“So,” Liath says, “totalling up everything we own, we have… More Bien, can you help me out here?”

  Hyacinth brings up her own asset list with the same motion, looking through her own possessions.

  [Approximate Net Worth Calcution; assumes minimal processing of Ichor and Euphoria]

  Liquid Assets: [11 Gss Coins: 1 Steel, 1 Gss]

  Commodities:[5 Ichor: ~1 steel 7 gss][6 Euphoria: ~ 4 steel][Hyacinth’s Seed Samples: ~2 Gss]

  Illiquid Assets:[Hyacinth’s Bandolier & Vials: ~5 Steel]

  [Total known valuation: ~12 Steel]

  Owned items of unknown valuation:On Hyacinth’s Person:[Journal][Ballpoint Pen] [Lifeweaving Samples (Wicker, Fleece Cloth)][Tourmaline and Silver Ring] [Balsawood Vial Tray][Grano Bars][A1 Handcuffs] [A1 Key]

  At Housepet’s Guild: [Fleece Bnket][Snack Gift Basket][A1 Key]

  [This valuation is approximate; for further details request high detail.] [Recommendation: Have the ring appraised by a Lockheart.]

  Liath looks over at Hyacinth. “It says about 12 steel in known items, according to the information you’ve shared with me. Do you have anything else in those pockets of your bandolier?”

  Hyacinth reads through her own list, and rubs the back of her head. She’d almost forgotten. “Well,” she says. “I have one thing…”

  She reaches into the top pocket of her bandolier, and comes out with the aquamarine and silver ring. “This was on me when I woke up. I don’t know how much it’s worth, but it’s got to be a good amount. And theoretically it could have some form of magical effect, too…”

  Liath raises an eyebrow. “I suppose it’s yours now… But something doesn’t add up here. If the previous owner of your body could afford a ring like that, why did she get evicted from her body? Didn’t want to stay…? Earned all her money through a production trade…?” She shakes her head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  Hyacinth frowns. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense, no. You’d think that if she didn’t want to stay she’d give the ring to someone she liked, will it on…”

  “Maybe she was caught by surprise by the deadline? I’ve known people that scattered before…” Liath frowns. “Was there anything else from her?”

  “Yeah,” Hyacinth says. She reaches into her pouch and pulls out the journal with its st page. She reads it again.

  Bad luck today. Lost my cuffs’ key down a storm drain and had to resort to my spare. I need to go to a Lockheart, but their guild’s halfway across the city. Maybe tomorrow.

  I did invest in a nice new bandolier, though, to prepare for the trip over. Not sure who I’m going to get to mind my basket for the day but it’s something.

  Hope my luck turns for the better. This ring and my natural talents might be my ticket to a pcement in the Housepets’ Guild if I py my cards right…

  “This feels weird. The Housepets’ Guild let me in just fine without costing me anything to register, and the rest is a little too convenient. Maybe she meant that the ring would cover their dues?”

  “Maybe she was hoping for a guild officer position,” Liath says. “There are officers who do paperwork and so on, have essentially office jobs where they don’t need to have sex constantly. For someone who doesn’t like sex, that might have felt like a way out…?”

  “When I woke up I had my arms in cuffs,” Hyacinth says. “And there were a couple other things on me too…” She pulls out the piece of wicker and the piece of fleece. “Look at these. They match the basket and bnket I woke up in.”

  “So she must have been a lifeweaver,” Liath says. “I think those are samples to rebuild her basket and her bnket from if she got separated from them.”

  “That makes sense,” Hyacinth says. “I don’t know how hard that is, but maybe she had some skill at it. Why the cuffs, though?”

  “That, I don’t know,” Liath admits. “I can’t think of any reason why someone who was too shy to have sex would lock themselves in cuffs like that. Maybe it’s just a housepet thing?”

  Hyacinth rubs the back of her head. “I, ah… I do feel a little more secure if I’m literally bound somehow. Maybe she had figured that out, even though they didn’t want to have sex?”

  She digs through her pouch and comes up with the note from her cuffs earlier. “I found this in the cuffs though. It says, ‘Sorry, I had to go in a hurry! Your payment is in your bandolier. Have a nice night!’”

  “Lifeweaving order maybe?” Liath frowns. “I mean, that doesn’t necessarily mean it was sexual.”

  “Yeah,” Hyacinth admits. “I guess it all makes sense when you put it that way. Someone who was trying to make a living off of masturbation, made some money, but ultimately decided not to stay…”

  “Some people invest in jewellery to compact coins,” Liath says. “It could be her savings.”

  “Yeah,” Hyacinth says. “Which really suggests that we should get it appraised.”

  Liath nods. “Probably smart to talk to Mica about it, but I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I think the bance of the odds is that it’s a payment to her for life-weaving work or her personal savings.”

  “Alright,” Hyacinth says. “I trust you.” She hugs Liath. “I don’t know, I just worry that it’s — stolen or something — it’s just such an obvious plot hook, you know?”

  “Even if it were stolen, you could just swear to the fact that you woke up with it on you and didn’t steal it yourself,” Liath says. “Criminal justice is a lot simpler in this world because you can just actually establish who did what from their sworn statements.”

  “That’s a relief to hear,” Hyacinth says. “Then it’s probably safe to keep it, just so long as we don’t sell it.”

  Liath just nods. “Anyway. I think our next stop should be the Lockhearts’ Guild. They’ll know what it is and what it does.”

  Hyacinth nods back, and puts the various odds and ends back into her pouches. “I think we should think about life-weaving and void-tearing a little bit,” she says. “They’re the obvious uses of Ichor and Euphoria for upkeep purposes - even if we have a bunch of Ichor and Euphoria, that’s not hard steel or gss we can turn in to make dues with, you know?”

  Liath taps her lips. “Yeah. And we need to think more generally about what to invest our Numinosity, Ichor and Euphoria in.”

  “Well, of the six fundamental stats…” Hyacinth rubs the back of her head. “We’re probably going to specialize in void-tearing, right? So we probably want to invest in Sanity or Ardor, and Sanity is already going to get a big boost for me when I get Limitless, so I think the smart thing to do is to invest in Ardor. It also would just… Help a lot with my fears that I’ll run out of sex drive eventually, and have to take a long break from my main method of making money.”

  “Well,” Liath says. “It’s a little more complex than that. When you’re wrestling with random partners, it often turns into a competition of who can make the other come first - because Euphoria is worth more than Ichor, right? - and Grace and Fitness determine a lot of whether you win that competition or not.”

  “I guess that makes sense,” Hyacinth says. “But the majority of my sex will be with you, right? So we don’t need to rely on random partners. We just need to push both of our own sex drives higher so we can fuck like rabbits and make all the money.”

  Liath ughs. “I think I’ll need some Fitness and some Prowess if I’m to keep you satisfied,” she says. “You forget that I’ve been putting in most of the physical effort all this time. But yes, I think Ardor is a sensible first-line investment for you to make sure our sex drives are consistent and not easily thrown off.”

  “We’ll need Sanity too,” Hyacinth says. “But that’s a longer term thing. For now I think just trying to push for… Like, raw steel ingots, or a lot of gss? That ought to work decently for us.”

  Liath frowns. “There is one thing, which is that I think you should ask about your gender’s abilities a little more deeply. If they all rely on a particur stat…”

  Hyacinth blinks. “Oh, yes, that reminds me — Skin Hunger relies on my Sanity!”

  Liath taps her fingers together. “Then I think Sanity should also be bumped up in importance. And you should ask a little more about other abilities your gender can get, just in case one of them manages to outcompete Limitless somehow.”

  Hyacinth nods back. “Alright, I’ll think about it. But I’m pretty sure I’m going for Limitless first.”

  “Mica first, or should we go appraise the ring?” Liath tilts her head.

  “I really want to appraise the ring first,” Hyacinth says, “But we really should talk to Mica before we wander off anywhere. She’ll know what the smart thing to do is.”

  “Alright, then,” Liath says. “Then I guess we turn right back around and go back to your guild.”

  Hyacinth nods, and pulls Liath in close. “Let’s go.”

  ~*~

  It turns out that Mica is busy, so the girls are passed off to Avaline to answer their questions. The dog-girl ushers them into her small office (with a pet bed behind her low desk and cushions on the floor in front of it) and turns to Hyacinth.

  “So, what do you need?”

  “Answers to some basic questions,” Hyacinth says, doing her best to ignore Avaline’s nudity. She’s starting to adjust, but it’s still weird to have a serious conversation like this in the buff. “Firstly, I know about Limitless and Skin Hunger, but are there other Housepet abilities?”

  Avaline nods. “Yes, there are three other ones. Snuggle Savant grants a pair of Moves you can use during sex; Rope Bunny increases one of your Ardor, Prowess, Sanity or Moxie while you are bound; Clever Kitten allows you to use your Sanity to substitute for your Moxie, and also grants additional Moves.”

  “And these moves are…?”

  Avline taps her fingers on the desk. “Unique to the Housepet gender. Primarily they make it easier for you to… do housepetty things. There’s quite a few details for each move but the Snuggle Savant moves are considered ‘basic’ and the Clever Kitten ones are considered ‘more advanced.’ I could expin them all at length, but in practice Rope Bunny is generally better to take before either of the move-granting skills, unless you specialize in producing odd kinds of seed and your Sanity is much higher than your Moxie.”

  “I see…” Hyacinth taps her fingers against her foot. “Well, okay.”

  “Was there anything else?” Avaline looks expectantly at Liath.

  “Hyacinth found a ring on her person when she awoke, that was presumably owned by her body’s previous inhabitant. Is she likely to get in any trouble if she hangs on to it, or…?” Liath raises an eyebrow.

  “If it was on you when the body became yours, it’s yours,” Avaline says. “It was probably the savings of the previous inhabitant of the body. Rare for someone to have something that expensive on them and not stay, but chains of temporary transmigrations can sometimes end up with odd things on them. It might be that it was given to her as a gift by a dominant who was courting their attention, but that she ultimately rejected the affections of. Or that might have happened five body-owners ago and the ring might not have been found by the in-between selves. According to the w, anything in the possession of the body someone transmigrates into is her property now, and any of the previous body owner’s debts are annulled. It’s always worked that way, and it always will work that way, because it prevents all sorts of complicated snarled situations. The Twins don’t like to have to rule on complex legal cases.”

  “Alright,” Hyacinth says. “That’s very reassuring. Thank you for your time, and we’ll get out of your hair.”

  “It’s no issue.” Avaline bows her head and goes back to her papers.

  ~*~

  A few hours ter, on the other side of town, Liath and Hyacinth step into the Lockhearts’ jewelry showroom. All around them sit shining steel, silver and gold rings, bangles and hairpins, inset with a variety of gemstones and each advertising a different magical effect. But what draws Hyacinth’s eye is the chastity cages.

  There’s a small selection of them, in a half-dozen lengths, ranging from five inches long and slightly curved to small nubs an inch long to completely ft. Some of them have jewels inset, making them quite the fashion statement. Some of them advertise that they make the wearer incapable of orgasm, or constantly aroused, or both.

  The prices are eye-watering. Even the cheapest models start at ten steel, and the ones with magical effects range from twenty steel to five hundred. There’s a sign saying to inquire after the commission or purchase of more expensive custom pieces, as they are not on dispy.

  Hyacinth swallows and forces her gaze away from the dispy, and Liath smiles and runs a hand through her hair.

  “Maybe someday,” Liath says. “But we have other goals in mind right now. Try to focus.”

  Taking a deep breath, Hyacinth walks up to the gss-topped counter and produces the silver and aquamarine ring from her bandolier. “Excuse me,” she says. “I was wondering if I could have a piece appraised?”

  A draconic woman with short, stubby horns comes around to where Hyacinth is standing, and addresses Liath rather than her. “I can do that,” she says, “There is no fee, but I wish to confirm you approve?”

  Liath nods and waves her hand. “Yes, please.” Hyacinth can tell she’s suppressing a get on with it.

  “Very well, then.” The dragoness pulls out a jeweller’s loupe from behind the desk, picks up the silver ring, and examines it minutely. “Ah. I recognize this style of piece. It is a favour ring from the Weaver’s guild. It is inscribed with the guild-mark here, can you see?” She offers the loupe to Liath, and Liath bends over the piece.

  “Ah,” Liath says. “I see, yes, the tiny leaping koi fish…”

  The dragoness nods. “Indeed.” She sets the ring down. “It is a standard mark of engagement with a Weaver as the owner’s dominant. It is worth perhaps thirty steel, but I suspect that if you were to return it to the Weaver who originally issued it as an engagement-gift, you could get another few steel for the story of its acquisition. The jewel is also the keystone for a very basic enchantment of lucidity; it strengthens Sanity by about one standard point when worn, I would guess.”

  “Thank you,” Liath says, and accepts the ring back. “We’ll have to discuss the ring’s fate among ourselves.” She gestures to Hyacinth, and the pair of them make their exit.