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Chapter 23

The World Without Jekserah in it

I went over my spell tokens that night, making sure all were up to my standard, and the next morning we discussed our next steps. The Gloom was still out there, but we really didn't have any leads at the moment. The new tasks from the guard captain needed to be done in a day or two but everyone agreed we should probably finish off our backlog of tasks before they really started getting away from us. And there really were only two; Hanz still wanted to explore the sunken vessel the map they had purchased showed, and that my divination magic said was still undisturbed, and the date for the meeting as shown by the token was finally coming up. My patience will be rewarded! We discussed the sulphur mine but my divination magic gave me a no answer to the question "will we find a drill of any kind within the mine" so we figured it had been looted in the meantime. I wanted to go talk to Solara and make her an offer she couldn't refuse, so we agreed to meet back up after lunch and I headed out there.

Walking into the shop in my bun form disguise she looked up and smiled at me. "Back for more spells?" she asked. "How did that symbol spell work out for you?"

"Very well," I began, "and it's the reason I'm here. To make you an offer."

"Oh?"

"Take a look at these. I call them spell tokens." I upended the sack I was carrying onto the counter (carefully) and dozens of spell tokens spilled out. They were simply small stone disks I had put spell symbol onto, and quickly sorted them into piles based on the spell I had used. I knew a variety of useful spells after all, any one of which would be invaluable to those in the adventurer's trade. And I wanted to know which would sell the best, so I made a few of each as examples.

"You've been busy," she remarked, looking them over.

"They don't take long to make," I countered. "So here's the pitch. I'm not quite ready to settle down and open my own store yet, but at the same time I think my magic could be useful to more people. On the other hand I can't personally accompany every adventuring group out there, or deal with every person that needs a spell cast. This is the way around that. My theory is, you have a shop. You seem like a person that wouldn't rip me off. I trust you. So you put up a display of these spell tokens in the shop, and in exchange you take a portion of the proceeds. I'm thinking 70/30 split? After all it's basically free money for you I don't see anything like this on your shelves so I'm not competing with you for business."

"If any of these are spells I would cast for a client-"

I put up a hand. "They're taken out without question. Only spells I know and you don't are sold in this way. Well, actually, if you trust me to do my job right we could just reverse it. Any spell you know that goes out of here as a token I only get 30% of. That's only fair, right?"

"I guess..."

"After all unless you were trailing around after a group the only spells you would cast are ones that last outside the shop. How many is that? Don't answer now, just think about it. Once a week I come back, see what sold, collect my earnings, and bring you replacements. Heck I could even do that here. We both make money, the shop reputation grows because you're selling a useful product, and my magic helps more people out in the world. What do you say?"

She thought a moment. "But what would we charge for them?"

I almost, but not quite, suppressed my scowl. "The usual guild fee would, of course, have to apply to each, separately. No bulk discounts, for example."

"That goes without saying. What I mean is, technically there's two spells here per token. We would have to change for both and the spell symbol is very high grade. That would price it out of reach of most."

"Look, I'm as concerned about guild interference as you... well, maybe less as I'm not the shop owner. But I have two arguments for you."

Her eyes narrowed. "Go on."

"The first is, clearly the eyes of the guild are nowhere near this town. This is evidenced by the fact an extremely wealthy and connected member of the merchant guild was also secretly researching dangerous magic and making undead inside the city walls and the guild did nothing. As I understand it, a group of so called 'heroes' stepped in and took care of her."

"I just heard that from the town criers this morning, you're well informed."

"Ah, yes!" I coughed a bit. "I keep up with the news- anyway! The point is they didn't care about that, why would they care about this? My second argument goes like this; if you buy a jar of honey at the market are you changed twice? Once for the jar and once for the honey?"

"No, of course not!"

"Of course not," I echoed. "You pay only for the final product. You can see this everywhere. The post guild will give you a box to ship something in. The spice shops will sell you a salt shaker with salt in it for one price. Your shoes come in a nice bag. And so on, and so on. The point is the spell at the end. The final effect. The spell symbol just saves us time, not having to follow whoever wants the spell around- I thought of a third argument!"

"That's handy."

"Yes it is. Shoot I forgot it again. One second. Right, I remember! This," I grabbed a token and held it up, "perfectly illustrates what the guild stands for anyway!" I announced triumphantly. "They can't possibly argue against it." Logically. They can't logically argue against it. They can make up all the stupid, non-logical reasons they want.

"How so?"

"It's single use. They have to come back and buy another if they want the spell again. It's not like an imbued item that casts the spell over and over. It can easily be taken away, and if abused you simply don't sell to that person anymore. It's self limiting, as resources are not infinite. Only the buyer knows the activation word, so it's not dangerous if lost or stolen. And while it's not an official tenant, it should be. Use magic for the greatest good. If my spells can keep someone alive, or help them explore a dark cave, or provide some edge against an unexpected monster isn't that something any mage should strive for? The blacksmith that makes a sword and shield keeps the person that buys it safe. Why should we be any different? This is just another tool of our trade. Why should we ignore it?" Greed. Greed is why the guild would say to ignore it. But it's actually more money for us so that argument works against them at that point.

"So you would argue the spell symbol is just the box the spell comes in. We should only charge for the spell the customer actually gets use of."

"Exactly!"

"And I get a cut of the profits?"

"Of course."

She considered, looking around the shop. "They are small, perhaps just a set of baskets with them over there. Easy to steal though, the shop becomes more of a target."

"Who would be stupid enough? Even my divination magic could name the person that broke in here. If they were good enough to scramble that to do the crime, they wouldn't need to do the crime."

"There is that. I'll have to try a few of them, make sure they do what you say. After all I don't trust you just yet . Though if you were trying to ruin my reputation or something this is the most roundabout way of doing so I've ever seen. "

"I won't charge you for them, these can be samples. I can easily make more they only take a minute to make."

She hummed again. "Let me see how actualized your core is. I want to know what sort of strength they'll have in the end. If you're just starting out..."

"Oh? Okay, I guess? And believe me, I'm not." I'm over two hundred and fifty years old!

She came around the corner and held up a hand. I nodded and she put it on my chest, closing her eyes and relaxing. I tried to as well. A moment passed, and she opened her eyes again. "You have a fairly strong core," she announced, sounding surprised. "But I think you still have a way to go before complete mastery of the art. But then, so do I. In fact I would almost say your core was larger than mine." She realized she was standing really close to me, she had taken another step forward and was looking into my eyes, our noses only centimeters apart. She cutely blushed, backing away again. "Oh sorry! Sorry."

"It's okay," I told her with a grin. "It comes from all the life and death situations I've been in, I suppose. It's just so hard to advance past a certain point."

"I hear you. Okay, we'll give it a try. But I'm doing divinations of my own and holding you responsible if any of these are not what you say they are."

"Of course, I stand fully behind my product! Ummmm..."

"What is it?"

"We should do a contract. And if we're going to do that..." I took a deep breath. "You should see who you're really dealing with. This isn't my usual appearance."

"A sort of figured, but didn't want to pry. I felt it on you when I was checking your core. Are you a mutation? I don't care, only the product matters to me."

"Not exactly. Here." I dropped my disguise spell. "This is me."

"Interesting!" She looked me over. "May I?" I nodded and she poked one of my crystalline protrusions. "Ouch. They actually are pointed!"

"Tell me about it."

"What happened to you?"

"A lot of sitting around studying magic in a cave that held onto the mana a little more than I would like. It changed me. At least that's what I figure happened, I don't think any of my sisters did this to me. They all seemed surprised when they saw me next."

"I see. Well, if you wanted to do something about it let me know, I'd love to help return you to normal. You're fairly exotic looking, but it would probably be nice to have hair again. And maybe hug someone without poking them a hundred times."

I shrugged. "I've gotten used to it. But thanks, I'll think it over. My name is Orchid Spellweaver, by the way. I've been in your shop several times in different guises..." I blushed a little.

"I see. There have been some customers I didn't recognize but seemed familiar. I guess that clears up that mystery. Let me go get some paper and I can write up a short contract for this."

"I'll start separating them out again!" Yes, she's going for it! Money money money here I come!

We were now flying out to the shipwreck, Hanz shouting directions up to the enlarged Malachite as we flew. We followed the coast for a bit and then a chain of islands out towards the ocean. We knew the map was good but I breathed a sigh of relief as Hanz really couldn't, being mechanical, when the final island did in fact seem to have a shipwreck stuck to it. We circled, looking for a place to land, as the term "island" was being generous. These bits of land were little more than large, jagged rocks thrust up out of the water, but this one did have enough space to land on near the ship, and that's where he did. We scrambled out of his arms before he shrunk down again and as the others looked around I got out my two magical companions. Can never be too careful. They went invisible and I noticed Snarly and Malachite gesturing over to me. Looking down near the base of the ship I saw a group of fish people down there, looking up at us. They grabbed weapons and started heading around.

"Looks like company," Malachite told me. "Think they're friendly?"

"They had ample time to look over this wreck," I told him. "There can't be anything left of value there. If that's the case we'll just go, no need to fight over a rotting ship." And it was rotting. From here I could see the corpse of what used to be a wooden sailing ship. Masts broken, holes everywhere, but I caught sight of some movement as well. Odd.

"Didn't yer magiths say tha thip was undithurbed?" Snarly asked me.

"That they did! Very curious."

"I assume we can get the story from our new friends," Hanz announced. "Here they come."

"It's your map," I told them. "You get to talk to them. If none speak Trade I'll enhance you magically, I have a spell for that, as you know."

"Thanks."

They stepped forward, setting down the bow they still insisted on carrying and the ax, to show they were unarmed. Not that they were, their most deadly weapon was attached to them. But it was a good gesture. The fish people, which were pretty ugly close up, didn't do the same. In looking them over they looked like giant fish, but with arms and legs. Fishy heads, little clothing, scaly bodies. Mermaids these were not! I knew various groups of them lived in the waters around Pyre but as they didn't come up on land that often I had no idea how numerous they were or really what they wanted from life. One in particular continued a step past their brethren.

"These waters are ours landwalkers, what are you doing here?" he asked, in passable Trade.

No showing off for me at the moment. Darn.

"We came here following a map, to a great treasure," they explained, showing the map. "If you have already claimed it we have no quarrel with your people and will go."

"We cannot," he bubbled. "In fact we have lost many in trying. You would be wise to leave this place before it claims your lives as well."

"We are no strangers to danger," they protested. "Perhaps we can be of some use to you? Splitting the treasure is better than leaving empty handed, do you not agree?"

He seemed to be laughing. "What can a mere four more do for us? At one time we numbered in a dozens, but so many fell most left this place in fear. Now only the six of us remain. It is not enough."

"Hey, Orchid is a powerful mage," Malachite told him, throwing an arm around me. "We all benefit from her magic allowing us to fight as a group twice our size or more!"

I considered. Yeah, that's probably true. I'm worth two people because of my speed, and as these guys really can't miss and can use their strongest attacks every time we do punch above our weight class now. And we have Snarly!

"Tell us what you're facing," Hanz went on with a nod. "And we can determine for ourselves if the spoils are worth the risk."

"Very well, very well. There are two major risks," he began. He gestured to the others and said something to them in their language, and they lowered their weapons. "The first are the restless spirits that guard the ship. They act unlike any spirits I have heard of. We cannot hurt them but they rush to defend the wreck and they can hurt us. You can see the passageway that leads to the ship from where we are." He pointed, and we looked over the rise. It seemed there was a passageway through the rock there, it must loop around and be where the ship crashed into. Dropping from the air didn't seem possible, the deck looked all sorts of beat up from where were were standing and I hoped the inside was in better shape. "When we simply ignored them hoping to gain entrance to the ship and retrieve what we have come for before they can react, a demon unlike any I have ever seen barred our way. A great hulk of ice, seemingly come to life and causing havoc among us. Their icy powers we were unable to get past. Come up with a plan to solve those two issues and you may have the treasure onboard. We are here for one item only. The cursed compass."

"Curthed?" Snarly exclaimed, jerking back. "I don't like the thond of that!"

"Indeed. We believe it to be the reason this ship was lost. It must be kept from human hands lest it cause even more tragedy."

"I'm more interested in the demon," Malachite mused. "Sounds familiar."

"Yeah," I agreed. "But what is one doing around here? That ice cave, sure I can see that. They were protecting that ice orb. Are they attracted to magical objects maybe?"

"Maybe this one simply got lost and took shelter here," Hanz suggested. "We cannot even guess at their motivation."

"I'm worried therth more than one," Snarly added.

"Still, working together we may be able to come up with something," I decided. "We know what they can do, and we have some good weapons against their kind." I indicated Hanz's beam weapon. "Let me think a moment."

"Very well," said the fish man.

I paced a bit on the narrow strip we had, thinking. Running through things in my mind, I saw plenty of rocks around here so I had raw material to work with. I could claim these guys as part of my party, to give them magic to get us past the ghosts. The guild also probably wouldn't care this far out to sea so I wouldn't have to charge them for it. "Okay," I announced. "Let me run this by you."

"We usually say swim this by you, but I take your meaning," the fish man said.

"Right, swim. I'm going to share a piece of my magic with you. It'll let you deal with the ghosts on their terms. You'll be able to hurt them. I wish you wouldn't, and I'll explain why in a moment. You'll head in first and keep the ghosts busy. Meanwhile my party will... swim ahead, meeting the ice demon head on. Snarly, you have the most important task. Go invisible, sneak past all that happening, and get on the ship. No ghosts there should bother you, and you're the lightest of us. If the floors are weak you should be fine. Find the compass and bring it out."

"This plan seems sound," the fish man decided. "Why not use our full might against the ghosts?"

"I feel they're not the bad guys in this case," I explained. "Ghosts have a reason for refusing the afterlife. I feel those that died in this shipwreck did so in order to simply scare off those that would further use the compass, risking their own lives. They're not evil. But try explaining you simply want to take it and keep it from being used to them. I don't think it'll work. So disarm them, show them you can hurt them, and take them prisoner. Once we have the compass and it's shown to be in your hands, and you leave, their purpose should be over and they'll just vanish. We can then loot the rest of the ship at our leisure."

"Orchid doesn't like killing any more than necessary," Malachite explained. "Even those that are already dead."

"Her words reach me," he decided. "It is true, I have not sensed malice in their attacks simply duty. It may be as you say. I will relay this to my men, prepare your magics. We shall work together as you have said."

"Great, this won't take long," I told them. I bent to pick up a stone and get to work.