Everything, well half of everything

You met up in front of the tavern and Joylanda's face made you for once not worry about your self control: “They have one bedroom for three and one for two.”

You weren't quite sure, why Joylanda was dejected, until Athariel suggested moving the beds from the to the larger bedroom. And Helga facepalmed: “Okay, one: We don't want to be all in the same room to sleep. Second: You can't move the beds out of the rooms. And third even if you could I think the tavern owner would object. Is there a bath?”

They were all thirsty as fuck, Joylanda just didn't bother hiding it.

“At least on this front there's good news: The large bedroom has a bath with a large enough tub.” You decided it would be better to shut them down now, rather than risk making them angry when they remembered your existence during right before their orgy: “Great that way I can spend some time outside of Schlch!”

Ariadne looked at where she suspected you, at Schlch's chest: “I mean... we can leave the tub to you, if that's what you want...” She sounded disappointed!

Helga brought the conversation back to business: “We can talk about that this evening. Right now we want to do some buying and selling. Let me see your lists.”

Helga's list didn't have any surprises: health potions, intelligence potions for Schlch, a new armor and shield and a visit to the armor-tailor.

Ariadne showed her list next, which had the agate and the feather first, which she explained to her friends. She considered the other spell casting items to be low priority.

Athariels list was pretty short: She considered a whip and a spear as a melee weapon and found some arrows, that might come in handy during a particularly hard boss fight.

Lastly Joylanda's list was surprisingly reasonable: A few splash potions that could debuff enemies, some poisons and buffing potions and of course ropes, grease and oil.

The next step was to combine all lists into one single list: The first item were the feather or the agate, since those would allow them to save loads of money on intelligence potions. The next point on the list were the potions, including the intelligence potions in case the spells didn't work. Next were Helga's new equipment and, since it was cheap, the tailor. Athariel only got permission for either the spear or the whip. Then were rope and 'lube' (they were still pretending) since they it was impossible to tell whether they'd need those. Last were the sulfur, Joylanda's various potions and the extra strong arrows.

So now came the part they they had to rent a room for: going through the loot. They dumped everything onto the beds on the three person room, after pushing them together. The bad news were, that nothing in the pile was worth keeping. The good news were, that the pile consisted exclusively high value items. Even the objects, that could be equipped were novelty gear, like a golden sword and helmet. The bad news were, that they would have to sell most of it to the same two or three merchants, clearing them out off money completely with only a few items if they were not careful.

“Well at least you'll be getting all the gems you can carry”, Helga said directed towards while estimating how much they would be able to buy, “If we don't buy the feather, we should be able to afford the health potions and my armor, but only the vanilla variant. If the agate spell works and we don't need new int-potions, we can also get my armor tailored and the rope...”

“You are aware, how the economy works, right?”, you interrupted her.

“You mean it'll be even less?”

“No, it'll be more: In a subtle attempt to make people return to towns they've been to more traders will use more money to buy from heroes who in turn have bought a lot in their town and also offer better prices to those who bought from them a lot. Even if completely clear out the jeweler, the goldsmith and the general store today, if we spent all that money today it'll have circulated around to a large degree by tomorrow.”

Helga stared at you, or rather she made an excellent guess where in Schlch's body you were and stared at his body: “How much are we talking?”

“If we really buy everything Ariadne could use from the jeweler we should hit the cap: the traders will replenish 80% of their cash over night and if we let them they would...”

“An extra 80% that's enough for all of this”, Helga pointed at the list, where she had covered up everything below the sulfur, “Who wants to stay longer than that?”

So it was settled and you finally went on an actual shopping trip.

First you were in for a disappointment: the spell 'Awaken', contrary to its d&d counterpart and its description could only be cast on objects, plant life, non mobile fungi and non-aggressive critters. Not on creatures, whose base-intelligence qualified as feral or worse.

The feather was even worse: the spell lasted for [lvl] seconds, so right now twelve and it's MP cost made it barely viable even if you gave Ariadne the 'Blade of Magic manifest', you were tasked with protecting.

Helga's armor was more interesting: She already had a matching shield, but without any set-boni it had been worse than the one she had been using. Something she only realized, when the armor was in her inventory and she was asked whether she wanted to equip all parts of the set she had: “Who named this? The shield is called 'Aspis of Allegiance' even though it looks like a scutum, the armor is called 'Frank Flange' even though it's scales and plate, not mail, and the set is called 'Strength of Compassion'.”

That meant she could sell her other shield without remorse and go to the tailor today.

She went in and the whole process took only a few seconds. Then you're chin hit the floor. Metaphorically of course, you didn't consider either part of your beak a chin.

You had expected Helga to be displaying religious symbols after all even Joylanda had not acted like 'favor of her god' had been a euphemism. Instead she was displaying cleavage.

“What the fuck? Are you that horny?”

“I guess you expected crosses and rosaries...”, Helga started staring off, “Sorry, but duty calls.”

Joylanda got a mischievous grin: “Who's the target? I got 'paralyzing strike' for level twelve and I can't think of a better use.”

“Sure, why not? 'Bitchez-killor 69 420' human bard level 10. I'm afraid you'll have to sit this one out Schlch, or you'll raise suspicion.”

They didn't elaborate any further and simply walked up to their victim. The man was talking at a young heroine, who was very obviously uncomfortable. She was only level 2 and therefor didn't dare pushing the man away as his hands 'accidentally' touched her waist.

“I'm sorry ma'am could we take this man off your hands? We're on a mission from god.” As 'Bitchez-Killor 69 420' turned around to face Joylanda she punched him in the groin to trigger her paralyzing strike. It did no damage, could only be used in as a substitute for a sneak attack with bare hands or blunt weapons and cost about thrice as much MP as the normal sneak attack, that did 7 times normal damage. But now he would not be able to fight back for 12 seconds.

And Helga used the time well: “I would like to say, that this isn't personal, but you personality is kind of the reason you're in this situation. Cupidite wants you dead and I'm their willing servant.”

Joylanda, Helga, Athariel and Alariel all struck at the same time and you could tell, that their blows carried divine will in them. He was dead instantly.