Spiteful Healer

Chapter 69: Chax to the Max

The day's long journey to Kordas ended up being completely uneventful. Sapphire was convinced that without her, they would’ve been attacked by thousands of evil cultists, and that she should be thanked, but there wasn’t a single hint of danger at all from the moment they stepped out of Orm to the second that the grand capital of Kordas came into view.

It was Aegis’ second time looking upon the giant city in all its glory, and this time around he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d ever manage to get Rene to look even remotely as grand as Kordas’ capital looked.

“It’s been so long since I’ve been here, I’m very excited.” Priestess Clara smiled as they stepped through the gates and into the city.

“Yup, good to be back.” Sapphire stretched. “Whelp, it’s been fun, My public service is done. Good luck with your weird quest!” Sapphire waved.

“Thanks… I think.” Aegis waved back, while Lina remained silent and waited for her to leave. Sapphire turned and hopped with great height away from the three, within seconds disappearing into the crowds of the city. “Let’s head to the shrine.” Aegis smiled at Clara and she bowed her head politely to him. Aegis led the way through the city, using his memory of the layout to lead the two ladies to the Shrine of Eirene. His mind was racing with excitement as he pondered what the next quest might be, and what the class itself would turn into, up until they arrived at the shrines entrance.

Stepping into the garden was as odd as it had been the first time - the shift between the sounds of the busy Kordas city streets transitioning into the quiet serene sounds of water trickling out of a fountain and light birds chirping was pleasant, but somewhat jarring.

“Here we are. Thank you for escorting me. I’ll find the High Priest and we can discuss what you must do next.” Priestess Clara bowed as a quest completed message popped up in front of Aegis, leaving Aegis and Lina to stand together in the garden.

"So, I s-suppose I should do my intermediate quest now too. Since y-yknow, you and Pyri want to figure them out yourselves." Lina said shyly while watching a pair of birds fluttering from one tree to another in front of them.

“Oh, yeah, you're right. You probably want to get started on your intermediate quests, right?” Aegis asked.

"I-I can stay if you want." Lina shrugged nervously.

"No, I don't want to keep you... Pyri was right, if I can't learn to do these quests by myself, I don't deserve to be intermediate." Aegis shrugged as he watched water flowing out of a nearby fountain.

"Okay. I'm sure you will do great, I believe in you." Lina turned to give him a big warm smile and Aegis met her eyes, reminding him of something he'd nearly forgotten.

“Here, I made this for you back in Rene, Tinsel helped.” Aegis pulled out from his inventory a round yellowish white creamy cheesecake on a plate. “It’s lagnok milk and cheese, but it tastes good, we tested it.” Aegis held it out to her.

“Cheesecake?” She had a bigger smile now as she raised a brow at him.

“Yeah, you know, you said it was your favorite food.” He shrugged as she giggled softly and took the plate in her hands.

“Thanks.” She looked at it carefully before giving it a whiff. “It smells pretty good.”

“Tastes good too, I promise.” Aegis pointed at himself. “Level 30 cook.” He said proudly.

“Yeah.” She let out a quiet giggle again before putting it into her inventory.

“Wait, you’re not going to eat it?” Aegis looked surprised.

“Right now?” Lina replied.

“Yeah! I want to know if you like it!” Aegis replied as if this was something that should’ve been obvious.

“I can’t just eat cake, we’re in the middle of the shrine.” Lina laughed at him while motioning to the serene garden around them.

“They’re eating something, look-” Aegis pointed at a couple sitting on a bench eating pink heart shaped pastries.

“Y-yeah but, this is a dessert, remember? You can’t eat a dessert without eating a meal first.” Lina replied hastily.

“You mean like chicken noodle soup?” Aegis mocked her.

“N-no.” She laughed. “I don’t want to eat it, I want to keep it.” She finally admitted.

“You’re not going to eat the cake?” Aegis sighed with disappointment.

“No, because it was a gift from you. I want to keep it.” She said shyly while looking down at her feet.

“C’mon, the daggers were a gift too. So how about you just don’t eat the daggers, and eat the cake instead.” Aegis insisted, making her laugh again.

“The daggers are different, they’re for the game. The cake was just for me.” She fidgeted her fingers, and Aegis couldn’t think of how to reply to this, his face reddened as he found himself looking up at the clouds. “Sorry I didn’t get you anything, like a parting gift.” Lina replied regretfully.

“You’ve already given me a lot.” Aegis replied, looking back to her, he wanted to be sure to convey his appreciation properly. Nervous beyond belief, he took her hands in his as the rings Ruffily had made them touched each others hands, causing Lina to look up with bright red cheeks. “Thanks for everything.” Aegis said as cooly as he could. Lina did her best to look at him, fighting through her nerves as Aegis looked back into her eyes. For a second time, he felt his body leaning in by itself, and when he saw Lina lean in as well, shutting her eyes, he closed his too and lightly pressed his lips against hers. He felt a wave of anxiety, joy, relief, and excitement rush over him, but a second later, Lina disappeared from the game world in front of him, confusing him for a second as he stumbled backwards.

"Lina?" he called out timidly, glancing around for her. "Did she shadowstep...?" Aegis wondered, but Lina suddenly re-appeared in the gameworld in front of him, face as bright red as it'd been a second ago.

"S-sorry, the Simbox, it kicked me out." She akwardly looked at her feet. "I s-s-should go n-n-now." She said anxiously as she spun around and ran from Aegis to the entrance of the shrine, Aegis watching her cloak flow in the wind behind her, until she stopped in the archway between the garden and the streets of Kordas to spin around and face him.

"Good luck! S-see you back in Rene!" She struggled to get out, giving a light wave before disappearing around the corner of the hedges that surrounded the garden.

“Yeah...” Aegis waved. Once she was gone, he had a big dumb grin on his face and did a small little twirl, catching a couple sitting on a bench looking at him with a smile. The male of the couple gave him a quick thumbs up and Aegis waved awkwardly at them. "Ok. Time to focus." He psyched himself up as he took a deep breath and spotted Priestess Clara approaching from across the garden.

“The High Priest is ready to speak with us now.” Priestess Clara said to him politely as she approached.

“Great. Let’s go.” Aegis nodded as Priestess Clara led the way through the garden to the very same altar that Lina and Aegis had been married at. There were a few couples waiting outside the ceremony area, discussing details of their futures together, but Clara led Aegis past them towards a tall bald human male wearing brilliantly white robes adorned with Eirene symbolism. [Jael, High Priest of Eirene - Level 52]

“Greetings, you must be Aegis.” He bowed his head ever so slightly in Aegis’ direction. “Yes, indeed, as Priestess Clara has said, I can feel the light of Eirene emanating from you. Please, allow me to take your hands.” He smiled as he held out his hands with his palms up just as Clara had done. Aegis nodded and complied as Jael closed his eyes and Clara watched excitedly.

“The Great Prophet was right. He foretold that those like you would come, and here you are. Alas, the words he has for you are his and his alone to give. We Priests and Priestesses can only guide you to him, it is you who must walk the path.” He said after pulling his hands away. “Priestess Clara has trained at the Monastery of the Stars, she will be your guide there, if you are willing.” He motioned to her, and she nodded with a smile.

“It would be an honor!” She replied gleefully.

Quest[2/3]: Escort Priestess Clara of Orm to the Great Prophet of Eirene in Arallia, within the [Kingdom of Arallia] on the island of Kriene.

Objective: 0/1 Priestess Clara Escorted

Quest Giver: Jael, High Priest of Eirene of Kordas

Reward: Intermediate Class: (Unknown)

Restrictions: Limited to classes: Priest, if the Pacifism skill is lost during this quest, the quest will fail automatically.

“Damn.” Aegis said out loud the moment he saw the quest, hitting accept nonetheless.

“Good, you’ve accepted.” Jael smiled happily.

“I imagine securing passage to Kriene will take some time. I shall wait here in the Shrine and serve Eirene until we are ready to leave.” Priestess Clara smiled at him.

“R-right, sure, no problem.” Aegis forced a smile back.

“Good luck!” Both she and Jael said to him as he turned to walk dejectedly out of the Shrine. Once he’d stepped back out onto the streets he looked up at the tall buildings of Kordas - in the distance he could see one of the tallest towers in the city hosting a single Airship docked beside it.

It looked as a normal ship would, but in addition to a sail on its mast, it had multiple wing-like sails covering its sides, and a strange light purple crystal embedded into the front of its hull that continuously shimmered with a wave-like pattern pulsing across its surface. Aegis didn’t know much about them, but he’d recalled hearing that travel via Airships was insanely expensive.

He felt himself patting his coin pouch on his belt, feeling that it was, and had been empty for quite some time now.

“Maybe there will be enough left over?” He mumbled out loud as he headed off towards the Auction House building. It was the middle of the Afternoon when he made it there and it was just as busy and hectic as he’d remembered it. The street out front was crowded with parked carts attached to all sorts of beasts of burden. Lagnok’s were among them and Aegis was proud that unlike the last time he’d come to Kordas, he recognized what they were. There were still plenty of other strange looking one’s he didn’t recognize yet though.

As he contemplated heading inside to try and sell his equipment for gold, his absolute hatred for bartering, markets, and the works all crept up from deep inside him, causing him to shiver involuntarily. He opted instead to open up his friends list to see Chax online and sent him a message, letting him know he was in Kordas. With a few more exchanges of words, Aegis saw [Chax - 36] poking his head out of the doorway of the Auction House building and coming to meet him in the streets outside, pushing past the other players and NPCs as they tried to get a spot inside the building.

“I was wondering when you’d show up again.” Chax said with a smile once he was close enough to be heard over the noisy crowds around them. “Thanks to you I was able to get my intermediate class. I’m a Great Merchant now.” Chax said proudly.

“You were able to sell everything alright?” Aegis asked.

“It took some time, but I got it sorted. Are you looking to offload some more items?” Chax grinned, and Aegis felt like he was reading his mind.

“Yeah, as a matter of fact.”

“Why don’t we find somewhere a little bit quieter to chat?” Chax suggested.

“Sounds good.” Aegis nodded.

Aegis found himself sitting in a quiet upscale restaurant in one of the highest towers in Kordas. Chax sat across from him at a table covered in light green cloth next to an open window overlooking the city, the sound of the crowds in the streets below still somewhat audible, but mixed in with a strange assortment of birds that had gathered on any ledge they could find around the tower’s windows.

The vase on the table held a beautiful pink petaled flower whose petals moved in a wave-like motion from being closed to being open, as if dancing, and Aegis had to avoid staring at it too long to avoid feeling like it was hypnotizing him. Looking around at the other tables, Aegis could see plenty of players with ?? beside their names, as well as several well dressed noble NPCs wearing expensive fabrics and jewelry.

Just as Aegis was getting comfortable in his chair, a young fox-like male demihuman NPC approached wearing a black and white suit and tie.

“Here are your menus, I’ll be back in a moment to take your orders. In the meantime, what would you like to drink?”

“I’ll have a glass of Lanuskian Wine.” Chax replied before motioning to Aegis.

“I, uh… water, I guess.” Aegis shrugged.

“Very good, sir.” The boy bowed as he placed menus in front of both of them.

“So places like this exist in the game as well?” Aegis asked in disbelief once the server had gone out of earshot.

“Hah, of course. There’s a few like this in Kordas. This one is owned by a player, he’s an actual restaurant-chain owner in the real world so he knows his stuff. He bought a bunch of gold with real money to get this place as an investment. Uses them both to promote each other, pretty clever actually. Turned out pretty well for him.” Chax replied with a smile. “But we’re not here to talk about restaurants, are we? How is your Blacksmithing and Enchanting coming along?” Chax asked excitedly.

“Good, I’ve got quite a lot of Iron weapons to sell. It’s all uncommon quality or above.” Aegis replied proudly.

“Impressive, and is any of it enchanted?” Chax asked.

“Not this time around, no, I didn’t have any enchanting orbs left.” Aegis replied as Chax sucked his teeth.

“It’s a pain to sell unenchanted Iron nowadays. Sure, it's possible, but it’s a battleground, everyone is penny pinching to make money to pay their bills. All it takes is one half-decent enchant and-” Chax snapped his fingers. “You’re out of the weeds and looking like a diamond in the rough.

“So you won’t take unenchanted iron?” Aegis sighed as he leaned back, beginning to feel like he was wasting his time - though he was getting ideas for crafts by seeing all the fancy furniture around the restaurant.

“Here are your drinks, sir.” The server returned and placed a glass of green wine in front of Chax and a glass of water in front of Aegis before walking away.

“I’m not saying that, I’m saying we should be smart about this. If you balance out selling what you must in order to afford the enchanting orbs to enchant whatever is left over, you can then in turn sell the enchanted items at a much greater profit. Doing these sort of calculations is childsplay with my intermediate class skills, of course.”

“So you’re saying I should sell some first to buy enchanting orbs, and then sell the rest?” Aegis clarified.

“Exactly.” Chax nodded as Aegis hesitated.

“Thing is…” Aegis tapped his fingers on the table. “I need to convert a certain amount of gold into real world currency. If I don’t get enough, I won’t be able to pay for my Mom to take time off.” Aegis explained.

“I see, I see, that’s nice of you, taking care of your mom. How much money do you need, exactly?” Chax asked as he began sipping the Lanuskian wine in front of him.

“Well, to cover the bills for the month, about 4000$.” Aegis replied. Chax nodded, as if he’d been expecting a number in this range.

“Well, it’s possible with my skills, if I carefully manage what I sell and supply you with the gold needed to enchant the rest, and then sell that…” He seemed to be using some of his skills to figure out the perfect balance of transactions, as Aegis saw his fingertips glowing green as he waved them around at his interface for a moment.

“Ooh.” Chax sucked his teeth again.

“What is it?” Aegis asked worriedly.

“The only way we’d manage to pull that off, even if I lowered my skill fee as low as 0.5%, it’s just too unrealistic. We’d need about 800 pieces of Iron equipment. And that’s only if they’re decent quality pieces at that.” Chax replied apologetically, expecting some form of disappointment from Aegis.

“Really? Good.” Aegis replied with a sigh of relief.

“Well…” Chax eyed him curiously while taking another sip of the wine. “How much Iron equipment do you have on you?”

“Just over 1000, it's all I could carry in my inventory.” Aegis said calmly while Chax began coughing violently, choking on his wine. “Are you okay?” Aegis leaned in worriedly as Chax gave Aegis a nod.

“One thousand? Where the hell did you get that much Iron? How long did you sit in front of the god damn Kordas forge lines to smelt it all?” Chax whispered in disbelief, trying to avoid drawing more attention to them.

“Where I got it, I can’t say, but… I forged it using my own forge on my land. The one I bought thanks to our last deal.”

“Your own- you’re an architect as well?”

“Y-yeah. I told you last time, right? I leveled every crafting profession to 30.” Aegis shrugged as if this was something Chax should’ve already known.

“I thought you were joking!” Chax shout-whispered in disbelief as he leaned back, his mind running wild with ideas and possibilities.

“I’ve got some dire wolf leather stuff and birch stuff as well, but I figured the iron would be most valuable, so I left the rest back. I’m not good with any of this marketing merchant stuff. I guess it’s my weak spot in this game because… Well, I’m willing to learn everything else, but this stuff isn’t for me.” Aegis admitted as he leaned back as well. “So how many weapons should I sell for enchanting orbs, in order to sell the rest for 4000$ real world currency?” Aegis asked while Chax was still seemingly deep in thought.

“Forget that idea for now.” Chax leaned in over the table. “You own land - do you have a Leader Merchant in control of your trade routes or trading hall yet?” Chax asked in a whisper.

“No, well, I don’t have a trading hall yet.” Aegis replied.

“I’ll make you a deal. You make me a resident of your land and set me as your Merchant Leader. I’ll manage the standard 5% Kordas tax, and I’ll take an additional 20% tax for my services, since it’s how my class gains experience, and in return I’ll manage the sale of all trade goods that you produce.” Chax suggested excitedly as Aegis eyed him up and down carefully. “C’mon, you said it yourself, you hate all this bartering stuff, right? Well me, I can’t get enough of it. I live for it, and I’m incredibly good at it. Heck, one day I bet I’ll be the highest level merchant in this entire game world.” Chax said confidently, but Aegis still wasn’t sure.

“10%.” Aegis replied after crossing his arms. The only thing he knew about bartering and marketing was to never accept the first offer.

“Tch. I’ll never become the highest level merchant with just 10%. No wonder you hate bartering, you're terrible at it." Chax replied as he leaned back and crossed his arms.

“I’ve got all the crafting professions up to 30. The stuff I can make is pretty high quality." Aegis shrugged.

“Okay, 15%, that’s as low as I’ll go. 15% to me, 5% to Kordas, the rest goes in your pocket where you can pay your NPCs and your real world bills. And good luck finding any other merchant with my skills that’ll work at that low of a commission.” Chax said confidently. His words worked well on Aegis. Out of fear of losing this opportunity to bypass this entire part of the game completely, Aegis leaned in with a smile and held out his hand for a handshake.

“Deal.” Aegis said. Chax grinned and shook his hand.

“Yes!” Chax shouted. “You made the right choice my friend, together we’re going to get rich!”