In the short time Shin had known Ceril, Proud Oaken Ranger slash Twelfth Prince slash Pouting Prisoner, he’d come to recognize two chief personality impulses within the elf: Arrogant and Craven. Sometimes he was more Arrogant, sometimes he was more Craven, but at all times Ceril could be understood as some ratio between the two.

As soon as the Royal Coins came out, however, Shin was intrigued to witness a hitherto unknown third Ceril Trait: Shameless Suck-Up.

Ceril somehow dashed through the entire crowd of feasting kobolds in the blink of an eye, his smile simpering and his tone ingratiating as he kowtowed to Bex. “My Lady! I had always known you were a person of true worth, but I had no idea of the scope, of the magnitude of your greatness!” He made an elaborate flourish with his hand, dipping into a bow. “What a fool I was!”

Bex frowned, shifting a little further away from Ceril. “Um, yeah. They’re part of my subscription package.”

“A one time bonus?”

“No, uh, monthly.”

If Ceril had a tail, there was no question it would have wagged itself clean off of his butt. “My Lady! I beg you; please reconsider how you spent your well-deserved riches! Giving it to these…” He trailed off, Arrogant and Craven fighting it out and coming to a draw, “Giving it to these would be like throwing your Coins away! Do they even have a Favor Store set up?”

Shin had to shrug. “No, we don’t.”

“I mean,” Gero leaned in, gesturing with an entire haunch of roast pork, “Do you even know what that is?”

“Ah, good point. Correction,”–Shin held up a finger–”We don’t have one of those and we don’t even know what they are.”

“Ha! I repeat, Ha! Ha ha!” Ceril barked out a triumphant laugh. “You see? My Lady, won’t you please consider again who is and who isn’t truly worthy of your largesse?” He took a conspiratorial glance to either side before leaning in for an overly loud whisper. “I’ll even share a secret. If you enter the magical phrase ‘PrinceCerilTwelve’ when redeeming your Royal Coins in Quercus, your treasure will be magically increased by five percent of its–”

“Uh yeah. No thanks.” Bex shifted as far to the other end of her cushion as she could manage. “Quercus doesn’t have anything I want.”

Ceril offered up another servile smile. “The rent on a fine woodland manor within carriage distance of the Ever-Growing City is merely–”

The Player waved him off. “The reviews say those manors are filled with giant woodpeckers.”

“Ahha, My Lady,” Ceril chuckled indulgently, “The giant woodpeckers are an added value! They eat most of the giant woodlice! And renting them only increases your rent by–”

“Pass.”

The elf switched gears. “Why, with your two Royal Coins, you could hire the services of a crack team of Oaken Elf rangers to squire you through any number of thrilling dungeons, allowing you to reap all the benefits with none of the risks!”

“What?” Bex made a face. “That sounds so boring. Why even bother at that point?”

By this point, Ceril’s Arrogance was beginning to peek through his Shamelessness. “My Lady,” he started, clearly making an effort to keep his tone even, “The Oaken Elves are blessed to have the highest monthly total of Royal Coin donations out of any other group outside of the Destined Path. Surely all of those other Players can’t all be wrong, yes?”

That certainly caught Shin’s attention. He’d been perfectly willing to devour pork and spectate as Bex dunked on Ceril, but this seemed like a potentially interesting piece of information. “Is that really true?”

Bex blew a raspberry, piling pickled vegetables into her bowl. “Sure it is. And like nine out of ten of those Royal Coins all go to one thing.” She adopted a faux elegant tone, waving her chopsticks grandly, “‘An Evening’s Repast with the Court of King Glandem’. Yuck.”

Ceril started to huff in irritation, but caught himself in time to mostly disguise the display of annoyance as a pained chuckle. “How can it be, as you say,”–He gave a pair of entirely unnecessary finger quotes–”’Yuck’ to briefly sample the grandeur of Star Oak Hall? To sup not only on the finest of delicacies, but on the boundless wisdom of my father King Glandem?”

“Oh sure, right.” Bex rolled her eyes. “That’s why people pay out the nose for that package. It’s all the supping from all the wisdom delicacies. You totally nailed it, bud.”

This time Ceril was unable to hide his huff. “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re implying.”

Bex caught Shin’s eye as she sampled a bit of pickled plom and rice, proceeding to talk about Ceril as if he wasn’t there. “Y’know what’s funny?” She swallowed her bite, digging back in for more. “I bet he really doesn’t know. Though maybe that’s actually more sad than funny?”

Seeing as he too didn’t know what Bex was referring to, Shin didn’t feel as if he could weigh in. Gero, however, had no such compunctions. “Sad. It’s definitely funny, but it’s definitely more sad.”

Ceril burst from his cushion, his ears flaring an embarrassed red at the light mockery. “I won’t sit here and be eep!”

He cut himself off with a distressed squeak as he noticed that his outburst had drawn the attention of every assembled kobold, as well as an entirely displeased Old Moots, and one hundred and two eyes were now firmly locked on him.

And with that, Craven declared victory over the battlefield that was Ceril’s soul.

Watching the elf all but sink to his belly and slither away to a corner of the room, Bex rolled her eyes again. “Jesus. That guy sucks, but I can’t help feeling for him a little.”

Gero scoffed. “Really? Why?”

“Because being him clearly sucks just as bad as being around him? I mean, someone who’s being that willfully blind about their entire situation must have gotten a good look at themselves, once, and really did not like what they saw.”

Huh. Shin still didn’t have an entirely clear picture of the Oaken Elf situation, but the sentiment was well-put either way. He found the nuances of Bex’s observation so engaging that he almost missed Gero sneaking her chopsticks into his bowl to steal a bite of his food.

Almost. “Hey. Your bowl is that way.”

“Oh really?” Gero popped the pilfered pork into her mouth. “How clumsy of me. Let me try that again.”

Shin raised his eyes as Gero shakily directed her chopsticks towards her own bowl, then veered off at the last moment to grab a slice of pickled radish from Shin’s instead. “Close. You were close that time.”

Gero affected a dismayed look as she crunched down on the briny vegetable. “This is tough, I think I’d better…” She trailed off as she noticed Bex watching her and Shin’s exchange with laser-focused intensity. “Um, what?”

The Player grinned, her ears perking in a particularly kobold-like enjoyment. “Sorry, I’m just trying to really dig in and learn my kobold-isms. And you two are cute~! This is flirting, right?”

“Um.” Gero flushed. “What?”

“Yeah! Letting someone eat from your bowl is, like, a super flirty thing for you guys.” Bex tilted her head in another picture-perfect pack mannerism. “Isn’t it?”

Shin cleared his throat, hoping he hadn’t turned quite as red as Gero. “I don’t know about that. I think we’re mostly just normal about stuff like that. Right?”

“What? No way; this is absolutely a kobold thing. Like, you guys are a big family and you share everything, right?”

“Right…”

“Right, but once everything has been shared out, you’re super firm on what’s yours being yours. Here, watch this:” The girl raised her chopsticks and leaned her body in a wide circle, causing every kobold her utensils came within a certain radius of to instinctively shift their bowls away. “See?”

He…sort of did? It felt odd trying to analyze his own culture, especially considering the fact that said culture was only a week or so old. Every kobold got their fair share, but when you’re just one pup in a big pack it’s important that everyone understands what is theirs. Anything else and they’d run the risk of constant squabbles and fights over resources. So if one kobold was comfortable enough with another to take something from them without even asking, that would be a deeply intimate act.

Shin decided he immediately wanted to change the topic. “What other ‘kobold-isms’ are there?”

“Oh!” Bex perked up. “Well obviously there’s all the ear and tail and posture communication; that stuff is just going to take practice. Still getting an handle on how often I'm meant to be sniffing at people mid-conversation, too. And there’s The Stare; I’ve been working on The Stare.”

Gero furrowed her brow, perhaps even more pleased to be talking about something else. “What’s this now?”

“It’s like what just happened with Elfy Pants! Everyone was doing their own thing, having a good time, and then the moment he made a big fuss?” Bex snapped her fingers. “Everyone immediately doing The Stare. And then,”–She snapped once more–”Immediately out of it again once he backed down. A kobold holding direct eye contact like that is a threat, and you guys can pop in and out of that threat scary fast.”

Right, well, Shin had definitely done that at least seven or eight times with Ceril himself. Maybe other races weren’t quite so willing to jump from civil conversation to genuine threats and back to civil conversation as kobolds were. “Anything else?”

“Um, nothing huge? I feel like your culture is still kinda working itself out.” Almost as an afterthought, Bex tacked onto the end. “Well. You guys like Big stuff. There is that.”

“What!” Shin and Gero shared an affronted look, the former pursing his lips in disapproval. “We are not crazy about Big stuff anymore.”

Bex snorted. “Are you kidding me? I watched you sorting out your pet koi yesterday. You specifically picked out the four biggest ones; I don’t think you even noticed their colors.”

“...Those were the four best ones.”

“Right, of course. My bad. And of course the whole village is built around a giant tower instead of some proper walls because…?”

Shin tapped his finger emphatically on the table. “It’s a strategic structure and its size plays a vital role in village security.”

“Uh-huh. Oh hey!” She tilted up her bowl, presenting two pieces of pork to Shin and Gero. “I’m totally stuffed; do you guys want these last bits?” When both kobolds immediately reached for the larger piece, the Player made a little finger gun. “Blam. Case Closed.”

“Yeah, well, pork is great and we both wanted more of it.” Gero popped the larger morsel into her mouth, unrepentant. “I’m willing to fight and die for that truth.”

“Here here~!” Bex banged her hand on the table in a show of approval. “But yeah, just a little outsider perspective.” She straightened up, remembering the original purpose of this conversation. “Oh right, about that! My Coins!”

Right, about that. Shin leaned back, giving a rueful shrug. “Well, Ceril might be a dreadful bore, but he wasn’t entirely wrong, you know. I’m pretty sure we don’t have anything set up to…sell to you? Is that how this works?”

“Yeah I know that; Tribes don’t get unique Favor Stores until they’re Level Three. But I wanted stuff from the General Page anyway, and I can get those from you!”

“Oh.” Shin shifted on his cushion, suddenly feeling a bit awkward. “Well, what do I do?”

“Just hold out your hand!” The kobold did so, and Bex produced one of her two coins. “Gonna get the New Character Booster first; everyone says that’s the best value.”

She laid the otherworldly thing on Shin’s outstretched palm, and the kobold did his best not to freak out as it absorbed itself into his flesh. Goddess that felt so weird. “Um, okay? Do I just stay like this?”

“Yeah, just one sec~!” Bex’s eyes had gone stark white as she read over some invisible prompt. “Sorry, had to put my personal info in. Okay, and now what I really wanted: the Roleplayers’ Mantle!”

Shin tried as best as he could to hold back the urge to whimper as the second Coin sank into his hand, the two tokens dissolving inside his body and going…somewhere. Better say something or there’s no hope. “Roleplayer’s Mantle?”

Bex’s eyes sparkled. “Yeah it’s super great! It’s this mode you can toggle that makes it so NPCs see you as just another NPC, so you can get a real immersive experience. You guys already know me, but with this I could really be a part of Shinki Itten Village instead of just an outsider!”

Gero raised her eyebrows. “Wait, you mean Players with this…Mantle or whatever could just slip into our village, and we’d have no way of knowing?”

“Oh, don’t worry. “Bex waved her hand dismissively. “You can’t attack anything besides Monsters with it toggled on, unless you’re attacked first or it’s part of a Quest or something. It’s basically only for people who really want to roleplay their characters, you know?”

Gero very clearly did not know, but Shin was too distracted to help her out. Because the Royal Coins had flowed through his being to join the essence of the Tribe, and he’d been made fully aware of the possibilities they granted.

The range of possibilities are truly staggering. For one coin he could fill a Village Progress Bar. For two coins he could instantly max out a newly acquired Level One Settlement’s Population. For twenty coins they could create a Conquest Node in a zone.

And the choices got even more varied and powerful as the price in Royal Coins went up. He could boost the entire Tribe’s Experience for a time, he could add basic classes to the Tribe’s selection…Shin scrolled through his options towards the bottom, picking something at random.

Alright. For two hundred Royal Coins, Shin could cause an ancient dragon to permanently settle in the kobolds’ home zone. He had no idea why he would want to do something like that, and at the same time knew all too well that he very much wanted to do something like that.

He couldn’t help noticing, however, that while most of the options were for the benefit of the Tribe, more than a few were strictly rewards for him personally. He was the one who’d been given the Coins, and apparently if he wanted to spend those Coins selfishly? There was no way to stop him.

It was…quite a temptation, obviously. But one he could comfortably avoid for now. Shin didn’t know precisely how he was going to use these Royal Coins yet, but the gears were already turning as he began to puzzle out how this new piece could fit into his existing plans. “Bex, we’re going on a sort of exploratory mission tomorrow. Why don’t you join us?”

Bex gasped. “Wait, really? Is this a Quest? Ooo, is this the Zone Storyline?!”

Shin smiled back as he felt the first pieces beginning to snap together. “ Maybe. Maybe though, it will end up being the entire World’s storyline.”

Mimi immediately began writing that down.