The morning passed by slowly, there were plenty of people who came around to browse but they didn’t get many buyers, it was clear their little shop was probably doing the worst, but they still got a few sales and were able to attract some kids with pocket money once they say them playing with the toys they made.
It annoyed Ben that his statues weren’t selling too well considering the price was pretty low but not many of the adults were giving his area a look, with parents occasionally coming to pull the children away. He had talked Thera into a small game of frisbee, although given that the table was about six feet long they didn’t have much real throwing distance to work with. Still it managed to pass the time and distract him from the conversation they had in the morning.
He hadn’t planned to share his story but it had felt good to get his feelings off his chest. Taking time to talk about your problems certainly helped but now he had a new one. Thera had seemed uncomfortable since the conversation. He wasn’t sure what to do about it and he didn’t mean to create a bad atmosphere so he was at a loss.
“I think I should go,” She suddenly spoke up after passing the frisbee back to him.
“Oh sure, sorry if my tale made you feel uncomfortable,” He said, a little down that she was leaving already.
“Wait it isn’t that!” She yelled in a hurry to explain herself. “I think a lot of people aren’t shopping here because I’m around. You’ll probably have better luck if I go home.”
“Oh is that all? Then don’t worry about it. Plenty of kids are buying the tops and yoyos, it may be disappointing that not many people are buying the statues but I wasn’t originally planning on selling them anyway so it’s not a big deal.”
“But…”
“Well if you want to leave I won’t stop you, but you shouldn’t let others not liking you keep you from living your life, you know? For what it’s worth I'm enjoying your company.”
It was an embarrassing thing to say, she didn’t know how he could manage it with a straight face, but she felt herself smile under her hood. “Alright I’ll stick around. So what will you do with all the leftovers when the day is over?”
“Probably store them in the shop. As long as people ask where our buyers got their toys from they will hopefully direct them to me, it would be a nice way to get a little side money. Falk knows some merchants too so maybe some of them would buy up my stock.”
“That's a good idea, uncle has some good connections.”
They continued to talk like that for a while, just passing the hours with idle chit chat and the occasional sale, when they were eventually interrupted by an unruly customer.
“Oh not now,” Thera muttered under her breath and it didn’t take long to see why.
“So you’re still working together? This must be some sort of record for you Thera,” Skoe said as he walked up to their table. “But you should still leave the guy alone before anything bad happens.”
“Skoe we’re just trying to enjoy the market, if you’re not going to buy something then buzz off,” She told him with an exasperated sigh.
He was alone for now at least, the two women he was with when they first ran into him a month ago were nowhere to be seen, but Ben wasn’t in the mood to deal with this. Still, he would be civil as long as he was a customer.
“Pardon me sir, but are you interested in anything we’re selling? If so I would be happy to help you out,” He said with his best customer service smile.
“Look guy, I asked around, your name’s Ben, right? Why not come with me for a bit. Let's have a talk.”
“Thanks but I have to mind my table and all, is there anything I can do for you?”
He saw a vein start to bulge on the four-armed man's forehead as he tried to politely brush him off.
“Look man, I’m just trying to help you here. Thera’s got her claws in you and if you don’t get out soon you’re going to end up like Roan.”
“I warned that asshole off multiple times, whatever happened to him is his own problem,” Thera almost shouted, full of indignation.
“He may not have been a good guy but you sent him off his fucking rocker. The same thing’s going to happen to this one if you stick around."
Ben placed his hands on the tabletop And took a deep breath. It looked like things weren’t going to end as peacefully as he would have liked, so he may as well get a rise out of him. “Listen man you’re either a customer or a nuisance, if you're a customer buy something and if you're a nuisance then get lost, you're blocking potential buyers,” He tried to sound as rude and dismissive as he could to really get the point home and he got exactly what he was looking for.
“Listen you-” He started to say as he threw all four of his hands onto their table, before everything came tumbling down. The front legs of it broke and all of the toys and statues he had made fell to the ground, most of them breaking in the process.
Thera was outraged to see all of Ben's work be damaged and destroyed like that while Skoe stood there stunned. She was about to start tearing into him but Ben yelled out first.
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“Hey, are there any Guards around? We’re having a bit of an issue!”
Ben yelled knowing full well there was at least one stationed nearby just in case any problems like this occurred, but it seemed there were also a few off duty who broke off from their families to see what the commotion was.
The one on duty looked at the mess of broken stone scattered around before turning to Ben. “Alright what exactly happened here?”
Ben pointed an accusatory finger towards the man and told his tale. “This guy came up and started harassing me and my coworker before breaking my table. Look at this mess, how am I supposed to sell any of this now?” He tried to put on the saddest look he could while he stared down at the destruction of all his hard work. It wasn’t hard, he was genuinely a bit angry at the moment. What matters is if it would pay off.
The guard for his part was professional about the matter and listened to Skoe’s side as well. “And do you have anything to say about what happened?”
“I didn’t mean to break his crap, I just wanted to get him to stop working with the girl.”
“And why did that lead you to breaking the table?”
“Guh, I didn’t mean to. I must have put in a bit more strength than I thought.”
“Huuh, alright you both separate but wait nearby, I’m going to talk with the other tables in the area and then we’ll sort this mess out.”
He left to talk to the people in the surrounding area. Thera was simmering with rage and it looked like the girls Skoe was with the first time they met ended up finding him.
“Skoe what sort of mess did you get yourself into?”
“We told you to just leave them alone today, didn’t we?”
“I just wanted to talk to the guy was all, I didn’t mean for anything to happen,” He said awkwardly.
While they had their talk the guard came back and pulled them together. “Alright after talking to the other tables it sounds like you came to cause problems. I don’t care if it was an accident or not, ultimately you destroyed all of their merchandise, so I’ll give you the option of either paying it off or performing however much community service it would take to cover the costs.”
“Uhg, I’ll pay. How much is it?”
The statues were probably the second most expensive items on the table that broke, next to the children’s guitars, and it looked like the kites were damaged too. At least the yoyos and tops were fine but it wasn’t going to be cheap to pay off. He had been selling the statues at the equivalent of $20 apiece, with 48 of them smashed as well as the other things, he was looking at a bit more than the average weekly pay of a rank five adventurer.
“Is it really that much?” Skoe asked when he heard the price.
“Looking at the guy's work I would say you're actually getting a good deal,” The guard said as he picked up one of the less damaged pieces. “There's some nice craftsmanship here.”
“Well thank you,” Ben said, not having expected the compliment. “If you’re ever interested, come by to Falk’s shop, I always have a few on hand.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. So do you have the money?”
Skoe turned to look at his companions for a moment. “Think you could help me out a bit?” He asked the girls.
They looked far from impressed but they pulled out their cards nonetheless.
“You’re paying us back after our next few hunts.”
“You really need to have some sort of savings in place. Don’t just waste it all on new gear and booze.”
He stood there and took the verbal lashing from his companions as they all tapped their cards against Ben's until the necessary funds were added. With that done Skoe and his team turned to go before the guard stopped them.
“Not so fast. You covered the price of his items, but you still have to deal with breaking the table. That's town property and all. You have the same option of course, pay it off or work it off, either way we need to talk to the event organiser.”
He looked even more defeated when he looked to his friends. “A little help girls?”
Instead they completely ignored him.
“What do you say we try the stall over there next? I hear they have good crombus buns.”
“Sure. After let's check out the busker before his show's done, I’ve heard a lot of good things about his juggling act,” And with that they left hand in hand as their companion was dragged off to settle his debts.
“Alright, that was a lot funnier than I thought it would be,” Ben laughed as he turned to Thera, who was still filled with anger.
“How can you be so calm, he just broke all of your work.”
"Don’t worry about it. Anyway, now that everything’s sold, want to wander around for a bit?”
She tried to suppress her anger. She had been looking forward to seeing the market and she was just thinking that she should try harder to get along with Ben. If he had no problem with what happened then she should try to move past it.
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They spent a couple hours looking around the different tables that were set up and ultimately had a lot of fun. Thera hadn’t been to an event like that in ages and Ben was seeing a lot of new food and art for the first time. When noon rolled around they took their cart back to Falk’s shop and Ben grabbed what they would need for their hunt when Thera spoke up.
“Are you sure you’re okay with what happened? I still feel like if all of my hard work was destroyed like that I would be pissed.”
Ben took a moment to think before speaking. “Well since we aren’t at the market it should be fine to tell you, but don’t go spreading it around. I wanted it to happen.”
“What?” She asked in confusion.
“I piled up a bunch of enchantments on the part of the table legs near him. It was my first time doing it on an area I wasn’t directly touching so the mana cost was drastically higher and it was a lot harder to pile them up in the right areas but it worked out pretty well if I do say so myself.”
“Wait, why though?” She didn’t understand how he could let the things he had worked so hard on break so casually.
He held up three fingers and started counting them off. “Well he was being a dick to you, he was being a dick to me, and it seemed like a good way to make some money. Plus now he’ll probably think twice before giving us trouble again.”
She couldn’t help it, Thera immediately burst into laughter to think that he did all that just to screw over Skoe.
It was the first time Ben heard it.