After this nonchalantly gruesome statement, I selected the necklace and put the rest of the stuff back in the bag. Hel disappeared it into her pocket with the same single-handed deftness she had demonstrated earlier, and gave me four gold pieces for the goblin tails.
“Tomorrow.” she reminded me, draining her tea and heading into the watch house. “See you then.”
I next headed to Market Street, and found Tannery Street from there by the smell. It was cleverly oriented to catch the prevailing breeze, and I noticed none of the shops had awnings or stacks of boxes which opposed the wind flow. Clever. After a few inquiries, I found a place that would take the goblin skins.
“You want them tanned, or made into gloves, or what?” asked the boy who seemed to be the designated spokesman for the workshop.
“Actually, I just wanted to sell them.” I told him.
“You sure? They make fabulous waterproof boots. I’d make you a deal, since you’re a halfling and all. It won’t take so much material to cover your feet.”
“I like my shoes just fine.” I insisted, and eventually he was persuaded to buy instead of sell, and I added six silver to my wallet.
Now officially richer than I had ever been in my life, I skipped out of the shop and back onto Market Street. The feel of the crowd was a bit on edge today, an undercurrent of stress which I couldn’t identify. To me, though, the bustle and glitter of the marketplace was no less exciting than before, and felt my appetite returning, the turnover insufficient to restore a day and a night’s worth of hunger. I wondered what I could get Isha, to cheer him up. What do chefs like, anyway?
Voice returned.
“I bet the weapons shop has good knives.” I speculated. “I could get him a flaming cleaver! He could cook and chop, all at the same time!”
Voice laughed at this. I checked my stash of cash. Even at half price, a flaming blade was probably beyond my means.
“I wonder if it is.” I pulled the necklace out and held it up. A series of beads, quartz or glass, bedecked its length, and a larger amethyst pendant hung opposite the clasp.
“A necklace of what?” I cried as I frantically shoved the jewelry back over my head, pulling at it as if it were a venomous snake. “Why would anyone make something like that?”
Voice said mildly, as the necklace failed to constrict and murder me.
I held the necklace at arm’s length, eyeing it warily.
This sounded like an excellent plan. I stopped once for a small folded bag of candied almonds, savoring the sweet taste of the honey coated nuts.
A bit of bouncing around Market Street brought me eventually to a shop at the back of an alley. The barred window was packed with a jumble of merchandise for sale or advertising, to the point where I couldn’t see inside at all. I pushed open the door.
A small bell rung as I did so. If the window was a packrat’s nest of items, it was nothing to the inside of the shop. The walls were covered in shelves which were themselves covered in all kinds of things, ranging from household goods, to weapons and armor, to strange tools I couldn’t imagine the use of.
“Velceron!” bellowed a voice from a shadowy corner off to my right. “Customer!”
I jumped at the sound, which came from a tall, broad shouldered woman lounging on a reinforced chair. I had never seen a woman so big, though woman she clearly was: hefty breasts rounded out a low cut security guard’s uniform, custom made for long, ropy, arms like tree trunks, that ended in well knuckled hands, themselves ending in blood tipped fingers…
Not blood. I realized, blinking. Nail polish. Though if it covered nails or claws, I couldn’t tell.
“What’re you staring at?” she growled at me, menacingly.
“Nothing!” I squeaked, trying to calm my racing heart and its associative sense memory. “Are you a hor- err, a half-ork?”
“What of it?” she challenged me.
“I’ve just never met one before. Umm, I like your tusks. The carvings are, um, very pretty.”
She said nothing at this, just leaned back in her chair like maybe today wasn’t my day to die. Now that my adrenaline gland was reconciling her human side with the memory of my last encounter with full blooded orks, her face was quite fascinating. “Would you like a candied almond?” I asked.
She gave me a suspicious look, but must have decided I meant it. She took a nut and playfully tossed it high in the air; it almost brushed the ceiling before she neatly caught it in her mouth.
At that moment, Velceron bustled in from the back of the shop. I could see through a quick glimpse of the curtain that the back of the shop was even more crammed than the front. Velceron himself was a stooped old man with a couple of days worth of grey stubble on his face and a tall pointed hat on his head. Half a dozen pairs of spectacles were stacked on the sloping cone, one of top of another, like horseshoes ringing a goal post.
“Ahh, a customer!” He blinked at me through thick glasses. “Very well, young lady… oh, wait, are you a young lady? I haven’t got my mid-range glasses on.”
“I suppose I am.” I said. I was younger than him, anyway.
“She’s a full grown halfling.” the half-ork drawled from the corner. “Don’t be fooled by the dress.”
“Very well, then! How can I help you, lass?”
I decided I liked Velceron. I pulled out the non-strangling necklace and laid it on the miraculously clutter-free counter. “I want to know if this is magic. And if so, what it does.”
Velceron picked up the necklace, exchanged the glasses on his face for another pair from his hat, and peered closely at the amethyst. “Hmm.” he said after a minute, and then to my delight, “Yes, it is certainly magic.” He continued peering at, absorbed, and after a minute I began to wonder if he had forgotten about me.
“What does it do?” I finally asked, and his startle proved my assumption correct.
“Oh, yes! Well it—”
He was interrupted by a rumble from the half-ork.
“—I mean, I cannot identify it for free, of course.” He set the necklace on the counter and turned his attention to me. “It will cost you one gold.”
I thought about this. A gold was rather dear to me, and I was mindful of Voice’s advice about buying some healing potions as quickly as possible. On the other hand, I supposed I could just wear it, and wait for another ceiling to fall on me.
[Wisdom check: Success]
I pulled out one of my gold and put it on the counter. Velceron smiled kindly at me.
“It’s a dreamcatcher.”
“What for?” I asked.
“Why, for catching dreams, of course. That’s how mages and divines shape magic energy for their use. If you were to wear this to bed, it would charge itself as you slept, and you’d wake with perhaps an entire extra spell at your disposal.”
“I would?” I asked in wonder.
Velceron gave his kindly smile again. “Only if you’re a caster, lass. It stores raw mana, but not formed
spells.”
“Oh. Is it very valuable?”
“Hmm.” He picked up the necklace again and peered at it with yet another set of glasses. “Well, if you were to have such an item made, it would likely cost you about fifty gold…”
My heart leapt at this valuation, but the half-ork rumbled again.
“…but of course I cannot buy it at full value. Vendor’s cut and everything. Storage fees. And then I would have to find a buyer.”
I looked around at all the packed shelves, accumulating dust.
“The problem with this piece is that it is very basic. Useful to a hedge wizard, or a mage just beginning their career, but not, unfortunately, to a well established caster likely to have a lot of money. I could offer you,” the old wizard pulled open a drawer under the counter, full of receipts. He pawed around inside. I could hear the rustle of paper, but not very many clinks of coins. “Err, I could offer you… some kind of trade, perhaps?”
I picked up the necklace and looked at it.
“For the most value,” he continued, “you might put it up for auction. Perhaps the right buyer will come along.”
“Actually, I think I have a better idea. Thanks anyway!” I waved goodbye with my free hand, and the bell rung again on my way out.
I grinned around a candied almond as I about skipped down Market Street, totally pleased with my new plan. As it happens, I knew a mage just beginning her new career. If this doesn’t make Sarah forgive me for the flaming-bugs-at-the-dinner-party incident, I don’t know what will.
“You think? But it’s not like it’ll stay wrapped for long.”
Luckily for me, Market Street sold about everything I could imagine, and I paused for a moment outside a paper shop. The window was filled with examples of their wares, some elegantly laid out on a display desk, some folded into attractive origami shapes.
Inside the shop were even more papers, presided over by a lovely elven lady. It took me a moment to think of where I had seen her before, and I finally recalled she was the lady at the Illusionarium Emporium who bought one of the platinum hair dyes.
“Hi.” I told her. “I like your hair.”
She smiled at my compliment, and then, noticing my own golden mane, her smile tweaked up on one side.
“You flatter me.” she replied, her voice deep and rich. “Which likely means you’re after something.” Her tone was playful, though, indicating that even though she recognized my strategy, she was still willing to let it work.
I showed her the necklace. “Do you do gift wrapping?”
Fifteen minutes and all of my silver pieces later, the necklace was folded into a cardboard box and covered over with several layers of handcrafted tissue paper. The elf had wanted to wrap it in pale creams and subtle tones, asserting that it was classier, but I had wanted bright colors, and so we finally compromised on a pale yellow outer wrapping with increasingly luminous inner layers. Just like a flower. I had insisted on the brilliant purple ribbon, though, to match the amethyst inside.
Back out and down the street a ways, I paused at the window of a busy spice shop called the Powdered Horn. Customers went in and out, bringing with them small, expensive packages of spice; sweet and spicy and exotic. The prosperous shop seemed to bulge into the busy street; what was once a front porch had long ago been encased with glass and converted into display. The setting sun made a mirror of the large window on the front, and it amused me to watch the bustling crowd reflected behind me, superimposed over the bottles and jars and tins of wares, while Voice enthusiastically made lists of seasonings for various dishes.
“I dunno.” I muttered around a candied almond. “I still think he’d like a flaming cleaver.”
“In the fireplace? It’d save on wood.”
Voice snorted amusement.
I opened my mouth to reply when my head was suddenly and violently shoved forward into the glass. I got my eyes closed in time and my face slightly turned, but the nut crushed between my teeth and my cheek, drawing blood, while shards of plate glass rained down around me. How did someone possibly sneak up behind me? I twisted as I fell to avoid coming down on the jagged edge of the window remains, and my package went sailing out of my hand and onto the cobblestoned street.
“Oops.” sneered a mocking, familiar voice. “You’d better watch where you’re going. Accidents can happen to noobs so easily.”
Keenfang turned to go, and the crowd around us quickly withdrew and circled, making the requisite clearing for street theatre. The scrabbling feet kicked my bright package, ripping it open and smearing the necklace with dust. The spice merchant came out, all indignant, saw who it was, and then blanched and went back inside. There was the sound of the door shutting and a bolt being thrown.
“Jerk.” I spat at him. “That was no accident.”
“What did you say?” The vampire swung back around, as graceful as grease on water. I scrabbled to my feet as Keenfang gave me a quizzical look, like he was trying to remember where he’d seen me before. He regarded me, saw my necklace laying in the dirt, and stooped to pick it up. He dusted it off, and then to my complete and utter shock, said: “I’m sorry.” He took a couple of steps forward and handed it out to me. “Is this yours?”
It hit me then to wonder if he really was trying. Maybe he just didn’t know how he came off to people, and all his meanness was old, bad habits, that he really wanted to break. Maybe there was a part of him that was a nicer person than this. Maybe even vampires could seek redemption.
“Yes.” I replied, drawn to smile in spite of myself, reaching out for the pendant. “Thank y—”
Keen’s fake smile turned real as he closed his fist and crushed the purple gem. It splintered, then shattered, releasing a flash of blue light just before the crystal splinters disintegrated completely.
“Yeah?” taunted Keenfang as he wound his arm back, pitcher style, and launched the remaining pieces of the necklace over the rooftops, where it came apart and rained down over half a dozen blocks. “Go get it then.”
For a moment I just stared at the small pile of amethyst splinters on the stones in front of me, numb and betrayed, and then angry at myself for trusting enough to be betrayed, and then just angry. Keenfang laughed and laughed at his own joke. The rage came up from my feet to my belly to my clenched jaw, a rush of temper, and before I even made the decision to do it, my dagger was in my hand and poised to throw, and they could ban me if they wanted to, so long as I put this in Keen’s back first.
But the vampire was gone. Slipped into the shadows amongst the crowd, and nothing left but thin tendrils of black mist and echoing laughter. I had enough self control left not to throw at the mist, through it, and spike some hapless bystander.
A creak of the door revealed the spice merchant, broom in hand, come to clean up the mess. He gave me a rather unfriendly look and said, tightly, “Is there something you want?”
I could tell he was trying hard not to take out his own ire on me, associated with the situation though I was. The copper and iron taste of blood stung my mouth. I turned and spat it out on the cobblestones of the street. The last of the candied almonds lay scattered around, soiled and filthy.
“No.” I said, and turned away.
Chapter Nine
[Rest Bestowed: 4 Hit Points]
[Hit Points: 12/15]
Th
e next morning I woke late. I had stood in line for a couple of hours last night, seething, in order to finally file a report against Keenfang for damage to property. The bored clerk had perfunctorily corrected my spelling and checked some boxes on the form, and finally told me I could expect a response by mail if any action was to be taken on my behalf.
Upstairs no one else was up or at work, so I quietly padded to the mailbox out front to see if I had gotten any compensation. Like, perhaps, Keens head, all wrapped up in pretty yellow wrapping paper. The mailbox was empty, however, except a flyer advertising a new guild seeking adventurers:
The Iron Fist of Death is now recruiting!!!!
We have our own Guild Hall, come by in person to Plaza Victoria to sign up!
No Initiation, no Guild Fees, no Racial Requirements, we’re a Casual Guild seeking fun adventurers for some family friendly Slay and Slaughter!!!
Super exclusive! We’ll take anybody!
commented Voice wryly at the advertisement,
I crumpled the paper and added it to the kindling bucket next to the fireplace. “Nothing about Keen.” I growled. “It’s been hours! How long does it take to talk to some witnesses and ‘perform an investigation’?”
Our secret stash of rejected food was running low, as without customers, Isha hadn’t been cooking much. There was a stale baguette left, though, and I gnawed on it for breakfast. The kitchen looked strange and empty without Isha’s presence filling it from wall to wall, which he usually managed to do even from the other room. I wondered if I should try cooking something. Maybe the smell of some yummy breakfast would wake him up.
A Fist Full of Sand: A Book of Cerulea (Sam's Song 1) Page 19
