Rick stayed composed. Although Dale’s continuous opposition irked him a little, he  tried to look at it from the other side as well.

“I’m not asking you to do anything immoral Dale. We are not going to become sell swords, I promise you. Most people will only use the Hired-Help option for gathering exotics or clearing dungeons. That’s what people want.  So, in a way we will be more like postmen” he said trying to reach out to the ex-soldier.

That seemed to sow a few seeds in Dale’s mind, but Rick didn’t want to leave things to chance and added.

“There aren’t many humans left now. If the world wasn’t in tatters already, we have to remember that the alien invasion is yet to come. That’s the real threat for us that we need to prepare for,” he paused and looked at everyone around, “And how can we not help our fellow survivors when we have a chance?”

Nobody said a word as he finished speaking.

“Well, we don’t have much in stock compared to what the others will have. This Hired-Help is useful. What do you say Dale?” Samira said, breaking the awkward silence.

“Fine, as long as I can decide on the details, I can get on board with it,” Dale said with an sigh. “We do need to help others. Using my words against me, low blow Rick.” 

“Sorry,” said Rick with a smile etched on his face, “But what I said was the truth.”

While he said that, Rick knew it was only Dale’s truth. For him the main Hired Help’s main purpose was to mitigate the abysmal amount of inventory the Hero’s Supplier was bound to suffer.

“Okay that’s done. We’ll put the Hired Help option in our list and you’ll make all the artefacts and scrolls, right?” Samira asked.

“I’ll craft them. But crafting the golems and other artefacts take time, sometimes days,” he said, “I might not be able to spend as much time the shop.”

His words were only a half truth, but Rick didn’t have the time to feel sorry on bailing out on the work.

‘I’m going to be stuck with making all the artefacts, I shouldn’t feel bad trying to get a fair deal,’ he thought trying to convince himself. He didn’t want to deceive the only people he could trust in this world, but with just the four of them, it meant they all had to take six-hour shifts every day! Rick didn’t want to bail on the rest, but he had other things that he had so many things to do then spend long stretches on the shop.

“It’s fair. Since you’ll be responsible for stocking the shop, we’ll naturally pick up the slack,” Dale said immediately.

Rick gave the man an apologetic smile. He wasn’t expecting the ex-soldier to be the first one to express his support, but after a moment’s thought it felt natural. Dale was a difficult to deal with, but his upright morality was also an advantage when he was in the right.

“Damn that’s going to be a hassle. We have to find someone to man the shops. Otherwise this is going to hamper our training!” Jay whistled.

“I am trying to get in touch a few of my buddies from the army,” Dale offered. “If you guys like then, we can ask them to join us. They are reliable guys.”

“Sure,” Rick replied.

He wasn’t interested in letting others join their team out of the blue, but even he agreed it was impossible to expect everyone so much time manning the shop which they could otherwise spend getting stronger. Rick had already considered the options before him.

The easiest choice was to find someone that couldn’t fend on their own – the delicate as he called them. Even the Celestial City had employed a similar tactic and it worked. It was an almost perfect relationship – the Hero would be responsible for protecting the delicate, while they in turn were relegated to doing the grunt work. But Rick had another solution to the problem – golems.  

The ordinary golems did not have much use, since they could only perform limited functions, but now that he had a dozen Grade-II beast cores he could find a new way!

‘The golems are the first thing I have to do once I’m out of here,’ he decided.

“I think that’s all for now,” Samira said with a clap, drawing Rick’s attention to the table, “The first partners’ meeting is now adjourned.”

“I’ll send everyone a message on the word-transmission scrolls once I’m done building the shop,” Dale said. 

The discussions were finally coming to a close. 

All Rick wanted to do now was quickly check the Temple before returning back to Earth and start working on the Golems. So much had transpired in his visit to the Blessed Exchange, it felt like ages since he had teleported here. 

“I’ll get going as well. Lots of work to do. See you guys in another–” Rick started to get up. 

“Wait, wait! What do we sell it for?” Jay asked suddenly, forcing him to halt.

“What?” he said instinctively.

“Well what do we use for money?” Jay said, shocking everyone around. “We can’t ask for anyone to play with Blessed Stones. No one’s going to spend that!”

‘Shit,’ Rick thought sitting back down. After all there long drawn discussion of setting up a shop, they had missed the most crucial aspect of them all – money.

“I… didn’t even think about that. That a very good point there,” Dale was the first one to speak and sat back down. With his hand holding his chin and his elbow against his leg, the ex-soldier suggested, “We could barter.”

“That won’t work,” Samira sat back down. 

“Yeah, barter is not the way to go. I tried that when this shit started and things didn’t go well. Poor boy Rick had to kill a Troll to just get something to eat,” Jay said with a boisterous laughter. 

“That’s not what happened,” Rick immediately jumped. “Stop making stories and think of a solution for this.”

It was pretty amusing that they had spent all this while discussing what to sell and how to build the shop, but completely neglected the part of what would be the currency. 

“We could make store-credits. Like IOUs,” Samira suggested. 

“Not gonna work Sam. What if they say its fake? Not like we can hurt them in the Blessed exchange either.”

Suddenly the solution was crystal clear!

“What about beast cores? We will accept beast-cores as our currency,” Rick said suddenly. “The beasts are found everywhere and it’s not that difficult to kill a low level one.

“But if everyone can get it easily, wouldn’t that lower its value?” Samira asked.

“Why does it matter? Even if everyone can easily get their hands on it, beast-cores as useful on its own. Not like paper-currency,” Rick said. 

He had already witnessed the success of the best-core ATM’s at the Celestial city. Besides, it could be an easy source of his ever-diminishing supply of beast cores as well! 

“That’s a good idea,” Dale nodded his head in thought. “Since it’s so ubiquitous, everyone should accept beast cores as payment as well.”

Dale quickly caught on to what Rick was hinting at. 

Beast-core were not rare, but their uses were numerous. Not only were the useful in golemancy, they were used regularly in potions, smithies and even as whetstones! That meant that even if the other stores only bartered goods, they wouldn’t say no to beast-cores either. 

“Rick can use them to make more golems as well. That way we can sell more golems,” Dale said with a smile. “Alright then. We are going to use beast cores as the standard currency.” 

“Okay then. One last time, meeting adjourned,” Samira said quickly standing up.
With that all four of them stood back up, finally bringing the long drawn discussions to a close!