No one asked anything else, so the owl left.
The people started getting in line to disembark. Velvet saw Ethra and Alrai also on the line.
Ethra glared at her with disdain, so she took that personally, going to bother them. There was still some time for her group to get down, after all.
“Hey, if it’s the bad choices duo! Oh, I remember that my spell dislocated your shoulder. Did you pop it back in?”
Ethra opened his mouth to answer, but Alrai spoke faster. “I was the one that did that, actually.”
“Niceee, did you also tell him that now that his first time dislocating a shoulder is done, the second is even easier?”
“Are you threatening me?” Ethra squinted at her.
“I’m just saying that you’re free to challenge me again. If you dare.”
I need someone to try the dream spells on, after all.
“Does the offer extend to me?” Alrai kept including himself in the conversation.
“Of course! I’m curious as to how much a Siberetti can bend.”
“Probably all the way.” Ethra said, making Alrai turn to give him a kind of dangerous smile.
“Oh my! You should’ve told me I was third wheeling!” Velvet mocked.
“I thought you knew already.” Now it was Ethra’s turn to give Alrai something. An elbow to the chest.
Which ended with both of them hurt, since Ethra used the arm he had dislocated yesterday.
Velvet clapped. “What a great slapstick comedy!”
“Go back to your damn friends already.”
“See you in two weeks!” Velvet left them, going back to Gertine and Nereus. Gertine looked exasperated at her.
“What were you even doing?” She asked.
“Building relationships.”
Gertine’s eyebrow twitched.
“Do I have to do that too?” Nereus asked, looking to where Ethra and Alrai were.
Now her other eyebrow also twitched. “Of course not.”
“I still have a piece of underwear Navros ripped off him.”
“Why do you still have it?” Gertine massaged her temples when Nereus shrugged. “Whatever, our turn is now, let’s go shopping.”
Like that, they finally entered the Mergifari, leaving the airship behind.
Hearing what the concealment spell did was very different from being affected by it. A few seconds ago, she was looking at Gertine. Now, a stranger in a cloak was in her place.
“...” Velvet tried to say her name, but nothing came out. “Wow, it’s strong.”
“I warned you.” A neutral voice she didn’t know or recognize came from where Gertine was, answering her. “Try to not get lost. If we get separated by more than two steps, our voices will not be heard by each other.”
A stranger that was in place of Nereus talked. “They put … and … in a ball!”
“Can you focus? Getting separated now it’s too easy.”
“Should we grab hands?”
“Like children? Yeah, okay.”
They grabbed hands, but there was a bit of confusion.
“Is the one supposed to guide us at the front?”
“No, I'm in the middle, change positions.”
“...” They changed hands.
“Okay, better now. Let's go.”
Velvet ended up the last one, so that meant Nereus was in the middle.
“Gang, move out!”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“I just know which one of you said that.”
“Ehe.”
Like that, they entered the market.
It was a bit like a normal market, with stands full of ‘vegetables’, trinkets, clothes, weapons and other things. Except that everyone looked the same, a creepy cloaked figure of a meter eighty with an unrecognizable voice.
“These are the official shops, so we can come later. It’s better to go to the end and then walk backwards.”
“We follow you! Hm, now that I think about it, this cloaked figure spell looks creepy, but, knowing we are walking holding hands, it’s kinda cute.”
“Do you think the cloak is real fabric?”
Velvet fondled it a bit, “... I cannot rip a piece, so it seems just like an illusion.”
“Ejem. Here we are. I want to go shop by shop, so if you see something you like, just tug.”
“Yes, yes.”
Velvet was more interested in the general prices of things. After going through a few shops, she had a general idea.
Grimoires, the professional ones, went from 500 auris to 10.000.
Artifacts had a bigger range, but from 300 auris to whatever.
The fae bells that Gertine used cost 100 auris, a set of twenty. Velvet bought one set with pain, feeling her pocket lighter.
“The … gifted one of those for winning.” Nereus should be referring to the Queen’s Tournament.
“Just you wait until there’s something you want!”
“Food. Oh, and … mentioned we may need an alchemy set.”
“Royal or petty?”
“Petty.”
So he meant Igern.
“I already have one, but those are better if you buy them at official shops.”
“How much…?”
“300”
Velvet cursed under her breath.
“How do mages even make that much money?”
“Arena if you like fighting, or selling potions, charms, exotic animal parts, magical beasts or magic plants.”
Potions and charms were the cheapest things, unless they were made with already expensive materials.
“Where is the Arena?” The one asking was Nereus.
“In the limits of the market, we will pass it in a minute. Still, only one person can enter to fight, so we will separate if we do that.”
“Then I’ll go later.”
As they were passing by an artifact shop, something inside it exploded.
Velvet’s first instinct was to cover her face, especially her eyes. That made her let go of Nereus’ hand.
Udulluay came flying to check the shop, talking to the owner.
“Can you two hear me?” She received no response, which she was kind of expecting already.
So she went to check the explosive shop.
No use crying over spilled milk! We will see each other anyway!
“Cause of accident, unauthorized handling of an artifact on exposition.” Udulluay talked. Velvet could hear him even when he was further than two steps.
It also seemed the silence penalty didn’t affect the shop's owners, since Velvet could hear with absolute clarity the refined, diverse and probably multicultural string of insults, curses and threats that they were directing towards the apparent responsible of the explosion.
“I am speaking! You two shut up!” The owl ended up tired of the two figures arguing. Velvet could only hear one side.
“Five thousand auris in damage! How are you expecting me to- Uh. R-really?”
Velvet saw the other figure pulling out a few strange looking bills.
Oh, those are vons. Never seen one in person before.
Vons were the currency of nobles and extremely rich people. One von was equal to 1000 auris. They came in bills of one, ten, fifty and a hundred.
They paid all of it in vons… damn.
Velvet waited for the cloaked figure to leave, before approaching the shop’s remains.
She picked some pieces and parts that seemed usable, or that didn’t fully break.
“Are you interested in crafting artifacts?” The shop’s owner, now happy of having been paid for the damages, wanted to do small talk.
“I don’t know, guess I’ll find out this month.” Velvet looked under the dust. “What was the thing that exploded? I thought the Mergifari forbid firearms and similar things.”
“They do, but there are legal loopholes in that law. As long as the weapon functions with magic components, it's an artifact, not a firearm.”
“Oh, so that’s why there’s sigils on the pieces.”
“Exactly. That idiot connected two pieces from different artifacts and activated a magical reaction.”
“Idiot or genius, that was a strong boom.”
“A genius would buy the thing first, and take them to a safe place to experiment.”
“Idiot then.” Velvet finished picking things, putting them on the counter. “I want all of this.”
“Hm, 200 auris.”
“I offer 25.”
“Twenty five? Are you insane?!”
Velvet separated a few pieces. “This one has a damaged sigil. This one has a part broken. This one got burned.”
Then she saw the shop owner grab a half burned stool, sit in front of her, and roll up their sleeves.
“What about the materials? They are still magic. 175 auris and everything is yours.”
“So you want the price to be based on weight? This one is made of wood, and this one is iron. 30 auris.”
…
After a half hour, Velvet got all the pieces and the ‘Crafting for Dummies’ book for 50 auris. She put them inside the suitcase, going to the next shop.
She only needed to save 300 for an alchemy set, and a 100 for emergencies.
That would leave her with 430 auris from the Doyle’s reward to spend.
“Better make it count.”