Chapter 222: Truth in the Act
The old man’s eyes widened, the shine of gold reflected in his rheumy eyes. Soleia spotted the gears in his head turning as self-preservation and greed began to wage war in his mind. She decided to keep the coins, watching as he made a hastily aborted motion to grab them.
"You don’t even need to join us on the boat," Soleia said. "We’ll take the boat at night when the guards are busy. In return, you shall get more gold than you’ll ever need."
The old man nodded his head frantically. "Alright then. As long as you can’t pin it on me. It’s good."
Gratified, Soleia handed the old man a few gold coins. "Consider this a downpayment." And then she took one look at the boat and decided to give him some more― not because the little dinghy was worth even a gold coin, but that boat might be that old man’s livelihood. Since they were taking the boat, she wanted to leave him a way to feed himself.
"Thank you, thank you," the old man muttered fervently, and he popped one of the gold coins into his mouth, biting on it. When he removed it from his mouth, a set of teeth marks were faintly imprinted into the coin.
"Rest assured, it’s real," Soleia said.
"I’ll leave this place then," the old man said with a pleased smile. He pocketed all the gold coins eagerly. "I can finally get a new house!" With a happy whistle, he hobbled off cheerfully.
"We should get some supplies," Orion said, casting a critical eye over the boat. "While there are fishing rods on the boat for us to use to catch fish, we’ll still need some cured meat and dried bread."
"And water." Soleia realized the biggest problem they would have to deal with was thirst since seawater was undrinkable. If given enough time, she might have invented a way to make saltwater drinkable, but this was time she did not have. "We’ll at least need a week’s worth of water."