The ringing in my ears lasted longer than the hangover from a night at Torin's tavern. Every clink of a coin, every laugh, every grumble from Liriel sounded like a precious symphony. We had defeated the silence. But, as always, victory had a bitter taste and a salty price.
The mayor's bill for the damaged roof was astronomical. Melina's, for "violation of artistic rights and auditory trauma," was simply creative.
"She wants us to pay with a 'royal audience for a three-hour solo concert'?" I read, incredulous, from the parchment she herself handed us with a triumphant smile.
"Considering the alternative is hearing her sing about it in the streets forever, it's a deal," Liriel remarked, examining her nails. "Besides, royal audiences usually have canapés. And decent wine."
The truth, however, was that we were more broke than a plate in Vespera's hands. The coins we'd earned from the divine banquet had evaporated, and our old debts laughed at us from their dark corners.
It was in this climate of financial despair that Roderick, the city's Master of Works, found us. He was a practical man, his clothes stained with mortar and his face carved by worry.
"I've heard you're... resilient," he began, carefully avoiding the word "disastrous." "And cheap."
"We're many things, Roderick," I replied cautiously. "Cheap isn't one of them."
That was a lie, of course. We were extremely cheap. We were the bottom of the barrel.
"I have a problem. A silver mine in the Shimmering Moon Mountains. The work has stopped. The miners... quit. They say the mine is cursed. That the stones sing."
Vespera, who had been balancing on a chair, froze. "Sing? What kind of music?"
"Songs of despair, they say. Songs that speak of eternal debts and broken promises. Whoever listens is consumed by such deep melancholy they abandon everything."
Elara frowned. "Sounds like a curse of psychic nature. Must be caused by a rare mineral or a lingering entity."
"I just want the mine running again," Roderick said impatiently. "The city needs the silver. The guild offers eighty coins. And... the cancellation of the roof fine."
It was a tempting offer. Too tempting.
"The cancellation of the fine?" Liriel repeated, her interest finally piqued. "That sounds almost reasonable. What's wrong with the mine that no one else will work there?"
Roderick avoided our eyes. "There may be... a small element of physical danger. Beyond the singing. Rocks that fall on their own. Silver veins that vanish overnight. Minor things."
Minor things. The most dangerous phrase in the world.
The mine was a dark gash in the face of the mountain, its mouth open like a gaping throat. The air at the entrance was cold and smelled of wet earth and... something else. Something metallic and sorrowful.
We had barely stepped inside when the "singing" began. It wasn't a song with melody. It was a choral whisper coming from the stone walls themselves — an overlay of low, mournful voices.
"...thirty pieces of silver... never paid the tailor... my daughter waits for a dress... I promised..."
"...the Baron's loan... interest devours the harvest... the land dries, hope too..."
"...I owe my own shadow... it charges me with loneliness..."
It was eerie. Each whisper was a confession of debt, a financial burden turned into sound. Guilt and despair hung in the air like a toxic gas.
I felt the weight of my own debts, a physical pressure in my chest. The faces of Brom, Torin, Kael, and Melina danced before me, their hands outstretched.
"For all the gods," Elara groaned, clutching her head. "It's... overwhelming."
Vespera looked disturbed, but not defeated. "Hey, rocks! I don't owe anyone anything! I am someone's debt!" She tried to sound fearless, but her trembling voice betrayed her.
Liriel, intriguingly, seemed the least affected. "Mortal debts," she said with mild disdain. "So... temporary. The only real debt is to the universe itself, and it collects in much more interesting ways than whispers in a cave."
Even so, she looked tense. The singing was a weapon of precision, finding each person's Achilles' heel.
We moved deeper. The further we went, the stronger the chorus became, and the stranger the phenomena grew. A shovel floated and began digging on its own, as if trying to pay an imaginary debt. A mine cart rolled back and forth repeatedly, as though undecided between fleeing or paying what it owed.
In the heart of the mine, we found the source. A single stone, the size of a skull, embedded in the wall. It wasn't silver. It was made of a black, opaque material that pulsed faintly with light at each whisper. Around it, the air shimmered with psychic heat.
"The Stone of the Nonexistent Debt," Elara whispered, breathless. "It's a legend. A crystal that amplifies and projects latent financial anxieties. It doesn't create despair... it merely feeds on what's already there."
"Wonderful," I grunted, fighting the urge to curl up and confess all my financial sins to the walls. "How do we destroy it?"
"Destroy?" Liriel laughed, a dry sound in the cacophony. "That would be a waste. And, frankly, impossible with our current resources. No, we silence it."
"How?" Vespera asked, throwing a rock at it. The rock was deflected by a wave of psychic energy and nearly hit my head.
"With solid financial logic!" Liriel declared, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
She stepped closer to the stone, ignoring the whispers that now seemed to target her specifically, speaking of lost thrones and unpaid divine favors.
"Listen, you foolish stone!" she shouted, her voice cutting through the mournful chorus. "Your calculations are fundamentally flawed! A debt is an instrument! A lever! The problem isn't owing—it's not having a repayment plan with competitive interest rates!"
The whispers faltered. The stone pulsed, confused.
"Look at these mortals!" she continued, gesturing to us. "Yes, they owe. But they also generate debt! They are an engine of economic chaos! A high-risk, high-return asset! Silencing them breaks the cycle! That's bad economics!"
She was arguing with a sentient rock about monetary theory. And it was working.
The stone's pulse became erratic. The whispers wavered, overlapping.
"What is she doing?" Elara asked, stunned.
"She's giving our finances a spin," I replied, equally dumbfounded.
Liriel then made her final move. She picked up a silver nugget from the ground and threw it at the stone. "Here! An advance payment! A sign of good faith! Now shut up and let them work to pay off the rest!"
The nugget struck the surface of the black stone.
The singing stopped. Suddenly. The silence that followed was as deep as the whispers had been—but it was a silence of peace, not deprivation.
The light inside the stone went out. It was still there, but now it was just an inert rock.
We stumbled out of the mine, mentally exhausted but victorious. The miners, who had been watching from a distance, slowly began to return, encouraged by the silence.
Roderick kept his word. The roof fine was canceled. The eighty silver coins were a balm to our finances.
Of course, the next day, we found a small note pinned to the door of our inn. It was from the Stone—or from some residual energy of it. It read only:
"Divine Financial Consultation: 1 Silver Nugget. Late payment interest (concept applied retroactively): 1 Future Favor Obligation. We await your contact. – Management."
Liriel read the note and smiled, for the first time with genuine amusement. "See? Even stones understand the value of a good deal."
I looked at the note, then at the coin pouch, and at the faces of my companions. We had silenced a millennia-old curse with pure economic nonsense. Our debts were still there, but somehow, they felt a little more... manageable.
Maybe Liriel was right. The problem wasn't owing. It was not having a goddess as your financial advisor.