“Like hell we can! I’ve already gone to great pains to prepare for this operation!”
“If you’re so desperate for the money, then just complete the surgery successfully. It’s that simple. I’m not saying we won’t pay you, so I don’t know why you’re getting so upset.”
“Because there’s every chance you’ll just make a run for it once I’m done! I can’t accept a deal that puts me at such a massive disadvantage like that!”
“Then the deal’s off. Ralph, Hester... We’re leaving.”
I turned right around and made to leave.
Sorry, Ralph... Seems like we’re gonna have to wait just a little longer to get your knee fixed, I thought, but just as we’d gone down the stairs, a loud voice called out desperately from behind us.
“Please, just wait a minute! Surely you see what a difficult position this puts me in? Please rethink this,” Vlad cried.
We turned around to find him kowtowing at the top of the stairs, his forehead touching the floor.
I was taken aback by the radical transformation; this simpering man was like a completely different person to the high-handed one we’d just been talking to.
It seemed like that arrogant attitude was his way of getting patients to agree to his terms, but if he could tell that they weren’t going to budge, then nothing was beneath him if it meant sealing the deal.
He was one of those people who operated at zero or a hundred, but nothing in between.
“What do you want to do here, Ralph?” I asked him. “You’re the one getting the surgery.”
“I... I’ll get it. This guy does seem pretty shady, but I’m pretty confident that he’ll do it for the money. And if we’re putting the condition on it that we’ll only pay if he succeeds, then I have a feeling he’ll do whatever it takes.”
“All right. Then I think we’ll leave our intel gathering for later and stand watch during the surgery, actually. We’ve got no way of knowing what kind of stunts this guy might try to pull.”
“Thanks, Chris. You’re a real stand-up guy.”
With that decided, we headed upstairs again and reentered negotiations with Vlad.
We agreed that the surgery would take place tomorrow, and that he’d have everything ready to go. All we needed to do was bring the money.
It was nice that the price of the five platinum coins was all-inclusive.
I was feeling pretty anxious about how this was going to go, but we really couldn’t pull out now.
After Vlad told us to come back tomorrow, we decided to leave the black market and head for the shopping district in search of a place to stay while we were in the capital.
Ralph and Hester had apparently stayed at a cheap inn near the black market when they’d visited previously, but we decided not to stay there this time. It felt too risky to spend the night there with so much money on us.
Safe lodgings weren’t worth skimping on. We needed to find somewhere we could trust. Plus, Ralph would be undergoing surgery tomorrow, so we wanted to find somewhere relatively nice that he could really relax in.
“Hey, Chris, what do you think of that place? Seems pretty cheap, right?” said Ralph.
“Actually, Chris, I think that place might be cheaper,” said Hester.
“Guys, I told you: We’re not looking for somewhere cheap, we’re looking for somewhere safe.”
Growing up so poor must have really ingrained in them the importance of finding the cheapest option possible, because no matter how many times I told them that that wasn’t what we were looking for, they just kept pointing to cheap lodgings.
I had a feeling it would fall on me alone to keep an eye out for somewhere nice, so I poured all of my energy into trying to find one.
Relaxation Inn, R&R Hotel, Sanbei Inn, Beyson’s Park... The places I was spotting all seemed pretty nice, but I wanted something with a little more oomph.
I spent several minutes pushing through the crowd as I surveyed the area. Finally, I found a hotel that met my expectations.
“Ladies and gentlemen, how do we feel about...the Grabbel Hotel?”
I pointed to a nice hotel about a stone’s throw from the main road, in a safe-looking location.
It was a level above the Shangri La Hotel, where we usually stayed, but hey... We were in the capital, so why not live it up a little?
“Oh, nuh-uh. That place looks like it costs a fortune!” cried Ralph.
“It sure does. Let’s not!” Hester chimed in.
“Listen, that’s a good thing, actually,” I argued. “We don’t want to cheap out on somewhere with bad security and have all our money stolen. That’d be a huge loss, don’t you agree?”
“You’re probably right about that, but we could always just take turns keeping watch, couldn’t we? I’m not gonna be able to relax if we’re staying somewhere that nice.”
“Oh, come on. Let’s just go,” I said, dragging my two reluctant party members to the building with “Grabbel Hotel” on the sign.
The interior walls were a simple black brick, but everything was so tastefully coordinated that there was a certain je ne sais quoi about it that made it sparkle.
I was so nervous that I had to swallow my spit, which had been pooling in my mouth, as I approached the front desk to check in with the young man working there.
“Welcome. Do you have a reservation, sir?” he asked.
“No reservation. Do you have any vacancies?”
“We certainly do. What type of room would you like?”
“Wh-What type? Um, what types are there?” I asked.
I was the one who’d dragged Ralph and Hester in here, but now I was starting to regret it. It was somehow more comfortable to be treated a bit like dirt than it was to receive such good service.
I’d made fun of Ralph and Hester for being so incorrigibly frugal, but as it turned out, I was pretty frugal too.
“We have several different types of rooms available, including single, double, twin, triple, and family. Once you have selected one of those four options, you may then select the grade: economy, standard, superior, deluxe, or suite,” the man at the front desk explained.
I actually had no idea what he was talking about. Are we even speaking the same language right now?
I glanced over at Hester, trying to signal that I needed a little assistance, but she was just standing there with her mouth agape.
That just went to show how bizarre this was. Even Hester, who was used to learning all kinds of new words on the fly during her magic studies, couldn’t wrap her head around any of that.