Coin and Copper An Ebony Trading Company Story.

There weren't always dragons in the valley. In fact, live dragons used to be quite rare, only seen in the most remote mountains or in the wilderness outside of the country of Merccin. That is until the mayor of a small village within Merccin hired a gang of adventurers to retrieve two dragon eggs for the village of Hyperia. The plan was simple, the adventures would bring them the eggs and they would become an ecological tourist attraction for the struggling village. The eggs were meant to bring in researchers with massive grants to spend in the village, nature lovers who would donate to preserve the eggs new habitat as well as spend a lot of money in town, and, of course, the members from the Church of the Grand Wyrm who would pay tithes and go on grand pilgrimages to the little village of Hyperia to see their divine saviors in person. However, like most plans built on the idea of quick and easy money, it was not well thought out and blew up in everyone's face. First off, the village had no practical knowledge on dragons at all, except that they were interesting and important to the church. But, none of these yokels were actual members of the Church of the Grand Wyrm and thus didn’t know that the church viewed the act of attempting to own or steal from a dragon as heresy. So of course, when the church received their invitation to see live dragon eggs, they declared a holy war on Hyperia. The mayor reached out to the king of Merccin, but due to roughly one-fourth of the entire kingdom being a member of the Church of the Grand Wyrm, the king elected to not get involved.

Almost every day the town was attacked by members of the church, after realizing the royal army would not intervene, the town then put a job request for protection through the adventurer's guild. However, no hall would hang the signs out of fear of getting on the Church’s bad side. Thus, the church descended on Hyperia with their holy draconic army attacked and razed the town to the ground. To appease their divine lizards, the church members performed a ritual to hatch them early to give them the fertile valley the village was located on. Unfortunately, the dragons born from the eggs were those of ice and poison. They ravaged the once fertile land, changing it into a lair of freezing venom.

The few survivors of the village have gone around the kingdom begging for assistance, yet to no avail. No proper adventure guild or kingdom representative would dare risk damaging their reputation with the church. As a result, they had to turn to less reputable sources. Thieves, mercenaries, assassins, and rogue wizards, they asked them all and were either turned away due to the mission being too dangerous, or not wanting to be on the church’s hit list. Until one day the mayor’s daughter and a group of the few remaining villagers walked into the trade house and pub of the Ebony Trading Company.

As Azura walked into the Blackened Coin, the sweet smell of smoked meats and cheese danced within her nose and caused her mouth to water. The pub’s atmosphere was electric, despite its rather peculiar design choice. The bar seemed to be broken into 4 sections, with a path in the middle which ran through all of them into the kitchen. The section closest to the entrance had various swords, spears, axes, and other weapons plastered on the wall. Along with various armors and charms on display. On the other hand, the strangest aspect of these decorations could only be seen by those with a keen eye for metal work or the magical skill of appraisal. Every weapon and armor would not only classify, at the very least, as a masterwork item or higher, but were made of various exotic materials, such as the bones of demons, horns of a unicorn, even an armor platemail made from the shell of a Geo Turtle. Which is, a giant turtle born from the detonation of a volcano that destroyed an entire island. All of the life that existed on that island is then combined into an amorphous turtle like blood and all the land and lava is hardened into an invincible shell on top of the “turtle's'' back. Yet Azura neither possessed the skill of appraisal nor knowledge of metallurgy so the scope of the weapons and armor surrounding her was sadly lost on her.

In another corner of the bar everything from the tables to the utensils were made of solid gold. It also had its own gambling table where a group of fatcats were playing poker under the watchful eye of a golem with anti-magic runes inscribed on their rock-hard chest to prevent cheating. Unlike the rest of the bar this corner seemed to be filled with nothing but nobles. As everyone there was dining on expensive looking meals and drinking with the kind of moderation, you’d only see rich snobs doing, to seem cultured. As they slowly sipped out of golden crystal goblets while all those around them in other sections greedily wolfed down their food and drinks.

Speaking of greed, no other word could better describe the section second closest to the kitchen then greedy. The customers in this section were strangely voracious, more like wild animals than people. As they tore through the food with their bare hands reducing entire chickens to nothing but bones and gristle in less than seconds. Nonetheless, even stranger than that was how the people were seated. There was a woman with long green hair who wore an immaculately white lab coat and glasses who stood at the entrance of this section of the bar. For someone to enter they had to first receive an injection, then the woman would lead them to a table within a glass sphere. After they put their order in a glass would slide down and seal them inside the sphere. Subsequently the guest would begin to act strange, slamming their hands against the glass, but even the strongest amongst them was unable to break it. Only calming down once a huge platter of food was brought to them, and quickly shoved through the glass to the crazed guest. From there they would eat almost everything on the plate and then a strange blue gas would fill the cage, and the diner would be knocked out. Soon after a waiter would open the cage and stick the guests with two needles. One which seemed to collect the blood from the patron and the other which injected a strange glowing fluid into their bodies. They would then wake up, give the woman in the lab coat their money and leave. A wicked flash seemed to emit from the lens of her glasses as she counted the money and scribbled down notes in her notebook.

The final section was the smallest and closest to the back of the restaurant. No one was in the section, and it was decorated with various coffins and headstones embedded on the ground. Along the walls was a massive selection of bottles filled with various sorts of alcohol all dated nearly 100 years or older. Various taxidermy animals and magical beasts such as griffins, basilisks, and chimeras surrounded the stone tables as if the various creatures were watching the guests eat or waiting to pounce on them once their guard was down.

“What the hell is this place, it’s like no bar I had ever seen before,” Azura thought to herself as she began to venture deeper into the bar. However, to her annoyance, the wooden floors clung under Azura’s feet emitting a Squelching! sound with every step due to the floor being coated in a mix of ale, fruit juice, and water. Azura sighed deeply, “This is why I hate backwaters like this, they're so filthy.” Azura thought to herself as she took out two pieces of paper from her pocket and placed one of each on her boots. Both papers were covered in a runic configuration that Azura had created herself using her skills with water magic. Immediately both boots were engulfed in a bubble of soap and water, before deflating and the remnants of the bubble clung to the bottom of her shoe.

Azura couldn’t help but stare down at the fruits of her labor with a mix of pride as she took her first steps since entering the pub with no sound effects. She had come to call this specific runic configuration: WATER PURITY. It was a relatively simple spell born from Azura’s desire for cleanliness and a need to safely travel through the poisonous remains of Hyperia. The spell would use the purifying aspects of water to destroy any contaminations on the item it was placed on. Then form a thing repelling protective film around the object so they wouldn't contact their environments and could continue doing whatever they're doing with no concerns for environmental influences for the next 2 hours. Such spells had become a necessity for anyone traveling within Hyperia, and while most people had to dish out major money for protection spells Azura was lucky enough to be able to make her own.

Her triumph was short-lived, as she noticed all the sections of the bar seemed to be filled with the exception of the back two. As Azura weighed her options between the woman in the white coat and loneliness in the gravestones, she figured it would be better to be alone than to be injected with some strange fluids. She entered the section at the back of the bar and as soon as she picked up the menu a short busty woman with long neon pink hair fashioned into a ponytail started walking towards her. She wore a frilly, expensive looking pink dress, with 6 eyeballs sewn into her collar, and patterns of grinning skulls, roses and dancing skeletons decorating the front with a Dullahan riding a skeletal horse on the back. With the phrase “RIP” stitched across her ample chest. The woman was almost ghostly pale yet undeniably beautiful. She had piercing white eyes that were currently looking everywhere and an extremely bored look on her face.

“Welcome to the Blackened Coin my name is Lady Grim, can I take your order? Or you know, you can just leave and make my life easier right now. Also just leave your money, after all being in the presence of someone as cute as me deserves some compensation after all. Even more so considering I went out of my way to talk to you, so guess your total is 10 gold plus tip.” She twirled what seemed to be a fingerbone between her fingers in one hand while carrying a blank notepad in the other.

Azura looked at the waitress in front of her dumbstruck and was silent for a second until: “What the hell kind of customer service is that! First off, if you work here shouldn’t you be encouraging your patrons to stay as long as they want and eat their fill and shouldn’t you clean the damn floor! It’s a mess, the floors are so sticky! I'm surprised anyone can even take a step without being bound to a spot forever. On top of that, what kind of slack jawed idiot would pay money just to talk to some gothic Trollip who is probably just using some kind of glamor magic,” Azura slammed her fist on the table.

The bored expression on Grim’s face instantly vanished as her mouth twisted into an annoyed sneer. The bar was suddenly dead quiet, and the headstones, coffins, and taxidermy creatures began to shake. Then with a voice colder than the metal of the grim reaper scythe, she spoke:

“Human, you dare to order me to do anything, and worse than that, did you just imply I’m not cute!!!!!”

Suddenly Azura felt much heavier, she tried to stand up but instead fell to the ground unable to move. The table and chair she sat on were instantly crushed flat by some unknown force and the various stuffed magical creatures and beasts were now stalking towards her. Bullets of sweat began to pour down her face as the various dead creatures surrounded her blocking any kind of escape, not that it mattered as that same invisible wall of force kept her pinned on the ground. Through herculean effort she was able to move her eyes away from the floor to look up at Lady Grim and to her surprise there were several massive cracks that have sprung up over her once perfectly beautiful face. Through the cracks one could make out bits of bones and a tempest of black energy swirling just under the surface.

“Look at you just lying there, now who’s ugly and lazy,” Grim cackled through a distorted voice.

Azura then screamed, “I didn’t even say all of that! The answer is still you, your face is literally breaking, and you work here! I’m just here searching for The Ebony Trading Company; I need their help reclaiming my village!”

Then without warning a sizzling sound similar to a liquid falling on a hot surface can be heard and is immediately drowned out by a wail of pain so loud every person within the room (with the exception of 4 people who were used to it) felt their soul attempt to leave their bodies simply to get away from the sound. The undead creatures immediately quit moving, and Azura felt lighter and immediately was able to push herself to her feet. To her surprise she found the woman with green hair, glasses and white lab coat standing behind Grim, pouring some unknown bright blue liquid onto her head. Grim continues to wail in pain as she falls to the ground screaming and thrashing around as steam erupts forms her body.

“Oh, stop you’re being such a baby Grim, it’s only a bit of distilled holy water I created from the tears of nuns and aged angel wing whiskey. It was the only way I could stop you from killing this girl.” The woman with the green hair laughed as she poured the last of the “holy water” on Grim.

Grim immediately sat up, tears streaming down the left side of her face, as the right side was nothing but bone. “You liar!! Yeah, I was gonna kill her for daring to talk to me like that, but that’s not why you jumped in. You just enjoy hurting people and experimenting on them Doc! You sadistic cow!”

Doc then began to laugh, a genuine soft caring smile on her face. “Now, now, is name calling really necessary? Oh, by the way you may wanna fix your face, I know how you prefer to look extra cute when taking on adventuring jobs.”

Torrents of necrotic energy begin to pour into Grim’s hand, and a hulking skeleton clad in jet-black armor kicks open the casket from across the room and climbs out of it. A shiny black sword in their hand crackling with electricity and unholy energies. “You dirty plague bearer! I’ll...”

A powerful voice thundered from across the room, “Grim, Doc, both of you cut the crap you're intimidating our guest or maybe I should say guests. Considering how many of them ran away after “Lady” Grim here showed off her bony face because of Doc’s bootleg holy water. Now stop acting like a bunch of children, cancel the spells you're about to cast and Doc put away that extra vial you have in your hand. Or I swear I’ll tell Pier to feed you both nothing except their HellFire chili for the next month as well as tell them not to make either of you dessert for the rest of the month either.”

A short bald black man wearing an expensive looking navy suit and golden sunglasses sauntered over to Grim, Azura, and Doc. He took a bite of some grilled meat on a stick, chewing it thoroughly before swallowing it loudly. The juices from the fat of the meat practically poured down his face. Doc and Grim both looked at each other, hints of fear and pain could momentarily appear on their faces before being replaced with what could only be described as a sense of diligence as the ball of necrotic energy disappeared from Grim’s hand and the skeleton and stuffed animals immediately returned to their resting places. Grim’s face was back to its original perfection, and both stood at attention with their resting on their heart

“Sorry Boss!” they both replied.

The man then sighs, throwing the remnants of the stick into the trash can. “It’s fine, Doc thanks for stopping Grim for killing another person who had work for us.” Doc dropped the salute and smiled at the man, “As for you Grim, no pun intended but grow some thicker skin just because someone insults you doesn't mean you have to kill, maim, or intimidate them.”

“But it's not fair boss, Wasano was supposed to work my section today while I went shopping for a new outfit,” Grim whined to the man.

“First of all, I told you about making Wasano do all your work, stop being a lazy bone, also…”

“That’s discrimination judging me because I'm a Litch I thought you were better then that,” cried Grim tears still streaming down her face.

“It’s not discrimination, this is literally based off your character, someone who likes to be lazy and push off work to anyone dumb, nice, or scared enough to do it for you is the epitome of laziness.” The man begins to rub his head in frustration, “Ugh now thanks to your interruption I can’t even think of what else I was gonna say, look just go grab a chair and table for our guest here along with the bottle filled with golden liquid from my section of the bar.”

“Right away boss!” Grim said with a salute as she grabbed a nearby stone table and 2 chairs and brought them to where the man and Azura stood, before running off towards the golden section of the bar to get the bottle as instructed.

The man then turned to Azura and unleashed a dazzling smile upon her and motioned for her to sit down which she did.

“I’m so sorry for my subordinates, my name is Pur Est Nep O Tism, CEO of the Ebony Trading company though my friends typically call me Boss P…”

“No, we don't, we usually call you “Boss” if we’re working or “Pure” because you're such an innocent man who can’t even hold his liquor. Boss, don’t tell me you're trying to start your own nickname, that's just sad.” Grim retorts as she brings the Golden bottle and two golden chalices filled with ice and hands her boss a silver unicorn horn. “Figured this might help the boss, you know stirring your drink with the horn gets rid of all the harmless substances in it so it basically will be like apple juice for you.” She then flashes the boss her own dazzling smile. While Azura looks at Pure with a mix of pity and amusement.

Anger, frustration, and embarrassment flush Pure’s face and he yells, “Pier only feed Grim the chili for the next 2 months and no desserts for a month. Also have her help with all the dishes for the next 6 months.”

“Ha, she made you strike out with another woman, boss? Also stop using my chili as punishment. It's damn good! Not the dishes fault y'all too weak to handle Pyre peppers.” A symphony of voices replied from the kitchen.

“Wait boss, how can you be so cruel?” Grim whined, fresh tears streaming down her face.

“Shut it both of you, Grim if I were you I’d get started on the dishes now, we’ll be opening for the dinner rush soon.”

“You're so mean!!!” Grim cried as she ran into the kitchen.

Pure then sighed again as he tenderly squeezed the bridge of his tender nose. “Sorry about all that again, so you said you had a job for us?”

The woman took a deep breath and the look of amusement and pity from before was replaced with an urgency that was carried over in her words: “Please I need you all to save my village, my name is Azura Hyperia, daughter of the mayor of Hyperia. I need you to slay the dragons my father foolishly birthed in our city.”

“Dragons huh, wait isn’t Hyperia that city the Church of the Grand Wyrm attacked in order to free the dragons?”

“Yes, the very same.”

“So you're asking us to become the enemies of the second most powerful religion in Merccin?”

“I… yes I suppose I am.”

“How much?” Pure asked while trying to flick some dirt out from under his nails.

“Huh?”

“How much are you offering?” Pure asks slowly.

“We are… or rather were a poor village even before the crusaders of the great worm took everything-” Azura stutters

Pure then put his hand up. “Look I didn’t ask for the sob story, this is a business not a charity if you don’t have something to offer you can leave right now”

“300 Gold”

“300 Gold to slay a dragon and become the enemy of the Church of the Grand Worm”

“2 dragons…” she whispered quietly

“Pardon me?” Pure demanded

“There's actually 2 dragons that need to be slayed one of ice and one of poison”

“OH! so what you actually mean is 2 Legendary Dragons! Because Ice and poison dragons have never been seen before. Are you out of your mind?”

“Please Sir, the 300 gold is all we have.”

“No, it actually isn’t. If you want our help and for us to make an enemy out of another religion, you're gonna have sweetened the pot so much that we’ll think it’s juice, I won't risk my people’s lives for anything as poultry as 300 Gold. So give us the 300 gold, all materials we find on or aside of the dragon as well as the barony of your lands.”

“Are you insane? I can’t promise that those lands have been in some people's family for generations,” Azura shouted in surprise.

“I don’t care, make it happen. Let’s be frank, I bet the only reason you're coming to us with this job is because no one else will touch it. No one wants to be on the big bad lizard worshipers or are crazy enough to even attempt to fight a dragon let alone two legendary ones. I can guarantee we will not only fight the dragons but slay them and get your land back. Also by giving us the land it gives us a vested interest in protecting it, as it should be pretty obvious once the dragons are slayed The Church of the Grand Wyrm will be pissed, and will do everything in their power to wipe out the town that hired adventurers to destroy their Gods. And do you honestly think you guys could hold them off without us? Or did you already forget what they did to your people for simply making their gods into an exhibit.”

“I… ok deal… I'll make everyone see the logic in this deal. Just so you know though the lands have been ravaged by poison and ice I doubt there's really worth more than the memories we have attached to them”

Pure smiles another dazzling smile at Azura, “Leave that to us, we have our own ways of dealing with poison though the frozen sections may be a bit more trouble. So, do we have a deal?” Pure pours the golden liquid into the 2 goblets. And reaches out his hand. Azura takes the full Goblet and downs it before shaking Pure’s hand.

“We have a deal”

“Thank you for hiring The Ebony Trading Company, we look forward to kicking some ass with a smile.”