Book 2: Chapter 7: Shopping Spree

  Like a fist breaking stone, the sun cracked over the edge of the black void of the sky and slipped out over Vrung’s Quarry. A light morning haze rolled off the hillsides and over rooftops, the heavy smell of coal smoke filled in close behind, gaving the whole place a scent of old sweat mixed with a tang scorched iron.

  Despite the smell, it was perfect shopping weather. The squad spilled out of Celeste’s shop in a slow scatter, still stretching and yawning, rubbing sleep from their eyes and checking weapons like someone might rob them on the way to breakfast.

  They weren’t technically wrong.

  “Two hours,” Alex said, glancing up from tightening his belt. “Then we regroup at the well. Don’t get in trouble, okay.”

  “Define ‘trouble,’” Garret said, already heading toward the nearest smithy with Lance in tow. Eric sighed and followed them.

  Allie and Cole left in search of medical herbs, ingredients or enchanted items, basically any and all things Alchemy. Meanwhile Henry, and Holly went off in search of their own wares. Kate went off by herself, she didn’t say where. Devon left with Peter to find anything related to Glyphs. Eventually, everyone left the shop, each of them had a small pouch of coins from the money Alex had left over after selling Celeste the Pseudo-Beast Core. He watched them all go with a growing sense of dread.

  “This is how we end up in side quests.”

  ***

  Devon adjusted his glasses as he approached the cluster of rune stalls nestled between two squat stone buildings. Peter walked beside him, nodding politely to each vendor like the men standing behind the stalls were diplomats and not half-drunk rune scribes hawking knockoff fire charms.

  One stall caught their attention immediately, a spread of etched stones glowing faintly with emberlight, laid out on black velvet like trophies.

  “Ooh,” Devon said, already stepping closer. “Obvious peak beginner glyphs… interlinked charge flow… this is good stuff.”

  “Expensive stuff,” Peter muttered, thumbing a price tag. “These are those layered sigils that you and Alex talked about right? Probably elemental-specific.”

  Devon grinned like a kid in a candy store. “Which means upgrade potential. Especially if we can modulate them with Alex’s glyph plate he got from the Kobolds.”

  Peter blinked. “You think he’ll actually share that?”

  “Eventually,” Devon shrugged. “Maybe. If I bribe him with snacks.”

  ***

  Allie and Cole didn’t talk much as they wandered through the open-air stretch of Vrung’s market. It wasn’t the awkward kind of silence, either. Just the easy sort, like two people who’d fought side-by-side enough times to let quiet speak for itself.

  They stopped beneath a faded green awning whose splintered supports and shoddy craftsmanship told them that the whole thing was held up more by sheer stubbornness than physics. Pouches and bundles dangled from crooked hooks, most of them smelling vaguely like peppermint and something that had, at one point or another been alive, been alive, but no longer.

  Allie’s eyes immediately landed on a mortar and pestle sitting at the edge of the wood-plank counter. It was engraved with healing glyphs that glowed faintly with energy when inspected in just the right angle.

  “Oh yeah,” she muttered as she picked it up. “This is nice.”

  The vendor, a hunched old woman with only three teeth and possibly more herbs in her hair than on the table, grinned at her. “Salve-stirrer. One of a kind. Crushes roots, herbs, and mistakes if you grind hard enough.”

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  Cole raised an eyebrow. “Does it come with a translator?”

  Allie elbowed him gently. “Hush. I like her.”

  They walked away ten minutes later with some enchanted bandages, a brewing talisman, and a beginner salve kit that smelled like peppermint and bloodroot.

  ***

  Across the town, Lance, Garret, Eric, and Zach had stumbled upon a cluster of smiths.

  Lance was already holding up a chestplate in the sunlight, admiring the way it gleamed. “This one’s got weight to it.”

  “Weight and curve,” Garret added. “Gotta look good dodging death.”

  Zach grunted, holding a blade in silence. Typical.

  Eric, meanwhile, was bartering with a weaponsmith over a short-bladed spear. His eyes flicked toward the balance, the grip, the rune lines near the head.

  “I like it,” he said, finally. “But the price is criminal.”

  “Good thing we’re already wanted,” Garret muttered.

  Lance laughed, Zach didn’t.

  The smith just blinked, his facial expression clearly showing that he was unsure if he’d just heard a joke or a confession.

  Garret wandered further down the line casually scanning the wares, his gaze eventually settled upon at a rack of throwing axes engraved with elemental glyphs which probably weren’t legal in most city-states. He poked one and it sparked. He chuckled before glancing around, and then he poked it again.

  “Don’t,” Zach said quietly, without looking.

  Garret raised both hands like a man falsely accused. “I wasn’t going to do anything.”

  “You were absolutely going to do something,” Eric said, not even turning away from his haggling.

  “See, this is the problem,” Garret sighed. “No faith. No appreciation for creative problem-solving.”

  They ignored him.

  Eric held up two fingers at the weaponsmith, an offer. The smith looked offended. Eric raised an eyebrow like a man threatening to find a better deal elsewhere by sheer force of will. Meanwhile, Garret finally left the axes alone and picked up something heavier. A hammer, two-handed, as blunt as Henry was. He didn’t say anything. Just tested the swing once, a slow, wide arc. The air shifted slightly around him.

  Lance glanced over and gave a low whistle. “That… is a war crime waiting to happen.”

  Garret didn’t respond. He didn’t have to. He just grinned.

  ***

  They passed a booth selling claw-carved bone charms, worn trinkets and protective tokens supposedly “blessed by forest spirits,” though Holly was pretty sure at least one of them still had raccoon fur stuck to it.

  “These are cursed,” she said, pointing. “You can feel it. That one’s vibrating, why is it vibrating?”

  Henry gave a soft grunt beside her. A grunt that could’ve meant I agree, or that’s just wind, or please stop poking the table, she wasn’t sure which one.

  Deciding that the fake, or cursed charms, were not worth her time, Holly turned on her heel and dragged Henry by the arm toward the next stall. The merchant sat behind a cloth-topped counter where a row of silver rings glinted under the light. “Now this is something. See how the enchantment is etched under the band? Not flashy, subtle. Quiet but effective, like you.”

  Henry raised an eyebrow.

  She smirked. “Yeah, don’t get flattered, mountain man. You still walk like someone stapled iron rods to your spine.”

  He gave the smallest, slowest smile.

  They moved on. Past trappers, and crystal carvers, a man trying to sell “genuine troll eggs” that looked suspiciously like painted rocks. Holly chattered the whole way, about the village, about the planned dungeon run, about how she was ninety percent sure Tom-Tom had eaten someone’s boot.

  Henry didn’t say much. Just nodded now and then. Grunted once when she pointed out a booth selling what she insisted were bootleg healing potions.

  But when he stopped in front of a weapons smithy stall, looking at a set of spears, glaives and halberds each with the metal blades dyed a dark matte black, his voice finally broke the stillness. Just a tiny grunt, but for Henry, it was a lot.

  “You like those?” Holly asked.

  Henry blinked. Then smiled.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I do too, lets get you a weapon that let’s you take advantage of your size.”

  Henry didn’t say anything else. He just waited while she bartered the price of a large halberd down to half and made the merchant promise in writing that none of the weapons were haunted.

  ***

  Kate wandered the market like she was on a diplomatic tour of a village which she didn’t approve of. She sneered at most things, wrinkled her nose at a rack of armor that looked like it had lost a fight with a bear, and all but hissed at a potion salesman offering her a “beauty tonic.”

  But then she saw it.

  Tucked in the back corner of a small tent, half hidden under a haphazard pile of belt buckles, was a cloak. It was the color of midnight black with a faint shimmer to it, like stars trapped in the fabric’s weave. There were no embroidered runes, and no obnoxious shine. Just elegance in simple form. She didn’t ask for the price when she took it to the counter. She just bought it, folded it carefully, and slipped it into her pack before anyone could see.

  Unfortunately, someone did. Two someones, actually. Bek and Metjen.

  The same two meathead thugs Alex had humiliated last time he was in town. Still big, still ugly, and nursing egos that had gotten bruised a little too close to the bone.

  Bek leaned against a stall post and watched her leave, his eyes narrowing suspiciously. They had been following the team around all day. A large group of foreigners was hard to miss after all, especially in such a remote village. Once Bek learned that they were with Alex, he brought his cousin along to do some snooping.

  “Well,” he muttered. “Looks like they’re back. What do we do about them?”

  Metjen cracked his knuckles.

  “Teach them a lesson,” he said. “But this time, we bring friends of our own.”