"I think we should just make a run on the ruins of Tumen. - hey Vanyel can you move sand unreasonably quickly."

"Hmm. How fast is unreasonably quickly? My kind of magic is pretty good for big construction projects, moving heavy things is something where raw power is the main factor - oh, and if you want it paved into a road, I can do that quite efficiently." 

"That sounds like it would be maybe pretty useful for excavating abandoned cities. Also just useful in its own right, if you wanted to take road-paving jobs. Osirion does nearly all its trade by river but we could head north of here to some country that mostly does it by road. Taldor, Andoran, whatever."

Fazil comes in, looking cheerful. "Good news, they paid Vanyel for driving off the dragon. Three thousand." He hands him a paper note of some kind; it is magical. 

Vanyel examines it. 

"So, just to check, this is - worth about six houses in the city? That's a lot of money for a few minutes' work." Though it's still only half of what a Raise Dead would cost, and he hasn't even confirmed how much more a True Resurrection would be but probably a LOT. "Also, um, how would I actually spend it?" 

"You can trade it for coin at a bank. - temples to Abadar are also banks - and you could probably spend it directly, at a fancy magic shop. Fighting dragons is something very valuable which very few people can do so it pays well. And usually it'd be split among a group, because fighting dragons solo is something even fewer people can do."

"I guess I never really thought about it that way, but it makes sense. Back home I can do things basically no one else can do, but I work for the Kingdom directly, so I'm not selling it." 

:Ask about what sorts of things can you buy at fancy magic shops: Yfandes sends. :Might be worth investigating if we can make you, well, safer on some of these missions. You may be the most powerful mage in the known world but you sure do get hurt a lot: 

That's a fair point, so Vanyel asks, even though he really doesn't feel inclined to spend his new wages right away when he could, instead, start saving for (the thing he isn't thinking about too much because hope is painful.) 

"Even if you work for the Kingdom directly selling it is a good way of allocating it! How do you know which road is the most important to pave except by 'how much will merchants pay for this road to be paved'?

Magic shops sell permanent versions of spells, mostly. If I were you I'd pick up something for constitution - uh, general physical toughness, how much work it takes to exhaust you, how much pain it takes to distract you -"

"And a Ring of Sustenance, if you're bad about eating and sleeping on a mission, lt lets you feel fully rested on less sleep and not get any horrible nutrient deficiencies no matter how badly you eat."

"...Huh. You can use local magic to - get tired less easily, or replace food..."

:Make him get the Ring of Sustenance: Yfandes, who is (unfortunately, if you ask Vanyel) listening in via his ears. :He nearly died of pneumonia once due to not eating or sleeping enough on a mission: 

:'Fandes!: 

"It was, um, pretty bad conditions, there was a border war and the enemy kept finding out what camp I was at and attacking in full strength, so I ended up on my own in the wilderness and moving around constantly, which wasn't great for me." 

"Fazil can straight-up make tiredness go away though the spell has expensive material components so you shouldn't rely on it instead of sleep under normal circumstances. But in an emergency, yeah, tiredness is something you can do magic about. Anyway if Yfandes says you should get the Ring by rights some of the money from fighting the dragon ought to be hers so probably she can spend it that way if she wants to."

:How much does it cost?: 

"Twenty-five hundred."

Sigh. "Well, there goes most of my first wages, but 'Fandes is probably right that I'll be grateful later." 

"We can pick it up today, then. It takes a week to start working so you don't want to put it off."

"Did you hear about anything good while I was gone -"

"Not especially. Galt's hiring -"

"Absolutely not."

"That's what we said. Rahadoum is out too because Yfandes might count as working for a god."

"What's Rahadoum even hiring for?"

"What's Rahadoum always hiring for? Great pay, great training, great benefits, objectives to be specified later. They might be planning to challenge Cheliax for Khari, and I'm tempted to get involved if so, but - not without you, and we can't have Van without Yfandes either. - can I call you Van."