NOVEL NEXT Chapter Forty-Six: Negotiations with a Naiad
When we returned, Gerhard raised an eyebrow at us, then glanced at Henry.
"They're done already?"
"You have already seen Emrys' flexibility. Jackson is an extremely potent fire mage with one of the simplest, yet most powerful fire affinities of his graduating class. Yushin has the markings of a truly dangerous assassin. And Salem is a skilled psychic. They simply assassinated the captain and burnt the boats' masts down to nothing but cinders. I trust that is sufficient?"
"Maybe, maybe not," Gerhard said, frowning. "I'll pay your one-hour minimum, but if they return to make additional trouble, then all of you need to agree to fully destroy their ships for no additional pay."
I glanced around at my friends. Most agreed, though Jackson had a troubled look on his face, and so I shook my head. Gerhard then removed twelve pieces of platinum and placed it into my palm, letting me distribute and split it between my group. As I did, I couldn't help but marvel. The Charm and Fable paid well, absurdly so for a job that was as simple as it was most of the time, but I had just made the equivalent of two shifts worth of work.
In an hour.
Mercenary work might not be fun, might be ethically dubious at times, and I might be getting paid higher than the standard fare for mages capable of casting fourth circle spells, but it still paid.
I grabbed ahold of that part of myself and ruthlessly crushed it. I was not going to be hoarding wealth. It was better than the worst of my siblings that hoarded people as if they were objects, but it was still not the kind of thing I was willing to participate in. No, I was going to take this three hundred silver and put it toward something useful.
There was a wave of blue, and I looked up to see that Gerhard had vanished and Henry stretched and yawned. The black marks around his neck were starting to slowly fade, all save for one of them, an oddly twisted briar-like shape that remained every bit as dark as it had been the day he'd met me in Effervesce's temple.
That reminded me…
I turned to Jackson and flipped him one of the platinum coins. He caught it out of the air, tilting his head quizzically, so I answered before he could ask.
"Donation for Effervesce. I'm not a member of his faith, and I don't plan to ever be one, but he helped me out in a tight spot. He also provides healing free of charge, and I had to have… Kidneys regrown? Wasn't it something like that? After the fight with Gerhard."
"I see," Jackson said, taking it and nodding. "Yes, that is good. I was planning to retreat to the church and commune with the elder priests about what to do with the living pirates. I would prefer to see them saved, rather than left to die. Would anyone care to join me?"
"No thank you. If we've got a few hours free, then I'm going to meet with the Naiads," I said, shaking my head. That drew a look from Salem, and a raised eyebrow from Yushin, so I just sighed and rolled my eyes. "For components. I suspect that there's a hidden trial of some sort there, just like the not-so-hidden trial of the Crystal Cove. I'd also like to perform the naiad's kiss ritual, and want to barter for that with them."
I held up the two platinum coins. They were only two hundred silver, which wasn't quite enough on its own, but it made my point.
"With the cost of blue, silver, and pink pearls, about three hundred silver worth of powder is needed to complete the ritual. Red wax is cheap enough, as is a vial, though admittedly I'll have to wait until the next full moon to gather the water. That just leaves the kiss from an aquatic creature like a naiad, selkie, or merfolk."
Salem nodded and flipped open his grimoire to the ritual, studying it over.
"Aye. It's'a simple enough one, the trouble is in the setup. Paintin' the magical symbol for the sea on your forehead every mornin' an' washin' it off with seawater every evenin' before bed. S'a pain. But bein' able to adapt to the water more or less as a cantrip is worth it. I migh' do the same usin' the money."
"I'm satisfied with my own swimming abilities and the orb of air spell," Yushin said, and Jackson just shrugged.
"I'm not big on the water, but I should at least learn orb of air in some free time and study the ritual, just in case."
"Here, give me your grimoire and I'll copy it over," I said as I pulled some ink from my locker and started to mumble the chant for scribe's friend. As soon as Jackson flipped to the pages he wanted the spell transcribed to, I tapped my wand to the yellow-white parchment, and black ink bloomed across its surface, already dried.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
We didn't chat for long after that, though Henry pulled our attention back for a moment in order to quickly go over the points we could improve on. Then he teleported away, Yushin peeled off to go cultivate, and Jackson left for the church. Salem and I headed to the Naiad's pond – we wouldn't be able to perform the ritual today, so there was no sense in purchasing expensive crushed pearl.
Once we arrived at the pool, I located the Naiad who I had spoken to once before. She had seemingly enjoyed my no-nonsense attitude and focus on magic over her physical appearance, so I figured she'd be a good place to start.
"Oh, it's you again," she said, before batting her long eyelashes. "You know, if you keep coming back, I might think you're not just all business."
I rolled my eyes while Salem gritted his teeth. I glanced at him, a touch worried, but the new seals that Elder Tywyll had put in place seemed to be holding strong. I couldn't smell a hint of the loup garou within. Satisfied, I turned back to her.
"I would like to negotiate for your assistance in completing the Naiad's Kiss ritual for both me and my boyfriend. You may call me Emrys, and him Salem. What should I call you?"
She switched to the elemental tongue of water and said something in the language that sounded vaguely like bubbling, and was literally translated as something close to she-who-swims-fresh-streams. I nodded, then switched to the bloodline tongue and continued talking.
"A pleasure to meet you. Would you do me the honor of letting me call you Streams, rather than your full name?"
"Well, you're just no fun at all," she said, flipping back into Ceylish. "I can't even tease you with another language. Yes, Streams is fine, it's what I go by when speaking Ceylish anyways. No, you want a thre–"
"No," Salem said firmly. "Magic. Nothin' more."
She let out a long, rattling sigh, but nodded in agreement.
"Fine, magic it is. So boring. But very well, what would you like to barter in exchange for my assistance with the ritual?"
I considered for a moment. When it came to negotiations, I was in the advantageous position of being able to walk away at no loss. Even if I didn't get the ritual completed, I could still cast orb of air. It was convenient, but not something I needed. With that in mind, I decided to lowball a bit.
"Well, given you live on the material plane… twenty silver. That's ten silver apiece, just for kissing each of us on the forehead."
"Bah! No, it's not just a kiss on the forehead. It's imbuing you with the ability to breathe underwater, both salt and fresh. That's extremely valuable."
"Aye, but it isn't you who'd be doin' it," Salem agreed. "If ya' were providin' the crushed pink, blue, an' silver pearls, doin' the paintin', washin' it off, an collectin' the rest a' the components, it migh' be valuable. As is, you're jus' kissin' each'a our foreheads."
"That's like saying the keys to a vault are just tiny bits of metal," Stream countered. "It's the ignition of the kiss that brings the whole magic together."
"You're welcome to put forward a counteroffer, but as is, we will just have to agree to disagree," I said with a shrug. She narrowed her eyes at me, then seemed to consider for a few moments.
"Alright, you want a counterargument. A gallon of honey wine. Good stuff, from Middleton."
"A gallon? A literal gallon? That's going to run hundreds of silver. No, I can purchase you a bottle of mead from Middleton, or I can get you a gallon of cheap wine."
"Four gallons of cheap wine, but it can't be produced by bribing the mess hall to give you wine. Either that or four pints of good mead from Middleton."
I made a mental note of the fact that the mess hall could apparently be bribed to give certain drinks, and presumably food. That was interesting, even if I wasn't sure I'd look into it. I had a different plan to produce cheap wine.
"Four gallons of cheap wine in exchange for the kisses, and a location."
"The location of what?" Stream asked, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
"I know there's a trial or test or whatever you want to call it around here, I just haven't found it yet," I bluffed, shrugging nonchalantly. "If you can save me a bit of time and provide the last component for the ritual, you'll have your four gallons of cheap wine. I'll deliver it to you over the weekend."
"I'll provide the kisses with at least a day's warning to free my schedule, the right of refusal if I have a prior commitment, and I'll tell you where the trial entryway is immediately after the wine. If you can agree to that, you have a deal," she said, thrusting her hand out.
"If you use your right of refusal due to a prior commitment, you'll provide us with a schedule to allow us to select a date that works for both of us within a week of the refusal."
"Deal," she agreed, and we shook on it, then she shook hands with Salem as well. As we turned and walked away, Salem glanced at me.
"Four gallons a' wine, even if it's the cheapest five silver per bottle wine ya' can find, isn' gonna be cheap. Might'a been better ta' just get the mead."
"No, this is much easier. I'm only going to need about forty silver worth of powdered iron and four gallons of water, then I'll use water to wine in order to create the wine for it. It won't be a great quality, and it's a tricky spell to master, but I used it to make a couple of spare silver coins on the road while I traveled. People will pay well, even for terrible wine."
"Aye. Bein' drunk is an easy way'ta escape life for a while. Not healthy, but… When I was a teen, I did more'an my fair share. I was lucky'ta have parents that noticed an' helped me break the habit before I was the kinda' person who got deep in my cups before goin' to work each mornin' an' was blackout drunk each night. Still, if not for them…"
"They're good people. I liked them," I said, gently taking Salem's hand and squeezing it, then giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek. "I'm glad they were there to help you. Do you need to talk more about this, or would you like to move on?"
"Move on, please. Let's get some lunch."