Chapter 18: 1.18 Spice and Spider

We reached the elf's home and Velariah knocked. A few seconds later Elly opened the slide before letting us in. We introduced Draco before we had her get a large bowl in which we gracefully deposited our pack contents. The spider fangs mixed in between the berries made Elly's face run white with disgust. Poor girl.  

We fished out all the fangs and repacked them to take them to the guild to collect our reward. I couldn't quite count all of them but there were many, and then there were the two massive ones from the spider boss. I could already see silver coins raining down from the sky into my pockets. If only I could wear pants... 

It appeared Elly had not listened to what we had said earlier and had cleaned up all the spider webs covering the floor. And now, we had even more work to be done.  

Elly looked at the big bowl full of coffee cherries and I could feel her heart sink. That was going to be a lot of work to get done. I felt bad for her and suggested that I would help her as soon as we came back. I was careful enough to not exactly say what we were going to do with those cherries in front of Draco. On the other hand, we would probably need more people later on to peel them once we started to get this industry up and running. These secrets wouldn't remain secret forever.  

I guessed this would be an ideal job for copper ranked adventurers, poor souls. At least they could be paid somewhat well considering the guild was ripping people off by asking three coppers for a cup of coffee. 

I was sure there was money to be made here, but I would also like it to be somewhat fair trade. This whole ordeal wouldn't sit well with me otherwise. 

We walked back over to the guild hall through the now almost empty streets. It seemed the people that were from around here had become more accustomed to a large spider walking through their streets. The number of glares I had received had gone down considerably. Some apparent foreigners in the form of humans were still scared to death though.  

Come to think of it, humans had been the only race I had seen so far outside of elves, besides Draco and myself that was. I had been told this village was quite an important trade post, where were the other demi-humans promised to me? 

The sky had already turned with the red that signaled the end of the day, and I feared for the worst. 

We entered the guild hall and found the place completely packed as I was expecting. Everyone from the streets must have come here after the trials had ended. Alcohol was flowing freely and not a single table was free anymore. Several waiters ran up and down with drinks and plates filled with food. I didn't think we'd have any luck having dinner here for a while. Not that I needed it. 

We made our way over to the Lore keeper. I had to be careful with my movements when we did so, I didn't want to ruin people's dinner or scare them, not on purpose at least.  

Velariah and Draco emptied their bags' contents on the counter as I waited behind them. Mine was already completely empty after taking out the cherries. The Lore keeper scribbled down a bunch of words as she counted the fangs. 

Shivers ran over my back and I felt my hairs stand up as something touched my behind. I felt a hand run over my abdomen and I turned my head around to see what was going on. 

Some elf with red cheeks was running both hands over my body. He was obviously drunk and seemed to be fixated on my spider parts. What the hell? 

I turned around and looked down at the elf. 

''Wzaappp missss, howzz it going tonightee.'' He hiccupped after that. 

''I'm fine but I'd prefer you to keep your hands to yourself.'' This impetuous elf... 

''Mizzz.'' He wanted to lean against me but I held him in place with my pedipalps. ''You zhould joins me for ze night.'' 

Right, this guy was completely gone. Apparently, I had just received an invitation to stay the night. He must have been extremely drunk to invite something like me over. 

''No, thanks.'' I tried to push him back to the barstool which he had sat on before and turned around to see silver coins being handed out by the Lore keeper. 

The sound and feeling of a slap had made me turn around again. What the hell was this guy's problem, he had just slapped my ass! 

''What is your problem?'' I asked angrily. 

He responded by grabbing my breasts. 

Ok that's it. 

Within a second, I had him down to floor and pinned beneath four of my legs. I bent over and looked him straight in the eye. 

''I would highly suggest not trying that again. I would like not to cause trouble here but you're testing my patience.'' I made my fangs appear and had them click each other in hopes of inciting fear in this freak. 

It didn't seem to work. This guy was surely too far gone. Wait, did he just pass out? 

I walked off of him and let him go. It did seem he had passed out; soft snores came from the elf's mouth. At least that was one thing less to worry about.  

''Oi whaddaya dun to my mate?''  

Oh god, not another one. Vel help me out here, will you? 

''I did nothing. In fact, he is the one that assaulted me.'' I replied to the knocked-out dude's ''mate''. 

I turned to the other man. He didn't seem fazed by my appearance. Seriously, drunk dudes were the worst. If I ever had to get a partner would this be how I met them? They would surely have to be completely smashed first.  

''Ya gonna pay for that!''  

Oh, please leave me alone. I was not intending on starting a bar fight. 

He jumped off his stool and raised a fist in anger. Unfortunately for him, I was faster. I grabbed his hand and twisted it, holding it up to his stomach. 

''Leave. Me. Alone!'' I emphasized every word as I pushed him back with my extra limbs. 

He stumbled over his knocked-out friend and fell to the floor. An armed guard from outside walked in and asked what was going on here. I told him these two drunkards had assaulted me and he looked at me with ignorance.  

''And why should I not believe it was the other way around?''  

This guy didn't seem to like me. 

''She is telling the truth, you know they are trouble, just get them out of here.'' 

I turned to see the barkeep assist me. It appears he had been watching how this was unfolding. Couldn't he have stepped in earlier? I was thankful for his help though.  

The guard dragged both men outside and I was glad to see them gone.  

''Thanks.'' I turned to the barkeep. 

I wondered if the reason that had to pick on me had been the fact that there was a different barkeep from before. After all, this guy didn't have certain assets that would keep their attention locked in place. 

''No need to thank me, they are known trouble makers. They pay well though. Seems you got yourselves a good haul too'' He pointed towards Draco and Velariah. 

Yeah, no shit. I reckoned they had to spend quite a bit to get as drunk as they were.  

I turned to where the barkeep pointed and saw the Lore keeper was still putting down more silver coins on the desk. It seemed we were going to cash in quite a bit. Wait, did I see a square silver coin in between? 

I walked over and looked over Velariah's shoulder quietly as to not startle the Lore keeper who seemed intensely focused on counting. At this point I was tempted to just grab the cash and go, I'd seen enough of this place for the day and I was getting tired. Unfortunately, I knew certain things would have to be arranged first. Velariah looked up to me and smiled, what was she smiling for? 

The Lore keeper was finally done and leaned back in her chair.  

''Twenty-two hellspiders, and a hellspider queen. That's twenty-two silvers plus an extra five. Oh, and Elania?'' It appeared she had noticed me. ''I included the two silvers for the farmer's quest as well.''  

Neat.  

''A guild official will be dispatched shortly to investigate both the quest objective and that dungeon you talked about. Have you thought of a name suggestion yet?'' She turned to Velariah. 

''Well, Elania is the one that found it, if anyone should pick a name for it, it should be her.'' 

Wait. The person that discovered a dungeon got to name it? That sounded pretty cool, but there was a certain issue. 

''I suck at naming things, you know that.'' 

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I could only imagine what kind of weird names people had come up with. I would leave this matter to somebody else. 

''Can't you name it yourselves?'' I asked the elf behind the counter.  

''That's what we do all the time, I was just wondering if you had a suggestion for a name.'' 

Oh, it seems I misunderstood what she had meant. Nope, I still had no clue what would fit. 

''Yeah, I'll leave you guys to it.''  

I would stick to things I knew, like making coffee and coming up with crazy ideas that I never seemed to follow anyway. Things such as starting with trade and building up reputation before setting foot in this village. I sucked at sticking to a plan. Not that this had been for the worst though, I had quite enjoyed this village so far, save for some people maybe.  

Velariah handed nine silver coins to Draco as his share of the reward money and put the rest in my purse. I wasn't sure what to feel about it. Now it was going to be messy to keep track of what I actually owned.  

The elf noticed me looking and told me it would be fine, we would get some proper armor for me first and I could repay whenever I wanted to.  

That was awfully sweet of her but I could see her line of thinking. She already possessed fairly good armor herself, all I had was a modified shirt on my body and nothing else.  

Thinking of my shirt brought me to my arms. I would probably have to pay a fair deal extra to get any kind of armor modified to fit those. I wondered what the best material would be. Plate and mail seemed far too heavy to carry around while still moving optimally. Leather or hardened leather might be the way to go but it felt it was lacking in the defense department. If only I could cover myself in this chitin, it seemed tough enough to stop arrows and was extremely light. 

I could see my dreams of quickly getting a set of armor fly away, like birds in the sky feeling from a forest fire. 

Would it be necessary to get armor for the rest of my body too? I imagined it would be hard finding an armorer to even take measurements, let alone actually make it. I decided I would stick to my human body for now, that seemed to be my weak spot. 

And for that I had to wait until the next day. Argh, this anticipation was killing me. Fortunately for me it seemed dusk had set in. Now I just hoped I could sleep away the time and that the coffee from before wouldn't interfere with that either. Speaking of which, I saw no coffee being served anymore. I assumed it was because they were out. If they were to keep serving it now and people were to go to bed soon, they would be in for a surprise. 

Velariah had the Lore keeper draft a request for our party. We would be looking for a healer and a ranged damage dealer for now. Of that last, there should be archers aplenty, it was an elven village after all. She had also put our names on the request and I wondered if it would keep people away. Then again, people unfamiliar with our name would be none the wiser, and if they were and that kept them away from us, we wouldn't want them in anyway. 

After having it drafted and paying another silver (seriously, what was this rip-off?) the Lore keeper put the document away under her desk. Any applications would be saved, and forwarded to us we could then review them and invite them for a talk. 

Yeap, that sounded like job applications alright. 

Once all that was out of the way it was time to return ''home'', there was not much else we could do for the day. Even though dusk had set in it still didn't feel as late but I couldn't be happier. It had given a reason for me to go to sleep early, all the antics from today had left me physically exhausted. Even if I managed to ignore it for the most part, I wouldn't be able to ignore it forever. Everything from today hit me at once, was this what a hangover felt like? 

We bid our goodbyes to Draco before making our way back to Velariah's home.  

Once inside she had Elly help her out of her armor again before we moved over to the dining area. It appeared Elly had already started on the cherries that we dropped off.  

She just wouldn't listen, would she? 

I sighed, pushed two chairs aside and started helping her. Even though I was tired I did promise I would help with this. Added to that was the fact that I had no idea if it would be bad to leave these cherries out overnight.  

Velariah walked to the kitchen as I got started. There was a pretty large heap that would still have to be processed before it was time for bed. It was quite ironic how much caffeine was in front of me. And I was longing to go to sleep. Good thing I had two sets of hands to help out.  

I told Elly to take a break, she had already done a part herself and cleaned up the mess I had made before. I wondered what she had done with all that silk? She was hesitant to stop working but accepted, walking off to the kitchen as well.  

They both returned with the remaining loaf of bread from earlier today and the strawberry jam. I had not even thought about eating. It might turn out to be a very convenient thing to be able to go without food for so long after ''stocking up'' first. I hadn't reached the limits yet, from what I could tell. If I were to eat massive amounts, I could possibly go a week without, or so I guessed. I also guessed it would look extremely weird for me to eat an entire week's worth of food in one sitting. All these weird body intricacies did increase my survival capabilities by quite a bit, though.  

In addition, I would have the luxury of being able to carry many resources for our party. We could take a fair amount of longer preservable food with us because of it. Added to that was the fact that I wouldn't have to eat myself for a long time. This body may not be so bad after all. At least not from a pure survival perspective.  

It was a weird thought but there was no denying it. 

Both elves were happily eating and watching me work with grimaces on their faces, sadists.  

Velariah had asked if I wanted anything to eat which I had politely declined. I'd be happy to just get this done and then go to bed, or well, pillow pile.  

I managed to get through this much faster than the beginning earlier today and the pile of coffee beans started to grow quickly. Valtheril walked in when I was about halfway done. He took his seat at the head of the table and started working on several documents that he had been carrying. Every once in a while, he threw a glance at what I was doing.  

Eventually, he seemed to be done with his work and stood up only to sit down next to me. I was not expecting him to do that and it had startled me.  

It seemed he had been quite interested in the coffee creation process and he asked me several questions about how it was done. If he was going to be the one arranging production, I didn’t mind answering all the questions he had about coffee, as long as I got paid without having my name strapped to every single cup.  

Valtheril knew this was a win/win scenario for him and agreed, he even made a contract to make it formal. This time I did read through the entire thing. It appeared I would get fifteen percent of the export price from ''Dawnleaf Exports''. That seemed like a deal too good to be true considering I wouldn't have to put in any work once everything was up and running. I had the feeling Valtheril knew that this was going to be a hit. He had likely already communicated with the guild and seen that coffee had been a massive hit with the adventurers. I signed the document after finding no flaws. 

I mentioned the fact that production would have to be set up and I informed him where the beans grew organically. I also mentioned that coffee beans could be saved for quite a while without going bad after being roasted. I told him about the conditions in which they appeared to grow and that it would be a good idea to somewhat recreate their natural environment of half shade in the unused fields around the village. I had also told that I had no idea how long it would take before they bore fruit which earned me a laugh. 

Apparently, he laughed because growing crops to adult stage was not an issue which had confused me. He explained that treemenders were originally druids that would make trees and indeed other plants grow. They would be able to grow the plants to adult stage but not force them to bear fruit, that would have to happen organically. When I asked him why they didn't do that to crops all year round he answered that the crops would exhaust the ground many times faster with this method. 

Oh, so they were aware of nutrients. Odd. How did they get smaller yields every year then? 

If coffee was anything like grapes this would be a huge boon, I knew grapes needed several years before they would produce edible fruits. If they could be grown with a speed hack to adult stage, we could get production rolling fairly quickly. The cherries around the forest might even be enough to last until then. I had joked that he would better get an army of adventurers to help the farmer plough his fields to get things started which he has actually agreed to.  

Poor farmer, I should have asked him first. I mean, I had told him it would be a good idea to plant those but this was getting out of hand far faster than even I expected. Could Valtheril literally force him to do all these things to his land? True, he was the highest authority here, but still. I guessed as long as the farmer got paid, he would be fine with it? The only issue was that he would need a larger labor force to maintain these crops.  

'Well, more job opportunities for the guild.' I thought. 

It looked like Valtheril was even more serious about this than I because he was already writing down a quest to go on the quest board.  

I peeked over to see what he was writing down. It seemed the quest would be viable for all ranks of adventurers and, holy shit, was that a five silver reward for a day of work? 

Five silvers would be a large amount for copper and iron rank adventurers. Hell, even for me that would be considerable if you looked at the fact that our group quest would technically give one gold and five silvers. 

We only had to split that between three people so we'd get five silvers each but then again, we only had three people. I assumed that spider quest was meant for a party of five or more with good equipment. This quest needed no such thing. Another thing that should not be overlooked was the fact that this quest carried no risk of actually dying. How much had he sold the small amount I gathered before for?  

I didn't dare to ask the question; I could simply deduct it from the amount I would be paid later on.  

I was not planning on coming across as greedy. I shouldn't even care this much about it because I would be earning money for free, free for god's sake!  

He asked a few more questions about coffee, specifically how the flavor worked. I explained that you could get different flavors based on how long you roasted the beans. Whatever Elly had made so far had been my favorite but it would depend from person to person. I also mentioned caffeine. It was some sort of a drug that would make you more alert and such. I told him you could technically make coffee without caffeine but I had no idea how to extract the substance from the beans.  

He wrote a few things down. I hoped he could have people find out how to decaffeinate the beans.  

Ugh, stupid coffee addiction.  

After scribbling some more things down and putting his signature on the paper, he took the documents and headed out, likely to the guild. I had kind of hoped he would stay behind to help me with this arduous task, unlucky me.  

It was quite funny to see Valtheril act with this kind of alacrity. And here I was thinking I was the impatient one. 

It was quite ironic to see a general so occupied with everything that had nothing to do with combat. Instead, he seemed to be trying to fix this village's economics. I wondered if I would ever see him in combat, I'd like to know what he could do in a fight. I wanted to see for myself what a high ranked diamond adventurer could do.  

I still had a lot of questions to ask such as what this inherity ritual would cost but found myself starting to lose focus. Any answers would probably be forgotten by morning so I figured I would ask at a later time. I was relieved to find Velariah and Elly helping me again after they had finished their simple dinner.  

Elly didn't seem as tired yet, she had one batch of beans soaked in water which would remain so overnight. The rest would be briefly soaked and then left to dry on the table here. We were still experimenting on how to optimize the entire thing so choices had to be made.  

I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore when were over three quarters done. I didn't want to leave them to finish alone but I was just dead spider meat at this point. I had bid them goodnight and tried to skitter my way over to my pillow nest but found that my legs had a hard time obeying my input. My brain couldn't be bothered sending so many signals out it seemed. 

I almost had to drag myself over to the room. I opened it, stepped inside, closed it again, tossed my shirt aside and just fell down into the sweet, soft fluffiness of the pillows. The thoughts that I had forgotten to lock the door and turn off the lights crossed my mind but only for a second. I just couldn't be bothered at this point anymore. I just let everything go and surrendered to the sweet mercy of sleep. 

Faragi

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