I woke up late today, it was almost 10:00 in the morning. One of the crew gave me a message that was sent to the ship at dawn. The message belonged to Jack, apologizing for not showing up yesterday. He said he was fine and had already received his reward, but that he had to take advantage of an opportunity that came up. I take care of some matters on the ship, including an initial test with some smaller vessels. The test is a way to train and calculate the time we will have and how many trips we will make while we steal the cargo from the Golden Dragon on the last day.
In the early afternoon, I return to the Sleeping Dragon. I change the sign announcing that there is only 1 normal cabin and 2 VIP cabins left. While I am pasting my papers, I hear a man in the tavern talking about the Red Sage. The rumor has already spread to the center of the district in less than a day.
I also announce on the paper that regular tickets will be sold starting tomorrow here in room 3. I take the opportunity to look and see that most of the tickets have gone up in price, as well as several supplies. The ticket prices are high and supplies are around 10-15%, tomorrow will be a good day to sell regular tickets.
As soon as I get to private room 3 I order my lunch and Black Cat brings 3 more books. I ask him where he bought the book about souls and he says it was from someone who claims to be a magic apprentice. That book is the real thing the rest was just a waste of money, but it was worth finding it, I ask him to contact the person and if he has any more books I am willing to pay a good price. After he leaves I have lunch looking through the books and nothing is found again.
Two new obscure religions and another book used as a reference for appraisers, this one talks a bit about storage bags and I find it quite interesting although it is not 100% accurate. After lunch I receive a poorly dressed child desperate to board our ship. He asks for the last remaining cabin, but besides barely having 4 gold coins he wants me to allow 11 people in it. I insist on why he wants the cabin since they can travel in the crew area, but he keeps beating around the bush for over 20 minutes without saying why. Only after saying that they can stay, but they will also have to work as a crew member does he get desperate again, saying that only 7 of the 11 can work. At that moment I ask him to trust me or give up. Only then does he tell me that 4 of the children are runaway slaves and still have their wrist and neck shackles, which is why they cannot be seen by the public. I calm him down by telling them to come to my ship tonight and that I will remove the chains with the help of my blacksmith, who is also a former slave. He finally accepts and gives me the money before telling me their ages and information. There are 7 boys and 4 girls, all around Ted's age. Some are homeless and others are just pickpockets. In the end I accept, even though I know they won't be able to work much, giving up any minor profit from the last cabin. Now there are only 4 spots left in a cabin for solo travelers and I can try to sell them tomorrow or maybe I will leave this last cabin free for someone who shows up on the last day, putting this lone man together with the other 5 male travelers.
When it is almost 4:00 pm Jack finally shows up. He takes out a cloth bag (since bags cannot be stored in other bags) and dumps 11 storage bags in front of me. This surprises me a lot… I thought he could steal 4 or 5 in a single day….
—Any additional requests? I ask him.
"I would like to get 1 more bag if possible."
I agree, my eyes passing over 2 tree bags and 9 other shadow bags before breaking them all and giving him one of the shadow bags. He immediately empties the contents of it and I start emptying the others. When we finish, gold and silver coins are falling from the table, so we start the long count: 633 gold coins, 2000 silver coins, 7 gold bars, and at least 10,000 copper coins that I didn't even take out of the bags due to lack of space on the table. In addition to the money, there is a huge amount of silver ingots, steel and other less valuable metals, 11 gold watches, a large chest of jewelry, as well as many varied precious gems and other luxurious ornaments that would easily make another large chest. One of the bags had many paintings, another had small busts of important people and 4 more complete sets of high-value heavy armor. Jack evaluated all of these for good prices after confirming who their creators were and even recognized some with prices exceeding 3 digits. The most valuable item in all of this was some scales that we believe to be from a dragon. There are 7 pieces and they vary in size from 10 to 50 centimeters each. This will certainly be worth the price of an army later when the number of dragons is reduced to a few dozen. There are also sets of leather armor, weapons and other steel accessories. But I only consider selling them later.
I take the 633 coins for myself and leave all 7 bars for Jack. Jack passes me 3 bars and says that it is the fee for selling the criminal's information. With that I have 5 bars in addition to exceeding 1100 gold coins. Then I divide the silver and the ingots, keeping all the copper for myself. After we finish, I say goodbye to Jack and thank him for the partnership, warning him that if he still wants to steal more bags this may attract unwanted attention since I still have other plans. In the end, I decide to invite him to join my other plan. I don't give any details and just tell him to go to the ship on Sunday morning and I'll tell him the details. I take the opportunity to buy his coma-inducing poison, as I'll need a few doses. I put everything back in my bags before emptying 2 of them and breaking the bond I had. As for the other 8, I tell the system to devour everything. A huge space appears in my mind. It's so many square meters that it's similar to my cabin on the ship, only much higher. All the recently stolen items are there too.
I get ready and head to the port. It's not yet 6:00 p.m., but my father will be boarding soon and I have to say goodbye properly, as well as give him two last farewell gifts. When I arrive by carriage near his ship, I can already see my father standing near some boxes along with other passengers who haven't boarded yet. I take the coachman to my father and ask him to help me bring the boxes to the carriage, only then do I ask for some privacy.
We sit down and my father starts telling some funny stories from when I was a child, I laugh at some of them as I take out two lunch boxes and we start eating, I take the opportunity to tell him everything I know about the current Westeros and even a little about its future. I remind him that his cousin can also see the future and that this is a trait in our family, in the future there will be others too. He then bites his lip and starts talking about my mother, not the bad side, but the good things. I tell him that she was probably running away from someone and didn't want to put us in danger. And that my father and I were just a weakness that could be used against her. Of course, there are several other options for what happened, but it's better to think of the best ones.
"I know, son. After the anger passed, I started to notice small details. I really believe she was running away from someone. But when I was angry, I went blind and didn't think straight when I threw away the things she left for you. I went to the pier and dove for several months, trying to find the coin purse and the other items, but in the end, I only found this."
He gives me a rusty short sword, probably from the time it was underwater. I accept the sword and examine it slowly. It doesn't look very fancy, but it's still quite light. I then put it in my inventory. Then I take it and give him a shadow bag and teach him how to use it. Lastly, before I say goodbye, I give him a large envelope. Inside it are two letters I wrote. I tell him that if he ever has a problem he can't solve, to open the envelope and give one of the letters to Daenys or her eldest son. He waves, puts his heaviest and most valuable items in his new bag after I teach him, and leaves some to take aboard the ship. I hug him and he says in a low voice as if holding back tears:
"Son, tomorrow will be your birthday, since I won't be with you, I wish you much success, if you can, come visit me again when possible, I'll show you our family's incredible store."
After saying this, he smiles and walks to climb aboard the old warship, despite being an old ship, it still scares and keeps away common pirates who think twice before attacking such a large, powerful and resistant vessel. He waves to me from the stern of the ship and then makes way for the other people who are also waving to their loved ones.
I feel a strange feeling, I didn't have any family in my other life so for a moment I wish he hadn't gone... But my journey is only mine, I will be more confident if only my life is in danger. Sighing I head back to the ship where I know some young people are waiting for me.
Bonus chapter for the first review!