42 - How To Sell Elven Gems on the Black Market

Ari chewed on the problem for a few days.
How to sell the gems she had gotten from the elves was proving to be a challenging task.
She was certain she could not go through the official channels because then she would have to explain where she’d gotten the gems from, and the elf prince had been very clear that she could never tell anyone what had happened. She had considered surreptitiously telling Elric, but even just the thought of it made her neck feel hot.
It was such a subtle heat that, at first, she’d assumed it was just her imagination. She’d even opened her messaging scroll to craft a message, something along the lines of Elric, there is something I have, but you cannot ask further questions onwhy and how I have attained it. It’s a cryonite.
The words recited in her mind, but the second she put the ink on the paper, the flare of heat was so shockingly real that she dropped her quill.
Her hand flew to her neck, and she checked her reflection once more. To her surprise, there was no physical burn mark. Her skin didn’t even redden.
Had the pain only been in her head?
But she’d felt it, potently.
Perhaps there was a mechanism at play to hide the physical effects, while enabling her to feel the agony regardless.
The Elven prince had informed her that the pain would not be unto death, but it was pain nevertheless, and Arielle wasn’ta huge fan of it. No orbs appeared when the heat flare happened, so the vow was still hidden, yet marked somewhere on her skin.
Perhaps her Luxa Orion would reveal it.
Would attempting Orion again trigger the [Hidden Ability] calculation for the second time?
Or did that only happen the first time she’d used the spell?
She was eighty percent sure it was the latter and decided it was well worth the risk to try it out.
However, when she activated the orbs, targeting her neck, nothing happened.
Hmmm.
There was probably something else she needed to do, but she had time to think about that later.
As it was, she could not tell Elric or even imply anything relating to her treasures. There may be ways to get around it, specific diction she could employ, or a code she might use. But once again, just the thought of it made her neck burn, so perhaps it was a mind-reading element to the vow as well.
Arielle decided to try to take care of the sales herself, and only if she couldn’t would she continue on the trajectory of attempting to include Elric.
It wasn’t like she wanted him involved anyway. She might be able to get herself out of trouble, but it was different for him. He was a higher rank than her, but at the same time, he was bound to the system in a way she wasn’t. He was an important man, an Archmage who did a lot of good in society. He could not just disappear and run away from trouble; meanwhile, she probably could.
So her first option was to try to locate the ‘black market’ herself.
The problem with the black market was that there were no obvious signs of its presence and no avenues where she could stop and ask, “Excuse me, where can I find the nearest black market, please?”
She was not even supposed to talk about the black market. She had made that mistake when she was younger, when Fenwick had come to their home looking for Brom.
Arielle had loudly announced, “Brom is trading at Black Market on Featherway.”
Fenwick had looked enraged when he left, but Arielle had thought nothing of it, going back to the book she was reading.
It wasn’t until Brom came back in a frenzy, yelling at her, that she realized what she had done wrong.
Well, actually, it wasn’t then that she realized it. She couldn’t understand what her brother was saying, and the yelling was too overwhelming for her, so she crouched in a corner, cupped her hands over her ears, and screamed until her throat was raw.
It was the only outlet she had for the riotous feelings within.
Eventually, her screaming evaporated Brom’s anger, and he held her and apologized. Then he told her never to speak of the black market with anyone ever again.
Arielle had taken note from that day forward, and she had not made the same mistake, only asking when Elric hadbrought it up first.
Perhaps she could find out more from the library.
The next day, in her free time, Arielle scoured all the relevant books in the library, books she thought might mention a black market.
A geography book. A book on the most common gems and where they were sold. A history book. A book on criminal statistics.
Neither of them told her where she could sell the gems.
She obsessed over the problem in between classes, and everything else seemed to fade into the background. It felt like the entire day, she moved on autopilot, barely acknowledging greetings, barely present during her combat class, never noticing the attention she got as a result of her distraction.
The issue was that she was uncomfortable having that much fortune in her duplicate system. She didn’t know much about how it worked, but it felt ephemeral, like it could disappear at one point, and all her rewards would go with it. The elf prince had suggested that might happen, and she didn’t want to lose her rewards.
So she decided to take a risk and broach the topic with someone who might know something about it. Someone who wasknown to bend rules and flaunt social mores. Someone who had already told her that they often bought counterfeit goods because ‘why should I waste money when I can get something just as good for half the price?’ Someone who was also very knowledgeable about the places around her.
Rava.
However, Ari needed to frame it in a way that did not mention anything illegal and did not raise suspicion.
“Affordable elven jewels?” Rava said when Arielle asked the question as she was watering the grass. “Why would you need to know that?”
Ari was hoping she wouldn’t be asked, but she’d prepared and practiced an excuse ahead of time. “My adopted mother’sfriend’s sister’s neighbor wanted to know. Her name is Lowri Leafring. Her daughter loves jewels, and Lowri buys her a single jewel on every special occasion, such as birthdays, graduation days, and the day of a close relative’s funeral. Except that Lowri does not have any living close relatives who can verify her existence because she is an orphan, and her only brother is dead. She only has her daughter now. The daughter’s name is Elin Leafring, by the way. A week from now, on Thursday, is Elin’s birthday. She is turning twelve. Her favorite types of jewels are elven jewels, and she does not own one, but she would like to. Lowri wants to know where she can buy affordable ones that may not be directly through ministerial channels.”
Rava watched her as she ended her speech, and Arielle held her gaze for two seconds before she looked away.
Ari thought she had presented a good lie. It was a trick from How to Charm Kings that one should make a lie sound so convoluted and detailed that people would think it was the truth, simply because they would never assume someone would go through that much trouble to craft an elaborate lie when a simpler one would suffice. The lie had several things going for it.
It involved details that were not easily verifiable.

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Its premise was quite realistic.
It also gave her several degrees of separation in case the person she was lying to had a question she did not know the answer to.
She’d spent thirty minutes this morning crafting the lie, and she was very proud of herself.
But then Rava found the chink in her armor.
“Your adopted mother’s friend’s sister’s neighbor, huh?” Rava said the beginning of a smile. “And why would she ask you about it?”
Arielle froze. She had not thought of that question.
Shoot.
Improvise.
She scrambled in her brain, flailing for several seconds while Rava continued to whistle as she watered the grass.
Why would this imaginary woman ask me the question? Arielle wondered. What advantage would I have that someone else might not?
Finally, she had it.
“Because I go to magic school,” she said. “And she’s a mundane, so…”
“I see.” Rava chuckled and shook her head. “Well, I can’t help you there even if I wanted to. The only thing I buy on the black market are odds and tarot readings, and even those are wrong more often than not.”
“Oh.”
“You should ask Professor Woden,” she suggested. “He might know. All those creatures he buys can’t possibly be legal.”
“He buys creatures?”
“Yes. He hasn’t introduced you guys to his Phoenix yet?”
She shook her head.
“Hmm. That might be after severance, then. Anyway, he keeps them in his bestiary, which is in a secret room of hisgreenhouse. You should ask him about it.”
“Oh. Okay.” At least, she knew that her lie had worked on Rava. She would refine it so it would work better on Woden.
At least that was what she thought until Rava said, “Oh, and Ari?”
“Yes?”
“Please don’t feed Woden that line about your mother’s sister’s whatever. You’ll likely do better by telling him straight up that you want to know where to buy illegal elven gems. I’m sure he wouldn’t judge you, the same way I don’t.”
And then she winked.
“Oh.” Arielle wasn’t sure how she felt. On one hand, it was disappointing to know that her lie had failed so readily. On the other hand, honesty was always simpler for her. She had a few seconds of conflict, but since Rava thought that Woden would respond better to the honesty, she might as well go that route.
She went to his office immediately, and as luck would have it, he was there.
“Illegal elven gems?” he said, folding his hands together. “You want to know where to find them.”
“Yes.”
He eyed her for a second, then spread his fingers apart. “I have no clue.”
Ari deflated. Her disappointment must have been so apparent that he followed up with, “Did you think I would know where it was?”
She nodded.
“Why?”
“Because all your creatures can’t be legal.”
He reared back, looking perplexed. “Why would you think they’re not legal? Did someone tell you that?”
“Rava told me.”
His frown deepened. “They’re all perfectly legal, thank you very much,” he said with a sniff. “I wouldn’t be able to host them here if it weren’t. There was only one time, one time that I attempted to purchase a rare bird through illegitimate means, and believe me, I paid dearly for it. I cannot believe that they’re still gossiping about it years later. And Rava wasn’t even here when it happened. I wonder who she heard it from. It was that blasted Professor Flintwick, wasn’t it? Oh, that old prude. It’s because I won our bet and he’s still grumpy about it years later.“
After listening to his rant for a few more minutes, Arielle asked, “Where did you attempt to buy the illegitimate bird?”
He shook his head. “Go back to class, Arielle, and I will forget this conversation ever happened. I will also have a talk with Rava about spreading rumors about me.”
Arielle was displeased, but she obeyed.
It wasn’t until her next History and Politics class that she got another idea.
They were discussing the first official Luxa user, Lina Li, and how she explored Earth to find those who could utilize the other essences.
“How did she know where to go?” A girl called Carmella asked. “The initial Luxari lived in a sky city on top of the tallest mountain in the world, didn’t they?”
“They did.”
“So how did they find their way around?”
“They used an ancient spell. A spell to acquire information from the abyss.” The professor glanced around. “Of course, this spell isn’t in any spellbooks. It’s a bloodline trait for the Li’s. But essentially, with that spell, they learned where to go. And on that note, I want a report on–”
The entire class groaned before she could even finish, everyone except Arielle, who was once again lost in her thoughts.
A spell that could pull information from the abyss.
Arielle wouldn’t even know where to start with a spell like that, and didn’t know how to create an abyss.
However, she may be able to figure out a spell that could get information from a place she wasn’t supposed to.
The restricted section of the library might have something about trading illegal elven gems. Even if it didn’t tell her where it was, it would lead her in the right direction.
Such a spell would involve her Orion.
But also the Vacu complex that had been used to conceal the effects of the spell, so that no one would know what was happening as she surreptitiously retrieved information.
She put the pieces together in her mind now as she drifted out of class, all the sounds like ambient noise, until someone grabbed her arm.
She spun around and found Lyra and Maus standing right behind her.
“I’ve been calling out to you for like a minute now,” Lyra said, frowning. “Where has your mind been?”
“On black market gems,” she said automatically.
“What?”
Drat. “I mean, I’ve just been thinking about a lot of things,” she caged, her eyes drifting to the ceiling as her heart raced.
Luckily, Lyra did not follow that line of thought.
“Anyway, Maus and I wanted to ask you for extra lessons this week, before Family Day on the weekend.”
“Why?”
“Because there are sometimes exhibitions on family day. Like play duels or even just magical dances. I wasn’t going to participate, but I really want to impress my brothers, and Maus wants to impress his parents too, so we were thinking of putting something on.”
“Oh.” She nodded. “Okay. I’ll be free on Friday.”
“Isn’t that cutting it a little close? Will we be ready by the next day?”
“Yes. I’ll make sure of it.” Speaking of which, she could probably use Orion to discover what was wrong with Lyra.
“I’m going to the library now,” Arielle said.
“Again?”
“Yes. See you.” Without further conversation, she walked away in a rush, and once she was settled in the mostly empty space, she brought out her scroll and began to craft the spell.
It began with Orion.
Luxa ring for identification, with double bonds for strength, and linked to Orion.
To set the domain, she surrounded it with a Massa boundary that would grow to encapsulate the entire library.
For the retrieval effect, she copied elements from the [Chamber of Secrets] spell, whereby it would bring back information that matched whatever she had written in her notebook, either by exact words or by meaning.
Finally, Vacu-Luxa and Massa-Luxa for concealment of the spell and the reveal, containing it in her notebook.
This was…a risky spell.
If she tried to do everything at once, it would likely be boosted to a master tier spell, as the shape would be very complex, and it also involved a feedback mechanism.
However, it was split into two continuous spells: one for searching and one for retrieval. She would activate them simultaneously, turning it into a Tier 6 parallel effect spell.
What a neat little trick. She should have thought about that earlier.
Once she was done, and she was sure she had gotten it all right, she took a breath and silently cast the spell.
She cast the first part as she wrote down, in her notebook, “Nearest Location for Selling Elven Gems Illegally.”
The spell formed without fanfare, and the hunter spread across the whole library, scouring for information.
Then she activated the second spell, and information began printing, ink blotting on the page.
Black Market Gem trade…Nimway
Trading on Spirit Street
Most of them gave her faraway locations or were merely fictional tales (as in the last example), but there was one thatcaught her attention.
It wasn’t in the standard textbook script. This was clearly handwriting.
Khor Market for Elven Gem Trade.
Co-ordinates: 31N, 60.8 E, Black Pillar, Cabbage Shop.
She frowned. Who had written that down?
She glanced around and wondered if the spell had inadvertently copied down something from someone’s notebook. That would mean someone else was seeking to partake in illegal gem trading.
Who was it?
No one was on the floor with her. There could potentially be someone on the higher, restricted-access floor. Arielle would have to wait for them to come down to know for sure.
Then, she had a separate thought.
She wrote down the word ‘Abyssal Drift’ and drew one of the symbols that she had copied from the base of the statue.
Then, she waited…