Fantasy Economics 101 - Chapter 7

Always follow the money

Pak. Pak. Pak.

The rhythmic sound of axe meeting firewood continued to echo in the woods. The hill in the clearing, upon which stood a lonely cottage, was especially picturesque in the first light of the early morning. At the back of the building, there was an old tree stump, most likely cut during construction and potentially even serving as raw material for the house, only to be repurposed as a chopping block. The air was warm and humid, yet the one cutting the wood didn't sweat, if only due to the complete lack of skin to do so.

After splitting another log in half, Raol set his tool down by his foot and raised his eye-lights at the bright blue sky peeking through the canopy of trees. Since it would've only gotten in his way, he discarded the robes he unilaterally inherited from the nameless necromancer and chose to don a brown, rough-spun tunic one would find on a simple farmhand. Despite its coarse appearance, it was clean and easy to move in, perfect for his morning training routine.

Normally said exercise didn't involve cutting wood, but it still served his purposes; by this point, he got used to his new center of balance, and he could swing the heavy axe without toppling over. It wasn't an achievement one would celebrate, but progress was progress, and he knew that if he wanted to get his life back on track, he needed to adapt to his new form.

As for why he was splitting logs in particular, it was all due to his proprietor's request.

"Are you sure it's going to rain?" he asked absently, and as if waiting for the opportunity, the young hermitess stuck her head through the window, followed by a huge yawn.

"Yesh, I'm shure…" she said, rubbing her eyes with the hem of her nightgown. As Raol had learned during the four days he had spent in her company, Elkayla had a rough relationship with mornings. If anything, she was the typical night owl, staying up until the middle of the night and only sleeping as much as absolutely necessary.

Following another yawn, Elkayla raised her arms high and stretched her back, a sight made rather sensual by the thin fabric covering her body. She didn't seem to care though, and instead, she pinched a tuft of her wavy hair between her fingers and showed it off to the skeleton by the chopping block.

"My hair always gets frizzled when it's about to rain."

"I must admit, I can't see a difference," Raol told her a little absentmindedly as he picked up the axe again. "However, if you say so, I might as well cut some extra wood."

"Ah, thank you. It's so sweet of you."

"I'm just earning my keep," Raol told the brightly smiling woman and returned to his work. Elkayla did not wish to bother him, so she closed the shutters of the window and disappeared into the cottage.

Meanwhile, the skeleton picked up another log and effortlessly divided it into two, right down the middle. The strike staggered him for a moment, but after adjusting his posture, he set his feet and raised the axe over his head again. On the surface, it might've looked like he was really slow, only making a single swing after every ten breaths' time, but for him, the process was much more important than the result.

It would've been an overstatement to say that Raol made peace with his situation, but after recovering from the first shock, he had no choice but to accept that he would have to remain undead for far longer than he originally envisioned. He still hadn't given up on resurrection, however implausible the prospect seemed at the time, but he also realized that if he ever hoped to achieve it, he had to be in full control of his body and his newfound abilities, including their downsides.

Case in point, due to how light his bones were, he had to carefully plan every single strike of the axe, lest its weight would drag him along. A dangerous prospect when heavy tools were involved. As such, he carefully raised it over his head, and once he was sure his feet were solidly planted, he let out a sharp breath and struck with about a fifth of what his magick-fueled body could muster. Even so, his soles momentarily left the ground upon impact.

When he was alive, he had seen skeleton workers break stones with pickaxes and tirelessly move pulleys and simple conveyors with their hands and feet, so he was sure there had to be a trick for maintaining his balance, but due to the lack of guidance, he had to acquire the skills by himself. He wasn't in a hurry though; while he desperately wanted to return to his true body, 'haste makes waste' was something that his instructors had thoroughly hammered into his head since he was a young lad. If anything, his previous desperation made him too eager to act, and because of that, he didn't spend enough time on the necessary groundwork. If only he did, he might've learned about the current state of the Monarchy's economy, and then the priest's words wouldn't have shocked him so much.

It was useless to cry over spilled milk, so Raol focused on his improvised training regimen instead. For the next two hours, he wordlessly swung the axe in his hands and then carried the cut logs into the nearby storage shed. Lost in thought, he might've even continued the process until noon, if not for the rapidly darkening skies drawing his attention. Maybe her hair really was reliable; he mused as he piled up the last back of logs into a large basket and headed inside.

"You were right. It's about to rain," he noted as he carried the kindling over to the fireplace, and Elkayla let out a satisfied hum from the kitchen.

"I've made some tea for you. It's on the table; I hope it isn't cold yet."

Raol said a curt "Thank you," and walked over to the single table in the middle of the room. On it sat a familiar earthen tea mug, right next to an equally familiar black book with a skull crest, and based on the rising steam, the beverage was most likely still warm. Not that it really mattered, as Raol had a hard time discerning warmth from coldness.

Sitting down, he grabbed hold of the mug, while his other hand automatically opened the tome where he left off, his progress marked by a large chestnut leaf. Over the past four days, all of his free time not spent training or chatting with the hermitess was consumed by this book, and the fact that he had barely reached the middle of it spoke volumes about how difficult the text was. His lack of foreknowledge in matters magickal certainly didn't expedite the progress either, but he still preferred to blame the dry, convoluted language for making him read each page multiple times. Yet, just like with the woodcutting, he was making progress, and one of the new discoveries was why he held a drink in his other hand.

Common sense dictated that the undead, on principle, were unable to experience any of the joys of life. No sense of touch, smell, or taste, no libido, and certainly no way to experience any of them even if the desire for such sensations still existed within them. However, as Raol had deduced, he was an odd exception.

Maybe because his soul was tied to the mortal plane by Unalas's Contract Amulet instead of a necromantic ritual, his bones were surrounded by an indistinct spiritual body that allowed him to feel the touch of another, even if it was only a fraction of a fraction of a sensation. Similarly, while his sense of taste was greatly dulled, he could still consume food and drinks… in a fashion.

Taken for example, he poured a gulp's worth of tea past his front teeth, yet instead of the liquid falling through his jaws, it miraculously turned into a stream that flew to the back of his skull and down, as if he still had a functioning windpipe. Even more curiously, once the beverage reached his abdomen, it instantly evaporated without nary a trace, leaving behind a warm sensation and a slight tinge of sweetness. According to Elkayla, it was quite a special sight, though one he could not witness, as he could hardly drink and stare at his own, nonexistent navel at the same time.

"Have you found something interesting?" the young hermitess asked as she walked over with bouncy steps and took a seat opposite him. Glancing up from the page he had read five times already, Raol took another sip from his drink before setting his mug down.

"I can't say I have. I'm still at the section that discusses the process of binding."

"Why not just jump ahead then," she asked with an innocent look and reached over to tap on the book. "The part about maintenance and magicka conversion should be somewhere around here."

Unlike him, Elkayla already skimmed the whole book, and with her better theoretical foundation, she already crafted a theory about Raol's current condition. If she was right, he wasn't just a simple skeleton, but something more esoteric.

Undead, by nature, required magicka to move. The simple-minded skeletons he was familiar with required their necromancer's magicka to function, while more independent forms of undead needed to partake of the magicka of living beings, such as the nosferat's lust for blood, or the many variations of ghoulish creatures feeding on the flesh of the living and the recently dead. Yet, unlike those creatures, Raol could not only sustain himself just by breathing in the ambient magicka in the air, he could turn air, drinks, and food into pure magicka as well.

Of course, the last one was merely a conjecture at this point in time, as despite possessing a spiritual body draped over his bones, at the end of the day, Raol still lacked cheeks and a tongue, which made chewing and swallowing solid food quite impossible.

"I would like to build a solid foundation before I reach that chapter," the skeleton said in a low voice and returned to the page in front of him for the fifth time.

"I just want to help," Elkayla murmured, sulking. "I don't want Mister Raol to lose his will to live again."

"I did not lose my will to live," he denied as he glanced up from the book. "I was simply shocked numb and speechless, something which should not have happened if someone told me about the value of gold before I embarked on my way to the town."

"Hmpf. Mister Raol never told me why you wanted to go to the temple, so how was I supposed to know?" the young woman fumed and kicked Raol's shin under the table, only to shudder the moment her toes met hard bone. "A-Aow!"

"Are you hurt?" the skeleton inquired with concern plainly audible in his voice, going as far as to put his book aside, but the hermitess shook her head.

"N-No, I'm fine. I just hit my big toe…"

The lights in the eye sockets measured the young woman for a few seconds, and then he slowly shook his head. He was meaning to ask this for a while at this point, and since the situation presented itself, Raol hit the iron while it was hot.

"Why aren't you wearing any shoes? Aren't your feet cold?"

"No, not really," she answered while rubbing her toes, and after a few breaths' time, she put her foot down and added, "I never wore any. Nobody in my family does."

The skeleton let out a thoughtful hum, yet even after serious consideration, he decided against pressing the issue any further. He already had his suspicions about Elkayla's ancestry, a notion that was further solidified by her comment, but at the end of the day, it was none of his business. She allowed him to stay in her cottage without asking for anything in return, so it would've been ungrateful of him to interrogate her about her background. If they continued to live together like this, he was sure he would able to piece everything together anyway, and he wasn't in a hurry.

"Is that so? How peculiar. In any case, where were we?"

"I was just telling you to read the part about maintenance and magicka conversion," she answered without acknowledging the sudden shift in the conversation, her eyes shining with excitement. "If you read that chapter, I'm sure you're also going to agree that you're an arch-wight!"

"And I'm still almost entirely certain that such a thing does not exist," Raol answered in a lighthearted tone, and in response to his teasing, Elkayla immediately puffed up her cheeks.

"But it does! If a really special demon can be an arch-demon, and a really special lich can be an arch-lich, then it only follows that a really special wight like Mister Raol has to be an arch-wight!"

"Presuming that I'm a wight," he pointed out, and so she tapped on the book again.

"Just read that section and you'll understand!"

"Then I believe we'll see if you're right or wrong once I reach that section. Shouldn't take more than four of five days, I'd reckon."

Realizing that the skeleton was still teasing her, her feet automatically lashed out again, resulting in another pained hiss.

"O-Ooow! It hit the same toe! It's the same toe again!"

"… Is this the right time for me to point out that you should really put on at least a sandal?" Elkayla didn't answer, so while she was busy rubbing her toes, Raol finished up his drink and set the book aside. The hermitess must've realized that he had something important to talk about, as she let her foot down and sat straighter than before. "Let's put what exactly I am aside for the moment and talk about something more important."

"I think finding out Mister Raol's true sub-species is plenty important," she interjected, but the skeleton let her words in through one nonexistent ear and out the other.

"I know that we have already talked about this, but I want to make sure: are you certain that I can stay here indefinitely?"

"Of course!" Elkayla responded with a frown that said she couldn't believe they were discussing this topic again. "You're free to live here for as long as you want!"

"I just want to make sure I'm not imposing on you."

"No, of course not! It's actually great to have a strong man like Mister Raol around the house!"

Raol didn't answer right away, seemingly lost in thought. The way the hermitess answered, and especially her smile while she did so… If he didn't know that, as a skeleton, he had nothing to give to her, he would've naturally presumed that she was trying to flirt with him. As a matter of fact, over the past few days they lived together, the young woman slowly let her guard down around him, and there were many times he caught her striking poses that emphasized her figure, or sending him glances that, were they shared between strangers in a tavern, would've definitely lead to a steamy encounter at night.

The fact that she herself seemed to be unaware of her mannerisms at best, or mortified by them at worst, made Raol wonder about just what kind of upbringing this otherwise bright and innocent girl must've received, but just like always, he refrained from digging any deeper. It would've been ill-mannered to probe his benefactor like that, and as much as it irked him that her gestures failed to awaken even a spark of the ardor he experienced in his past life, they weren't unpleasant either, so for the time being, he pretended not to notice them.

"I'm glad to hear that," he responded to her last comment first before inhaling sharply, out of habit. "I told you after I returned from New Reedcourt, but right now, I'm in dire need of money, and a lot of it."

"Nineteen million gold coins, right?"

"Yes, that's right," Raol nodded, and his words were followed by a long beat of silence. "To be perfectly honest with you, I don't even know where to begin collecting such an enormous sum of money, so I would like to ask for advice."

"Of course! I'm always happy to help you with anything!" Elkayla exclaimed with unwavering enthusiasm, and the way she use one arm to push her bosom up, seemingly without meaning, nearly caused Raol's thoughts to go in circles again, wondering about just what she was thinking.

"Thank you. I have spent the past few days considering my options, and I'm curious about your thoughts on my ideas." Elkayla stared at him intently, so after taking another deep and altogether unnecessary breath, Raol began by saying, "As far as I could gather, the source of the gold in circulation lies in the 'Wish' phenomenon you had already explained to me the first time we met."

"That's right," she nodded, still hanging on Raol's every word.

"Meaning that defeating any creatures and beings classified as a 'monster' would result in gold materializing out of their cadavers."

"Yes. It's colloquially called 'loot', and the process is 'looting'."

"Is that so? In any case, if I want to proceed with my planned resurrection, the most evident way to secure the funds would be by finding and exterminating monstrous creatures for this 'loot', wouldn't you say?"

Elkayla's face was occupied by an odd, diffident frown, and instead of responding to the skeleton's inquiry, she asked an altogether different question.

"Does Mister Raol really need to be resurrected?"

Raol's expression was hard to read, due to the distinct lack of a face, yet the way the lights in his eye socked moved and changed told the woman her question was inappropriate.

"W-Wait, that came out wrong! What I meant to say was, do you really needto be resurrected? Ah, wait, that was the same question again! I mean… I mean…"

Seeing her getting more flustered by the second, the lights serving as Raol's eyes returned to their natural state and he slumped his shoulders.

"I understand what you mean. While this body has its inconveniences, I am still able to function as I used to, and I don't suffer from many of the disadvantages a simple skeletal undead would have to endure… yet there are still things I simply cannot do in my current condition."

"Oh. You mean something like sleeping?"

This time, Raol's eye-lights narrowed into thin, skeptical slits, only returning to normal once he was sure Elkayla wasn't teasing him.

"Yes. Among other things."

His flat voice said more than a thousand words, but the young hermitess didn't catch on and continued to nod to herself with a thoughtful expression.

"More importantly, you still haven't answered my previous question," Raol guided the flow of concentration back onto its original course, and stressed, "Do you think collecting this 'loot' is a feasible way to earn enough gold for my resurrection?"

"I… have to admit that I'm not well-versed about the affairs of adventurers, but I don't think they are particularly rich folk," she answered with a finger carelessly perched on her lower lip. "Do you remember that tralokh you punched out?"

"The armored bear? Is it called a tralokh?"

"Yes, it's a local monster," she explained with a giddy smile. "Very rare, and one of the more valuable creatures around here."

Raol raised a finger and tried to relive the moment. After he knocked the beast down, it fell on its side, and then its abdomen exploded into a pile of bloody coins. He didn't exactly have the time to count them, but by his estimate, he was looking at roughly five thousand gold crowns. Even if he presumed that there was some more hidden in the abdominal cavity of the beast, he still couldn't imagine there was more than ten thousand gold there.

"Let's be optimistic and say that I would need to hunt two thousand and five hundred thousand of these creatures to earn enough gold for my resurrection. Let's stay optimistic and say that if I keep hunting them without rest and slaughtering one every three days, it would take me… let me see… a little over twenty years. Does that sound feasible to you?"

"Erm… I'm sorry, Mister Raol, but it really isn't," his host poured cold water on his enthusiasm with an apologetic expression. "A tralokh is a reallyrare monster. Hunting one every three days would be impossible."

"What would be a more reasonable pace then?"

"Um… One tralokh every year?"

"That's… definitely unfeasible," Raol concluded with his eye-lights forming into a frown. "Are there any other similarly valued creatures around here?"

"Not in the vicinity, no. These woods are famously scarce with monsters; that's why I settled down here, so I wouldn't be bothered by adventurers treading across my garden all the time. Among many other reasons."

"That's troubling," the skeleton whispered, his hand absently rubbing his jaw-bone. "In that case, can we make quality up with quantity?"

"I don't think so," Elkayla shook her head and pointed out the window. "The only monsters I've met in this forest were red-crested dire wolves, but they are hard to hunt because they travel in packs, and they only give five to ten gold coins as loot, so they're definitely not worth the trouble."

Once again, Raol felt his head splitting from all the effort to unlearn the values he grew up with. Back when he was alive, ten gold coins were twice his salary as a well-trained and well-paid agent of the empire. His yearly salary, that is.

"Okay, so that's not going to work. Do you know of any other creature that's worth hunting?"

"I can't say I do, but… I already told you, but I'm really not that knowledgeable about the affairs of adventurers. Everything I know is from books and a few rumors I hear from travelers."

"It's all right, I understand," Raol placated her while his thoughts were already elsewhere, and after some further consideration, he asked, "So, if I understand this correctly, adventurers travel the land and hunt monsters, gather the 'loot' from their cadavers. What do they do with all the gold?"

"They turn it in to the guild," Elkayla answered, in a tone that said it was common sense.

"What do they buy with it?"

"I don't know. I've never been in an adventurers' guild hall before," she admitted a touch sulkily, but then her eyes gleamed with a curious glint when she noticed the way Raol's finger was rhythmically tapping on the tabletop.

"So this guild is the place where all the gold flows into." Suddenly, his finger stopped, and he leveled an eyeless gaze at the woman at the other end of the table. "That gives me an idea…"