Later on along the night, Steve figured out that he may have overpaid Altima. They walked for about two hours, just so they could get away from any and all familiar faces, and after that point, they got into one of the many Inns that the city sheltered, so they could sleep in for the night there, headache free. This was where he discovered that he overpaid his body-guard, because everything within this Inn seemed really cheap to him, extremely even!
Most rooms cost a single gold coin a night to purchase, and the food was even cheaper than that, so the Innkeeper ended up handing him a dozen silver coins as change! Steve was shocked, so he ended up asking Altima a couple of questions about the economy.
Such questions were perhaps less than interesting in this world of frogs and magic, but he had to know how much to spend on things. That's how he figured out that the average frog earned twenty-five gold coins a month here, and that food for a four-person household cost fifteen gold coins a month! He was shocked, and just now realized how rich he actually was!
"God! I spent ten gold coins on a stupid dagger, the economy here is fucked." He muttered to himself.
Anyway, he didn't complain about what Altima charged for her services, because even though he had paid her four-times the average salary, she was worth the slab. She was an absolute tank, and killed on command, so he was hoping to find more frogs like her, to hire, but hopefully a bit cheaper too, because the gold that he had in this possession would run out quickly if he wasn't careful.
If he hired ten people who charged as much as her, then he'd be broke within three months, so perhaps he wasn't too rich after all? He just had a lot of spendable money on his person for now, and had to be careful with every bar that he had.
There was a lot to think about, regarding money, but he decided to worry about all of that tomorrow. For now, he and Altima went to sleep for the night, in separate rooms, and hoped for the best regarding the events that were to unfold!
…
The next morning, Steve hired a wizard. The guy he hired wasn't a wizard per se, he was in his twenties, but he was a prodigy in a couple of destructive arcane arts! Magic was frowned upon in this country, but destructive wizards weren't as discriminated against, just because of how useful their powers were in battle, they could roam freely in most cities without getting ridiculed.
Steve met him in the Inn, in the morning. He had slapped two, small gold-bars on the table in order to convince the other, and just like that he bought his services. This mage wasn't a hireable bodyguard to begin with, but eight average salaries paid upfront were pretty convincing, and the mage was even more convinced when Steve said that he may not need him for more than a month. Quick, and easy money was hard to refuse!
The wizard was named Alik, and he could prove really useful, because he could also help Steve understand the arcane side of this world. Steve barely had any powers of his own, so he looked forward to getting his hands on any sort of new magical power, without having to beg the system for it. He was already indebted to the system, by fifteen whole points, so he couldn't really ask her for anything right now! The mage wasn't willing to share his knowledge so easily, but he may break over time.
Anyway, even though this guy was pretty helpful, Steve still needed more strong, capable people if he was to face a high-ranking criminal. He figured that if it was this easy to hire executioners, then his enemy may have done the same thing, he may have tens of guards at his disposal! It wasn't as easy to hire tens of guards with the budget that Steve had, so if he was truly to send his enemy a message, then he needed a handful of very strong people at the very least. That was his best bet no matter how he looked at the situation, he couldn't waste any money.
"Ten Altimas are better than one," He plotted, "If I kill 'the boss', then maybe I can steal all of his shit too? Who knows how much gold that bastard has stashed away! I gotta try, because gold is looking more and more easy to get, though almost as easy to spend - I could become rich, stupid rich."
…
"The Boss is actually called Andrew. Some call him Dandy Andy, because he supposedly likes men, but don't let that lower your guard, because he's also said to be fiercely intelligent. He has a lot of pet snakes, and rumor has it that those snakes used to be frogs, so he may be a dark magician too. He's going to be exceptionally hard to kill." A scout reported.
"Dandy Andy… that name rings a bell, but I still can't figure out why people fear him so much? The pet snakes could spook people sure, but come on, he's just a gay frog!" Steve concluded, though he mostly spoke to himself, as he tried his best to figure out the city's social layout.
In a week's worth of time, Steve got a lot of work done. He figured out where his main enemy 'lair' was, and hired five more bodyguards/warriors as well, and it took him a week to do the latter, because he was cherry-picking only the best of the best warriors, he even found a mental guy with a scythe. He assembled a good team, and that's how he got scouts who reported to him regarding the city's details, they were effective.
Steve wanted to be as prepared and as strategic as possible, so he had practically rented half of an Inn, just to keep his hired arms up close. They didn't mind sharing their experiences too, so he started getting a good idea of how this city functioned. They were sent out to scout the enemy, quite often, just so they could learn as much information as possible regarding this homosexual, 'big boss' lender, because he had to figure out how to attack them in the most efficient way. He had seven pairs of eyes stalking the perimeter, and Altima was trusted to lead them more thoroughly in terms of orders and details.
With such an effortful episode of scouting, Steve got a bit more ready to attack his enemy. He was prepared, but then he figured out that the 'big boss' had gotten more paranoid over the week, he was more cautious for a multitude of reasons, and therefore had assigned more guards across the various treasuries that his business had! A scout counted up to twenty guards in a single, less than significant treasury.
Since the enemy had numbers like that to his disposal, it was unwise to attack them without an elaborate plan. That's what was holding him back, regardless of what kind of progress he had made!
In short, if he was to succeed, he had to put a more elaborate plan together, without killing his own hired arms within the process, and possibly himself too. He had to be calculative, because he was significantly outnumbered here, as the big boss had somewhere around two-hundred non-essential personnel working for him! He had two-hundred guards at his disposal.
It wasn't easy to work around that part, he had to be as prepared as ever. However difficult this task may be, it was still easier than finding ten ingots lying about for him to pay back, so he had to give it a shot! In the long run, in order to survive, he either had to raid his enemies or flee the city, and he didn't really like the latter idea.
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