, when Tear stopped, she kept right on walking, and she passed the fairy as she weaved about in pursuit of Recette. Charme did not double back, but instead stayed ahead, monitoring with a casual air when they got too close and pulling ahead again. She could let them pass her later.
One of the key mistakes a rookie scout will make is to stop when their quarry does. It's foolish instinct. Stopping gives your position away and informs the target that you are tracking them. If they stop, continue on. You can monitor them just as well from the front if you are casual in your manner, and you can even delude them into believing they are tailing you...if they were suspicious before. This way you can literally reign them in wherever you wish.
Charme let them pass her a few blocks before Recettear came up, and she lingered by a street corner to watch people mill by. She already knew where they were headed, so why rush? Give them time to organize themselves, to diffuse suspicion. The best way to get information out of a berk was to put them off guard. Sure, everyone is afraid of a big, scary lion coming at you, but you hardly ever notice a silent snake until it gets you...and she planned to enter without any hissing.
When she did enter, it was with a tinkle of a bell that answered a mostly empty shop. Tear however, was floating about. She did not look happy to see Charme at all, but she remained civil enough as she approached.
"Hey~ Where is-"
"That was cowardly and underhanded."
Charme stopped mid sentence and looked over Tear. Still the same fairy.
"He-wha? Pot calling kettle's bottom black aren't we? You did the same thing to her last month with her father's debt. Only I at least was asked. I just made the activity benefit me too. Did she ask you to put her through the hell that gave birth to this ever so fine shop I'm standing in?"
Her hands came out to slip along the polished telling counter. She blew imaginary dust off the finger to illustrate her point. Tear huffed and flew a little higher.
"Any item you chose to buy will be five times price."
"Ouch, really? What about this nice little Walnut bread?"
"600 pix."
"Really? You gonna pull that joke on me?"
"600 pix."
Charme huffed and gave up, putting the bread down on the counter between them. She fixed tear with a glare.
"Really fire-fly, what's your problem? I did what I was asked to do!"
Tear huffed again, but if she flew any higher she'd lose sight of the thief's face, so she just hovered closer. Face to face thus, Tear looked Charme dead in the eye with a pure intent of ill will before she allowed herself to fall a few inches and away. Her whole demeanor went from angry to exhausted as if something in her had snapped. Charme dully noted the change and prepared herself.
"You took her from me."
"Wha?"
"Recette. You took her and made her into something else. She trains with Elan in the early mornings, comes to run her shop right after, runs it perfectly and efficiently, then goes out in the afternoons to replenish stock or craft items, meets Louie, spars with him, comes back and runs her shop again before she goes with you. Any spare time in between, she reads, organizes her wares...we don't spend any time around town anymore. I don't hear her laugh, or see her...dopey smile or some other infernal look or utter plain happiness it made my teeth rot with the sweetness."
Dopey? Did she just call Recette dopey? Not that she disagreed but...dopey. It was such a...well...dopey...word to use. It inspired someone to laugh at it, it was just so stupidly hilarious. Dopey. Like goofy, or doofy, if that even was a word. Charme snapped herself to the present to respond.
"I didn't take her from you...she's with you all day isn't she? Just busy with the shop YOU made her start. Listen don't ask me why, because I really don't get why, but that girl loves you. Nothing I do will change that."
Tear however, was not hearing it, she shook her head and pointed up the stairs.
"That girl up there looks like Recette Lemongrass, but Recette Lemongrass is an innocent child. One who hardly ever picks up a book, one who hardly knows how to think, but whose purity draws people to her. This girl spends all her free time reading and organizing, she accomplishes her tasks with ease, she-"
Charme slapped the counter between them to stop the flow of words. The walnut bread jumped off the counter and fell to the floor and bounced, sending a few crumbs flying as it landed near Charme's foot top-side down.
"She's growing up! So what? You afraid that she does not need you anymore? Afraid the little robot you made doesn't need to be told how to run anymore? You trained her to do something, now you're whining that she can do it without you. Isn't that why you wanted to leave her? You think you should go back to your miserable loan shark life? Oh wait; you can't! Do me a favor Tear and tell me what's really bothering you."
"You damaged store goods-"
She cut her off with a growl.
"I'll pay for the blasted thing. Your turn."
Tear let herself land on the counter and promptly sat down on it, forcing Charme to look down and arrange herself so that she could lean on the counter and keep the fairy in view. Tear looked up at the looming purple eyes. She said without preamble:
"You're her big sister."
Charme said nothing, only blinked. She did not really get where this was going.
"She does not say it, I doubt she even thinks it, but you have filled that role in her life. You have taught her things, gave her advice and trained her. You're her big sister now. That...was supposed to be my role."
Charme raised her eyebrows at that one, and looked the fairy up and down. Such a small big sister to have. She almost grinned, but she knew the fairy would catch the meaning behind it, so she held it in check for once. She only blinked again. Tear sighed.
"I have no use to her. I am an employee with no use. I share a hearth and home with her, but she doesn't need me. I...need her. I am a parasite now. I could not even save her from you...it all started with you...and your taking her home...If I could make you pay for that-"
Charme held up a hand to stop the fairy there, and Tear had the mind this time to follow the instruction.
"Hey, hey, whoa. I think we both know I did absolutely nothing to Recette that day. I took her home, I put her to sleep on my bed, I slept on a chair. I might have pretended to get her riled up, but that plan failed. Recette did not even know anything about the bees and mushrooms...I had to teach her. I did not do anything else."
Tear looked up at the ceiling. Charme smirked at the look the fairy had.
"First time?"
Tear rounded on her with a look of disgust. Seriously?
"How do you expect ME to know?"
"Who's the big sister wanna be here?"
Tear sighed, rolling her eyes again upwards, only this time her aim was the heavens. Seeing through the roof was her goal. Too bad her eyes did not work that way. She looked down to see Charme had bent down and had picked up the bread, and had cut off a bit of it and crushed it in her hands before taking a bite of it. She opened her mouth, but then noticed a silver pix on the counter. Grudgingly she took it and managed to ring up the sale, but Charme waved away the change.
"Penance."
+~-1-~+
"You don't dance?"
I looked at her in surprise. The question had struck me out of nowhere, but I was surprised that she would answer me so bluntly with a no. Why, every girl had to know how to dance, it was the basis of all teachings...oh.
Of course. Recette had never been taught by anyone. I scratched my head and then decided with myself. Standing up I grabbed her hand and hauled her up. She got up mainly herself anyway. It was actually kind of funny, the look in her eyes. A slight fear. I almost laughed at her. So, she could still be scared too! Of dancing! I gave her a small grin, and tried to coax her away from the counter.
I was not a terrific dancer myself, to be honest. I was passable by my instructor's ministrations. Still, I could teach the basics and a few more complex moves, even if I could not perform them myself. I lacked the flexibility for advanced forms of ballet, but I was sure that I could teach them if I needed to.
It was true, listening to her story was interesting, and she had this way of taking you with her into that world of the past, but in this sunny day where the snow outside shone bright as it struggled vainly to keep itself around and away from melting, I was feeling rather too energetic to sit still and listen.
As I instructed and Recette moved about, I noticed her fluidity. She could move, but said she had never danced...either she was a natural or something else was up. My eyes rested on an empty sheath on her belt and I wondered... her movements were not quite like a dancer, more purposeful and harsh, like a fighter... so I asked.
"Are you fighting or dancing?"
She blinked at me, but then slowly grinned. I did not really get what was so exciting...I had asked a simple question...but she explained, and once again I saw the brilliance in her, the brilliance that had at first made me think she had no flaws.
She rested a hand on a counter as she spoke, her hand massaging the dusty, discolored wood.
"I had a friend once, who told me that "Living is dancing, and fighting is living." It never made sense to me, not really; until now. They are all one in the same, so why can't I treat them the same way? If living is dancing and dancing is living and living is fighting then I have danced a lot. "
She frowned as her hand brushed a rough spot on the counter, and she paused to rub at it and then ball up a few loose strands of wood.
"Soo..this is dancing then."
She began a series of movements much faster than I had been teaching her, with a greater conviction, only she mixed the speed with the smoothness I had been showing her, rounding out the edges of her performance so that there were no punches or kicks but simply movement. It was dancing...and not dancing. It was fighting...and not fighting. It was simply movement; and it was beautiful.
Choreography. That's what she was showing me. It was no set dance that I knew, but it was fluid and artistic all the same.
Her movements stopped as it approached lunch time, and afterward, she sobered as she checked a calendar. Her fingers traced the days, and I knew for what she was counting. She looked up at me and gave me a sour grin.
"I have one month from tomorrow; and I have no viable plan. I have resources and I have information, but no means."
She pulled out a book from a pocket and opened it to show me a map of Pensee and the surrounding land, not just the desert and dungeon lands, but other towns and cities.
"Tiger Deals want's to demolish this part of Pensee and turn it into an attraction. They sell everything, so they are displaying that prowess by now selling services as well. Pensee will become a district for shopping and amusement, a park built upon the crushed homes here. It's an ideal place, the center of this continent's economy. The land is paid for, but they are raising sponsor funds and awareness, housing for new money...a kind of gala will take place in a week outside Pensee. I don't know exactly where...there is also an adventurer's competition coming up. Three weeks from now. More funding being raised. Several adventurers from as far wide as they can, competing for a prize. Both events are run by Tiger Deals, both are there to get funding and to spread information..."
I smiled. I could see the problem, and for once...I had a solution. I was practically bursting with it. I had a use, finally! She looked at me in a peculiar way before tilting her head to the side. She smiled lightly.
"I remember Tear asking me one day why I had such a big smile on my face."
I looked at her and cleared my throat, and pointed to the map.
"The convention for Tiger Deals is a invite-only basis. It's where all the rich will go to gossip and spill pix on over priced merchant items. It's going to take place in this town, right here. I know because my family received an invitation. It's for young lords and ladies only. The invitation was for me and my cousins. As for the adventurer's competition, it's for high class gladiators and adventurers only. The elder lords and ladies will be there betting their riches to whoever wins and making deals. It's a nice place for gossip..."
Recette smiled. Her eyes exploded into light and I felt a thrill of danger rush down my neck. I was not sure if I liked that fired up look in her. She circled the spots I indicated on her map, then looked up.
"How many people know you in the fund raising convention?"
"Most of them. They know I work for Terme Finance too, so I'm not quite welcome there..."
"Does the invitation specify you as invited and are you allowed guests or...?"
I couldn't see what she was driving at but told her no. It just was a plain invitation saying whoever had it was invited. She grinned at this and I started to feel my own wheels turn. Slowly I saw what she was driving at. If they knew me, I could not go as myself, but they did not know Recette...and every invitee was allowed a guest...usually a servant of some kind.
We had an invite, well, my family had it, I would have to travel back home, that would take a week...and the gala was being held in my home town...Recette spun on her heels and dipped into a clumsy curtsey. I frowned at it. She had natural grace but no practice. She saw my frown and smiled.
"We leave tonight. Do you think you can turn me into a young lady of some estate or other by the time we get there? I don't know anything of fine etiquette...but we need to get in there."
I looked her over, and was already half convinced to do something, since it was better than sitting around in this depressing shop just waiting for it to get mowed over...but I still had to ask.
"Just for some gossip?"
She frowned.
"No. My friend Calliou's arch-mage bid comes to a close in three and a half weeks time. He will be at both events I think, trying to gain some last minute favor and votes. The first event I can avoid him, he'll be busy with prominent people, and, if I'm correct, the gala is themed isn't it? There is where he'll be most daring, trying to make connections. The right people are there to call in favors for...and I have a lot of favors that need to be called in."
I nodded at this. The gala had a costume theme. A lot of these types of parties for the high classed usually had a theme or some other such stipulation to enhance the fun of it. It would have to be a good costume, but then again there would be hundreds of guests, and the mage was only one man.
"I also want to attend to try and convince sponsors that this business venture will not be quite as profitable as they hope. If I can knock off enough sponsorship bids, maybe pull a few unto another cause... Tiger Deals might be willing to negotiate."
She walked about the room as she continued to speak, filling a pack with supplies. I tried to keep track of it alll, but I coudn't.
"...and the second event?"
She paused and looked at me.
"He'll be entering the contest. It's a move to prove his strength. If he can mass enough support to win Arch-mage, he'll use his influence to push Tiger Deals farther."
"Wait, since when was he part of Tiger Deals?"
She had turned back to her work by now, but she answered me as she searched for something in a cabinet.
"Who do you think is sponsoring him in the tournament? Obviously they would choose a champion to sponsor."
I felt stupid again...but still.
"Have they chosen him yet?"
"I don't know."
"Then how do you know he will-"
She interrupted me with a distracted wave of the hand and a rush to another cabinet. The kitchen was becoming quite ham-bugged...
"He's been the favorite to wind since he announced his participation."
I suddenly got a light-bulb off in my head as I made the connection. She had gotten this information from Griff hadn't she? Her informant was the demon...and this was his final report. They were hinging some operation of their own, probably to raise enough money to buy back all of Pensee from Tiger Deals...okay wait no. That sounded stupid even in my head.
There was no way the could raise that much money. Sure, if they pulled a few strings and pulled favors in both events from rich patrons they'd get a tidy sum, and if they had some money already too it would make a nice mound but...they would have to practically destroy the entire betting system with a...
I looked at Recette.
...underdog gladiator.
Was she planning on entering a friend of hers into that adventurer's tournament as a dark horse? No that could not be it...she had to have something else going on...even if she did all that she'd be hard pressed to get the money...
I refused to believe something so stupid could be her plan. Only a desperate soul would risk their life on so little a chance.
There had to be something more...Recette said she was pulling favors, not only money...
She saw my face as she closed a cupboard and paused. Then she sighed.
"No, I don't only want the money. This event it another opportunity to pull sponsors away from Tiger Deals, and demoralize them at the same time. I can limit new sponsors and pull away old ones...they will be willing to sell the land for cheap after three disasters."
I almost nodded, but then I realized something was off. She was back in another cabinet now.
"Three?"
She did not smile, but there was an aura of one about her as she spoke.
"The third one is my secret."
She tossed two full packs unto the counter as well as a supple belt of leather with a sheath and a set of two daggers. She held out a bow to me. I looked from it to her. Then back to it. She pushed it into my hands. it was an elegantly simple weapon. She pushed a quiver near the pack closest to me. It was also the smallest pack. I frowned but made no comment.
I was not an iron-backed merchant after all.
"So. I left you with Tear and Charme, didn't I? The two of them did not realize I was still well able to hear on the steps as I was."
"Were you really having..."
She looked at me with a pointed look. Not the time to ask those questions. Really, as she began the story again, I wondered why I even had wanted to know in the first place...
+~-2-~+
Griff grit his teeth as he took a seat in the pub. It had opened a little late today, and although the owner was no happy at all to see Elan, he welcomed everyone else, even Louie, who gave him about 50 silver pieces, the rest of his tab, paid off. He was a free man! It felt good! He declined the "celebratory drink" the owner offered him for it though. He was done with it.
Booze wasn't worth it. That was the lesson Louie was taking away. Charme sidled up to the pub owner and explained that he would be getting all of Elan's tab paid off today too. She indicated Griff. He rose his eyebrows, but said nothing. He'd see it when he believed it.
"Poor soul. You lost a bet or something?"
Griff's teeth ground at each other, but he managed to answer through them a barely discernible;
"In a way."
Charme seemed to be having the time of her life. She looked form the two men and then tot he bartender. She smiled a dazzling wide one at him and indicated Griff.
"Well, lay it on us, how much does the poor boy owe you?"
The barkeep opened his mouth and then looked at the demon seriously.
"Those glasses glued on?"
"No. Why should they be?"
"They'll come flying off when I tell you the debt is why. I ain't paying for no smashed specs. Hold on to them puppies."
Griff narrowed his eyes.
"I do not intimidate so easy. I have money enough...for this. Tell me his debt."
"You could pay it in installments yah know, I won't stress you, as it's not yours to pay..."
"...Meanwhile he continues to guzzle more of it to keep himself in debt? No thank you. I will pay it in full; now."
The bartender looked at him with a hard stare that Griff returned with an impassive one. The man huffed.
"Suit yourself. He owes me 1,400,000 pix. Cash boy, now. Oops! There go those glasses!"
Indeed, Griff had stood up so quickly and swung around at Elan with such force that his glasses had flown clean off his face and smacked Charme across the eyes, making her see stars and bowl over to land on her behind, Griffs' glasses hanging off her nose like some parody of a "just caught sleeping on the job" librarian. His eyes nevertheless found Elan and he growled a deep, primal sound.
"How. In the nine hells worth of freezing over, can you drink such a large tab for yourself?"
While Elan tried to stammer out some kind of explanation, Louie popped up his head from behind the counter, where he had ducked after Griff had swung. It was he who saw the savior of the day arrive first.
"You don't have to pay it Griff."
Recette pushed a familiar document unto the counter, and Louie saw his own name signed in his own penmanship. It was the agreement they had for the teams to go into the nightmare. She pushed it towards Griff.
"Charme did not tell me of your bet until today. Otherwise I would have stopped it sooner. I tried to say it was not fair...but she would not let me."
Recette looked over to said thief, who looked up with the glasses still hanging askew on her nose. She gave a sheepish smile, but answered.
"I thought you were trying to say it was not fair because you were chickening out."
"No. Griff, look at what it says right there."
Griff looked, and then read the rules aloud in a gruff growl that seemed to be completely directed at Charme.
"We, the signed below, agree to the following terms:
-If any of our number are hired and are not under any current contract to the merchant: "Recette Lemongrass" we may accept.
-If any of our number wish to register into another team and this team is available we cannot legally do so.
-Once a team is private whenever we are hired by: "Recette Lemongrass" and this configuration is available, this configuration must be hired…no differences in number or members is allowed."
He looked up to glare at Charme.
"You were aware of this?"
"I...uh...well, not really-"
"Funny. I see you signed your name here."
Before anyone could get any further, Recette approached the bar tender.
"Ahh, Recette, a bit young to order anything I'm afraid, but what can I do for you?"
"What is Elan's tab?"
"You sure you want to know?"
"Yes."
"1.4 million pix my girl. He's in deep."
Recette looked at him, seemingly thinking for a few seconds, then reached at her belt, and pulled off her money pouch. From it, she filled her hands and put two stacks on the table. She repeated this action seven times, allowing all present to see the pure, brilliant platinum coins.
"280 platinum pix should be the right amount. Elan..."
The priest, dumbfounded, looked at the young girl who had just unloaded a fortune to save his behind. He dumbly nodded that he was listening.
"I think I'll call in this as a favor. Remember you own me one...I think that even if I hired you for every day of the week for free all next month; you'd be unable to pay off that debt...so I'll call it a favor."
Recette smiled to the dumbfounded look on his face and then smiled at Charme, who was looking at her as if she came from Mars. Louie too, was stunned. The barkeep simply swept the coins in his till without comment. Griff recovered first. But as Recette left, taking the contract with her... one would wonder if he really recovered, for he did something he never did.
He ordered a whiskey.
He drank it in silence, the rest of the party still frozen near him, but he leaned over and snatched his glasses from Charme after he had finished his glass.
Before he left though, he looked at her oddly.
"Perhaps it is the whiskey, but I think you actually looked better with these glasses on."
Without further comment, he put his spectacles back on and left the still dumbfounded pub.
+~-E-~+
I realize that even though some of you would have done the simple math in the first chapter, I have never officially told you the system I put in place for pix in this story. So here we go~. Consider any item in the game that you know of to work on the Bronze scale, like depicted in previous chapters.
1 Bronze = 1 Bronze. (Doi.)
200 Bronze = 1 Silver.
1000 Bronze = 1 Gold.
5000 Bronze= 1 Platinum.
So, don't want to drop a whole bag of coin for just two measly walnut breads? Fear not! If you're buying at base price, like your friendly neighborhood vending machine, just pop in one silver! All done~
Oooh, Tear Angst now! More fun. =S. This is an Angst story after all, though I am thinking of changing the category to be honest. I get a kind of Adventure/Tragedy feel more than I do Angsty.
Originally this chapter's name was "Fair" but I decided that "Penance" was a more fitting word when I saw how it was turning out. By the time Charme used the word, I changed the chapter title to reflect it, making her the title dropper. XD
The debt to be paid was not a random number by the way, I had sound logic behind it.
...
...
No really, look, I'll tell you!
Lets say the average bottle sells for 3000, Tear said alcohol usually sells well, so I'm going wit this base price because 4000 seems too much for it to be a liable vice to Elan, and 2000 is rather pansy. Now Elan is a big man, and seems to be able to pack it away well. I would guess his daily routine limit from the tender is 5. So.
3000 x 5= 15000 for the day.
15k X 7= 105,000 for the week. ( Yikes.)
105,000x 4 = 420k for a month.
Now, we have had approximately four months by now since this game "started". One month for the game, two months after the fight to get back Arma, and this past month or prep time before crystal nightmare. Right? If we give Elan the benefit of the doubt by having a couple of days off the drink and a few days for events in endless mode to be in account for, then the total of 1,680,000+ a few odd days is a bit much. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, I placed the tab at 1.4 mill.
At this point, I'd say the storyline is about 30% complete. Not quite a third of the way there, but almost.
Last chapter, I changed the following:
-Added a few details to review responses to more accurately cover everyone.
-Fixed a few typos and odd worded sentences.
-Stuffed an Orange in Calliou's mouth and had a little byplay with him and Louie+ Charme.
-Put a more logical sequence to the hug sequence and the second piece of story through the eyes of the present.
~Signed by C F Winchester; Finalage.