Chapter 186: Tea Party

“How can I help you, sir?” The brown-haired clerk at the Exchange Hall of Akul asked with businesslike politeness. Will could smell a bit of sugar and almond, and he could hear a rounded shape with a bite out of it occluding the wood on the other side of the bar. She must’ve been rushed out of her lunch without finishing desert.

Poor girl.

Will was standing front of a bar that accommodated over a dozen clerks processing the orders of an equal number of thick lines of Climbers and civilians receiving payments for quests and bounties, storing or returning borrowed Relics, or just taking care of everyday banking.

It was a bustling afternoon scene as the people chatted amongst each other while they waited, their conversations bouncing off the marble walls and high ceilings, creating a fog of noise around him that made it difficult to pick out any one voice.

Been a while since I’ve been to an exchange hall, Will thought, trying to distract himself from the insects squirming across his body. Believe it or not, having incredibly high Acuity does not, in fact, reduce the ickiness of things crawling across your skin.

“I’d like to check my account and make a withdrawal.” Will said. “I’m going shopping.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Name?”

“William Oh.”

The conversations around them died, stillness rippling outward.

The clerk raised a brow, but reached under the bar and retrieved a ledger, flipping open a page near the back and scrolling down it with a finger.

She paused and glanced up at him, eyes flickering miasmatic blue.

“…Confirmed. How much would you like to withdraw, Mr. Oh?”

The conversations around him resumed, albeit with a lot more whispering.

“All of it.” Will said with a shrug.

The woman pulled out a different ledger used to track account balances, flipping through it until she landed on his page.

“So that’ll be-“ She paused, frowning. “Mr. Oh, May I advise that you not withdraw all of your funds?”

“Why not?” Will asked, curious. It wasn’t like they didn’t have enough money. The Exchange Halls had some kind of arrangement with The Tower to produce the currency as needed, so they couldn’t actually run out of gold and ivory.

“Because it wouldn’t fit out the door.” She said.

Will’s brows rose as he turned Phantom Eye towards the massive double doors that stood open to the hall, at least fifteen feet tall and ten feet wide, enough for two streams of Climbers to enter and leave.

The door’s not big enough!? Will thought.

“Let me get my manager. She can print you promissory notes, which will be much more portable.” She said, hopping off the stool she’d been seated on and turning towards the back.

“You can take your pastry with you. I don’t mind.” Will said, pointing at where the round shape rested behind the desk.

The clerk froze guiltily for a moment.

“Acuity Build?” She guessed.

“Acuity Build.” Will said with a nod.

The young woman grabbed the pastry from behind the wooden panel and shoved it in her mouth before trotting to the back rooms.

…So it was a bear claw.

Will spent a good three minutes sweating in place as the number of people staring at him only grew, before eventually the clerk appeared on the other side of the bar, ushering him through a side door.

Will was led down a winding corridor along a short-pile carpet that felt like it’d been chosen for durability over looks, finally arriving in the office of an older woman with a gentle smile.

In front of her was a ledger with Will’s name on it and a number beside it that contained more zeros than Will had expected.

“Good morning, Mr. Oh. I’m told you’re looking to make a large withdrawal?”

“Shopping spree.” Will said.

“And the nature of that shopping spree?” she asked, pulling out a large stack of blank papers from under her desk. “Multiple small purchases or one or two big ones, such as the auction, or land?”

“Multiple small ones,” Will admitted. “And probably multiple big ones, too.”

The banker’s breath hitched in her lungs. A suppressed groan.

“How about a thousand promissory notes at fifty ten-pieces each for the smaller purchases, and a hundred promissory notes for a thousand ten-pieces each for the larger ones?” she asked.

An ivory piece is a hundred gold. A ten-piece is a thousand gold. A note for a thousand ten-piece is one…million…gold.

One hundred million plus fifty thousand times a thousand…another fifty million?

…How much was Kincaid worth? Well, Kincaid and all the fae with bounties he drew in to defend him.

“That should work.” Will said with a nod. “Is that all of it?”

“Nnnope.” The banker said, shaking her head as she reached out to the stack of papers, and ran her thumb deftly across the stack until she gripped exactly a thousand sheets. It was a rather bulky amount, but certainly less bulky than fifty million gold coins.

A lump of Charge flooded her arms and travelled down into the paper, and it changed color, taking the form of ornate notes of credit with the exchange hall’s seal and the denomination: fifty ivory ten-pieces.

As this was happening, Will watched the number next to his name tick downward. At least part of it, anyway. The numbers at the top didn’t move.

“Here you are. If you need something to carry them, we can give you a complementary satchel designed to-”

Will accepted the papers, and swept them into his Dimensional Storage. In the blink of an eye, they’d vanished form his hands.

“-Right. You’re William Oh.” The woman shook her head and created the smaller stack of more valuable papers and handed them to Will.

“Can you do me one more favor while I’m here?” Will asked.

“Of course.”

“Thea Oilton is my representative in Akul. Could you send her about half of the remaining total?” Will asked.

“Of course.”

“And can you give Steve Holland one percent of the original total along with a letter telling him that he’s fired?” Will asked.

“The itinerant charlatan? Mid-grade healer?”

“That’s the one.” Will said. “We had a previous agreement, and I never had a chance to settle up.”

That greedy bastard called it.

The banker jotted down two quick notes beside Will’s entry, and glanced back up at him.

“It’ll be done. Is there anything else, Mr. Oh?”

…That’ll cover it,” Will said, nodding as he stored the second stack of papers. “Thank you very much.”

“A pleasure.”  The woman said, shaking his hand before Will walked back out.

As he re-entered the lobby, Will felt gazes rake across his body, searching for the satchel or any suspicious lumps where he might be hiding a piece of paper with a lot of zeroes.

Naturally, Will had no more suspicious lumps than usual, and he walked back out those massive double doors, daring the citizens of Akul to give him any shit.

…They didn’t.

Will cracked his neck.

Time for a long day of shopping, Will thought as he arrived at Thea’s home, knocking on the door.

The door opened to reveal Ria. There were other Rias relaxing all the way back to the main hall. A hundred of them in total, sitting, chatting, leaning on the wall or perhaps lucky enough to grab a seat.

They all stood when he arrived.

“Alright, ladies.” Will said, gesturing for them to approach. “That’s ten small sheets apiece. You all know what I’m looking for. If you run into any trouble, shoot me a message through Anna.”

Anna and Ria both had temperaments equally suited to shopping on his behalf, but Ria was less likely to be stolen from, just from her extra height and warrior-like appearance.

Will began handing out a stack of ten promissory notes to each Ria as they filed out the door and broke apart, flooding the streets of Akul in a matter of minutes, aiming to scour every merchant, crafter, and salesman in the entire city before they could catch wind of what he was doing and raise their prices.

After the last Ria strode past him, Will was left facing Thea and Anna.

The older Oilton had a thin-lipped expression watching Ria leave, folding promissory notes into her front pocket as she walked. The aging socialite probably had an inkling of how much money was being tossed around.

Thea, is there an auction happening tonight?”

“Eh?” She shook herself out of her stupor. “Oh, yes. There’s one every day, although it won’t be as big as the one you first attended. That was a special occasion. The offering will be modestly better than what you can find just wandering around.”

“Well, where would we go if we wanted to buy ‘the good stuff’?” Will asked.

“At the level of cash you seem to be wielding, that would be best done through the estates of large families, directly contacting them with requests to purchase from their holdings stored at the Exchange Hall.”

Will nodded, thinking. He knew that the Exchange Hall held on to Relics, and even loaned them out sometimes for profit.

“Okay, then how do we go about doing that?”

Thea’s eyes slowly widened, her face breaking into a smile as she glanced between Will and Anna.

“Tea partyyyy!” Thea said, clapping her hands together.

Will’s skin crawled, and it wasn’t just Loth’s insects swarming under his clothes.

“Oh, I’ll need to get you real clothes, not like that abomination you wore last time, and Anna, you’ll look amazing in…some jade, I think.”

“Oh, I’ll get into contact with Dizzie, and invite her and her circle, and Madeline, she’s got her husband on a short leash so any deal we make with her should work out…” Thea said, turning away before looking back at Will.

“I’m thinking a tight fit for you, something that shows off how svelte you are. For Anna, a nice scoop neck…”

Will raised his hand.

“What?”

“Can we make it a looser fit?” Will asked.

“…Don’t worry, the right tailor can make even a tight fit comfortable, and besides, it’ll look so good on you.” Thea purred, her eyes rolling back as she undoubtedly pictured herself showing off his fit to her tittering socialite friends.

“It’s not for me, it’s for these guys.” Will said.

“These -AAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIII!”

Thea Oilton shrieked and leapt backwards as Will tore open the front of his shirt, revealing the swarm of insects crawling over his skin, their abdomens glowing and pulsing with miasma as they collected it and concentrated it up against his skin.

“Wha-WHY!?” Thea demanded, pointing at him.

“Small price to pay for making it here in a day.” Will said with a shrug.

“She doesn’t…” Thea said, pointing a shaking finger at Anna.

“We never left the Floor.” Anna said with a shrug.

“Fine. FINE! We’ll get you something more regal and robelike, I guess.” She said with a sigh, massaging her temple.

“They’re going to make fun of me for this, I just know it.” Thea pouted.

“This make you feel better?” Will asked, releasing one of the ‘big’ promissory notes from dimensional storage, causing it to appear between his fingers with a flourish.

“A little,” Thea said as she snatched the note out of his hand, dabbing the corners of her eyes with an ornate handkerchief. “You got more of those?”

“Ninety-nine.” Will said.

Thea’s brows rose, and she glanced down at the note in her hand, counting the zeroes. Will could see her doing the simple math.

“Yes, this’ll do nicely.” Thea said, her face turning into an ominous smile.

“Can I come too?” Bee asked, having crept up on them mid-conversation.

Thea paused and scanned the short, angry aspect of Brianna, her expression turning contemplative.

“Yes. Matter of fact, let’s bring a Ria and make it a full set. You ladies are a fashionista’s dream and I want to show you off.”

“You,” Thea said, whirling on Will and pointing at him with the promissory note. “Go to my tailor’s on Central, the Seamless Seamstress, and tell them to come here. I’ve got plans for you three.”

Thea began building an ominous chuckle, tapping her fingers together.

“They’re on their way,” Anna said.

“Eh?” Thea gave an unladylike grunt.

“A Ria was nearby, so I asked her to tell him.” Anna replied.

Thea cocked her head, staring into space for a moment before glancing at Will. He could see her realize that Brianna’s value outweighed that of all the promissory notes in his Dimensional Storage.

“You can all…”

“Communicate with each other. Yes.” Anna said.

“Can you…deliver some invitations?” Thea asked. “I’ve just realized that pretty young ladies of unfathomable power are so much more interesting than scented letters.”

“Of course, just tell me where to go and who to give the invitation.” Anna said.

Thea’s ominous chuckle resurfaced, as she began feeding Anna a variety of people and locations.

Will just tried to stay out of the way as preparation for Akul’s first ‘Tea party blitz’ took over Thea’s mansion, a small army of Anna’s helping her arrange furniture, clean and prepare snacks for guests.

Will suffered through a rapid fitting for a loose but elegant robe. To the tailor’s credit, he didn’t even blink at Will’s insect-covered body.

By the evening, dozens of Thea’s rich and powerful friends had arrived, and Will was ushered to sit in the place of honor.

Anna arrived wearing a calm green dress with a scoop-neck, and jade jewelry. Ria word a tight black dress with gold jewelry, and Bee wore a dress that changed color from red at the shoulders to orange at her ankles, like a blooming flower…or an upside-down volcanic eruption.

Will felt like the next three hours were spent being paraded around like a prize horse, having Thea brag about him nonstop. Will didn’t know any of these people, nor could he contribute to the ‘hottest gossip’, so he simply fell back on retelling tales of how he’d killed various creatures whenever prompted.

It seemed to work.

Much more popular than Will, the girls were complimented on their dresses by the dozen or so older women, who seemed to enjoy fawning over them. Thea whispered to her friends that they were Tangled, and amenable to modelling on a regular basis.

There was much excitement around that statement.

Will hadn’t been around for that agreement, but none of the girls shot her down, so he let it pass.

It was only after the tea party was over and he sat and thought about it for a few minutes that Will was able to catch his breath and realize that deals of any kind had been made at all.

Thea of course had mentioned Will’s desire to purchase Relics with specific characteristics as she was parading him around, but the conversation had flowed straight past that statement, to topics like relatives with grudges, and which manors got the best sunlight, and who was cheating on who...

Dissecting the conversations, Will realized that Thea had made a roundabout offer to buy a manor that her friend Madeline wanted, but couldn’t buy because the current owner had a grudge against Madeline.

Naturally, the man with a grudge knew Thea was a friend of Madeline, and wouldn’t sell it to her, but Thea knew who was cheating on who, and would use this as gentle pressure to get a neutral intermediary to purchase the mansion and sell it to her, which would then change hands to Madeline.

None of this was directly stated, but…upon reviewing their words and behavior, that was the only conclusion Will could come to.

In the moment, though, the older women’s fluttery, light and vapid conversation had gone straight over his head.

Is that because I’m young, male, undereducated, or were they deliberately being circumspect? Will wondered. Why not all four? It would’ve been stranger if he did follow everything they said.

But a powerful Relic in exchange for a better view…and the opportunity to snub someone. High society is very strange. It had been more about the favors than the money, although a large amount of money was required to grease those wheels.

Manors on the fifth Floor weren’t cheap.

How many more of these deals did Thea make that I missed entirely? I’m going to have to learn this kind of haggling when I’m a Lord.

It turned out the number of deals struck during that tea party had been four.

The very next day, Will handed off the promissory notes to Thea and gathered up all the Relics they’d purchased, packing them into his snake’s Dimensional Storage and setting off for the ninth Floor.

The creeping hell of wearing bugs for an entire weekend paid off as Will was able to get all the way back up with his haul without stopping to acclimate.

Once he arrived back on the 9th Floor and finally rid himself of the coat of insects, Will dumped the hundreds of Relics out onto the ground, rubbing his hands in anticipation.

Let’s get started.