Two weeks.
Two incredibly boring weeks of nothing. That's how long it took them to get all forty-five Chaos Gems, and they weren't even of good quality. The largest was only half the size of the one that I showed them and that was their standard size, in the game at least. They all had the appearance of unrefined gems as well.
Well, they did do as I asked. And this does tell me that Chaos Gems can be found in this world, they are just small and of low quality. 'Shame... Still useful though. Might as well put my plan into action.'
"Well done. Here, take these." I handed them the necklaces. With that done I used the same magic as when they first arrived to distract the Pegasus and Earth pony with an explanation on how the chokers work.
"Is there a reason you found it necessary to do that?" The Unicorn queried, bringing my attention to her.
"Well I doubt that you want them to know that you have been lying to them." The look on her face turned to one of confused worry. "Now, now friend. I just want to make a deal."
"And what kind of deal would that be?" Caution, good. She's not entirely stupid.
"Simple, you and your 'sisters' souls for the Succubus that you have bound to you." I said, making sure to keep my voice light and inviting. "Easy, right?"
"This seems to good too be true. What's the catch?"
"I already told you that. You give me ownership of your Succubus and you get three souls and freedom in return." Insolent child. "Now do we have a deal, or not?"
She stood there in thoughtful silence for maybe half a minute. She then extended her hand and spoke. "Very well, I agree to your deal."
"Happy to do business with you, friend." I smiled and traded the contracts with her. It is nice to make others think that they came out on top when in actuality I do.
Unfortunately the residual green wax from making the necklaces wouldn't solidify into a gem or artificial metal of any kind. Instead it just remained liquified in some kind of green honey like substance.
Time to experiment.
I wonder if he could improve monsters? to get better chaos drop quality gems the improve monsters equal improved artifact to be made more business and need of artifacts
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Sounds like something that would both be good for business, and at the same time could draw a lot of unwanted attention his way from people not so much seeking glory and wealth but rather doing good for the sake of doing good.
Creating more powerful monsters means that adventurers will need better equipment, which means he'll need tougher monsters, which means better equipment again....but eventually somebody will figure out where the tougher and tougher monsters are coming from. He'd need to create an artificial 'dungeon' and 'boss' to with a set of rooms that look like a magical lab, holding cells, and a dissection room to make it appear monsters were being held and experimented on, and should that figurehead-villain fall to adventurers, then he'd need to lay low for awhile, maybe even move to another region entirely and wait for a century or so until he's mostly forgotten about.....then another 'villain' pops up claiming to be looking to take the place of the place of the previous villain, rinse and repeat.
The problem with that is that it would be very time and resource consuming. Even if he had say, an army of golems to do most of the work for him via pre-programing, this isn't something you could just start doing on the fly out of nowhere. You'd need to make the dungeon and lab and so on first, and THEN start making stronger monsters. After the town he's in would become an adventurer's hub of activity, he could start seeding rumors that one of his patrons had come in asking him to break a gaess(or however it's spelled) placed on him by some dark sorcerer, but he'd been unable to do so due to a contract having been signed by him beforehand and not TO him. Heck, screw rumors, he could put out a quest offering an enchanted item of their choice for free if this Interloper Mage were destroyed.
"He's bad for business. Get rid of him and I'll reward you....handsomely. One free magical item of your choice from the Red shelf in my shop. No other pricing attached." Anyone that might suspect him of being responsible for the monsters might have their suspicions allayed and be inspired to take up the quest themselves. A powerful magical item that you know will work, for a job you'd probably have done anyway with no other strings attached? Heck yes!
But if he doesn't do that even with the contracts he has with others it might not be enough. Hearts and Minds and all that. The statement of "It's just good business." is only something that someone fixated on gaining additional wealth will be sympathetic towards. The common person is only interested in living their lives as peacefully as possible within reason. An army of devastating monsters doesn't line up with that.
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