Obol

The **obol** is the primary currency used on Aerb. A single obol is a silvered coin the size of a half-dollar. The value of an obol is, by Juniper Smith's estimate, close to that of a dollar. The obol is backed by a monetary union within the Empire of Common Cause. At least some cultures place obols in the mouths of the deceased.

## Prices

* A loaf of barren bread - 1 tenth obol (based on transportation costs from Barren Jewel)
* Ingredients of bar cocktail - perhaps a quarter-obol
* Pound of flour - 1/3rd of an obol
* Loaf of normal wheat-flour bread - 2 or 3 obol
* Hourly wage of unskilled labour - around 5 obol
* Bulk teleportation of a shipping container - 1000 obols
* Teleporting 1 person by Teleportation Key - nearly 10,000 obols plus service fees. This assumes you're taking a regular trip to a Touchstone in a major city.
* Value of gold (per pound) - around 20,000 obols or possibly 2,000 obols
* Initial bounty on Rove EZ - 100,000 obols (not public)
* Non-rune-magic-based soul extraction - 100,000 obols and a week of preparation
* Magical inks for a Parson's Voice tattoo - 250,000 obols
* Daily earnings of a Teleportation Key - 600,000 obols
* Bounty on the Guardian of the Underworld - 5 million (not public)
* Revised bounty on the Rove EZ, including sale of the salvage rights - 10 million
* Bounty on the Fleshsmiths of the Pendleham EZ - 12 million (not public)
* Bounty on finding and killing whatever destroyed Celestar - 20-25 million (not public)
* Potential annual income of Amaryllis' inherited entads - approximately 30 million obols
* Annual income from Amaryllis' trust fund - 45 million (double that if "mothballed")
* Fine for violating Draconic Confederacy flight limits - 50 million obols (baseline, fines are on a sliding scale)
* Estimated sale value of Perisev's hoard - 300 million
* Amaryllis' trust fund - 1.5 billion obols (assuming 1-year liquidation period)
* Value of a Teleportation Key - billions
* Estimated value of Bethel if she were up for sale - billions of obols
* Hydrocarbon processing plant capable of making plastics - billions of obols
* Price to assassinate a dragon - 20 billion obols

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 “I picked up a few coins though. Thought we might need an obol.” She handed a silvered coin the size of a half-dollar to Poul, who opened Sly’s mouth, slid the coin inside, then closed his mouth again.
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 5: "Goraion"
2. ↑ *Which was just about minimum wage. Which probably means that the value of an obol is close enough to a dollar that I’m not that far off if I freely convert the two.*
—*Worth the Candle* Chapter 17: "Voting Blocs"
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Barren bread and barren milk are free in Barren Jewel, since all you need to do is say the magic word to get more of them. The tenth obol price was calculated assuming a single instance of bulk teleportation is 1000 obols for the equivalent of a shipping container.

Obols are backed by a monetary union within the Empire, but which not all member polities use. -

reply by Alexander Wales on Discord
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Chapter 17: Voting Blocs
5. ↑ “Here,” said the bartender. He plucked a bottle from the shelf with his huge hand and began pouring it into a small glass, then took a second bottle with a nozzle handle and added something fizzy. “It’s a local specialty, Delver’s Delight, one part tonic water, one part ungweed syrup. The tuung harvest it from the walls of the Pit, but most of what you’ll taste is sugar.”

“How much do I owe you?” asked Valencia.

“On the house,” said the bartender. “It’s a quarter-obol worth of ingredients, if that.” - Chapter 102: The Adventures of Valencia the Red
6. ↑ “Excuse me,” she said to a shopkeeper, careful not to pick up the threads of conversation that would delve into his life, careful not to steer him in any particular direction. These were important strategies to practice, here where it was safe. “How much is the flour?”

“Third of an obol a pound,” he replied - Chapter 184: The Further Adventures of Valencia the Red
7. ↑ The typical cost for traveling between touchstones in major cities was ten thousand obols, but that assumed that you had four other people who would be splitting the cost, and there were service fees on top of that. Teleportation for a single person into an insecure location *started* at five times as much, and then on top of that, you would need to pay for some trusted key-keeper to go with, their expenses for returning to civilization, and the costs of having the key teleported out by bulk teleport. - Chapter 137: Darili Irid
8. ↑ You have gold?”

Fenn sighed, making it sound more like a hiss of pain. “We’ve got three pounds,” she said.

[...]

“That’s like sixty thousand obols worth of gold that we’re basically giving away to the enemy,” said Fenn.

[...]

“One thousand pounds is my penance to the clan,” he replied.

“Or about twenty million obols,” I said. - Chapter 31: The Loyal Elf
9. ↑ “At current market prices, minus the amount you’re owed from our stores, the remainder of what you need amounts to roughly ten million obols,” said Amaryllis. [Grak needs a little under 500lbs more at this point.] - Chapter 103: Contract
10. ↑ We performed the ritual with five pounds of gold, with a street value of about ten thousand obols. [...] I lifted off the ground as a test. It was disappointing, more like slowly drifting up instead of actually flying, but it was still more than two hundred pounds of force, which was certainly something. Even at this relatively low level of gold, it would be like having a gun on me at all times, as well as the ability to stop a bullet dead in its tracks. That was a pretty great deal for only ten thousand obols. - Chapter 211: Gilding the Lily
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 “I’ve been in negotiations with both Special Threats and Apportions about it. These things take time though. There are good reasons that there are no standing kill orders on any of the exclusions. If you dangle money in front of people, they’re liable to muck it up. [...] The best offer for Rove was a hundred thousand obols,” said Amaryllis. “That’s a pittance, I’m sure you’ll agree, but his exclusion is effectively a wasteland, and at least some of the stipulation of that offer is that we would come in and have first pick of whatever valuables he’d left in his wake. The empire has no interest in getting into the salvage business, apparently. [...] Twelve million obols for the fleshsmiths, if they’re killed to the last, or otherwise deprived of their magic, five million for the Guardian, but I’m not actually sure you can beat him,” said Amaryllis. “Twenty million for destroying whatever destroyed Celestar, but you would have to bring back proof, and payment wouldn’t be through the Empire, it would be through the elves. I’m not confident that we would be able to actually get payment. Is that enough?” - Chapter 220: Doecent
12. ↑ No rune magic, no soul spikes, no way to prevent people from going to the hells, not unless they have a hundred thousand obols and a week to prepare - Chapter 233: Tartarology
13. ↑ If I’d been a little less world-wise, I might have missed her touching a small tattoo where her jawbone met her neck. I was almost certain it was the Parson’s Voice; if she’d activated it, then she was speaking to someone else at the same time she was speaking to me. I wanted one for everyone on the team, but the magical inks to make them were a quarter million obols each, and we hadn’t been able to justify the expense, not if it wasn’t going to cloak communication. It wasn’t much better than a walkie talkie, except that it was considerably smaller than what they had on Aerb, and much more discreet. - Chapter 110: Bubblegum
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 “Oh,” said Amaryllis. “We have a firmer offer for Celestar, and a much better offer for Rove,” said Amaryllis. “Word of who and what you are is spreading, and I took the liberty of insinuating to the general public that we’re looking at closing down or otherwise solving as many exclusion zones as we can, especially if there’s some material interest in doing so.”

 *Tell her to give specific amounts.*

I sighed. “Not that I *personally* think you’re avoiding the question, but the call of the gold wants hard numbers.”

“Twenty-five million for Celestar, ten million for Rove,” said Amaryllis. “The former comes through ongoing discussion with the elves, which would probably go better if I felt like I were able to negotiate in terms of in-kind exchanges, rather than just money. The latter comes from direct sale of the rights to whatever can be extracted from Rove’s territory. He as good as swallowed a city and its outlying areas, and it’s speculated that he’s keeping entads and other valuables close to him. In my opinion, it’s an overbid, but the contract was signed yesterday.” - Chapter 221: Targets of Opportunity
15. ↑ In the event of my death, my entads would have passed to him and his wife Hyacinth, representing somewhere in the region of thirty million obols a year income. - Chapter 187: Penndraig's Rules of Order
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 “How much money is on the line?” I asked. I knew that Amaryllis had been rich, but I didn’t actually know *how* rich, and if money was going to be a concern, then it seemed prudent to ask.

“It’s complicated,” said Amaryllis. “There are bank accounts that have raw, easily moved money, there are stocks and bonds that could be cashed out at varying speeds while taking variable losses depending on how fast I wanted to go liquid, there are pieces of art, businesses, land holdings, all of which would take time to sell and whose value would depend on the whims of the market, there are entad investment rights, some of which are presumably still paying out, others that would need negotiation, there are ward bypass rights, and a host of others that are negligible contributors to my personal wealth. All held in trust at the moment, so far as I understand it.”

“But to put a number on it?” I asked.

“Last time I checked, it was one and a half billion obols,” replied Amaryllis. “That’s with a one year timeline for liquidation. If held, it’s more complicated, but the income would be on the order of three percent of worth, accounting for the costs of upkeep. If everything was mothballed, then perhaps as high as six percent.”

“Meaning between forty-five and ninety million obols a year,” I said. That seemed like a lot. It wasn’t wholly accurate, because you couldn’t construct equivalent market baskets, but I had been going off a ‘one obol is roughly one dollar’ rule of thumb for a long time. Amaryllis, on Earth, would have been making something like $120,000 a day, more money than I could put into any frame of comparison. I was pretty sure that my parents made less in a year. - Chapter 179: Hilbert's Paradox
17. ↑ “Formally, I’m here on behalf of the Order of Air Supremacy, a division of the Draconic Confederacy staffed by lesser of the mortal species. On Halig 23rd, 527 FE, an entad vessel owned and operated by citizens and officials of the unincorporated Republic of Miunun flew above three hundred feet without prior authorization from the DDCAN, in violation of the imperial non-members clause of the 501 FE Sky Treaty. Per guidelines, you are charged to pay fifty million obols, to surrender the entad in question, and to commit your republic to voluntary service in accordance with your republic’s population and expertise.” He looked up from the paper and cleared his throat again.

“We don’t have fifty million obols,” said Amaryllis.

“Yes,” said Dianthus. “Well, part of my work here will be in making an audit of the finances of the Republic of Miunun. Fines aren’t on a sliding scale, but there’s generally been a history of pragmatic leniency in the case of inability to pay.” - Chapter 170: On Treating With Dragons
18. ↑ “I just need a number,” I said. “Some dollar — some obol amount that you would expect to get from a nearly complete sale of the books.”

“It would depend,” said Vella, looking around. “To say now would be irresponsible.”

 *Force her.*

“I’m afraid I need a number,” I said. “You can take five minutes or so. If you need help with math, I can do sums virtually instantly.”

She thought for a moment. “Most of the value comes from a minority of works, perhaps a hundred works that have a combined value of … three hundred million, let’s say. I believe that’s my answer.” - Chapter 217: A Dragon's Roost
19. ↑ As I survived the trial by adversity, everything currently held in trust would be under my control, with my eighteenth birthday quickly approaching. I haven’t spoken with my accountant, but the value in aggregate would likely be on the order of one and a half billion obols. - Chapter 185: Mirror Room
20. ↑ In her view, we should be focusing on more important things than who controls Anglecynn or how to get one and a half billion obols out of trust. - Chapter 187: Penndraig's Rules of Order
21. ↑ Grak paused for a moment, and I didn’t know him well enough to make an accurate prediction about what he was thinking, but my best guess was that he was wondering whether this was his life now, going around with clearly insane people with mysterious powers who had stolen millions of dollars worth of gold and magic items and casually used a billion dollar piece of magic to move across the world. - Chapter 33: Tenth
22. ↑ The moment of crisis had gone by in an instant, because now if someone found us where we shouldn’t have been, they wouldn’t immediately think that we were in a possession of a billion-dollar piece of equipment that nations would have killed to get their hands on. We’d still be in trouble, but it would be more ‘breaking and entering’ trouble, not ‘stole a nuke’ trouble. - Chapter 38: Don't Split the Party
23. ↑ “This is the sort of entad that would go for billions of obols to a wealthy nation,” said Finch as we waited for the chamber to spin back down. That waiting period was awkward in the best of times.

“She’s a person,” I said.

“Unconventional politics you have there,” said Finch.

“She would kill anyone who tried to sell her,” said Pallida. “And that’s whether they had standing to sell her or not.”

“And I doubt that I’ve seen the full depths of her power,” said Finch, nodding slightly. “Only a fraction is being used by or for your little republic.”

“She’s not really interested in being worth billions of obols to the right person,” I said. “There aren’t many things she wants that she could buy with money.” - Chapter 159: The Dome Away From Home
24. ↑ Instead, the plan was to use the capital we’d generate to transition into capital-intensive manufacturing and processing. Specifically, Amaryllis thought that we might be able to provide Aerb with the plastics that it was so sorely lacking by engaging in some hydrocarbon jujitsu and a bunch of complicated processes. It would take skilled chemical engineers, trained up on Earth chemistry, some allowance for magic getting in the way of it all, some TBD method of obtaining massive quantities of biomass, and then a multi-billion obol processing plant. - Chapter 106: The One-Hand Warder
25. ↑ “What do you suggest?” I asked. “We pull in Uniquities or Anglecynn, get them to bring their expertise to bear?” I was keenly aware of the figure that Pallida had given me, that the cost to kill a dragon was twenty billion obols, and I was certain that it was higher if you had to do it in uncertain conditions on short notice. Those weren’t the kind of resources that the Empire would shell out without asking a lot of questions, and I didn’t really think that we had the time for that. Amaryllis had at least partial control over Anglecynn, but not enough that she could bring forward an immediate response to a rogue dragon at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. - Chapter 209: Orison
26. ↑ “I’ve heard it only takes about twenty billion obols to kill a dragon, it’s just that no one wants to pay the price for it, especially not when you have to be worried about retaliation.”

“How the hells do they arrive at twenty billion?” I asked. “Are they giving everyone involved a million obols a piece?”

“I have no idea,” replied Pallida. “It’s just what I’ve heard.”

“I imagine that figure includes lifetime earning projections of those who died,” said Grak. “Such calculations were done for Darili Irid. It is an attempt to put a number on lives.”

“Still,” I replied. “That seems *really* high. I guess if it figures in the chance of failure and retaliation I might be able to see it.” I was vaguely aware that government agencies in the United States did similar calculations, which usually came out somewhere in the low millions, if I remembered right. To get twenty billion would mean expected loss of life in the neighborhood of four thousand people, maybe less, since each of those people would presumably be the product of athenaeum training, and there were probably expensive entads and other magic items that would go into the operation. - Chapter 173: Passions