"No. No, he's the local head of state."

"Ah. So... you are telling me that this is not just a large amount of money but specifically the kind of large amount of money that under most circumstances you cannot get from anyone except an actual government. Because it is used for very powerful highly-sought-after magic. Alarming. Um, are there other gemstones that have this or is it diamonds specifically?"

Various corundums, for example. Just. You know. Hypothetically.

"Diamonds, specifically, are extremely valuable. Other gemstones can be used in the crafting of magical items, and there are a few spells that use them, but diamonds can fuel resurrection spells, and if sufficiently large, reality-altering magic. Miracles. Those are the diamonds you would sell to Lord Nasher."

"Miracles?" Somewhat distressed wordless wincing noise. "Right. Terrifying. Okay. But just the diamonds. I will not panic about people also desperately wanting to steal all the other sentimental expensive objects I own and having unknown amounts of city-wrecking magic to attempt it with. ... I will try not to panic about it, anyway."

Talking to a blacksmith will probably help. In his experience blacksmiths tend to be relentlessly normal, reassuringly practical types of guy.

"If none of your other possessions are enchanted, I cannot think of any way for them to be as valuable as... that," Jojo ?consoles? him as they arrive at the Shining Knight.

For anyone keeping track at home, the other non-clothing objects Hob has on his person at this time (in addition to the book and the earring, and the handkerchief Jojo currently has) include:

1) A silver cloak pin in the shape of a flower, pinned to his jacket lapel (c. early 1900s; purchased at an estate sale because it looks like Eleanor's favorite one, it isn't actually the same one)

2) An armillary ring, all its markings worn off with age (c. early 1800s, a gift from a friend when he was in the Navy)

3) A quartz-crystal wristwatch with a date and time display which he's trying really hard not to fixate on the inexorable forward-ticking of (c. early 1980s, excitedly purchased at a department store)

4) His rosary, worn under his shirt as a necklace, made of rubies and gold and in Earth terms by far the most expensive thing he owns (c. mid-1700s, commissioned incredibly illegally)

5) A folded-up page of handwritten notes and the accompanying ballpoint pen (c. last week's department meeting)

6) Reading glasses that don't do anything because he's been pretending to have deteriorating vision (c. late 1980s, bought from a costume supply store along with a bunch of things for the student theatre group)

5) Professor Rob's wallet, containing a driving license (claims he was born in 1949), university ID, several hundred £, a shiny new debit card (introduced in England two years ago, he was very excited, but even more useless here than the paper money), a credit card, a London Public Library card, and several business cards with his work address, phone number, and office hours printed on them

He's really rather regretting not having such objects as his current favorite boot knife (hard to wear with oxfords, and also illegal now), or the pager he'd usually have been carrying in corporate finance mode instead of professor mode, or literally any money with actual metal in it, although that last one has fortunately been at least temporarily solved by Aribeth paying him for their quest. Or a gun, really, that'd be a great way to solve medieval fantasy bullshit, but he can't even actually judge himself for that one, it would have instantly shredded his identity if anyone had spotted Professor Rob with such a thing. He'd gotten away with the knife for ages claiming it was a gift from his father who was really into hunting, but nobody has deeply personal nostalgic attachments to their handguns. In any event, none of these objects, of course, are magic - wait. Hm. Does 'blessed' count. He will ask Jojo in a minute.

Anyway. Blacksmith.

"Good morning!" he says to whoever might be in the Shining Knight. "I hear you might be more willing than the temple to sell me my favorite inelegant spiky peasant weapons."

The large green man behind the counter belly-laughs. "Oh, you want summat that ain't pretty? Gave you that look, didn't they. Welcome to the Shining Knight, we got pretty and we got shiny and we got spiky shite that kills people, take your pick."

This is now the third distinct type of green humanoid he's met today. He is beginning to wonder if they are a single species with phases or something. This one's immediately his favorite, though.

Upon being presented with a familiar friendly working-class tone, Hob's accent code-switches hard from posh academic London RP to a smooth rhotic West Country. This may or may not be even slightly detectable to people with whom his dialect is already only barely mutually intelligible, but he's not really doing it on purpose.

He grins. "They sure did, yep. I don't necessarily mind pretty, y'understand, much respect for your craft and all that, but I love me a spiky shit that kills people. Let's see here..." He pokes through the available options cheerfully, narrating as he goes. "That's a little too heavy for me, blade's a little shorter than I like, fucked up my shoulder something awful with one of those one time, that's too tall for me - oh, here we go." Nice curved hook blade, stabby spear-end, backswing spike. Holding it in his hands feels like tromping hungover through the mud with long-dead friends whose faces he doesn't remember anymore, a distant warm cameraderie embedded somewhere deep in his spine. "Yeah, this is the bugger. How much?"

"Nice pick. Fourteen gold; if you want one enchanted like that glaive you've got it's more, but if you hand the glaive back in they'll give you a voucher and I can hash it out with 'em. There's a reason they sent you over to me, we've got ourselves a system. Oh, and if you want it more enchanted I can do you that but it'll take a day or two and some gold and some grist, rubies or dragon's blood or what have you. Or just gold, but it'd be a lot of gold."

"Will do, thanks mate." He agreeably counts fourteen coins out of the pouch Aribeth gave him and is delighted to observe that, yep, he has in fact been issued local currency in actual golden coins. Nostalgic. And they've got little dragons stamped on them! At this point his opinion on the local head of state is trending decidedly positive: the man apparently assigns government funding to practical things like laundry tax breaks and orderly quartermaster voucher systems, and doesn't put his own face on the currency. Gold star, Nasher, even if you're also secretly torturing people in your basement Hob has seen way worse than you. "Speaking of things best delegated away from paladins, you got any good bars around here?"

"Ha! Depends what you want with your ale, really. If It's skin, try the Moonstone Mask, they got dancers and you can go upstairs after if you like more skin than that. If you want some of the best pork pie I've had - and I'm an orc, we know pigs - try the Dragon's Belly. If you want even odds of a brawl so bad some bastard's tooth ends up in your drink, try the Trade of Blades. And, again, I'm an orc." He smiles very wide, highlighting the tusks protruding from his lower jaw, one of which is deeply chipped. "We know brawls." 

"Oh hell yeah, been ages since I had a good bar brawl." It got all culturally-frowned-upon, see. If somebody punches you and you hit him with a chair that's ''''unreasonable'''' ''''escalation'''' and if you start a fight you get kicked out instead of everyone joining in. It's bullshit frankly.

Then he glances at Jojo, who is being very patient.

" ... first I gotta be responsible 'cause of plagues being the worst. Real quick though, relevant to my quest to become even slightly oriented to this fuckin' place, did you just say you're an orc?" Under many circumstances he would qualify this question with a reminder that he is happy to be told to fuck off, but this seems like the type of guy who will cheerfully do that without prompting if he cares to and it would be kind of rude to imply he needs permission. "My home culture has a bunch of stories of those that're, you know, fictional, see, I was not previously aware any existed in real life, d'you know why your species is called that?"

The grin becomes slightly sardonic. "Orc born and raised, more born than raised. Did the stories say we eat bad little boys who don't listen to Mummy? Either way, we're called that 'cause it's easy to yell ORCS! while you're running for your life, or with an axe in your back. Call ourselves nothok."

"Oh, no, you're a metaphor for the trauma of generational war. The behave-yourself stories for kids are mostly about fairies and things under the bed with too many teeth." Bemused hum. "Maybe 'orc' just means 'guy with an axe, subtype we're being racist about it' in fifth century Anglo-Saxon or whatever the hell shared root language is making us be able to have a conversation at all." 

The blacksmith shrugs, a bit more at ease. "Trauma of generational war sounds about right. Not gonna say we don't kill you softskins. Well, not me personally. I just sell shite that kills softskins. And greenskins too. And maybe dragons, if you're good enough with it."

Jojo smiles brightly. "Thank you so much for your help, sir."

"Pike off," the smith says affectionately. "-whoops, forgot the customer voice. Thanks plenty for your custom, gentlemen. Now pike off."

Blacksmiths are such a delightful type of guy. He was so right to guess that he would find this interaction soothing. 

Okay. What is he supposed to be doing now? Orienting, right. He has a general sense of the city layout now, he thinks, sort of. He kind of wants to go get fantastically drunk at the recommended bar brawls tavern but that seems like it would solve at most one of his problems and create as many as several more. "How long are we expecting the calibrating the magic tracker thingy to take?" he asks Jojo. 

Jojo hums. "She said twelve hours... the Academy was attacked at six bells, though I didn't exactly have a candle to check the minute. And we can't possibly have taken more than half an hour to get to the stables. Call it sunrise tomorrow?"

Nod, nod. "Then probably the thing to do is check back in with the quartermaster for an enchantment voucher," what a phrase to unironically say in a sentence, "and then figure out where I'm supposed to sleep?" 

Return nod. "The voucher should be straightforward. I could probably take care of it on my own, if you want those drinks. And I know the Trade of Blades has rooms above the dining hall, though if you want less... energetic... lodgings, there's a lot of inns in the Core and very few of them are at capacity right now."

Right, because everyone is dying and it is possibly somehow his job to save them. Yeah he very badly needs a drink and a bar fight before bed wouldn't go amiss either. "I would really appreciate that, thank you. You've been enormously helpful." He will thus leave the paperwork situation in Jojo's capable little paws and go see about finding the Trade of Blades. 

Jojo's capable little paws relieve him of his polearms and set off towards the temple with both in tow. (The effect is slightly comical; Jojo is significantly smaller than an adult human. But he bears up under them without seeming too encumbered.)

The Trade of Blades is in the lower portion of the Core, the same section that had the blacksmith; it seems like the more commercial and less Very Important part of the district. It's a decent walk, through some well-maintained streets and a handful of somewhat shady alleys.

In one such alley, a child collides with him at some speed, then tumbles to the cobbles behind him and clings to his leg. "Sir, you - you have to help! They'll kill me, they're going to kill me!"

Ah, well, that is obviously a lie (dude is sizing him up as a pickpocket mark, the signs of which are rather the same on every planet), but Hob has been that desperate for money to feed himself before, he's not judging a child about it. Even or perhaps especially if he is about to learn about yet another species of alien, which he well might be, this doesn't quite look like a human child. 

His tone is sympathetic but somewhat unimpressed. "Who's 'they'?"