[NR] More Of Everything - Chapter 631

Rosha and Courtney are brought to a small house with clear signs that it had been hastily rented. There were bits and bobs of the family that would normally be living there forgotten in the corners and edges of rooms. It was clearly a family’s home. Though most obvious being the visible enchantment plates.

All around the inside of the house, at least a couple to each room, were metal plates with a number of enchantments inscribed on them. Above and beyond that, the duo was guided into a central room that didn’t have any walls connected to the outside. This room had plates stuck to each wall, the ceiling, and the floor.

On top of that, there was even a formation and a ritual plate in that room as well. They were covering all their bases. Though at the same time, Courtney understood that this wouldn’t stop the kingdom from spying. Rather, it would prevent the people they are going to make a deal with from spying.

It is simply impossible to prevent snooping by the local government if you didn’t build the house yourself. Though even then, chances are they sneak some sort of trick in. The most secure facilities are built exactly how the group is building their base of operation. Only by starting with bare earth in an area a kingdom literally couldn’t have tampered with, can a powerful family truly feel secure.

In fact, most families, sects, and other similar organizations that aren’t nations have their home bases between kingdoms. As while extracting a giant chunk out of the Deep Wilds is quite hard, just grabbing a compound or even a decent sized village can be done on a much shorter time scale. To the point that it isn’t surprising to find random strongholds anywhere the borders of multiple kingdoms meet.

Well, as long as the area is strong enough. There isn’t much point in putting such a stronghold in a place not suited for the cored. If your organization can’t field enough sixth break people to hold it, you aren’t going to stop a kingdom from scrying on your land after it is no longer in the Deep Wilds.

Courtney wasn’t left to ponder on such heavy things for long. Within an hour of being led into the warded room, a negotiator from the family shows up. From there, it was a simple matter of communicating what things were desired.

And then the negotiator tore their plan apart. Jason had only wanted a few ritual books and a half dozen rods. To hide the obvious source, Courtney had added on an equal amount of stuff for her and Rosha.

The negotiator laughed. After a simple check of the first page, she knew what they had on their hands. Most complete magic item manuals outline a few specific routes towards crafting the item. Sometimes it didn’t even have that, containing only a single strict method without any alternatives to make the item.

From there, they went back and forth over what exactly they wanted to get on top of the original things. A simple addition was increasing the number of immovable rods from five each to ten each with a plan to reduce it to eight each for a total of 24. This wouldn’t even touch the kingdom’s bottom line. The rods would be provided right away from their reserve stock.

While individual rods are useful, what kingdoms crave them for is specialty construction and war machines. One rod can hold a person and so a bunch of them can support what is basically the top of a wooden tower and a unit of archers. Another fun trick is installing them in tower shields.

A shield line is impressive, but one anchored by immovable rods? That can stop charging beasts of prodigious size. The limit is more of a matter of whether the beast can go over the wall or through the shields material. And generally not the second one because if you’re strapping such an expensive magic item to a shield, the shield itself isn’t going to be cheap either.

On top of the rods, they’re basically going to stack as many basic manuals for everyone in the party. Jason would come out behind the others in this, though only because Energy use is so rare. The books tend to work on the tower principle instead of the pyramid.

Instead of supporting more advanced techniques in a bunch of simpler ones, each manual tends to build on top of a single previous one. This means much less flexibility, but also that there isn’t any need to worry about what to learn. You know what comes next, many books even specifically calling out the title of the next book.

Rosha tries to even this imbalance out, but there isn’t really anything that can be done. Well, give him more gold. Except, no matter how much gold they get him, it won’t match up to having more books on the various uses of Energy.

Whether it is skills, rituals, or basic uses for Energy, there isn’t enough around. An example of one of those things beyond normal rarity. No matter how much you want something to do with Energy, it is quite possible that you won’t be able to buy it no matter how much gold you’re willing to shell out.

In the end, Jason was going to eat a loss. The manual was exactly one of those types of items that can’t be bought with gold, a true rarity no matter what rarity the System might label it with. To end up with a heap of cash represents a loss.

Though the negotiator allowed some wiggle room. While rare, it might be possible for the kingdom to give him a list of a number of strange things kept in their vault and then he could pick one. Now, Jason wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near any of their vaults and the list would be highly curated by the kingdom. However, you never know what might be useful for someone and Jason might just be able to get a lucky pull.