Chương 6: Cake and Music

After leaving the adventurers guild, Amberlin and Havlo found somewhere to have lunch. Afterward he wanted to see the city on his own, so they parted ways. This saved her from having to make an excuse of her own because she wanted to do some shopping and surprise him with a present. Lorelark was such a beautiful city that she could walk around the paved streets and take in the sights all day. She actually fell in love with it long before setting one foot inside.

On the approach from Restford, the walls could be seen from half a day away, but it wasn't until they got close that she got a sense for how truly magnificent they were. Amberlin had seen photos of medieval castles in her old life, but cities were something else, and she never appreciated the sheer scale of the construction until she was bending her neck under the long shadow to squint up at the parapets. Once they got through the gates and the streets opened up before her, everything just came alive.

After spending a year in Restford, she'd come to think of medieval towns as being a certain way. But compared to a city, they might as well have been in a different era. The first order of business had been to report to the police—they called them the city watch here—about the incursion of dangerous monsters into the Restwood. Her main goal on this trip was to make the forest safe for Liana to forage for herbs. The officer who took her report noted everything down and took the troll's teeth into evidence.

He told her to check back in a couple of days for an update. She felt bad about lying to him, but didn't think it was a good idea to claim credit for killing the troll. She was trying to avoid drawing attention to herself, after all. Afterward they checked in at an inn, where they left Boots behind, and then went to the adventurers guild, where she got the shiny bronze badge that was now pinned to her lapel, letting everyone know she was an adventurer.

She looked again at the poster for Amy, given to her by the guild attendant. Strictly speaking, this wasn't a quest, as missing persons was a matter for the watch rather than adventurers. But this was the real world and not a game, and if she had the power to help someone, why wouldn't she? The problem was that there wasn't much she could do unless it involved punching something or blowing it up with a fireball, and she didn't think either of those things would help her find Amy.

It was something she would have to think about later. She slipped the poster into her cloak and went in search of Lorelark's famous cake shop, the one the villagers in Restford always bought their sweets from. She remembered it was called something like Rylee's Confectioneries. It took her a long time to find it because it was tucked away in a forgotten alley that she'd passed five times without realizing. The faded signboard out the front had a picture of a cupcake with a candle on it.

Amberlin frowned and looked farther up the alley. There was a butcher and a grocer but not a lot of foot traffic. Didn't a shop that made such good cakes deserve to be in a better location? She entered the shop to the sweet smell of vanilla and caramel. There was a small selection of cakes and cookies by the window, baskets of candies hanging off the walls, and a larger selection of cakes toward the back.

She was having a hard time deciding when she was approached by a middle-aged woman with the eyes, ears, and tail of a cat and was all covered in short black fur.

"Would you like some help, dear?" The woman's plain white apron was dusted with flour, and Amberlin guessed that she might be Rylee.

"I'm from Restford," she blurted out.

"This is my first time in Lorelark."

"Ah, Restford," the woman said warmly.

"Some of my best customers." If her best customers were villagers who only came by once a month, Amberlin worried for the future of her business.

"I'm Amberlin," she introduced herself.

"Are you Rylee?"

"I believe I am. It's nice to meet you, Amberlin."

"Everything here smells so nice, I don't know what to get."

"Is it for a special occasion?" Rylee asked.

"I want to share it with my apprentice, but I don't know what he likes. I kind of forgot to ask him."

"In that case, why don't you go with something safe? This pound cake is very popular among my regular customers."

"Yeah, that looks good. I'll take it!" Then she remembered that she still had more shopping to do.

"Can I come pick it up later?"

"I can deliver it to you if you'd like," Rylee said.

"I do my rounds after I close. Where are you staying?"

"The Wicked Heart Inn. It's near the west gate." Rylee nodded.

"I know where that is. I'll have it to you by dinnertime." Amberlin went to pay and found out that the cake was cheaper than she thought. This was a relief because she only had the money she'd made in her year in Restford, and now that she was traveling, the expenses were going to pile up. If she was going to be adding a cake budget on top of that, she was going to need to finish some serious quests, and soon. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"You must be quite something to have an apprentice at your age," Rylee said when giving her change.

"To be honest with you, I think I'm underqualified," she confessed.

"But I felt sorry for him, so here we are."

"I'm sure if he wasn't happy with the arrangement, he'd let you know," Rylee said.

"I've known many masters and apprentices in my time, and not many of them bought each other cake." She nodded.

"I hope he likes the cake and sticks around. He's kind of grown on me. And he's good with directions."

"Being able to take directions is a pretty important quality in an apprentice," Rylee agreed.

"Yeah. I would have gotten lost, like, three times on the way here from Restford if it weren't for him." Rylee hesitated for a moment before asking, "Isn't the only road out of Restford a direct route to Lorelark?"

"So I kind of need him more than he needs me," she concluded.

"That's why I'm going to buy him a present." After leaving the cake shop, Amberlin's next target was the mages guild. It was the ideal place to learn more about magic and pick out a book for Havlo. While she didn't know how advanced he was, she expected that someone at the guild could help her figure that out. On the way she passed a music shop. There was an absolutely gorgeous gittar on display in the shop window, and she just had to go in and take a closer look.

As an instrument, it was somewhere between a lute and a guitar, something that could survive the rigors of the road while still producing a nice sound and, importantly for the professional musician, sitting comfortably on the legs. While she was admiring the instrument in its protective glass display case, the shopkeeper approached her. He was a balding older man who looked like he didn't see much sunlight.

"That there is a Stratosaurus original," he boasted.

"The favored instrument of Valen the Fast Plucker himself."

"Valen has good taste," she replied.

"You don't even know who Valen is, do you?"

"I'm sure he's a talented gittarist."

"Talented? Young lady, he's the greatest bard who's ever lived. You know how bards sing songs about great heroes? Other bards sing songs about him." She gave this some thought before replying.

"Every musician I know has a song about their ex, and I don't think any of them has ever dated a great hero."

"You just won't understand until you hear him play. Music can drive nations to war. It can bring the hardest tyrant to tears and the purest maiden to—""I get it, you like music. I like music too," she said, trying to get the conversation back on track.

"So how much is it for this Strato original?" The shopkeeper shook his head, muttering, "Young people think they've heard all there is to hear." In a louder voice he said, "You can have it for ten gold." That was more than she had, which was south of forty silver, and there were a hundred silvers for every gold.

"Can you do it cheaper?" she asked.

"I'm afraid not. Stratosauruses are very rare. But I do have some budget options."

"Yeah?" she said hopefully.

"How much are they?"

"They start at fifty silvers. Excellent for beginners. The professional range, suitable for a working bard, begin at one gold even." Even the cheapest was more than she had. And even if she managed to haggle it down, that wouldn't leave her with anything left over to spend on Havlo's book and their daily expenses. As much as she longed to wind down in the evenings strumming on a nice gittar, there were more important things right now. She was about to leave when an idea came to her.

Turning back to face the shopkeeper, she said, "What do you think of a business arrangement? I get to use the Strato in the evenings, and you get half of whatever I make with it?" The shopkeeper humphed.

"Maybe I'd consider it if you were Valen."

"You haven't even heard me play." He looked down his nose at her.

"You really think you're all that? All right then, let's see if you've got the chops to back it up. Wait here." The shopkeeper went out the back and returned with a faded old gittar. It looked like one of the previous owners had gotten killed while playing it, as there were dark red stains splattered across the surface. None of this bothered Amberlin, as the measure of an instrument wasn't the way it looked but how it sounded. He handed her the instrument pulled over a stool and said, "Show me what you've got."

She sat on the stool and started out as any good musician should by tuning the strings. The shopkeeper waited patiently while she went through the process of familiarizing herself with the instrument. And then it was showtime. At first she played it slow, giving her fingers time to warm up after a year of neglect. But the music never left the musician, and soon she kicked it off into a classical ballad.

She played through the chorus once with only the gittar, and noted with approval the shopkeeper's head bobbing along. The moment her voice joined the melody, the shopkeeper's mouth fell open. He listened on like this while she played through the first verse and the chorus. She teased him with the start of the second verse before abruptly cutting it off. It took him a moment to regain his senses.

"What's wrong? Finish the song."

"This was only supposed to be a demonstration," she said coyly.

"But maybe if you trust me enough to let me play the Strato." Without hesitation he unlocked the display case and carefully removed the valuable instrument before exchanging it for the old, worn gittar, which he then left leaning against the wall. This time the shopkeeper fidgeted impatiently while she went through the process of tuning it. The gittar fit so well in her lap, the frets in such natural places, that it felt like it had been made just for her. When she was ready, she nodded to let him know.

But instead of returning to the ballad, she played one of her own compositions. This one had no vocals, but it applied a lot of modern techniques and was just a lot of fun. At first the shopkeeper looked annoyed at her changing it up, but that quickly turned to grudging acceptance, and by halfway through he had a permanent smile plastered on his face. This time she played the piece all the way through and then smoothly transitioned into a second one, a popular modern folk song that she thought he might like.

And then she capped the triplet by returning to the ballad and playing it all the way through to the end. By the time she was done, the shopkeeper had sunk to the floor. While he was basking in the afterglow of the music, she looked outside and realized that it was getting later than she'd planned. There weren't any phones in this world, so she had to finish her business and get back to the inn for dinner or Havlo was going to be worrying about her.

She handed the gittar back to the shopkeeper and said, "I'm sorry, I've got to get going."

"B-but what about your business proposal?" She flashed him a sheepish smile.

"The truth is, I just wanted to have a go on the Strato. I'm much too busy to be playing in taverns. Sorry!" She rushed to the door.

"W-wait!" But she didn't look back. There was too much to do, and she'd already gotten a little too indulgent playing music. Just before the door closed behind her, the shopkeeper's words followed her out into the street.

"At least tell me your name!" She realized she'd been rude and hadn't introduced herself. But that was all right because she intended to return. She wanted that Strato, and she was going to do lots of quests and earn the money to buy it. Just not right now.