Chapter 50: Buying Allies Don’t Come Cheap

After the meeting, the three of them were led into another room that had comfortable seating and a spread of food and drink on a table. It was, of course, alien food, but at a glance, it looked like the Elfin versions of cold cuts.

The meat was purple. Meat should not be purple. It tasted like chicken, though. (Of course, he had to try some.)

Everyone was quiet and lost in their own thoughts as they picked at their food. Jo was the one who finally broke the silence.

“Anyone else think that this deal is too good to be true?”

“They’re buying allies,” Zach said. “That gets expensive.”

“Really?” Thomas asked. “Because I was thinking that they were low-balling us. We should definitely ask for more.”

Both looked at him.

“Think about it: This is the perfect opportunity to offload crystals into their marketplace. I’ve collected a ton from delving over and over in the last few weeks,” he explained, as if this wasn’t a cover story he had just made up. After all, he didn’t know if there were listening devices, magical or otherwise, here. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but sometimes selling can be a pain in the ass when you dive as much as you can.”

Especially when you weren’t trying to draw attention to yourself and stay off databases, which was why he was emphasizing his cover story. Let them think that he was a dungeon maniac.

“Hey, yeah,” Zach agreed, perking up a little. “I wonder if I can trade any of my Level 3 Water and Earth Crystals from that last dungeon for Fire?”

“You should. If they have Teleportation mana, they should have Fire since it’s so common,” Thomas said.

Zach shook his head. “No, dude. I mean, you’d think that, right? But it’s only common because we’re from Earth.”

Both Thomas and Jo looked at him.

“I don’t know much,” said the one and only alien expert in the room. “But from what I remember hearing, what we think are classical elements: air, water, earth, and fire are all based on our planet. Elves have their own classical base elements to start from, and so do the dragonkin and gnomes and whatever.”

Thomas fully intended to address that minor revelation about dwarves and dragonkin at a later point. But for now… “So what are the classic base elements here on, uh, Elf-world?”

“Um.” He squinted. “I think it follows the theme of their different species. Light, Wood, Ice, and Shadow.”

“So we can dive here and get Shadow mana dropped like it’s candy,” Thomas said. He was really starting to like the sound of this.

“You want Shadow mana?” Zach asked, looking a little surprised.

Ah, damn it, he was right. He’d felt nauseous touching Void mana, and Shadow had to be in the same family. He’d probably be compatible with something more like Light. Still… he’d always have the equivalent of a flashlight with him. That was handy.

“I don’t want to dive for Shadow mana,” Jo said, then amended, “Okay, I really do, but I have responsibilities at home. I can’t just fart around on an alien planet. Besides, how do we even know these are good guys? Remember, they want to colonize our world.”

“Not the entire world, and it sounds like they won’t be the only group doing it,” Thomas clarified but thought for a moment. She had some good points. “Okay, maybe we make free transit to and from this world part of the deal. We should write all this down…” He looked around, but the room was spare and clean, and he wasn’t sure if elves had the equivalent of paper and pencils. So he brought out his phone and opened the notepad app. “As for knowing if they’re good guys…” He trailed off. He had nothing.

“Dunno,” Zach said. “You have to get to know a person before you know a person, you know?”

Thomas shrugged. “They did agree to heal you two with basically no restrictions—”

“Other than the timeshare pitch,” Jo said.

“Other than the timeshare pitch,” he agreed. “But also Akilah offered me the chance to apprentice under him as a healer,” Thomas added hesitantly. “I don’t know if I’ll take him up on it, but it does imply that he sees me as a person and not chattel.”

“I suppose,” Jo said doubtfully.

“Does he want you to be a pure healer?” Zach asked, looking at Thomas carefully. “Like, those don’t normally dungeon dive, right?”

“He didn’t say it, but I got the impression the answer is yes. He didn’t seem impressed when I told him I wanted to be a Combat Healer.”

“Boo.” Zach made a thumbs-down gesture. “Forget that. Combat healer sounds hella sick.”

It did sound hella sick. He just had to figure out how to do it without backlash to his soul. Maybe more tanking, like he had with the turtle swamp boss?

On his notepad he added: Healing guides and training?

Jo drummed her fingers on the table as she thought. “Do we even need these guys? No offense to them, but I think we’re doing pretty well on our own. Thomas and I are already level three, and Zach, as soon as you get fire mana, you’ll be there too, right?”

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“Yeah,” Zach agreed, “and staying at level three is no big thing, but I have aspirations beyond, you know? The dungeons on Earth won’t start opening up for higher levels until after System Integration, and by then lots of people will be level three. I don’t want to lose that edge.”

Neither did Thomas. He suspected he knew the answer but he wanted to ask. “And it’s not a good idea to build up to the level 4 layer on your core with level 3 mana?”

He wiggled his hand back and forth. “It’s not the worst thing, but you won’t be building with the strongest magic. If you keep doing it, or you want to operate at peak levels, you’ll be put at a disadvantage. You guys have felt level one mana. It’s sort of airy now compared to the level 3, right? I’ve heard of people’s cores collapsing if they try to build up with levels far below them.”

Though he’d only had his core a short amount of time, Thomas shuddered and saw Jo do the same.

“My Wellspring mana is overleveled, and that hits me like a truck every time, except in a good way.” He shrugged at Jo’s amused look. “No, I don’t want to wait either, or build up my core with weaker mana.”

“If we’re diving levels 4 and 5, I want to know that I can come and go freely,” Jo said, returning to her point. “Then I’ll think about what else I want from these guys and what they want from us.”