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Entry tags:

belar,
silk

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Belar strolls into the bar from the back door and sets up his usual sign on the nearest table:

ANSWERING PRAYERS
BACK IN 15 MINUTES

SECURITY SHIFT BEGINS AFTER THAT

Then sits down to wait for the timer to decrement itself all the way to zero. It's been a fairly simple morning and sometimes those just call for basic routine, y'know?

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Well, here's a friendly and familiar face!

Silk gives his god a friendly and polite nod, but doesn't say anything; it'd be a terrible waste to talk with his mouth full of breakfast, and have it escape.

Belar looks up as the sign winks out, and grins. "Hey there," he says cheerfully; he's not gonna ask the man to unduly interrupt his breakfast. "How's it going, Kheldar?"

"Infinitely better, now that I'm not fermenting in Karanda anymore," Silk replies. "I don't know if Garion's mentioned it, but something rather odd happened there, shortly before I found my way back here."

He says it casually, between bites of breakfast, but it's really a gross understatement.

"Fermenting's a nicer word than most people use about Karanda," says Belar. "He hasn't said anything to me about that lately. What's up?"

"Long and agonisingly boring story short? The demons have all vanished," Silk replies. "Without a trace."

"... they what? No threats, no grandstanding, none of the usual raving?"

So not normal demon behavior.

"None of it. One day, they were there, as smelly and unpleasant as you can imagine, and the next--" He snaps his fingers. "Gone. And their half-breed spawn, too."

"Okay, the demons I can sorta see doing that, but the spawn, not so much," says Belar. "Seeing as how they're bound to our world and all as much as they are to Hell. That's bizarre."

"I have messengers spreading the word to the people who need to know," Silk replies. "But you're right; it is bizarre. And it wasn't just in an isolated area of Karanda; it was all over that forsaken mudpit. I checked."

"And I salute you for being willing to stick it out," says Belar. "Yeesh. You sound like you could use about a month in Tol Honeth at this point."

"Riva in the middle of winter would be paradise by comparison," he says. "Not that I disagree with you," he adds.

"Smart man," says Belar. "So. Totally without trace? I'm gonna have to talk to Eriond about that next chance I get, see if he noticed anything."

"Nothing that I could detect," Silk affirms. "Eriond was one of the first people I sent word to," he continues. "But the way things work here, I don't know if the message has arrived or not."

"No clue. Like I said, next time I talk to him," says Belar. "Anyway. Other than that, anything of interest going on for you guys back home, or did you come straight here from Karanda?"

"I came here straight from Karanda," Silk replies. "I think I'm going to ask Garion to take me home; I do not want to go back there if I can help it."

Belar nods. "Can't say I blame you. Good luck, dude."

"Thanks," Silk says, his smile only a little wry. "So how has life been treating you?"

It feels like strange thing to be asking his god, but only a little.

"Not too shabby," says Belar. "I dunno if Garion told you, but since Eriond's got the big responsibilities at home now, I've got a people on Earth to be god of these days. And I found out what Chaldan's doing, now that he's finally figured out that it's okay if your spine bends every once in a while."

"Really?" He raises an eyebrow; in Silk's case, the question 'do I want to know?' is almost invariably answered 'yes' (and when it's not, the answer is usually 'no, but tell me anyway.')

"Yeah, he decided he was gonna try dropping the 'vengeance' part of the commandments and set up a sort of multi-world defense force with honor and truth and Mimbrate-level bravery in the rules instead. The outfits're kind of ridiculous, but it looks like it's keeping him out of trouble, mostly."

"...Interplanetary Mimbrates?" Silk asks, a look of mild horror on his face.

"About the size of it. They're supposed to work with the local authorities, though. Not take up being lords on their own. So that's something, I guess."

"You have to wonder how long it'll last though," he points out. "Well, i suppose I should be grateful that I don't have to deal with them." He pauses.

"I don't have to deal with them, do I?"

"Nah, you're good," says Belar. "I mean, one of them shows up here now and then, but you wouldn't know it to look at him. He looks kind of like a Mallorean, actually- he's got the eyes for it. Nice guy. Very friendly. Thing is, he has no idea about his boss being Chaldan. My brother's trying subtlety for the first time in like twelve thousand years of existence."

"Good luck to him then," Silk says with a laugh. "Because - no offense intended - I think he could use it."

Of course, now he's curious.

"None taken. Dude, Chaldan was almost as bad as Nedra when it came to the attitude."

"Almost as bad?" Silk asks, with a skeptical eyebrow raised. "At least you can reason - or bargain - with the Tolnedrans. If their people are any kind of reflection on them, then I think he must have been worse."

"Nedra's stuffy as hell and he told me I'm not allowed to visit the city he spends most of his time in because my presence makes the financial markets fail," Belar says sourly.

"Oh that's just unfair," Silk says. "...Did he say thing about your people?" he asks after a moment, his nose twitching slightly.

"It's just me. They call a bad market a bear market in that part of the world, and I, apparently, bring on the bears." Belar shakes his head. "Alorns're okay, though."

Silk leans back, and presses the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully.

His nose twitches again.

"He's still establishing himself these days so that he'll have a reputation when he picks up a people," says Belar. "As far as anyone knows, he's just another commodities trader in New York City. Used to be he was in a place called Hong Kong, which was, like, just about the biggest financial center on Earth, but they changed ownership a while back and the new people and Nedra didn't get along. So, he's doing the markets in New York instead."

Eriond's only been around for a few decades. Belar has millenia of being the little brother under his belt. And Nedra? Annoyed the crap out of him for most of those years.

This is how gods play 'I'm not touching you. Does this bother you? I'm not touching you.'

"Hmmm... Are these markets profitable?" he asks. "I have been considering expanding my enterprises beyond our own little world."

There is, after all, no reason to limit himself to being the richest man in the world.

"Really profitable, but the currency's all based on faith and credit in the local government," says Belar. "They use paper money. No gold standard. The price of gold and silver changes from day to day, and so does a lot of other stuff."

Silk takes a few moments to parse that. And then a few more.

"Could you repeat that please?" he asks finally. "Because I could have sworn that you just said they use a currency based on faith. And credit."

"You heard me," says Belar. "Paper money, and a couple of coins made from not-very-valuable metals. They call it 'fiat currency'. It means 'this is money because the government says it's money'. Nedra's head nearly exploded when he found out."

"I can imagine," Silk replies. The idea makes him... Well.

"I suppose I can see a few advantages to it, but there's something very comforting about the solidity of gold."

"That's why gold's one of their major forms of investment," says Belar. "People buy it and sell it at different prices, just like they do iron or wheat. If a government falls, the money's not worth much, but someone's always going to want to buy your gold."

"And gold always has value," Silk says, with some satisfaction.

"Pretty much anywhere in the world," Belar confirms.

"Well. I'll still have to give it some thought."

He does want to expand; to not take advantage of the opportunity that Milliways offers would be a grievous misuse of resources, in his humble-but-well-informed opinion.

Belar nods. "Let me know if you wanna find out more about it," he says. "Earth's a big place, with way more people than Gara ever had, and a lot of opportunities and complications I don't think any of us thought of."

"It sounds like fun," Silk replies, grinning.

His nose twitches.

'Complication' is just another word for 'fun,' and occasionally 'profit.'

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