Casting Pearls Before Swine

After leaving the café of mildly hostile opinions, we all walked along the pier by the ocean. Marek gave me a piggy back so I could see really far out!

This pier had a big ferris wheel and a little building where you could play games and stuff, kinda like a little festival. They’d just opened for the day, so the Ferris wheel wasn’t running yet, but it would be soon. I was excited to give it a try.

One guy had a little stand set up with a huge pile of clams. In each of them was a chance to get a pearl. If you found the one with the blue pearl inside, you’d get a wish!

“How much per try?” Marek asked, preparing his wallet.

The vendor surprised us by claiming it was, “A single Pier token.”

“No way!” Indena reached into her pocket and pulled one out. “Finally, I can get rid of this stupid thing.”

When did she get that? I didn’t see her pick one up recently.

“Yeah, I’ve had one in my purse since Urnan.” Yamin pulled out one too.

Marek and Uncle had some too.

Pier tokens are coins scattered all across the world. They have the superscription of a goddess with a bob cut on them. People say they don’t do much, but hey, I wasn’t going to complain if they had some use here. They’re usually gold, but I have a silver one I got in a dream.

Everyone pulled out one coin and handed it to the man. Even Uncle had one. I had fifty seven left after that.

With eager hearts hoping to get that wish, the others started cracking open the clams and checking inside.

“Mine’s empty.” Yamin frowned.

“Mine’s empty too.” Marek shrugged.

“Nothing,” Uncle said.

“Jack all.” Indena tossed the clam into the ocean.

“This is why I don't play gacha games…” Miss Lauri lamented. “I have the most rotten luck.”

Indena whipped out another coin. So did everyone else but Uncle. I didn’t open one just yet.

Like before, all the clams were empty.

“Crap!” Indena said, flipping the man another coin. “I wanna see a blue pearl. And screw these stupid coins!”

They were really getting into this. Finally Yamin ended up getting something, but it was just a normal white pearl.

“Yeah!” she cheered. “I got something!”

“Oi, I want one now.” Indena reached into her pocket, but was out of tokens. She had three of those to begin with? I still have no idea where she got them. “Freaking great…” she stomped over to Marek. “Blue boy, got any tokens left?”

“If I did, I would have used them.” He shook his head.

“Damn!” Indena swore again! What a potty mouth. “The one time you need them, and they’re not around.” She started looking all over, checking under vending machines and tables to find a coin. People were staring uncomfortably.

“Er…sir?” Yamin looked at the vendor. “Why do you take Pier tokens and not real money?”

“Good question. I take those because, believe it or not, on an international scale they hold some value. But that’s all I’ll say for now, or else my secret might get out,” he snickered.

I guess that makes sense, but I couldn’t deny that they were pretty useless out here. They’re pretty much worth the same thing as a glorified pizza parlor token.

“Ah ha!” Indena held up a coin she found. “Outta’ my way!” she pushed everyone aside and handed the token to the man. “Alright, just gotta…” she opened it up, but paused. “What the heck is this?”

The one she opened up had a crystal heart in it, just like the one in my chest.

Everyone was staring at it, but only Uncle and I could tell what it was.

“I’ll be…” the vendor rubbed his brow. “I’ve never seen anything like that in one of these.”

“Oi, Shrimp, this look like it’s worth money?”

Why did she all of a sudden care so much about getting money?

“It’s just cheap sea glass,” Uncle answered for me, lying about its value.

Indena took the hint and handed it to Uncle. He put it in his pocket for safe keeping. When we had some downtime, I’d have to download any information that was on that thing.

“Little lady, now it’s your turn.” The vendor gestured to the clams.

My turn indeed!

Everyone up to know had just been randomly selecting different clams and popping them open. No rhyme or reason outside of pure luck. But I had a sneaky way of checking out what was inside.

So, my hands have scanners in them. I can use those to tell the composition of what an object is. I just did some minor upgrades too using points I earned from leveling up, so they had just enough power to pierce through the hard shell of the clam and check what’s inside.

“Pick one already!” Indena barked, impatiently.

The guy running the gamble let out a chuckle. “Nah, let the little lady choose carefully. I have a good feeling about this one.”

Hopefully he didn’t know I was cheating. But really, was I? I was just using my resources. These sorts of games are rigged anyways, so I didn’t see a problem here.

After checking a few dozen or so, I felt one that had some extra weight to it. With one good scan, it definitely had a pearl inside! But was it blue?

Pearls…what are they made of?

I opened up the HELP menu on my toolbar, but there wasn’t any info about pearls.

“Hey, Uncle? What are pearls made of?”

“Primarily calcium carbonate!” Miss Lauri interjected like an eager student in class. I guess this was another of her domains, after all. She had a good skill set.

Uncle wasn’t without a reaction of his own though. He folded his arms and raised a brow. He was on to me.

Alright. So a pearl is made of calcium carbonate. But since the pearl is supposed to be blue, we’d need to know what compound actually makes it that colour.

“What makes a pearl blue, Miss Lauri?”

She pointed a finger upwards.

“You see the metal beams above us?”

I looked up and saw dark greenish looking metal holding up part of the roof. It looked really old.

“Yeah. What about that?” I asked.

“Tell me what they’re made of.”

Each beam started at the base of the floor and climbed up until scattering across the roof. I could easily scan the part closest to the ground.

“Hold this for a second.” I let Samael hold the clam in his mouth while he was sitting in my hair. Then I put my hand up to the metal beam and scanned it. “Copper.” I turned back. “That’s what this is?”

“Copper is what turns the pearls blue,” she cheered.

“Woah woah…” Indena stepped up. “I thought copper is orange or whatever. Why’s it look all green, and how does it make a pearl blue?”

Miss Lauri explained to her that when things oxidize, which means they are left out in the air, they can change colour. Copper just happens to turn things blue or green sometimes.

“You sound like my friend Sasha…” Indena commented. “She’s such a rock lover it hurts.”

"I'm sure your friend is very intelligent." Miss Lauri commented.

"Yeah." Indena gave a suspicious look.

“Guess that explains why this penny is green now.” Yamin pulled out a small coin from her pocket.

“Um…” Marek took a close look at that penny without touching it. “Yamin…I hate to tell you this, but that’s gum stuck to the penny.”

She immediately tossed it into the ocean. Not a second of hesitation went into her throw, like she was a professional baseball pitcher.

“Yuck!”

Alright…without further ado, I did a scan…

Copper?!

I cracked open that clam to find…a blue pearl!

“In all my years…” the guy clapped his hands. “Good job, kid! Everyone! We have a winner!”

People started flooding over to oogle over my prize. The sudden influx of people really made me a little nervous.

-WARNING! Darkness levels rising-

Wait…why was I getting that warning message?

I checked the darkness readings out, seeing that there had actually been a pretty steady incline of dark energy since we entered this part of the city. It seemed to have just shot up a few moments ago.

These levels weren’t as high as the other places we’d encountered demons, but it was enough to definitely show that something was wrong.

Some of the people who were surrounding us seemed a bit odd. They had these bulging eyes and sweaty palms. I think this darkness was starting to effect them.

“Mel…” Miss Lauri poked Uncle, pointing at some guys in the corner giving us really mean looks. They were those big bouncer types, suspiciously similar to those mafia guys from earlier.

“Oh crap…” Indena mumbled. “You never hear what happens to the guy who wins the lottery for a reason. We need to go.”

We probably should’ve kept quiet about finding that blue pearl. Now I think we were a target. Too late to change anything now. And if those were mafia guys, they might be after revenge.

Trying to get out of this area was impossible with the swelling crowd of people blocking our path.

“Can I see that for a second?” One person asked me with their hands stretched out. “That pearl is so pretty.”

“Me too. I wanna hold it,” another said.

People were really getting in my personal space, clearly trying to steal the pearl. Uncle and Indena both stepped up to shield me like celebrity bodyguards.

Marek put a hand in his pocket and pulled out a blue pen, also requesting Yamin’s pearl.

“I have an idea to get them off our backs…”

“What are you up to, Blue Boy?” Indena barked.

“Just give me a second,” he said while breaking open the pen and pouring ink all over the pearl.

Hey, that’s smart! He was going to make a decoy.

He held the fake blue pearl up into the air, then cleared his throat to shout.

“We’ve decided to give this pearl to one lucky person here!” he announced. “Who will it be? You decide!”

He threw the fake pearl up into the air away from us. Everyone in the room freaked out and clambered over each other to try and get it.

“Let’s go!” Marek shouted, prompting us all to head out.

“Quick thinking,” Yamin congratulated.

“Sometimes you have to trick people to get what you want,” Marek said in a very disappointed tone.

“That sounds personal,” Indena commented.

“Trust me, it is.”