Chapter 140 (1/2)

Claptrap spent most of the morning using the money he had received from Artisan Dwei to purchase leather bracers, steel boots, and iron breastplates. He was able to cash in some of his other armors, and use the rest of his savings, and got 200 of each, which would be a solid start to satisfying the Crashing Wave Style.

Then he returned to his boat, only to be flummoxed by a simple truth; Claptrap had no idea how to contact the Ghosthound. He opened his friends list and began to scroll through the previoulys met tab, but because Qtal was such a densely packed city, and he had also just been at the market, at the most well attended event in the last month…

Finding the Ghosthound was almost impossible; there simply was no way to track him down. He would probably have a few days, but eventually Artisan Dwei would return. At that time, if he didn’t have any finished armor to give him…

Claptrap shivered. Although the other seemed like a personally reasonable person, you didn’t become an Artisan by being soft. So in the meantime, Claptrap needed to-

There was a knock on the door to his cab, causing Claptrap to frown. Standing up, he walked over and opened the wooden door, finding three individuals standing there.

“Yo,” The Ghosthound said coolly, rubbing the back of his neck. Claptrap almost burst into tears. Then he refocused and launched into a rapid explanation of everything that happened with the Crashing Wave sect, and how Claptrap may have revealed the Ghosthound’s engraving, which might possibly get back to the guilds, who would then come out to find him. How this might all lead to them tortured in a dark place, far away...

As he finished, breathing heavily, he had the chance to look around. What Claptrap saw caused his eyelids twitched slightly.

“Ah…. these two… are trustworthy… right….?” He said, gesturing towards the shapely woman and the angry seeming man who was opening his mouth. The Ghosthound snorted, cutting him off.

“A little late for that, isn’t it? Don’t worry about- more importantly, they said they would buy as many as I could make? Interesting. What’s the price?”

Claptrap’s face fell. He couldn't’ forget the Ghosthound’s incisive questioning, that slowly stripped away Claptrap’s bargaining power. Even now, although the question sounded innocent, he felt the possible profits fleeing away from him.

“W-well, the price is dependant on the quality of the Engraving. At certain levels-”

The Ghosthound held up a hand, then gestured to the woman. “You...what’s your name?”

She bowed, her lovely brown hair cascading forward to cover her face. Her voice was soft and sweet. “It is Helen.”

“Helen, handle the details of this transaction. You will probably be doing this a lot for me in the future, so… uh… good luck.”

The woman seemed to tense, to Claptrap’s eyes, and what followed was a very awkward series of bargaining between the two of them, while the Ghosthound and the other spear attendant watched. After a few minutes, the Ghosthound sat down and began to engrave right there, working while they hammered out the details of the deal, and things began to go much more smoothly.

Although Helen was very savvy, she lacked the sinister and unrelenting quality that allowed the Ghosthound to ask seemingly innocuous questions and still have Claptrap’s confidence in his price plummet. There was just a calculating way that he had, that made him impossible to fool. It was much less stressful for Claptrap to negotiate with Helen, but he sensed that for her, she was sweating bullets. After all, if she failed at obtaining a good deal…

Luckily, she seemed well versed in the subject, so much so that they started talking more exacting details on the quality of the workmanship, turnover times, and cost sharing.

But then the Ghosthound spoke, interrupting them both, right before Claptrap was willing to accept a deal that would have earned him enough of the profits.

“Oh Claptrap,” the man said, standing and smiling at him. “Just one quick question.”

Inwardly, Claptrap began making calculations, trying to parse out how much lower he could go, and still respect himself. There was definitely money to be made here, but if the Ghosthound insisted on keeping it all to himself, there really was nothing that Claptrap could do. But when the question was finally asked, Claptrap just blinked, completely bewildered.

“...do you have any information on Patrons?”

“Err...yes,” Claptrap stuttered. “Would you like the general Risk Sheet, or the detailed-”

The Ghosthound simply glanced at Helen, his mouth twisted into a frown. She seemed to hesitate for several long seconds, torn between two options very near to each other, but after a time, she seemed to settle on her answer, and said. “...We will take it all. Perhaps you can throw it into our previous discussions and we will call it a day?”

After another quick round of mental mathematics, Claptrap nodded, and he shook hands with Helen. The Ghosthound turned to leave, then paused, and pulled a long streamer out of his ring.

“Oh, here. I heard that if I wanted to show my support, I should give you this. Just hang it wherever, I guess.”