Oh, and even if he did find something suitable under a lax enough security, there was the matter that it would almost certainly still have to be enchanted and he couldn’t even figure out how to effectively enchant a simple rifle at the moment. Probably wouldn’t by the end of the restart, either.
A knock on his door woke him up from his musings and he quickly put the rifle into its box and hid it under the bed. Him owning the rifle wasn’t illegal, but he’d still rather not let whomever was looking for him see him tinkering with it. He made sure his shielding bracelet was on, just in case, and then opened the door.
It was Gurey, which did not surprise Zorian all that much. The man had been dutifully buying off any of the various alchemical ingredients and assorted body parts Zorian had gathered in the forest and allowed Zorian to use his workshop when he needed to make some of the trickier potions and magic items. The man had already commissioned a couple of magic items from Zorian, so he expected Gurey’s arrival to be about another commission.
As it turned out, Gurey had another kind of deal in mind. Once the pleasantries were exchanged, he skipped straight to the point.
“I want you to help me rob my rival.”
Chapter 030
A Game of Shops
“I want you to help me rob my rival.”
Zorian blinked in surprise before giving the man an incredulous look. What?
“And… why the hell would I do that?” he asked the man curiously.
Gurey grinned triumphantly. “I knew I was right about you,” he said. “You didn’t even pretend to be outraged at the question.”
Zorian frowned. “I’m just not a very excitable person, that’s all. It doesn’t mean I’m going to actually help you rob someone,” he shot back crankily. “In fact, I can scarcely imagine a situation where I would agree to such a thing. I was just curious what possessed you to broach the topic at all. This isn’t some kind of attempt at blackmail, is it?”
“Oh no, I’d have to be pretty stupid to try and blackmail a man who hunts winter wolves and giant trapdoor spiders for a living,” Gurey assured him quickly. “Not that I have anything worthwhile to blackmail you with, anyway. No, I just felt I had an interesting deal for you and that I had nothing to lose by making an offer. You don’t seem like the sort that would get all high and mighty on me just because I employ a few shady business practices. I figure the worst you’d do is say no.”
Zorian was silent for a moment. He supposed that Gurey had him there — even if Zorian actually cared to turn Gurey in, it would still be his word against Gurey’s. Proving the man’s guilt would be a hassle, Gurey would likely get a mere slap on the wrist even if convicted, and it would lead to far greater scrutiny of Zorian’s activities by nearby powers than he was comfortable with. All in all, it would mean an entire restart wasted on a pointless crusade that had no meaning inside the time loop and would quite possibly attract the attention of the academy authorities — previous restarts had made it clear they were very quick to involve themselves when one of their students had a brush with the law or the police, and he was still technically enrolled there. And if the academy found out about his whereabouts and activities, it was entirely possible Red Robe would also find out about it through cranium rats or his other spies…
No, even if Gurey was planning to murder someone, Zorian would not intervene. A simple theft… well, he wasn’t sure he would actually care all that much even if he wasn’t stuck in the time loop and he certainly didn’t care at all now.
“Well, the answer is definitely no,” said Zorian finally. “I know that wanderers like me have a reputation of being opportunistic, but I’m afraid my ethics aren’t quite as flexible as that. I’m not going to stoop to banditry or burglary or whatever it is that you have in mind for this… ‘deal’ of yours.”
“Ah, I don’t think you quite understand what I’m talking about here,” Gurey said. “You think I want you to steal something physical and that I’m offering you money in exchange, yes?”
Zorian raised an eyebrow at him.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Gurey shook his head. “I know better than anyone that you’re raking in too much money at the moment to be tempted by petty burglary. Ethics aside, that’s too much risk for too little gain. No, if this operation goes off without a hitch — and I think you’re capable enough to pull it off — there will be nothing missing and no indication that a crime has occurred at all.” He leaned towards Zorian conspiratorially and whispered the next part. “You see, what I’m trying to steal is not material wealth, but secrets.”
Oh. Oh! Well that changed things considerably. He still didn’t want to have anything to do with Gurey’s deal, but he at least understood why the man felt comfortable discussing such an offer with him. Spying on other mages was technically illegal, but everyone knew it was a common and universal practice. Hell, according to some stories every Noble House worth its name had its own division dedicated just to that. You just had to make sure that you weren’t caught. Even the academy, which generally tried to give students a very rose-tinted version of mage culture, admitted that such ‘professional espionage’ occurred all the time. Some of it was entirely legal, such as analyzing a rival’s products and spellwork with divination spells, or poring over publically available documents to see if they’d let something sensitive slip by without noticing… but such legal methods were usually very limited and mages often resorted to shadier methods. Bribing assistants and apprentices into selling out their master’s secrets, hiring burglars to raid archives and research notes, dedicated scrying campaigns, seduction plots… the possibilities were endless, and new ones were devised every day. As well as countermeasures for such.
Zorian recalled a particular fable that spoke of two mages that spent years devising ways to steal each other’s secrets and thwarting the other’s attempts to do the same to them. Eventually, after a decade of back-and-forth, they both succeeded in reaching each other’s inner sanctum at the same time… only to find out that neither had any secrets worth stealing. They had spent so much time and effort trying to one-up each other that they’d never gotten any actual work done.
Well, that was an obvious exaggeration, but it honestly wouldn’t surprise Zorian to find out that every magical business (and probably quite a few non-magical ones) in Knyazov Dveri did do at least a little bit of illegal espionage as a matter of course. The world of business was a cutthroat environment. Zorian knew from his parents’ stories that even seemingly simple and honest farmers were willing to renege on their contracts if they thought they could get away with it. To someone like Gurey, this sort of thing was probably just business as usual.
But it wasn’t business as usual for Zorian. And frankly, Gurey was completely right when he said that the whole thing was a huge risk for little gain. He opened his mouth to give Gurey a firm (but polite) refusal, but was interrupted when Gurey pushed a brown, leather-bound book in his hands.
Zorian looked at the book in surprise for a second, idly wondering why it had no title, before giving Gurey a searching look. The man motioned him to open it.