ALL NOVEL Chapter 60: Currency
"I think that's good enough for me," I growled to stop Welkes before a headache could set in. The barrage of information he had just dumped on me was overwhelming and, given my complete lack of familiarity with the city, mostly meaningless. Seriously, how was I supposed to avoid the loan sharks on the corner of Wet and Tight Streets when I had no damn clue where the streets were?
Not to mention my nonexistent sense of direction.
"Would it be possible for me to buy a map with, let's say,” I said, pausing, doing some math on how many coins I might need for clothes. “... for - for five silver coins?"
Granted, in my hands, a map would have been no more useful than a picture of cute kittens, but asking for a smartphone with navigation seemed as pointless as when I begged the deranged asshole to stop his experiments to send me back home.
"Five silver pieces? Well, you certainly could," said the not-quite-elf. "Though I wouldn't trust any map not made by a Cartographer or Mapmaker for less than a gold. If you want to get somewhere, you're better off hiring a guide… or if you wait till the end of my shift, I can show you around."
Knowing that Welkes was walking a fine line with his attempts to get me to go out with him, some of my caution and fear faded away. Instead of a polite refusal, a disgruntled growl escaped my throat.
"H-hold on, no strings attached. Take that as an apology for… for misreading you."
"No, I'm good."
There may not have been any ill intent in his voice that I could hear, or my senses had warned me off, but putting my fate in the hands of a random guy as soon as I gained my freedom rubbed me simply the wrong way. In a sense, it would make all that I was striving for meaningless.
'Brilliant, Korra! Really brilliant,' I berated myself, realizing the blunder of refusing Welkes' help. 'How the bloody heck am I supposed to get around the city now, let alone find Scoresby?'
"Did you say something about hiring a guide?" Perhaps if it were someone who did the guiding for money and not out of the "goodness" of their heart, it would make me feel more at ease about putting my fate in their hands. A lie that even I didn't believe for a moment. But what choice did I have but to wander blindly through the city? Ask people around? No, thank you.
"Yes, I did. The City Hall staffs a whole lot of kids."
"Kids?"
"You know, too young to employ, but smart enough to know the way the world goes around and that they need money to get by. They know the city better than most, so you can't go wrong by hiring one."
That actually didn't sound too bad. "And… and can I afford to hire one? I still need to buy some stuff."
"Sure, ten silver pieces isn't much, but well," Welkes said, rubbing the tip of his ear in thought. "It used to be eight coppers per hour, but that was years ago. It's certainly going to be more now."
"And eight coppers is - you know - how many silver coins?"
"You don't...? Tits, you really don't know. Well, whatever, there's a hundred silvers in one gold and 100 coppers in one silver. Pretty simple, right? It used to be a lot more complicated than that, in fact the entire numerical system used in the Empire or the former Terr'den Federation used to be based on the doubled lattice numbers. Err, based-dozen. Anyway, it happened centuries ago, but there was this guy, by the way, a Bookkeeper like me, named Durwald Gilmoni. Great guy working at the imperial court who saw people struggling with the system. It's one thing to have your sigils counted by the Lattice or to tally the few people in your group, but converting coins back and forth, let alone keeping accounts in that system, had to be a pain in the ass back then - well, at least for people without the right array."
"I s-see, that's great to know." Seriously, what else was there to say? Given his array and the way he talked about accounting, it was clear that numbers were his thing, but while I knew how to do my math, it sapped the life out of me every time I had to plow through the numbers. So, instead of probing further into the accounting history and the achievements of this Gilmoni guy, I eyed the copper ring on my palm. The tiny runes on it seemed dead, but so did the ones behind my ears. As with the slave collar, one right command from Fae or just a wrong thought, and I might lose everything again.
"Even though it's a piece of junk," Welkes spoke when he saw me hesitating over the use of the ring. "It would be dumb not to take it and walk around with a coin pouch hanging out at your waist or wherever you'd put it. With all the weaves that people have, it would be like asking to be robbed. Anyway, sorry for the rambling before. I grew up in a family of bookkeepers, and… forget it, that's even more boring. Rather, do you have any other questions?"
'How much do the cheapest clothes cost?’ That was, however, something I could have figured out on my own once I visit a clothing store. Better than embarrassing myself here.
"Well, how… how do I put things in the ring?" I asked after slipping the copper tool back on my ring finger with quite a bit of reluctance.
"That's easy. Just touch them and will them move to the storage."
And truly, it was as easy as the not-quite-elf said. Testing it on the apparently pointless coin pouch in case I messed something up, it disappeared from my hand the moment I imagined it in the magic storage of the ring. The runes engraved on the copper lit up and it was simply gone.
"Damn!" I couldn't help but be amazed when, after imagining the pouch in my palm, it reappeared there.
"You're quick on the uptake. That's good - it'd be a shame if the city beat the piss out of you."
"Does that happen a lot?" I asked, concerned, while moving the silver coins to spatial storage. Captain Rayden mentioned something similar.
"Depends on how you define a lot. It is no easier to end up in debt or under an essentially slave-like contract in Castiana than anywhere else in the Sahal. So if you got the wits not to, that's a plus."
Shuddering at the mention of the slave contract, I gave him a silent nod of understanding. It was easy to blame others, but at the end of the day, it was only you yourself you had only yourself to blame for your own stupidity.
'If only - if only I hadn't taken the shortcut through the alley that night and stayed on the main street, I might never have met the F...'
KNOCK! KNOCK!
"Tits! What is it with today?" Walkes cursed gruffly as someone tapped on the door.
"Well, Miss Grey, I'm afraid, as disappointing as it is, our time is up. That is unless you have any further questions about the aid you received."
"N-no, n-not really." A blatant lie.
So many questions swirled in my mind that I had no idea what to ask first. But with people waiting outside the door, my cellar-honed instincts kicked in. There, if someone was stupid enough to be eager to go first, you let them pass without asking.
"Shame. Well, good luck and… if you change your mind about the drink, you know where to find me. Oh, and tell the ones in the hallway to come in on the way out."
"I w-will, and thanks - I mean, thank you for making time for me," I stammered with as much gratitude as I could muster. After all, Welkes himself said that talking like this to newcomers had gotten him into trouble more than once already.
"Don't mention it. Seriously, don't talk about it at all. Besides, I should be the one grateful to have a chance to talk to such an interesting and eye-pleasing lady."
With a face as red as my hair, I made sure to leave nothing on the desk, no coin or my card, and rushed out.