The market was loud, filled with stalls and sellers crowded between them.

  Stalls offered everything from food to travelling supplies and weapons. Everything Dee had ever seen in an RPG equipment list was here, along with plenty of things he had never seen. Loops of rope hung besides backpacks and crude-looking lanterns. Thick glass potion bottles were crowded besides sticks of cooked lizards.

  There were a lot of races as well, plenty of pook and humans, and a few dwarves. He even saw orcs shopping and running stalls, all bulky, muscular with prominent tusky teeth. They growled and laughed and haggled along with all the others in the crowd.

  He thought he saw a goblin, or maybe it was an orc child, running between stalls. Short and green, with pointy features, running on some errand with a sack of goods across its back. It wove between the legs of customers and sellers, like a mouse squeezing through a maze.

  There was also a race he had never seen anywhere. They were tall and lithe with delicate flukes on the outside of their forearms and legs, and they were all over six feet tall. Their grey-bluish skin was hairless, like a dolphin or stingray.

  Some of them were dressed up as guards, along with the human and pook guards. They strode through the crowd, peering down at the shorter races. But they were so thin, even more so that Yuri. He realised that he hadn’t seen any elves here, and a quick look around confirmed that. No other minnikins or onis for that matter.

  I really want to know what’s up here. Are there less elves than other races, or do they just live in their own lands? What are the demographics here. I wonder if my book can conjure that info up?

  He reached into his bag, but Tianna interrupted him.

  “Listen, listen to me.” She tugged on his hand, and Dee bent down so she could talk into his ear.

  “Down in the dungeon, if it goes wrong, you can die. That’s awful, but up here, if it all goes wrong, it’s even worse. You can go into debt.” Her eyes went wide with horror. She was adorable. It confused Dee how much he wanted to protect her, she was so cute, but also how much she didn’t need his protection. And how much she would probably brain him with her mace if he offered.

  “Yeah, that is pretty bad.”

  “Pay attention then. I’m going to show you what’s a good deal. First, you need some travelling clothes that fit. Can you use armour?”

  “I don’t think so. I can give it a try.”

  Tianna face palmed. “Argh! I keep forgetting, you are some kind of weird, egg boy, that just hatched. You don’t have a class manual, do you even have a class?”

  Dee shrugged. There was not much he could say, the constant embarrassment and confusion was kind of wearing thin into an apathetic acceptance. He was just sight-seeing right now. “I think regular clothes is my main priority right now.”

  As they walked on Tianna chatted and told him more than he could absorb in one go, all of it about local economics. In contrast to her jumpy disposition on the battlefield, in the market she was confident and relaxed. She was like an economics professor and market trader fused into a tiny warrior priestess.

  Goldmeadow was a largish town, whose fortune depended on the cultivated Metal node deep underneath it. This ironically meant it was not attractive to adventurers seeking a crest. Cultivated nodes pretty much never spawned a crest as their potentia manifested in ways like the metal garden surrounding the city, or the cold aura of the dwarven farm. So cultivated nodes were unattractive to PCs, but very attractive to the right kind of NPC.

  What saved Goldmeadow from quiet anonymity was its location just west of an important trade route. Traders stopped off here, and adventurers would also come to buy fine weapons and rest before heading into the wild western forest and beyond.

  “Look at this, very cheap steel.” Tianna pointed to a weapon stall, where a large orc with a broken tusk sat amongst simple looking axes and swords. “Not worth it,” she whispered. “It’s cheap because they can’t compete with the honeymetal forges.” She pointed to the towering temple at the centre of town. Six raised walkways connected the upper level of the temple to the city walls. There were guards there too, patrolling and watching the skies. Occasionally a pook guard would flit up to or down from the walkway.

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  A huge bee buzzed lazily overhead, making its way home to the hive. It alighted on a walkway post, resting for a second. Its legs were dotted with multicoloured motes of metal mana.

  “The temple takes the hive’s honeymetal and make it into weapons and decorations.”

  The bee flicked its forelegs, nibbling at the mana clinging to them. Then it took off towards the hive. Nobody paid any attention to it; the hive and the town had a peaceful coexistence.

  “So, adventurers come here to buy honeymetal?”

  “Not specifically. People stop here because there is nowhere else nearby. Besides, honeymetal is good, but it’s nothing special. There are metal nodes all over the world, even earth nodes can be cultivated for weapons. You can get something special like honeymetal all over the continent. Singing stone, crow metal, flowsharp, it’s all pretty much the same. Economically.” She waved her finger at him.

  “Now canyon runner eggs! If you want to make money here, that’s your game. A steady flow of adventurers coming through, no decent local breeding grounds. Not big enough to attract serious competition. Canyon runner eggs.” She stared at Dee. He nodded.

  “Canyon runner eggs,” he said.

  “Exactly.”

  Tianna nattered on more about the economy. Dee’s ears perked up when she started talking about the temple.

  The real downside in Goldmeadow was its low-level temple, only a level 1. The lack of adventurers bonding with crests meant it would probably never develop past that. The temple of course was where Arjelica could bond with her crest. Tianna eyed him suspiciously as she said this, in case he said anything heretical. Dee nodded and said nothing.

  Nevertheless, Goldmeadow was still fairly busy, especially the marketplace. Tianna pointed out a dozen good deals and things way more expensive than they should be. It was useful information, but way too much to take in. He was getting a headache.

  They stopped by a stall of herbs and plants. Tianna nattered about the prices. A large orc brushed past him, almost knocking him over. He leaned on the market table and the owner gave him a funny stare. It was noisy, and hard to breathe. Dee’s body clenched up, like he had been punched in the stomach. He wondered if he could jump under a stall and hide. Cold sweat broke out down his back and across his forehead.

  Tianna looked up and stopped talking. “What’s wrong? You look like you’re being attacked.”

  He couldn’t say anything, but she knew what to do. She peered around and then pulled him quickly into a quiet side alley. She said nothing but held his hand and watched him with a gentle expression on her face. He leaned up against the wall and tried not to freak out. He was breathing so fast. It didn’t feel right.

  Tianna’s aura was so calm and attentive, he felt her presence as strong as her Shield Bubble. The noisy market was still out there, with too many people, but the tightness in his chest faded as she stood with him, holding his hand. His anxiety faded as she waited with him.

  “How did you do that?” Dee gasped when he could talk. He hadn’t seen her use any Class Art.

  “I’m a War Priest. We heal on and off the battle field.” Tianna sighed, and looked to the end of the alleyway, where the bustling crowd was still pushing past each other.

  “I don’t like crowds either. I grew up in a monastery. It was quiet. Just study and prayer. And in the evening, we sang songs for the Kingfisher, who blessed our fortune.” Her face shone with the light of happy memory.

  “Oh, the market was noisy, you should have seen it. So many great deals. We lived by three rivers joining, can you imagine the variety of commerce we had!” She hopped up and down and clapped her hands.

  “But after a heavy day of haggling, I always had that quiet place to go home to. Sometimes I wish I was back there, in the quiet hallways and the library.” She sighed and stood up a little straighter. “You know, adventuring is like being at the market all day, you have to think about what you’re doing all the time. It gets a little exhausting. But, I’m an adventurer now and my duty is to find crests to bond with. Seek my fortune, so that the Kingfisher will smile on my bravery.”

  “That sounds nice. I would love to go hide in a library right now.”

  “Hmm.” Tianna looked at him, her eyes scanned his face, studying him. Then her eyes lit up with an idea.

  “We’re taking you to a Class Seer! They can find out what’s wrong with you. Oh, maybe it’s a Class Art gone wrong. I heard that there are some classes with feedback skills that do damage to you, the more you use them. You’re probably some kind of head wizard, who loses his memory to cast powerful spells. Oh, I’m so relieved that makes sense.”

  She patted him on the leg. She seemed extremely happy to find out that he was something that fit into her world-view of classes and abilities. Even if that discovery had been completely in her own imagination.

  She asked a passerby for directions to a Class Seer’s shop. Tianna led them through small alleys and shortcuts, away from the main chaos of the market that had freaked him out.

  “Have you been here before?” Dee asked. She seemed to know exactly where every hidden alley was.

  “No. My Passive Art is Battle Sense. I sense danger on the battlefield. And for you right now, that seems to be the crowded areas. You have to think about how you use your abilities. There is always a trick to squeeze out something extra from whatever you have, by the Kingfisher’s wisdom.”

  They came to the shop. A wooden door, in a quiet alley way, with purple writing and runes around it. There was a circular crest-like symbol on it, with two large eyes above it, the mark of a Class Seer.

  Tianna knocked and led them in.