John thought about that question for several seconds, rubbing his chin. Evidently offended by his hesitation, Scarlett poked him in the ribs with her elbow. “Do I need to remind you of the kind of power being the currency controller offers?” she asked with bared greed. She knew perfectly well that she could play him to get herself into the driver’s seat of this. While he continued to think, Scarlett turned to Dramar. “Without having known you previously, big fan of your work.”

“I respect the cut of your jib, Scarlett Thorne,” the black dragon responded, casually dropping the technomancer’s real last name. That he had managed to discover that information didn’t surprise John (or anyone else in the room) in the slightest. If there was someone who could rival the Horned Rat’s information gathering capabilities, it would be the being who controlled the central information exchange hub. There must have been a reason why the only thing aside from currency and metals around were books. “Had you joined the Abyss Auction, you would have been a valuable asset.”

“You could have recruited me,” Scarlett suggested.

“The thought did occur, but your situation never got desperate enough. I do not employ for anything but life.” Dramar lowered his head. “My company is an extension of my hoard. Surely you understand that I do not depart willingly with anything that is of value.”

“Why me?” John asked, stepping out of his thoughts to get more information before he agreed to anything. “There must be other people you can turn to in order to get this done. Sure, Fusion is getting more influential by the day, but if you wanted to enforce a global change, picking one of the Divided Gates as your partner would be more helpful, surely.”

“The Divided Gates, let me just count them all.” Dramar counted them all on one hand, “The Blood of the Proletariat, thankfully discontinued and shattered, who would have loved to seize all of my assets when they could have. The Purest Front, who would want to do the same just for nationalistic reasons. Odin’s Sons, who are too distracted with their worship and battles to get anything economical done. The Mandate of Heaven and their attack dog the Dangun Clan, both of which are so knee-deep in bureaucracy that convincing their leaders would be the mere preamble to a decade long process to get the project actually underway.” Having reached the number of fingers on his hand, Dramar made a fist and went through the counting motions a second time.

“The Great Sultanate puts such high tariffs on everything that I would loathe to give them any of my time. Rex Germaniae is under Romulus’s sway and the Sons of Rome are much too conservative to agree to such a sweeping reform. That aside, their bureaucracy is only slightly more sufferable than the Mandate of Heaven’s, provided Romulus would even agree. Which isn’t too likely, me and the Apex have a terrible relationship….” He paused for a second, then finished off with the last two entries. “Prometheus might be an idea, but they are badly situated when it comes to making a new currency based on actual value. Frankly speaking, they do not have control over enough land to get the metal to mint enough coins. Last and least is the Illuminati. I am sure I don’t need to explain why I don’t want the Horned Rat’s claws directly involved with my money supply. He’ll meddle enough with things without me inviting him to.”

“That’s fair enough,” John just nodded along with the explanation. “Still, sounds as if you were better off trying with Prometheus or the Odin’s Sons than an ascending but largely underdeveloped guild in America.”

“An ascending, underdeveloped guild with a capital that can provide endless amounts of metal,” Dramar added a very important bit. “Currencies were eventually decoupled from rare metals because there weren’t enough rare metals to cover currency demands. This will not be an issue with you,” the black dragon pointed at John, “you have the ultimate value insurance. You becoming the centre of a new currency means I don’t have to deal with any of this again until you’re dead. Which is good, because I have a lot of more interesting things to do.”

The Gamer nodded. That was a reason he could understand. The Mine was unique on the entire earth, creating metals on the daily that otherwise had to be artificially created or harvested from semi-reliably spawning Natural Barriers. Same went for the other production Buildings, but the founder of the Abyss Auction was evidently focused on things that glittered. Still, he wasn’t willing to just take this gift horse yet.

Sighing, Dramar continued in his explanation, “It certainly helps that you are predictable. You have the potential to rival Romulus and are a schemer at heart. You’re also thoroughly human. I know what you want. You want to be written favourably of in the history books and you want your people to flourish. You want those who you love to be safe. This is why I can work with you and not with the Horned Rat. Nobody knows what that creature really wants.”

“So, to summarize,” John ordered his thoughts, “you chose to work with Fusion over every other organization in the world because of the drawbacks they have. Fusion’s bureaucracy is new and efficient. The Guild Hall guarantees you that this currency would always have material value and I’m a controllable element. Do I get that about right?”

“That would be the gist of it, yes,” Dramar agreed.

John considered these things very carefully. Doubtlessly, Scarlett was right that being the centre of the new world currency was an absurdly powerful boon that was just dropped into his lap. Control over this currency would be limited, he couldn’t devalue it in a hurry if he ever needed a quick cash injection. Doing so would have, without a doubt, pissed of this partner he was currently gaining himself. An agreement with the practical monopoly company to make sure this currency did get into use also had the drawback that he would tie his economy closer to the Abyss Auction than he liked.

Getting closer to the NTC, the fostering of international trade relations and the building of Fusion’s own merchant fleet, they were all in service of not becoming overly dependent on this dominating force of commerce. He had national security and moral reasons to want this decoupling from this overbearing force.

However, because the Abyss Auction was so overbearingly wealthy there was no evading them anyway. Even with the drawbacks, limited control over the new worldwide currency was certainly better than paddling along with the USD. There was absolutely nothing he could do to exert influence over it and the revelation that Dramar could tank the value of it at any given moment didn’t raise his confidence into the future of the currency.

“I must consider a few things, mind if I take some time?” he asked.

“Sure, can I expect you before the end of the week?” Dramar wanted to know. “I seriously want to get out of home office. What do I have all of these extra bodies for if I don’t use them?”

“Just a few minutes will do,” John assured. “I need to go through a few scenarios.”

With a pleased hum, Dramar answered, “Certainly, I will just take care of another matter in the meantime.” The head of the dragon reared to the right and towards Lydia. “Unless you mind that I discuss my matter in front of your friends – or whatever you want to call them.”

Lydia raised an eyebrow. “Given the world-adjusting discussion I am currently allowed to witness in spite of my own position, I do not mind those I trust to be privy to the topic you have in mind.”

“This currency thing isn’t exactly a thing of secrecy. Not that I would try to keep it from you even if it were,” Dramar clarified that particular point, while changing his position slightly on his bed of gold and copper. “I know humans well enough that he would tell you about this as soon as he could. Regardless, the matter I want to discuss with you is of lower importance. I have been told you do not mind the actions of my subordinate during the tournament for the crown?”

“I do not,” Lydia responded. “Even if I did, I would withhold my grudges in an interest to not ruin the life of my friend’s mother.”

“Yes, hello,” Rave waved with a cheeky expression on her face.

“Ah, I suppose such a familiar connection would change things.” Dramar mustered the Lightbearer. “Albeit the kind of relation you displayed could easily motivate you to be especially vengeful, could it not? Would it perhaps better the Auction’s standing with Fusion if I were to discard Nariko?” The black dragon tilted his head. “Not that I am going to – I am just interested in your answer.”

“I mean, currently no,” the Gamer’s pink-haired girlfriend answered. “Give it a few months, maybe she’ll annoy me so much again that I’d like that. Kinda don’t want her to become unable to pay her tribute to the Koreans and stuff though. I do want to check out that clan home we supposedly have.”

“Humans and family are the one bond I took the longest to understand.” Dramar blew out an amused puff of smoke from his nostrils. “As a being born of magic myself, I never really had such a thing. To the topic, I will fully reinstate Nariko then. Her abrasive personality is too useful a tool to not wield in negotiations.” With that matter resolved, the founder of the Abyss Auction seemed happy to just wait for John.

Rave did kill the little bit more time he needed to present a question, “Mind if I ask why ya were commenting on the arena fights?”

“A mixture of entertainment, talent scouting and direct supervision of her suggested action,” Dramar said. “Not that she was aware who I was. She doesn’t even know that I exist. The fewest even inside the Abyss Auction do.” With a wave of his right claw, the black dragon added, “If you ever want something to tease your mother with, you could hold it over her head that you know her ultimate boss while she doesn’t. As long as you do not give her concrete answers, I do not mind.”

Snickering, Rave admitted that she would do exactly that in the future. Next to her, John was rubbing his chin and coming to the end of his various thoughts. He had simulated a couple of things that could go wrong and what he would do if they happened. Not a single likely scenario he had come to had presented him with a reason to disregard the offer. The more he thought about it, the more he liked this new currency idea himself.

Aside from all of the things Dramar had said, John personally would have liked if his budget sheets had a few less zeros attached to them, purely for ease of filing. Controlling the money supply, or at least being the primary minter of coins, would also give Fusion simple ways to increase their power by going the same route as the mundane USA had gone during World War I. Just lending out money and pulling interest back from all over the world would increase their available funds rapidly.

For all of the practical benefits, John still had a few moral dilemmas to work through. “As much as I want to, I cannot agree to working closely with the Abyss Auction. Not unless I get a few concessions,” he announced.

From amused, Dramar’s mood swung into something different. John first read the raised claw and pulled back head to be annoyance, until the black dragon scratched his chin with something that was obviously boredom. Even though a giant, winged lizard was a bit harder to read than a human (for John, that was), the Gamer was pretty sure he got that emotion right.

“I guess this is about slavery,” Dramar put out there. “You feel qualms about working with a platform that sells people, is that it?”

“That would be my single largest contention, yes.” John nodded, not surprised Dramar had prepared for this point to be raised. Given how prevalent the anti-slavery agenda was in Collide and Fusion’s expansion, that was the predictable thing for the Gamer to object to.

“If you agree, consider the people trading removed,” Dramar stated.

“…Just like that?” John wanted to know. Now he actually was surprised.

“It’s a dying market anyway,” the black dragon yawned. The claw that had scratched his chin turned to catch another metal keg that dropped out of thin air. “Slaves have become increasingly less popular. The European powers outlawed them over the past hundred years, the East Asians still haven’t formally forbidden them, but nobody buys them anyway. There are some small markets all across the rest of the world, but only the Great Sultanate and the Purest Front do still engage in the practice in a large fashion and I don’t like either of these organizations.” Dramar opened the keg and drank some of the contents. “Now that you’re taking America out of the market, it’s experiencing a pretty rapid decline in supply. The profits I can still get out of that are negligible compared to having a hoard that’s worth something again.”

John would have been happier if Dramar had agreed for moral rather than pragmatic reasons. Given what position the black dragon held and what he was, assuming he would have the same morals as modern day humans would have been asking for a bit much, however.

“You do understand though that, whether or not I have that segment of the Abyss Auction taken down, the slave trade will not be eliminated?” Dramar asked. “The Abyss Auction is a middle man. We produce a lot of things ourselves, but in the slave trade we aren’t anything more than a transport service.”

“It will make things harder for these people. That’s a good start,” John answered. “I would also like to take down all products that were created by slave labour.”

“That I cannot do,” Dramar responded. “Again, the Abyss Auction is a service between buyer and seller. It is easy to say and enforce that we no longer facilitate the trading of people. The Abyss Auction does not and cannot check on the origin of every item put on its marketplace. It would cost a lot of money to do and would lose me a lot of money in the process. Do you have any idea how annoyed people get if they are unnecessarily checked at every juncture? I would lose my monopoly in less than fifteen years. The competition wouldn’t mind and you wouldn’t have gained anything.”

John sighed, knowing all of that was true. “Can you promise that the Abyss Auction’s own production won’t come out of forced labour at least?”

“We don’t currently and I don’t plan to change that. Personally, I have found slaves to create things of subpar quality,” Dramar responded. “Is that all?”

“Fundamentally, yes,” John nodded. If he could get these things guaranteed, then more general good would come out of the deal than his own enrichment. That he managed to hit the slavery business while enriching Fusion was a godsend.