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Your group make your way back to Okous' "office" and you see him there handling business as he had done earlier when you last saw him, there are different customers in the room as well as the chrysmer and the two chaggrins.
Okous deals with his clients smoothly handling their requests with vigor and attentiveness, when a complicated business comes up which requires a bit more mathematic prowess than basic addition or subtraction he pauses for a moment.
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"Okous?" ventures Fadilah.
"I apologize for the interruption. When you have a free moment, I would ask a question... though perhaps this current computation vexes you?"
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Zairiah
Zairiah takes advantage of the attention on Fadilah, and slips around behind the Dao, wondering if she can slip the ring off his very finger if things seem to be going badly and he is distracted.
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Okous says, "Oh Shai'ra, Of course, once I conclude my current business. I shall get to you next."
He finished his business with the other guests and says, [b]"How may I assist you? Would you happen to have some goods you would like to have shipped or are you here to talk about that dwarf?"[/]
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"I was wondering... when you were going to give an offering with a prayer at the temple of Zann the Learned."
"You see, the priests have never seen you pray there, have never seen you ask Zann for assistance with a difficult problem, have never heard you pass on the knowledge of Zann to the young and eager, have never once heard a credo of the faith."
"And your arrangement, your bargain, requires faith, does it not? To be one of the true church of Zann, buoyed by Faith in Numbers, wielding the stylus that scribes with the certainty that the Divine Hand has created a great and complex orrery by which all the universe is arranged with mathematical precision?"
"You seem delighted to use the products of Zann's work without appreciating the divine insights of the realm of pure numbers. Not a mathematician... but a merchant, concerned not with the holy illumination of precision and understanding, but only with money."
Inwardly, Fadilah winces. This is pretty heavily insulting and... she does not relish the retribution that might be forthcoming.
"And I think that the inhabitants of the Great Dismal Delve, while many are also among the faithless, will be quick to denounce someone who failed to uphold the true terms of a deal."
Okous draws a slow breath through his teeth, the faint jingle of abacus beads at his belt the only sound for a moment. His smile does not vanish—but it tightens, becoming thinner, more careful, like a ledger margin squeezed too hard by ink.
“Ah,” he says softly, inclining his head just enough to suggest humility without surrender. “Zann the Learned. Numbers eternal, ratios immutable. Yes. I know the creed well enough to know when it is being used as a knife rather than a lamp.”
His eyes flick, briefly, to Fadilah—acknowledgment, apology perhaps—then return to you.
“You are not wrong,” Okous continues. “I am not a priest. I do not wear ink-stained fingers in the service of revelation, nor do I pretend that my prayers are elegant proofs laid before the Divine Hand. I am a merchant. I deal in weight, measure, and consequence. In profits and losses. In things that balance.”
He spreads his hands.
“But do not mistake silence in the temple for absence of faith. Some of us honor Zann not with hymns, but with practice. Every contract I write that closes cleanly. Every caravan that arrives with losses accounted for and fraud excised. Every sum that resolves. These are not accidents. They are obedience of a different sort.”
His smile fades now, replaced by something sober.
“As for denunciation in the Great Dismal Delve—” he exhales, slow and careful “—you are correct. I am… exposed. Reputation is a fragile equation. A whisper there carries compound interest.”
He inclines his head again, deeper this time.
“So. Let us not be coy about mysteries when a simpler operation will do.”
“If the church of Zann requires an offering, a public act, a demonstration that balances the ledger of appearances—then say so. I will fund a school. Endow a scriptorium. Place my name beneath a theorem if that is the price of restoring equilibrium.”
His gaze steadies, firm despite the concession.
“But let us not pretend this is about my soul. This is about closing an account without blood on the parchment. So I have no qualms about funding a school however I presume you would like to have the dwarf's math skill back, you give me 2,000 dinars in gold or gems and we will conclude this deal.”
He waits—very still—like a man who knows the sum is against him, but is determined to negotiate the rounding error.
"I am not a priestess of Zann. I simply see a deal that included terms that... arguably were not upheld."
Before the genie can make an angry retort, she holds up her hand and says, "... but I would be remiss if I begrudged the businessman his profit from a deal."
She glances to her companions.
"A small price to pay, overall, I think."
Fadilah
Zariah addresses Fadilah, but since she is standing next to Okous, of course the whole group can hear.
Indeed, a small price, but perhaps not justice. He speaks of balance. Does payment for the return of something that was never willingly given "balance"? I will pay this sum on your word, but I do not think that Zann would look on this as a fair trade.
(pass)
_____
Also, she had been looking for a chance to grab the ring. In case there was/is one:
--That makes it, but no idea if there was the opportunity.
If the opportunity comes up later, then she will also do it, but seems like there was a better chance before, with more people around.
No big either way... just let me know if I saw the opportunity and have the ring at some point, because the scene might play out differently if he doesn't have possession.
"Look I am a bit of an outsider, both with them and here. But you supposedly did a crime, and if you did feel bad about angering the gods, which I am sorry to say out here isn't the smartest Idea," He pauses to let that hang as he paces.
" Now that aside, I saw several powers in your cathedral that anyone could appeal to and tell of your slight, and furthermore, your supposed thought of buying your way out of it, via funds purchased to keep your supposed deed quiet? My vote is to let this fool make his bed and lie in it! THough I will as a mere outsider, go with the rest of my group. I just couldn't let myself stand by without telling him exactly how I view him and his situation!" Frackit says scowling as he paces probably the tiniest being in the room, poking the bear that could kill him six ways to Sunday.
Okous says, "Let's make a deal for 700 dinars and we all come out on top."
Zariah steals the ring off his hand.
Then, after, she holds it up.
Still addressing herself to Fadilah she says
He expects us to pay him because he has possession of something he stole. Well, now, I have possession. Should I then get the payment? What would Zann say?
Okous’s gaze flicks, just once, to the ring in Zairiah’s hand. The slightest tightening at the corner of his eyes betrays recognition—but it is gone as quickly as it comes. When he speaks, his voice is calm, almost indulgent, as though correcting a student who has misjudged a problem rather than confronting a criminal act.
“Ah. So the river bends after all.”
He inclines his head a fraction, fingers steepled, the posture of a man who believes the universe has just corrected itself.
“Moments ago, you stood with my back pressed against the millstone, the wheel turning, the weight inevitable. That was… inelegant. But the Dao abhor imbalance, and it seems the current has shifted.”
His eyes return to the ring, this time without pretense.
“You see, what you have done is not a misunderstanding, nor a matter of trade customs. It is theft under sacred law—one that, if spoken aloud to the proper ears, would cost you a hand, perhaps more. The law is quite clear, and it is very fond of demonstrations.”
He spreads his hands slightly, palms up, a gesture of reason and inevitability.
“Yet wisdom teaches us that not every truth must be carried shouting through the marketplace. Harmony can be restored quietly. You will place two thousand dinars into my keeping. In return, the matter dissolves like mist at dawn. No report is made. No priest is troubled. No magistrate sharpens his knife.”
A faint, almost sympathetic smile.
“You will then return to Zakhara, breathe familiar air, and live a long and pleasant life—one in which you keep all the limbs the gods saw fit to grant you.”
His tone hardens just enough to make the warning unmistakable.
“Refuse, and the Dao will still find balance. It simply will not be kind in how it does so.”
Genie Lore/Law/Plane Knowledge
"So she could lose a hand, while you lose an arm," says Fadilah.
"The scales of justice may not be perfectly balanced, but they are two-sided."
"Perhaps we return the matter to its status quo, you will always have the tale to tell of how you outwitted a priest of a god of thinkers and mathematicians, and we will return to our mortal affairs, not to trouble your trade or darken your doorstep again."
"It's not theft to steal back one's own property?" Frackit says
"You stole a man's powers; this ring holds said power. We can take it to an authority and let them adjudicate the fairness of it all."
The gnome paces and looks at the Dao and blows out his mustache."Not one of these enlightened gods of ot fated lands. Oh, I know you think that is the only law here. But this is the plane. Gods and Beings just as powerful reside here. With a variety of laws and morals. What say we let a neutral third party, say the Church of Torm the True?" He paces again.
"Though I doubt such a verbose man...no...genie of your stature would ever let a God preside over him?" He pauses and then laughs.
"No, I guess you wouldn't, as you see Gods and their followers as lesser beings, witless and easy to swindle. Thus making their gods just frivolous. Once more, a mockery of the Divine, lest you seek to go to trial for stolen goods we have been contracted to return."Frackit laughs, stroking a mustache. A Genie who is so arrogant as to think he could better a servant of God.
I'm not sure what he is talking about. We made a deal. I got the ring and he got nothing. The same one-sided deal that he made when he traded for it in the first place. Is that not how the game is played?
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“You speak of balance as though it were a ledger only you are allowed to hold, Effendi. I am no priest of Zann, nor a scholar of sums—but even I know this much: when a man drops his purse, the first to stoop does not suddenly become its rightful owner.”
Paritosh gestures lightly toward the ring, careful not to touch it himself, as though proximity alone might constitute another contract.
“You say the knowledge was poorly guarded. Very well. But neglect is not consent, and cleverness is not virtue—no matter how elegantly one explains it afterward.”
He inclines his head, courteous but unmoved.
“You have told us the price must be correct. On that, at least, we agree. Yet you continue to quote figures that account only for your profit, never for the loss you caused nor the risk you now face.”
A faint smile follows, dry as desert air.
“So let us be clear: we are not here to steal, nor to bargain in fear. We are here to restore what was taken under a misunderstanding you were very careful not to correct.”
“If that offends your sense of balance, then perhaps the scales were never level to begin with.”
He folds his hands behind his back and waits.
Nura says nothing, but watches in silence, her hand unconsciously sliding to her scimitar.
The messenger genie who has been following you this entire time says telepathically, “Mine stedfast and right prudent companions, your wit hath perchance shewn itself somewhat over‑bold; it were better ye had press’d your avauntage in court, or taken it by steleth, yet not bewray that ye had in truth stol’n the ringe.”
The Dao says, "Brazen you are, aren't you? To think to come into my shop and think you are in the right. How do I know that you are in fact working for the dwarf, however you have admitted to stealing from me in my own shop in front of witnesses."
The messenger genie says, "“Sir Dao, what prayeth ye, is the coste to clense this matter, now that mine companions have attyned the likeness of my master’s mathematick craft?”
(pass)
Okous shrugs his shoulders and says, "Let's make it 1000 dinars and we can close this situation."
The messenger genie agrees the price dropped by 1000 because of Zairiah's mad haggling skill.
Afterwards you leave his office and then you walk around the Great Dismal Delve and the messenger genie says, “Now that this covenaunt is ful y-ended, us behoveth to rekene and to devise where the nexte nexus lyeth that shal bere us ayen unto Zakhara, and at what tyme it is to be founde.”