Onyxia

Onyxia wasn’t hard to find; she was in the magic items Ziggurat. Erich, as the only person who’s property persisted here when he transitioned between tests, had set up shops here long ago.

He had a staff of a hundred lesser souls, like the barmaids; people who had very little ability to learn or grow, but could pretend to be real people pretty easily. Of course, the stock tended to be a bit anemic. Erich’s dolls would happily trade anything that seemed to be of officially equivalent value, but in practice that meant that the things that were on the shelves tended to slowly **** in true value as the things anyone wanted flew off the shelves in return for things that they didn’t.

The shops were, functionally, overpriced and had shit stock. They were full of weird curios and treasure that had no actual use beyond being sold or displayed.

The **** market in particular tended to be absolutely filled with the most annoying, useless, unpleasant people imaginable. After all, who would trade away someone worth keeping around in return for subpar stock? People pack bonded with sentient individuals pretty damn quickly, assuming they brought anything to the table.

Occasionally someone with a particularly invasive binding or passion for mad science would purchase and “renovate” a few hundred people into something of greater quality, whether that meant cute maids or loyal soldiers, before trading them back and repeating the process. It was practically an act of charity, ensuring that those people would move on in one form or another and giving fellow testers better options for purchase. Inevitably, those would be traded out for dregs soon enough and the pattern would continue.

People only went to the Ziggurats when they had limited time, were fine with something commonplace and of mediocre quality, were trying to offload something useless, or had a passion for thrift shops. Gil wasn’t sure which one the former dragon was, and her disinterested expression gave him no hints.

The pale black haired woman with dark eyes was an incredibly common archetype, so Onyxia didn’t often have trouble finding ways to look broadly like herself. Or, as she put it, choosing an appropriate visage. As a result, when Gil approached her he saw a series of small transformations that were too small to really feel like proper shifts; ironically that made it far more disconcerting, as her skin and hair seemed to writhe madly.

Her current body was that of an elven woman in a deep purple dress. It was a strangely assembled garment, with segmented skirts showing armored legs and a heavily reinforced corset holding her breasts. As always, she was pale, with dark eyes and hair. She only briefly examined Gil before looking away, assuming him to be irrelevant.

https://postimg.cc/RN5gMjmj

“Excuse me.” He said, an edge of annoyance in his voice. “I’m told you are in the market for magical gems that allow the use of magic.”

“Ah,” Onyxia said, turning her eyes upon him. “I see. Do you have such a thing?”

He held up his own bracer, only recently embedded with restoration and thunder materia.

“A mutual friend thought we might be able to do business.” Gil said, his voice slightly colder than he intended. “I’ve got these, you’ve possibly got something I want. We could make a deal.”

“Slaves?” She asked, all business. “I’ve little else of particular value, at least which I can spare.”

“Depends,” Gil said, “Are they willing and able to fight?”

“That, at least, I can promise.” Onyxia answered. “My binding is a light touch, but any who agree to join my forces are from then on obliged to fight on my behalf and can not betray me except in very petty ways.”

“Oh? War binding, I assume?” Gil asked politely. “So they’re loyal troops? Could you transfer that to me?”

Bindings made **** trades far more complicated. Slaves who were brainwashed into servitude could have their conditioning reoriented to their new owner quite easily, whatever it may be. Terra the Wolf, for example, would find it quite impossible to harm Kevin and he in turn would be able to kill her with a thought. Whether or not that kill switch would come with a free Gacha roll as it did for Gil would be up to his GM.

“I believe so. It is an easy to apply binding but limited in other ways. Specifically, I can only hold a limited number of troops based on their supposed value.” She said, “They must agree to serve under my command to become compelled, but nearly any creature I am aware of that is intelligent enough to consent may be recruited if they accept.”

“Do any of them say no?” Gil asked.

“Many, yes, but I have uses for those as well.” She said, her lips forming a humorless smile, “With each sacrifice to Khaine I am granted a marginally larger pool of points that I can use to recruit.”

“Huh. Even one credit value per kill would end up with a pretty massive budget very quickly in a system like that.” Gil said, skeptical.

“No, it’s not their shop value. It’s more granular; every type of combatant I can employ is given its own point value starting with 5 for an unarmed ****. I need to kill five of the slaves to be able to fit one more into my entourage, so I’m very free with the knife. Quite a few of my countrymen are very impressed with my faithfulness.” Onyxia said, rolling her eyes. “Even arming or training them makes them retroactively more expensive, and I can’t recruit if I’m over budget. I’ve already allocated a few points for a scribe to keep track of the numbers for me.”

The two chatted amicably while Gil set out the complete set of four materia and the Four Slots bangle. Onyxia, in turn, handed him a set of dossiers on the slaves she was willing to part with. They took the form of floating translucent squares covered in text. Rose watched, interested but largely out of her depth.

“So, you want these for personal use, then?” Gil asked, “It doesn’t sound like a test where they really want you to be investing in your troops much. What with the inflated point cost and all.”

“For some mad reason, even I count against my own budget. I will likely invest more once I can start recruiting individuals who have their own men. Points of failure can not be treated as disposable, after all.” Onyxia said, “I haven’t tested it sufficiently, but I believe the key to victory will be a pyramid scheme, with my resources allocated towards controlling heads of state and the like who can then exert power on my behalf. No doubt Nefarian will be doing something similar.”

“Oh, your…” Gil trailed off.

“Sister last I checked, but I haven’t seen them since finding out they would be among my opponents for this test.” Onyxia said, “I believe there are five or six of us, scattered across as many regions. It’s a large world.”

“Ah, so you’ll all be empire building until it’s time to start crashing into one another.” Gil said, “Neat. Not really my preference, but it sounds like something someone would pay for.”

Gil looked indifferently over the small bundle of slaves Onyxia was willing to part with. He quickly noted that most of them appeared to be kidnapped war prisoners, with actual values listed in terms of gold and silver. He sorted low, which quickly eliminated all of the human tribesmen and peasants from consideration. He wanted quantity and a willingness to fight; quality was something he could pick up for himself in the field.

He settled upon a group of four goblins, each of which were marked as being a bit dim. The only other slaves with prices so low were rat men that supposedly had a tendency to cut and run when pressed, despite the binding. All Gil needed was a group that could loosely hold a line if provided with gear, so the rats were pushed to the back of the queue.

Unfortunately, four goblin slaves were collectively worth slightly too much for him to buy with the Materia alone, though it seemed obvious that Onyxia saw them as little more than easily replaced chaff. He experimentally added I am a Dragon, you are now Asian. It was marked as being worth slightly less than a piece of Materia. He’d be getting ripped off if he gave it to Onyxia, but it would work.

“What is that and why does it have such a ridiculous name?” Onyxia demanded, seeing the item in question listed.

“I don’t know about the name. Probably a reference or something.” Gil said, “As for what it does? Instant infiltration into a group you’d otherwise be rejected by based on your own characteristics. I mostly wanted a price check.”

“Ah.” She said thoughtfully, “Why do you want chaff?”

“I have the ability to sell retinue members for random resources, including entire bindings and consumables. It even works if they are dead.” Gil explained casually. “If I can sell these guys, I’ll probably make back as much as I could have made off of the materia elsewhere, possibly more. That, and I’m about to get into a handful of fights and I’d like some arrow catchers. I’ll get some use either way.”

“That is quite interesting.” Onyxia nearly purred. “Did you get that item in this manner, or was it a quest reward or the like?”

“The latter, though I’ve gotten similar things from selling.” Gil said, growing cautious. “Did you have a thought?”

“I believe I’ll someday have a use for something like that item.” She said, “There are other elves in this world, ones which hate my variety. Indeed, most species seem rather antagonistic towards the Druchii. If something ever happens to sour my place in Naggaroth, it would pay to have the ability to walk into a human city or the like and be accepted. I’m willing to provide an additional goblin for such assurances, and a promise that you will not trade with my rivals.”

Gil scratched his chin; it seemed like a bad idea to cut off several other markets for a single gacha, but he didn’t want to overly offend Onyxia. Time to shift blame by turning this into a teaching moment.

“Rose, what do you think?” He said, turning to her. “Is one additional meat shield an appropriate exchange for this item?”

“That depends on the quality of the soldier and the need you face.” She said, a question in her voice. “If you intend to simply sell them immediately, no. It doesn’t seem reasonable. If you need a troupe of warriors, then it may work, I suppose. It still seems like a poor exchange unless she has more to offer, and if I understand correctly she literally cannot offer more because of this strange law of fair trading.”

Onyxia gave Rose a sour look, and Gil gave the elven woman a questioning one. She sighed.

“Very well.” She grumbled. “I have nothing more to offer, save promises. Would you like to take the four, and in return you will first seek me out whenever you come here? I assume you will be here again, and when you arrive I want the first view of your wares.”

“Fine, I can give you first look, but don’t expect special prices just for you unless you’re really nice for me.” Gil said, “If you don’t have anything I need, I won’t be selling you anything. Simple as that.”

Such a flimsy promise was not considered very valuable, so Gil had to also toss in a pair of the diamond earrings he’d gotten from Kevin to push his offer’s appraisal up to 80% of hers. With that, he could afford the four goblins, which he marked for delivery back to the skyblock. Onyxia was giving him as good a deal as was allowed, and he thanked her appropriately with a bow. She was old fashioned like that.

“I have limited time here; I should not waste it, now that I have the edge I was looking for.” Onyxia said, checking her nails. “I shall see you again soon, with any luck. I’d be happy to repeat an exchange such as this.”

The elven woman flickered and vanished. Rose turned to look at Gil.

“Limited time?” She asked, “Do you have similar limitations?”

“Yep, and I’m thinking we should head out soon too.” He said, “Come along, let’s see if the **** market has anything good. We have a few more things to discuss before we leave anyway.”

••••••••••

And one of those subjects of discussion is Rose’s new tag. What the tag is has already been determined; so, what will it do?

https://strawpoll.com/GJn44aGQ3nz