Chương 76: Investment

After a few more games where Elica and I were neck-and-neck, the seventeenth bell finally did ring out and send us all off to bed. Three low tones, two high tones. I laid down, snuggled in, and fell asleep. And while my self was sleeping peacefully, recuperating from her day, I slipped outside of her skin and ruffled around a bit. I curved paper to open her books, and I took a twist of scrap paper wrapped around a pencil to start taking notes.

Math and history had both given out workbooks that were supposed to be used for in-class work, but I suspected that I would have more conversations with Kurumi Lautan (The Class President)(The Wealthy) and with Rabert Frantlin (The Ruthless) so I might as well free up time for that. I kept one eye on her dreams as I went; it was kind of like having a TV on while I did my homework if I had eight hours and could work at my own pace.

A few times I could see a nightmare starting to brew up and I reached in to steer her visions to another path. I'm putting up with enough without having bad dreams to screw up my sleep as well. On a whim I sent some paper over to my footlocker and opened it, and dragged out the big bag of sweets that was there. I wasn't going to taste anything in this state, but I could seep in and see if I can find an affinity for hazelnuts or peppers.

The workbooks went fairly quickly, I still had the same cheat-code dumb-down effect when I'm untethered. I initially intended to just do a week's worth of sheets just to stay ahead of the class, but I just sort of fell into a rhythm between watching the dreams of the sleeping mind, and metaphysically dissecting the essence of all these new ingredients. Around midnight she was getting uncomfortable, so I reached into her limbs, and used them to move her sheets away.

I piloted the girl over to the bathroom, and took care of her business, washing her hands carefully. I had once folded a fingernail by accident because my untethered self was not paying enough attention to what the hands were doing. I walked her back to the bed, pausing to make sure I hadn't woken Elica up and freaked her out again. Yeah, the body stumbling drunkenly around on numbed legs with her eyes still entirely closed could be a pretty freaky sight, I guess.

Tomorrow I'll work ahead on geography and literature, I suppose. After that I will probably be memorizing our music for the year. I can't really practice playing music, I don't think I develop any muscle memory in this state. Still, memorizing the pages helps more than nothing. And hazelnut might be a good affinity to have. And I could always use a better library of dyes.

It is very possible to dye fabric with various parts of oak or iron, but the larger city of Hearstcliff had access to a lot more specialized artisans than anything I had seen in Meadowtam, and if I had access to more colors I was going to use that! I kept one drift of myself up near the window to keep an eye on the street outside. A metaphorical eye, what I use to see like this is a lot less complicated than an actual eye, of course.

And about half an hour before first bell is due, I see the lamplighter coming around and turning up the glow from the magical lights that lined all the walkways. That was my cue to close everything up, and put all my books away, stacked up on the bedside table. I started laying out clothes, perfume and makeup, anything else to get a jump on the day, and then started easing myself back into my own body. I like to get those last-minute chores in so I can get the benefit from as much sleep as possible.

I push my mind and body pretty hard, they both deserve rest. And in a way it's being kind to myself, since once I'm back inside them I can't tell the difference between myself and my mind or body. Funny how that works. I make sure that I've got one more pleasant dream before I finish falling back into myself. Dong. I yawned, and stretched, and then sleepily pushed the covers down with little kicking motions while I tried to get myself started.

Not for the first time I wished for a coffee machine, and vowed to invent one. Elica woke up as soon as the bell rang and was already springing into the day with an alacrity that made me a little jealous. Still, a good night's sleep sure has helped me. Especially since I'm now weeks ahead of my assignments. I slipped into the dress I'd laid out for myself and started arranging my hair. I always underestimated how many pins and combs it would take to get it arranged perfectly.

After that, I dabbed on a bare minimum of makeup. I don't need to be a glamour-girl here, there's too much competition for the prettiest girl around and I can coast on just being one of the most visually striking. An advantage of being cast as villain: the heroine always has to be the prettiest girl in school, as a bad guy you just need to be memorable. And the paper-white woman with the snow-pale hair, pinned up in silver combs with a high-necked sleeveless gown? Memorable.

I grabbed my books and put them in the pocket dimension, and waited for Elica and Rinnie so I could walk with them down to breakfast. As an afterthought I opened the glowing door again and added a generous double-handful of candies, then put the bag back in my footlocker. Rinnie arrived and helped Elica dress while I went over some of my books.

These last few minutes felt like I was trying to stretch out the weekend as long as possible, not yet willing to let it be Oneday, as if it would only be real once we were back in the dining hall for breakfast.

"All right, that should be everything," Elica said, smoothing her skirts.

"Almost," I said.

"Rinnie, your bathroom?"

"Right," she said.

"I'll... lead you there. Give me a moment to, uh, make sure it's clear." Elica stared after the girl she was taking on as a servant.

"Sometimes she's so weird."

"Usually you say that about me."

"Oh, yes, absolutely. I don't want to take away from how very strange you are, either. But she is strange too. I'm basically surrounded by eccentrics and kooks." I could not argue with anything except her exempting herself from that label. Instead I headed out to the hallway, and went looking for Rinnie. She almost collided with me bursting out of a bedroom.

"Oh! Yes, everything's ready!" she said, hustling me inside. The room was odd, one half of it was decorated in Mid-Classical Hopeless Horse Girl, the other half was mostly framed prints of portraits of Trazom. There's a lot of personality in that room but I could not decide which half was hers. Instead I just shrugged and walked to the bathroom, which was a total disaster.

"Gods," I chuckled.

"Rinnie, I didn't know you had it in you to make a mess like this."

"Uh yeah," she said.

"Um mostly my roommate, but I just... didn't help, you know?"

"Sure," I said, and started conjuring and curving water, and gave the whole room a lightning-fast whirlwind scrubdown and shoved all the detritus down the floor drain, pushing far enough down to make sure there would be no clogs. I whisked everything else about, setting up the vanity station and shower caddies, fresh towels and dropped the discarded clothing into the hamper.

"There we go. Easy does it. Let's get breakfast." The crowd today was bigger than last night, dinner on Sevenday was not as big a draw as Oneday breakfast. Plenty of people bustling about, and all of them were well-rested and fresh off their weekend. And there were even more people staring at me with suspicious or accusing eyes. People that were judging me and forming opinions that would later turn into ideas or plans or responses. And I need to make sure that I'm not just being shaped by other people's ideas.

I need to get myself in charge of how people perceive me. Ugh. This part's gonna suck. But, a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do if she's gonna save the whole world. I turned sharply, pivoting fast and taking the two quick steps to put me right up in the face of some random girl who was stuck sneering. She had been glaring down my back until suddenly I was almost nose-to-nose with her, glaring down her disapproving smirk.

"Yeah?!" I snapped, giving her some heat.

"You got something to say? To my face?!" She stumbled back from my aggressive display, almost falling into her friends' arms. I glared at her.

"That's what I thought. If you're gonna look at me like I'm dirt you'd better be ready to see me up close, got it!?" I turned on my heel and stormed off, falling into step alongside Elica. She stared at me sidelong.

"I feel pressed to point out that doing that will not make the whispers about you slow down at all."

"I know," I said, and let a wistful tone reveal itself in my voice even as I held my face hard and angry.

"I need there to be rumors about me. The more the better, and the more they conflict the better."

"Why?" she said. I paused.

"I shouldn't say."

"Why?" she asked. God I'd love to just tell her. Too bad it would break her. Quarl Billiams smirked at me as I came to sit down in homeroom.

"So on Fiveday I didn't know why you were asking all those questions about gangsters disposing of bodies, and how professional assassins would go about it," he chuckled, tapping the side of his nose to indicate that he knew a secret.

"We did not have any such discussion," I reminded him.

"We spoke of businessmen and hired professionals who specialized in certain rarely-needed assignments."

"My mistake," he said smoothly, grinning even more broadly.

"And an enlightening conversation it was. You gave me an unexpected topic to think about, and I've spent the weekend sorting it in my mind. We were speaking of favors owed, debts relative to one another. Would you mind if we picked up there? I would not want to be a bore." I chuckled, and glanced briefly at the front of the room. The teacher was taking roll silently, glancing around at the room. By now she knew us all by our faces, so she did not even need to yell our names or listen to our responses.

I looked back over at the assassin.

"Not to spend all day on it, but I'd certainly care to hear the highlights of your exploration." He nodded.

"In brief then: On reflection, I believe that not only do debts owed or owing loom larger in the mind than is strictly warranted, but I believe that no debt is ever fully erased. I feel like debts, or any other obligation between two people that holds as a potential, is the lowest common denominator of adult relationships. Leaving aside parental dynamics and childhood connections, people build trust when they build deficits.

If this week I buy you lunch and next week you buy me lunch, you have learned that I will buy lunch with the trust that it will be returned, and I learn that you can be trusted to return a favor in kind. It's material collateral to words. And a relationship, especially a business relationship, needs that back-and-forth. I almost see a symbolic metaphor of two pieces of fabric being sewn together- the needle needs to move back and forth to stitch them close together."

"Interesting analogy, you should be in my literature class," I said.

"It's an interesting thought experiment but I tend to draw away from any broad generalization that seems too pat at first glance."

"Hmm," he said.

"I thought I was really onto something."

"You might be, and I'm not saying otherwise," I said.

"You might be using limited language to describe a larger phenomenon. Maybe 'debts owed' is too narrow a definition?"

"You may be right."

"However," I acknowledged, "the needle-and-thread analogy is very apt. I like it. You require give and take, in equal measure, and the more even the better. There's a commonality, a continuity of it, and while each of us is briefly punctured or troubled, the gap is filled and the mending of those troubles is what draws the two together.

But what of the exceptions: what happens when someone is indebted, and returns what is owed and then says 'this makes us even' and then leaves without that lingering thread of connection?" He leaned back, thoughtful.

"A very valid consideration. I suppose my musings should always include the counterexample. I've seen that scenario play out, where the exchange is one-to-one and never to be repeated. I'll think about it. I might integrate that, or scrap the whole idea." I chuckled.

"Not everything I say deserves that much consideration, Quarl." He shrugged.

"Maybe. But you're interesting. And I think I'm going to consider what you say anyway."

"Ah." Still off-putting, but that was more flattering than I expected it would be. He leaned even further back now, and put one foot up on his desk, with his knee bent outwards.

"Now, somewhat related I suppose, to congratulate you on your good judgement last week."

"Regarding what?"

"Regarding the proper time and place to employ specialists or businessmen," he said, with his tone indicating that once more we are comparing the roles of assassins and gang enforcers when some troublesome third party needs to be eliminated.

"Ah yes," I said. Well, since I have never hired a gangster or assassin before in my life, it's best if I sit back and act cool about this, and don't commit anything one way or another. After all, if people think that I'm that kind of person, it does actually serve my purposes in the long run. So I do encourage that sort of belief, some small words or actions on my part to keep people thinking that.

"Against certain kinds of annoyances, especially public ones, it would be tempting to hire discreet specialists to deal with the problem and just be done with them, but that is really just removing vermin without blocking up the ways that vermin get in," he said.

"Whereas making a suitable example of them not only removes those particular vermin but also encourages similar troublemakers to avoid your affairs entirely. While my specific training and allegiances are towards specialists, I do know that my type is not always the best tool for the job. Sometimes a big obvious disgusting mess is exactly what the situation calls for."

In other words, he is congratulating me on using my evil underworld contacts to have the Byeview Boys rendered down into kibble because it scares people into leaving me alone, whereas having them discreetly killed would lead to me having to kill more and more critics as time goes by. None of which acknowledges that I did nothing of the sort.

It is funny that the actual investigators of the law were the first to see that I'm entirely innocent but the shady influences and assassins are giving me the wink nudge wink yeah buddy you sure are innocent, don't worry we get it, nudge nudge wink.

"Well," I said after a pregnant pause, "like they say, you only have one chance to make a first impression. So, it should probably be a dynamic one that doesn't leave many unanswered questions." His smile for me was genuinely admiring. He thought I was fascinatingly bloodthirsty. Cool. [Quest Checkpoint Complete. Advancement: The Assassin] There was not really a subtle way to start this conversation. That means it's time for me to be an asshole.

"Hey Kurumi, are you particularly wealthy?" She gave me exactly the look that that question warranted. Surprise, disbelief, suspicion, affront, outrage, and a smidgen of amusement. I did not try to hide my self-consciousness.

"A terrible question. I'm trying to get some of my visions to make sense to me. I'm not doing badly for money, I don't want for anything and I've got avenues to a great deal of money if I wish it. And yet, the association for you is of largesse, abundance, and wealth. I'm not sure if it's metaphorical or very literal, but these things are almost always very literal-" In that she's literally labeled as The Wealthy in my status overlay, just like Kimothy is The Sorcerer and Trazom is The Famous.

"- but there is a possibility that I'm misreading signs this time, and it's been frustrating me. If you really are spectacularly wealthy, you sure don't act like it. I would have guessed your background more at 'comfortable' as a descriptor. And if I'm way over the line I'm sorry, my sense of normal questions may have been damaged by recent events."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning that lately people have been walking right up to me and just blurting out the most bogglingly intrusive questions and I might be starting to treat that as a normal thing to do." She nodded, but did not answer right away.

"Well, for one thing that really is an incredibly tactless and intrusive way to bring the topic up. So, you're correct about that. And while my family are relatively well-off for our class, I am here on a scholarship. My father owns three shops in Vandernav, and I've got more of an allowance than most second-born daughters of that standing. What I do have that may set me apart, is a direct line to an investment firm in Hearstcliff that can process my requests directly and buy commodity futures on margin."

"Huh?"

"I've got the connections to make fast-moving high-value investments," she clarified by dumbing it way down.

"I've been fixated on that ever since you mentioned that you have knowledge of the future. If you knew which sort of goods were going to increase or decrease drastically in value over the next year-""Orchard-grown citrus fruits, tart farm-raised berries," I interrupted. She paused, with a finger raised to make her next point.

"Really? That specific?"

"There's a blight," I said.

"It is already started but nobody has connected the events yet to realize it's a larger trend. When word gets out it's going to make big waves in agriculture." Kurumi tore a page out of her notebook started scribbling onto it.

"Hmm, if I divested everything in long-term holdings, everything but my walking-around money, I could manage-" she paused, and looked up at me.

"Do you want in on this? It's your tip, I can invest your money too you know." I told her how much money I could afford to invest, and she choked, coughing.

"And you asked me if I was wealthy?!" she sounded almost offended. I shrugged, a little abashed.

"Sorry. But, those impressions linking you with great wealth are making more sense now."

"Sure," she said.

"But I need to make sure you understand some things. This is not investment purchasing, we will not own stock of anything. This is margin only. That means that if we buy in on a certain company or commodity, like Hearster Citrus Shipments LLC or the lemon futures market, we don't own any portion of the company or the fruits. It's just a bet, just a casino, all right? If we put a hundred crowns down and the price does not change, we get a hundred crowns back and that's all.

If we invest a hundred and the price drops in half, our investment is cut in half. We do not own a hundred shares of a company that is worth less. No dividends, no voting at meetings, no shareholder value. Just pure transaction, all that matters is the proportion that the price changes."

"Perfect," I said.

"And if Hearster Shipments whatever quadruples, that means our money quadruples as well?" She scoffed.

"I just used 'doubles' as an example for easy math. Nothing is going to actually double, that kind of fluctuation is -" she trailed off, her voice slowing to nothing as she watched my face. My tight, knowing, secret smile.

"Is it?" she asked, hesitant.

"Doubles for a start," I said.

"Once the cranberry values drop to almost nothing-""Wait, almost nothing?" she said, tense now like there was a bomb under her chair. I was frozen like I'd said something wrong.

"Yes?" I said, carefully.

"Pretty much every cranberry bog in Hearstwhile is infected with -""Maybe it's best I don't know," she said, looking around, her face stony.

"But... if it's going to drop hard, that's the investment. Shorting that market, I mean. It's proportion. If we bet citrus up and it quadruples, we quadruple our money. If we bet cranberry down and it drops to ten percent-""Warmer," I said, encouraging her to guess again.

"Let's say five percent," she squeaked, "then our return would be twenty-fold. Or more." Her voice went all high-pitched like she was kind of scared to even talk about that much profit coming that easily.

"Damn," I sighed.

"What's the matter?"

"Last Threeday I was telling my friends that I wouldn't use my visions for money even if I could. But... twentyfold?!" Kurumi stared at her paper, with instructions written in.

"I'm going to need some information. Like how long to leave it in and when to release the money. And authorization to escrow your money into my broker's care until it can be paid back to you after the release. And... if this goes bad we're both very broke. Well, I'll still have my allowance, I guess, and you'll have?..."

"Royalties," I said.

"Huh. I would've thought princesses get, like, a share of the taxes or whatever."

"Technically I'm an earl, two countesses and a protector," I said, "but all the actual care of those lands is run by professional stewards and custodians. By charter all the tax money raised there is distributed back to a common fund, and even if I wanted to dip into that I don't have access." She gave me a strange look.

"I have never heard of an arrangement like that."

"One of my counties is just six square blocks in Tamhollow with the highest proportion of orphanages, almshouses and charity hospitals in Hearstwhile," I said proudly.

"The other one encompasses a dozen villages but isn't far behind in charitable giving. Those common funds that I mentioned are feeding hundreds of the needy and giving them new opportunities. That's more important than my allowance."

"Oh. But, the protectorate?"

"A dozen square miles worth of swamp and fens with a village that is years away from being self-supporting," I said.

"The earldom is entirely symbolic." Kurumi shook her head.

"They sure do things different in Meadowtam. But, you've got royalty money coming in? Just in case these investments don't pay back quickly?"

"I do."

"Well, that's less pressure on me," she said, but she still looked very tense. [Quest Checkpoint Complete. Advancement: The Wealthy] Huh. I might start getting XP for this soon. Neat.