Installment 017 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment017.png]

Roderick's shop had no written sign marking its location. Despite this, it was easy to find due to the constant sounds of hammers on metal and the roar of the forge's flame.

"Listen to that!" Wikwocket marveled. "They must have a whole armory going in there! Swords! Axes! Suits of armor!"

There were, in fact, axes, though they were forged more for wood than battle. There were also mining picks, hammers, chisels, buckets of nails, and iron spikes. The only "armor" was a small selection of helmets, clearly intended to protect heads from falling rocks rather than weaponry.

The wall and door separating the small shop area at the front of the smithy from the forge area muffled the sounds of metalwork enough to permit conversation. A stout young woman hefted a barrel full of shovels into place.

"Ho there!" she said, "What do you need?" She turned to look, and spotted Gruntle. She gasped and lunged to grab a hammer before she realized there were "normal" people with him. "Gods! You could have warned me. That must be 'Gruntle'?"

Still breathing heavily, she slowly lowered the hammer.

Al nervously watched Gruntle rise back up from the slight crouch he'd dropped into as the manic, bestial grin faded from his face. He seemed disappointed.

"Yes, sorry about that. I was worried people might not be comfortable around him, are you okay? We can leave if it's a problem." Al answered.

"It's fine, it's fine, Roderick keeps telling us about him, I've just never met him before. I'm Hilda, one of Roderick's apprentices." She took a deep breath and gave Gruntle a skeptical look. "He's not going to punch me, is he?"

"You can go first." Gruntle offered.

She seemed startled to hear him speak.

"...um...thanks, but I'll decline." There was an awkward silence while she regained her composure. "Well, is there anything we can help you find?"

"Magic?" Wikwocket tentatively asked.

Hilda just laughed. "Our work is good, but hardly magic. If we could work magic, we'd have a much fancier place and we wouldn't have to work so hard."

Wikwocket sighed. "I had to ask."

"If you're looking for magic, the closest thing you'll find for sale in Silveroak is probably at Gerhardt's apothecary. I'd be careful with that though, he's a little high on his own supply, if you catch my meaning."

"Well, I think we're on our way to hunt a monster," Al said, carefully not looking at Gruntle. "Anything you can recommend?"

Hilda rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "We do make spears for boar-hunting. That might be useful if you're any good with a spear. We make the arrowheads for the local hunters as well."

"Polearms was infantry stuff for soldiers closer to the front of the line, I never really got any training with spears. You guys?" Al asked his companions. Wikwocket and Bote shook their heads.

"I can throw a spear," said Gruntle.

"You wouldn't normally throw a boar-spear," Hilda pointed out, "The spearhead has a crossbar on it. You stab whatever you're hunting, and the crossbar keeps them away from you while your companions finish it off."

Gruntle's brow furrowed in confusion.

"If you keep them away, how do you bite them?"

Hilda opened her mouth to answer. Then, she closed it again. Finally she said "Up until now, all of our customers would wait until it was killed and cooked before biting it."

"Oh."

"What about silver, could you make my sword all silvery?" Wikwocket asked.

Hilda's face brightened. "Oh! Nobody ever asks me for that! Yes, I actually can! Just leave it with me for a few days and I can do it for about 100 gold coins. I've been practicing, I think I'm pretty good at it now!"

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"...a few days? A hundred gold?"

"Well, yes, it's detailed work, you can't rush it."

"We've got to get going in the morning," Al explained.

"That would limit what kind of work we can do, yes. I'm sure you must at least need some tools, don't you? Maybe some stone-breaking tools or climbing gear?"

Wikwocket scoffed, reaching for her left sleeve. "I have all the climbing gear I need right ... here?"

A look of horror fell across her face as she remembered a certain chimney with a fine silk rope still dangling down it from a grappling hook.

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In the end, it had not been the most productive commercial transaction, but Hilda did offer to add a protective yet attractive pattern of metal studs and small plates to Wikwocket's leather armor, as well as supplying a new grappling hook. They haggled down to a 40 gold coin price for getting the work done by morning. Then, they got advice on where to try to buy a pack-animal and perhaps a cart.

That was an even less productive visit. As they approached the stables, the various animals inside began making increasingly loud sounds of nervousness. This turned into outright panic when they tried to enter. The stablekeeper, nearly as panicked himself, had insistently begged them to leave immediately as he tried to calm his frightened collection of horses, donkeys, and mules.

"Lot of good meat on those," Gruntle had observed.

"Not helping, Gruntle," Al grumbled back.

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Al was relieved to find the market uncrowded. A few townsfolk wrapped in cloaks against the chilly air wandered among the carts that were selling wheat, chickens, butter, and handcrafted goods. Gruntle's presence here didn't seem to cause any disruption, though Al noticed many of the vendors seemed to nervously hunker down or look away. The only real exception was a man selling skewers of meat. He appeared to go immediately from bored and uncomfortable to enthusiastic when he spotted Gruntle. He waved the party over, and by the time they reached him, Gruntle already had a handful of coins ready and was visibly salivating.

The man greeted them. "Wonderful to see my favorite customer today! And it looks like you've brought me some new ones, who will surely appreciate my cooking!"

Gruntle's handful of copper and one or two silver coins was eagerly dropped into the merchant's hands. Al guessed Gruntle hadn't even bothered trying to count them, but the meat-vendor expertly estimated their value with a glance before pocketing them. He smiled widely as he handed over a selection of meats on sticks, reciting what each one was.

"Grilled beef! Vinegar-marinated chicken! Roasted venison! Smoked trout!..."

More than one belly rumbled in approval. The party left the happy vendor behind with less inventory but more coin, as they went looking for what they'd really come for.

"Everybody needs rope," Al speculated, "so somebody here must have some. Look, that woman over there seems to have some coils of it." He pointed towards a table laden with rope and twine, with a suddenly worried-looking woman sitting behind it.

"It can't just be ordinary rope!" Wikwocket insisted. "The whole point of silk is that it's very strong, so it can be light. It's also soft to hold. If I tried to coil thirty feet of ordinary rope up my sleeve, my whole left arm would bulge out and be chafed completely within a day, and I'd be wobbling off-balance walking around! Maybe we should just go back and get the one I had to start with?"

"No time. Unless we want to be wandering the roads in the middle of the night, we'd lose a whole additional day before we got where we're headed. The villagers' lives are in danger, we shouldn't take any longer than we have to."

"Perhaps a cloth merchant then," offered Bote. "That couple over there seem to be the only seller here with any variety." They pointed out another table with rolls of dyed cloth mingled with displays of several colorful balls of yarn hung out for inspection.

"Oh, pretty!" Wikwocket enthused. "I'll go ask!"

Al let her get well ahead of them so he could gauge the reaction of the couple as they approached. The cloth-merchants watched Gruntle warily, but seemed less bothered than some of the other merchants. They smiled at Wikwocket's eager greeting.

"Hi! You got any silk?"

The couple looked at each other, bemused. "That's a rich-people cloth for nobles and suchlike, isn't it? Not much call for that around here. We got flax and wool." said the woman. The man looked up as the rest of the party approached.

"That's the good one, right?" he asked Wikwocket quietly, furtively pointing at the approaching adventurers.

"Oh, yeah, he's kind of cranky about being a wizard if you forget he can fight, too, but he's a decent guy!" Wikwocket said, gesturing at Al.

"You're very funny." Al said in a voice devoid of amusement. "Yes, he won't hurt you. This is Gruntle," he answered the man.

"Those things are dangerous", he said, "but I heard those folks up at the manor tamed one."

"Tamed isn't really...," Al began, but stopped. The distinction wasn't really important here. "Yeah, this is him. He's with us now."

Wikwocket, meanwhile, was examining a skein of yarn. "It's so soft! How do you get this wonderful blue color?"

"I can tell you it starts with flowers, but the rest is a trade secret," the woman answered, tapping her nose conspiratorially.

Wikwocket tugged thoughtfully at a length of it. "How strong is it?"

A few minutes later, everyone was treated to the bewildering sight of a dangerous demonic creature holding a length of blue yarn in the air while a small gnome bounced and swung from the other end.

They decided it would hold Wikwocket's weight safely enough, especially if she doubled two lengths of it together, while still being light and soft enough for her purposes. They weren't confident it'd hold the weight of anyone else in the group, but there wasn't really a better option.

"Now can we go see the magic?" Wikwocket asked as Al paid for the yarn from the party's funds. Al sighed. He'd had a small hope she'd forget about that. But, then again, maybe there would be something useful for them there anyway. He gave the cloth-merchants a friendly smile.

"Do you happen to know where we can find Gerhardt's apothecary shop?"