Four hours later.

 

 

 

 

 

Repeatedly, the officers of the guild tried to end the negotiations, but each time they attempted to do so, Miriam would smile sweetly and deftly play upon Markus's ego, presenting excellent excuses to keep them locked in discussions. Though she was but a familiar, Miriam was a LEGENDARY familiar, and this status carried immense weight from a skill resolution perspective.

 

Her skill checks had an extra level of impact due to her legendary status, and despite the leaders of the Adventurer's Guild being in the heroic bracket, they were no match for her in negotiations. The worst outcome Miriam could face was to break even, with any success she achieved being amplified by a legendary bonus multiplier, enhanced further by the many, many, MANY long-term skill buffs layered on her by Andrew.

 

Andrew disdained mind control. In his opinion, it was magic for the weak and was inherently immoral. The very idea of having your free will stripped of you turned his stomach. it was a handicap, that was for sure, but it was one he lived with for his peace of mind. On the other hand, manipulating people with insanely high skill checks was perfectly acceptable. After all, he wasn't the one doing it.

 

When rebuilding Miriam, he focused on covering his weaknesses. Since a familiar's intelligence has no relation to the original base creature, Andrew made that her dump stat. Her base intelligence, like all familiars, was determined only by her level, which was currently at forty. In more conventional terms, her IQ was around three hundred.

 

More importantly, while he shuffled her other stats around, somewhat reducing her agility in the process, he maxed out her charisma. Then he stacked a bunch of creature templates that all added to said stat.

 

Charisma is a funny stat.

 

It isn't JUST beauty, but a combination of factors. It's how likable you are, how persuasive, how beautiful, and the sheer force of your personality. All these factors combined represent how much gravitas a person has. You need to understand this to properly comprehend just how screwed these fools were the moment they entered into any verbal contest with her.

 

Oh sure, the racial templates only added a small bonus HERE, and a small bonus THERE, but when you add it all up, well... To put it in perspective, let us say that if the most charismatic human in your world was a ten out of ten.

 

Miriam would be a SIXTEEN out of ten.

 

Finally, after hours of relentlessly cajoling, badgering, and haranguing these unfortunate fools who made the mistake of thinking it was safe to talk to Miriam, she relented with the following words:

 

"That should about cover it."

 

The look of relief on their faces could not overstated. Andrew had been kind enough to supply conjured food and drink as the negotiations wore on, mostly to deny them an excuse to leave the room as well as fill up their bladders with coffee to make them even more uncomfortable. An insidious practice he picked up during his days working as a banker. Needless to say, The guild leaders, relieved, eagerly accepted the end to their ordeal.

 

---

 

"So let's just review it once more from the top to make sure that we're all in agreement." She gestured to the forty-eight-page document that was laid out in front of them in triplicate, "Section one-"

 

Baron Markus, now a sweaty and mentally exhausted shell of his former self, cried out, "ENOUGH! We all know what is in the contract!" He grabbed for a pen, "Let's get this OVER WITH!" He proceeded to sign all three copies, "I am in charge of agreements and I say this is good enough!"

 

Miriam looked surprised, "I... well. Understood." She looked at Andrew, "Do you need to review it?"

 

Andrew shook his head, "No no. I trust you implicitly." He picked up a pen and signed all three copies.

 

Miriam smiled, "Excellent!" She clapped her hands once when Andre finished, "Now then. The only thing left is to settle up my fee." Everyone looked a little confused.

 

"Fee?" Markus asked.

 

Miriam nodded with a bright smile, "Yes! We talked about it about two hours ago?" She looked at him pointedly, "I'll have your pants now."

 

Baron Markus blinked and his jowls shook as replied with indignity, "What-What-WHAT? I-I-I thought that was in jest!"

 

Miriam shook her head and gestured causing one of the copies to flip over to page twenty-one, "If it was a joke, I wouldn't have included it." She hovered over the document and pointed, "In the fees and services section, my fee is included and it states clearly that you are to give me your pants."

 

Markus looked at the document, rubbed his eyes, and looked absolutely "Why do you want my PANTS?"

 

Miriam spoke with sincerity that almost didn't reach her eyes, "Why, it's a faerie thing, of course. All contracts are finalized with the symbolic exchange of articles of clothing. Most people pay with gloves or socks, sometimes even the shirt off your back." She looked at Markus with wide eyes and somehow looked both innocent and trusting as she presented a faerie-sized handkerchief, "I was most impressed with your gesture of goodwill involving your pants." She put a hand over her heart, "A gesture of sincerity not often given."

 

Baron Markus' last brain cell finally burned out as he reached out and received the tiny square of yellow on the tip of his finger, "Uhhhhh..." Broken, the man sighed in defeat, "Fine... fine... I will have them sent to you tomorrow."

 

"Oh?" Miriam remarked with a degree of concern, "Oh. Oh my. No-no-no. I am afraid payment is due, immediately." She waved her hand to flip over to page thirty-three, "Failure to deliver the pants at the signing of the contract is a breach of said contract and subject to the following penalty clauses. First-"

 

"ENOUGH." Leodice spoke up. He was rubbing his forehead, "Markus?" He turned to the walrus of a man sitting next to him, "Give her your damn pants."

 

The baron sat there for a good ten seconds, before abruptly kicking off his boots, standing up, undoing his belt, then dropping and stepping out of his trousers. He was wearing some sort of white, stretchy undergarment that resembled pantyhose. They were clearly made to try and slim his figure.

 

They failed, unfortunately.

 

He sat down, put his boots back on, picked up his pants, stood up, and then dropped them on the table directly in front of Miriam, "Good day, Miss Rim. It has been an experience." With that, he turned, held his head up high, and with as much dignity as he could muster given the situation, marched right out of the room, slamming the door in his wake.

 

The woman on the end shook her head slowly before speaking up, "Please. Be honest, Miss Rim." The woman suppressed a smile as she addressed Miriam, "You didn't need his pants, did you?"

 

Miriam shook her head, "Not at all. He just ticked me off." She smiled back at her hostess, "You know, I don't think you ever introduced yourself."

 

The woman laughed lightly, "I supposed I haven't." She smirked, "Lady Grainer." She offered, "I merely attended out of curiosity." She yawned before she continued, "Is there any chance you might be for hire? I could use a negotiator of your skill, most assuredly."

 

Miriam shook her head, "You'd have to take that up with the Faerie Queen. But I suppose on a case-by-case basis, I could offer consul, but as a rule, my only client is currently sitting next to me."

 

Andrew stood up, picked up the pants, and sent them away to his extra-dimensional storage as well as two copies of the agreement, "Is there anything else? This took longer than I imagined, but I suppose it had to be done."

 

Leodice stood up and looked at Andrew warily, before speaking with a hint of newfound respect, "No. I suppose this is enough. Thank you for your time." Then offered his hand. The two shook and Andrew and Miriam finally left the room. As soon as the remaining three were alone, Leodice dropped back into his seat and looked exhausted, "This did not go as expected."

 

Lady Grainer nodded slowly, "You can say that again." She turned to the final member of the group who had throughout the entire ordeal not spoken once, "Well? You're the one who put us through all this nonsense. Did you confirm what you wanted?"

 

The fourth member had sat in his chair in silence. Clothed in a dark robe with various magical sigils along the trim, he had done nothing but watch and observe up until this point.

 

 

Finally, he spoke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Yes."

 

---

 

"[You sure called it, but I don't get why they were leaning on us so hard.]"

 

 

 

 

 

Miriam and Andrew were walking down to the main room of the guild as they chatted in their shared language. Andrew was frowning, "[At first I thought they were just testing me to see if I was an infernalist, but that doesn't make sense now. That one guy hardly moved the whole time we were in there. I thought they were just pushing me to see if I'd pull some sort of cheat out of my ass, but this was something else.]"

 

"[Well, for what it's worth, I think we taught them not to push us around. Although, I'm still puzzled why you wanted them wound up in the first place.]"

 

"[Because, in the long run, this was inevitable. I have long-term plans and it's easier to provoke them into coming after me now than when I'm not ready for them.]" Andrew explained, pointing at Miriam. "[If I had started by going after them, they would have known it was a setup. By getting them to come after me first, now they feel foolish, which is easier to handle. People are quick to forgive when they think they lost playing by their rules.]" He paused mid-step. "[But now that I think about it, only the baron was serious. The others are the ones who wound HIM up. They wanted him to draw my attention for some reason. It doesn't make any sense.]" He scratched his chin, "[I mean, they'd profit more by letting me keep people alive than discouraging me, right?]"

 

"[You'd think that, wouldn't you?]"

 

Andrew nodded then resumed walking, "[Exactly. Which leads me to ask, who was setting up who? I set them up, but they were setting up the Baron, but it didn't seem to be out of malice. I suspect they were going to let him scare me then the rest would step in to quote, save me, unquote.]" He made a dismissive hand gesture, "[But I foiled that plan. Makes me wonder what would have happened if I had let things go as they wanted.]" He shook his head slowly, "[At first I thought that creepy dude was behind it all. Maybe a rival church? but I don't-]"

 

At that moment, they were walking down the stairs into the main room of the guild hall. By the front desk, A young man with blond hair and blue eyes, clad in gleaming silver plate mail, stood at the forefront of his group, pointing an accusatory finger at a rather unassuming lad. The fellow, around twenty years of age with black hair and dark eyes, appeared utterly exhausted as if he had just completed a fifty-one-hour shift without any sleep.

 

The party leader-looking young man cried out an announcement at the top of his lungs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I BANISH YOU FROM THE HERO'S PARTY!"