Chapter 186: Tea Party

“How can I help you, sir?” The brown-haired clerk at the Exchange Hall of Akul asked with businesslike politeness. Will could smell a bit of sugar and almond, and he could hear a rounded shape with a bite out of it occluding the wood on the other side of the bar. She must’ve been rushed out of her lunch without finishing desert.

Poor girl.

Will was standing front of a bar that accommodated over a dozen clerks processing the orders of an equal number of thick lines of Climbers and civilians receiving payments for quests and bounties, storing or returning borrowed Relics, or just taking care of everyday banking.

It was a bustling afternoon scene as the people chatted amongst each other while they waited, their conversations bouncing off the marble walls and high ceilings, creating a fog of noise around him that made it difficult to pick out any one voice.

Been a while since I’ve been to an exchange hall, Will thought, trying to distract himself from the insects squirming across his body. Believe it or not, having incredibly high Acuity does not, in fact, reduce the ickiness of things crawling across your skin.

“I’d like to check my account and make a withdrawal.” Will said. “I’m going shopping.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Name?”

“William Oh.”

The conversations around them died, stillness rippling outward.

The clerk raised a brow, but reached under the bar and retrieved a ledger, flipping open a page near the back and scrolling down it with a finger.

She paused and glanced up at him, eyes flickering miasmatic blue.

“…Confirmed. How much would you like to withdraw, Mr. Oh?”

The conversations around him resumed, albeit with a lot more whispering.

“All of it.” Will said with a shrug.

The woman pulled out a different ledger used to track account balances, flipping through it until she landed on his page.

“So that’ll be-“ She paused, frowning. “Mr. Oh, May I advise that you not withdraw all of your funds?”

“Why not?” Will asked, curious. It wasn’t like they didn’t have enough money. The Exchange Halls had some kind of arrangement with The Tower to produce the currency as needed, so they couldn’t actually run out of gold and ivory.

“Because it wouldn’t fit out the door.” She said.

Will’s brows rose as he turned Phantom Eye towards the massive double doors that stood open to the hall, at least fifteen feet tall and ten feet wide, enough for two streams of Climbers to enter and leave.

The door’s not big enough!? Will thought.

“Let me get my manager. She can print you promissory notes, which will be much more portable.” She said, hopping off the stool she’d been seated on and turning towards the back.

“You can take your pastry with you. I don’t mind.” Will said, pointing at where the round shape rested behind the desk.

The clerk froze guiltily for a moment.

“Acuity Build?” She guessed.

“Acuity Build.” Will said with a nod.

The young woman grabbed the pastry from behind the wooden panel and shoved it in her mouth before trotting to the back rooms.

…So it was a bear claw.

Will spent a good three minutes sweating in place as the number of people staring at him only grew, before eventually the clerk appeared on the other side of the bar, ushering him through a side door.

Will was led down a winding corridor along a short-pile carpet that felt like it’d been chosen for durability over looks, finally arriving in the office of an older woman with a gentle smile.

In front of her was a ledger with Will’s name on it and a number beside it that contained more zeros than Will had expected.

“Good morning, Mr. Oh. I’m told you’re looking to make a large withdrawal?”

“Shopping spree.” Will said.

“And the nature of that shopping spree?” she asked, pulling out a large stack of blank papers from under her desk. “Multiple small purchases or one or two big ones, such as the auction, or land?”

“Multiple small ones,” Will admitted. “And probably multiple big ones, too.”

The banker’s breath hitched in her lungs. A suppressed groan.

“How about a thousand promissory notes at fifty ten-pieces each for the smaller purchases, and a hundred promissory notes for a thousand ten-pieces each for the larger ones?” she asked.

An ivory piece is a hundred gold. A ten-piece is a thousand gold. A note for a thousand ten-piece is one…million…gold.

One hundred million plus fifty thousand times a thousand…another fifty million?

…How much was Kincaid worth? Well, Kincaid and all the fae with bounties he drew in to defend him.

“That should work.” Will said with a nod. “Is that all of it?”

“Nnnope.” The banker said, shaking her head as she reached out to the stack of papers, and ran her thumb deftly across the stack until she gripped exactly a thousand sheets. It was a rather bulky amount, but certainly less bulky than fifty million gold coins.

A lump of Charge flooded her arms and travelled down into the paper, and it changed color, taking the form of ornate notes of credit with the exchange hall’s seal and the denomination: fifty ivory ten-pieces.

As this was happening, Will watched the number next to his name tick downward. At least part of it, anyway. The numbers at the top didn’t move.

“Here you are. If you need something to carry them, we can give you a complementary satchel designed to-”

Will accepted the papers, and swept them into his Dimensional Storage. In the blink of an eye, they’d vanished form his hands.

“-Right. You’re William Oh.” The woman shook her head and created the smaller stack of more valuable papers and handed them to Will.

“Can you do me one more favor while I’m here?” Will asked.

“Of course.”

“Thea Oilton is my representative in Akul. Could you send her about half of the remaining total?” Will asked.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Of course.”

“And can you give Steve Holland one percent of the original total along with a letter telling him that he’s fired?” Will asked.

“The itinerant charlatan? Mid-grade healer?”

“That’s the one.” Will said. “We had a previous agreement, and I never had a chance to settle up.”

That greedy bastard called it.

The banker jotted down two quick notes beside Will’s entry, and glanced back up at him.

“It’ll be done. Is there anything else, Mr. Oh?”

…That’ll cover it,” Will said, nodding as he stored the second stack of papers. “Thank you very much.”

“A pleasure.” The woman said, shaking his hand before Will walked back out.

As he re-entered the lobby, Will felt gazes rake across his body, searching for the satchel or any suspicious lumps where he might be hiding a piece of paper with a lot of zeroes.

Naturally, Will had no more suspicious lumps than usual, and he walked back out those massive double doors, daring the citizens of Akul to give him any shit.

…They didn’t.

Will cracked his neck.

Time for a long day of shopping, Will thought as he arrived at Thea’s home, knocking on the door.

The door opened to reveal Ria. There were other Rias relaxing all the way back to the main hall. A hundred of them in total, sitting, chatting, leaning on the wall or perhaps lucky enough to grab a seat.

They all stood when he arrived.

“Alright, ladies.” Will said, gesturing for them to approach. “That’s ten small sheets apiece. You all know what I’m looking for. If you run into any trouble, shoot me a message through Anna.”

Anna and Ria both had temperaments equally suited to shopping on his behalf, but Ria was less likely to be stolen from, just from her extra height and warrior-like appearance.

Will began handing out a stack of ten promissory notes to each Ria as they filed out the door and broke apart, flooding the streets of Akul in a matter of minutes, aiming to scour every merchant, crafter, and salesman in the entire city before they could catch wind of what he was doing and raise their prices.