Chapter 114: Communication

  I ended up being the first to tell my version of the day's adventures, downplaying my capabilities as and when needed to preserve some of my more potent capabilities. Instead of revealing the range of my inventory, I claimed to use simple sleight of hand to relieve passersby of their coin, for example. Other than a bit of subtle censorship however, I told essentially the full story, even parts that might be surplus to requirements, like when Pumpkin jumped the queue onto the butcher's counter. I took a bite to the ear for the latter, but I didn't regret it in the slightest, it was simply too funny to leave out. I got less of a reaction than I was expecting, mostly raised eyebrows, with a few exceptions.

  "Serves the old hag right," Kyle guffawed, nearly coughing out a lung with his stew, when I brought up Pumpkin's little excursion into Vermina's home.

  "Not a fan of the sorceress supreme?" I questioned, recalling my own scepticism as to the nature of that grandiose title.

  "Gods no," Kyle denied, upon regaining his breath. "No actual mage of any great power would be slumming it at the Wall, not in the public parts of the city anyway. Sure, there's monster parts aplenty for reagents, but every other aspect of life is worse than in the heartlands down South. Even the reagents can be ordered for express delivery by teleport, if you have the money, and experienced mages will always have the money. The truly powerful live in the military keeps, and are here on commission from the crown. The casters you'll find downhill are at best middling adventurers, risking their lives regularly to trade monster parts for their daily coin."

  "Noted," I acknowledged, before returning to my tale.

  Both Harvey and Kyle looked bored as I explained my attempts to enter the various Temples, which made me think that the requirements were common knowledge for locals and even frequent visitors like the former. Ralph seemed to be listening though, his attention locked on me between refills of stew; I was pretty sure he'd already made it to the fourth bowl of the night by now. Indeed, the pair only started paying attention when Armand entered the story, and we moved on to the black market, my introduction to Joe Blow, and the deal we struck. That was where my tale ended, as I had no intention of discussing the specifics of my level up with the crowd; allies of convenience we might be, but I still had some secrets to keep.

  "I'm surprised they let you right in," Kyle remarked, after taking a bit of time to process my tale "Usually, their hired bouncers will chase off anyone trying to do business on the streets."

  "This isn't exactly business as usual," Ralph interjected. "Between the monsters last night, and cleaning up the damage left behind, any guards they have are probably dead on their feet. I doubt anyone is available to deal with minor issues right now."

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  "Come again?" Kyle stared blankly, clearly unable to understand Cat.

  Strangely, Harvey was nodding along as Ralph spoke, and while I wouldn't put it past him to fake it, he didn't seem like the kind of person who would pass up on free information. At the very least, I'd have expected him to ask me to repeat what Ralph said, for Kyle's convenience.

  [Mask of Felis withdrawn.]

  "This mask lets the wearer understand cats," I explained, holding the aforementioned item out. "Just a hundred gilt for a genuine magical item, any takers?"

  "Sure, why not," Kyle huffed, tossing me a coin pouch he produced from nowhere.

  [97 Gilt gained.]

  It wasn't quite a hundred, but close enough that I wasn't going to raise a fuss, as I doubted everyone had access to an automatic count done by the System; that seemed like the sort of thing only Merchants and adjacent Classes got. I wasn't going to get any use out of it any longer, anyway, so any coin was good coin where I was concerned.

  "Here you go," I threw the mask to Kyle, resolving at least one of the communication problems present. "I'd offer a solution to Harvey as well, except he seems to understand just fine already, somehow."

  "One of the summons in my book is a Druid, capable of casting Blessing of Beastspeak," Harvey explained, seemingly content to reveal a bit more of his hand, now that we were all stuck together for the foreseeable future. "It needs refreshing now and again, but that's hardly a problem."

  "Fair enough," I agreed. "Now that we're all bilingual, Ralph was just mentioning how the city guards are overworked thanks to last night's festivities, opening up opportunities that might not normally exist. I took advantage of one of those, and now we have at least a short term buyer for our cargo. The question is, what do we do with our earnings, now that our travels are curtailed?"

  Having said my piece, I left the floor open for further contributions.

  "What he said," Pumpkin added. "I was with him the whole time, so no need to get a second story from me."

  Typically, his contribution consisted of minimising the amount of work on his plate, using me as the decoy. Just as humans were always the same, magical world or otherwise, it seemed the cats hadn't changed much either.

  "I don't have much to add either," Ralph admitted. "I followed you guys last night, since my previous home turned into a burning pile of rubble, and snuck inside while you were sleeping. I hid behind a barrel of salt pork until Harvey found me, then convinced him to let me stay in exchange for sharing any news I hear from the local cats. Not much on the grapevine just yet, as everyone's still tallying the losses and damage from the night, but I'm sure I'll have more to share with you soon."

  "At least someone up top seems competent," Harvey muttered, before clearing his throat. "So, while you were investigating the market, I was checking on the resources our organisation kept in the city. The other boltholes, supply caches and dead drops to be used in case of emergency. It's all gone; whoever subverted my contact took anything of worth they could carry, and burned the rest. We have what we're carrying and this single safehouse, and that's it; not quite the worst case scenario, but not far off it either."

  "I'd hoped for more," I admitted. "But this was always the realistic outcome. Alright, that just leaves Kyle; did you find anything good?"