In Your Eyes: Empyrean Admonition

You Negotiate with Lord Sangemah Bay

Palace of Alcazarzaray, Sumeru

You fiddle with your fingers outside the main house of Lord Sangemah Bay, who turns out to be the hair accessory vendor you met before. Dori is driving a hard bargain for your Vision, five million Mora or she will sell it to someone else. Even though Zhongli has assured you that other people will not be able to use your Vision, just imagining it belonging to someone else irks you. You know it's yours, she allowed you to touch it and it glowed brightly, but she will not budge.

"Five million Mora," Dori says between giggles. "Take it or leave it!"

After watching you pace back and forth for a while, Zhongli has retreated inside to have tea. You have already contacted Alhaitham and Kaveh and the difference in their reactions would have made you laugh if you are not the one with this problem.

Kaveh's voice through the modified Akasha is shaking with emotion, "Here we are, fighting a group of Eremites and I have to watch the precious antiques get destroyed while Dori already has a mole in the Eremite group that was able to snatch away the Vision right under all of our noses! We should have just waited for her to sell it to us before we even made a plan!"

"Dori is a factor I did not suspect to actually make a move," Alhaitham's calm voice is in stark contrast to his housemate. He gives orders out to other Matra before saying, "Don't sign any contracts with her until I'm there and never give her a confirmed verbal answer as well. I don't want you to end up like Kaveh. But what I don't understand is why she is this shrewd with you when you don't even have any kind of financial backing. Any news of her involvement with Al Abyad?"

You sigh loudly before answering, "She says she can't disclose her deal with him because she's an honorable merchant."

Kaveh laughs, "Honorable my ass!"

"I will try to talk to her about lowering the payment," you quickly say when you see her butler, Goshtasb, walk outside. "Should I wait for you here or should I go home first?"

Alhaitham asks, "Is Zhongli still with you?"

"Yes."

He quickly replies, "Good. Stay where you are and tell Dori I'm on my way."

"I'll be there too! The Matra has arrived here in the auction area so I will be there as soon as I can," Kaveh adds.

You close your eyes and earnestly say, "I can not thank both of you enough for doing this for me. Take care and I'll see you guys later."

"Later."

"Aww, that's so sweet! I'll see you in a bit, Rabbit. Haha!"

Goshtasb walks closer and you turn towards him, he hands you a glass full of warm chai and you thank him. There are no seats around the waiting area outside of the palace but you prefer to stand outside than twiddle your thumbs in front of Dori.

"I have never seen the lord as excited as today," Goshtasb starts. "Makes me wonder why. She has always been a calculative person so seeing her this excited shows that she is going to bank in a great deal."

"I wonder why as well," you reply sarcastically. "By the way, my friends are coming to help me with the issue."

"They must be really good friends then."

You silently sip the chai and your eyes widen on how delicious it is. The butler sees your reaction and you notice how he puffs his chest a bit and stands straighter, probably very proud of seeing that reaction from you. Now that you have his attention, you ask him how the chai was made and he goes on a litany about every single aspect of the spices he used for his chai.