Las Vegas—at least the casino studded Strip—was luxurious. Finding high-end jewelers to buy gems wouldn"t be difficult. What would be was getting the gems in the first place. Ruby"s powers didn"t work unless there was dirt or stone beneath her. Concrete or asphalt, manmade items, wouldn"t cut it. She couldn"t exactly make a bunch of gems shoot out of the ground in a public park either; she needed to go somewhere secluded.
She ended up taking the car she rented out to the foothills and finding a nice spot far enough from the road that she wouldn"t be seen. She had brought a large bag with her to put everything in so she would hopefully only have to do this once while she was here.
Hiding it would be simple enough to do; Ash wasn"t a snoop. He never once bothered to go down into the dungeon and see what she was working on when she was fixing up the windows. She was certain he would have said something if he had.
Ruby concentrated hard and was able to call forth a mound of a variety of gemstones such as diamonds, opals, topaz, and amethyst as well as large chunks of precious metals like silver and gold. Some of these she could sell as they were. Others would need to be turned into jewelry.
She hummed to herself as she got to work creating rings, necklaces, bracelets, and earrings. She had spent a lot of time in jewelry stores and looking up popular styles online in the library while Ash was asleep the past few weeks so she knew what to envision.
Amethyst and topaz weren"t worth much. Neither was turquoise but that was alright. Opal jewelry could get pretty pricey but the real ace in the hole was diamonds if the quality was high enough.
After a few hours Ruby headed back into town with her very expensive sack in the trunk. She put on her sophisticated middle-aged man glamour and brought a few of what she a.s.sumed to be the highest quality pieces to the most high-end appraiser in town.
A bit of negotiation later, she was nearly half a million dollars richer. She went and got herself a sushi burrito from this place on the Strip that looked intriguing. It was actually quite delicious.
If she was going to enjoy the best food and shows while she was here she would need regular internet access. It might be time to finally buy herself a smartphone. Fae normally stayed away from contraptions like that but she couldn"t deny it would be convenient. She knew a few witches who loved theirs.
Her next stop was a cell phone store. Ruby ended up getting Ash one too on a whim in case she ever needed to get a hold of him when they were apart. Teaching him the ropes wouldn"t be too difficult; he was a quick learner.
She had so many bank accounts now that it was getting difficult to keep track of them all. She had opened one with every single bank chain or individual bank within fifty miles of the castle once she started raking in the dough so it wouldn"t be suspicious that she was depositing so much so quickly.
Her ID, as all fae IDs were, was a fake created by a witch. It didn"t exactly work to go to the DMV without a birth certificate. She discovered on the day that she first tried to deposit all her money in one account that the government was aware of deposits made over $10,000.
Looking into a fake person (at least according to the United States of America) would be problematic for her. What Ruby really needed to do was talk to somebody who had more experience h.o.a.rding money on how to avoid detection.
An elf would probably be able to help her with that but where was she supposed to find one? Maybe the fire fairies would know; fae in an area tended to be aware of each other.
Ruby had plans to go see a cirque show every night until she found them. Her check from today was hanging out in her pocket and she couldn"t even deposit it until she got the bank situation figured out.
She sighed. Tomorrow she would have to take the cheaper jewelry to a place that did transactions in cash. She really hadn"t thought this through.
She wandered around the Strip for a while checking out what the inside of other hotels looked like and bought herself sweets from nearly every one to snack on. She intended to go to one of the fancy restaurants for dinner later but wasn"t sure whether to go before or after the cirque show.
The one hosted at the Bellagio started at 7 PM according to the website and lasted about an hour and a half. Ruby was supposed to show up at the will call to pick up tickets no later than 6:30 so it might be better to eat afterward in case dinner ran long.
She ended up heading back to the hotel room around five in case Ash woke up and was worried that she was gone. She arrived shortly after 5:30—it took a long time to walk in such big crowds being mindful of her wings—and he squinted at her and hissed against the sudden onslaught of light from the hallway.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. "What have you been doing all day?"
"Making money and eating," Ruby said honestly. "I walked around a bit too checking out the various hotels. They have some pretty cool decorations. Unfortunately I made too much so I need to find myself an elf ASAP."
Ash stared at her blankly. "How can you make too much?"
She explained the bank situation briefly and he was incredulous she made so much in a single go before mulling it over. Eventually he shrugged.
"I think you need a witch, not an elf. If there"s a way to bypa.s.s the human system I guarantee one of them has figured it out by now. Getting around human things seems to be their life"s work the past several decades."
He had a point. A witch would be easier to find than an rich businesself but she would still need to locate a fire fairy first to get the information she needed. That reminded her…
"Hey, I got us two tickets to a show tonight. I hope you don"t mind. I was thinking of using it to find a fire fairy," Ruby explained.
Ash"s eyes lit up with curiosity. "What kind of show?"
"Not sure aside from the fact that it involves water and some crazy acrobatics. It should be fun! You won"t have to go outside for it either since it"s based in this hotel."
"Alright, I"ll go with you."
"Oh! I got something else for you too," Ruby said as she rummaged through her shopping bags to find the phone. "It"s called a cell phone. Humans use it to communicate and find information. Let me show you how it works."
And that was how she spent the next hour explaining how a smartphone worked to a 682 year old vampire whose mind had clearly just been blown.
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