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It was less than a minute later when an important looking goblin came in, obviously higher ranked due to age and quality of suit. "One hundred thousand galleons for the majority of the jewelry," he said not wasting time, "the metal used is inferior but the quality and cut of the gems more than makes up for it."

"And the rest of the jewelry?" Sirius asked curiously.

The goblin laid a case on the table and opened it, showing a dozen small gems. "Regretfully we don't have the resources to afford even one of these."

"Why not?" Sirius asked.

"You don't know what they are?" the goblin asked in shock and cursed the magically enforced treaty his people had signed when the two men shrugged.

"Those are life gems," Penny said, "if they were still in their settings I could probably tell you who each of them were."

"Each of them were?" Sirius queried.

"Yes, those were Elizabeth Taylor's last dozen husbands – there was an article in Cosmo."

Xander snapped his fingers. "Oh yeah, I remember those things. If you were a bit morbid and had the money, you could have your dead relatives turned into jewelry."

Sirius looked horrified. "What kind of necromancy was that?"

"My people's," Xander said cheerfully. "Disposing of dead relatives is always big business. I know of places that would freeze them with cryogenics until they could be brought back to life or have them buried with full Egyptian funeral rites if you preferred. Hell, there was one place that would even send a capsule with their ashes to either orbit the Earth or bury itself on the moon."

Sirius and the goblin stared at him for a minute.

"I know, strange huh?" Xander said rhetorically. "Personally I was thinking of being cremated and having my ashes used to make lead crystal sex toys, to be sent to women I was fond of while I lived."

Sirius and the goblin stopped looking shocked as they both whipped out notepads and wrote that idea down.

"So what good are they?" Penny asked.

"They are extremely powerful necromantic foci," the goblin replied, "but in the hands of an artificer …" the goblin chuckled and rubbed his hands together.

"Xander?" Sirius asked.

"Added to a ward or a weapon they'd provide a level of intelligence you'd usually need a willing human sacrifice for," Xander said thoughtfully, "that would make it an order of magnitude more effective and that's without factoring in any talents they had while alive."

"A human artificer?" the goblin asked curiously.

"Minor artificer," Xander said, "I'm limited in what I can do because I'm not a wizard."

"A muggle artificer?" the goblin's eyes almost popped out of his skull.

"I prefer the term norm, thank you very much," Xander said.

The goblin shrugged. "And I'd like my title to be Pimp Master Supreme, we don't always get what we want."

"What services could we get in exchange for the gems?" Penny asked over Sirius' laughter.

Walking in the shadows, Chapter 14