The outer-ring clear paid a hundred and forty silver split five ways, which was decent for a day's work and would have been great if Torvin hadn't insisted on buying drinks to celebrate, which I should have predicted.

  The guild tavern that night was full, loud, and extremely interested in us. Word had gotten around about the camp clear — specifically about a fireball that had detonated with what witnesses in the outer ring described as "the accuracy and force of a B-rank battle mage," which was generating questions about who was in this new F-rank party and why their mage was hitting like that.

  The first adventurer approached me while I was eating.

  "You the enhancement guy?"

  Everyone keeps calling me that, I thought. It's becoming a title. I don't want a title. I'm already going to have to explain why my party's mage suddenly got significantly better and I'd like to do that as quietly as possible.

  "Depends," I said.

  "My fire arrow scrolls degrade after two uses. I've been buying fresh stock every run and it's eating my margins. Someone said you can fix that."

  I looked at him. C-rank adventurer, solid equipment, the expression of someone who had done this long enough to know that small costs add up. Legitimate problem, legitimate need.

  If I say no, he finds someone else or keeps losing money. If I say yes, I get paid and word gets around further and then I have more people in my face asking for this. If I say yes at the right price, I get paid well and word gets around that I'm expensive and maybe only the serious ones come back.

  "Per scroll or per pouch?" I said.

  He blinked. "What's the difference?"

  "Per scroll I charge by grade and number of passes. Per pouch I do a full enhancement run on everything you've got, assess what's worth stacking and what isn't, and charge a flat rate. The pouch deal is better value if you carry more than ten scrolls."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  He pulled out a pouch. Seventeen scrolls, mix of grey and one blue.

  I named a price. He countered. I came down by ten percent because he was the first client and I needed to calibrate the market rate. We shook on it.

  By the time I finished his pouch, three other adventurers were waiting.

  By the end of the week I had more enhancement work than dungeon work. This was a problem I had not anticipated and did not entirely want, but the numbers were real — I was making more silver per hour enhancing scrolls in the guild common room than clearing goblin camps, and the goblin camps had the additional feature of goblins.

  Rena sat across from me one morning while I was working through a pile of scrolls and watched for a while before saying anything.

  "You're going to need a system," she said.

  "I have a system."

  "You have a pile."

  She's not wrong, I thought, looking at the pile. It's organized by grade and I know roughly where everything is but from the outside it does look like a pile.

  "I need a fixed price sheet," I said. "Standard rates by scroll grade and pass count, and a separate rate for equipment. If people know what to expect they stop trying to negotiate every time and I stop having to calculate on the spot."

  "I can write that up."

  "You can write?"

  She gave me a look. "I've been filing guild reports for twelve years."

  "Right. Yes. Please write that up."

  She wrote it up. Neat, precise, three tiers of service. I looked at it and thought it was probably underpriced but starting low made sense while I was establishing reputation and I could raise rates once people were dependent on the quality.

  I'm running a business, I thought, with the slight dizzy feeling of something I hadn't intended to happen, happening. I came to this world as a chosen hero candidate, got kicked out with fifty gold coins, and now I'm running an enhancement service out of a guild tavern in Millhaven. This is my life.

  I posted the price sheet on the guild board. By the next day, six adventurers had pre-booked enhancement sessions for the following week.

  Torvin declared this cause for more drinks. I told him it was cause for a savings account. Neither of us got what we wanted — Rena allocated the new income to a party fund, which was frankly the correct call, and I spent the evening quietly being grateful that someone in this group had administrative sense.

  Sera took notes on the pricing model. I still found this unsettling. I had also stopped being surprised by it.