The Guild of Gamers: The Shopkeeper
Chapter 4: A Rose's Thorns and A Devil of a Time
A/N: So my pat...reon is live! The site doesn't like that word so I have to space it out. I already have my first member and am so hyped by it! Special thanks to Manuel for being the first to support my dreams. I won't give last names to protect privacy but you know who you are and the simple thing you did means a world to me. The name for the link is my pen name and the name for my page is Omega's Fanfiction Emporium. Feel free to give me a little love over there. If nothing else free members can view my lemons from my works on that site. Let's get right on with it!
Disclaimer: I own hardly anything. The Guild of Gamers is a concept created by TheDarkWolfShiro. Go check out his stuff if you haven't as he makes great works and makes stories come to life.
{System speech}
[System screens]
"Active Thoughts/Telepathic communication"
"Speech"
"SCREAMING AND OTHER LOUD SCHIST."
"ROB's and other higher plane beings speaking."
POV: Alex Asími
It was moments like this that remind me of the fact I have only seen the barest glimpses of eternity. That for all that has already happened and all that I have already seen through the lense of a game or a movie; it is naught but a drop in the ocean of creation.
As I watched a slip of a girl with hair red like blood and eyes green like new growth slowly walk through my store and browse the shelves it was not so much her that I focused on but a solitary scar upon her forehead in the shape of a bolt of lightning. It wasn't the reality of a "Girl-Who-Lived" existing rather than a Boy-Who-Lived, but rather the ramifications upon how I viewed all of creation as a whole that caused me to pause.
Her existing told me something I should have known all along. Creation was uncountable, for every truth and lie, for every action and inaction there was a world. As if someone had thrown an infinite number of mirrors into a room and spun them around shattering them endlessly to reflect each other. What that meant was simple, the only thing that could ever hope to match the endless expanse of Creation was the imagination of countless souls. That for every story and song, every fan made work and every canon story, there existed an endless number of worlds. For the wellspring of Creation was the source of Imagination, and Imagination the source of Creation. An endless loop.
I shook away those thoughts as the girl walked up to the counter with her purchases. She had a rather large amount of purchases as it was. My entire stock of tier 4 healing items and over a hundred of my tier 1 healing items. It was so much that I found myself very concerned.
"How much for all of this stuff?" She asked in a soft lilting voice that made the rather fae part of me smile before I grew to be concerned with how many healing items she was buying.
"Mind telling me why someone as young as you needs so many healing items first?" I said with a look of concern.
"I... Fine! Each year something bad happens. First year a troll attacks one of my friends, I have to make my way past a cerberus just to fight Voldemort. Second year a massive fucking snake snuck around petrifying people and everyone blamed me. Third year there were dementors all over the grounds and a killer after me! And now this year someone entered me into a bloody death tournament and everyone thinks I willingly entered myself into it! No one not even my friends believe me when I tell them I didn't do it!" She said by the end of her rant shouting and sobbing.
In response I quickly vaulted the counter and pulled her into a hug. "Shhhh. It's alright. It will all be okay. I believe you didn't enter yourself and I am gonna help you okay?" I frowned firmly at the thought of what this child has gone through. Before all this stuff happened to my I never really paid any attention to how things must have felt and been like for the characters in the stories I read. I just accepted the things that they went through as "Okay" and moved on.
"R-really? You believe me?" She asked with a look of disbelief on her face.
"Yes I do... I know what the first task is and have a few ideas that may help you survive it. Now the first thing you need to know is that the first task is gonna have you retrieving a golden egg from a dragon's nest. I know that sounds near impossible but I promise you you will be fine." I said with a serious look upon my face as hers paled.
"A dragon?! Are they bloody serious?!" She cursed looking a good bit more panicked than before.
"Yes but I have at least six different plans for this. I can't just give them to you. Same with the healing items. Nothing in this life is free and I AM a Merchant." I said.
"Alright how much is this going to cost me? I don't have endless gold but I have a lot." She said warily.
"I don't want your gold kid. Also little bit of advice. Never tell a Merchant that you have a lot of money. They will always try to bleed you dry of it." I said with a smirk as she looked at me with an odd expression on her face before she blushed and glared at me.
"I'm not going to have sex with you either!" She shouted indignantly much to my shock and disgust.
"I'm not gonna sleep with you if that is what you plan on asking me for." She said indignantly.
"Sleep wit- Dear lord no! Not that you ain't pretty and all but you are bloody FOURTEEN! I ain't no pedo! I just want you to use your invisibility cloak and the map to sneak me out of Hogwarts and over to Diagon Ally! Although a galleon or two to pay for the healing items wouldn't be remiss." I said back with a incredulous and slightly disgusted look on my face.
"Oh um... Yeah I can manage that." She said with a face so red it matched her hair. She then reached into one of the pockets of her robes and pulled out a pair of galleons and handed them over before pulling out the cloak and the map as well.
"So do you want to sneak out right now or what?" She asked as I pocketed the galleons and deposited them in my inventory. I then bagged up her items and set them to the side.
"Yeah we can come back for the healing stuff later." I said with a grin. She got under the cloak with me and opened the door as she activated the map and we were off.
It took around half an hour to get through the various secret passages and out of the castle. We slipped out of Honeydukes basement and into Hogsmeade where she turned around and left me after I promised that I would tell her of my plans to handle the dragon when I came back. From there I entered The Three Broomsticks.
"Welcome to The Three Broomsticks. Yours is a face I haven't seen before?" Said Rosmerta from behind the counter of the bar as I entered.
"Yeah I'm not exactly from around here. Was wondering how much it would be to use your floo?" I asked causing her to raise a brow at my accent before pointing at a sign hanging above a pot full of powder near the fireplace. It read "5 Knuts per pinch."
"Ah thanks." I said shortly as I put five knuts on the counter in front of her as I walked past to the fireplace. With a pinch of the powder and a shout of "Diagon Alley" I was off whisked away through the emerald flames. I have to say none of the books or movies did Floo travel justice in just how disorientating it was. It felt like my body was spinning one way while my vision was spun another and the flames spun in yet another. Like someone decided to throw my sight and my body into two different washing machines and start them at different times and run them at different speeds.
I stumbled out of the flames in a fireplace set near the entrance to Diagon Alley and stumbled away from the fireplace and towards Gringotts. After a few stumbled steps where I cleared my head I headed far more steadily towards Gringotts and entered. I failed to notice how the guards stiffed upon my entry into the bank. I walked over to an empty counter and spoke up.
"I wish to have a vault made and find out how much it would be to buy a small section of wall in Diagon Alley the size of a doorway." I said never even realizing that I spoke in Goblin Tongue rather than English.
"Very well. Follow me." The goblin Teller said before he hopped off his seat and led me through a confusing maze of passages, twists, and turns. He then entered into an office and a few seconds later came out. "Director Ragnok will see you now." He said as he passed me.
I enter the room to find it was a large and ornate office with various weapons and armors on display along with the heads of various creatures including a cyclops, a dragon of some kind, and what looked like the head of some weird pufferfish lion thing. I hurried over to sit in front of the goblin who despite his small size looked like he could bench ME. I sat in front of him for fifteen or so minutes before he set his quill aside in an inkpot and started staring at me. As time ticked by I became more and more nervous and started to sweat. It felt like I was being picked apart as though I was merely a blade being inspected for flaws by a master craftsman. Eventually however he spoke up.
"What are you? I know you are no human nor no simple beast. You have the feel of an unfinished blade and something else that my instincts scream at me to slay immediately. In fact when you entered I was hard pressed not to leap over this desk and cut you down." Ragnok said grimly as I heard the sound of a fist tightening on leather and realized that his hand was gripping onto an axe as big as was tall with a blade big enough to cut me in two in one swing. I had to swallow down my nervousness before I spoke.
"My name is Alex Asími and I was ripped from my home by a being by the name of Mammon. I foolishly made a deal with him that included him giving me a blade of rather large importance and my own pocket dimension. What I didn't know was he only wanted part of me. When he attacked me I used the blade to counter attack as much as I possibly could but given what he was it was an effort in futility. At that point he ripped away part of my soul and left. In my desperation I absorbed the sword and the pieces of him that were left over from my fighting back." I said truthfully. Part of me was slightly afraid what would happen if I lied given the hold he still had on his axe.
He seemed to mull this over for a bit as he clenched and unclenched the hand holding his axe. "Gringotts will do business with you as unlike those pathetic wizards you have fought for your life and didn't just give up when faced with such overwhelming odds. However in order to rent out a section of Diagon alley the way you wish to one must have an identity with the wizards. Gringotts can handle the forging of documentation for a price." He said as a glint of greed entered his eyes.
"Of course... How much?" I asked with a slight grimace at the idea of losing money. But the benefits outweighed the cost even if it meant that I lost money now.
"1500 galleons to forge the documents and buy the space." He said immediately.
"500!" I said back unwilling to part with so much gold so easily.
"1250." He said with a grin or at least what passed for one on the face of a goblin.
"750!" I shot back as a grin grew on my face at the challenge.
"1100 galleons and 13 sickles and I will take the liberty of setting up a vault for you while you are here." He said with a smirk.
I sucked on my teeth as I mulled it over before I countered. "1100 galleons and 12 sickles and a knut." I said finally with a grimace at the price.
"Very well 1100 galleons, 12 sickles, and a single knut to forge documentation buy a space the size of a doorway in the Alley and to set up a vault in your name. Now we get to the fun part." He said before he pulled a stack of paperwork half as tall as him in front of me. "I shall require you to fill out these forms with as much information as you can before your documentation can be created." He said with a wicked grin as my face paled at so much writing. It got worse when I realized I would have to fill all this out with a quill.
#Three hours later#
I stepped out of the bank hours later rubbing my hand at the residual soreness from having used a blood quill to fill out so much damned paperwork. I followed the directions Ragnok had given me about where I could place my door and found he had placed my door in a decent spot. It was not exactly in one of the high traffic areas as it was in set into a section of wall between two buildings that would hide my shop from most passing by. However for now that worked to my benefit as I had nothing that Wizards would want to buy currently other than maybe the muggle born.
I sighed as I entered the new permanent door to my shop only to almost run right into a rather short red haired teen. "Oh hello again. Sorry about that." I said as I steadied her.
"Oh good you're back. Now you can fulfill your part of our deal!" She said as she put her hands on her hips giving me a glare as though challenging me to renege on the deal.
"Oh yeah give me one sec to write down a few options and plans." I said as I walked over to the counter noting that Misty had already gone home for the evening. I had to rummage around for a bit to find what I was looking for and it took a few minutes to write down exactly six different plans to deal with the challenge as my hand kept cramping up on me. I handed it to her and smiled at her.
"Here you go. Now I think you need to head off to bed and I need to clean up the shop and restock a few things so scoot." I gently gave her a push towards the door and she distractedly left.
I turned to start work on cleaning up the shop only for a warning to flash in front of my face.
[WARNING! Player Summoning Imminent! Obstructing Summoning... Summoning obstruction failed due to quest activation!]
[Major Quest: What is in a Name?
Objective: ?
Reward: ?
WARNING TO DISCOVER MORE ABOUT THIS QUEST PLAYER MUST DISCOVER MORE ABOUT CURRENT CONDITION!]
Then with a flash of light I was gone.
I appeared inside a strangely modern looking room in what looked to be an apartment. I was stood inside a magic circle that was gold and purple in color with an upside down five pointed star and an infinity symbol intertwined with it. In front of me stood two girls likely no older than late teens. One had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a rather adorable witches outfit on. The other had auburn hair, blue eyes, and was wearing some kind of uniform that had a pin with a golden sunrise on it. The auburn haired girl seemed to cheer as I took notice of a few alerts.
{Synergy occurring. New skills and traits gained due to blood of Entity Mammon.}
{Gained seven skills:
[Touch of Midas (Minor): Player is capable of turning creatures to gold with touch. Costs: 100 MP/square foot turned to gold.
Ray of Greed (Minor): Player is capable of firing a blast of energy from his hands or mouth that can turn a creature into a statue of made of gold. Costs: 1000 MP/Square food turned to gold.
Crystal Bullets of Avarice (Minor): Player is able to create and fire crystal bullets that upon hitting the target start to crystallize the target, Enough bullets will fully crystalize the target killing them and causing excruciating pain. Costs: 100 MP per bullet
Devil Magic (Minor): Imagination based magic allowing creation of Minor Skill creation in magic category only. Costs: Depend upon spell created and spell must be cast successfully ten times for skill to be created.
Crest of Mammon: Player can summon forth the Crest of House Mammon to halve the cost of Magic. Further powers of the crest to be discovered by the host.
Deal with the Devil (Minor): Beings will be compelled to keep promises and deals with the Player.
Flight (Devil): Player can summon demonic wings to fly. Speed limited by stats.
Gained four traits:
Sin of Greed (Major): You want it all. Everything from gold and jewels to mythic blades and even women. If it can be considered treasure you desire it. Giving away things you see as yours is difficult and if someone steals from you it will cause you anger until the item is reclaimed.
Sin of Lust (Minor): Your Lust for women and battle is a constant urge. Not uncontrollable but not easy either.
Weakness to Holy (Major): As a devil (Or part one) you are extremely weak to holy relics and items. (Reduced from Weakness to Holy (Extreme) due to artifact Excalibur being part of your being.)
Weakness to Light Element (Major): As a devil (Or part one) Light Element based attacks are a deadly poison. Thankfully you won't die in one hit from them. (Reduced from Weakness to Light Element (Extreme) due to artifact Excalibur being part of your being.)]}
{Multiple quests started:
[Quest: Don't be Greedy
Objective: Gather enough Treasure to satisfy your Sin of Greed.
Collect 10 weapons of Legend: 0/10
Collect treasure equal to 1 Billion dollars: 0/1,000,000,000
Rewards: Curse turned into a Perk]
[Quest: Lust or Bust
Objective: Gather a Harem capable of satisfying your Sin of Lust.
Collect 5 Harem Members: 0/5
Bonus Objective: Collect 10 Harem Members: 0/10
Reward: Curse turned into a Perk
Bonus Reward: Curse turned into a Greater Perk]
[Quest: Our Father Who Art In Heaven
Objective: Find a way to remove your weakness to Holy.
Reward: Access to Holy Skills]
[Quest: Let There be Light
Objective: Find a way to remove your weakness to Light Element.
Reward: Access to Light Element Skills]
[Major Quest: Door Stuck! Door Stuck!
Objective: Satisfy the conditions to unlock travel back to the Shop
A: Deal with Riser Phenex. (How you do so is up to you.)
B: Deal with Kokobiel. (How you do so is up to you.)
C: Restore House Mammon to proper Glory. (How you do so is up to you.)
D: Make a Deal with The Ouroboros.
Rewards:
A: Access to items from the Shop Unlocked.
B: Access to travel to the Shop unlocked.
C: Shop is upgraded and reopened to your Home Dimension.
D: Shop is reopened to the Multiverse.]}
Well Fuck.
A/N: Well this took a while. Mostly due to how irritating writing Dialogue was and trying to figure out how to handle certain characters. In the end it took me not writing them YET for me to move past my writers block. Next chapters will be larger as I start digging into what was done to our boy. I now have a Pat... reon where you can also view my content as well as get teasers and choose what I focus on writing next. The name is Omega's Fanfiction Emporium and is under the same Handle as my username on here. Please support my work there even if it is just becoming a free member so I can know you care. As always have a wonderful day.