Damon spread my arms.
"What have I to lie for?"
The old man threw him a deadpan look that seemed to say; "Really?"
Well, in the old man’s defense, Damon could lie about his daughter just so he could help fix what Damon wanted.
"Come with me." the old man said at last, turning back to enter his shack, and motioning for Damon to follow after him.
Damon followed into the shack without hesitation. The inside was just as dilapidated as the outside, but all that was merely a facade.
The old man made some weird tracings on the floor, and the ground started to part to slowly reveal a stairway leading underground.
Damon didn’t gawk or anything, he already knew about it from the novel. The stairway led to the old man’s workshop.
’Sorcery sure is convenient.’ Damon inwardly muttered. It seemed he would have to dedicate his reflections to learning the art.
Following the stairway, they soon reached the end, where it spiralled to a vast chamber. While the chamber’s size was nowhere near as exaggerated as that of the combat grounds back at the institute, it was at least the size of Damon’s classroom.
There was a furnace at one side of the chamber, a huge worktable at the centre, including other items that would be present in an artificer’s workshop.
But most of it all, were the various items on the shelves, and some that were hanging on the wall. Damon presumed all of these items to be artifacts.
His eyes twitched.
’Had he agreed to fix the artifact for money, there’d be no way I’ll be able to afford it.’
The old man was way richer than Damon expected. ’No wonder he dismissed me without batting an eye.’ Damon thought.
"Where’s the artifact you want to fix?" Old man Ren’s gruff voice called out, breaking Damon out of his thoughts.
"Here." Damon summoned the pair of wrist bands, and held it out to the old artificer.
"A pair." the old man muttered, reaching out to grab them. He frowned as his fingers traced the cracks along the bands. His brows creased even further at the dimming purple inscriptions, and the sparks the bands sometimes let out.
"So?" Damon asked earnestly. He knew the old man had fixed the artifact in the novel, but that could just be the plot armor of the protagonist allowing it to be done.
"I can fix it." the old man muttered, with his eyes still fixed on the bands. "But it’s going to take a while."
Damon’s lips curled up.
"Great, how long a while are we talking about?" Damon inquired. He did hope it would be ready before the midterms, because he kind of needed it to be.
"Around two weeks, give or take." Old man Ren replied. He almost had the urge to ask Damon where he had found this masterpiece, but the thoughts of finding his daughter outweighed his curiosity.
He turned to Damon.
"But first, I’ll need you to sign an aether contract." He didn’t trust Damon, and he wasn’t taking any chances. For all he knew Damon could be lying about his daughter just so he could fix his artifact. Or Damon might even refuse to tell him even after he fixes it. An aether contract was the guarantee he needed.
Meanwhile, Damon frowned.
"Aether contract?" Aether contracts dealt with the soul, so most beings avoided using it. Getting into an aether contract was not the most advisable thing to do, and getting into an aether contract with someone leagues above you in rank was a very stupid thing to do.
The reason it wasn’t advisable to get into an aether contract was that every wording in the contract mattered. And knowing the heart of humans, there could be ambiguous or hidden terms.
As for why it was stupid to get into an aether contract with someone leagues above you in rank, it was because that individual was higher on the path of ascension. And any contract between you two would naturally be less strict on that individual.
Also, If there was a breach of contract, the stronger individual would most likely be able to deal with the backlash, especially if the punishment for breach of contract wasn’t anything severe like death, or loss of connection to aether.
Even still, the stronger individual night be able to cheat those terms through some means.
"How else do you want me to trust you? I need to be sure what you’re saying is the truth." The old man continued.
’Should I do it?’ Damon pondered. He wanted to agree, but wasn’t sure it was the most sound decision.
’I’d just have to make sure there aren’t any dubious lines in the contract.’ In the end, Damon decided to do it.
"Fine, I agree." he sighed. "But I’ll be the one writing the words of the contract." If he was going to agree, he’d have to be the one choosing the exact words of the contract.
The old man nodded, then a plain parchment in his hand, most likely from his spatial storage.
"Fine, write the contents." he handed the parchment to Damon.
Damon accepted the parchment, and moved closer, laying it atop the work table.
An aether contract needed to be written with aether. So Damon sent a stream of aether towards his right index finger and began writing down the terms.
**
1.The artificer named Ren Crest will fix the artifact given to him by Damon Darkfell.
2. Upon collection of the fixed artifact, Damon Darkfell would have to tell Ren Crest where his daughter is.
3. Failure for Ren Crest to fix the artifact will result in this contract being null and void.
4. Failure for Damon Darkfell to complete his part of the contract will result in the loss of connection to aether.
5. Both parties must truly agree to the terms of the contract without any notion of ulterior motives before being able to sign it.
6. When both parties complete their part of the deal, the contract will be considered complete.
**
Those were the terms of the contract, Damon wrote down.
After Old man Ren re-read the contract over and over again, and was satisfied with it’s contents, he prickled his thumb, and dropped a drop of aether filled blood on the parchment.
Damon did the same, and then the parchment broke I to two pieces of light and shot into both of them.
As the light shot into Damon, he felt a phantom feeling of something binding his very soul, or at least what he felt like was his soul, for a moment before the feeling disappeared.
"You can come collect it in two weeks." The old man said before he mercilessly shove Damon out of his workshop, and then shack.
There were two reasons why Damon agreed to sign an aether contract. But the main one was that Damon was party B, not party A. Old man Ren would have to fulfil his part of the contract before Damon could fulfil his. If it was the other way around, Damon would have had a hard time agreeing to the contract.
Because that could mean, after Damon told old man Ren where to find his daughter, the man could simply refuse to fix his artifact, and decide to weasel his way out of the contract. God knows, the man had a multitude of artifacts, surely there might be one that could allow him use the natural advantage given to him by right of ascension to escape the punishment.
The second reason was that he was the one to write the terms, so couldn’t be scammed. Plus, according to the fifth clause on the contract, unless both had no notions of scamming the other, the contract couldn’t be signed.
"Hah!" Damon let out a relieved sigh. "That was most refreshing."
With that, he had accomplished what brought him to this city, and it had gone rather well with no unexpected dramatic situations like that of Spira city where they were attacked in the middle of the night.
Even though Damon believed in Murphy’s law that anything that can go wrong would go wrong, that didn’t mean he liked it. He loved things going according to his plan.
That thought brought him to the mock exam he knew nothing of. "It’s going to be one hell of a drag." he commented as he walked away from the slums.
--------------
Meanwhile back at Silver city, in the underground black market. Alistair had just arrived there. Of course he didn’t know the code to entering the black market, but had instead followed a friend he had just made. And said friend knew the ins and outs of the black market of course.
But for some reason though, he was kind of feeling a sense of wrongness. He couldn’t quite put the feeling into words, but if he tried, it’ll be like; He felt a sudden sense of loss, as if he had lost something that should have been his.
*******
Thanks for the support. Continue to bring them power stones coming.