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It was at times like this when he could see why Lillia wanted to have an inn so badly. There was something about it that felt like home. A community — even though he hadn’t said a single word to anyone else in nearly an hour.

But it seemed that his time for silence was at its end.

Arwin glanced up as someone pulled the chair on the other side of his table out. Yonas sat down across from him. The merchant had a small smile on his face and a frothing drink in his hand. He took a sip from it as he rocked back in his chair and leaned his elbows on the table.

“Quite the party, isn’t it?”

It certainly was. The Devil’s Den had been alive and flooded with conversation for longer than it ever had been before. It had been more than an hour since Lillia had stopped serving free meals. Her plan had worked flawlessly. At this rate, the advertising they were getting from the re-opening was going to pay for itself within days.

“I’d say so,” Arwin said with a nod. “Have you been enjoying yourself? I didn’t realize you were here.”

“I’d be willing to bet that half of Milten has been here.” Yonas took a sip from his mug and let out a contented sigh. “This is great. I don’t know why no other inn hasn’t thought to dim the lights like this before. You can hear the babble around you, but you can’t see who’s talking or hear what they’re talking about. It’s perfect. I don’t know how you’ve pulled it off, but it’s going to be very popular.”

That would be the magic shadows that follow Lillia around. Something tells me she might not be at too much risk of getting ripped off anytime soon. I doubt anybody will be able to pull off the signature powers of the Demon Queen.

“I’ll pass your kind words on to Lillia. They’ll mean a lot to her,” Arwin said.

“You aren’t looking for investors, are you?”

“Not at the moment, but I’ll pass that offer along as well. We very well might be in the future. Just… a lot going on right now.”

Yonas let out a quiet chuckle that Arwin could barely make out over the din. He drained the rest of his drink in one go, then set the mug down on the table and let his chair rock back to normal. “A lot, huh? I couldn’t help but notice that you never reached out to me with regards to a certain item.”

“I didn’t,” Arwin agreed. “It’s too bad we were never able to get it.”

The two of them were silent for a few seconds. Then Yonas leaned closer, and Arwin could just barely make out the glint of his eyes in the darkness.

“You did it, then.” Yonas wasn’t asking a question. “You actually managed to pull it off.”

“You were the one that bet on us, were you not?” Arwin asked. “Do you usually bet on things that don’t turn out well for you?”

“I’ve been known to take a stupid bet or two in my time,” Yonas said, letting out a small chuckle. He nudged his empty tankard. “Then the news will emerge soon. I’ll resist the urge to try to make any money off that. How did you — no. Don’t tell me. Better not to know.”

“Better not,” Arwin agreed. “But something tells me you aren’t here purely for pleasure.”

“Good read,” Yonas said. He blew out a huff and straightened his shoulders. “To my displeasure, I’m not.”

“Raen wants his payment, I take it?”

Yonas nodded. “Yes. Both parts of it. The gold and the item. Now, I’m sure it’ll take some time, but he’s rather impatient. It doesn’t help that he’s got no clue what you’ve pulled. He just thinks you screwed up. I’ve done my best to keep him from getting too pissy. That won’t last forever. The sooner you can get—”

Arwin thunked the bracelet down on the table.

Yonas blinked. He looked down at the band, then back up to Arwin. “Is that…”

“Half of the item,” Arwin replied. “The other part… well, I need to know what changes Raen wants. Magic items don’t just, well, magically accomplish everything you want. They have to be made with intention. If he wants something that changes someone’s form, then he needs to tell me exactly what bits of the form are getting changed.”

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Well, you’re ahead of the game,” Yonas said in approval. He pushed the bracelet back over to Arwin. “Very well. I’ll let him know. That’ll probably shut him up for a while.”

“Just have him swing by,” Arwin said. “And make sure he brings whoever it is that needs to be modified by the bracelet. When he does, I can get everything made by the next day as long as I’m not already busy.”

“Fantastic,” Yonas said. He rose to his feet. “You’ve given me good news, then. Lucky for both of us. And what about the money?”

“We’ll get it to you. How much do you think you’re going to need to push the Ardent guild out?”

Yonas scratched his chin and tilted his head to the side. He was silent for several moments before he spoke again. “It’s hard to say. It depends how hard they fight to keep a hold of Milten. It would have been easy if Twelve just… dealt with everything for us.”

“Probably,” Arwin agreed. “But I’m afraid he won’t be helping much.”

“Then we need a way to get a good foothold. It’s like trying to break down a wall. Everything gets much easier once there’s a crack in the foundations. But we don’t have that foothold, so we’ll have to brute force our way in and undercut them with insane prices. That won’t be cheap at scale.”

A thought passed through Arwin’s mind and he tilted his head to the side. “What if we were able to get you that foothold?”

“What, you mean through this street? I’m not talking about a physical location. I’m talking about an established network. Merchants that will work with us, access to customers. All that stuff and more.”

“I know,” Arwin said. “But we may have access to that. The Ardent guild might be the strongest one in the city, but there’s another. The Montibeau family. You were talking about having to compete with them… but what if you worked together?”

“Why would they bother working with us? We’re no more of an ally to them than the Ardents are.”

“Because the Montibeaus owe me,” Arwin replied. “A lot. If I ask them to form a business relationship with you, I suspect they would be amiable. The alliance would probably be quite beneficial for them. They could use some support right now.”

Yonas stared at Arwin. Then he started to laugh. “You’re serious? If they’d actually be willing to work together with us and let another family step on their turf, then that would definitely settle a lot of the outstanding debt.”

Given how much the Menagerie owed the Dawnseeker guild for getting them a way to get the Dungeon Heart, Arwin couldn’t help but feel like he was getting the better end of the deal if Raen was amiable to the new terms.

“Pass it along to Raen, would you?” Arwin asked.

“I’ll do that,” Yonas promised. “It’s been a pleasure. I’ll be seeing you around.”

The merchant stepped around his chair and disappeared into the darkness and the crowd. Arwin watched him leave, a small smile on his lips. Everything was falling into place just the way it needed to.

Twelve was dead. Their debts with the Dawnseeker guild were close to settled, and the Ardent guild was about to have a whole lot of enemies knocking at their door. He’d even be able to help Melissa re-establish her family in the city. An alliance with the Dawnseekers would be really beneficial for Melissa — having another strong guild at her back would force the Kererus Coalition to really consider if they wanted to keep sending people after her.

The Menagerie was in a good spot as well. They were definitely going to get hit by some kind of fine about the “demon” situation, but when Arwin looked that as the cost for executing Twelve in the streets in front of an entire audience, he couldn’t help but feel like they’d made a good investment.

Only time would tell just how successful the move was as an advertising strategy, but if today was anything to go by, Arwin got the feeling their street had just gotten quite popular.

We’re going to have to keep expanding. The guild has an entire street but only two buildings. Three, if you count Esmerelda’s store of cursed stuff. Maybe we’re going to have to start looking into recruiting a few more people to run some periphery stores.

Arwin was still lost in thought when a hand fell on his shoulder.

He practically jumped into the air as he spun to find Lillia standing behind him.

“Shit. I didn’t hear you there,” Arwin said, shaking himself off.

“Sorry,” Lillia said. Her teeth caught the light as she grinned at him. “I got a new boon because of all the people eating in the tavern. I can slip through the shadows inside the inn. Makes it pretty easy to travel around quickly, but it drains a lot of energy.”

“You can teleport?” Arwin’s eyes widened. “That’s quite some boon. Did you…”

“Reached Journeyman,” Lillia confirmed, her smile turning smug. “Haven’t had a chance to choose any skills, though. Too busy working. I’ve only got a brief moment, so I wanted to find you.”

“Is something going on?” Arwin asked.

“Yes. We’ve been invited to a tournament by the Secret Eye.”

Arwin paused. That hadn’t been anywhere near what he’d been expecting to hear. “A tournament? Us? Why would they invite a crafting guild to fight?”

“I asked the same thing. They don’t want us to fight,” Lillia replied. “They want us to outfit another guild.”

“Interesting,” Arwin said, mulling over the word. “This is something we’re going to have to talk to Rodrick and Anna about. It could be great marketing… and it could be a way to draw some more people to the guild. I was just thinking we might need to start capitalizing on the rest of our street with the amount of attention we’ve got on us. It’s just wasted right now.”

Lillia nodded in agreement. “The Secret Eye are going to send the guild in question to the Devil’s Den sometime tonight. I didn’t agree to anything, though. They just like disappearing like assholes when they’re done talking.”

“Figures,” Arwin said. “Then I suppose I’ll go find Rodrick and Anna and make sure they know what’s going on.”

“Thanks,” Lillia said. “I’ve got to get back to work. There are still a lot of people waiting to get their food. We’ll catch up tonight.”

With that, the shadows rose up from the ground and swallowed her whole.

Arwin stretched his arms over his head in a yawn. An imp hopped up onto his table, grabbing his mug, and scurried off. He let out a chuckle and started off in search of his guildmates.

It looked like the excitement for the day wasn’t quite over.