Chapter 56: Opportunities to make a fortune

In the afternoon orcish language class, with the brat and Red Ridge Mountain on his mind the whole time, Jace was also a bit inattentive.

Rushing home from class, Jace looked at the still-busy Saeuno and said, “I’d like to know more about that one of yours, the phase shift.”

“Master feel free to ask.” The little ghost said while still writing on the paper.

Watching him get busy, Jace actually felt a little bit overjoyed; he’d never thought he’d sympathize with a demon.

“I’m wondering if you perform a phase shift, do you simply perform invisibility, or do you actually change your true position? What is the difference between a phase shift and invisibility?”

“Of course there’s a huge difference!” Saeuno jumped up and said, “The so-called invisibility spells of the mages are made by manipulating arcane spells to distort the light, creating a space that is not detected by the blind and stupid people around them, and then sneaking through it …… However, you can distort the light, but you can’t distort the real entity, and if you throw a fireball towards that unseen space, throw a fireball, boom! If you throw a fireball at that space you can’t see clearly, bam! You can see a roasted mage rolling out of it, ha! Phase shifting, on the other hand, is a way for weaker demons to survive by fading in and out of the main dimension to hide, it’s an ability only demons born in the Twisted Void can do, even Aeridar can’t, because we’re not mortal!”

Jace said, “Invisibility is slightly more understandable, but phase shifting I just can’t imagine. For example, if I put you in a chest, and you perform a phase shift, and I take the chest out and walk three miles to the gates of Stormwind, and you reappear, will you appear in the chest, or still in my house?”

“In the box, of course.” The Kid said, “How could I just disappear completely?!”

“So if you crush the box, will you die?” Jess pursued.

“Maybe, maybe not.” Sëanor raised a finger and said, “Depends on what kind of crate it is, if it’s a magical cage made by the Aeridans, I’ll die in the Twisted Void if I’m put in it and crushed, if it’s a normal crate that can’t trap magical things it’s a no brainer!”

“The Phase Shift will not allow me to escape Azeroth, my lord, it is as if I have taken refuge in a parasitic mezzanine in the main plane of this world, and am still subject to minor and irrelevant influences!”

Jace opened the warlock’s sack and said, “Drill in, phase shift.”

“Yes!” The Kid jumped right in and disappeared in a flash of light.

Jess realized that the sack had just deflated.

“You …… you come out again.”

Boo!

The bag that had been deflated was all of a sudden propped open, and the brat struggled inside for a while and said, “Aren’t you going to let me out, master? I have work to do!”

“Just stay in there.” Jess said, “Disappear for me!”

“Master don’t make me disappear and appear again, every transformation requires mana, my mana is about to run out!”

Jess said, “Disappear now and don’t come back out.”

“Got it!”

There was a crisp flicker of arcane energy and the bag deflated again.

Jace opened the bag and saw that there was nothing in it but some silver coins he had already put in there and the paper scroll he had been using to write things down earlier, it was as if the Kid had disappeared completely.

He was starting to feel a little uneasy, maybe he should find some way to notice him even if the kid disappeared.

In-game brats can see a vignette of the warlock himself and his teammates even when they do a phase shift, but now that I think about it that’s just a gameplay compromise, I guess.

But if someone in the world can see demons that perform phase shifts, wouldn’t the Kid’s invisibility not be secure enough?

It was better to wait until you met someone like that, for now, since it was convenient to hide yourself, it was only fair to make good use of it.

He was about to go out the door when he saw the stick lying in the corner again.

Now it was no longer a simple stick, but a staff made by an Eredar.

Considering that it had something to do with the Shadow Council, something to do with Talon Blood Demon and Gul’dan, when he touched it again, Jace felt a palpitation, as if he was being targeted by some horrible demon.

After thinking about it, Jess took it with her.

With his warlock’s bag on his back, and the parcel Marin had given him, he took six silver coins and a few coppers with him, took his sword with him, and proceeded to shove all those jumbled pages, scraps of books, everything related to orcish language, and black magic under the bed, and covered it with a cloth cover, before Jess clapped his hands together, and went out the door and headed straight for the stables in the mage quarter.

Along the way he watched the eyes of the people around him, making sure that no one, be it a trainee mage or a mage apprentice, or even an actual mage, would notice the fact that he had a demon hidden in his bag.

The only ones who paid attention to him only focused on the sword at his waist, probably finding it a bit odd that a sword-wielder other than a battle mage was around the Wizard’s Sanctuary.

Arriving at the stables, Jace handed the note to the stable keeper, a fat, somewhat exaggeratedly middle-aged man, who sat down in a chair and glanced at the note, then at the badge on Jace’s finger, and asked, “Mr. Jace Sesso, isn’t it, you’re going to Red Ridge, are you going to Lakeside Town, or Stone Castle?”

“Stone Castle.”

“Come on.” The other man braced himself with all his might to stand up, and Jace had a feeling that this guy might be the fattest human he’d ever seen in this world, was he okay with stealing horse feed?

The janitor took out a chestnut colored horse and said, “She walks the road from Storm City, Shining Gold Town, and Lakeside Town to Stone Castle all year round, she used to be trained as a military horse, but then she retired because of her guts and handed over to this side, but her guts are still big enough compared to the ordinary horses out there. Don’t worry if you run into jackals, this lady definitely won’t panic, and definitely runs faster than those guys, take care of her for me!”

Straddling the tall, well-bred horse with a shiny coat, Jace felt nothing like the horses kept by those merchants tethered on the streets in Lordaeron; the horse was solid and strong as he walked back and forth on his hips, and so smooth when he took a step that he didn’t feel like he was being jolted all over the place even if he was sitting on his back completely.

Turning his horse around and rounding the walls towards the main gate, Jace rode so painfully fast that he went so fast that the guards along the way yelled at him to slow down and not rush the pedestrians.

As he entered the main gate, passing through the traffic of wagons and carriages held by pack horses, Jace, who was a good deal taller, felt like a soldier, which was probably what it was like to drive in a limousine.

Still, he was set off as if he were a messenger boy as the actual Stormwind patrol knights on warhorses passed by inside the main gate.

Arriving at the door of the tavern where he had an appointment, Jace led his horse to the manger and tied it up, turning back to stroke the mare’s mane and wondering when he would have a horse of his own.

He was on the verge of being too immersed in the pizzazz of that stretch just now.

“Ha! Is this the horse raised in the mage district, but it’s so beautiful.” Grid laughed out loud and walked out of the tavern, saying, “I thought it was someone’s noble young master who had arrived, but it turns out to be you guy.”

At this point, the dwarf notices the stick on Jace’s back and asks, “You still have it with you?”

“This thing is too precious for me to leave it in the rental.” Jace explained, “It’s not like you have to take it to war or anything, besides isn’t this thing quite qualified as a stick, you carried it for such a long distance in the Twilight Forest as well, and you still think it’s sturdy enough.”

Curious, Grid asked, “What, you know what this is?”

“It could be a staff made by a demon for an orc.” Jace lowered his voice and said quietly, “While it’s not rare on the orc side, it’s rare enough here!”

Grider leaned in close enough to his ear to ask, “How much can I get for it?”

“I heard there’s a group of warlocks in Ironforge.” Jace said, “If you have the chance to sell to them, you should be able to get a few gold coins for it.”

Grid glared and said, “It’s a good thing I didn’t sell it to those copper-bearded fools in the Dwarf District back then. Or did they already know that someone over at Ironforge had their eye on it and tried to swindle me?”

The two men crouched in the doorway and gathered up the bags they had brought with them, and Jace said, “But speaking of the whole selling money thing, I did hear about a place that specializes in this rare stuff.”

Grid pulled a piece of jerky out of his bag and put it in his mouth, bunching the bag up tightly on his back, and asked, “Where?”

“Hidden Treasure Bay.”

“You mean that goblin town by the sea in the Valley of Thorns.”

“Right.” Jace said, “There’s an exchange there, run by the goblins, and it’s rumored to have quite a few rare things that go for a lot of money. Do you remember that letter we scavenged from that orc’s body last time?”

“The letter?” Grider asked, “Are you sure it was a letter?”

Jace raised an eyebrow and said, “Do you know Talon Bloodmage?”

“Of course I know, Death Knight …… the vanguard of the tribe!”

“That’s a letter from Talon Bloodmage to his subordinate.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Jace said, “Guess how much that letter is going to be worth to collectors who collect important orcish relics? That’s a Talon Blood Demon!”

Grid licked his lips, looked at the ground and thought for a while, and said, “It’s killing me, the opportunities to make a fortune are really all over the place. While the orcs haven’t been killed off yet, shouldn’t we look for more of these opportunities to make a ‘war fortune’ or something as well. Don’t you want to bring your parents to Stormwind City, it’s absolutely impossible to afford a house in the city just by working day jobs here.”

He scratched the beard on his chin, “But the Valley of Thorns is too far away, and the ship from Stormwind Harbor to Hidden Treasure Bay only has one for a long time, and the fares aren’t cheap, so if it doesn’t sell at the desired price, or even sell out, won’t it be too much of a loss?”

“That’s right.” Jace said, “So let’s see what happens again, or maybe I’ll ask if there’s anyone in Stormwind willing to take something like that, and then we’ll go back to Treasure Bay later when we get a chance.”

Grid nodded and said, “Let’s get on the road first, if we don’t get moving we won’t make it to the East Valley Stagecoach before dark.”