“Hi, welcome to the Rose-Boar Trading Pavilion. This humble miss is Alisha Fayad, how might we help you today?” said the rabbit-eared clerk, at the shop that we’d stopped at because we were in need of some fast cash.

“Er, hi, Ms. Fayad...Okay, so we’d like to A) do a quick currency exchange, and B)see if we could sell a few things here,” said Jack. Who was still much better at handling people than I was, despite the increase in my Charisma Stat.

Jack leaned on the counter slightly. Whether it was her intent or not, her height allowed Jack to subtly loom over the other woman. Jack’s luminous gray-blue eyes took in everything in the shop. From the shop itself, the classy furnishings, the wares on display, its other patrons, the guards and staff that stood further in the shop. Jack looked at everything then she returned her attention to the clerk we were dealing with.

Jack’s back was facing away from me, but I could see from the way she’d set her shoulder, and tensed her back, that she was dealing with this whole situation like this was a hunt. There was even a very small amount of killing intent leaking out of Jack. Which, maybe was a bit too much, or maybe not. Of the list of tales that had unlocked for me in the past couple years, none of them made me a master of social interactions and standards.

“We can...We can do that for you, Miss...Ma’am…” said the Clerk. Who’d thus far had done a good job of not allowing Jack, or myself, to make her nervous. Which I suppose was to be expected, since, I doubted we were the first scary cultivator types that had come into this large shop and auction house.

“Thank you,” said Jack.

Jack turned towards me and gave me a look that cued me in that it was my turn to attack. I stepped forwards while scratching my chin and said,

“Um, so your counter is...kind of tiny...Is there a bigger place where we can do this?” I said.

The clerk blinked and froze. Then she sort of unfroze. Which made me feel like Jack had totally thrown the woman off her game, which might, or might not, have been a good thing.

“Ah, yes, sir...Uh, follow me, please?” said the Clerk. Her long, furry, ears twitching.

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The Clerk took us to a cushy-looking backroom. I then proceeded to bring the stuff out of my inventory. The first task, the currency exchange, was frightfully quick. Part of this was due to the fact that we didn’t have that much currency to exchange. We hadn’t been able to bring that much money out here to the 14th Pearl, since the Marrow clan kept much of their money in the bank. The money that we did bring wasn’t worth much, because the difference in spiritual energy concentration made the low-realm’s precious metals less valuable than the higher realm’s precious metals.

We ended up trading a fair amount of our less valuable loot for immediate remuneration to make up for our lacking funds. The more valuable loot was put on auction. We wouldn’t know the final valuation of that more valuable loot until about a month from now, after the next auction held by the pavilion. I’m probably making the situation sound more dire than it was. We still left that backroom several million gold richer. Of course, even a kid from the sticks like me knew that we were only rich by regular person standards, real wealth was counted in spirit-crystals, but considering that we’d walked in there with basically empty pockets this was a pretty good start.

The funny thing is that we “did” find a couple of spirit-crystal and spirit-stone veins out in the Bellgrave jungle. So, now I was kind of regretting not saving some of those spirit-crystals, instead of just consuming them all. We’d assumed that this would be a problem that would only arise a decade, or so, later. We’d figured more strength now, trumped potential wealth later. And in our defense, we’d rightly assumed that the rest of the loot that we’d gathered would easily be converted into wealth.

“Alright, thank you for the help, see you in a bit,” said Jack. Shaking the woman’s hand after we’d emerged from the backroom.

“Of course, ma’am. The Rose-Boar Pavilion appreciates your patronage,” said the clerk. Bowing at the waist.

I had a thought and followed it. The [Tale of the Fool] had gotten me used to following my hunches.

“Just to confirm, this Rose-Boar Pavilion is the same entity as the Rose-Boar Trading Company, right?” I said.

The clerk jumped for some reason. As if she hadn’t expected me to talk. Then she hesitantly nodded.

“Y-, Yes, sir,” said the clerk.

“Okay, good...In that case, if possible, and if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, would you please pass on a message for us? We have a friend here, a Ms. Alina Sachs...Could you, please, tell her that the Calloways stopped by and said hi?” I said.

“Y-, you know, Senior-Executive Sachs?” said the Clerk. Her eyes went wide.

“If she’s the same Alina Sach’s that we met in the jungle a while back...then yes,” I said.

“I...Yes, sir...I’ll pass on the message,” said the clerk. Eyes still wide. Though this time it was with wonder, rather than trepidation. It looked like Ms. Sachs had been doing well for herself since we last saw her.

We left the shop and felt a multitude of eyes on us. That reminded us that the “hunt” was now over. This, at least, was something, I understood. We released a bit of our auras, with just a touch of killing intent mixed in. It was something we’d often have to do after a particularly laborious hunt. Sometimes it was kinder to lay down a bit of suppressive influence. It kept the would-be opportunists from rushing to their deaths.