Chapter 478 478 What About The Bank?
Chapter 478 478 What About The Bank?
The Witches all turned to Cassie to see what she had brought for them that day. Wolfe hadn’t specified, but there was a clear expectation that there would be certain items among the pile of Amulets that the violet-eyed young witch was sorting.
“Alright, I have a few items here, but not all of them are made by the Witches. Some of these were made with the assistance of a local magic user, whose power helped improve what we could do.”
That must mean that Kira had been helping them out with the spells. Or Khalifa, Wolfe realized as he felt Fae Magic among the items.
“We have the essentials here for you. We have Garden Charms, Pest Repulsion Charms that will keep even Rank One monsters a hundred metres from your house, Abundant Well Charms, and Fae Blessing Charms. We also have a fine selection of Armour Amulets, separated into these four piles, based on the outfit design that is imprinted onto them.” Cassie explained.
“Pest Repulsion Charms that can turn away Monsters? Is that something that a Rank Two Witch can do?” One of the old women gasped with an eager glint in her eyes.
Cassie shook her head. “No, that one took the assistance of a Rank Three Kitsune Demon to get enough power to repel monsters. She is quite proud of them if I do say so myself. I am getting closer to Rank Three, so it’s not impossible that, eventually, a Witch will be able to create that level of spell on her own. But at the moment, we need the assistance of someone more powerful.”
Most of the Witches turned to look at Wolfe, who just shrugged at their interest. Of course, it was often him helping out, but he wasn’t the only one who could do it now that they had more people. He was just the only male Magi who could create certain arrays.
The Witches looked at the pile again and nodded in satisfaction. The Fae Blessing spells would help them with casting White Magic, like healing spells, and it would break the effects of curses that were cast in the vicinity of the charm. It might not seem like a powerful item at first, but it was an incredibly potent protective and supportive magic when combined with a Garden Charm.
If they were lucky, it might even attract some of the Lesser Fae to their village. Having them living nearby would help with the crops, and for the most part, they were easy to keep happy. The Light Fae were almost universally in love with all things sweet.
“Now, these are the truly valuable items for sale. No wonder you weren’t too concerned about us handling the magical clothing in the container.” The Mayor laughed.
“Are they really that valuable?” One of the soldiers that had accompanied a village leader asked.
“You see that Garden Charm there? Once activated, that one charm will grow enough to feed the entire village on two acres of land without any fancy hydroponics setup as this village has. The Garden by the Mayor’s house would be enough for everyone, with a bit left over just in case of a poor harvest, but those rarely happen with a spell this powerful in place.” The old woman next to him explained.
The man looked much more excited now that he had a better grasp of what the spells could do. The charms to keep monsters away weren’t on a large enough scale to protect a whole village, but if you put them in the village hall, you could relocate everyone there during an attack, and it would keep the monsters out of the centre of the village, hopefully.
That alone should be enough to save a lot of lives if things went wrong, and that sort of peace of mind never came with a small price tag.
“How much for the charms?” The Mayor asked cautiously.
“Today, we will sell them for the same price as the Rank One version of the spells as a privilege for our new friends.” Cassie smiled.
That was reasonable. Each of the spells would go for between a hundred and two hundred units in the Fortress City, or one to two thousand Credits if they were standard Rank One spells, which were mostly cast by new graduates and dropouts of the Academy.
The total would be a lot, thanks to the volume, but the individual price was affordable.
“We will take credit notes today if there is not enough hard cash available, and then we can square up in either trade goods or currency later,” Wolfe suggested.
They had come for a meeting with the other leaders, not to shop for luxury goods, so a lot of them weren’t carrying that sort of currency with them.
“That would be appreciated. How about we have the Mayor here keep a running tab for everyone and keep it all organized?” One of the others suggested.
A small woman in the back cleared her throat.
“I’m not sure if anyone was aware, but we do have banking services available here for the soldiers. I am with the Gormana Central Bank, and I have a mobile terminal here. If you would like to set up an account for the Forest Grove faction, we can do all the transfers digitally, and they will be secured by the Gormana Government.
That will let you do all your shopping at the auction houses and have it shipped here, assuming that your customers take our currency.” The human woman suggested.
The word bank seemed to put off most of the witches. They trusted money in their hands, but not digital transactions or banks.
“We will think about it. For now, we will deal in currency, so if you could have large amounts of it brought to the Swamps, that would be for the best.” Wolfe suggested.
The banker turned to Prince Niall, who nodded in agreement.
“Getting everyone to accept the banking system will take time. They still remember the horror stories from before the war of inflation, confiscation and the great digital crash that wiped out the stock markets.” He assured her.
“I understand, Your Highness. A different approach for different markets. I will be sure that there is enough cash available here as soon as we can build a secure banking facility.”