A couple of hours later, Gato returned to Alfheimwood. Now… what am I supposed to do here? I don’t have any plans. I’ve got a free day.

He walked through the main gate in the town’s eastern wall, heading right to the weapons market, which was closer to the center of town than the other markets. Of course, given the layout of the town in question, one would think that the weapons market would be near the blacksmith’s workshop. One would be wrong. The blacksmith’s workshop was, to be honest, next to the south gate. Along the southern wall were barns and stables for horses and cattle and sheds to store their tack and food. Then, along the western wall, were open-air markets for various imported clothes, which were all brighter than average. Along the north wall was the residential center of town, which included the mayor’s mansion right next to the wall itself, so that a garden could grow in the area. The eastern wall supported many food markets for items such as grains, fruits, vegetables, and meats. In the center of town was the town square, with the governmental administration building fronting the square on its west side and the weapons market on its east.

After some weaving through the crowds of people entering the eastern gate, he made it to the tents that housed the different weapon shops. He was about to walk into the first tent when —

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—Gato growled upon seeing this irritating box. You’ve gotta be kidding me… isn’t there any way to understand what these boxes even mean?

He sighed before he moved to enter the tent. He had just opened the flap when —

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—wait, what?! What are you saying?!

As Gato looked into the tent, the shopkeeper, standing inside, said, “Welcome to my humble shop, young man. I have come from a long way away, and I am interested in selling quality wares to the people of this town. Might you be interested in learning more about the weapons I have to sell?”

Gato walked into the shop, as if his body was under compulsion to view and purchase weapons. What the heck’s wrong with this picture?! Why am I not moving my body on my own?! He soon stopped moving when he was in front of the stall in between the shopkeeper and him, making him sigh in relief.

“What is your name?” the shopkeeper asked.

“Gato, son of Alexander.”

“Ah, you must be from one of the nearby farms. Are you here to pick up a new weapon for personal use?”

Gato nodded and asked, “Who are you?”

“Ah, right,” the shopkeeper said. “My name is Tristan Heydrich, and I am just a simple weapons dealer, nothing more or less.”

Gato asked, “What weapons do you have in stock?”

“Ah,” the shopkeeper said, walking to a chest in the back right corner of the tent. “Are you in for a treat, young Gato.” Opening it up, he pulled out a sword and scabbard that had to be as long as Gato was tall. “This weapon is a masterwork blade called a Zweihander.” He turned to face Gato with the weapon in his hands. “It comes from my fatherland, Deutschland, and is very much superior to the weapons of this land. However, nobody believes this claim of mine, nor the claim of others who know better.”

“Is that right?” Gato asked. “How much are you charging for it?”

The shopkeeper glanced at the price tag on the hilt, before placing the Zweihander down on the countertop. “Hmm… tell me, what is your highest denomination of currency?” he asked.

Eh? What’s this guy going on about? “I have a few silver coins, but nothing past that,” Gato said, shaking his head.

“Ah, I see,” the shopkeeper nodded. “This weapon is worth about four-fifths of a gold piece.”

Gato felt his eyes were about to pop out of his skull. Four-fifths of a gold piece?! That’d be 800 silver pieces! Isn’t that a case of highway robbery?!

“Hmm?” The shopkeeper looked Gato in the eye. “Is something the matter?”

“Mister Heydrich,” Gato said in shock. “That’s an outrageous price you’re charging. I mean, I know you have to have a profit on this, but that price is far too high. I don’t see how you could sell the sword at all.”

“In all honesty,” the shopkeeper picked up the weapon and scabbard, “I have marked this weapon down by a lot. Believe me, I at first was going to charge five fold the amount I’m charging now.”

Gato slammed his fists down on the countertop. “You mean to tell me you priced it at four gold pieces?!”

The shopkeeper nodded. “I have no customers who would purchase this weapon,” he said with a sigh, “but I am a fair man in this world. I will charge you only four-fifths of a gold piece. If you can’t afford it now, then I’ll hold on to it until you can, ja?”

“Deal,” Gato said, shaking the shopkeeper’s hand. “I’ll pay for it when I get the money somehow…” He then looked at the other weapons in the tent. “Now… how much are these worth?”

“Which of those weapons perk your interest, young man?”

“I was thinking of a sword of some sort, but I’m not entirely picky, to be sure.”

“I see what you mean. How about I show you the different weapons I have in stock that meet your requirements of price range?”

Gato felt his face flush. “Uh-oh…”

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t have a lot of money to make up the difference, I feel.”

“Well, that’s a problem,” Tristan said. “Maybe we should talk about the price differential for this one, at least when you get more money on hand.”

Gato nodded, before looking at the nearest weapon to him in the tent. “Hey, what’s this? It looks like a three-pronged spear of some sort.”

“Ah, that? That’s a trident.”

Gato thought back to what he was told the day before. “Oh, right, that’s what a trident looks like. Thanks for telling me that.”

“You are most welcome, although I doubt you’ll be able to afford it.”

“How much is it?”

Tristan pulled out a book from under his counter and opened it. “The trident I have left goes for 50 silver pieces, which I don’t know if you have that amount of money.”

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What the… that’s outrageous! How am I supposed to pay for this or any other weapon on hand?!

Gato spun to face Tristan. “Is this weapon even one of your more expensive weapons, barring the Zweihander?”

Tristan shook his head. “I’m afraid that the trident is actually one of the cheaper weapons I have in stock. My apologies for bringing your hopes up so much, young man.”

Gato grimaced. “It’s fine. I just need to figure out what the quality of each weapon is supposed to be like from this point forward.”

“I understand. Believe me, I know what you mean.”

As Gato was about to say something in response, however, he spotted something from out of the corner of his eye. “Are you aware that there’s several gold coins outside of the lock-box you’re supposed to put your coin in?”

Tristan looked in the direction Gato pointed at. “Oh, boy… this is not a good thing at all.”

“I know, right? Do you need help to put the gold back where it belongs?”

Tristan glanced at Gato. “Not right now, no, but I appreciate the offer. Thank you for thinking of it.”

Gato nodded. “I just felt you needed the help, mister Heydrich.”

Tristan sighed before he walked over to the nearest of the gold coins. “I suppose this is going to be a rough time for myself, but what can I do?”

Gato shrugged. “I wish I knew the answer to that.”

Tristan kneeled down to pick up the gold coins he had that littered his tent area. “Well, here’s hoping this is a good supply of legal tender for every… one… wait a second, this isn’t right.”

Gato hurried over to the merchant. “What’s the matter?”

“This doesn’t look like a coin from the Kingdom of Sylvania to you, does it, young man?”

The gold coin in question had a cross-like shape on one side, and the face of a bull on the other. Gato pulled out a single silver coin from his money pouch and winced. There’s just no way that gold coin is the same legal tender in Sylvania…

The silver coin that Gato had in his hand had a pair of crossed long swords on one side, and the face of a woman on the other, if the flowing hair was any sign. This was just a dirty joke all around.

“You’re right, it doesn’t,” Gato said. He put the silver coin back in his pouch. “What are we supposed to do?”

“Maybe I should go talk with the town watch about this,” Tristan said. He stood up straight and headed over to his seat at the counter-top. “I’ll have to close shop early for today, young man, but I’d appreciate it if you could help me put away the weapons in this shop beforehand.”

“Sure, I’ll be happy to do that with you, mister Heydrich.”

With that, Gato walked over to the nearest pile of weapons and picked them up one at a time. Several of them looked like a kind of dagger that had a strange blade shape, a hilt that was barely long enough for one hand, and a pommel that had a hole in the middle of it. To top it all off, they had no cross guard, nor did they have any sheathes to go with the weapons.

Then there were the pole-arms that had elongated and curved blades to go with the weapons. He didn’t know what the deal was with them, but he didn’t want to be a nuisance to the shopkeeper, so he continued to pick them up.

Next, he picked up a few sheathed swords that had to be from a foreign land, what with the blades themselves having a curve to them and a non-standard cross guard to them. Mostly, the guards of each of these swords were circular, with most of them being a variant of a flower design that had to be more or less akin to a four-leaf clover.

Finally, he picked up a pair of sticks that were connected by a chain in the middle. Okay, one of these days, I’ll have to figure out what these weapons are all called, but not right now.

“Mister Heydrich, I picked up a pile of weapons, which I couldn’t discern where they came from,” Gato said. “Where do you want me to put them?”

Tristan looked at him before he walked over to a chest that was behind the counter. “Follow me, young Gato, will you?”

“Oh, sure,” Gato said. He walked behind the counter and walked over to the chest. “What’s the deal with this chest?”

“This chest has a special feature attached to it, one that will allow for the owner to store about anything within it for a fraction of the weight that would be normal for it,” Tristan said. He opened the chest. “It’s also got a nice security feature attached to it, too. It refuses to open to anyone other than the assigned owner.”

Gato nodded, before he saw something on Tristan’s right index finger... the same finger from the hand that opened the chest. It was bleeding. “Do you need a bandage to close your wound?”

“Ah, no, not yet,” Tristan said. “This has to do with the security feature I mentioned. The chest is blood-locked, meaning it will only take my blood to open the storage locker that this is. It’s because our blood is unique to each one of us, like our fingerprints.”

Hey, wait a second… what’s he talking about? We have prints on our fingers? This is the first I’ve heard of that.

“That look of incredulity is telling. I’m sure you realize that.”

Gato blinked rapidly for a few seconds. “Sorry, but you have to admit, it’s not every day that one hears claims about prints in our fingers.”

Tristan nodded. “I’m aware, yes. To think, though, everyone has a unique print for their fingers compared to everyone else.”

“Can you prove this to me?”

“I’ll prove it to you, young man, if you so wish.”

Gato nodded. “Sure, that works for me.”

“Perfect,” Tristan said. “Let’s put away the weapons we brought over here first. Then we’ll be able to get the finger printing example ready for this.”

Gato shrugged. “I don’t see why not, mister Heydrich, but I hope you can do it without wasting time that you could use fruitfully by talking with the town watch.”

Tristan paused as he was about to put away a pole-arm, before he turned to face Gato. “You have a valid point, there. Why did I forget that so suddenly?”

I wish I knew that, too, mister Heydrich, Gato thought. “I hope you have a better chance of getting this determined when you are less likely to forget that.”

“True, I get that. However, this is a thing that I feel needs to be taken care of immensely.”

“How immensely are we talking about?”

“It’s so immense, it’s to where we can share the knowledge with everyone else in the world. Even twins aren’t exempt from the whole angle of having unique fingerprints.”

Wait, what? “Are you sure of that, mister Heydrich?”

“Positive. It’s a test I conducted with all the different twin variations out there. Fraternal twins, identical twins, or whatever. They didn’t match the same fingerprints that their sibling had.”

“That… that’s impressive!”

“I’m glad you understand, young man. Now, we need to put the weapons into the storage locker one at a time, to keep it from cluttering too much.”

Gato nodded, before he placed the weapons he had in his hands down somewhere he could pick them up from again. He started by taking one of the strange daggers and lowering it into the chest. “Here goes…”

“Is this your first time putting things away with this chest?” Tristan asked.

Gato nodded again. “Yes, it is. I don’t know if I’m doing this right or not.”

“You are, trust me.”

Gato sighed in relief. “Good, I was worried for a bit there.”

Tristan nodded. “I can imagine, yes.” He then pulled out a normal dagger and held it beside the dagger that Gato was lowering into the chest. “Now, for your benefit, you need to drop the weapon from this height into the storage locker. It won’t damage the weapon or the chest, to be fair.”

Gato looked Tristan in the eye before he let go of the weapon in his hand, hearing a slight clattering noise from within the chest. “Like that?”

“Yes, just like that,” Tristan said.

Gato nodded. “Okay, good. Now, do I need to spread the locations around for the different weapons?”

Tristan shook his head. “No need to worry about that. It will assign the spots correctly for each weapon, regardless of what space you put them in initially.”

“Thank you for that, mister Heydrich,” Gato said.

“Any time, young Gato,” Tristan said. “Any time.”

Gato sighed deeply. “What do I need to do now?”

“I’m sorry… what?”

“What I mean is, how many more weapons do we need to place into the chest?”

“Oh, that’s what you mean. Well, to put it simply, all the weapons in the tent need to be put away before I close shop for the day. Normally, that process takes about half of the time needed for the hour to pass.”

Gato looked at the piles of weapons he and Tristan had gathered in the tent. “How do you know when half an hour had passed, exactly?”

“Because I always gather my wares when the bell tolls six times, while counting the time needed for the bell to ring seven times in a row. I’ve got it down pat, so don’t worry about that, young Gato.”

“That makes sense, yes. Thank you.”

“There’s no need to thank me for this at all. I’m just sharing what I’ve gathered in terms of information over the years, nothing more, nothing less.”

“Okay, I get it now,” Gato said. “Let’s finish taking care of this job you’ve assigned us both to do.”

“But of course.”

With that, the two of them cleaned up the tent that Tristan maintained.