Logan was awestruck at the interior of the building. It was so clean, so expensive. The walls were expertly painted with flowery protrusions of paint in the corners, glass mirrors the size of some house walls, and quite a variety of flowers in vases.

An attendant walked towards the Spellthief with a towel in hand, but threw it over their shoulder as they saw Logan had no dirt on him. His well-kept black hair was oiled back, his eyebrows were finely shaped. With a formal voice, he asked, “Sir, am I to accept your presence as that of one Logan?”

“Correct. I am Logan Hall, nice to meet you”, Logan answered as he held out a hand.

“My greetings to you, sir Logan. Noble Armin Eventa is awaiting you within his study, please accompany me there”, the attendant replied, not shaking Logan’s hand, and turning to walk down the hallway.

Logan put away his hand as he followed behind the attendant. “Do you know why there was an opening to meet with the Noble?”

“Noble Armin Eventa had prior meetings cut short. Noble Armin Eventa felt it best to extend a missive to allow yourself and Noble Armin Eventa to converse before your agreed-upon time.”

“Is it rude to not use the man’s title and full name?” Logan thought to himself as he tried to recollect what he had read earlier. “No, this attendant is just overly formal.”

Continuing to walk in silence, the pair stopped outside of another set of intricate doors, a plaque on the exterior reading, “Eventa Study.”

The attendant gave three solid knocks and spoke, “Sir Logan has arrived.”

A muffled voice on the other side replied, “Enter.”

Hearing this, the attendant opened the doors for Logan to enter, and after he did, the attendant closed the doors with him on the outside.

Logan looked over the study, it was almost as large as the main room of the inn he had been staying at. A large fireplace roared at the side, large glass windows peering onto a lavish garden full of topiaries sculpted into passive creatures of the forest.

Sat at a large oaken desk was a man, who seemed to be in his 30s, with medium-length blonde hair that dangled over his forehead partially and was wrapped around the tops of his ears, tufts peeking around his neck.

Standing up, the man waved towards himself to motion Logan forward, gesturing to a chair on the opposite side of the desk. Logan approached and sat at the same time as the man.

“It is good to meet you, Hunter Logan. I extend my thanks once again for your service in rescuing my son from brigands.”

“Castore Eventa? It is no trouble, all part of the job.”

Leaning back into his tall chair, the man took on a more relaxed pose, “My son spoke at lengths about his time in subjugation, and even more about his time with you, even though it was a shorter stint.”

“All good things, I hope.”

“Of course, about you. He did proposition me to ask you about further excursions, but I informed him your schedule would be too busy to allow for such a thing.”

“Having a noble at my side would make me feel a bit wary around my daily duties, for sure.”

“Quite. So. Your correspondence spoke a bit about why you petitioned to meet with me. Might you go in more depth now we are face-to-face?” Armin asked as he poured tea into two cups.

“Yes, of course. I would like to request that you put forward a law change on my behalf. As I do not own a guild, nor am I a noble, I cannot do such things easily. This law change would be the abolishment of ‘duels’ in their entirety”, Logan explained formally, taking one of the cups.

“Ah, ‘duels’, an institution that was instated even before that of the bandit lord. A two-hundred-year and older law. What reasons do you hold for this change?”

“They are several, noble. I believe since their inception, the duelling ideal and laws have been morphed from their original form, and not into anything better. Adventurers use duels as a way of brute-forcing their rule onto others, subjugating weaker people under their power and enacting something not much better than slavery.”

“Duels began as something for the monarchy to make use of, it then trickled down to the nobility, and finally the common folk. I am not blind to that fact, and even my son has seen such misuse of power. Though, tell me, what of the ‘honour’ that surrounds duels?”

“Whilst it is written in texts at lengths about the honour, I do not experience such from others. It represents a bully and victim environment rather than any form of kinship.”

“Do you have any affidavits for this? Simply your own will be hard to make a case in the courts”, Armin asked as he sipped his tea.

Logan had spent some time during the week after the frost monarch’s cavern talking with others in preparation for this, so of course, he had. Pulling out several pieces of parchment he placed them on the desk.

Picking the parchments up, Armin glanced over them as he fingered the edges to read the names. “Twelve, a hearty number. Have you spoken with any guilds?”

“I am in contact with Lightbeam, I believe they will back this. I intend to speak with others if I have your backing too.”

“Very good, I know of that one. I know of at least two others that would certainly rule on your side too.”

“Does that mean you’ll do so, Noble?” Logan asked.

“Before that. Do you have numbers and data to back up the occurrence of duels?”

“I looked over several guardhouses for hunting contracts surrounding issues with duels, I have those here too”, Logan replied as he pulled out several more pieces of parchment and handed them over.

“Well, this is a more powerful statement. Money speaks louder than words when it comes to an abolishment like this. Duels are used as a tipping system for many guards, but, if we need not pay for hunting contracts to sort the fallout from so many, we can increase base pay rates.”

“To that end, I also have a few proposals to sweeten the deal”, Logan continued as he handed more parchment over.

“Exhibition matches, guard-adventurer training seminars, road patrols”, Armin counted aloud as he looked over the parchment, “quite a few, good work, Logan. I know of at least four here that ‘won’t’ work, but you have enough to cover those holes.”

“Is there anything else I need to provide?” Logan asked, a bit concerned.

“This is ample research. I can add my own, and ask others for more. So, you wish to remove duels entirely, not just for adventurer use?”

“Yes. Whilst I do not want to offend you, I have heard of the nobles using these rules as a way to get what they want too.”

“I have not engaged with such, but my affairs are away from combative events. A complete abolishment will be combated, however, we have a chance at that, a certainty for classless at least.”

“Does that mean you will put this forward at the next congress meeting?”

Armin thought for a few seconds, sipped his tea, and responded, “We are currently ‘squared away’ in the debt department. Whilst I am thankful for your saving my son, your pay has set us right. This will take up my slot at the meeting, so I will require something in return.”

“I had expected as much. What do you require?”

“As the phasing hunter, you are adept at teleportation. Correct? My son experienced it first hand.”

“Yes, that I am.”

“With your powers, I can make a lot of money, in a short amount of time. You see, not only my son, but my caravans are attacked regularly. Carriages, horses, drivers, materials, adventurers, they all cost a pretty coin. If I were to just hire you, I can cut the prices down immensely.”

“So, a ferry service? What do you have in mind?”

“I need some shipments of blood to be moved around to several settlements. It is all above board I assure you. I run a few bleeder dens in Gauntlet.”

“That must be a lucrative business you run if you’re wanting me to handle it.”

“The fresher, the better. There are many that don’t abide or appreciate vampire rule, or even their existence, so that adds to the number of attacks of caravans that move around such inventory.”

“Is the blood expensive, then?”

“Not per vial, however, rarer blood does come at a premium, though you can ship quite a lot more of it when compared to other goods. A caravan can return me a dozen or so gold. So you can see why, when they are raided, I don’t want to be losing such capital.”

“I was curious about the specifics of blood, do you know a lot about that? Or just their prices.”

“I won’t reveal a lot of the prices, trade secrets and the like. On average, a single vampire drinks up to four litres of blood a week, more for pleasure, or that amount a day if they are adventurers”, Armin replied with a smile.

Four litres of blood weighed just under ten pounds. Logan could cart a thousand pounds of material in his inventory, so it wouldn’t be too hard for him to ferry these shipments.

“We can work out the specifics later, but how long do you want to have me in your employ for this trade?”

Armin chuckled a little, “Not that long, depending on your ability I’d say a week’s service would suffice this sort of trade. I would be willing to pay you a gold coin per day to boot, much less than I would normally get charged for hiring out a normal porter mage to do this, but then, you’re getting something more out of this.”

“So, seven days work for seven gold and your law proposal at the next congress meeting?”

“That about sums it up, yes. Is this option amenable to you?”

“Doesn’t sound difficult. I’ll take it”, Logan replied confidently.

Logan and Armin spoke at length about the job that the Spellthief would be undertaking, even going as far as Logan saying how much he could teleport, as well as follow-ups for the whole duel law abolishment. Armin seemed rather forthcoming with most of his information, though keeping trade secrets far from Logan’s ears.

To speed up the process, Logan was also gifted another manual for Dimensional Jaunt, as part of his payment for the week of work. Armin seemingly thought the job would cause no issues for Logan, assuming the young man would take it without much contention.

Aside from the job, Logan was informed that the next congress meeting was occurring in two weeks. This was probably why Armin sped up their meeting, combined with previous information. But this timeframe gave Logan ample time to return to Gauntlet to ferry the healer back, as well as sort out his own regeneration.

With everything solidified, Logan shook Armin’s hand one last time before leaving the estate the same way he came in.

Letting out a sigh, Logan thought to himself, “That probably went the best way it ever could.”

“I believe so too. Armin seemed rather open to the proposition”, Fol replied.

“Even hired me for a week’s job to boot, with seven gold and a tome thrown in.”

“As a merchant, he is bound to have many tomes in his possession, though it is likely he had that prepared for whomever he wanted to ferry his goods.”

“Porters are rare, especially those that can bring over a good amount of goods. He was surprised when I told him how much I could take.”

“We are fortunate he accepted that you had some form of storage trinket.”

“That’ll make the daily trips quicker, we can squeeze in some other activities when my teleportations are all used up.”

“We start tomorrow. What is our next step?”

“Seeing an old friend.”

Warping across the city, Logan apparated near the street of the alchemy shop that the PC Ahren owned. He didn’t want to teleport too close to it, in case people were eyeing him up. Eventually, he made his way there, picking up on the chatter surrounding him and following his back.

“That’s the Phasing Hunter.”

“Heard he ended the early chill.”

“Didn’t he ‘destroy’ a dungeon?”

“We’ll find out, come two months, if he fucked up.”

Logan had to push some of it out of his head. He knew there wouldn’t be too many negative outcomes to his choices. If there were, many previous PCs would have bad reputations surrounding them and their actions. If whoever was sending him these quests was part of the pantheon, he guessed it would be down to the ones above.

Entering the shop and closing the door behind him also closed out any voices that wanted to continue harassing his thoughts.

Moving in deeper, Logan tapped the bell atop the counter and asked, “Ahren, you in?”

The elderly Irishman emerged from the curtains separating his backroom, his face lighting up as he met Logan’s, “Nice to see you back here, Logan. What’s the craic?”

“As it is to see you. I want to ask a favour of you.”

“More potion making?”

“No, I want to make use of your unique class abilities.”

“Ah, the skills of a Meridiancer.”

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