Let's Get Down To Business

The two weren’t left in suspense long as Primrose came back to her senses. She reached up and pulled a drawstring from the top of the box which caused the box’ sides to fall to the table.

Inside the box was a stone bowl-like object roughly twenty or so centimetres with a pour spout on one side, sat in the middle was a cylinder made of the same stone with a deep indentation at the top and a small hole to one side, the cylinder also had a red varnished wooden handle on the opposite side to the hole.

Primrose smiled warmly, while John and Ellie looked at the thing in confusion. “Uh, what is it?” Ellie asked.

John looked over, matching her expression. “I dunno, looks like some stone age thing,” he replied before casting Observe on it.

Granite hand mill

The granite used for this mill is hard enough to crush and grind most materials. Perfect for making flour or any other powdered substance and also great at extracting oils from things like olives.

“It’s a grinding mill, I’ve been thinking of buying one for a long while because it would be much quicker than using the pestle and mortar I’ve been using,” Primrose explained. “Thank you so much, this is an extremely generous gift, but I’m not sure if I can accept it.”

John raised his hand. “No, I gave it to you as an apology, and even if I was willing to take the gift back, there is no way we could put the stone back into the box.” He then turned to Ellie and smiled. “Well, go on then.”

Ellie seemed to vibrate in excitement as she pulled the top from the gift, before John could crane his neck to look inside, she grabbed the box and ran into the bedroom, calling, “One minute,” as she went.

John and Prim both looked at each other slightly surprised but shrugged it off. After a moment or so, Ellie entered the room once again with both hands behind her back, quickly moving into a fighting pose, prominently displaying a strange glove.

The glove was black leather with a metal plate covering her knuckles. An empty glass vial sat squarely in the centre of the plate with string holding it in place, not only that but there were several other vials spaced evenly up her arm all the way to a pulley system. John quickly cast Observe on the item, having an idea about what it might do.

Potion Brawler’s Right Gauntlet

(Naturally Enchanted)
This gauntlet holds up to seven vials. Opening and closing the hand pulls the string along to load the next vial.

Made from bison leather and fitted with a Vibra alloy plate.

Vibra Alloy: This magical metal alloy deflects all kinetic energy, making it perfect for applications such as armour or weapons.

The use of Vibra alloy in this item allows the user to deal up to 10% extra damage by redirecting any recoil. The metal also forces anything within the glass vials to be expelled forwards upon contact, protecting the wearer from its contents.

“Whoa, that’s really neat,” John commented, before turning to Primrose. “Wait, why didn’t you get a naturally enchanted item? Like surely there would be something to make it easier to turn the grinding wheel or something.”

Prim let out a small chuckle. “The most useful tools are often the simplest. Enchantments are nice but they can get expensive and, honestly, I wouldn’t need any for the mill. I'm more than strong enough to turn it all day if I wanted to, and if I wanted something automatic, it wouldn’t be all that expensive to get an electric grinder. This mill not only does the job I need it to, but it will also look really nice on the counter in the shop; it’ll give a little more mysticism and authenticity to my products for the mundanes who come into the store who believe they can draw out energies from crystals and such.”

John scoffed for a second at the mention of crystal energy before remembering something. “Wait, but quartz actually does something though, so does that mean that kind of people actually use crystals for real stuff?” John asked.

Primrose laughed again. “Not quite. Crystals do indeed have a range of magical uses and it is possible that some mundanes have actually been affected in some way, but generally, crystals require mana to be directly channelled into them. Quartz is a good example; as you no doubt know, quartz stores mana. That would be great and extremely useful, the only problem is that quartz is like a water tank that has a leak. Now if you look into the mysticism of crystals, they’re usually thought to be energy amplifiers of some kind, which obviously isn’t true. Most likely mundanes got their hands on a piece of quartz that had been used to store mana and the small amount of leakage had a noticeable effect.”

When John finally turned his gaze back to Ellie, she was looking directly at the Observe window he hadn’t dismissed yet. When she realised he was looking at her, she puffed up her cheeks, huffed and crossed her arms.

“What?” John asked obliviously.

“I just got this cool glove that’s gonna work super well with my alchemy stuff and you’re too busy wondering why someone wouldn’t want an enchanted item, especially since mine is enchanted. I thought you might be a little excited at seeing it,” Ellie complained.

John stood and wrapped his arms around Ellie. “Of course I’m excited and interested. It just struck me as odd that yours had an enchantment and Prim’s didn’t. Plus, it’s not like we can see it in action right now, can we? We will test out your new toy either later on or tomorrow, I promise.”

Ellie groaned. “Can’t even stay pretend mad at you! Sit your dumb ass back down and let’s try and fix this mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”

John kissed Ellie on the nose before quickly sitting cross-legged on the floor chair. “Okay, so, here is the solution to the problem,” he said as he pulled out a stack of cash from his inventory. “I have more than enough money to pay for a fine, so how much is it? I assume I have plenty with fourteen thousand?”

“Ah, yeah that’s not enough, John.” Ellie winced.

Primrose went on to explain how the contract worked, how the penalties were used to balance the deal out and how neither of them had any power to get around the conditions easily.

John’s jaw hung open at the price of the fine. “10k is way too much money per day though. That’s not fair at all, how do you expect me to get twenty thousand, right now? That’s-” John complained.

“John! This is mostly your fault, you know! You didn’t bother reading a contract, which would be stupid in the normal world, never mind when magic is involved. It’s like with Leilani and that whole situation. There is a time and a place to act before thinking and signing contracts with magical beings is not one of them! And Primrose’s solution might be your only way around it now,” Ellie chastised.

John sat in his seat feeling like a child being scolded. “It’s not all that easy, you know, Ellie. I’ve had thing after thing happen this past week. I’ve been thrown into a magic world, gotten my first girlfriend who might I add, suggested the open relationship thing which I’m still conflicted and not entirely comfortable with. Got married twice, watched you die… And that’s only a few examples, it’s a lot to have running through my head at all times of the day.”

Ellie flicked him in the centre of the forehead. “You stupid dork! You should have told me all this before. Just… Focus on this, for now, you don’t need this to become a bigger problem. Then we will talk about everything else afterwards.”

John covered his face with his hands, taking a deep breath before rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands. “Alright, fine… So what is this solution you have, Prim?”

Primrose cleared her throat. “Well, as I explained to Ellie, the only way other than either bringing thirty thousand tomorrow or somehow getting twenty thousand to me before midnight, would be for us to enter a work contract and have the payment specifically be for me to pay off your fines.”

John hung his head a little. “I doubt I’d be able to get six thousand in that time… So you want me to work for you?” John asked.

“Nope, not even a little, but there is no way for me to just give you money to pay the fines. The only way I could think of would be to make a new contract stipulating that in exchange for you doing a job for me that I would waive both fines,” Primrose explained.

John nodded. “Okay, so what exactly are you proposing? Also, we don’t have to do both fines in full, I can at least pay four thousand off in cash.”

Primrose shook her head. “You’d have to be able to pay for one of the fines in full because of the wording of the contract. Not only that, I think it might be a good idea for you to have a head start on the next payment.”

John sighed, rubbing his temples. “Right, so explain exactly what you are proposing then.”

Primrose took a long sip from her cup. “The contract would state that I will cover your fines, and in exchange, we will meet at an exact time and location and you will help me with a job. Failing to do so…” She paused for a moment, opening and closing her mouth a few times. “I’m not sure what… uhm… Oh, hmm, that might work…” she stated uneasily. “If you fail to meet the requirements, you will be soul bound and expected to willingly submit yourself to me. That should be a steep enough penalty to outweigh how far in your favour this new contract is.”

John felt uneasy. “T-that’s a little far, isn’t it? What even is soul bound? I’m assuming it somehow forces me into your service or whatever, but is it for life? Multiple lives? Does it **** me to do what you tell me? Or am I, like, brainwashed into doing it without arguments? Is that even legal?”

“Of course it is, I wouldn’t do anything illegal. It is kind of hard to explain… it would bind us together for the rest of our lives, not multiple. It wouldn’t mind control you or anything like that, but I would know your location at all times… Uhm, yeah, I think that about sums it up,” Primrose explained.

“So what happens if I were to disobey an order you gave? Would I suddenly be writhing in pain on the floor until I complied?” John pushed.

Primrose looked at John with a mortified expression. “I very much despise ****. I wouldn’t hurt you. I’m not some kind of sadistic creature who wants a toy for their twisted entertainment.”

John began mulling it over and opened his mouth to ask another question. But Primrose spoke again, “John, I’m really doing this for your benefit and this contract is set up so that the only way you could fail would be either **** carelessness on your part or planning on someone else’s. If you think I’m trying to set you up for failure, you could always try and get thirty thousand for tomorrow. I know that soul bound seems like a scary term but it’s an extremely common practice and is practically a legality.”

John huffed. ’I mean, her Observe did say that she wanted to help, and it couldn’t hurt to hear what the specifics would be… right?’

He nodded. “Right… Okay, I’ll at least hear you out. When, where, and what would this job be?”

She hummed. “It will have to be a day where we are both free. I am able to do any day other than Sunday after eight; if you have any preference, let me know. As for the location, we will be using Springfield’s natural barrier. It isn’t perfect because I’m limited to the ingredients I can forage from there, bu-”

John waved his hand to cut Primrose short. “I can make barriers. I could even probably create one using one of the rarer ingredients you have and I should be able to make one that has more useful things in it.”

Primrose nodded. “That would be nice if we could take things out of any random barrier, but unfortunately that’s not how it works. I know you’re new to the Abyss so you might not be aware, but you can’t remove things from a barrier unless it’s a naturally occurring one.”

John opened his inventory and looked at the helmet he’d taken from the dragon barrier. He was about to take it out when he remembered the pheromone thing and decided not to risk having dragons appear. “I have taken things out of random barriers, though. The first barrier I was pulled into I took things from a creature in there, and I was pulled into a barrier not too long ago and I took a helmet from there, I’d bring it out to show proof, but it kind of has something on it that I’m a little concerned about and don’t want to risk it.”

“Are you sure about that? If we used that as part of the deal and you are unable to do what you say, then you’d void the contract…” Primrose reasoned, obviously unsure of John’s words.

“I’m pretty sure but I could test it out tomorrow just to make sure,” John suggested. “We could set a day, time and location for the meeting of the job then either we go to the natural barrier or I make one using a focus provided by you. It would be good to see if using something like a herb would allow me to make an instant dungeon that doesn’t have monsters and stuff attacking us.”

One of Primrose’s fluffy ears twitched. “Wait, what? Are you saying that you can make barriers with creatures inside?” she inquired.

“Yeah, I’ve only really made one barrier the normal way, but there were mushroom zombie rats, and boars, and bears, and a giant mushroom that…” John paused, feeling guilt hit his stomach.

“That sounds like a good idea to me though, especially if John can actually be of help, that should make the contract more balanced, right?” Ellie interjected. She quickly wrapped her arms around John comforting him. John smiled and kissed her cheek.

The danuki girl nodded. “Uh, yeah… Sure, that sounds good. Since there isn’t much in the way of landmarks out there, we should meet at the bus stop on the edge of town, and from there we will decide if we walk to the natural barrier or if you can set up a special barrier with your weird late bloomer magic, that somehow allows you to not only have creatures inside the barrier but also the ability to take things out of the barriers… Do you have a day, in particular, that is best for you? Other than Sundays of course. I can close shop early if I need to but it would be good to do it sometime after eight so I wouldn’t have to do that, though I understand if that’s a little late.”

John scratched his head. “I think to make sure I definitely won’t be late, it would be best to have it be on Saturday, could we make it at half eleven? I know that is in the middle of the day and I get if you can’t, I just think it’d be the best bet I’d have. I’d get up, spend a little time with my mom in the morning then get to the bus stop like half an hour to an hour early just to make sure I’d definitely be there.”

“That should be fine.” Primrose nodded. “Since it’s so far in advance, I can post a note on the door saying that I’ll be closed from half ten until four. So, I know we have repeated this a few times now, but it’s better to run through it so that neither of us is confused. In exchange for both fines waived from the previous contract, you will meet me this Saturday at half-past eleven AM at the Old Spring Forest bus stop. From there we will either go to Springfield’s natural barrier or you will create a barrier. In either case, you will help me forage for ingredients that I can stock up on, until three o’clock PM. Breaking the contract in any way will result in you, John Newman, willingly submitting yourself and being soul bound to me, Primrose Robertson.”

John still felt a little uneasy, but didn’t see any other option or some way for him to actually fuck it up. “That sounds fine to me, Ellie?” John asked, looking down at the girl still clinging to him.

Ellie took a breath. “I’m really not happy with it. What if you got attacked and pulled into a barrier that stops you from getting there? Or what if you overslept? It still seems kind of risky to me…”

John nodded. “I literally need to get from my house to the bus stop which is at the end of my street. And then I’ll be using my abilities to get to the other bus stop. My powers also don’t exactly make it so I can oversleep, but just in case I will ask my mom to wake me up and have you call me. I’ll make sure to be up by like seven-thirty, which gives me four hours. Even if my powers somehow don’t work for getting there, I’d still have time to ride the bus and still be early.

His girlfriend still looked unsure. “If you are completely sure, then I’ll trust you. But if I call you and you don’t answer, I don’t give a damn if you aren’t ready for me to meet your mom, I’ll find you and drag you out there myself.”

John laughed. “Yeah, I’m more than sure you would. Okay, Prim, I think I can agree to those terms.”

Primrose nodded. Pulling out a small knife, she cut across her palm before holding the knife out to John, handle first.

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