THE MONEY TRAIL

THE MONEY TRAIL

What Duke Armanos said was true. 

Even our Hunter's Guild in Kaleon town, would not easily and cheaply sell their collection of magical hearts, even after we managed to obtain an abundance of them during our last hunt in the forest pit.

"Who in Tarah city has such a large source of magical hearts to dispose? The Church?" I asked the duke.

"That is a mystery which is the reason I came here today to investigate", Duke Armanos said to us.

"Why are you concerned about this?" I asked him.

"We never know. There might be a new force entering the market from other cities or there might be a family in Tarah city that is short of money and disposing of their collection. These are things we should be wary of or take advantage of", he told me.

"How do you plan to investigate this?" I asked the duke.

"I plan to ask the director of the auction later although I doubt, she will reply to me honestly. There is customer confidentiality in the Royal Auction House and they stick to their principles", he replied to me.

"I have a way to find out who the sellers of these magical hearts are", I replied to him.

"How?" he asked me.

"Missy, on second thoughts, I will have all the magical hearts that you sell here and if there are no buyers in the other floating pavilions, I'll buy all of their magical hearts too, provided you give me a better discount", I told the salesgirl in the floating sales pavilion.

"Thank you very much, Earl Oriese. I'll give you a good price", she replied to me.

"I don't have so much money with me to pay for all these magical hearts", Raven asked me.

"Don't worry, we can deliver the goods to your office in Kaleon town and collect the payment then", the salesgirl said to me.

"That is marvelous", I replied to her.

After the salesgirl and her pavilion left us, Duke Armanos asked me, "will buying all the magical hearts reveal the mysterious supplier?"

"No, that will not reveal the buyer to us, but we will find out who the real seller is", I replied to him.

"I still don't understand", Duke Armanos asked me.

"The thing that will reveal the secret seller will be in the payment. The sum of all the magical hearts that I bought today will cost at least thirty million Aurs. When the auction collects the Aurs from me, they will soon after, make payment to the secret seller using the same Aur stones", I explained to the duke.

"You plan to do something to the payment? The Aur stones?" he asked me.

"When I return, I will have the Aur stones for the payment instilled with tracking magic. When the seller receives the payment, we will track them by tracking where the money went", I told the duke.

"You want to find out about the secret supplier of the magical hearts by using the money trail?" Duke Armanos asked me.

"Yes, that is the correct way to describe it", I replied to him.

"You are quite ingenius. Who will have guessed the money they received is tracked?" Duke Armanos said to me.

"We'll see who that is soon enough", I replied to him.

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"I'm sure the Auction house should have paid the mystery seller of the magical hearts by now, why hasn't the money moved yet?" Duke Armanos asked me anxiously.

"It is a gamble. There is a chance that the Auction House will not repay the secret seller with my aur stones. I'm banking on the seller waiting impatiently to collect the money given that it is not a small sum, so my payment would not be processed and stored back into the vault before disbursement", I told the duke.

"Then we are back to square one if the seller didn't collect the payment hastily", Duke Armanos told me.

"The money is moving", Camliden suddenly came over to tell us.

Camliden was a member of the Temple of Solomon. The thieves of the temple were the best people to track the movement of my money and they could do it without most people realizing it too.

"Where did the money go?" Duke Armanos asked Camliden.

Camliden brought out several magical maps and placed them on the table for us. There was a metal arrow on the map that moves. The arrow would point us to the position where my magical aur stones went.

Not all the Aur stones that we put tracking magic in them, moved. That was understandable because the Auction House would keep a part of the proceed as commission.

The rest of the Aur stones though went to an unlikely place before the signal on the stones disappeared altogether.

"What happened? The arrows don't move anymore?" Duke Armanos asked us.

"Either the money stopped moving or some magic neutralized our tracking", Camliden told us.

"Who could do such a thing? Neutralize the tracking magic in money?" Duke Armanos asked us.

"They may not be checking the money by design but entering this place will certainly reveal or destroy our tracking magic", Camliden told us as he pointed at the last location of the Aur stones' movements.

"What place will disable the tracking magic in our Aur stones?" I asked him.

"Where is this?" Duke Armanos asked us.

"The Conjurer Court of Drachia", Camliden replied to us to our shock and surprise.

"Why did the mystery seller go to the Conjurer Court?" Duke Armanos asked me.

I thought about the matter for a while before replying to him.

"Perhaps the secret seller is from the Conjurer Court. Think about it, who else besides the Mission Center of the Conjurer Court could collect so many well-preserved magical hearts", I told him.

"But the Conjurer Court would not sell their store of magical hearts easily and at a deep discount", Duke Armanos told us.

"The Conjurer Court is not short of money, and they have no motive to do so, but there may be people in the Conjurer Court who may have the motive and the means to do so", I replied to him.

There was only one reasonable explanation. Someone inside the Conjurer Court was stealing magical hearts from their vault secretly and pocketing the proceeds.

"This is getting too complicated for me. We should not get involved with the Conjurer Court's matters even if we discover corruption in their ranks", Duke Armanos said to me.

"Yes, you are right. We should let this go. At least we now know about the mystery and it's not because of a rising competitor or another family on decline", I said to him in return.

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