Chapter 23: Startup Capital

“You’re late.”

I examined my nails. “That’s the problem with extorting people: you get what you pay for.”

Delia shot me a deep glare. Or maybe that was just her face. “This order was well within your capabilities.”

“How do you know what my capabilities are? You haven’t set foot in a forge a day in your life.” I shook my head. “Even with my process, it takes longer to make swords than daggers, and that’s why you’ll pay double the ridiculous price you tried to shove down my throat last time.”

If anything, her face only grew more pinched. “How about I pay you in a foot of steel down your throat instead.”

“Go ahead.” I shrugged. “Then you’ve torpedoed your relationships with the smithing guild, gotten one shipment of weapons, and killed the only one who can provide you with more at such a cheap price.” I stared at her dead on. “Even now, you’d still be getting nearly twice as many quality weapons as you would from a smith, in a fraction of the time.”

“That was not our agreement.” Delia leaned forward, hand resting on the hilt of her blade. “Or do I need to remind you why we make the rules in Silverwall?”

“I mean, if you want me to give you a bunch of metal bars that snap off at the hilt, I could do it at the price you were offering.” I spread my arms. “Or you can try to find literally anyone else in this city that can do what I can do, oh wait, you can’t.” I leaned forward as well, glaring up into her face.

It was hard to loom when you were short, but I had a lot of practice at it.

“Or you can tell your superiors why you burned a new supplier less than two weeks after you brought them on board.”

She met my eyes for a long moment, fingers clenching around the hilt of her sword. Hell, for a second I thought she was actually going to go through with it and try to stab me. Then she snorted, leaning back and crossing her arms. “I’ll pay you half again as much as we agreed on, and if you ask for more I’ll kill you and take over your operation myself.”

“Deal.” I grinned. “And feel free to try. You need someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“You’re not nearly as valuable as you seem to think, Empress.”

I shrugged. “You’re right, I do chronically undervalue myself.” I smiled sweetly up at the glaring woman. “Maybe you should get me my money before I change my mind.”

I could practically hear her teeth grinding together as she handed over a pouch of gold coins. I made a show of counting them, but really, I would have been satisfied with only a quarter more than my new asking price.

The real prize was how she glowered at me from beneath her crimson bangs. Two stooges carried the crate of weapons from the dusty storage room in the guild, doing their best not to look at Delia.

I’d made her look bad, and if I knew one thing about girls like her, it’s that she would kill for the chance to return the favor. If I was lucky, she’d reach out to Rel later today.

Well, maybe not today, there were still a few more pieces to put into place. I stood, brushing off my suit. “I’ll be on my way then. See you in a month!” Monthly shipments were what we’d agreed on, after all. With the amount of iron I’d been hauling in from the ocean, I could probably meet that next date, but sooner or later the bounty of the deeps would run so dry that not even my demons could find another rusted nail.

I just had to make sure to cut my losses before then.

Delia waved a hand, and another adventurer stepped up to escort me back out of the building. Storage room aside, the rest of the guild was practically palatial, with wide hallways, vaulted ceilings, and practically everything covered in silver filigree. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I would have thought the place was the Baroness’s mansion or something. I wonder how her estates compared.

I gave my escort a cheery wave as I stepped outside into the sunlight. The streets of Silverwall were bustling in the afternoon. Here, closer to the center of the town, streets were paved with cobblestones, and I don’t think I saw more than a single beggar a block. Beyond that, well, it looked more or less like you’d expect a medieval town would, albeit with more emphasis on silver decorations the closer to the inner districts you went.

I guess the city lived up to its name.

“Ready to go, boys?” I asked Dee and Dum.

They sidled out of the nearby alleyway, Dum in the lead. “Sure thing, boss.” They didn’t even look out of place in the nice part of town, because of their uniforms. Really, between the three of us, I was the one getting looks as we walked down the street.

I suppose most noble ladies would prefer manservants suited to their tastes. I snorted.

“Something funny?” Dee asked.

I patted him on the arm. “Just thinking about the future. Now, you said you found an enchanter nearby?”

“Yeah, right up here, boss.”

The boys split the crowd for me, leading the way towards the shop district, off to see the wizard, as it were.

You see, the problem with promising the internet to someone was that there was a reason the industrial revolution happened first. And just by my lonesome, I wouldn’t be able to get the technology base necessary in the timeframe I needed it.

So, I was going to cheat outrageously.

The brass bell above the door gave a despondent little clang as I stepped into the shop. Inside, I paused for a moment, looking around. “This is the best you could find?”

Dee shrugged. Dum rubbed the back of his head. “Said you was looking for cheap, boss.”

I sighed. “I guess I was.”

The place was a hole in the wall, barely more than a hallway with a door and a counter set in front of a back room. Everything was covered in dust.

You’d think an enchanter would be able to rig themselves up a magic Roomba.

“Hello?” I walked up to the counter. “Anybody in? Or should I go looking somewhere else?”

There was a muffled thud from the back room. “Coming! Coming!” A moment later, a young man stumbled out into the shop ‘proper’ as he half hopped into the other leg of his pants. “What, ah, what can I help you with, my Lady!”

I looked him up and down. Amusingly, the ‘enchanter’ was shorter and stockier than Rel, with foggy spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose. Really, though, the thing that stood out most was his rumpled clothes: a simple jerkin and a pair of trousers. “I was hoping to order a custom set of enchantments.”

“Well look no further!” The young man leaned forward, putting both hands on his dusty counter. “Maarin’s Magical Emporium is more than capable of servicing all of your enchanting needs! Why, just let me know what you’re looking for and I’ll be able to whip it up in a jiffy at, uh, at half the price you’d get anywhere else!”

I hummed. “Been a slow couple of weeks, huh?”

His smile froze on his face. Maarin raised a finger, but before he could speak, his stomach let out a loud growl. Slowly, he lowered his hand. “It’s hard, competing with the Enchanter’s Guild.”

My eyes narrowed. Someone else on the fringe of things, hmm? That was exactly what I’d been looking for when I’d sent the boys looking for the shop. Granted, I was hoping for something more along the lines of ‘eccentric maveric’ as opposed to ‘apprentice’s first shop’, but at some point, you take what you can get.

“Well, I might be interested in employing you. I lifted up the pouch of money I’d just gotten from Delia, letting it clink in my hands. “But first, I’d like to hear a bit about how Enchanting works. It feels like Enchanters should only really have one or two abilities each, wouldn’t they?”

“Ah!” He grinned. “That’s where Wizards differ from most others! Instead of skills, we unlock disciplines. I’ve unlocked several different disciplines of enchantment with my class. Really, you won’t find a more versatile mage in the entire city.”

I nodded. “So you can do a bit of everything?”

“Oh yes!” He waved a hand. “While the so called masters of the guild tend to overspecialize, I guarantee that if you let me know what you want, I can make almost any enchantment.”

Well, what it really sounded like was that he’d gone wide instead of tall with his training, and probably gotten himself kicked out of the guild for trying to poach secrets from too many masters or something. Still, all I needed to know was if he was indeed versatile enough to accomplish what I wanted. The internet wasn’t made in a day after all.

But I’d be willing to aim for a week.

“I need an enchantment that can send a voice from one object to another.” I paused, thinking back to all the silver I’d seen. This was a mining city after all, it just didn’t have very good iron deposits… “Or better yet, one that can send an image reflected in one mirror to another, or vice versa.”

“Ah yes, sensory linked enchantments!” Maarin’s shoulders slumped a bit in what looked like relief. “I could lay an enchantment on two mirrors right now if you wanted.” I frowned, was this something that already existed? Luckily, Maarin’s next words laid those fears to rest. “Though, uh, their effective range will be about the size of a house—you won’t get much better from any enchanter either!”

I nodded. “Distance is a limiting factor?”

Maarin nodded eagerly. “It takes more power to boost spells like that, especially since they’re always running. They make excellent gifts, but really, if you want to communicate with someone long distances, may I recommend a courier stone enchantment?” He reached under the counter, laying a thin stone rod on the table. “Guaranteed to deliver a message to its linked receptacle and back again! In addition it’s—”

“What if I wanted to link more than one mirror?”

This time, Maarin slumped for a very different reason. “Ah, well, I suppose some of the masters at the guild could put together an enchantment that linked three, though it would, uh, shrink the image on each corresponding mirror. Anything more than that though, well, the magical bindings become geometrically more complicated the more objects that are interconnected. Oh, uh, if you wanted two mirrors linked to one, I could probably manage that, but it wouldn’t last as long, you see, because the one mirror would be consuming energy from the enchantment to send two images instead of one.”

I hummed, picking up the stone rod. “So they’re always broadcasting?”

“Uh, broadcasting?”

“Sending, they’re always sending.”

“Yes.” Maarin nodded. “That’s what you pay for a two way connection in most cases. It’s not like scrying, which is really more of a form of astral projection, which can be—”

“That’s even better, honestly.” I waved a hand, “So, Maarin, you say you’re a versatile enchanter, yes?”

He nodded. “Of course!”

I set the stone rod on the counter with a sharp click. “What if I wanted you to make a mirror with a name that sent an image to a stone rod, like one of these.” I twirled it in my fingers. “And that rod knew the names of, say, the two other mirrors connected just to it, and could send that image to the right mirror.”

Imitation is the finest form of flattery, after all. Little magic ‘cell towers’ would fix the range issue as well.

“Just connect them all to a keystone object?” Maarin thought about it for a moment, before shaking his head. “But the mirrors always send the message, miss. It’s not so simple as just having a central object, even if that does simplify the enchantments by having a central fixture.”

“So?” I shrugged. “Have the mirrors always send their images to the stick, hell, have an output mirror, or a scroll, or a crystal ball, that the images are always being sent to. It doesn’t matter if it’s an unintelligible mess if no one’s watching it, so long as you can start sending that image to the right mirror on the other side when you want to. Just switch the output.”

He frowned deeply, eyes blinking slowly in thought. “Maybe?” He shook his head. “I… don’t want to turn down business, but I’m sure it’s probably impossible, miss. In fact, I’m sure my old ma—I mean, an Enchanter from the guild would be able to tell you exactly why it wouldn’t work, but, uh.”

“But do you think you can maybe do it?”

“Maybe?” Maarin shrugged.

I pulled out a gold coin, placing it on the counter. Maarin’s eyes snapped to it. “How about this. I pay you, no strings attached, to see what you can do with the idea. If it doesn’t work out, well,” I shrugged, “then at least we know.”

Maarin nodded slowly. “But, uh, if it does work out?”

I smiled. “Then there will be a great deal more gold to go along with this one.”