He hands over a ring. "I don't believe you but I'll pay for stories of your old home."

"Oh, what genre of stories? Foreign magic? Technology? War stories? I hear you haven't had a proper war in ages here. Adventure and - ah, no word for that - courting? Crime-solving?"

"Yes, war, I bet wars make great stories!"

"Okay! What's your tolerance for blood and gore? Mine's pretty high and my - ah, ability to judge others' tolerance - is somewhat diminished. And how much exactly are you offering?"

"I watch The Law Will Find You for fun, that shouldn't be a problem. How about I decide how much I'm offering when I know how good your stories are?"

"Five rings for the first five minutes."

"Sure."

"Maybe come over here so I don't disturb anyone who's not into violence. Now, my world's magic isn't really good for war. At least, not directly. We have to use fire, pointy sticks, and our brains for that. But we're kind of alarmingly good at it, even in ancient times..."

And he gives a quick overview of ancient warfare, thrown stones and javelins and swords and bloody fists and crude armor, and starts in on a dramatic and graphic rendition of a Roman skirmish with Franks who were wholly unprepared for the invincible, unstoppable force of the Roman formation of shields-and-spears, the clever tactics of the Romans used to herd their foes like animals, pressing them against a cliff, using fire to panic them and keep moving forward until the Franks have nowhere to run, forcing them to surrender or die, the calculating, smug expression on the Roman commander's face as he counts his new slaves...

He hands over five rings. "It was probably like that when Har united the world. Wait, is everyone there human?"

"There are some near-humans, like me, but pretty much yes. Like my style?"

"Yeah, you're pretty good. You're near human? What does that mean, does it mean you're another species like the caralendri?"

"Plenty more where that came from. I'm a human who was permanently altered by magic. If I had children, they'd be human. Mostly."

"You had inheritance magic done to you? Is that what you mean?"

"Nope. Inheritance magic couldn't make a vampire. But the details of magic back home are probably under the umbrella of 'storytelling', aren't they?"

"I'll pay for the story of how you became a vampire."

Sigh. "I don't like to talk about it. It... Wasn't fun. Not except for more money than you're probably willing to pay."

"How much?"

He does need money. And this guy is... Cute. Like some kind of small furry creature. Well, not cute, exactly, but the innocent enthusiasm reminds him of happier times. So make it something to justify the irritation of laying it all out again, but not absurdly high.

"Oh, let's say a hundred."

"Why not make it a nice round number like ninety-six instead?"

"How is 96 round, anyway? A hundred is ten tens."

"I guess you can call squares round but usually it means a multiple of twelve. If you want a square price nine is three threes so eighty-one is more square than a hundred."

(Valanda laughs at them.)

"Aha. No, no, I've used base-ten all my life. Ten, hundred, thousand. There's a little magic helping me with the language, but that skipped right over my head! Ha. Ninety-six will be fine."

"Sure, that works. I'm curious."

"I really don't like talking about it. But it's all old wounds, and money talks..." Sigh.

"A vampire is created either in a difficult magical ritual, or when a human is drained of most of their blood, and fed the blood of another vampire. There's - something almost like command magic, which is automatic between a creator and a created vampire. They can force you to do things, and while willpower can stop this and it fades with time, it's not pleasant. I had... Returned home from fighting in a war only a few weeks ago when it happened. I wasn't in a good mental place, still jumpy and frightened of everything. When one of my only friends in the world called - technology, don't worry about it - contacted me from a distance and said someone was chasing him. I got my gun - weapon - and went to find him. I found his bloodless corpse in an alley. The vampire who ate him was still there and grinned at me. We... Argued, I shot her with the gun, it didn't do anything. She beat me, broke bones, and taunted me and..." He skips that bit, "Then turned me into a vampire. And kept me for a while."

The death mage is going to remember how to breathe any second now.

"Do you want me to turn her into a statue," says Valanda.