Sekhmet jumped into the hay, twisting in midair to land on their back, using their cloak as a blanket. Groaning, Ace followed suit - before getting up again, scratching dry grass out of her tail and hair.

I laid down a bedroll and handed Ace the one from her pack, before allowing myself to flop onto my makeshift bed in the hayloft.

We were in a farmhouse, outside the city walls of Viacrux proper.  The local manor lord put us up in exchange for driving off the monsters infesting his vineyards; giant rats and animate slimes and other trash mobs.  

Trying not to ask him if he was also wanting five moose asses was the hardest part of the job. 

As Ace undid her plate mail bustier, she muttered, "If I'd have known that Truck-Kun was going to make a metaphorical pitstop through my wall I'd have worn something more sensible. Fuck, I think I'm getting blisters."

Sekhmet said nothing at all of this, staring up at the ceiling with her eyes reflecting the lantern-light. Tossing her coin purse, hearing it jingle.

I sighed.

"I can help you with the pain, at least, Ace," I say - rubbing my hands, letting them glow.

Distantly, Sekhmet added a mumbled, "Got potions, if you're shy or ticklish. And the stuff to brew more. And yeah, suddenly knowing how to brew is weird as hell."

"I'll take the televangelist slap for now," Ace mumbled. "If I'm still hurting in the morning I'll take whatever you brew."

Sekhmet nodded but said nothing while I made my way to Ace.

Which wasn't much like them. No jokes, no chatter, nothing.

"Just chafing, and some scratches from the crabs and rough seas earlier," I diagnose, laying my palm down flat on her back before tracing patterns in her skin with my fingertips. 

A very tactile form of healing magic that had came way too naturally to me, by way of Deedee Yeowoo, Cleric of Sylphan.  My avatar on Mundus - and now that we were on Mundus, my body.

Ace grunted. "Stings like hell for a second," she said.

"Yeah, it'll do that," I said. "Hikaru seems pretty sure this accelerates natural healing, which is why you got the munchies last time I did this."

Sekhmet still had nothing to say, and was still tossing their purse up into the air and catching it one handed. Staring at it.

It was beginning to get unnerving.

"Sekh?" I say.

"I'm here," she said. "I'm thinkin'."

The coin purse hung for a second in the air before smacking back into her clawed, furry paw, the gold in it clinking heavily.

I kept ministering to Ace, she kept trying to muffle her grunts of relief, and Sekhmet kept tossing their purse into the air.

When I finish, I pat Ace on the shoulder. 

She's the one to ask Sekhmet: 

"Thinking? What about?"

Sekhmet frowned at the purse, which she hadn't stopped looking at the whole time, before sighing.

"Hey Deeds," they said. "Catch."

They flung it to me, underhand, with all of the grace and accuracy that one might expect from an Adventuring rogue; a character that used throwing knives and potion bombs as weapons, using evasion rather than armor as defense.

While my athletic streak in civilian life ended after high school, and while Deedee is much stronger than I ever was, she wasn't much more nimble; I catch the purse against my stomach, barely, it's impact knocking the wind out of me.

"What the fuck, that could have beaned me!" Ace shouted.

"And this thing could have caused a lot of damage," I say, holding the purse up to my eyes. "Thing's heavy."

"Thing's heavy," Sekhmet echoed. "Yeah. Sold the crab and shells and pearl and perfume and fruit from the things we killed in self defense. You never know when someone will want five moose asses here. Thank me later."

Ace sat up, considering this.

Then she frowned. "Wait a second," she said. "Are you saying that we had enough money for an inn with like, proper beds and a bath this whole time and you held out on us?"

"Maybe?  I don't know?" Sekhmet sighs, sitting up. 

"Because you're used to dollar bills," I realize out loud.  "You're not used to working in crowns, rooks, and sheaves."

Sekhmet taps their fingers together, then sighs. "My gut says this'll be enough to get us proper weapons and armor -" they looked Ace in the eyes; their eyes then dip down to Ace's bare midriff that I had just treated "- and other equipment, and food, and then some." 

"You don't trust the 'and then some?'" I murmured.

Sekh nodded.

"We aren't getting luxuries till we get necessities, dig?" they say.

"And proper sleep so we don't get 'experience penalties -'" Ace tried to mimic the cadence and depth of Hikaru's voice; it wasn't very funny. "- that's not a necessity?"

"Wanna see what not having the Nourished buff looks like on this side of the screen?" Sekhmet growled. "You were the one complaining about the All-Crab diet earlier."

"Both of you are at an 11," I say, voice deliberately soft.  It's strange hearing a voice that high coming from my throat. "Let's get back down to like a 4 or 5. We all need to cool down."

Ace grunted and rolled her eyes, ears still flat, but leaned back. I press down on her shoulders, and she grunts, and tries to roll them under my palms. 

Sekhmet kept looking at the ceiling, breathing steadily, not saying anything.

"We're not getting into Viacruz tonight anyway, but we should try to scrape the Guilders together to get rooms tomorrow," I say in my very best I Am The Healer, I Decide Who Lives And Who Dies voice. "If we get enough to rent by the month, all the better; that's probably cheaper too."

"I've done the resident hotel thing before," Sekh said, trying their best to say it softly, still looking up at the shingled roof of an unfamiliar ceiling. "Not keen to repeat it. Really not keen on paying for meals we're not eating, or expensive ones. But we can shop around."

I murmur agreement.  Ace's ears slowly creep up the side of her head, to point at Sekhmet. 

I lift my hands up from Ace's body to massage my own palms - laying on hands constantly was a strain on my grip - when Ace spoke up.

"Okay, what's going on? You look really out of it, Sekhmet. Like you're astral projecting and the map back to your body is upside down."

"Wouldn't be the first time," Sekh muttered, and Ace's ugly barked laugh was more tension and recognition than humor. 

Sekh rolled their neck.  "I'm thinkin," they say. "Thinkin' real hard, now that I'm not spending the brainpower on not dying."

I take a few deep breaths, trying to recenter. "Are you alright? Do you need me to patch you up, too, or something to eat? I do have some rations..."

Sekh waves me off.  "The landlords gave me some rolls for chasing those slimes out of the squapevines, it ain't that," they say.

"Then what's eating you?" I press. 

From living with Sekhmet - with her player, Jules, my IRL roommate - I knew she could be stubborn about discussing their problems; if we were working together, here, that just made it more important to hear them.

Sekhmet sighed.

"That's more money in my hand than I've ever had in my bank account," they said.  "Ever."

Ace and I make the exact same soft "oh" at the same time, before looking at each other, and back at her. 

I hold up a hand to cut off Ace before she demands answers. Sekh had just told us they were gathering their thoughts, and I didn't want to scatter those thoughts prematurely.

"Going by how much meals cost, how much pots cost, inns and shit, I think that's easily three months expenses worth and then some," Sekh said.

I blink. "Even given our shithole apartment... that's a small purse."

"That's cause they're mostly in Crowns.  Solid gold Guilder coins." Sekhmet stares at the claws on the end of her - their - hands. "They aren't JRPG Fun Dollars; Sheaves are JRPG Funbux, the crappy coppers with the wheat pattern on the tail.  But each gold coin spends like a Benjamin."

I look in Sekhmet's purse, still resting on my lap.  There were about fifty, maybe sixty gold coins in there, as well as small change in silver and copper.

Rent for our IRL rathole near the seawall was around $950 back home, expenses a little more than twice that.

"...and proper weapons and armor?" I ask, voice small.

"Most expensive will be kitting up Leesh and Ace head to toe in steel, which is going to be maybe a third of that total. Afterwards, it drops off but there are five of us; I figure when we're done we got eight G left, maybe six if they squeeze us. Food's gotten expensive since half a million idiots dropped into Viacrux town, and food is a thing we don't want to run out of, so."

Ace rubbed the part of her midriff where her steel skirt dug into her. "Good call on saving up for real armor," she said, uncharacteristically meek.

"Our day job here is probably going to be murder," Sekhmet said, shrugging. "Selling swords. We're going to want good ones and to keep them sharp."

"And we picked this from the Shores of Fucking Awakening, without knowing what we were doing," I said.

Sekhmet took a single, sharp breath at that. "Yeah," they said. "That's one day's work. It's insane."

"Christ, I'm not sure Hikaru makes that much IRL," I say. "And his company gets work from, like, car companies and aerospace. I he snuck his signature onto a heat shield for one of the Miles Sterling Mars probes."

"Wait, Hikaru is rich IRL?" Ace said.

"Loaded," I reply.

"That explains a lot," she mutters.

Sekhmet grit her teeth. "He still works for a living. That's not rich. Richer than us, sure."

"We're getting sidetracked," I murmur. "And we're going to need a good night's sleep before we deal with all of this. Lets... let's sleep, and handle the shopping, and see about another job. See what it earns us."

"Yeah," Sekhmet said. "Because I can't assume this is an average day. None of us can afford to."