Chapter 361: Information is value onto itself
Victor walked down the underground city’s streets for a couple of minutes before stopping in front of a particular storefront.
It wasn’t marked with any obvious signage, but he recognized it as being “Honest Hank’s Pawn Shop”, aka, the only fencer in town that Victor trusted…mostly.
As Victor entered the establishment, he overheard a business dealing going underway.
“One, two, three…I ain’t buying this.”
“What?!”
It wasn’t going well.
“We’ve been over this Drig,” a heavyset man with a wild beard said with conviction, “a full set of the [Twenty-Four Point Ape’s Fist] or I don’t buy it. This is only three-fourths! I can’t sell this.”
“Come on Hank, you know how hard it was to get three of these stupid books? It’s not like walking into a guarded vault is easy, especially when fucking Temple Mandrills are involved!,” Drig, a medium sized bloodliner with fins in place of ears would be, argued back, “Those things got teeth sharper than wolves, man!”
“I don’t care,” Hank said as he pushed the three manuals back to Drig, “find another fencer.”
“Come on Hank, can’t you help a guy out?,” Drig pleaded, “You’re the only fencer I know who pays a fair price for the goods, anyone else would just gimp me with chump change!”
“I’m aware of that, which is why I’m telling you to go get the final volume and then I’ll pay you,” Hank fired back.
“But-!”
“Look,” Hank interjected before he had to listen to another sob story/justification, “I’m gonna do you a favor and give you bit of information for free, since I do want to buy the complete set. Understand?”
At the mention of a free tip that could lead to a payday, Drig immediately stopped talking and nodded in agreement.
“Alright.”
Hank ducked under his store’s counter and produced a map that he unfurled for Drig to view.
“A few weeks back, the Four Wise Apes Sect sent a delegation loaded with goods to curry favor with the Ebon Scales Pavilion and Tiger Castle. Unfortunately for the Apes, the delegation got wiped out. Rumors say that it was an inside job, but nobody knows for sure,” Hank explained, “but supposedly the attackers left behind all of the goods the delegation was bringing with them. You might be able to find the rest of that art in the carvan remains.”
“Shit,” Drig cursed, “could be a wild goose chase… whatever! Thanks for the tip, Hank.”
“Anytime.”
With the information received, Drig immediately picked up his manuals and left the shop as quickly as possible. He had no idea if anyone else had this information, but he might as well get there before anyone else did…maybe take care of anyone who did show up before him too.
“Excuse me.”
“Sorry.”
Victor side stepped as Drig left the store, taking up the vacant spot he just left.
At the exact same time as this moment occured, Hank had ducked back down to put away the map.
As he stood back up to get back to manning the store, Victor’s appearance both surprised and delighted him.
“Hey Hank.”
“Well if it isn’t my favorite thief,” Hank greeted Victor with a smile, “Got anything good for me this time?”
“Not really…,” Victor sighed with sadness, “Kind of a…slow week.”
“Slow week?,” Hank asked confused, “How are you of all people having a-hold up.”
Hank squinted his eyes towards Victor right before he was going to ask how one of the best thieves he knew was having a slow week. It took him a minute, but he soon figured out why.
“Holy shit, you’re missing teeth!”
“Yeah…I am.”
At the sight of the missing teeth, Hank proceeded to click his tongue while shaking his head side to side.
“Tsk, tsk! So you finally bit off more than you could chew, eh?,” Hank joked
“Gaaaaahhh, that’s a terrible joke!”
“Oh, you know I mean the best,” Hank continued to laugh as he waved his hand, “So I’m guessing you’re here to try and get your chompers back then?”
“Exactly,” Victor nodded, “you got anything to help or know anyone who can?”
“Hmmm.”
Hank combed his beard a few times in thought before replying to Victor’s query.
It wasn’t great.
“If you had normal teeth? Yeah, I got a bottle in the back. But since it’s you, I got nothing but two names to give. You ain’t gonna like it though.”
Victor began to grimace when he heard that last bit.
“Who has what I’m looking for?”
“Well…for starters, Mistos is back in-”
“Pass!,” Victor immediately and vehemently refused, “Mistos may be a good alchemist, but his shit is only safe about thirty percent of the time and I do not want to end up growing teeth in my armpits or something else equally terrible.”
“Fair point,” Hank agreed while holding his hands up, “that leaves only one option then: Miss Venus.”
As soon as Victor heard that name, he went silent.
“Miss Venus is back in town? Why?”
“Supposedly, her tour was scheduled to perform at the Royal Reef tonight. Of course, she did bring her usual inventory of goodies,” Hank answered, “if you’re lucky, you could see if Miss Venus has what you need. The only issue is whether or not you can find something she wants.”
“But there’s only one thing I know she wants,” Victor replied, “and I don’t think any of the slavers here have something like that, at least not today.”
“True.”
________________________________________________
In the world of illicit trading, Miss Venus had a reputation of being able to supply her customers with anything they wanted, and if she didn’t have it on hand now, she could easily get her hands on it later.
However, there was one other thing she was known for: her willingness to trade anything for a specific type of child slave, orphans that couldn’t use aether, anima or any form of power in this world.
Now, nobody knew why she was hunting for something this specifically useless in a world where cultivation was king, but there was speculation.
Some assumed she was regularly supplying them to some weirdo elite that wanted to use the children for nefarious purposes, with a related sub thought believing the buyer was an alchemist that needed test subjects.
More outlandish theories assumed she was eating them for the sake of some strange formula development or to keep her youth.
One of the more popular theories though was that she was looking for a specific type of orphan slave because of an oldest business dealing of hers going sour. The details were fuzzy, but apparently she couldn’t provide the requested amount of slaves at the time due to some of the merchandise suddenly realizing they had free will again.
Regardless of the truth, many a criminal made it a point to try and provide Miss Venus with what she was looking for.
________________________________________________
Victor let out a sigh at the realization that his predicament was a lot trickier than he had initially thought.
“Thanks for the information, Hank. It ain’t much, but I do -”
“Nah,” Hank waved off Victor’s offer, “consider this one a freebie. But I do expect a full payout once your teeth are fixed.”
“Ah…. thanks.”
Victor soon left Hank’s shop as he tried to figure out his next course of action.
‘Either Mistos or Miss Venus has what I need. I’d rather meet with the latter, but…’
Victor was a hell of a thief, but there was no way for him to find such a specific piece of merchandise if the news of Miss Venus being in town was true.
This meant that his only alternative was to see Mistos and he really, really didn’t want to.
‘Maybe this time one of his pills won’t -‘
“Fucking told you Simo. You took a wrong turn back there!”
“Oh fuck off Graff, you didn’t know where we were going either!”
“Fuck you!”
“Huh?”
Just as Victor was about to give up and go see the worst medicine maker in the world, the sound of a pair of young men arguing grabbed his attention.
‘Oh great, it’s these two…’
Right in front of him was the “infamous” duo of Simon and Graff, arguing over directions of all things while floating in a gondola.
Now, Victor would normally just ignore these two for the sake of his own mental health, he had heard the stories of how these two somehow bumbled into success now and again and he wasn’t here for that, but then he noticed the strange sack the two of them lugging about, especially the thin veil of aether being used to cover it.
‘What would these two have that would be so valuable as to try and use aether to obscure it,’ Victor thought to himself as he stared at the sack.
Moments later, he got his answer as he saw a tear form in the sack and a very small hand poke out of it suddenly for a brief moment.
‘Ah…I think I can use this…’
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS
Mizako
As a treat for sticking around:
“Harriet” (Hurricroak’s human disguise)
"Harriet" character design for @MajorMizako! pic.twitter.com/iOlS1kddft
— 🔞Galactabee COMMS OPEN!!!🔞 (@The_Galactabee) September 7, 2022
