Chapter 69 An Unreasonable Amount Of Time.

  “I feel like we should be meeting with the royals while we are here.” Isaac commented over a cup of shaved ice from a very high end dessert parlor. Just his cup of shaved ice had cost a whole gold coin which was about how much his shirt had cost him at the tailor’s the day before.

  “We are not equipped to be meeting with royalty.” Lenna reminded him. “Meeting them in full battle gear is at least passable attire because we are adventurers, but with your armor being gone for the next few days and mine held together with hopes and dreams, we cannot even use our armor as replacements for fine garments.”

  “Oh I agree.” Isaac replied. “I just feel like they might not appreciate it if we did not drop by and give them their gifts, you know, the drider silk underarmor capable of stopping any blade that has ever existed.”

  “Almost any blade.” Lenna corrected him. “The Vorpal Weapons are all capable of cutting through adamantine as if it were firewood. I don’t think even drider silk will hold up very well against them. That is not even mentioning the Blade of Oblivion which Shamesh and I were barely able to keep from shredding my drider silk underarmor.”

  “Regardless, it is a peerless defensive tool and one that we owe them. Showing up without them could be seen as if we were having cold feet about gracing the royals with such a gift. And if anyone thinks that we aren’t going to be giving the royals theirs, then plenty of people will come knocking on Izen’s door for their money. Getting them to pay half of it as a down payment was great for business but if for some reason we don’t deliver… well, I wouldn’t want to be Izen.” Isaac went on.

  “Fair.” Lenna agreed. “So what is the play?”

  “We try to get someone to deliver it to us in an unreasonable amount of time.” Isaac told her.

  “Like who?” Lenna wondered.

  “Well, there is a mages’ college ten blocks from here.” Isaac said with a shrug.

  Lenna eyed him skeptically. “This isn’t just an excuse to see the inside of the college, is it?”

  Isaac laughed. “No but that is definitely an added bonus.” He confessed. “The noble school is right next to it between the mages’ college and the martial college. It’s normal for nobles to go back and forth between them and Lucius should be back at school by now. This is his last semester if I remember correctly. He should be graduating soon.”

  “I suppose we could use Lucius as a pretext, and it would be nice to catch up with the youngest Arbencroft.” Lenna agreed. “Though, going outside in this weather is truly awful for my eyes. I can feel a headache coming on from here.” The duo were seated in the back of the parlor, as far from the windows as they could be and in the darkest corner, Lenna was still squinting against the high levels of ambient light. The reason that the ambient light levels were so high was because it was a positively beautiful sunny spring day and the sun was doing its best to warm the soil for the freshly planted crops all across the northern hemisphere of the planet. “The garments are finished though, right?”

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  “They should be, if they aren’t then they are still soaking in the treatment. I know that the Silverstrands finished the actual thread crafting a few days ago. I’m not sure how long they have left in the treatment process.” Isaac replied. “Either way, it shouldn’t be more than a few days.”

  “So you want to hire a courier who can just teleport directly from Sapphirestone to Safeharbor, or even just straight from here to Safeharbor?” Lenna wondered. “There is no way that they will be charging the normal rate.”

  “Yeah, it is definitely going to cost an arm and a leg, but we might not have too many other options. We could try to get Alexander to deliver it, but the teleportation circle in the Arbencroft Estate is supposed to be only for official uses and I think it only leads to the Sasston Bastion so they can use the Sapphirestone teleportation circle to get to and from Altesia.” Isaac explained the bits and pieces he had picked up over time.

  “It could be seen as an official use if it is bringing the gift we have prepared for His and Her Majesties.” Lenna offered.

  “It could, yes, but who are we going to get to deliver it?” Isaac wondered. “Whoever it would be would be sending some kind of message.”

  “Well, that removes Alexander from the list…” Lenna pointed out. “Edward, maybe?”

  “Usually, I would agree with you, but with the current ‘ready level’ and perceived ‘threat level’ of the area around Safeharbor, they cannot spare the Guild Master unless it is truly an emergency. Even if nothing happened, it would look awful.” Isaac shot down Lenna’s idea. “We could send one of our people, but, well, that list ranges from prisoners of war to a notorious crime lord.”

  “What about Margaret?” Lenna wondered. “She is a former noble, in our service, and not a criminal or someone on house arrest.” Lenna then added in a grumble: “As much of a house arrest as you can call Jala’s stay…”

  Isaac chuckled at Lenna’s addendum. “Margaret might be a decent option, if she could protect herself or if there was someone strong enough to escort her. She’ll be carrying two future royal artifacts. Based on how much the Victoria’s were willing to spend on the first post royal set, and how much Lady Constantine spent on the next set, the royal set is going to be worth seven and eight million gold, each.” He shook his head. “I would expect someone to try to rob us if they knew that was what we were carrying around. Margaret won’t make it to the teleportation circle in Sapphirestone. Not that she probably ever wants to be there again, or that far from her kids.”

  “So, who do we have left?” Lenna wondered.

  Isaac frowned in thought for a long moment. “Do you think we could get Marie to dress up as Margaret and do it?” Isaac wondered. “If not, then I’m out of ideas. Our only other option will be to have Margaret get everything we need together in a Bottomless Bag and have a mage from the college go and get it for us. We won’t be able to tell them what is in the bag though, otherwise we could just try to hire a courier with Grand Teleportation. They are simply too valuable to let the courier know what they are carrying. Even if couriers rarely take off with their packages…”

  “That would be the one package worth risking one’s life for.” Lenna finished for him. “They could easily ransom the package for five hundred platinum bars and then vanish into the sunset.”

  “They wouldn’t even have to go very far.” Isaac said with a frown. “Just the next country over and they could buy their way into nobility if they are crossing the planes. If they went south, that might still work. I don’t know how Ruler would take someone trying to muscle their way into nobility with nothing but money, and the elves would probably tell them to kick rocks.”

  “So are we going with that option?” Lenna wondered as she finished the last bite of her frozen cream with various berries inside and atop it.

  “I think so, mages’ college or we try to find an adventurer who can teleport us home and back. Though, if they want to be paid an appropriate adventurer price, that will be a bit salty. Only a double platinum level mage can cast Grand Teleportation.” Isaac reminded her with an even deeper frown. Fifty thousand gold to take a trip that would usually cost them a few thousand and two days of travel was an unpleasant prospect.

  Isaac and Lenna could make the run from Sapphirestone to Safeharbor in a day, only because now Isaac could boost Lenna without maintaining physical contact, and then the two teleportations would cost a few thousand and it would be over with. The issue would be that everyone would know that they ran home to get something that they had forgotten. It would look like they arrived at a birthday party, got out of their carriage, realized they forgot the presents, and then got back in the carriage to go home and get it. Even if they had arrived early, by the time they returned, everyone and their mother would know about it. It would make them look incompetent, even if they had plenty of feats of power and strength to prove the opposite, their political image would be smeared in the dirt and they would look like just another pair of extremely powerful adventurers and not a pair of up-and-coming foreign nobles with actual weight to them.

  “Well, we had better check in with Lucius then and see if he is available to give us a tour.” Lenna said with a shrug.