The light was already dimming as they walked inside, which meant it was too late in the day to buy anything; all of the stores would be locked for the night. It also meant that the tavern would be busy. Sophia wasn’t looking forward to that, but if they were lucky they’d be able to find someone they knew and join their table.
Sophia looked towards Dav. “Think we should try to get Rensyn to let us into the Armory or just go get dinner?”
“Dinner,” Amy answered immediately. “I didn’t even know I was hungry until I could smell the food.”
“Food sounds good to me,” Dav agreed. “We can ask Aymini about Rensyn on the way in; I expected him to watch us try out our new Abilities, but he wasn’t there.”
Sophia couldn’t smell it yet, but she had to admit that thinking about food was already making her hungry. “Food it is.”
The tavern was just as busy as Sophia guessed, with absolutely no open tables and very busy wait staff. Sophia let her eyes wander across the room for a moment, but she didn’t get very far before a lack of color caught her eye. Was that the Quinn twins? And were they sitting next to Lady Essia?
More importantly, were those empty seats at their table?
Sophia hurried across the busy room with a grin. “Mind if we join you?”
“Sophia!” Lady Essia’s startled expression shifted to a wide grin. “Of course! We just got back to the Registry; you have to tell us what’s been happening here! We were stuck in the temporary base for days while that storm was over the city and then Samuel insisted that we stay out there and kill corpsevines! I think he’d have done that even if Father didn’t tell him to.”
Sophia blinked at the sheer fervor in the girl’s voice. She sometimes forgot just how young Lady Essia was, but this brought it home. One thing about her words bothered Sophia. “Wait, while the storm was over the city? Wasn’t it over you, too?”
The Mage-Chancellor’s daughter shook her head. “Nope. We could hear it, but it only rained as it passed over us after it left the city. In some ways, it was lucky; after the rain stopped, a new group of Called finally came and replaced us there. Would you believe they even had a note from my father to Samuel?”
Sophia could guess why the city’s ruler wanted his daughter surrounded by people he trusted outside the city right after a plot to unseat him was discovered. It really wasn’t hard to connect the dots. She wasn’t sure if Lady Essia knew the details. “Do you know why?”
Lady Essia’s braids lifted when she shook her head. “Samuel wouldn’t say. It made him really sad so I didn’t push. I’ll ask Father when I get home; he’ll tell me. He always does.”
Sophia nodded slowly. That was probably the best way to handle it, since the girl was confident she could find out by asking. “Did you have a party during the storm? We did; Amy called it a Death Day…”
They talked for hours about everything from the strange storm to the changes in the corpsevines since the Challenge was killed, as well as the Abilities they’d chosen. Lady Essia already had her plan put together, and the large number of Wisps she’d received when the Challenge was completed and the threat was ended along with the ones from the corpsevine cleanup afterwards meant that she’d been able to advance until she was nearly ready to pick up her third level.
Fortunately for Sophia’s peace of mind, Essia didn’t ask to travel with them to Izel. Instead, she asked them to delay their departure another day so that she could wish them a “proper goodbye” that evening. Sophia was happy to delay that long; she wasn’t sure they’d manage to leave in the morning anyway, since they still needed to buy supplies for the trip.
Lady Essia didn’t know much about the area around Izel, which she called the “tribal lands.” Amy grinned at that and said that was the way the clans liked it; they wanted outsiders to stay in Izel. Essia looked disappointed, but quickly moved on to talking about how she wasn’t ready to leave Casterville. When she was ready, she’d go to Rockport. She had a plan worked out and spent longer telling Amy about it than Sophia really wanted to hear.
Rae and Moti were relatively quiet, but they seemed happier than when Sophia met the Quinns. They were less forthcoming about their Ability choices than Lady Essia, but they were very clear that they planned to stay with her in both Casterville and Rockport. Sophia wished she’d had more of a chance to get to know Rae, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen any time soon.
The only thing that they didn’t talk about was the fact that they were the people who completed the Leveled Challenge. For Sophia, that was because she didn’t want to talk about Samuel’s plan. She couldn’t come up with a way to talk about it that wouldn’t lead there, and she’d rather talk about flying anyway.
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By the time they went to bed, it wasn’t just Dav that was annoyed at being unable to fly.
Feather Line Break [https://i.imgur.com/536uGTI.png]
It took most of the day to manage their shopping and in the end, Sophia was pretty sure they only finished because they already had most of the supplies they needed between Sophia’s pack and the gear Amy used when she traveled from Izel to Casterville.
It was a pleasant surprise for Sophia when she found out that both Dav and Amy could ride. She wasn’t too surprised about Amy, but Dav was a city boy, and a poor one at that. It had never occurred to her that he might have learned to ride the same way he learned to fight, in games, but he was actually a very good rider. Sophia was actually the worst of the three, because most of her riding time was on creatures other than horses.
Amy insisted on warm clothing for both Sophia and Dav, and it took a while until she was satisfied. They eventually found what they were looking for at a shop that sold high-end clothing and had somehow ended up with a lot of the flame beaver hides. The fur was part of an enchantment that would warm up the wearer of the clothing. It wasn’t precise, but the person wearing the clothing could affect the temperature to some extent by adding more mana.
Most of the women’s clothing was too restrictive for Sophia; she wanted to be able to move in her gear, in case she had to fight. She eventually managed to find one that was less restrictive than the rest; it was almost too big, but that simply made it easier to move. It was green and red velvet with reddish brown fur trim and golden embroidery; a blue enameled brooch covered the topmost button, the only one visible from the outside.
Sophia had to admit that it looked pretty good, even if was more elaborate than she preferred.
Sophia [https://i.imgur.com/N5wKyK8.jpeg]
Annoyingly, Dav had less trouble than Sophia. He was tall enough to use the men’s cloaks designed for hunting; all he had to do was find one that was the right length. The shopkeeper somehow managed to talk him into a leather vest to wear under the fur-trimmed green cloak.
Dav [https://i.imgur.com/z95w5Z8.jpeg]
Once they had the trip supplies straight, they made time to look into upgrading their combat gear. What they had was functional, which made it less important than being able to travel safely and comfortably, especially since there was a wide range of prices for better combat gear.
Amy took them around to a number of small shops and loaded up on cheap alchemicals, everything from the energy drinks she’d brought to the Challenge to temporary charms to deter monsters. They were sold in large bundles, because it took several scattered around a campsite to have any effect and they only lasted a single night, but Amy thought they were worthwhile.
Sophia was more interested in the alarm talismans, but she ended up buying some “charm paper” and “enchantment ink” instead. They weren’t the same as what she was used to using for runescripts, but they should work for a single night, they were far cheaper, and more importantly she could actually set the boundary.
Amy said that good portable alarm enchantments existed, but they didn’t find any in Casterville; even if they had, Amy said that they cost as much as a good set of second-upgrade enchanted armor, which made the paper and ink seem even cheaper. It would take a little time each night to scribe the runescript in her notebook onto the charm paper, but that was a small cost compared to even cheap armor and Sophia was certain that second-upgrade armor wasn’t cheap.
Armor in general turned out to be a problem. The fact that the armor Dav had was better than anything they could find wasn’t a surprise, and neither was the fact that Amy was happy with the enchanted armor they already had. When Amy found out that Sophia’s armor wasn’t enchanted and couldn’t be attuned, she insisted that they look for some that could.
Nothing they found came even close to the quality of her current armor, despite the damage it had taken in the time she’d been in the Broken Lands. Dragonscale armor was lighter, more resilient, and more protective than anything they could find in Casterville.
Instead of new armor, Sophia settled on an enchanted leather armor repair kit; it wouldn’t replace lost or broken scales, but she could use it to do almost anything else. She could even use some of the scales that someone slipped into her back back home for repairs, as long as they lasted. She might have to source some supplemental leather if the armor took enough damage, but that was all.
Once she knew how good Sophia’s armor was, Amy started trying to find someone who could enchant it. Unfortunately, no one could do it quickly; the best offer they got was “leave the armor here for a couple months and I can probably get it done.” That wasn’t acceptable, so it was something they’d have to handle once they were in Izel.
Weapons, on the other hand, were definitely available. Amy managed to talk Sophia into getting a spear and a shield that she could use with the spear or with the sword she already had. They were minimally enchanted, with an enchantment that surprised Sophia: Image Shift.
The name only made sense after she knew what it was, but what it meant was that both the spear and the shield could literally turn into an image of themselves. The enchantment only worked with individual attuned items, which limited its use, but it seemed like a great way to carry things. The only real downside was the fact that it took both mana and time to restore the item, but Sophia figured that would be fine; she still had her sword and her collection of knives. Being able to turn the two bulkiest things into tattoos was worth it.
Trying out the enchantments led to one other surprise: Dav’s weapon could do the same thing. It became a far more elaborate tattoo that covered his entire forearm, instead of the small symbol Sophia’s spear and sword became on her hand, but the ability to make it disappear and reappear could be useful under the right circumstances. Dav didn’t expect to use that property of his weapon often; it simply took too long to return to its solid form.
tattoo [https://i.imgur.com/mDA862X.jpeg]