166 - Trouble

Councillor Emher stared at Alexandra and at the journal in her hands.

“Not quite the entire town, you say? Well, that is correct, but hundreds of our citizens benefited from your generosity.”

“You’re welcome,” Alexandra said.

She hadn’t expected so many people to drink in one day. Perhaps it wouldn’t take that long to repay her investment. A small smile crept onto her lips. She was about to get very rich.

“This is acceptable for a day, and I’m sure the people of Balrum will remember your name fondly. But this stops now.”

“What? But—”

“This is not up for discussion. I’ve talked with Medh. The council won't accept more disturbance to the peace of Balrum.”

Emher tapped a stack of papers into order and set it aside.

“That will be all,” he added.

“You can’t do that! I’ve paid for that beer.”

This wouldn’t do at all. Goodwill from the drunkards was nice, but she needed more time to convince them of the value of contribution points.

“I assure you I’m working within the bounds of my mandate,” Emher said, adjusting his glasses as he went back to his papers. “You may discuss with Medh for a refund.”

“That’s not the point. If you’ve investigated, you must know about the quests I’ve been putting out.”

Emher tapped his pen on the desk. Three times, perfectly measured.

“I am aware. I struggle to believe your claims. Skills are not merchandise that can be purchased.”

Alexandra smiled. “Yet we’re still talking.”

“Indeed. We are.”

Neither of them spoke for a time.

Gears turned in her head. Could this councillor be convinced? He had the power to help her. If he just lifted the ban on her get-rich-quick scheme…

“You see, I don’t believe you,” Emher said, breaking the silence. “But only a fool would dismiss the possibility. If what you say is true, it could change the face of Laika, or at the very least, give the citizens of Balrum more skills, more tools to deal with the elementals roaming our lands.”

Alexandra nodded. “I’m glad you understand. Please inform Medh that the beer can flow.”

Emher looked at her for a few seconds and chuckled. “No. No. Unfortunately, we can’t have that either. If it does work as you claim, Balrum will never have a sober soul again.”

“My quests can only be completed once a day.”

“Perhaps you don’t realize how much beer one needs to get truly drunk. The average citizen is Silver, and they’d need to drink for an hour or two non-stop to reach that point. Golds like me have high constitution, over a hundred points. It’d take even longer.”

Alexandra blinked. Now that's interesting.

One thing that wasn’t included in her education at the Iron Library, however short it ended up being, was how high the average person's attributes were. She knew she had a lot for her rank, but she wasn’t sure how much.

If a Gold had attributes over a hundred, she was getting close. In fact, she was already there for constitution and intelligence. I always knew I was tough and smart.

She couldn’t help but smile. That was even better than she’d expected. She’d have to ask Willow.

Now was not the time for daydreaming.

“I understand your reservations,” she said. “I wanted to start with a simple quest that people would enjoy. This way, they’d get a taste of what contribution points can do and be more likely to continue with more difficult quests.”

“A sensible plan, if you hadn’t picked such a disruptive quest.”

Alexandra looked away. “Sorry.”

“Is there another quest you could publish?”

Alexandra frowned and took a look at her journal. Out of her rare and uncommon skills, only Beer Resistance had a quest that was practical to share with everyone. The rest were too specific to her skills. Perhaps One Among Many wasn’t so bad, but if everyone tried to hide from each other, it wouldn’t work.

Stolen story; please report.

Her common skills had easier quests, but the lower levels didn’t bring in as many points. It would take a level five to six common training quest to earn her as much as a level one to two uncommon quest.

The issue was that those higher-level quests could get hard to complete in a day. Take Basic Hygiene. It was at level six.

Basic Hygiene Training Quest: Wash every day for a week (0/7)

The other issue that stopped her from going down that path was that she would eventually level up those skills. She’d picked Beer Resistance because she knew she could keep it at level one simply by never drinking said beverage.

She couldn’t possibly stop washing herself, could she?

Could she?

No, it wasn’t reasonable. But perhaps she could stop cleaning the house. Willow would understand. Besides, Emher would be happy if the citizens became more tidy.

Still, it didn’t solve the issue that Cleaning’s training quest would be impossible to complete every day if she leveled the skill to a point where it would offer a decent return.

It wasn’t so much her share she was worried about, but the quest takers would only play along for so long before they expected a reward.

“It’s complicated,” she said, breaking the silence. “Beer Resistance was my best idea for an introduction to quests.”

Perhaps she was skipping steps. Training quests might not be the most suitable foundation for her guild. The Silver rank upgrade to Quest Ledger might solve the issue.

Might.

She couldn’t know.

Another alternative would be to find event quests. Those wouldn’t be achievable by just anyone, but the rewards were so much higher that it might not matter.

“I might have a solution,” she said.

“I’m listening.” The councillor was reading a paper.

“I’d like to collaborate with the tasks that the council displays on the board downstairs,” Alexandra explained. “You keep offering the usual reward, but I pass them through my contracts to add contribution points to the mix.”

Emher put aside the document he was in the middle of reviewing and looked at her.

“That simple?”

“I don’t know if it will work for all of them. I’ll need to accept them first and see what my class art does with them.”

Emher tapped his pen on the desk, then spun it between his fingers. “I’m agreeable, but the council will have to vote on this.”

“When?” Alexandra couldn’t spend the entire day here.

“Today’s session should begin in an hour. You may wait here.” He pointed at a chair sitting in a corner of his office. “Provided you stay silent, of course.”

An hour should be alright.

Alexandra waited, taking the time to read her journal and marvel at how far she’d come since she’d arrived in Laika. Long gone were the days she struggled to kill a single goblin or run a short marathon.

Strength (STR):93

Dexterity (DEX):92

Constitution (CON):100

Intelligence (INT):100

Perception (PER):98

Courtesy of her random dailies, her attributes were more or less balanced. She still had doubts about how each attribute worked in practice, but she was starting to see patterns. First, despite them becoming ten times the value they were at the start, she didn’t feel ten times stronger, nor ten times smarter. She couldn’t see ten times further either.

The effects were more subtle than that, and the gains for each subsequent point were diminutive.

Still, she had surpassed the peak of human performance on Earth.

She sat back in the creaky wooden chair, letting the silence of the office settle around her as Councillor Emher flipped through his endless stacks of paper.

At ninety-three strength and a clean hundred in constitution, she believed that she was roughly twice as powerful as the strongest human who had ever walked her old world. And that was before touching her skills. Unless she was wrong, which was a distinct possibility despite her superior intellect. It wasn’t like she was brushing shoulders with Olympians when she lived on Earth.

She glanced over at Emher.

A quiet, confident smile touched her lips. The Gold ranks in Baleria hadn’t entertained her like him. She was becoming someone they had to consider. The council would agree.

The council met in an amphitheater nestled in the center of the circular building. It was too large for its purpose, capable of hosting a hundred people when Balrum only had seven elected representatives.

She and Emher were the first to arrive. The councillor had her sit next to him and commanded her not to speak until she was prompted to.

The rest of the council slowly filled the room, each bringing a different entourage, from a single assistant to a small army of guards and clerks.

“You don’t employ anyone?” Alexandra whispered.

“I do. But bringing them here is superfluous,” he answered. “Now stop talking.”

The council started on time, breezing through uninteresting matters such as repairs to the stairs going up the cliff and re-zoning of a block near the gates.

Alexandra’s thoughts drifted, hoping it would be over soon so that she could get started on her daily quest.

“Now, I would like to bring the matter of public intoxication up for debate,” a voice said.

Alexandra perked up and located the speaker. It was the councillor with the largest entourage, a young man, clean-shaven, hair tied behind his head like Emher.

“Since Councillor Emher had the bright idea to bring the culprit behind yesterday’s farce to us, I suggest a fine equivalent to the value of ten stone elemental sources.”

Alexandra raised an eyebrow and looked at Emher.

The man sighed, shook his head, and stood up.

“The matter has already been dealt with.”

“I don’t recall us discussing it. Perhaps I missed it. Cem?” He looked at his assistant, who was taking notes of the session.

“No, sir. You’re the first to bring it up.”

The young man smiled.

“Torak,” Emher said. “This is unnecessary.”

“Unnecessary? The citizens of Balrum have put their trust in us to handle their affairs. It won’t do to corrupt our institution with closed-door deals.”

Alexandra rolled her eyes. What’s this guy’s deal?

“Don’t worry. It’s me he’s targeting,” Emher whispered. “I won’t let you suffer a loss.”

“Just be quick. I don’t have all day.”