Chương 13: And I'm going to abuse them.

The smell of food wafting from the market hit me as we turned up the street to go visit the market. We had done a lot of walking, and not much eating or drinking. I realized I was thirsty, everyone else probably was too. Balance: 31514. 13 I bought us three bottles of fresh mountain spring water in glass bottles. Fresh, clean water, and no plastic waste. Nice green glass bottles. I'd noticed a lack of plastic around the second world now that we had been walking around a bit.

I'd rather not start the problem here if I can help it, though the allure of plastic is sooooo... Fiscally Enticing. I knew we'd be a great big french fry for all these hungry seagulls, but I didn't realize just sauntering up with a green glass bottle of first world water was going to draw so many eyes. Maybe the lady in shining armor had something to do with it too. I was realizing that very few were in full, mirror-polished steel... actually no one. So Lakshmi stood out as having incredibly fancy armor.

No wonder Steven was able to make so much for the last set. Add that to the pervy vampire factor... The other shoppers both stared, and gave us a wide berth. I do look like a rich noble with a body guard, don't I?

"Food first?" I asked my companions.

"Oh! There's an alloprat on a stick vendor that's always here that's delicious, and reasonably priced... but we might need to make some change first because it's a copper for 2 sticks."

"What the hell is an alloprat?"

"I dunno, meat on a stick." Damon replied.

"New in town pal?" A man in a merchant's booth we were walking past asked. When I turned to look at him he said, "Alloprat's are a weird reptile thing that's the size of a New York City rat. Tastes like chicken. Rattagator woulda been a better name if you ask me."

"Thanks." I said, tipping my water bottle toward him, and his eyes lit up.

"Is that... First world glass?" Balance: 31510. 36 I bought him a bottle.

"For the information," and handed it to him. His eyes narrowed, clearly he suspected it was some sorta trap. He inspected the bottle, it was cold, and about to start sweating in the heat of the day. When he realized it was sealed, he said "Is there actually fuckin spring water in here?"

"Yeah!" Damon said, taking a sip.

"It's sooo good too." The man looked back and forth, "Am I... Is there prank shows in this world? What is happening?"

"It's clean drinking water... For free... well, for the information about the alloprat."

"Pally I was about to offer you four coppers just for that glass when you were done."

"Oh, how about a couple silver for this then?" Balance: 31450. 14 I bought a 12 pack of them, in a cardboard box.

"Buddy you got a deal."

"Pay my wizard, please." I said, and then I realized Damon had wandered over to 'Wally's Wandrous Wears' behind me.

"DAMON! Get over here. Your job, is to collect money for me. You gotta do something to earn those books, kid."

"Yes, sorry. Can we go over there next?"

"Yes, fine. Then food." Damon took the coins. The merchant couldn't imagine his luck. First world glass, with pure spring water inside. Little spoiler for you, spring water is required as an ingredient in the making of potions, and the stuff in these bottles we were drinking, S-tier ingredient.

"Hey, shopkeep. Is there a place in this market that sells spatial magic trinkets or gems or whatever so that I can have a magic pocket?" Lakshmi asked as Damon and I wandered to Wally's. I didn't catch what he replied, but he did tell her what she needed to know. Wally's was a clothing shop. Magically armored pants, shirts, robes, and sundries. Damon was already looking through the enchanted robes. He found some bright orange ones that he seemed very excited about.

"Something green, maybe. Darker. We're going to be traipsing through the woods at some point Damon, if you want to join me when I eventually leave town."

"Oh! Are you serious Grandpa!? I was just window shopping." Damon said.

"I'm gonna try out this identifying spell in my starter book. Entellotect."

"Did it work?"

"Haha! It did!" His spellbook in his hand started glowing softly, as did his eyes.

"Grandpa, I casteded a spell!"

"You sure did, buddy! See what all those robes do." I patted him on the shoulder.

"I'm gonna go talk to the owner."

"Armor, armor, armor, jumping, armor, dodging, dodging, mana regen..." I left Damon to it, and walked over to the purveyor of this... pop-up marketplace enchanted clothing store.

"Hi there, I'm Johnny." I nodded to Wally.

"Wally, I assume?"

"You assume correctly, looking for an enchanted robe for your wizard friend?"

"Sure, and also wondering what it would cost to have you enchant the clothing I have on, and what all kinds of enchantments you can apply."

"Oh!? Custom job, huh? Well the cost would depend on how strong of an enchantment you want, I can do up to third level, with the right materials. If you wanted armor, for example, I'd need to source more pink salt chunks. I used all I had on the robes your wizard is busily identifying. I'm out of materials. I'd need pure distilled water too, and some other stuff."

"In first world terms, how good is level three armor enchantment. Would it stop a bullet?"

"From a pistol, probably. A high powered rifle, hell no." Wally laughed, "Shit'll put a hole right through ya. But If you layered a few kinds of protection you'd probably be alright, still probably knock you on your ass. Like... If I enchanted a kevlar armored vest, it'd amplify that to be real bullet proof, even from a high powered rifle... and then if the shirt was enchanted too, and maybe a jacket on top also enchanted, you'd probably stop just about anything.

Still doesn't do much good if they shoot you in the face though."

"Ha, never does." I shook my head trying to clear the memories. I'd seen men shot in the face, too many. Shot a few faces myself, too.

"So, let's say I could get you some of that pink salt, and distilled water, what else would you need? And how long would the enchantment take?"

"Couple silver pieces of stuff I can get around here. Distilled water's not really a problem, I have a setup at home to make it. If we had all the stuff, take me ten seconds to do the job. It's the materials gathering that's the real pain with this power."

"I see." Balance: 31405. 34 I bought six pounds of pink salt chunk, and six gallons of distilled water. Plastic gallon jugs, but I wasn't too worried about it.

"Would this be enough for the job? Quality good enough?" Wally looked like his head was about to explode.

"Holy fuck, that's a lotta pink salt." He pulled out a pair of glasses that began glowing gently green.

"Identifying glasses?" If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

"Something like that," his jaw dropped.

"This is... very high quality. Water's good too. Damn."

"Excellent, so the excess can be your payment then? If we get the other materials?" He nodded vigorously in the affirmative. I raised my voice a touch so that Damon would hear, "My Wizard can go get what you need, if it is all available at the market here. Make him earn his new robe, and my continued patronage." Damon had stopped snooping through the robes, and had a dark green robe in his hand. When he stepped over.

"I found a dark green one, with a level two armor enchantment on it."

"Great, it's yours kid, if your boss is giving me all this pink salt, that is?" He asked to make sure, and I nodded.

"Great! I'll write you a list of stuff to get while I grind some of this down to be usable, and then we can get his clothes all buffed up."

"Oh, is ground better? Here." Balance: 31372. 12 A nine pound bucket of pre-ground pink salt appeared.

"Uhh..." Wally was at a loss for words as Lakshmi walked up with a fistful of lizard on a stick. Alloprat skewers, a bunch of them, two or three between each set of fingers, and each skewer with a few nice big chunks of meat on it.

"Ahh, also I'd like to have her armor enchanted, if possible." I took some of the skewers, and took a bite.

"Very chickeny... but tougher, and a little gamey. Needs salt."

"Y-yeah, yes. Yes, sir! Of course, I'd be happy to enchant your companion's armor. But... I can't not pay you something for these supplies, it-it's too much." I ripped open the big bucket of salt, and sprinkled some on my skewered meat, and some on Lakshmi's too when she saw what I was up to. I ignored Wally's stunned look at me using his precious enchanting materials for seasoning.

"How about any further enchantments I need while I'm in town you do for free, if I provide you the materials."

"For the rest of my life in this world, sir, and the next one." Wally pledged his services to me.

"Great!" Lakshmi said, handing some meat sticks to Damon, and even one to Wally, who took it, confused.

"I found a shop that sells bags of holding."

"Oh, excellent! Damon, stay here and get Wally's list, then go buy what he needs, and find us, we'll be around here shopping somewhere. I'm sure we'll stick out. Wally." Wally nodded at me before he looked at the free lunch he'd just been given. He shrugged and stuffed his skewer into his mouth and started scratching out a list in his ledger for Damon to take. As Lakshmi and I walked through the market she turned on her diagnostic spell and looked at everyone.

Seems invasive, but I suppose not all power usage is going to be perfectly ethical from my first world point of view.

"Almost everyone here has some sort of environmentally caused malady, or nutritional deficiency. We could open a clinic... or maybe we should only stay in this town for a few weeks so we don't end up with asthma too. The air isn't as clean as it could be."

"That is something to think about."

'Brian Greene's Gaping Bags' it said on the wooden sign. I gave Lakshmi a look.

"What? The guy you sold the water to said he's legit."

"Oh I am, sir. Quite legit." To prove his point, this Brian Greene fellow pulled a huge log from his tiny coin purse. This was the log you place other log chunks on top of when you're chopping wood. It was huge. The thing hit the ground with a heavy whumpf. Then he used the edge of the bag to suck the whole thing back inside.

"Excellent. How much do your bags cost, and how durable are they, and how much do they hold?"

"Ahh, well sir. Price is a sliding scale, the more it holds the more it costs, and costs do seem to rise exponentially." He gestured toward a rack with a dozen different colored little leather pouches.

"I've got some specialty coin purses that will hold up to a thousand coins, only costing a single gold piece. And of course larger bags, like this one, which would be several large gold, if it were for sale, but this one in particular is my personal bag. There's two more just like it over here if you're interested."

"I am." I let him show me inside.

"So Brian, I'm Johnny, nice to meet you."

"Charmed, I'm sure."

"So listen, I made a deal with Wally the enchanter to provide him some materials in exchange for getting the work done. Are there, perhaps, some materials I might trade you? Things that might be useful to you in your trade that were easier to get from the first world than this one." Brian narrowed his eyes at me in thought.

"What'd you get for Wally? He's almost my competition, you know. I could learn his armor enchants, and he could learn my spatial magic ones, but we each stay in our lanes."

"Pink salt, like fifteen pounds of it."

"That'll do a LOT of armor enchanting, holy fuck. What'd he pay you for that?" I shrugged.

"A promise to do any enchanting work I need done, if I bring the materials."

"That's a deal I'd take." Brian laughed.

"Any chance you can get me a bucket of pine tar?" I looked it up.

"Like for horse hooves?"

"Yeah, maybe? I honestly have no idea what it used to be for in the first world. I was a physicist there. It's the most expensive ingredient in the spatial magic enchantment. I normally go out into the woods with adventurer escorts to harvest and make my own."

"And what about gems, where you don't need the bag? Do you do that?"

"Nah man, nah. That's from the government store only."

"Cool, let's find out if this works." Balance: 31318. 47 A gallon bucket of pine tar for hoof care appeared. After a moment of surprise, he whipped out a set of his own identifying glasses and took a look. He had a good poker face, but his hand was slightly shaking in excitement. He stared at it for a while, thinking, I think, about what he said next.

"This is better quality than anything I can produce on my own. I was kind of joking before... I didn't actually expect you to just... summon a bucket of pine tar worth a fucking platinum piece."

"So is bag enchanting like Armor, where the actual enchanting is fast?" Lakshmi asked, her cute little froggy coinpurse in hand.

"So..." Brian seemed to make his decision.

"I'll do any and all enchanting you ever need, boss, if I get to keep the excess materials, like Wally does."

"Do you need any other materials?" Lakshmi asked, extracting the coins from her purse and getting it ready.

"No, I don't. I... Could you summon a second one of those buckets?"

"Easily, but let's eat what's on our plate before we get greedy for more," I said.

"Oh... I just... I want to try to do the biggest possible internal space I can, for you. Sir, ma'am. And... I might use most of this."

"If you run out, I'll get you more." He took the frog bag, and then his entire being started glowing. I could feel the magic flowing off him, like standing near an opened oven. Being nearby heavy magic use has a sort of 'heat' to it that you know you shouldn't touch directly. Brian Greene glowed blue. Really seemed like a missed opportunity to glow green, but I guess magic has its own rules. He pulled several tools I did not quite know how to describe from his personal bag.

One of them was - I'm pretty sure - an astrolabe. There was also a gyroscope, and then... three or four doohikies, and at least one whatchamacallit. I had no idea what those were. Metallic? Maybe. That one was pointy on one side, round on the other. Kinda looked like a very stabby buttplug. One of them had a handle, and looked like maybe it was for spreading pine tar. He stuffed his tools all into that bag, along with his entire right arm, somehow. I mean Magic, I guess was the how.

My guess was that he temporarily set up an extra space while he made it permanent, and bigger afterward. Watching him work was fascinating to say the least. As he worked on it, it looked like he only had one arm, then a moment later, that pointy thing poked out through the bottom of the other side of the bag and he used his non-bag-eaten arm to pull the bag off and put the pointy end into the bucket of pine tar. Brian glowed even bluer, and brighter, and started pulsing with light.

The bag seemed to siphon up the Pine tar faster than pine tar should be able to be siphoned, and when the bucket was about half empty the bag started spraying poor Brian in the face with it. He yanked the cute little frog bag up and away from the bucket, ignoring the spray he'd received as best he could. He took a moment to extract all the tools he had inside, and when he was done there wasn't even a stitch out of place, nor a hole in the bottom of the bag any longer. Somehow, the bag was clean, and he was a mess.

He tossed it back to Lakshmi, and then visibly Leveled Up. He did have the musical fanfare to go with it, and it cleaned him too, and of course there was a circle of light around him and a burst of fresh, clean air.

"Congrats!" I said, though Brian seemed to be embarrassed by leveling up in front of people. He blinked at me repeatedly, until finally he said, "There's a garage in there."

"Great!" Lakshmi said, and for a moment I saw her eyes flash blue.

"Oh! I've attuned to the bag." Her armor vanished, reappeared on her, vanished again, and then reappeared in a pile, then vanished once more, before reappearing on her person again.

"Got it all figured out?" I asked.

"I think I do." She put the armor back in the bag and looked at Brian with her own golden glowing eyes.

"Get Brian some pedialyte, he's dehydrated himself after that casting, quite badly, and leveling up doesn't seem to fix that."

"Sure." I looked it up.

"You want berry, grape, or cherry?"

"Cherry?" Brian answered, as a question. Balance: 31293. 14 A four pack of red pedialyte appeared, and Lakshmi immediately cracked one open and made Brian drink some.

"So, Brian. Fair deal, yeah, I owe you no money for the bag enchantment?"

"Oh... yes, very fair. Come back when you need another... maybe tomorrow, cause I'm mana-spent." He smiled.

"Anything else I can help you with?"

"Sure, while I've got your ear, any suggestions for where else a newcomer to this city should go shopping?" Brian gabbed, happily. He gave us several promising leads for other enchanters, specialists in both bludgeoning and piercing weapons, heavy armor - for Wally was truly just a cloth guy - and also the weird and wonderful. Most of it was in this pop up market space. That said, he told me of an actual permanent shop where I could go to get some identifying glasses of my own.

As we were leaving Brian's the shop keeper I'd sold the spring water to was rushing over, with a small gaggle of robed people in his wake.

"There he is!" He said, pointing at me, "He's the one that sold it to me!" I felt accused of something, the way he pointed. Each person had a bottle of the spring water in their hands, and the small mob surged past him and after me... Ahh... the seagulls had found me.