The Alchemist at Hell's Gates

18

^^ Spider-Queen's Legacy ^^

The numbers boggled my mind, even after recalculating them six separate times; Jack was likewise stumped, having worked them out on paper next to my calculator.

The Hoard had held 32 Magic Items, all about Level 6-10; when enchanted to Level 16 and sold to the an Alchemist's Shop, they'd each netted an average of 450 gold, for a total of 14,420. Separated into 10ths, that meant everyone received 1,440 Gold, just from the Magic Items. The Gems had numbered 30 per person, (minus myself,) so that was originally 13,500 gold worth of Gems, but after I'd purified them all, (which had taken hours,) they were worth 67,500 Gold. Each person received 7,500 from that, as well. Finally, the Hoard itself had numbered 36,270, and had originally been worth 1.8135 million gold. After being purified, it was worth 9.0675 million. Otto's party received 181,350 each, while Jack, Hellen, Uric, and Kenny all received 226,687.5 gold each. In total, Otto's party received 190,340 gold each, while my party received 235,677.5 gold each, while a whopping 7.254 million would go back to my Hoard, by these calculations, and that wasn't even counting the Boss Loot and Dragon Eggs, which had been unanimously given to me by my Party when I'd informed them that the numbers were higher than I'd expected; I hadn't been explicit, but my tone must've tipped them off. The amount I paid them for all the Herbs from the Lizardman Village and the various Monster Loots was around 500 gold, nearly negligible in this type of transaction.

I brushed my hair back slowly, and whistled under my breath, tapping the Mithril Card against the desk slowly. It had changed colors from gold to Mithril when we'd tallied up the winnings, skipping Platinum entirely to reflect the amount owed to each Party Member. "This is going to be an issue." I sighed.

"Agreed... but hey, we don't have to worry about bills for a while! I can even afford to get my own place near my Aunt's, and a new Pod... I could buy my Aunt her own house, so she wouldn't have to Rent anymore..." Jack chuckled incredulously.

I flicked his ear sharply. "No! Bad Jack! Money Demons begone!!! 280K isn't enough to buy an IRL house big enough for three or more people, and you need to think Smart; investing money is always more efficient than spending it! I'll hook you all up with a stock broker, to make sure nothing bad happens to you, okay? Promise me you won't do anything stupid?"

He rubbed his ear slowly, but nodded. "I understand, you're right; spending it all at once wouldn't help anything, least of all me or them. Are stocks still a thing, though? I confess, I don't actually know."

"They very much are... but you earned the money to play with, so you'll keep some of it to play around with and just have fun; we called it 'Stupid Money' in my accounting classes." I chuckled, emailing a Broker I knew and trusted; my eldest brother worked for a somewhat-successful firm for Virtual World Stocks, always trying to sell me stocks in whatever new game was popular. 'Hey bro, don't be weird, but my friends and I just scored a few Dozen K, and we'll need a Broker to keep them from spending it all as Stupid Money. I repeat: Don't be Weird. Meet me in Hell's Gates at 12:30 if you're interested. I have a house there, just outside the South Gate of the City of Beginnings.' -Samantha.

A few minutes later, he replied with Gusto, as always. 'Weird?!? ME?!? NEVER!!! Good for you on the win, I'll be there right on time, Kid!' -Hudson-Bordeaux;-Broker,-Entrepreneur,-Aficionado,-Extraordinaire!.

"Let's get this done..." I sighed, walking over to the ladder with the Loot Bag from the weapons on my shoulder and the card in my pocket. The much larger sack of gems, (even having decreased in size by about half during the purification process, there was a lot of gems,) was carried outside a few handfuls at a time through the moat by the slimes, and by the time we got outside, the bag was ready, slung casually on my Minotaur's back like Santa's Bag of Presents; the Calf had grown to maturity with the death of the Spider Queen, and so he was about fifteen feet tall, a Level 10 Minotaur Sentinel once more.