Three loud knocks awoke Arthur from his deep slumber, he only managed to get to sleep well past dark as a precaution. And now he was paying that price by being awoken without the proper amount of sleep. Arthur sat up in his bed and as he reached for both his clothes and his staff a second set of knocks followed. “Just a minute!” Arthur shouted out, he did not hear any more knocks after that.
Once he was half presentable he walked right up to the door and opened it to find Gaelin with another box full of ingredients. “Good morning Gaelin, please come inside.” Arthur waved the young elf inside and closed it behind him.
Gaelin placed the box on the nearby table and Arthur looked through it for a moment before nodding in satisfaction and handing him six copper coins this time. Gaelin looked down at the extra coin a little confused, but Arthur quickly cleared the confusion. “You brought me some of the plants I asked of you, the flammable ones are something I need for a small project of mine. Hence the extra coin.”
Gaelin was a little curious about what that might be but was smart enough to be happy with the coins he received. “Uh, sure thing sir. If you have anything else you want me to look out for just let me know.” Arthur smiled at Gaelin’s blatant want for a little extra money, if he needed anything he would let him know the next time.
With Gaelin gone he could take a proper look at what he brought this time. It mostly amounted to most of what he already asked for along with a handful of the flammable ones he pointed out to him last time. ‘This should be enough to create another vial's worth of alchemist embers. But for now I need to speak with this Osvald fellow Georgius told me about.’
Before heading out for the northern district where the address given to him by Georgius led, Arthur secured each of the windows and doors like he did before with large sheets of solidified earth. But this time he made a simple modification for the one covering the windows, he left a few large holes in them making them now resemble bars. There was enough space to allow sunlight to freely go inside, but anything larger than a cat would be unable to slip by.
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The trip to the northern district was easily twice as long as the trips to any of the others given it was on the opposite side of the city. Eventually Arthur reached the building where this Osvald supposedly did his business, the building in question was nothing like Arthur had even seen, it was some sort of bar with a few games of cards at every few tables. The games even had proper dealers with what he assumed was a proper attire for such a profession.
The building was distinctly high class and that was further displayed by the patron that were there, the woman by wearing faces full of makeup and strong perfumes while the men all wore bright colors like exotic birds that no commoner would wear out of simple practicality. Most of these patrons were seated at one of the well made tables with only a few men and women chatting up at the bar.
Arthur did not fit in all that well, it was so apparent that the guards donning chain mail that stood outside almost barred him from entering. That was until he conjured a few projectiles from pure fire and they let him pass by.
Most of the patrons paid him little attention, but the few that did would mutter something under their breath and return to their previous conversations as if nothing happened. Arthur walked straight up to the bar and took one of the empty seats towards the far right. The bartender was currency serving a trio of women that Arthur suspected were a bit more than just patrons, their clothes were a rather slim fit designed to attract attention.
Regardless, soon the bartender walked over to Arthur and asked “Want anything to drink?” The bartender spoke in a far more casual tone compared to how he spoke to some of the more extravagant patrons, but Arthur cared little for that.
“I'm here to speak with Osvald. I was told I could find him here.” The bartender looked Arthur up and down before nodding to himself. “Do you have business with him?” The bartender asked, clearly this was a semi-regular thing that happened.
“I was recommended him by someone who has done business with him in the past. According to him, Osvald is willing to sell some materials without the oversight of the guild that I require for my experiments.” Any doubt about who Arthur was was gone from the bartender's mind as he nodded and pointed to a room off to the far right side of the room. “Go through that door and turn left and you will find a door blocked by two guards. Tell them that Laras sent you to speak with Osvald and they should let you pass.”
Arthur smiled and gave the bartender a small thanks as he stood up and walked through the doorway. There were two ways to continue, one was to the right and the other to the left. Arthur decided to follow the bartenders directions and went down the left hallway. At the very end were two guards dressed the same way as the two from outside. When Arthur approached them the one on the right raised his hand to stop him and spoke. “I am sorry sir, but this is a restricted area. The bar is down that hall you came from and on your first right.”
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‘At least this one is nicer than the ones outside.’ Arthur smiled at the respect from this guard, clearly their orders were far different from the ones outside. “I have business with Osvald, the bartender sent me this way to speak with him.”
The two guards froze up for a second before they looked at each other and back to Arthur. “My apologies sir, you will find Osvald towards the back of the room. He is currently speaking with some of his clients so you may be required to wait.” Arthur gave a small nod as the guard reached from a key on his belt and used it to unlock the door. But to Arthur’s surprise the moment the door slightly cracked open loud music filled the hallway. When the door fully opened Arthur was met with something he had never seen before, it was a sort of party with blaring loud music of unknown origin that appeared to be from a large blue gemstone hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room. Arthur wearily entered the room and the guards closed it from the outside.
The whole place just felt so wrong to Arthur, everyone looked like they were happy and having fun as they danced and drank from large mugs, but in the corners he could see a handful of people either passed out or crying. The only interesting thing about the crowd was how diverse it was. Arthur noticed several different species of the animal people he would occasionally see throughout the city, there were some that looked like birds in all sorts of colors, a few different types of cat people, a spider person like the one from his pyromancy class, and a few other that were so few they didn’t particularly matter. ‘I really hope I don’t need to come here every time I want to buy something from this Osvald.’ Arthur was not exactly comfortable with the close proximity to so many people at the same time, and the worst part was when someone would walk up to him and try flirting with. For the most part he could tell if it was a man or a woman he was speaking with, but for a few it wasn’t so simple and whenever he would ask they would just say something along the lines of “I can be anything you want me to be.”
Upon hearing that for the first Arthur quickened his pace towards the back of the room in search of Osvald to buy the materials and get out. Squeezing past several groups of wildly dressed people dancing to the strange music Arthur eventually found someone that fit the description of Osvald. A middle aged human with very pale skin, his hair and beard were both a deep brown and long but well maintained. He was sitting at a table that was connected to the wall along with the surface he was sitting on, next to him were two young and attractive women. One was human while the other was an elf.
On the opposite side of the table was a far more shady figure covered by a black cloak and seated with two others also wearing dark cloaks. The cloaks concealed everything about them, almost as if there was a thick black smoke trapped within the cloak preventing anyone from seeing past aside from the wearer.
“I am sorry I am unable to help you Mrs. Mulu, is there anything else you wanted to ask of me?” The presumed Osvald asked the person who turned out to be a woman. The Mrs. Mulu instead stood up and was followed by the other two with her. “Unfortunately that is not the case, if I have anything else to ask of you I will contact you through a communication sphere.”
“But we have not exchanged contact codes yet, how will you call me let alone me knowing it is you.” ‘Osvald’ looked at this Mrs. Mulu in confusion.
“I have my ways of knowing, and I expect you will know when I am calling you.” Mrs. Mulu said in a very ominous tone as she began to walk away, as she passed Arthur she gave him a brief look before she returned her gaze towards the door.
The man Arthur presumed was Osvald sighed and took a sip from his drink before he even noticed Arthur was standing there. But once he did he put on another smile and waved for him to sit down. “Welcome my friend, please take a seat.” Arthur followed the request and sat at the edge of the strange seat. It was like a chair and a bench at the same time, it was comfortable like a chair but also wide like a bench. Overall it was quite nice, but Arthur would rather sit on it himself rather than share it with someone when he spoke with Osvald.
“Are you Osvald? I was told you are more than willing to supply magical materials that the guild likes to keep an eye on.” Arthur took a comfortable position but kept at least one hand ready to cast a spell, the last thing he needed was to be cornered in such a place.
“Well you are quite straight forward aren’t you? I am Osvald and I do in fact deal in magical materials and components like whoever told you. Is there anything in particular you need help in acquiring?”
“Yes there are a few things I am interested in buying for my experiments, I have a list here of what I am interested in. If you could give me the prices of each of these I would be very thankful.” Arthur handed over a list of everything he needed aside from the phantom membrane as he had a way to acquire that with the guild with suspicion. The mana stone and the ink along with the recipe was on the list though. He looked over it while jotting down the prices after a few moments of thinking, after about three minutes he returned the list to Arthur with the prices. Most of what he was charging was quite normal and to be expected, the mana stone on the other hand was a whole ten gold coins.
Arthur’s eyes nearly shot out of his eye sockets at the number, which was around the same price as his whole house and it was just for one of the cheapest mana stones on the market. Osvald clearly noticed the look in Arthur’s eyes as he decided to speak up. “I do admit the price for the mana stone is a bit above what the guild sells them for, but only about a single gold coin more than what they do. You don’t need to buy it right now if you don’t have the money on you, you can instead return some other time when you have the money with you.”