Afterword - Book 2 - Chapter 51 (Patreon)

Chapter 51: Parties, Profits, and Plots

(Original Chapter Title: Parties, Profits, and Plots)

I wasn't kidding about telling the tale of 'humanity' through character moments with the Shimagu War.

This chapter is predominately about exploring facets of Avyna's personality and how Ranthia interacts with them, but it also introduces a burgeoning new friendship between the couple and Ranthia's tagalong messenger and her girlfriend.

As the unchanged and on-the-nose chapter title implies, the broader parts of this story never changed between the OG draft and here. Avyna still got shut down during her booze sale-a-thon and walked away from the meeting with a store and the seeds to acquire unlimited power (and profit). Ranthia still got lonely and sulky. And they still hosted a little get together. Ranthia still 'ruined' dessert too, of course.

And Remera still received reinforcements well after the crisis was done.

Ranthia is not a patient woman. This has been one of the traits she's consistently carried from her days as an 8-year-old to the present. She craves company and opportunities for amusement, though she's obviously capable of setting this aside when something demands her attention. It's a moral failing, sure, but it's not one that she really cares about.

Patience might be a virtue, but Ranthia's never claimed to be virtuous. Ignore the fact that she's a self-described former Paladin.

I don't want to reiterate much on the character moments from this chapter because I think they can (and should) stand on their own merits. I don't think there's any real surprises or behind the scenes information I can offer about any of them without the lot of you staring blankly at me and going "Yup, obviously."

But there is one thing I can reveal here that people might have wondered about: Avyna was excited about currency conversions because it let her 'legitimize' her stake in the underground economy of the base. The contribution credit (largely just called 'points') system requires formal ledgers to transfer, in large part because Remus' officers assumed this would make illegal trade 'corrupting' their legionaries and bases impossible. By and large it worked, except plenty of legionaries carried Reman coins (and/or started counterfeiting them), so they just fell back on their usual currency. But armed with the ability to freely trade one currency for the other, Avyna can invest in these secretive staples of creature comforts while adding her 'illegal' coins in with those she accepts at her shop to trade them for a more useful currency. Or vice-versa when she needs to inject more coins into the underground marketplace.

Which if you think about it, this serves as a pretty massive lever to control the economy within Remera.

Why would a skilled [Merchant] limit herself to her vast 'legal' sources of income when she can tap an entire regional economy?

She wasn't kidding about not needing any assistance with her greed.