Alfred grabbed ten of the Illusion stones at random and put them into his satchel and produced two silver and a fifty copper piece to hand over.

“You know, I have some lovely [Inventory] bags over here, I carry them in tall, grande, venti, and trenta sizes. Each one comes with a keyed ring for item retrieval,” Loni offered, sweeping her short arms in the direction of a selection of handbags, totes, and pouches.

“A ring? That’s a clever idea,” Alfred said.

“It’s not as secure as keying the [Inventory] to someone’s mana signature, of course, but you can’t beat the convenience!”

“May I see a tall bag, Miss Loni?” Alfred requested.

Loni selected what looked like a change purse and handed it over. “We carry a variety of designs, but all of the tall [Inventory] bags have a storage size similar to that of a barrel. In fact, many in the Transportation Guild swear by them and will use them in place of traditional shipping containers. Prices start at three gold and go up depending on the design.”

“I see,” Alfred said, handing the bag back. “Most interesting, thank you for sharing that with me, Miss Loni. I expect good things in the future for both our businesses.”

Loni held the bag in Alfred’s hand and placed her other hand on top of his, breaking character for a moment and looking up into his eyes. “We can’t talk about it, but those of us that have been around a while know what you truly are, Mister Alfred.” She patted his hand before taking the bag and putting it back on display.

Alfred touched his hand to his chest and gave her a little bow, as he’d seen Shiro do from time to time. The three from Jada’s Junk exited the shop and started the walk back to their own store.

“Let me see one of those Illusion Stones,” Jada demanded.

Alfred retrieved a stone and handed it over. Jada examined it as they walked, then flipped it over and looked at the underside.

“Okay, next stop is the Manufacturing District,” she announced.

“What business do we have there, Miss Jada?” Shiro asked.

She tossed the stone over to Shiro, and said “These illusion stones were produced by the Haz Brothers. We’re going to pay them a visit.”

“Shiro,” Alfred asked, “that was a deft display of business negotiation. I know that I wouldn’t have been able to manage such a feat.”

“It was nothing. I was present for many negotiations and political talks between my former master and other important persons. It would have been more strange, had I not adopted some of that knowledge.”

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“Still, I was most impressed.”

Jada snorted and mumbled something about “negotiations without booze, don’t count as proper negotiations.”

The Market District gave way to the Manufacturing District as they walked along, stalls and booths were replaced by smithies, vats of dyes near gigantic looms, and artisan craftspeople doing fine detail work at benches. Large warehouses and buildings with various signs and ranges of different people working or taking their breaks.

Jada looked up at the signs, as if to get her bearings, then power walked another block before turning a corner to duck down an alleyway and find a small building hidden away behind a much larger carriage construction company. Without hesitating, she threw open the door and walked in. The sign above the door read: Haz Bros.

Inside, three old gnome men were sitting at work benches with bins in front of them, and a young gnome woman was further behind them surrounded by painting supplies. One man had a bin full of tiny crystals, a bin of black stones, and sheets of parchment with lines and lines of text written on them, as well as an intricately sculpted and painted figurine of an orc, ready for battle. The figure was set on a small pedestal that could freely spin. As they watched, the man took a crystal from the bin and held it up to the figure while reciting a spell under his breath. Light gently cast out from the crystal onto the figure as he slowly turned the pedestal so that the figure would be completely bathed in the light.

When he was done, he took a black stone from the bin and set the crystal into a recessed hole and placed them both onto a sheet of parchment. Again, he recited a spell under his breath and the words on the parchment glowed brightly before vanishing and the inlaid magic circuits on the stone lit up. The completed illusion stone went into a bin with others, and the now empty parchment went onto a stack of empty papers.

At other desks, a man worked at carefully inscribing the black stones with the magical circuits while another was meticulously copying text from one sheet of parchment to another. As he wrote, the words would flare with light for a moment before darkening. Alfred tried to peer at the work but wasn’t able to make out the text from the current angle. Behind them, the young woman was delicately applying paint to a figurine of a mermaid basking on a rock.

Everyone was so engrossed in their individual tasks that no one took notice of our entrance. I could relate, actually. Jada lifted her cane and replanted it with force on the stone floor with a loud “thunk.” All four of the gnomes looked up.

“Huh? Oh it’s Jada,” the transcriber said.

“It’s been a while, eh?” the spell infuser asked.

“When did they let you out of jail?” asked the circuit inlayer.

“Who?” asked the young woman.

“Herman, Hillel, Henry,” Jada said to each in kind, “you got a new painter, eh? She doing the sculpting too?”

The transcriber, Herman, turned around to look at the woman as if for the first time. “Oh her? Yeah, that’s Merrel, my daughter.”

“Jail?” Merrel asked.

“That was years ago, pay it no mind,” Jada said, waving away the question. “I’m here on business.”

“Business, she says,” Henry said, breaking into a smile. “If it’s business, then where’s the bottle?”

The others started laughing at this, but Jada just rolled her eyes dramatically before pulling out a small bag. She opened up the bag and pulled out a bottle of some thick, amber, liquid that was far too large to fit inside of a bag that size. It hadn’t even occurred to me that [Inventory] was as common as this based on Shea’s reaction when I’d first used it. It seemed to be expensive, but not uncommon, though maybe having it as a skill without being attached to a bag was the rare part. Maybe, instead of being attached to a bag, Beam had simply attached it to my main body since I was inorganic, and it wasn’t really a “skill” at all?

The old men all burst into laughter and stopped what they were doing to lead Jada and her bottle into an attached room. Merrel huffed and went back to her work.

Alfred carefully stepped around the desks to look at the text being copied onto the sheets of parchment. What he saw were lines and lines of hand written MagiCode. If I had to guess, probably ten to fifteen illusion stones were produced per day. Rom could probably manage double that in the same timeframe.

“That’s a beautiful aquadrian that you’re painting,” Shiro said to Merrel. I hadn’t noticed that he’d moved to get close to watch her work.

“Oh, thanks,” she said looking up.

“Did you sculpt and paint all of the figures for the illusion stones?”

“Only about half of them. My mother used to do most of the figure work before I took over for her.”

“Really great work, I’m Shiro,” he said extending his hand, “and this is Alfred. We work for Jada’s Junk shop.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, taking his hand, “What brings you guys here?”

“Honestly, I have no idea. Miss Jada said we needed to come. Do you know, Mister Alfred?”

Alfred shrugged. “I’m afraid I do not, Mister Shiro.”

The sound of raucous laughter came from the adjoining room and Jada emerged wobbling slightly.

“We’ve got a partnership!” she announced.