Out of boredom, I go back to making cleaning crystals while I wait for Myria to wake up. I will just give the extras to Lin, she can hand them out as rewards or gifts. They get easier to make as time passes and by the time Myria wakes up I have made almost fifty.

  I would have made more, but Myria actually wakes up earlier than I was expecting. We have a little fun, but Myria stops me after a single round so that she can go outside and practice with her daggers. By the time breakfast is ready, she is moving well and is mostly used to her new body.

  We eat with the others and then I explain to Lizzy that we will be leaving for a day or two. She isn’t happy about it, but when she finds out it is for a date, she agrees to guard the caravan. Leylisha and Koko also agreed to keep an eye on things while we are gone.

  When I tell the rulers, Amn and Mavel are okay with it, but Gremshow throws a bit of a fit. It takes a considerable amount of willpower for me to not just kill him. From the way Amn shuts him up, I am guessing he noticed how close I was to losing my temper.

  To avoid doing something that I would regret, I take Myria and gate to demon hunter city. Instead of going straight to Zachariah’s building, I show Myria around the city a little. We walk until I have calmed down a little and then head to the merchant group building.

  Zachariah says “Ash! It is great to see you again!”

  “Hello, Zachariah. It is good to see you as well. This is Myria, one of my wives.”

  Zachariah says “Hello, Myria, it is a pleasure to meet you! So, what can I do for you this time?”

  “I need materials again. Wood, gems, leather, feathers, and metal. Basically, a little bit of everything. The problem is that I am short on coins, so I either need it taken from my investment or I need to enchant some weapons to pay for it.”

  Zachariah says “If it is up to me, I would definitely prefer the weapons. I don’t know if you heard, but the empire recently suffered a major loss against the demon beasts. Since then, the weapon market has exploded! I can get about five times the previous price for anything you make!”

  “That’s fine by me. I am guessing that you already have some weapons ready for me to enchant?”

  Zachariah says “Of course I do! I have been keeping a stockpile just in case you came back. I even have enough special weapons that if you can enchant them I could hold a special auction!”

  “I can probably do that, but I am on a time limit. I promised Myria a shopping date, so I will work on enchanting until lunch. If that isn’t enough to cover what I want, I will stay the night and finish up in the morning. I assume that you either have a suite we can use or you can arrange one?”

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  Zachariah says “Of course! I will have the best suite in the best hotel reserved for you right away! I will also have someone bring up the weapons and a list of all the materials we have on hand. You can use my office until you are ready to leave for your lunch.”

  “Alright.”

  Zachariah gets up and talks to his secretary and within minutes the weapons are brought to me. Myria moves to an empty area of the office to continue working on getting used to her body. I watch her a little as I start enchanting the basic weapons, the good ones aren’t here yet.

  Zachariah leaves to get the good ones out of the vault and when he returns I switch to doing those. The list of materials arrives soon after and I switch to using Divided Mind so I can look it over. I quickly pick out the materials I want and add the amounts that I want before handing it back.

  Zachariah says “Is that all? I thought for sure you would be cleaning me out again! What you’ve already enchanted would cover this much.”

  “Well, I also need some spending money, so I will take whatever coin you have on hand. I just need enough materials for a couple of projects. Anything above that, you can just add to my investment.”

  Zachariah says “You know, if I keep doing that you are going to end up owning this place!”

  “What? Would working for me be that bad?”

  Zachariah says “No, not really, but I’ve gotten used to being the one in charge.”

  “That wouldn’t really change. I have far too much going on to be able to pay much attention to this place. You would just have to deal with me randomly popping in for something, like now.”

  Zachariah says “Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t be too different.”

  “Well, we will worry about that if it happens. The next thing we need to discuss is that my ship will be setting sail either today or tomorrow. It should arrive here in the next two weeks. I would appreciate it if you could help keep anything like last time from happening.”

  Zachariah says “I will do my best, but I can’t promise anything.”

  “That’s all I can ask. My man Pol has orders to trade with you exclusively if possible. Although, I should warn you that we have already opened a trade route with the southern empire. While you won’t be the first one to get our goods, they shouldn’t have made it this far north yet.”

  “I can work with that. Can I ask why you opened a trade route with the southern empire first?”

  “Because I have an alliance with them. I am currently escorting Emperor Amn to the Magic Kingdom for a conference.”

  Zachariah says “Right, I heard about that. As a city-state, we don’t get invited to that kind of thing. We don’t have a standing army, just the adventurers, so we can’t contribute much. The northern empire would have been invited.”

  “Have you heard what it’s about?”

  Zachariah says “No, I haven’t. I also haven’t heard of anything serious enough to require all the nations to work together. It is slightly suspicious if you ask me.”

  “I don’t really want to return to the Magic Kingdom, but I already promised.”

  Zachariah says “You think they might be targeting you? Oh, that reminds me, about a month ago we had a strange group of merchants in town. They bought things, but they didn’t haggle. All they really seemed interested in was asking questions about you.”

  “Let me guess, merchants from the Magic Kingdom?”

  Zachariah says “Well, they claimed to be from elsewhere, but yes.”

  “That figures. Maybe this whole thing is aimed at me. Could you check with the ambassador for the empire and see if they got invited? If they only invited Amn, then this is definitely a trap.”