Chương 57: Tidying Loose Ends

Vraxious- Hopes Path Vrax and Torvald had been busy; the morning after the monster surge, they had begun the journey back to Hopes Path to get the Spriggan sapling back, do a bit of shopping, and see if the guild would let them jump two ranks. Most of it had gone well; the trip there was blessedly smooth, Vrax purposefully ignoring the acid-burned, treeless stretch of forest his dragonflies now ruled.

The guild had paid them handsomely for the honey, and between that and the loot they had garnered in the Forsaken Lands, Vrax was reunited with his glowing living spear, and Torvald had a disconcertingly large sack of gold. After paying the merchant back, Vrax still had nearly fifty gold himself. The only issue was the guild master was out of the office, and Borub refused to just upgrade them to silver rank without his okay.

So Vrax and Torvald found themselves standing in the offices adjoining the Beast market, flush with cash and with a day to kill before the guildmaster would return. Vrax was keen to stay out of the limelight with bounty hunters showing up for him and all. He still didn't know who had put out a bounty on him, but his money personally was on one of the Nobels he had skirmished with at the Dragons Maw. P robably that poor fucker Charles that Sunshine straight up ate...

that guy is going to have nightmares for a long time. Vrax Looked out a small side window that gave a good view of the sprawling rows of cages, "Sooo…. shall we…" Torvald made a shush gesture.

"I swear, Vrax, if you were about to say, 'Browse the beast market for another creature of darkness and cruelty...'" He trailed off threateningly. Vrax made an innocent face; the effect was somewhat lost with his face ominously half-hidden beneath the hood shadows highlighting the still-pink scar across his cheek.

"I would never... we need more things like the conductors, fluffy and friendly!" Torvald stared at him blankly.

"Fuck it, fine… To a magic store, we go!" Vrax acquiesced.

"Better," Torvald grumbled, leading the way away from the beast market. Vrax looked back with longing, savoring the myriad of roars and more exotic sounds that followed them. I'll go back later. What's the worst that could happen? I don't even have a ton of gold this time. Torvald led them a few streets away into the grand facades of the magical stores. It was nearly a block of stores dedicated to most forms of magical goods imaginable.

An enchanted tailor's store loomed three stories high in the center of the block; live models sashayed outside with garments hypnotically shifting between resplendent ball gowns and golden-trimmed armor. Next to it, a squat stone building with thick barriers of opaque red light instead of windows teased customers inside with a simple sign: "Dwarven Forged, Archmagus Enchanted."

The wares visible through the barriers were anything but simple spiked sets of full plate that hummed with power and shields of ice frozen in time; even a golem was visible through the window acting as a guard. Vrax stopped.

"This one?" he asked excitedly, looking at a pair of bracers that were constantly blooming and wilting wildflowers. Torvald snorted, "Yeah, maybe in ten years after we kill a dragon and steal its hoard." He nodded towards the ten-gold entry fee to even have the privilege to browse the store. Gods knew what the pieces actually cost.

"Okay, yikes, got it. So where did you go last time when you got your ring?" Vrax looked up and down the street at the myriad of shops, wondering which one it was. Torvald pointed towards a slanted building that looked more like a noble's hunting cottage than any normal storefront. Cozy red tile covered the roof and the small balcony overlooking the street from the second floor.

The front facade of the building was a warm redwood slat that had a somewhat charming painted depiction of a knight in shining armor being chased by a schoolchild with a burning sword in one hand and what was obviously a runic shield in the other. Above the mural the words "Adventurer's Toystore" were scrawled in an almost comically exaggerated yellow paint. Vrax raised an eyebrow but followed behind Torvald as he strolled through the open door into a snug store.

The floors were the same wood polished to a shine and lightly flickering with some kind of spell. The actual store was arranged in a somewhat insane manner. Three large bins were filled with everything from daggers that oozed a constant shadow to saddlebags that constantly twitched as they adjusted straps for no apparent reason. They sat in the dead center of the store wedged against a round checkstand. In a circle past the bargain bins were shelves tightly packed with rows of identical items.

One shelf held nearly thirty identical metal helms with a singular eye shining a beam of light from the forehead. The edges of the store, though, held very out-of-place glass cases, none the same size or shape, but all of them were very high quality and had objects with prices in at least two digits of gold. Vrax took it all in and then turned towards Torvald.

"What the hell is going on here?" Torvald gestured to the tubs.

"Grab bag of random goods sold from dead adventurer families or scavengers." Then he gestured towards the shelves.

"Mass market goods—a lot of them are from apprentice smiths and enchanters who made things like forty helms with a light enchantment for the essence gains and offload them at cost." Finally he pointed at the things along the wall.

"Also scavenged or sold from dead adventurers, but really good stuff." Vrax was a bit impressed at the sheer quantity of items in this store, if not the overall quality. The variety had some promise. The shopkeeper was a neat-looking elderly gentleman in a flawless red pair of overalls with dozens of small enchanting tools sticking from his breast pockets. He brightened upon seeing Torvald. Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Mr. Glen! You came back and so soon; I assume the ring has been working well!" the shopkeep said, already pulling a small display covered in glimmering rings from under the counter.

"Yeah, Chris, I'm still not what I would call stealthy, but it was a big help." Torvald responded. Vrax snorted quietly. Yeah, big guy, it did help, but the bar for improvement was set pretty damn low. Vrax remembered the first time Torvald went into the forsaken lands with him and had almost gotten them killed by leaning on a sapling so hard it snapped while they were hiding from a pack of wolves. The only thing that saved them was that the tree breaking also scared a small herd of deer into running away.

Vrax nodded politely and started rifling through the bargain bins. His funds were limited compared to Torvald's, and he had a good chunk of gold earmarked for a certain elderly elven shopkeep. Vrax inspected an odd set of gloves made from interlinking hooks of bone; he flipped the tag on it over to read the description.

"Aden's miraculous fish-catching gloves, pole, and lure all in one—just insert hand into water and wait, 4 gold. Huh... weird... potentially useful but weird… Vrax rifled through the next bin, hoping to be the one to find a gem hidden amongst the trash. Like every other shopper before him, he stopped on a jar with a plunger on top and interlinking chambers. What the hell is this thing? Vrax squinted at the tag so worn away from handling it was barely visible.

"Pressurized terrarium for Deep Beasts, cycles air and moisture with minor spatial warping. 5-gold" Vrax was about to set it back down when he imagined how many dandelion seeds he could probably fit inside it. Nope, put it back. That's how you kill a city when you accidentally drop the damn thing. Let's not carry around the murder tube just because it's a fun idea. Vrax begrudgingly set it back down and began browsing the cases on the edges of the shop.

Torvald and Chris were looking at a finely crafted bag in one such case. Vrax almost choked when Chris dropped an entire broom and a shield into the small bag; they dissipated inside the backpack-sized bag without issue. Holy shit, Torvald, how much do you have saved up... those bags are way over a hundred gold even used. Vrax looked at his sapling spear hanging comfortingly against his pack once again. Oh yeah, that's right. I might just be bad with money.

He stopped at a case near the far corner of the store; his stigmata had started sizzling against his skin in reaction to the magic box before him. Vrax leaned in, squinting past the glass; it was a simple wooden box with subtle animal carvings across its surface. The runes of sealing glowing an angry red across the wood were anything but simple, however.

"Mystery box, sealed with unknown enchantment, fifty gold." Yeah, nope, maybe next time. Torvald was cashing out at the counter; he had a shiny new backpack less than half the size of his previous one and a rather glorious new leather vest, a deep brown color with green stitching and silver buttons. Vrax came up curiously, looking over the new gear as the merchant counted from an actual pile of gold coins so tall it was nearly sliding off the counter.

I know you love having a heavy bag of gold, but seriously trade some in for some damn platinum next time.

"So what does the new sleeveless vest do?" Vrax asked curiously, poking at some obvious mana threads weaving through the leather.

"It has a subtle air-purifying effect," Torvald said, giving a great sniff of his own pits. Vrax stared at him for a moment, starting to chuckle, then his face contorted to astonishment.

"Wait, you aren't joking; it's a fucking deodorizing vest?"

"The soul render stink Vrax it took days. Days! To get that smell to completely go away... never again," Torvald said with a surprisingly haunted look.

"Alrighty then…let's finish up here so we can go back to my second favorite shop in the city!" Vrax said he was already counting out coins for his planned purchase.

"What's your second fav…oh no…" Torvald stopped in realization and started adjusting his topknot in the nearest reflective surface. Vrax and Torvald stepped into the familiar winding terrariums of Luna's Enchanted Arborium. The ancient elven woman looked up in pleased recognition, seeing Torvald duck slightly as he walked through the doorway.

"Oh my dearies, back again so soon and with a new look as well." She practically cooed at Torvald as her eyes wandered a bit too much across his new vest. Vrax interrupted before this could devolve.

"Luna, pleasure to see you again. I believe you have a Sirens Call Daisy with my name on it?" She looked up at the case that held its delicate, nearly translucent purple form hidden beneath a sea of green leaves.

"Ahh, of course, young man, twenty gold coins," she said, easing the plant from behind its neighbors out of the case.

"You said eighteen last time," Vrax countered.

"Inflation... and you wanted it enough to come back…" She gave a wicked wink towards Torvald and carefully set the plant down in its pot on her counter; its enchanting lullaby was quietly filtering through the room. Torvald had already started staring at it with a slightly glazed expression.

"Nineteen, and I'll buy a dozen of your best specimen jars at their listed price." Vrax grumbled back; she wasn't wrong—he would have bought it even if it had taken every coin he had.

"Deal, darling, deal," she said and began carefully wrapping his purchases. Vraxious practically fled down the streets toward the shitty inn they had booked on the edges of town; as much as he wanted to have a luxurious bath and silken sheets, not getting stabbed in his sleep by one of the many, many people he had indirectly pissed off was more important, and the shabby, half-empty inn was perfect for that.

He rushed up the rickety staircase outside the building that led directly to their second-story room and tucked in at the one piece of furniture in the room other than the beds, placing his newest prize on the wobbly wooden desk to begin its changes. Torvald had a few errands to run, so he would be uninterrupted for a while. The Sirens Call was just as beautiful as ever, the bell-shaped flowers drooping from the fragile stem.

The main flower still held that almost ethereal translucence around the edges of the royal purple petals that ended in ragged edges like a feather. Vrax first adapted the main flower; the petals lengthened and took on a bladelike quality to the feathered edges. Alright, its psychic lure quality still affects me even when it's adapted, but far less so. I need to be careful that I don't turn this into something that will lure me to my own doom.

Vrax slowly began increasing the volume of the haunting melodies the plant sung. At first it became distracting; he kept finding his focus broken by the gentle song, but by the time the gentle song had become a ballad of hope and loss that sailed through the room, Vrax was starting to feel like the plant was sinking claws into his mind, trying to rip his gaze back to it and only it for the rest of his short existence.

[Mana 110/163] Vrax pulled himself from the desk, squinting his eyes against the humming in his mind. He walked to the window to throw it open and get some much-needed air in his temporary twisted laboratory. The window swung wide, and Vrax froze in place.

"Oh fuck." The street outside the inn was covered in a dozen or so gently swaying citizens aimlessly searching high and low for the source of the beautiful songs playing much louder than Vrax had realized. Torvald was among them, looking slightly lost as he waved his hands in beat with the crescendo of the song.