Startup 49a: Budget Concerns

I sat in my cabin with Filli, speaking aloud while I worked. She leaned against the wooden wall, holding a clipboard and parchment. Her penmanship was awful, but Autopilot could read it without difficulty and she was improving quickly. Taking dictation would keep her out of the way for a while without making her feel useless, and even bad notes would be better than nothing. Things would be easier if I could use my own hands, but Autopilot was using them for enchanting.

The situation with Vishgurv was stressing me out, but nothing workable immediately sprang to mind. Everything I could think of to contain the newly forming cult involved investing substantial resources into confining Lubo and her disciples, at minimum. It wasn’t in the budget, not if I had to handle it myself. I needed to focus on something else for a while.

“Okay Filli, are you ready?” I asked.

I looked up at her just long enough to see an affirmative sign.

“I’m working on a deadline. Thirty thousand by Neth twelfth.” I said aloud, enunciating. “That’s in sixty five days.”

I waited for the scratching of her pen to stop before continuing.

“Between the various expenses we’ve paid for and the payments Yael is planning on providing, I’ve got about 11,300 gold I can put towards my debt.” I said, “If I knock that down to sixty to make the math easier and give myself a little breathing room that’s… around three hundred twenty per day?”

“It costs one thousand to put the basic enchantments on a set of armor or a weapon, plus the cost of the masterwork weapon itself.”

Alright, so that means the absolute minimum I could sell a basic magic weapon or piece of armor for is 1350 per day of work. That’s if I’ve got absolutely nothing better to do, and the numbers get worse every day. Market value is around 2000, so I can undercut the market a little bit, but since they are expensive, durable goods, I’m competing with the secondhand market. Hell, I’m mostly competing with the secondhand market.

Acquiring masterwork equipment via evil outsiders would also pay quite well, if I could only find enough buyers. Syl had worked out a method for rendering down the Abyssal Quintessence, though it would be a slow and unpleasant process taking up much of her time. Unfortunately, Schir still seemed like the best option I had. Of the sufficiently awful outsiders I could now summon that had signature, always-masterwork weapons, I’d added two that were somehow even more niche and specialized than a halberd.

Frosty Chiselers, a kind of fey that would freeze people alive and turn them into abstract art, used war picks as their main weapons. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a market for dedicated anti-armor weaponry in the Shackles. Thoxels, demonic incarnations of insubordination and betrayal, were even worse; they universally went into battle with masterwork double-bladed swords.

Who the hell really uses double bladed swords? No one. Darth Maul could get away with it because he was a fictional character with psychic powers. Of course, I say this as a dark elf pirate with ice magic, but somehow the two-bladed sword still feels too impractical to take seriously.

The most annoying were the minor oni, the Kuwa and Ja Noi, who almost always walked around in masterwork armor as well as carrying around fancy masterwork clubs. The Ja Noi’s leather armor in particular would probably sell very well, if enchanted to be waterproof, since it was light enough to swim in without much trouble.

Oni were hedonistic assholes who, as a rule, sought out positions of authority specifically so they could embezzle money and **** their positions of power through petty cruelty and ****. I could happily kill them off by the dozens and not even feel bad. The only problem was that they were native outsiders; Knowledge: (Planes) still told me about them, but I couldn’t summon them because they weren’t extraplanar creatures. I taught Filli all sorts of swear words in common when I realized that.

“So, what else could I plausibly make?” I mused, “I do also have the craft construct feat. So, is there anything else marketable?”

Filli grunted at me. “I don’t know, you tell me. It seems like a waste of paper if you don’t.” (Sense Motive 20 + 10 =30. Critical Success)

Her voice, translated by my Sense Motive check, was surprisingly gentle and quiet despite the sarcasm. Not for the first time I wondered who she could have been if she hadn’t been dragged away by House L’Rath.

“Alright, well, the easiest one is a poppet.” I said, “small animated dolls that can follow verbal orders. I… don’t actually know if I can do the other ones in good conscience. The magic paintings are sapient, and they’d only do what I told them because they see me as their creator. At best they could be sold kinda like a pet; only to a good home. Pact poltergeists seem really damn dangerous to try to make for anyone but Cave Mother right now, since they are literally possessed by a preexisting spirit I have zero control over.”

Filli knocked on the wall, so I looked up.

“Big fish pay?” She signed.

“I doubt it.” I said, “I don’t know if I want to get involved with anyone willing and able to burn several thousand gold pieces on an idol of Vishgurv. Maybe I’d do it pro-bono if it got him off Sosima’s back, but that’s a pretty big expense on top of everything else.”

That’s what it all came down to. There were tons of awesome things I could potentially build, especially if I could find a really good painter, but nothing likely to pay for itself in less than a year. Filli dutifully wrote down my musings to the best of her abilities, but most of it was more for Syl’s eyes than my own. She’d want to know what we were working with.

After crafting, the reasonable and practical option, came the possibility of jackpots. Selling off the mirror, taking Kelizar’s horde, and successfully tracking down the treasure of Jemma Redclaw were all possibilities worth pursuing, but none of them were cleanly defined enough to be worth budgeting around. I wasn’t even sure if I could take an adult dragon in a fair fight, and Yael didn’t seem enthusiastic about the price quote I gave her for the mirror. Even Varossa’s intel might be sketchy, assuming I could trust her in the first place.

That brought me to the far more reliable jackpot Gobron had donated to me. It was kitted out with goblintech, most notably an electrified underwater turbine. Not only could it push a ship forward without any wind, it also fired off random arcs of electricity at anything that got too close to the ship’s hull. That was almost certainly bad for the local ecosystem, but it served as a potent defense against wreckers and could theoretically give us some moderately burnt fish to eat. The desire to not be fried was one of two reasons my disciples of Vishgurv hadn’t just poked a few holes in the bottom of the ship. The other reason was economic.

Well made ships were, unsurprisingly, a pretty big deal in the Shackles. A good vessel was a work space, living arrangement, transportation, weapon, and status symbol all rolled into one. Deliberately setting out to destroy one instead of claiming it for oneself was almost unheard of, just because of how expensive they were. Gobron’s Ship wasn’t even particularly valuable, but it could still sell for 15,000 to the right buyer, in no small part due to its tech enhancements.

Of course, those same enhancements would make the ship an absolute bitch to sell. Any prospective buyer would need access to a goblin engineer if they wanted the turbine to keep working, and it would be worse than useless if it jammed. Explosions were completely plausible. Further, the ship was built for small folk. I needed to crouch to walk through the “spacious” 5 foot high hallways and cabins within. Between the niche nature of the ship and the fact that Nendra would eventually arrive to ruin my day, I suspected that I’d need to sell it for cheap unless I wanted to station a dedicated team to look for a perfect buyer.

The reminder of exactly how much I could get by flipping ships made it extremely tempting to drop everything and just do that. Given the amount of effort involved, taking ships was plausibly more profitable than land development. Of course, I wouldn’t be the only person with that plan, nor would I be the strongest.

It’s a saturated and heavily regulated market, which feels weird to say about large scale robbery, but still true. I’m not formally part of anyone’s fleet, so if I take someone’s ship without justification I’m going to be picking a fight with a big player. Very few people are dumb enough to sail these waters without flags, and they get snatched up quickly if they are anywhere with a lot of traffic. If Tessa Fairwind was at war with someone I might be able to swing a privateer gig, but she’s apparently more of a backroom deal sort of lady.

Gobron had flags issued by Jolis Raffles, the pirate lord of Rosie’s home island of Bag Island and by all accounts a decent guy. I had a pretty ironclad self defense case, but if I didn’t I would have a bounty on my head once Gobron could file a report. If nothing else, resale at market value would be nearly impossible if the biggest settlement of smallfolk in the Shackles considered Gobron’s Ship to be stolen goods.

It’s looking like I’ll be able to get the extension pretty easily; I think I’ll hold off on declaring war against established players until I’m a little bit more ****.

Financially, I was in better shape than I expected. I could probably pay Dovnu off without too much trouble assuming I could liquidate all my assets. The fact that those assets included a dozen goblin prisoners of war was more than a little bit gross, but combined they were probably worth somewhere between 150 and 300 gold.

I could get more if I were more ruthless or marketed them a little more, but I mostly just want to get them off my ship while recouping my expenses.

I felt comfortable enough with the budget that I swapped over to the itinerary. My mission log wasn’t too relevant while I was pinned down in Heslandaena, since I didn’t have much freedom of movement and I was focused on just a few missions, but it seemed like a good idea to go over everything.

“Alright, write these down.” I said to Filli, “I’ll go over everything in my log and everything I can remember. It would be good to have an actual list to reference.”

I’ll be at 40 out of 45 exp if this plan for Kelizar works. I can probably make it to level 7 before whatever bullshit my menu is leading me towards happens, and I might manage 56 exp for level 8 if I can do everything.

••••••••••

After a few days of updates and shuffles, the quest log was complete. Presented here for clarity.

Known quantities- potentially dangerous, but at least I know approximately what I’m supposed to do.

Put to rest the spirit haunting the Saber’s Kiss.

1 exp, Companion Talent

Acquire the parts of the Three Reasons To Live.

Rewards: 1 exp, Minor boon

2 exp, minor Divine boon

3 exp, Companion boon, Combat boon

Varossa has confirmed this is the name of the “key” she’s looking for. I probably need to do this anyway if I’m going to do this next mission.

Acquire the treasure of Jemma Redclaw

2 exp, Jemma’s Claw

The chances of this going off without a hitch are basically nil, but hidden piles of treasure are great for zeroing out debts as well as branding. One of the few missions with a specific reward laid out; I wonder what Jemma’s Claw is?

Mundane- low risk, generally low value. I can do them whenever I get a chance.

Win a drinking competition with stakes worth at least 50 gp.

1 exp, Minor Boon

I’m not exactly a big guy but I can probably hustle someone if I try very hard.

Become well known in 5 different major port towns (2/5 Goatshead, Heslandaena)

1 exp, Renown

I mean I probably should be marketing myself more anyway, yeah. This should happen organically.

Personally meet a member of the pirate high council.

Reward: 1 exp, Neckcloth of Alluring Charisma (+2)

Makes all of my magic slightly better while doing something I’d probably try to do anyway. Seems obvious.

Threats

Neutralize Hyrix Snowfeather

2 exp, Companion Boon

Enemy of Varossa; presumably blames her for Warvil’s ****. True? Should probably talk to him if I can.

Unknown

Become a member of the Wavestrider Tribe.

Reward: 1 exp, Wavestrider Crest

I have no idea who the hell these people are but based on the 1 exp reward they are probably pretty chill.

3 unknown

probably region or time locked, like when I got the mission to save everyone kidnapped by grindylows. Might give me 5 seconds of prep time if I’m lucky but otherwise irrelevant beyond adding wrinkles.