Soul Merger

Alissa was feeling pretty good. Fili had been a little jumpy waking up in someone else's house, but the mage was generally nice. And she'd gotten a free steam cleaning out of it.

Of course it wouldn't matter for long. The city was infamous for rain, and currently a drizzle was lightly soaking everyone. You got used to it, or you moved somewhere else quickly. Even the wealth of the guilds couldn't stop the weather.

Their destination was towards the edge of downtown, where the guilds had their primary offices. The engraver's guild used to be headquartered across the lake, but they'd moved their main office over at some point to be closer to the ports. Now they kept their old campus as artificer stations, while the financial work, commissions, and minor touch ups were done here.

The warm and dry lobby past the stained glass doors were a pleasant reprieve. And as Alissa had guessed, Rosalina was already there waiting, book in hand. "Oh good you're here early too. I thought I'd stand in line to get through this faster, but there's no line up front." The priestess gestured to the front reception desk.

"This is the line to find the correct line," Alissa replied. Fortunately their business would take them past all that. "Shall we announce our business?"

"But of course." Rosalina took the lead, while Fili seemed content to shadow them. She walked over to the secretary and pulled out one of the bars they'd acquired. "We're looking to appraise and possibly sell these mythril ingots."

The secretary carefully lifted the metal nodding as she estimated the weight. "Of course. Let me arrange a meeting with one of our Masters." She flipped through some papers, then stood up. "Master Engraver George is on call. Let me guide you to his office."

She took them through the wide halls to a side room. The door was open, revealing the usual engravers desk, a second desk for paperwork, and a third with various scales and chemist materials on it. A dwarven man was currently at the second desk, using his enhanced eyesight to look over some very fine designs. The secretary knocked on the open door anyway. "Master George, we have adventurers with dungeon spoils. Mythril ingots."

"Hm?" The man looked up and carefully moved his designs to the side. "I see. Thank you Sera. Are you going to act as recorder?" The woman nodded. A good sign to Alissa. Having a record keeper on hand meant the man wanted guild oversight on his actions. That meant he wouldn't be considering anything to harm the guild's reputation.

George moved to the third desk. "Please come in. Were the items all part of the same stash?"

"Yep. An undiscovered chest." Rosalina put her ingots on the table. Alissa and Fili followed suit, leaving three neat stacks of three. "We know they're high purity, but obviously you'll want to get the exact numbers yourself."

"Quite right. If you'll excuse me." George took out a little diamond scalpel and slowly cut a tiny sliver off one of the ingots before putting it in a vial with a light blue liquid. He swirled it around and set it into a holder. "I'm afraid we'll have to wait a minute. I didn't want to bother with the quick test."

"A minute should be fine," Fili said. "That's the azurine test right?"

George smiled. "Indeed. I'm glad to hear they're still teaching our techniques."

The group's attention was drawn back to the vial as the liquid turned clear. Fili leaned forwards. "Oh a silver alloy!" Alissa smiled. That was excellent. It meant the ingots were already mixed for engraving.

The master engraver waited a few more seconds, then held the vial to the light, looking at the metal still remaining. "Very nice. Ninety percent pure, and alloyed with silver. An excellent find. Now let me see..." He put an untouched ingot on the weights and put three weights on the other side. The scales almost immediately balanced. "Standard dungeon weight as well."

As he picked up the abacus Alissa paid very close attention. The beads flew quickly, but there were pauses at each step. And she knew the tricks almost as well as he did. A ten percent margin. That gave her the ammunition she needed. She made sure her hood was properly covering her face and moved a little behind Rosalina.

"Ninety five, four hundred per ingot is a fair price," George said with an air of confidence.

Fili started doing math on her fingers, while Rosalina was about to speak. But Alissa put a hand on the priestess shoulder. "Market price is one hundred six thousand for an ingot like that."

George gave a small snort. "If I wanted to pay market price I'd go to the market. Ninety eight thousand."

"It's already engraver quality. One hundred and four," Alissa countered.

"It didn't need to be shipped across the ocean like most mythril. One hundred thousand even," the Master Engraver replied.

Alissa shrugged. "Importers aren't also customers. We will be, assuming we get the funds. One hundred one thousand per ingot."

"Deal." The man offered his hand. "And that'll teach me not to use the abacus in front of adventurers. Came from a merchant family did you miss?"

"Yeah." Alissa admitted.

She didn't step forwards though, so eventually Rosalina moved to seal the deal. The priestess looked over her shoulder after. "Aren't you taking things a bit far?"

"Don't want anyone thinking I used my succubus skills to get an unfair bargain." It was one of the reasons why she'd given up on being a merchant to begin with. Too many ways of getting blamed for doing her job right.

Both the guild members seemed surprised by that, but George's brows narrowed in thought a second later. "Succubus merge? You wouldn't happen to be Harvey Carter's daughter would you miss?"

Alissa flinched. Her father's name still plucked at a raw wound. But she nodded. "Yeah."

"Ah." The man seemed apologetic. "Was a real shame what happened to your family. He was a real up and comer. And no need to worry. You won't be charming Sera here, so the deal will stand." Alissa relaxed as he scribbled out a promissory note. "Now, while you're here, I imagine you ladies would be interested in our services for weapons?"

Rosalina grinned. "Indeed! I'd like a redwood rod with a thirty chip rotary bank. Standard dragon priestess modifications."

"Are you sure about redwood?" George said, taking a paper to write the order. "It's usually best to match spellcasting to the merge for maximum affinity. When spending on high end weapons it's always important to get the best for you personally."

"I'm aware." She tapped her head. "Redwood is my affinity. Have it on the best authority."

George nodded. "Very well, miss. We'll want to take measurements, but that's a very standard request. I think I know what's required. Next?"

Fili raised her hand. "I'd like a water and fire aligned staff with a cartridge system and a minimum fifteen chip bank. It needs to accept custom limiter restrictions, and multicasting with three path threading."

George looked over at the secretary who pulled out a form. "You understand I'll need to see your degree to accept that request." Alissa blinked. That was really weird.

"Of course." Fili pulled out a paper protected by flexglass. "You can also request proof from the tower directly if needed."

"Thank you." The man gave it a cursory glance before letting the secretary write down the information on a form. "I've confirmed you have the proper credentials to do your own limiter construction." Alissa nodded to herself. That explained it a little. Whatever Fili was asking for was dangerous for the general public.

Finally she stepped forwards and showed her sword. "I need a blade in this style. One capable of doing advanced techniques." The ultimate way to use your merge without relying on magic. A blade that could do advanced techniques would take her sword skills beyond human capabilities. She'd always dreamed of owning one since she started delving.

The man nodded slowly. "And designed for a succubus merge. I see. Well, that will be an interesting order, but I have full faith our guild can deliver. An interesting challenge for a Master." He pulled out a tome and began flipping through.

"While I work, I should inform you that there will be one item you'll have to gather yourselves." He continued his research while lecturing. "To do the high level work you're requesting you will need to harvest an eternal flame scale from a greater fire lizard. The creature must die by your will, though as with merges you can have someone else capture it. Unfortunately, fire lizards do poorly in captivity, so I suggest heading to the Hell Saint's Mountain to gather them."

"So, how do we determine that a lizard is mature?" asked Alissa. That seemed like a great way to travel a hundred miles too and from just to get told the scale wasn't good enough.

George looked up and hesitated for a moment. "The local guild should be able to tell you which scales are good enough. But actually there's another way. Especially since I imagine you'll want to gather most of your materials to keep the costs down."

Alissa and her partners nodded. "Definitely."

"One of my friends has a daughter who's in a... vaguely similar situation to you, Miss Alissa." Alissa wondered what that exactly meant as the man continued. "She's started adventurer work, but she's having a great deal of trouble joining a party. I'd offer her skills as a guide and assessor of materials. She could make sure you don't waste any trips."

Alissa looked over to her two new companions. It seemed odd to be talking about their group as a well formed party, but it only made sense to keep working together. "Should we take her on a trial run?"

Rosalina nodded. "That sounds good. It'd be foolish to take someone without seeing them in action." The dragon priestess grinned. "And it'd give us a chance to chat as well, before we spend a few weeks wandering with them." Alissa figured the dragon priestess could put up with almost anyone, but it was a good idea.

"We should probably also spend some more time working as a team anyway," Fili said looking at the floor. Alissa gave the woman a pat on the shoulder. The young mage had to be missing her old team.

Rosalina once again took command. "Sure. How about you tell her to meet us at the Star Needle Labyrinth. Would tomorrow be okay?"

"I'll send her a message. If she says no I'll have a runner tell you so you don't wait up," George said. "But I figure she'll want to give it a try. She's a real go-getter that one."

"So what's her name, and how will we tell it's her?" Alissa asked. Might as well get that out of the way early.

"Her name is Clara," George replied. "And I figure you'll find her pretty easily. Not too many Minotaur merges, and even fewer who are archers."