The queen now looked more mature than before, laying her left leg above her right one and folding the dress in unfortunate ways, her hair now laying much more flat, her eyes now smaller and thinner, the pupil between it slit like that of a cat, looking like it was surrounded by glowing fog, golden fog that is, as she expected the next few words destined to come from the newcomer that had proclaimed to have two presents for her in exchange for her help with Cades.
In her opinion the first one had already been enough, but she was definitely not against getting a second one, though she had a slight feeling there might be some secret hidden that he wanted to achieve through the gift exchange.
And indeed, the man, now showing a bit of light armour underneath his cloak, black in colour and covered in darkness he had previously been manipulating from what she could tell, perhaps some kind of hint to what he was able to do, something even she was not able to directly tell right now, began to dig around in his pouch, tightly grabbing something, his arm-muscles becoming a bit more defined and seemingly struggling for a moment before taking out a single coin.
The coin was small, a diameter of a single inch, about one fortieth of an inch thick when he held it, the sides riled but mostly covered in rust that seemed to have added mass to the old coin, one silver, but now with no more shine.
On one side there was carved a triangle, rudimentary on an otherwise blank slate, on the other there was the depiction of the shade of a man, no beard, no long hair, long neck, his eyes shown on the sides of his head, wearing a crown fashioned from sticks and wood, form blades and tools, from wrenches and from hammers, from axes and from much more, the crown depicted in extraordinary detail compared to the rest of it, but covered half in rust that seemed to take over the main part of the entire coin.
As he held the coin between his index finger and his thumb the world seemed to grow utterly quiet, a small bit of radiance and sheer presence coming from the simple piece of metal whose origin was still not clear, but one thing was clear.
When the queen saw the coin, she stopped talking, she stopped blinking, she stopped acting, she simply stared, and after a few minutes where both of them just stared at the coin, the queen began to ask her question that was obvious from the very moment the coin had been taken out.
"..." she remained silent a bit more, intent on talking but hesitating greatly, as if she feared the coin could turn into thin air as soon as she got her hands on it, something that, from what could be told right now, might actually happen.
"Is that what I think it is?" she stutteringly uttered.
The room around began to fade into the background, only the faded silver of the rusty coin remaining as the man began to talk as well.
"Yes, it is a suouis, a favour made flesh, a wish in many cases." he began, sounding almost like an old, grizzly, philosophical teacher that had already planned their retirement many years ago but had their plans fail at the last moment and even forced to continue teaching at the university and struggle with annoying students and colleagues.
"Long ago, before time had bene given a name by mere mortals, before the concept of the seconds we live, of the minutes we wait, of the hours we experience, of the days we survive, of the years we grow, before many a thing we now see as foundational, there was a law passed by a great one, a law that that very great one vowed to uphold, the law of the Suouis coins, though he had not given them that name back then." he continued, looking at the coin with a wide and brazen grin, filled with partial greed, btu not showing it to the queen who simply remained silent, not even noticing that, knowing full well who that coin was bound to.
"Such a coin is a promise to hear the request, and though it rarely works with lesser deities and gods, even with some pillars who simply do not care about mortals, there are some coins, mainly those of very high beings such as the great pillars, the corpses, the betrayer, and the holders of jobs, many unknown, many holding unbound secrets, that simply do not care enough to say no and will simply affirm the wish." he laughed slightly.
"To such beings, and especially to the one this coin is bonded with, a task such as true immortality, such as becoming the true ruler of a solar system, such as breaking an entire universe apart, is nothing, or perhaps even less than that." he ended it all, waiting for a certain question he already knew the girl was keen on asking.
"Who is it bound with?" she asked.
"Of course! After all, if it is a malevolent being you wouldn't want to summon it..." he took the lead of the conversation and lead it somewhere else, intent on actually telling her the title.
"The being that is bound to this coin is known as the 'old man'." he ended it all.
"...." she remained silent for a few minutes, thinking, her head stuck in greed and at the thought of all she could get, but in the end, not even deciding.
"Of course there are a few limits, and a few things one should not wish for." he said, Crisis's head perking up and her burning cat-like eyes staring at him, or rather, at the coin in the air in front of her, still held by his fingers, intent on knowing the limitations of her wish.
"Because of the nature of your task you are not allowed to get out of here, but do be assured, if you do your task well you'll get out of here at some point." she nodded, that alone having been enough to make her accept had he told her only that, "Secondly, one should only wish for slight power, for power without understanding is the end of one." he ended once more with her agreeing silently, having witnessed the mistakes of fools who failed to understand.
Gruesome to say the least.
"What do I have to do exactly?" the queen asked, already having accepted.
The man, putting the coin away for now, both understanding he would give it to her after Vexxen ahd been defeated, began to talk about some requirements.
"You can not kill Vexxen, the child has to do that. You can not force him to do anything. After he succeeds, you will suppo..." he said many things like that, but she had to agree, the wish, the coin alone being worth more than if she had to be a slave for a few centuries to this child.
And perhaps, just slightly, she was also interested in this Cades, this Leyk, this Sekaria, this Avere, someone who had many names was often bound to be quite interesting from her experiences.