“This is a mana crystal,” Felicia said, holding one out. I already knew what it was, without her telling me, so [Identify] didn’t trigger. She was holding a small, cloudy, bluish-white crystal, about a centimetre in diameter. One of the odd things about this world was that the crystal - normally found in animals - was faceted like a cut stone. If someone had fashioned one into an icosahedron that is. Thanks [Memorise], for that titbit from high school geometry.

“And this is a Grade Two mana crystal,” Felicia continued, holding out a slightly different stone. It was a little bit smaller and more clear. Less cloudy white, more clear blue.

“Okay,” I said and triggered [Identify] on both of them.

[Identification]: - Mana Crystal - Charge: 0/9 - Grade: 2

[Identification]: - Mana Crystal - Charge: 0/9 - Grade: 1

“They both have the same charge, but the higher grade is smaller,” I noted.

“Yes. I made the second one out of two six-point stones.”

“Six plus Six equals nine?” I asked.

“Yes, there’s always some loss when you do it, depending on your Skill Level.”

I ran the numbers in my head. “So this takes crystals worth 24 gold and turns them into a crystal worth 18 gold. Oh, and if an [Alchemist] was doing this, we’d get charged an extra gold. How much did it cost for you?”

“Not much,” Felicia shrugged. “With the Fire Gem for heat, there’s maybe a silver worth of flux used up.”

“So why are we doing this? Seems like it's just losing us money.”

“Well, I do need to practice,” Felicia pointed out. “As I get better, it will lose less money.”

“That’s good?” I said. “I mean, smaller crystals aren’t good for much besides grinding into Enchanting powder… but there has to be a reason people do this, right?”

“Well, that’s why you don’t see higher grade crystals out here. It’s a different story in the capital, but I don’t know why. The [Alchemist] that I bought the forge off, said that a Grade Two stone goes for twice the price of a similar size Grade One. But he didn’t know why.”

“Something to do with the mana levels? Dorsay gets most of the mana for the entire Kingdom, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe we can ask the Guild Master,” I mused. I picked up the higher grade stone and tried charging it. Then I frowned and tried charging the other one.

“It’s faster,” I said. “To charge, I mean.” I pulled the mana out again before my pool could refresh and tried both of them at the same time. “About twice as fast, I think?” I gave them to Felicia to try. Healing didn’t use mana, but she had [Mana Sense], which was enough to pull mana out of a mana crystal.

“That doesn’t seem like it would be worth twice as much?” she said. “Even with the smaller size.”

“Well, you’re right about needing to practice anyway, so let's try and find out why we’d want these.”

* * *

“Well, if you want me to go into competition with you, just say so.”

I smiled sweetly and waited for Arber to stop scowling. The look on his face was one that I’d become familiar with from seeing it on a number of experienced merchants in town. Now that I was Level Five, my [Bargain] skill total eclipsed that of everyone in town that I was interacting with.

I also had a better idea of the strengths and weaknesses of the skill. It did boost my persuasiveness, but it didn’t let me strike deals that were actually unfair. If I wanted someone to give me stuff for free, I’d be better off using [Charm].

The main thing [Bargain] did was let me know exactly how far I could go before the deal became unfair. I wasn’t sure if I was cold reading the person I was negotiating with, or estimating costs through some supernatural means. I just knew, and that made the deal forgone conclusion.

So I knew Arber was going to cave, he was just being stubborn.

“This shop sells Master Monteminer’s goods,” he repeated stubbornly.

“It doesn’t just sell his goods, you’ve got all sorts of dungeon-made and adventurer traded items here.” I pointed out. “Master Monteminer told me that he didn’t have any objection to you selling my goods.”

He shifted his eyes away awkwardly. “I haven’t had a chance to hear from him, what with the town as it is.”

He was referring to the fact that the Griffin corps were not currently available for private jaunts into the mountains. With the injuries from the wave and the current tensions with the Tribes, the Griffin Riders were operating on extra duties with fewer personnel.

“It’s your shop, not his. You don’t actually need his permission. Or is it someone else’s permission you think you need?”

He glowered at me some more. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, lady.”

“I know all about the deal where the Baron gets the lion's share of all the profit from Mandel’s enchantments.” My use of Mandel’s first name should give him a clue of where I learned that from. “That won’t be the case for my goods, you can finally start making a profit.”

He got shifty again. “If you know that, then you know the Baron takes Master Monteminer’s share, which don’t affect my profits none. And it’s not like the Master needs money.”

“I mean you’ll have goods that you won’t have to sell at a discount to reduce the Baron’s take,” I said. This was where [Bargain] really shone. A glance at his prices earlier had told me that he was offering Mandel’s stuff at a substantial discount, and it didn’t take much thought to figure out why. Ironically, if Mandel had cared about money he’d probably have noticed the same and would have been much less doubtful about Arber’s loyalty.

Arber froze at my revelation. “That- that’s just crazy talk. If you go to the Baron with lies like that-”

“I’m no fan of the Baron,” I interrupted. “I’m not going to him with anything.”

I let him stammer for a bit, then continued. “You should still be able to run the scam. My work is of lesser quality than Master Monteminer’s, but I doubt the Baron will know the difference. You can still offer the discount without there being an obvious price differential.”

It was kind of cute that some of the fight went out of him as soon as I admitted that Mandel was the better enchanter. He really was a loyal friend. But he still wasn’t sold, so I kept going. “And, the fact that you won’t have to fly out to the mountains to get custom work commissioned should be a major selling point.”

He glared some more, but his heart wasn’t in it. “I guess it would at that. Fine, I’ll stock your items. Don’t think the Baron will take kindly to this though.”

“Let me worry about the Baron,” I said, [Charm] projecting confidence I didn’t feel. “Let’s talk details.”

* * *

There weren’t any beast-kin on the streets. There had never been many, but now there were none. I knew there were still beast-kin in the town, but none dared show their faces, and from what I heard, I didn’t blame them.

So racism is a thing in fantasy land as well, I thought to myself as made my way around the central square. It definitely wasn’t universal, I could hear more beast-kin defenders than there were people bad mouthing the tribes, but the atmosphere definitely wasn’t friendly. The trouble was, even the defenders had to admit that the Tribes had probably launched the last attack. They just didn’t think that we should blame the ones in the town for it.

From what I knew, most of the beast-kin still in town were staying in rooms at the Adventurer’s Guild. They were adventurers, of course, so they felt confident in protecting themselves, and the Guild had announced it would act to protect any Guild member who hadn’t broken the King’s Law. So they were probably safe but still chose not to provoke anyone, hoping that this would all blow over.

My destination was the best inn in town, the one the rich merchants stayed in. Downstairs was a common room that served expensive food during the day and expensive drinks at night. I walked up to the front desk.

“Is Master Black free?” I asked. The man looked at me and then slowly nodded, indicating a direction leading towards the back of the building.

While most inns would stick a bunch of tables in a room and call it a day, Golden Goose did things differently. Whoever owned it had heard of open plans, and didn’t like it one bit. Instead, there was a small maze of differently sized tables, all separated by either low partitions or fully-fledged walls. Weaving my way through, I eventually came to the table I wanted.

“I can’t claim to be an expert in the subject,” I said, taking a seat. “But is this really how you arrange for a clandestine meeting?”

Mr Parkes, who I definitely wouldn’t be calling Tom, looked up from his documents and smiled.

“The Ebon Order does have covert agents, Ms Hammond, but they don’t go around wearing black and hold meetings with town leaders and luminaries.” He gestured to the walls around us. “This is just to prevent eavesdropping and reduce the amount of gossip about my visitors.”

Ms Hammond. He’d asked about my preferred address, and I had to admit I preferred it to Master, Mistress or even Miss. It wasn’t a surprise, after all, he was explicitly sucking up to me, but it still felt nice that he’d remembered. Somehow, it helped me ignore the rustic setting, and feel that we were professionals having a normal business meeting. Well, a bit. I couldn’t ignore that ridiculous doublet. I started imagining how he’d look in a sharp Armani suit but stopped when I realised I was getting distracted.

OK, one point to you.

Smiling like he could see what was going through my head, Mr Parkes offered me tea from a pot on the table. “So, to what do I owe this pleasure?”

I took the cup, which was excellent, as I expected. For all the talk of being a slave to his master, he certainly lived well.

“I’m looking for information,” I said cautiously. “About this impending conflict.”

“Ah.” He swirled the tea in his cup. “That’s certainly something I can help with. Were you looking for a handout, or did you wish to trade?”

My eyes narrowed, but he held up a hand to interrupt me. “I am to help you where I can, it's true. If I aided you without recompense though, you would feel indebted to my Master, yes?”

“I thought that was the whole idea?” I asked sourly.

“In part, yes. But recall, I was asked to gain your trust. Providing aid with the intention of holding over the recipient - that engenders the opposite. As a craft guild member, you should be familiar with the notion that trust is best formed from the repetition of fair business deals.”

“I’m not unfamiliar with the notion,” I admitted. Brush it up with a bit more jargon, and it could come from corporate messaging. “So how much did you want?”

“I - and my Master - have little use for money, but I think you’re rich in the kind of currency I trade in.”

Riddles? Oh - OK, obvious ones. I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I’ve made an agreement with the Champion of Naldyna to try and stop any war from starting here.”

His eyebrows raised in surprise. Honestly, he’d probably get half of this information from our conversation so I might as well get credit for it.

“So Naldyna's Champion is here after all? Lady Tamayo was uncertain if she’d left the mountains. And Naldyna is against the war?”

I shrugged. “She’s not here right now, but she’ll be back soon. And I don’t know what Naldyna’s position is.”

“I would owe you a considerable favour if you could arrange a meeting for me with Kaito Washiyama.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said. “But in the meantime, can we discuss what that buys me?”

“Of course,” he said. “If stopping conflict is your goal, you’ll want to know about the forces that are driving the conflict.”

“That sound about right.”

“First, though, I should explain what’s stopping it. There’s been something of a stalemate for the last fifteen years.”

“I assumed the forest was just a natural dividing line.”

“Forests don’t stay in one place. They either expand through growth, or they get cut down,” he explained. “In this case, the Kingdom cuts down any growth on their side of the line, while the Tribes make sure that the Kingdom doesn’t touch the trees deeper in.”

“How?”

“With monsters, somehow. The Tribe manage the nastier monsters, keeping them away from their settlements and concentrated on the border.”

“That’s not really the case around Talnier though?”

“Talnier’s on a trade route, it’s one of the ways in and out of the Tribal areas. If you know the route, you can walk from here to the nearest Beast-kin settlement without encountering a single monster.”

“Neat. And on the Kingdom side, they can keep them back by cutting down trees?”

“Mana control. Draining the mana out of the area makes it inhospitable to monsters. And Tribal troops are no match for Kingdom numbers, heavier weapons and co-ordination when the fights on open ground.”

I thought about it for a bit. “So neither side can attack the other. Hence the stalemate. So why am I worried about a war starting?”

“When it comes to war, someone always finds a way,” Tom said somewhat cynically. “For the last five years, the best plan both sides have come up with is to provoke the other side into attacking.”

“Which… would be suicide. War is even stupider than I thought.”