Time changes things

We finally heard from Aktor. He came empty handed and saying that Saat gave us three options to choose from.

First option was to change the power balance of the Isle of Ihm. It apparently didn't matter how and to just change it.

Second option was to change Aeternus into a kingdom. Or to change it drasticaly.

Third option was to kill one of the dragon lords. No matter which.

Then Aktor stated two more options.

- We either take it by force, which is a bad idea. Or we just give up on it.

- Why would we give up on it?

- He seemed quite reluctant to even considering letting us have it. There is a chance that he will not keep his promise, should he feel like it.

- Then we just have to pick the best option.

- Defeating a dragon lord is out of the question, since we don't have necessary power to do so. Well if Lex doesn't have any trump cards or me going to risk it all. Changing the Aeternus to a kingdom is bit too much for us to do, since they are buch of stuborn basta... I mean people. Changing the power balance of the Isle of Ihm seems to be our best choice.

- But how do we do it?

- The deal was to only change the power balance of the Isle of Ihm, not that we should worsen it.

- So we should just change the economy?

- That... sounds way better plan than what I was going with.

- What were you planing?

- To decomission one of the points.

Lex says.

- That would sound like a terrible idea.

- That's why I told you his was better.

- How did you plan to get rid of one of the points. Don't tell me you were going to fight one of them to the point that they can't do their job anymore.

- That's... one of the ways I considered.

- As expected. Surprised you didn't go with the brute force option.

- I'm not stupid enough to go against demon prince.

- But you were considering fighting a dragon lord.

- Hey, let's not focus on what I was planing and let's focus on the thing that Nor said.

- You're right. We shouldn't focus on things like that.

- I'm surprised you have lived this long just to be like that.

- I'M surprised that you got so many connections.

- Perhaps if you wouldn't stay in your tower all day and talked to people, perhaps you wouldn't be like that.

- Perhaps if YOU learned to stay in one place for a while, you wouldn't be so uncultured.

- At least I have made kids of my own.

- At least I don't abandon my adopted kids.

- ...

- ...

- Well... shit, you kind of got me there.

- Well... I am bit lonely... from time to time.

- Let's call it a draw.

- Let's.

- What were we talking about again? Oh, yes! The change in the economy. I have some connections with people who are experts on the eastern islands. But I don't know anything about it myself.

- We should use those connections to figure something out. I teleport you two to where you need to go. I will focus on my research on these fragments.

I say.

- Good luck with that.

- Same to you two.

Then Aktor tells Lex where we need to go and Lex teleports us to a town called Frizburg. There we walked for a while and entered a big building that had a banner saying "Din's Mercantile". Once inside, we are greeted by staff wearing suits. Then Aktor asks.

- Do any of you know where Din is?

A woman came and replied.

- He is currently at his office. Do you need something from her?

- Yes, tell him that Aktor has come to say hello.

- Actor? Right, I will go and tell her.

The woman goes upstairs for and comes after a while saying.

- She would like to meet you, now.

- Then let's not keep her waiting.

I whisper to Aktor's ear and ask.

- Don't tell me this is one of you flings.

- No, she's not. Just saved her business once.

We are then infront of a fancy door and once we get inside, we see fancy couch and chairs, a table and a woman sitting on the couch.

- Aktor! How have you been? It's been a long time.

She comes and hugs Aktor.

- Oh, you know. Same as usual. Doing life or dead jobs and trying to make some lux out of it.

- You haven't changed a bit. Who's your friend here.

- His name is Nor. Found him laying down in front of a tree.

I greet myself.

- Hi, name is Nor.

- And my name is Diona Flansin, but you can call me Din. Everyone does. Sit down and we get you two some tea.

We sit down for a while until Din comes back with some tea.

- Here you go. Some Fioshire tea from our shop. Drink it while it's hot.

We all take a sip.

- Tastes the same as I remember.

- It's a different brand than last time though.

- Yep. Definetly can't tell the differnse.

- Right. Now, why did you come here to meet me? You probably need me for something.

I say.

- So basically we need to make a major change in the economy.

- ...

- So... we need help with that.

- Why, on the name of the five, why do you need to do something so absurd?

- We need to do so, because we need a thing, from a demon prince of change, so that we can lessen the coming calamity.

- I... I see.

There is a further silence.

- Well, I don't know what you expect from me. Since it's a tall order. I might have created one of the biggest companies in Ihm, but to change the entire economy is something different.

- If you have any ideas, we can start with that.

- Well, one way is for my company to make something like food extra cheap for some time. I would make a huge loss during that so I prefer not to do that. Especially since we don't know how long we might need to do that. One other thing is to starts bying lots and lots of wheat so that we will increase the value of it. It would be simple since everyone needs wheat so we would make huge impact on the market. I prefer not to use this tactic since again, it would mean massive losses for us and we would make life harder for many people.

- Do you have any other ideas.

- If you have something that will revolutionise the world, then that's an option.

- Any ideas Aktor.

Aktor thinks for a moment.

- There is this way of keeping foods for lasting longer periods of time in Dia.

Din puts in with glowing eyes.

- What is it!?

- It is a method where you put things in a jar and you have an enchantment on the lid that makes the glass jar somehow keep the food fresher for longer perionds of time.

- Yes. That is something that would be revolutionary. Do you know the enchantment that they use?

- I only remember seeing it, but not how to make it.

- *Sigh* It's a dead end then.

- Wait. We can just ask Lex about this.

- Who is Lex?

I answer.

- He is a mage friend of ours that knows lot of stuff about magic.

- Then how long will it take for you to contact him?

- Just a moment. With our rings, we can communicate from anywhere of the world.

- That is also revolutionary! Ask him about them.

I call Lex.

- What is it?

- We need you to make a jar that will make food stay fresh for longer.

- That's it?

- We also would like to know how easy it is for you to make communication items.

- Making them, for me atleast is an easy job. Heard it was hard for my students to replicate, so I don't think that it is easy for normal mages.

- So making lots of them is out of the guestion.

- Why are you asking me these questions anyway?

- We need to make something revolutionary to change the economy, so Aktor remebered something he saw from Dia.

- I see. Well if the topic is about food preservation, I have an item which is easy to replicate. I send you the schematics.

A while later, pieces of paper appeared infront of me.

- What are these?

- Some of them are for the jars that you need. Others are part of the thing that you can make to preserve more food.

- What is it.

- We call it at the tower "a refrigerator" or "cooler" for short. It takes a consept of a enchantments that makes their surroundings colder and make it into a box. If you make a gabinet or something, you can just put the enchantments on the inside of it and the inside will stay cold. Same principle can be aplied to a whole room. It is also self sustaining in most places, so you don't need to recharge it from time to time. It is easy for trained enchanters to make so you can make them be able to make them go places to make them.

Din look all shiny eyed.

- Those are some items you got mister! I think this will change the economy all around itself. Well, just a little.

- Is there anything else you need? I have to get back to research.

- Oh we are good mister! Thanks!

I say bye as well.

- Well then, hand me those scematics over and I can make them go forward for quite a way.

I hand the papers to Din.

- You have people who can make sense into these?

- I do. And if I don't, I can just hire people to do it. I gotta get running now. We have a revolution to make.

She runs with the papers and I can hear the commotion from downstairs.

- We are going to become something even more big! The biggest company in whole Ihm, no, the whole world!

We see her running from the window with other workers running behind her frantically.

- She sure is something.

- Well, she made the third largest company in Ihm from scrach. So I think she has the head for business.

- Now that I think about it, wasn't the eastern islands famous from trading. What's with that?

- Yes, eastern islands from Ihm are known for their trade. The reason for that is, that most of the ships from outside come to eastern islands ports. So most of the trade just happens in eastern islands.

- I see. What are the other islands known for?

- Northern islands are known for their technology, though it mainly comes from the Ikujää. Rest of the northern islands are more clan based.

- Yes, I remember.

- Southern islands are known for their resources and military might. Though they suffer from high mountain ranges, making traveling way longer than other places.

- So that's the type of place Stella comes from.

- Western islands are known for their vast farmlands and forests. They are plagued by the number of magical beings. Both good and bad.

- No wonder why western point didn't show up during the festival. He must be busy. That reminds me, why was Jane late for the tournament anyways?

- I heard that there was magical beast sighted near the festival area, so she went to check it out.

- Is that so. Well, at least I got to witness a good fight.

- If you say so. But there is still the center island to talk about.

- There is an center island?

- There is, and it's primarily known for politics in all of the islands. Now that I think about it, if we wanted to make some other kind of change, then that place would have been one of the posibilities.

- But the question is, what we would have done?

- Probably changing who is the most respected person in all of Ihm, and we would've had to do some political bullshit.

- Probably. But what do we do now?

- We can wait couple of days to see the results, but we also could try and talk to Saat himself about if this would suffice.

- Let's wait couple of days. Then we can go meet Saat.

And so we spend couple of days doing some hunting jobs. Then we resieved a letter that told us to go meet Din. So we went back and talked to her. I start.

- So, how has the business been doing?

- Oh, wonderfully! We have already received multiple orders to fulfill. We even have received multiple orders from other islands as well. Now, about your payment.

- Oh yeah. we are getting paid for the idea.

- Right, while it is unsure how much exactly this will profit us, but I estimate that your reward is 16 000 lux per person. Meaning Nor, Aktor and mister Lex, so 48 000 lux in total.

- 48 000 lux? That sounds way too much.

- That is the amount I estimate you should receive. Don't worry, I calculated the future income so that I won't be in the red.

- How much does each of the items sell exactly?

- It depends on the item. A cheapest jar costs 20 lux and more expensive ones go as much as 130 lux. As for the coolers, it depends on the size. Small one costs around 150 lux, medium 280 lux and large 460 lux. It also depends if they have the storage ready themselves.

- Well, as long as you are satisfied.

- What do you mean? It's not me you need to satisfy. It's the demon prince change himself. Let's hope this is enough.

- Let's hope. We probably should start go and meet him now.

- You do that. Oh, and be sure to return if you have any other ideas!

- We will.

We teleport to Lex.

- So are you done there?

- I think that's enough. Or at least hope that it is.

- Right, well go talk to the guardian and make it send you to Saat's realm. Was it called Muto? Anyways, get going.

We go to Siel'Kel and we are transported near some tower. The surroundings look like there's moving trees that keep changing their leafs colours. The sky looks like a liquid that's constantly changing shape and colour.

- Do we enter this tower?

- Let's hope that he is there.

- Hope? What do you mean?

- He likes to change the place he stays. By the looks of it, the guards seem to indicate that he is here. Excuse me!

A guard answers.

- What is it?

- Is Saat here?

- Our lord is currently at the top of the tower. Or else we would be elsewhere, since we are bound to him.

- I see. Do you mind if we go there?

- Like last time I told you, it is up to you if you anger our lord.

- Then let's go.

We walk many steps of stairs and eventually enter a chamber where Saat sits. He looks like a humanoid with different body parts from different creatures. His head seems to be that of a goat and torso of a lizard. He starts talking to as in a voice that keeps changing it's tune for every sentence.

- Oh, it's you two. I've been watching you. I see you done your task. Economic change. Boring, but still change.

I ask.

- So will you give the fragment to us?

- Hhm... I'm not quite satisfied yet. Try to amuse me.

- How would we do that?

Aktor puts in.

- How about a fight?

Saat responds.

- Fight? You wish to entertain me, with a fight.

- How about it?

- Hhm... sounds interesting. If you manage to entertain me, then it's a deal. But only if the other one fights and not you.

- You mean Nor.

- So Nor is your name. Yes, I wish to fight only him.

- If you say so, good luck Nor.

Aktor starts to walk away.

- Wait! You can't just...

A flame comes to my way. Saat.

- Do pay attention. I don't wish for you to die too quick.

I run towards him and try to strike his neck, but I'm blocked by sharp, long and tough claws on his right hand. He manages to scratch my face a bit with them, but I still managed to dodge the worse of them.

- Pure vampire's claws. One of the sharpest claws there is.

He then turns his left hand to a mouth of a dragon and starts spewing electricity to the ground. He than spews fire from his mouth on top of that. Because of them, I have to stay out of range.

When The flames settle I strike again twice. One of the stikes lands and caused a serious scratch on his neck. Then I saw the wound disapear in few seconds.

- Don't underestimate a demon prince. You need to do better than that.

I keep striking him and dodging. Most of the attacks are blocked by either the claws or the tail that has strongg scales on it. This dance kept going for hours. In which I received lots of wounds and probably couple broken bones. After an some time passed, Saat said.

- You sure are resilient. You try to attack me, but I keep healing. Meantime you are barely breathing from the wounds that you received. An excelent advesary for change.

He then starts radiating raw energy around him and I can feel my skin peeling of. I try to cast a barrier, but it's too weak to handle it.

- There. Now go and take my blessing.

I have hard time to breathe.

- What... what do you mean? ... Do we... get the fragment?

- Oh, that too. That and I gave you body a blessing.

- A blessing... from a demon prince... of change... How lovely... What does it do?

- Adaptiveness. Your body will receive resistances to things that you take damage from. For example, receive fire damage, get fire resistance. Though it wont save you now, it will be of use some day.

- Thanks... I guess.

- Now, for the fragment.

He extends his hand and a red light starts to come out of it. The fragment appears to rise from his hand. When the fragment is all out, the light disapears. Then he makes it float towards us. Aktor takes it and I say.

- You realy satisfied with this Saat?

- Although I would love to see what comes after our father's devastation, I see that it is acceptable for you try to change his fate. Parting away from our father's gift is saddening, but the biggest gift he gave us is our creation. Perhaps... Just perhaps... His will, his wish, will be rewarded. Oh, and it pronounced Sa'at.

- I see, well then Sa'at, goodbye.

Then we disapear with me getting a last glimpse of Sa'at smiling.