3.09

“You call me insane as if it were an insult.” - Madelyn, then moniker: The Conqueror to Chancellor Chekov after successfully subjugating the Western Empire.

 

Clean up was finished shortly after. All I had to do was pick off a few more bugs, kill them, then throw them in a path directed straight to the spores. Repeat a few times for all the nearest pillars, then the cascading effect of all the corpses did the job for me.

 

I did confirm that the pheromone stuck to vertical surfaces as well as horizontal. It ended exactly ten centimeters away from the surface. What a weird world.

 

Yellow and Green were still on the top of my cap, dutifully keeping a lookout no matter how cavalier I appeared to be. In truth I wasn’t completely relaxed either, normally by this time, the area boss would be spawning right… about now.

 

…

 

…

 

Now?

 

…

 

… 

 

How about now?

 

I glanced around, “No? Nothing?” Granted the bugs were still trying to swarm onto my old body, which has grown into an impressive mound of corpses, so the sound might be drowned out-

 

Greenie tugged my cap and I glanced towards where it was pointing, a large insect corpse, at least thrice larger than the normal ones that have been charging headlong past me, still stuck on the ceiling and its body pulsating as it’s shell seemed to try, and fail, to restrain something inside.

 

I quickly assessed the range. Out of my casting range. So, with a running start, I threw Greenie at it before whatever was inside hatched.

 

I probably should’ve warned Greenie before I did that, judging by the wail of surprise and Yellow’s cheering whistle, but if there was one thing any gamer of anything could tell you was that anyone who didn’t at least try to cheese a boss, especially during a power-up phase when it was doing nothing, did not have a functional frontal lobe. The only viable excuse was when the Devs literally locked you from doing anything.

 

“Try to catch on to it!” I yelled toward Greenie, still flailing in the air, “Then explode everything!”

 

Greenie had five charges of Poison Spores if I remembered correctly, so they should work pretty well as a Smart Grenade. Did I explain to him properly to use all five at once?

 

“I GOT IT!” Greenie yelled as it grappled onto the rough ridges of the pulsating insect.

 

“Should we help?” Yellow asked from the top of my head.

 

“Probably,” I answered as I kept walking forward, “Greenie! Make sure to use all five charges!”

 

Greenie gave me the thumbs up, almost losing its handhold in the process. It hurriedly regained balance, before five poofs of green spores came out in succession.

 

I quickly got underneath them, looking up at the spore cloud. Soon after, Greenie lost its grip and fell down, falling past my outstretched hands and landing straight on my face, it’s head halfway through my eyehole. Yellow jumped down from the edge of my cap, picking their fellow wisp up, “Wake up!” it said as it slapped Greenie.

 

“Ugghhh…” Greenie tiredly groaned, “Ten more hours…”

 

They are just getting more like me huh?

 

Yellow planted Greenie on the top of my cap and I felt small tendrils coming out of my body, meeting Greenie’s own tendrils and increasing the drain on my mana slightly. After making sure Greenie was fine, Yellow resumed keep track of the area

 

The insect thing had ceased moving, probably dead. My vision moved past it, scanning the rest of the ceiling. There were plenty of smaller bugs that were still swaying, but none as large as this one. Was this not a swarm type boss?

 

I raised my staff and nudged the insect out of its death grasp. Stepping back as it fell to the floor with a thud. It didn’t make any sort of squelch noise, I noted. I poked it with my foot. Solid, no feeling of empty space.

 

“Keep watch,” I instructed as I knelt down.

 

Taking out my knife, I pried off its shell, revealing a slimy, fly like thing. Using my knife, I slowly turned it around. Needle-like mouth, no, wasp-like is more accurate. Larger than a football. No legs of any kind. White shell which began to harden and turn black as soon as it was exposed to air. Two pairs of insectoid wings.

 

Having no legs is odd, it’s bottom side didn’t appear like it was made to land either. A short lifetime adult stage that exists purely for laying? Was maggot the right term for the base forms of this anymore? It looked a lot closer to a wasp than a fly. How did an insect this large even survive- No, large insectoids can exist, have existed in fact, there might be a higher concentration of oxygen in this world or this might be another magic deus ex machina screw physics sort of thing.

 

If it’s a singular boss, then it’s probably very powerful or has a wildly different set of skills compared to the horde. Enough to pose a challenge to anyone capable of clearing out this room or to counter a build that was able to cheese this area.

 

‘Or am I just thinking too much in game terms?’ I wondered.

 

Yellow was tugging the backside of my cap and I turned around. One of the bugs was on my leg, I quickly Poison Spored it and kicked it off, but a white maggot stuck on. I pulled it off to examined. Not sure what I was looking for, but it looked closer to a large naked caterpillar rather than a maggot. A grub?

 

It was then I realised that I was hungry.

 

The dead maggot fit well within my hand. About the size of a small cucumber. I couldn’t deny that I was curious. A bunch of people have taken up an insectivore lifestyle, especially when most traditional meats cost as much as they did, but am I curious enough to stoop this low?

 

Now that I think about it, it’s perfectly normal to eat stuff like lobsters and prawns right? Those were basically sea bugs, right? These things also tried to eat me, didn’t it? Isn’t it right to repay an eye for an eye?

 

Yellow was looking away, Greenie was still asleep. As far as I was aware, no else was here. So I decided that between trying and not trying, it was better to try. Especially since no one other than me would know.

 

Taking one last look to make sure neither of the wisps was looking, I ate the maggot.

 

Huh.

 

It wasn’t too bad.

 

A lot like a fatty steak actually, soft, meaty and fatty texture but it had a slightly crunchy exterior, it left a warm, sweet aftertaste. Not bad at all, if I ignored the small part of me screaming at me to retch it all out.

 

“Was that there before?” Greenie asked from the top of my head.

 

I looked at where it was pointing, the giant fly, wasp thing. In the scattered shell of its former host, there was a glint of light.

 

“Bit obvious ain’t it,” I muttered as I recognised two gold coins and a spell crystal.

 

I picked up the crystal, Enlarge Insect, fifth- no, fourth level spell. It was harder for me to grasp on as opposed to the Bark Skin crystal. I could learn it, I knew, but it wasn’t meant for my class. I pocketed it for now, then glanced at the gold coins.

 

“How did you two get to Daves again?”

---

I rolled the golden coin between my fingers, cursing as my low dexterity decided to show itself, causing me to fumble and the coin to fall out of fingers. It fell to the ground and began rolling away from me. I followed its path, keeping in mind what the wisps told me.

 

The coin continued to roll until it hit a door. It was a simple door, made of some kind of dark wood, with a plaque that had ‘Daves’ written on it like a logo. 

 

It was not there previously. 

 

As I stepped up to it, I picked up the coin, then pushed the door open, seeing… nothing but space. The background of the room was literally space, it was difficult to make out any hard corners of the room because the background blended together perfectly, like some kind of AR simulation. There was a lot of stuff scattered around, placed in some semblance of order which felt familiar to me.

 

Directly in front, was a counter. Sat at it was an almost identical looking copy of me, except he was wearing a suit and had a monocle over his left eye crevice.

 

I took a step in and paused, would the stuff outside despawn? It clearly reset when I died.

 

“No it wouldn’t, not as long as you still want or are capable of looting it,” Dave said.

 

“Ah, mind-reading,” I said as I fully stepped inside, “I should probably get used to that.”

 

He chuckled, “Welcome, whatever you want or need, you can purchase here.”

 

I examined the store as I neared the counter, Yellow and Greenie doing the same. The place was huge, shelves and various items stretching out until they left my vision. Anything I can feasibly think of having a use was here, spell crystals, items, consumables… I could’ve spent days listing just the stuff I could see in my immediate vicinity.

 

As I neared the counter, I noticed that ‘Dave’ also had a tiny mushroom wisp thing on his shoulder, though dressed in the same wear as he was.

 

“What is it that you are looking for?” Dave asked with a practiced smile.

 

“A refund,” I said as I fished out a receipt out of pocket.

 

Ignoring the protests of both wisps, I placed it on the counter, “Do you offer them?” I asked.

 

Dave eyed the receipt, “I do for this."

 

The wisps increased their protest. Instead of saying anything, I gently lifted them off my cap and put them on the counter.

 

Then I stuck my hands into my cap, my hands finding many things that I didn’t comment about when they were first placed there.

 

“Miniature chairs, four dinner tables, a sofa, a bookshelf of books, five bean bags, two hot tubs? What do you even need two hot tubs for?” I questioned as I pulled out the two dish sized objects that fit in the palm of my hand. How did they even fit them inside my head? How were they planning to pump water into them?

 

“We need privacy for bathing!” Greenie answered, shaking its tiny fist at me.

 

“You two are both constantly naked,” I pointed out, “what do you need privacy for?”

 

“Oh shit we’re constantly naked,” Yellow realised.

 

I rolled non-existent eyes, “Do not ask me to get you clothes purely so having a bath naked is novel.”

 

Greenie paused in whatever it was trying to say and muttered, “That wouldn’t have been the only reason…”

 

“Would it have been the main one?” I asked.

 

Greenie looked away and whistled.

 

“Whistling does not actually work you know?”

 

“Bleep it,” Greenie cursed- did it just bleep itself? I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.

 

“Look, I’m glad you guys discovered currency, but being such spendthrifts isn’t viable if you aren’t earning the same or more as you spend,” I calmly explained, “you need to figure out the difference between what is necessary and what isn’t.”

 

“Sounds boring,” Yellow muttered.

 

“Yeah!” Greenie squeaked, likely just rallying behind any argument that came it’s way.

 

“Ok fine,” I conceded, “you can sometimes buy stuff you don’t need but want so long as it is within reason, but like I said you need to earn more than you spend, otherwise it’s just unsustainable. To spend money properly is to accurately measure and separate what you want and need.”

 

“What if something falls under want and need?” Dave asked curiously.

 

I glanced at him, “Then it is considered a need, as something you need is more important than what you want.”

 

Dave met my eyes, “Is it really though?”

 

“Yes,” I answered, “and let us not pretend otherwise.”

---

Dave watched the back and forth between Dustin and his wisps as they argued about what was worth keeping and not.

 

“Ok fine, you can keep hammocks,” Dustin exclaimed, throwing his hands up in apparent frustration, to the cheers of the wisps.

 

Dustin was winning the argument, Dave noted. It did not escape his notice that Dustin had gotten all the highest cost items to refund, leaving only low-cost items. Measuring in gold, Dustin had refunded eight to the three the wisps had managed to keep and they were still arguing. It did bleed his heart a little to see him handle those Lissian Hot Tubs, those were made with the White Marble that was famous in the region. He sold them cheaply at material cost because they were too small to be of use to anybody but those tiny things but even at material cost they were worth two gold.

 

Dustin just won something else, which wouldn’t be the impression you got if you looked at him, he was shaking his head in exasperation, despite the fact he managed to bargain away all four dining tables, keeping a tiny magical humidifier. The dining tables may have been miniatures but they were each made mimicking the style of proclaimed artists and architects. Their combined artistic value was worth a lot more than a standard humidifier. Nine to two gold now.

 

After a few more moments in haggling, the score was ten to one, with the arguable losers looking utterly victorious. They managed to keep two bean bags, hammocks, and a humidifier, whereas Dustin managed to get them to agree to refund everything else.

 

It was kind of petty really.

 

“You two just lost out you know?” Dave was surprised when Dustin was the one who said this.

 

Dustin looked at the receipt, his face scrunched for a moment as he did some mental calculations, “Seven… no ten gold worth of stuff refunded and only one kept on your side, you guys lost over ninety percent of crap you had, unless that stuff was vitally important to you then I don’t see this as a win in any way for you.”

 

The formerly cheering faces of the wisps fell as Dustin continued his explanation, “That was literally easier than stealing candy from a kid, both of you got taken in by my carrot and stick approach. It’s fine to appear like you’ve fallen for something, but actually falling for a trick is a problem.”

 

Dustin looked over the pile of furniture and various other knick-knacks they decided to refund, then separated the miniature bookshelf filled with various picture books, along with a few hanging chairs. His brows furrowed slightly, “That's… two golds worth. So three in total for you now.”

 

Dave noted that the wisps had argued a lot over the hanging chairs, though calling them swings would be more accurate, the bookshelf neither wisp expressed particular interest in. Was Dustin encouraging them to read more?

 

Dave chuckled, inciting the confusion of his audience, “I am not disappointed.”

 

Dustin raised his eyebrow. “I was wondering what kind of person got Eve to pass the initial tutorial herself, I’m glad to see he is interesting,” Dave explained.

 

Dustin was probably the best person to have gotten learning familiars. Often, many were content to just let their familiars on their own, treated like an adorable attack dog, loved and considered dangerous, but still just a pet. Dustin actually seemed to consider them people, albeit naive kids in need of education.

 

“She gave me a broken nose,” Dustin said, sounding more than a bit annoyed.

 

“I would like to ask you something,” Dave said, causing Dustin to raise an eyebrow.

 

“I told you, that anything you want or need. You can purchase here,” Dave began.

 

“I wasn’t boasting in any way, literally anything you could possibly Demand is here,” he continued to explain. Letting slip one of his Paths. Demand was extremely useful as a Path, especially for a merchant, to put it simply, if someone wanted something, Dave would know it.

 

“How it works, however, is that I need to buy the thing,” he continued to elaborate. Supply went hand in hand with his other path, it allowed him to obtain anything. These two Paths were simple, however with the depth he managed to cultivate them, they held enough power for Dave to be considered the de-facto God of Commerce in Indiri, even if Ethelinda was muscling into his monopoly.

 

“Over the millennia, I’ve acted as a currency sink for Traveller Coins. I'm far richer than anything in Indiri, alive or dead, but.”

 

Dave paused, looking at Dustin in the eye. “When you stepped in here, no, even when your familiars stepped in here, I had the option to purchase the thing you truly want, your deepest desire and put it on stock, but I could not afford it.”

 

Dustin met his gaze and for a moment Dave saw something. Something he would not have recognised if he wasn’t a myconid at the moment. The cessation of all facial expressions on Dustin’s face. It was if he was no longer staring at a living being, but a clay doll, made in unnerving mockery.

 

Two breaths past in silence.

 

Until it was broken, by a sharp laugh.

 

Like paint being splashed on a wall, humanity returned to Dustin as he laughed at something only he found funny. “Ah! Oh, oh! That dumb thing, tell me, how much did it cost?”

 

Dave simply took out the price tag. A sideways eight, infinity.

 

Dustin laughed harder, to the point of almost keeling over. “Is this some kind of joke by Eve?”

 

“No,” Dave said with absolute certainty. “The system which produces this stuff is completely automated, relying on the greater framework of the world. It created it, then put the price tag deemed appropriate for it.”

 

Dave had sold wondrous artifacts, exchanged resurrections for coins and fulfilled the desires of Gods. Everything can be priced because there was a value to everything, but very few times had he seen something truly priceless. He had seen numbers that had more zeros than could be counted, but infinity was something beyond value.

 

Dave asked his question, “What do you want? What is that deepest desire of yours?” 

 

Dustin slowly stopped laughing and wiped away an imaginary tear, “It’s nothing special, I just want something that lasts forever.”

 

Dave met his gaze. Slowly, he removed his monocle from its position on the eye crevice. Magic Myconids did not see through there, those things were purely cosmetic. Instead, he placed it on an area on his cap and looked at Dustin.

 

The monocle glass turned dark.

 

“Ah,” Dave uttered in realisation, “I see. What a pitiable thing.”

 

“It is, isn’t it?” Dustin agreed.