Well...apparently she was his new favorite science project. She could deal with that even if it wasn’t ideal; most of the other doctors had been the same way with her, so at least she was familiar with it. The perpetual puzzle, the guinea pig that no one could figure out what was wrong with. She had tried so many treatments, and none of them had done a thing. She’d had her death predicted many times before, so it’s not like it was a new thing.
Smiling sweetly, she decided that she would do the same thing she had before. Use the fact that they wanted something from her to get some benefits for herself. For now, that would come in the form of information. There was still so much she didn’t know…
“Could you maybe tell me more about the money system here? I don’t want to get ripped off when I’m out and about.”
Mike and Elisa looked at each other, nodding thoughtfully before Elisa walked into the other room, returning with a handful of varied coins. She gave a silent prayer of relief when she recognized the four metals. Please let it be the same conversion as DnD… That would be perfect. She directed her thoughts to the heavens as Elisa set the four coins on the table, nodding to Mike, who spoke. “There are four main coins. There are the copper coins, which are called nuts. Ten of them are equal to one of the silver coins, which are called leaves. Ten leaves are equal to a golden laurel, and ten laurels are equal to the platinum crown.” She heaved a quiet sigh of relief. That was math that she could do.
She absently studied the coins, running her fingers over them. She figured it would be easy enough to remember the names. The nuts had a sprouting acorn depicted against a really tall mountain with clouds floating by on what she dubbed the front side. The leaves had almost the same picture, but instead of an acorn, it had what looked like a maple leaf. Of course, the color was different too. The nuts had smooth edges, but the leaves had notched edges, almost like a dime. They seemed about the same sizes as the coins she was used to as well. The nut was about the size of a penny, the leaf the size of a nickel.
However, the laurels and crowns were more intricately crafted. The edges of the laurel were part of the image, like the laurels the old Romans had given to the first winners of the Olympics, their leaves were masterfully formed to create the raised image. The inside of the coin held what looked like a delicate willow tree. About the size of a quarter, it was beautiful to her.
The crowns were amazing too! Like one of those small round crowns, the edge of the coin was a little crown design, tiny knobs coming up to form the ‘tips’ of the crown, with little diamond shaped insets to represent gems on the side. On the face of the coin was a cherry tree, but there was an intricate crown circling the trunk in the middle of the coin. It was fantastic workmanship on a coin the size of a dollar coin.
On the back of each coin was a picture of this amazing castle with a bunch of pretty turrets and the word Caoi in cursive across the bottom. All in all, they either had a fantastic coin mold or...no, that was pretty much the only thing she could think of. If someone tried to do this by hand, it would take ages. Once she’d finished studying them, she smiled at the patiently waiting couple and began her questioning again.
“Can you give me a few examples of what I can buy with them? Like, say, how much would a healing cost normally?” She kinda needed to know the price range for that especially, given that she had decided that she would probably be his competitor. Or at least, she figured healing was going to be her ticket into the academy, as long as she could figure out how to do it.
Mike turned to Elisa, who was obviously in charge of the money. She smiled and continued where he left off. “You can normally get a loaf of bread or a mug of ale for two nuts. Healing shallow wounds usually costs a few leaves, and a major healing could range anywhere from laurels to crowns, depending on how serious it is and the rank of the magician. Mikey here is one of the best, so his services are generally high in demand.” She looked proudly at him. Okay, she’d not given her a whole lot to work with, but she could figure it out from there. Basically, healing was awesome and expensive. Pretty typical.
She was going to have to come back and siphon them again if she could. Although maybe next time she would wait until AFTER she was in bed to confirm. She figured that was probably the best plan at this point. If she was going to black out, it was better to do it somewhere safe. Plus, if blacking out made her skip the whole unbearable itching part of the plan, she figured it was a fair trade-off. As long as she was safe, that is. She was going to try really hard not to collapse in public again.
They talked for another half hour or so, giving her a better idea of what to expect as far as money was concerned, what stores were available, and how to get back to The Green Dragon, the best watchmaker’s place, and the academy testing grounds. Elisa had even drawn her a little make-do map on a spare piece of parchment so that she could reference it if she got lost. Although granted, she could probably just ask around and just about anyone would be able to point her in the right direction.
Smiling, she thanked them for their time and care, leaving shortly thereafter with Mike’s entreaty to come back so he could study her condition some more. She hid her slight revulsion at the request, figuring it was the least she could do for stealing his profession, hopefully. She hadn’t had a chance to check her profile since she’d woken up. She waved at them as she stepped outside into the afternoon sunlight.
Breathing deeply of the fresh air, she glanced around to find another alleyway. Making sure she was out of sight of Mike’s place, she found a mostly comfortable place to sit down and pulled up her profile. It was time to see what her stealing had netted her. From what she could tell, her ability worked for like…five or six hours after she started the siphon. From what Mike said, she guessed that she got a portion of it every hour, so it was more of a gradual absorption.
Glancing around to make sure no one was paying attention to her, she pulled up her notifications first.
Assimilation completed for: Kaylee Ivers, Jessica Dorney, Raphael Millis, Steven Cooper, Travis Wainbright, Chloe Chambers, Mike Scribner, and Elisa Scribner. Profile has been updated.
She had several more that she’d ignored earlier telling her to choose what to siphon from the random people she’d run into along the way to Mike’s, but she left those alone again and pulled up her profile. She didn’t really want to black out currently, and she was curious to see how long they would last. She’d gotten them a good six-plus hours ago, so if they kept until she was ready to go to bed, that would be awesome. If they didn’t, she needed to figure out approximately how long it took them to go away. Given that it was mid-afternoon, she guessed that if she waited until sundown, it would have been somewhere like 10-12 hours later. She wasn’t exactly certain when she had left, and she had totally spaced asking Elisa what the time actually WAS. Maybe she’d just ask a random passerby if they had the time…
Enough stalling. Taking a deep breath, she read the blue box in front of her.
Name: Jade Winward
Age: 18
Strength: 8.26
Dexterity: 8.51
Constitution: 7.99
Intelligence: 15.58
Magic: 11.38
Charisma: 9.17
Luck: 13.71
Special Abilities: Siphon