The Saint Opens a Bank Account

We awoke the following morning and checked out of the Inn. Unlike the previous morning there was hardly anyone milling about or exiting the entertainment district.

We heard a lot of noise outside the night before, it scared the girls so they spent the night in Merlin’s room. It was cute but he could sense the hostility flooding in from the street. He used magic to make it so no one could die within a the entertainment district. It wasn’t an easy feat but he didn’t want to exit the building and find bodies littering the streets. The girls might not have been able to handle that, heck he wasn’t sure he’d be able to handle that. All wounds would automatically heal and firearms were rendered inert. It wasn’t likely anyone would have a weapon so expensive but it was better to be safe than sorry.

They walked down to the harbor town which was much less laborious than walking up. There were a few bodies that hadn’t been retrieved. He healed the ones who were still alive and used corpse disposal spell on the ones who weren’t. He tried to do it quickly and discreetly so the girls wouldn’t see the bodies.

They finally reached Carrolly’s Place. As they approached the house a scream broke through the walls.

“They’re in trouble.” Cate whispered.

Lila reacted before Merlin could and ran inside. They threw open the door and found a surprising sight.

Mei had a blue haired girl hanging off her.

“Mei? What’s going on here?” Lila asked. The Blue haired girl smiled smugly.

“This is my cousin, Cecilia.”

“We’re not actually cousins, it’s a very important detail. Not, I repeat, NOT blood related at all. She’s my Old-Bones butler’s granddaughter. BUT we’ve known each other for as long as either of us can remember.”

Mei looked awkwardly at the ground, “Yeah.” She muttered begrudgingly.

“We are practically family though.”

“I’ve seen you somewhere before.” Lila concentrated on her face.

“She was at the guild when we were signing up.” Merlin answered.

“Oh, you were there? That saves us some time. I have a proposition.”

“When did you say your father would be arriving?” Carrolly interrupted.

“I didn’t.” She glared at Carrolly, “He’ll be along in about an hour. I changed the time in his calendar.”

“I just had to meet these up-and-coming adventuers he was going on about.”

“I don’t think anyone said anything about them being up-and-coming.” Carrolly retorted.

“That feels kind of hurtful” Merlin laughed.

“Hehe! But they could be! If, IF they had someone as talented as moi join their party!”

“We aren’t really looking for additional members right now.” Merlin wasn’t too opposed to it in the future but right now he was just concerned about the growth of his sisters.

“Oh ho! You say that but that’s because you don’t know how truly awesome I am! Behold!” She pulled up her shirt to reveal a large, bright blue jewel just above her belly button. It had a faint glow to it.

“I had an alchemist use the fusion spell to incorporate it into my body. You know what this is? It’s from a water dragon! I beat a water dragon with it’s own element! Do you know how stupidly powerful that makes me. You can feel free to beg me to join your party now! I promise not to hold it against you.”

Merlin wasn’t exactly sure what to make of this girl. She was extremely boastful and talkative, especially compared to his sisters. She kind of reminded him of his social studies tutor.

Both Carrolly and Mei had their faces buried in their hands.

Merlin looked to Lila and Cate who seemed conflicted.

“Uh, so, I appreciate the offer. It’s, umm, could you give us sometime to think it over and talk among ourselves.”

“Sure talk among yourselves, though if you ask me it’s a no-brainer. You’d be turning down a magical prodigy if you said no. For a newly formed party to turn that down, to turn me down. What a ridiculous mistake that would be, but yeah, go ahead and talk it over.”

“Sorry, what I meant to say was, could we get back to you another day?”

“How could it take that long to make such an easy decision, huh? Wait, are you planning on saying no?!?”

“If you need an answer now then yes, it’s a no.”

“Huh? What possible reason could you have.”

“If I may speak honestly, for starters I don’t really like your attitude, but that’s not the biggest reason. The real reason is because I only recently adopted these two as my sisters and right now I only have enough space in my heart to think of them and their well-being. Adding someone else to the party so suddenly would throw everything off.”

“Do you know you I am!”

“Hey, Carol did you here about this night of miracles people are talking about?”

Ruth suddenly barged in, “Heyhey, It’s little Cecilia, you come by to torment Mei?”

“No, I did not!” Her face grew red. Her mood was already taking a nosedive but Ruth’s teasing was the final nail.

“A word from my father and you can kiss any quests goodbye,”

“Oh!” Ruth snapped her fingers, “Guess who I found on my way here?”

She pulled a short, flustered looking man with grey-streaked hair sticking up every which way, out from behind her.

“Father?”

“Cecilia! I don’t know what to say. I’m…”

“Disappointed” Ruth coaxed.

“Disappointed, extremely so. I have no such power, especially not in matters pertaining to the guild. Isaiah is scary…so scary.” His eyes bugged out at an unpleasant memory resurfacing, “and what’s more, I hear you’ve been extremely disrespectful to Mr. Barrett, calling him Old Bones and carrying on in such a manner.”

This meeting had suddenly turned into something like an intervention.

“Who is he?” Asked Lila quietly.

Carrolly took the lead in explaining. “This is Mr. Meyers, he’s the kingdom’s treasurer. He oversees the treasury and banks. The only thing off limits to him are the Royal vaults and personal accounts.”

“Yes. Those would be under the purview of the Royal Treasurer who manages the financial affairs of the five royal households.” Mr. Meyer’s added.

“And this is his daughter, Cecilia Meyers.”

“And she is supposed to be at home studying.” Her dad chided.

“You told me to find a hobby and it seems I have a knack for fighting. I’m just trying to find a party to join up with.”

“I told you no! I won’t allow it!”

“I’m not mother! I’m so much stronger than she ever was! She was weak! She-”

A loud clap rang out as Mr. Meyers struck Cecilia across the face. She blinked at him in surprise.

“Don’t speak about your mother like that! You spoiled, ungrateful girl!”

“I-I’m s-sorry.” Cecilia cast her eyes downward in shame, fully aware that she went too far.

The room was silent. This was not the sort of argument you had in front of strangers.

“Umm, Cece, you can hang out in my room for a bit, if you want.” Mei offered.

“No, thank you, I think I’ll head home.

She brushed past her father and exited the inn.

Carrolly whispered to Mei who then ran upstairs to her room, Merlin asked Lila and Cate to join her and they both followed.

It was now just Merlin, Ruth, Mr. Meyers, and Carrolly.

As soon as the kids were gone, Mr. Meyer’s stomach gurgled and he hurled over the carpet.

“I’m sorry. I’m no good with confrontation.” Mrs. Carrolly cleaned it up while Mr. Meyers apologized profusely, “I’m so sorry you all had to witness that. I can’t say we talk very often. She finds every opportunity to avoid me, and I let her.”

“She seems like such a cutie until she opens her mouth.” Ruth sat down next to Merlin and put her arm around his shoulder.

“Now, let’s get down to business. This young man needs to set up a bank account and an R&C Vault.”

“Ruthie, you’re moving things along much to fast!”

“No, she’s right. We should push forward with the original meeting objective. Exactly how much will you need to put away. Keep in mind R&C Vaults are not meant for frequent withdrawals and require hefty interest fees.”

“My total net worth is” Merlin told him the figure and his eyes nearly flew out of his skull.

Carrolly unlocked the bracer he used for storing his small fortune and he emptied it onto the table.

“And it all blessed metal. Mr…sir…LORD Merlin, this… I mean, even putting aside the logistics of physically carrying even a fraction of this amount in Malba, I’m not even sure you could withdraw it. You could potentially bankrupt the kingdom. I had no idea Eden had this much wealth squirrel away. They must be missing it badly, I assume you didn’t acquire this legally.”

Merlin thought about it for a second, it was kind of complicated, “It is technically my money, but it’s still church property. They were offerings made to me by patrons of the church. They were storing it in their vaults with no intention or need to use it, so I pocketed it while I was leaving.”

“Ha, you’re a hoot kid!”

“I don’t even know where to begin with any of that. Putting that insanity aside for the moment, my company can keep this safe for you. I will also give you a Gold Card. This will allow you to make withdrawals of up to 500,000 per 48 hours and make up to a dozen transfers a month. There’s normally a 2% monthly interest rate, but I will lower it to .05. On top of all that, Gold members also gain access to our Quickfund Golems. Just yell ‘I need a quickie!’ And a Quickfund Golem will speed to your location. You can get a withdrawal then and there of up to 25,000 Malba.”

“Did you think that through, sweetie?” Carrolly seemed extremely concerned about something he said. Merlin was as clueless as Mr. Meyers.

“Who are you calling sweetie, I’m older than you!”

Mr. Meyers sighed and handed Merlin a small gold rectangle. Merlin had to sign a whole bunch of different documents along with Mrs. Carrolly and Mrs. Ruth who were acting as his guarantor since he didn’t actually have any official documentation.

It was a little after noon when they wrapped things up.

“Well, it was good doing business with you, Lord Merlin.”

“You really don’t have to call me that, just Merlin is fine.” The girls had come back down to the parlor where they were finishing up their meeting.

“Mr. Meyers is Cecilia going to be okay?” Asked Lila.

Mr. Meyers was taken aback a bit, it seemed he had gotten so carried away with his business that he’d briefly forgotten about what had happened beforehand.

“I’m sure she will be.” He reassured them.

“Mei t-told us about her mother.”

“That’s” his gaze shifted unsteadily around the room as though looking for an exit, “She… it’s…” He began breathing like he was running a marathon.

“It’s okay, sweetie. We’ll fill them in, you just go home and patch things up with Cecilia.”

“I wish it were that easy.” Ruth escorted him out. Once he’d gone it was just the girls, Merlin, Carrolly and Ruth.

Carrolly started, “Jasmine was a C-rank adventurer. Have you gotten the ranking run-down from the guild yet?”

We shook our heads.

“The guild values experience more than power, so there aren’t any cheats or skipping rank, with very few exceptions,” looking at us, “wether you’re a noble or commoner, you all spend the same amount of time at every rank. This does mean there can be a large skill gap between parties of the same rank so there are sub-classifications but I’ll spare you. It takes around 4 and half year to reach C-rank, plus Jasmine had gone to the Cyril Adventurer Academy, so it was more like 7 years. And she was a top class Adventurer shoo-in for B-rank. In order to reach B you need to complete 50 quests, half of them have to be C-rank, you need a patron with a noble rank, you need to remain C rank for at least 5 years in good standing with the guild, and finally once all of those conditions are met you undergo a supervised B-rank quest before being promoted.”

We moved to the kitchen, Ruth was getting hungry, and it was definitely lunch time for the girls. Carrolly continued talking as she prepared sandwiches.

“Mr. Meyers was her patron, he’s an honorary Baron. Jasmine successfully cleared all the requirements with her party, Blue Jasmine, named after her. It was then just as they were prepping for the B-rank quest that she became pregnant. The party had a falling out, her pregnancy meant they’d have to put the quest on hold for another year.

Parties are complicated, the guild requires adventurers to work in parties and groups until you reach B-rank, and if you leave your party you’ll be unable to progress to the next rank, on the flip side when you add a new member you can’t progress until they reach the same rank as the rest of the party and again wait times still apply. The time you spend in the guild is almost ten years by the time you get to B-rank (assuming they’re aren’t any interruptions) Can you imagine being so close and then having to wait another year?”

Lila and Cate focused intently on their food having already heard this story.

Merlin was starting to get a bad feeling about where this story was headed.

“I think ya left out an important detail about Jaz.”

“I was building up to it.”

“She was a Giant! Literally tall as this Inn.”

“But she could shrink, it was a power granted to her by her Grim Stone. She could become as short as Mr. Meyers but she retained her original strength which made her a force to be reckoned with. With that in mind, there were two incidents which led to her death.

The first was when one of her party members attempted to poison her. It should have killed her and the baby but miraculously both survived, though Jasmine was weakened. I should mention that It wasn’t discovered that it was a party member until after her death, in fact everyone at the time had just assumed she’d caught the plague going about at the time.

Mr. Meyers then had a house built with all the security measures he could muster”

“Including help from us two cuties.” Ruth added.

“It was our first job after starting our security firm.”

“17 years old at the time if you can believe it, ‘but Mrs. Ruth you don’t look a day over 16’, oh you flatter me kid.”

“Anyway, he and Jasmine hid away at this new home until after Cecilia was born. Now, as you could see Cecilia is the size of a normal girl, and she’s actually quite sickly despite how she carries on. If it wasn’t for that Water Dragon mana stone and her Grim Stone she wouldn’t be able to leave her mansion. How she acquired that stone only Mr. Barrett and her father would know, but I can tell you with certainty that she could never have beaten it herself let alone made the trip into it’s territory.

After her mother gave birth and the doctors made their diagnosis, that being the poison she ingested was to blame for the defects. She decided it would be best if she retired in order to take care of her daughter.”

It sounded to Merlin like the system was flawed despite it’s good intentions.

“The previous Guild Master’s name was Artemis Tolstoy.”

“Oh, that guy! He was a real bastard. Tough as nails. Died not long ago actually.”

“He passed about two years ago and after about six months of voting and trials, Isaiah was sworn in as Guild Master. That’s not relevant to this story though. The guild master of the time was strict with the Guild’s guidelines. There is room for allowances at the Guild Master’s discretion but Tolstoy was an absolutist. The only way for the party to continue was to negotiate with other parties for a member transfer and even if they found someone who was willing they still had 3 months before they could add another member.

The party lost it’s patience and kidnapped the weakened Jasmine from her home. It used to be you just needed a guild affiliated witness to be present during the B-rank mission. It’s because of this incident that these tests are scheduled ahead of time and we now have Official Witnesses who are assigned to the examinees and approved by the guild master and advancement committee.

The witness was a C-rank from Titan’s Trident”

“It was Daniel.” Ruth blurted out, stifling a laugh.

“Of course it was Daniel. He always used to end up in unfortunate situations.”

“Quite the lucky lecher. When ol’ Ruthie was 40 years younger-”

“”We’re getting off topic.” Carrolly cut off what was probably a risqué anecdote, “So, they went on this B-rank assignment. The goal was to collect an artifact called a Gold Loom from a troll nest.”

TO BE CONTINUED...

Probably.