Breakfast was not long in coming. Alyn the baker was awake and working next door, and when he heard the sound of laughter and voices coming through from the Emporium, he guessed that Cal and Max would be needing breakfast for themselves and a group of their friends.

Since he’d moved into his new shop and gotten established, Cal had developed an easy friendship with Alyn and Bertha, who ran the bakery together. He and Alyn saw each other nearly every day, and Cal had gotten into the habit of spending ten or fifteen minutes chatting with Alyn most days. Alyn liked to talk, and Cal liked to listen. Alyn was a good speaker, and he made Cal laugh with the way he talked about the doings of his business, the problems he faced, the awkward customers, and by telling stories about how he and Bertha had built up their business over the years. Mostly though, Alyn chatted about whatever was going on with the bakery that day, and Cal reciprocated with small news about his own progress.

It was an interesting balance they struck, sharing details about their businesses without going into too much detail about things that they might consider trade secrets. Their trades were very different, and though the baker and the enchanter liked each other and enjoyed sharing their news, they were careful to maintain a comfortable, respectful level of distance from the intricacies of each other’s business. Cal had trade secrets that he was a great deal occupied with - his eyeglass, his spiderwebs, and the experimentation with blank cores - but that he wouldn’t want to share. He had no doubt that Alyn also had details of his trade and ways of doing things that he would not have wanted to discuss in casual conversation.

So it was that except for the times when Alyn’s frustration at some problem he was facing boiled over - as with his complaint about the weak batch of yeast some days before - the baker and the enchanter kept their conversations mostly centered around things they had in common. They talked of the weather, of taxes (every merchant in the city paid the same flat rate no matter how much they earned), of the condition of the block in which both their shops were located, and sometimes they gossiped about the other merchants elsewhere on Sandweaver Street. Sometimes Bertha was there too, but she was less inclined to hang about chatting. When Cal caught her on her own, she was more loquacious, but when Cal and Alyn were chatting, she would usually just say hello to Cal and ask after his health before bustling out of the shop again, back into the large work area where the stock was kept and the baking done, or out into the city on some other business.

Alyn confided in Cal that Bertha’s hands and wrists were painful from arthritis now that she was getting older, and in recent years it had become so bad - particularly in the early mornings - that she could no longer knead the bread dough. Alyn was happy to do the preparation of the dough these days, and Bertha concentrated on the other parts of the business instead.

Despite the fact that Alyn respected Cal’s privacy and his trade secrets, the baker couldn’t keep his eyes widening when he pushed the door of the Emporium open that morning and saw the gleam of treasures on the table. He wrenched his eyes up from the counter and called, “I heard you were up and about. You lot want some breakfast?”

He was wielding a large cloth bag that steamed in the early morning cold.

“Yessss,” Mortex hissed. “Breakfast for my friends and lots of coffee for me!”

Laria laughed and Alyn grinned at Mortex. “Coming right up,” he said. “Grab this bag of food, Mortex, and I’ll be back in a moment with drinks.”

Mortex took the bag of food from Alyn. The baker was used to Mortex by now, and though he still could not resist the involuntary shiver caused by the wraith creature’s presence, he covered it well.

When he’d handed the bag to Mortex, Alyn glanced again at the counter and the cores and treasures that gleamed there. Then he cleared his throat.

“I’ll be back in a moment with the drinks,” he said.

Mortex stared after Alyn once the baker had left. “I think I’ll go and get the drinks, rather than having Alyn come back round,” he said in a voice that tried to be neutral, but didn’t quite succeed.

“Good idea,” Cal said. “Thanks, Mortex.” They all took the wraith’s meaning, of course. No one could have missed the fascinated gleam in Alyn’s eyes when he saw the cores and the other loot. Alyn was trustworthy, a reliable man, and Cal liked him. Still, there was - if not outright contraband - certainly some potentially problematic goods laid out on the counter. Better for everyone if Alyn’s curiosity were not tempted any further than it already had been.

“I’ll move the goods back into the workshop,” Max said. “You lay out the breakfast here on the counter. We’ll eat before crafting.”

Cal met Max’s eyes and nodded his thanks. Max carrying the loot through to the back would also mean that the adventurers wouldn’t accidently see the webbing that was - as far as Cal knew - still drying on the desk in the workshop. Even though Cal understood that Max had covered the webbing up in some way to hide the purple glow, it might still be pretty hard to miss if the hunters came into the workshop to hang out and eat breakfast.

The realization they were now hiding a few things made Cal feel suddenly a little uncomfortable. They were hiding their high-level cores and monster parts from Alyn, and - for the moment, at least - the great mass of harvested spiderweb from their adventurer friends. He felt a bit bad about this second one, and considered for a moment telling the four hunters all about the webbing, but he thought better of that straightaway. It was safer to err on the side of caution, and to respect as much as possible as promised to Maddie Turner.

If it had been only Laria in the shop with him and not the others, Cal realized he would probably have just told her. But he felt that he knew her better now than he knew Hutgyrd, Mortex, and the silent, inscrutable Gretchen. For now, he’d keep his new developments quiet, and hopefully it wouldn’t be too long before he could be more open about all his activities.

As usual, the breakfast from Alyn’s bakery was excellent. The thick-cut bacon was just the right level of crispy, and the fresh, savory herb bread was just the right balance of chewy and springy. Butter from south of the river came up fresh each morning to the early markets, and Alyn was generous with it. There were crumbling short pastries packed with melting cheese, soft onions, and a light, fluffy potato mash, and there was fruit now, too, some sharp but sweet red berries that must have been the result of a lot of work by farmers in heated glass houses in the south of Roon.

“Still winter,” Max said as he tasted the fine berries. “It’s remarkable that they can grow these at this time of year.” His eyes flickered to where the two enchanted plant pots sat on the little tables flanking the front door.

Cal smiled. “I’m sure the farmers have some help,” was all he said, and then gave his full attention to the food.

Even with the strong coffee, the adventurers were yawning by the time the meal was finished. The excitement of delivering their goods to Cal was now over, and their lack of sleep was beginning to tell on them.

Stolen story; please report.

“Aye, it was a rough crossing,” Hutgyrd said in answer to a question from Cal. “Those boats make the passage through the Siren Straits so often that the crews seem to think little of the sea conditions, but the tossing of the boat stopped us sleeping, that’s for sure.”

Cal nodded. The Siren Straits was the name given to the channel of water that lay between the coast of the Monsterlands northwest of Roon, and the Jut River estuary, where ship traffic flowed out from Jutlyn to the surrounding islands and into the open sea beyond.

The Siren Straits were notoriously rough, as the currents from the open sea to the north were forced through the narrow channel between the northern coast of Roon and the shore of the Monsterlands.

“We came straight up to deliver our goods to you,” Mortex added, “and even I am sleepy.” The wraith’s creaking voice trailed the words in a long, slow hiss, like air escaping from a bellows. Gretchen yawned, and Hutgyrd stood and stretched. Only Laria didn’t seem fatigued. Cal had heard that elves didn’t have the same needs for sleep as other folk, but still there was a heaviness around her eyes and a puffiness to her cheeks that spoke of weariness.

“How about you guys go and get some rest, then,” Cal said to the adventurers. “This enchanting work is going to be complicated and it’ll take some time. I’ll do better with it if I have the place to myself. I’ll send you a message when I’m done. You’ll be at the Drunken Dragon inn, right?”

Laria frowned. “I’m not staying there this time,” she said. “You can reach me at the Elvish Arms, up in Richmaker Row, in Yellowrigs.”

Cal nodded, making a note of the address on the pad of paper he kept under the desk. Yellowrigs was a quieter district that catered to travelers with a bit more gold to spare. The guest houses there were more genteel than the rowdy inns and lodging houses that served the Docklands.

“Gretchen, Mortex, and me will be at the Dragon,” Hutgyrd added gruffly, “but we’ll be asleep. Just let Laria know when you’re done and she can get in touch with us. Good luck. Looking forward to seeing the results.”

The dwarf hopped from his chair, his weapons clanking and his heavy leather armor creaking. Cal smiled. Hutgyrd, like most dwarves, was a practical, pragmatic person, all business. He didn’t have much interest in the magic Cal was about to do, only in seeing the result.

Gretchen winked at Cal then stifled another huge yawn, giving Cal a glimpse of two rows of sharp, yellow teeth. He hiked his pack up onto his back and moved up beside Hutgyrd. He reached over and tapped the dwarf rapidly on the back of the hand. Hutgyrd’s hands were covered in heavy leather gauntlets, but the tapping of Gretchen’s fingers made a loud pop-pop-pop sound on the hard leather.

Hutgyrd laughed as he interpreted the goblin’s coded communication. “A drink?” he said. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to a beer before bed as well.”

Laria rolled her eyes.

“I’m coming too,” Mortex hissed. “Good luck with your magic, Cal.”

The dwarf, the wraith, and the goblin all headed out together, tramping down the street in the direction of the wyvern cab rank at Gobylun Square. They’d ride back to the docks in the back of a wyvern cab and within half an hour, Cal guessed, they’d be either drinking or sleeping in the insalubrious surroundings of the Drunken Dragon Inn.

Laria lingered after the others had gone. She’d moved toward the door after them to say goodbye, but hadn’t followed when they’d gone out. Cal knew that she had more interest in the process of his magic than the others did. Having apprenticed for the Pedantus Guild, her knowledge of different kinds of magic was extensive, and her interest in Cal’s work extended beyond just the supplying of cores.

“Would you like to stay and watch the magic?” Cal offered politely, though even as he said it he realized how little he wanted any audience beyond Max.

She smiled slowly as if guessing his thoughts, then shook her head. “I don’t think that would be the right thing to do,” she said, then her smile broadened as she saw the relief in Cal’s face.

“That eyeglass of yours is quite a tool, though,” she continued. “The others are just interested in results. They just want to hunt monsters and make money. But I have to say, Cal, I’m really impressed by the functioning of the glass. It’s… Well, it’s new. That’s the only way I can put it. You know I worked for the guild. I saw things when I was there - things I probably shouldn’t have seen, too - and I heard stories that were even stranger. But I never saw or heard of anything like your glass. It’s remarkable.”

Cal smiled. “I’ve only really scratched the surface of what the eyeglass is capable of. I’ve a long way to go, and I think I’m going to learn a lot from making another one. I’m glad you found it useful.”

“Useful is an understatement. It took me a little while to get to grips with how to use the glass, but once I’d worked out how it functioned, we were able to track and capture monsters way better than ever before.”

“Tell me about the tracking,” Cal asked, interested.

“It was amazing,” Laria said. “Before, we’ve mostly had to rely on going to places where we know we’ll find particular monsters, then looking for physical tracks and traces. But with the glass, I was able to see colored trails, and even get data about the monsters from the trails before the monsters themselves even came into view.”

“What kind of data?”

“Age, type, level,” Laria said, “plus an estimate of how far the creature was from our current location, and how fast it was traveling when it made the trail. Before, we’ve not been confident enough in our tracking ability to venture beyond the beginner areas of Westmountain Shore, but with the new information we could head right out into the mountain foothills beyond.”

Cal was interested. He didn’t know much about what it was actually like to do monster hunting, and he would have asked a few more questions, but at that moment Laria yawned and held up a hand.

“Let’s talk more about it some other time,” she said, “I’m beat. We elves don’t need to sleep as much as other people, but we still need it, and I’ve had a long few days. I’m looking forward to a bath and a good rest. Take your time and send me a message once you’re ready with the new eyeglass.”

As soon as Laria left, Cal went into the back room with Max. Straightaway, he saw that Max had indeed covered up the mat of spider web with a blanket, but also, to his surprise, he saw that the webbing still glowed bright purple.

“Interesting,” he mused. “By this time, the smaller piece was already dried.”

Max nodded, pulling the blanket aside. Little threads of glowing web adhered to the blanket as he pulled it away. “It makes sense, of course,” Max said. “We should have thought of it before. This is a thick mat of the stuff, and it’s going to take longer to dry. It’s pretty tacky still, though not quite as sticky as it was yesterday.”

“Let’s hang it up,” Cal decided. “We can use that old frame over there, the broken clothing enchanter in the corner. It’s not working, so there’s no danger it’ll have any influence on the webbing, and that’ll get the web out of the way for now, too.”

The clothing enchanting frame was a tall item rather like a hatstand, but with many more horizontal prongs than any normal hat stand. For higher-level enchantment of larger garments, it would be useful, and Cal fully intended to fix it up at some point, but for now it made a good spot to hang the matted webbing.

After twenty minutes of careful work, they had draped lengths of webbing over most of the stand’s protruding sticks. They hoped that breaking the webbing into smaller pieces like this would also help the drying process.

Once they were done, the draped webbing glowed an eerie, unnatural purple in the corner of the workshop. The desk was clear, and the loot from the adventurers stacked at one end where Max had laid it.

Cal looked over the stack of supplies, rubbing his hands together with anticipation as he looked over the gleaming, glowing treasures. He took out his eyeglass, and Max got the notebook and quills from the front of the shop.

“Right, let’s have a closer look at what our friends have brought us,” Cal said as Max dipped his quill and got ready to take notes.

Max grinned at Cal’s anticipation. “Today’s going to be a good day for crafting,” he said.