"Two thousand gold?" Liam’s white ears twitched forward, his red eyes narrowing as he stared at Rogue, who was now coaxing the mini lich boss to balance on a small rubber ball.

"For rent?"

Rogue nodded enthusiastically, adjusting the jester hat he’d somehow convinced the undead creature to wear. "Yep! Gotta pay up by tomorrow, or I’m out on my ass."

Liam’s mind raced as he processed this information. Two thousand gold? For rent? That made absolutely no sense. He glanced around the fountain.

"What the actual fuck?" Liam muttered, more to himself than to the others. His tail swished with agitation behind him. "Rent in the starting zone is five gold. Maybe ten for a few rooms. Two thousand is..."

He trailed off, doing the mental math. Two thousand gold could buy a full set of legendary armour.

"Did you rent a guild hall?" Elizabeth asked, her pink cat ears perked in confusion.

’This doesn’t add up. Nobody needs 2000g for rent unless they’ve done something monumentally stupid. Gambling debt? Assassination contract gone wrong? Did he accidentally burn down someone’s estate? Maybe he’s being blackmailed. Or he’s lying about the rent thing entirely and actually needs the money for something else.’

He watched as Fridge the mini lich executed a surprisingly graceful pirouette, bony hands outstretched for balance. The undead creature seemed to be enjoying its new role as a jester, which was both disturbing and oddly charming.

"You know," Elizabeth said, crossing her arms, "if you’re in trouble, we could help. Instead of making Fridge dance for gold."

Rogue waved her off. "This is way more entertaining, and besides, the viewers love it." He gestured to a small camera hovering nearby, broadcasting their bizarre performance to whoever was watching.

Liam frowned. The streaming angle made sense, bizarre stunts attracted viewers, and viewers meant donations. But 2000g was still an insane amount to raise in a single day, even with a popular stream.

"Did you send two thousand gold to a girl?" Liam asked.

Rogue’s silence told him everything.

Liam’s ear twitched. He looked at the mini lich, then back at Rogue. "She didn’t actually need it for surgery."

"She said it was urgent... that we could go on a date after."

"In-game surgery?"

"The healers are expensive... and Mirra wouldn’t do it for some reason."

"Rogue."

"She was really cute."

Liam stared at him for a long moment.

Elizabeth had gone very still.

"Or," Liam said, looking at Fridge, "we could sell him."

Elizabeth turned slowly. "Sell him."

"He’s a mini lich; someone would pay a lot for that." Liam watched the undead creature wobble, trying to do a handstand on the rubber ball, jester hat askew. "Probably more than two thousand."

Fridge looked up at the sound of his name, bony hands outstretched for balance.

Rogue clutched the mini lich to his chest. "We are NOT selling Fridge, he’s my little guy, my boy, and you can’t eat him as you did with the egg, oh my god, my son, I miss him."

The silence that fell over the fountain plaza was brutal. Elizabeth stared at Rogue, her hand slowly moving away from her sword hilt as the pure, unadulterated secondhand embarrassment washed over her.

"A gold loan for... surgery?" she repeated, her voice high, tight, and dangerously close to cracking.

"Rogue, look around. We aren’t sitting in our gaming chairs anymore. We are stuck in a literal, breathing fantasy world. If someone gets their arm chopped off by a dungeon boss here, they don’t get a digital respawn; they bleed out into the mud and die unless a high-tier Healer is standing right there to stitch the meat back together! What did she tell you? That her appendix burst?"

"She said her cosmetic mana-veins were collapsing," Rogue mumbled, his voice dropping an octave as he refused to look either of them in the eye.

He aggressively rattled his tin cup to drown out his own shame. "And the healers, who were rare to come by, were charging a premium to purge her status-debuffs before the corruption permanently scarred her face. It sounded very technical."

Liam didn’t look at Rogue. His red eyes were locked onto the tiny, jester-hat-wearing lich boss, who was currently trembling so hard the rubber ball beneath its skeletal feet was squeaking against the cobblestones.

"Two thousand gold," Liam said. It wasn’t a question. He adjusted the shattered wooden stall under his arm. "I made three thousand today selling dry meat out of a pile of garbage to desperate raid guilds who are terrified of drowning in the ruins. And you gave two thousand to a woman who is currently probably giving all her money to some other guy."

"She said we could travel to the main city together!" Rogue snapped, finally looking up, his face red. "A real date! At a high-tier establishment in the capital! None of us has even seen the main city yet, Liam! She even sent me a handwritten note on scented paper! Do you know how much paper costs in this economy? Fifty silver!"

"Rogue," Elizabeth said, her cat ears pinning flat against her skull in utter disbelief. "You are the dumbest man alive. I’ve met low-level slimes with better financial literacy than you."

"Alright," Liam grunted, shifting his weight. He took a step toward the shivering mini-lich. "We’re selling the fridge."

The fridge let out a tiny, high-pitched rattle of pure terror. The undead creature tumbled off the rubber ball, its bony knees hitting the stone with a sharp clack, and immediately scrambled behind Rogue’s shins.

Fridge clutched the back of Rogue’s leather boots with its tiny, skeletal fingers, its hollow eye sockets glowing with frantic panic as it stared at Liam.

"H-h-he’s looking at me like an appetiser!" The fridge squeaked. "Father Rogue, don’t let the giant white wolf put me in his inventory sack! I’ll do the handstand! I’ll do the triple-flip! Just don’t let him season me!"

"WAIT! WAIT! DON’T SEASEON ME! DON’T LIQUIDATE ME!" Fridge shrieked, his little jester bells jingling at a frantic, suicidal pace as he held his skeletal hands up in desperation. "I CAN SHOW YOU A HIDDEN DUNGEON! High-tier ingredients! Monsters made of actual spice and premium marbled meat! I swear on my dead master’s crown, I have the map encrypted in my skull!"

[TOOL TIP: THE BANK OF LIAM]

Status: Liquid Assets: 3,000 Gold | Liquidated Assets: 1 (Rogue).

The "Scented Paper" Debuff: Rogue has successfully traded two thousand pieces of legal tender for fifty silver worth of perfumed wood pulp. The system notes that his [Financial IQ] has dropped lower than the bottom of the Slime Ruins.

The "Fridge" Valuation: [Fridge] is currently classified as a [Distressed Asset]. While Rogue sees a son, Liam sees a compact, walking refrigerator that could easily fetch 2,500 gold from a high-tier Necromancer cabal looking for a mascot.