...something to happen, a flash of light, a voice in his head, hell a tattoo appearing on his arm but none of those things happened. Infact nothing happened.

No fancy flashing light or anything, just the cold feel of the metal around his finger. As cold as the chill that passed through him as the truth settled on him. The ring was nothing more than a bad purchase.

He didn't get sudden enlightenment from wearing the ring, he didn't feel stronger, smarter or anything. He'd basically just wasted hard earned coin on a bauble that wasn't worth more than a few silver's atmost.

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that the ring was important somehow. Maybe it was just wishful thinking. His mind desperately trying to cling onto a false sense of hope, a little bit of hope in the current situation he was in. But maybe, just maybe, it was something more.

As the first customers of the day began to trickle in, Ryan pushed thoughts of the ring and the looters heaven to the back of his mind. He had a business to run after all. So what if he suffered a couple of setbacks here and there. He couldn't remember any great merchant that didn't take a risk once in a while, he'd just chalk it up as a loss and move on.

"Hello, step right up for your quality potions, sure to save you when in a pinch, and for our special offer get this teleportation stone at a cheaper rate than at any other store" Ryan said while trying to persuade customers going around to come and patronize him.

Most of the adventurers seemed to look at his shop and sneer before moving on, a few seemed to consider walking towards him before abruptly turning and walking away. He couldn't really even think much about it. Regardless of what was happening, Ryan was a business man and he'd continue to try to sell, even if it wasn't looking good at the moment.

Ryan exited his shop to check out what was chasing away potential customers and couldn't really see anything that was different than the previous day. The shop looked the same. If only a little worse for wear than the previous day but that was only normal as the building had been in a state of constant decline for a long time.

Ryan let out a sigh, of course this would only happen to him, when he really needed to bounce back, his fortune had suddenly decided to change and the steady stream of customers that he was accustomed to was practically non-existent.

Was it something he wasn't doing well. It couldn't be his sales pitch as it was the same one he'd been using for the past week, with a little bit of changes here and there but nothing major to the tone or structure of the overall message.

Perhaps it was his shoddy clothes or they could sense the current version of him that was suffering from a hangover, and they were probably put off. He highly doubted that as they were hardened veterans in the mix here and there and a drunk or hungover merchant wouldn't put them of, Infact most of them would probably seek to take advantage of his current predicament.

There'd been cases of multiple merchants and vendors getting swindled of their goods in broad daylight by wiser adventurers, which was more of a common occurrence than you'd think.

It happened alot more time's than you'd think, as most merchants and vendors usually indulged in the occasional ale after work here and there. However, someone like Ryan didn't really have to worry about event's like that, as his stall wasn't previously as popular as the other statics in the market.

A question suddenly came into his head. Was this a ploy by the Looter's heaven to frustrate him into signing their proposed contract.

Were they trying to force his hands into becoming one of their puppets. If so, they must have not have properly understood him the first time because it was for certain that he wasn't going to be one of their playthings even though their current tactics was working better than he'd have liked. He'd gone from one of the hottest merchant in town to an even worse predicament than the week before he started running specials.

Now he was being openly sneered at, by dirty and grimy adventures who'd just come out of their godforsaken dungeons, rolling in mud like the pigs they were and fighting with monsters like barbarians the lot of them.

Ryan was more of a brain than brawns guy even if he'd started to gain muscle in the recent days from ... Well he couldn't quite place a finger on it. Anyways back to the adventurers, yes those moving empty skulls attached to bodies were always hot headed it was a surprise that smoke didn't come out of their ears the way that they were moving.

Which actually made a lot of sense as they didn't have a brain in their head so that technically left alot of space for the dire to grow and if any of them had a brain before it must have turned to ash a long time ago.

Ryan took a deep breath to calm himself from his mental tirade, deep down he knew that this wasn't the fault of the adventurers, nope there had to be a hand behind all these pulling the strings and making things happen that he couldn't really put a hand on.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

Going back into his shop he had a seat on the wooden chair within, clutching his head between his hands, as his mind wandered into a memory of his childhood.

***

"Ryan wait up, you're leaving me behind." Leo panted as he ran behind Ryan.

"Hurry slow poke. The matron can run faster than that and she's like…. Ninety-something give or take," Ryan said, as he continued to expand the gap between the two of them.

Leo was Ryan's closest friend at the orphanage, so close that Ryan thought of him as a brother.

They shared a bond that most brothers didn't have, they weren't forced to have each other's back because they shared blood.

They did so because they wanted to and it wasn't something that could be bought with all the gold in the world.

Ryan stopped abruptly at the middle of the path to wait for Leo to catch up.

"We're going to miss them if you don't figure out how to use your lungs or legs," Ryan teased.

"Easy for you to say, you're the only kid I know that wouldn't get winded from running as fast and hard and far as we did for the last thirty minutes." Leo said as he finally caught up to Ryan. Gasping for breath after every three words

"And who's fault is it that we had to even run to get here. If you'd just feigned being sick when the matron did her rounds we'd have both gotten the day off." Ryan said with an angry huff and a half-hearted glare towards Leo.

"Veron's nuts Ryan, don't you even have an atom of shame in you, she feeds and clothes us and all she asks is for us to help around with some some chores," Leo retorted with a judging tone.

"Some chores? if it was 'some chores' that kept you busy for almost half the day, then count me out. Besides I did manage to get you out before you ruined our only chance of seeing the twins," Ryan rebutted.

"Twins? I haven't seen any twins today. Have you?" Leo asked pointedly.

Ryan had to suppress the urge to throttle the cheeky bastard.

"Well, if you'd have done as I said, you would've seen them by now. You know what, I'm done waiting for you, catch up if you can." Ryan said as he dashed forward.

"Hold up Ryan, you know that I didn't mean it like that," Leo pleaded but Ryan was already to far ahead to hear it at that point.

For Ryan, today was the day he'd finally get to meet up with the great-grand daughters of the legendary merchant, Sarinth.

Well, meet up was kind of a strong word, as he'd technically only see them from afar in their horse drawn carriages. As they'd pass through their little town on their way to Wergon.

Ryan and Leo were only fifteen and fourteen years respectively, but they'd heard so many rumors about the beautiful sapphire twins.

Of course it was just a moniker given to them, not like the twins were actually made of sapphire.

Ryan really hoped to catch a glimpse of the twins hoping that his buffoon of a friend — Leo hadn't already ruined his chance of seeing them.

As fate would have it, he burst out of the edge of the path to the sight of the carriage approaching with a procession of guards surrounding it. Turing back towards the still running form of Leo, he motioned for him to run faster.

Leo seemed to glare at him but the distance between them made Ryan really unsure about the expression on Leo's face and it wasn't like he really cared about it that much as he was going to see them regardless of Leo's anger.

The moment Leo got close enough, Ryan quickly grabbed the younger and wiry boy and pulled him into an underbush clamping the mouth of the boy. Preventing him from spewing out the amount of tirades that he was sure to start if he had the chance to begin cursing at Ryan, and the boy cursed like a sailor which was wild as they both grew up in the same orphanage and there weren't any sailor's around. Must be all the books the nerd had been reading.

Leo tried to struggle but quickly calmed down as he heard rather than saw the approaching procession, nothing like the sound of fifty plus soldiers on foot, marching on each side of a moving carriage. The wiry boy motioned for Ryan to let him go and Ryan sensing that the boy was calm enough to be left to his own devices freed him from his grasp and proceeded to peek at the procession from the underbush.

The leaves kept getting in his way but that wasn't going to deter him from trying to catch sight of them. Finally, the carriage passed right by them and Ryan's breath caught in his throat as he caught a glimpse of one of the sapphire twins. By Veron's Clangers was she beautiful beyond words, everybody said he was mad when he recounted the story but he could've sworn that the twin he'd glimpsed, looked out the window and their eyes locked for a second before she winked and turned her head to a different direction.

Ryan almost forgot how to breathe for a second and by the stillness in the air he could guess that Leo had too. Turning to face his friend, he noticed that the wiry boy was wide eyed as though he was in dreamland, and as the trouble maker that he was, he couldn't help but slap the boy awake. Leading to a rather undesirable and audible yelp from the boy.. Very undesirable considering their current predicament. Something that became apparent when the soldiers picked up on it.

"Did you guy's hear that?" one of the passing officers asked.

"Yes, it sounded like a human" another officer replied

"You should probably check it out," the first officer said to the other officer.

Ryan quickly clamped on Leo's mouth to prevent the boy from screaming. Making sure to stay completely still to avoid drawing additional attention to their position.

"Would you two relax already, Brendan here has been jumpy since the attack at Orion and you on the other hand Winston believe that every sound belongs to a human," a third officer joked as he faced the officer's when he spoke to them.

"We are on high alert for good reason Rio, some of us lost good friends out there during the last attack and that was the third one in the span of two weeks," the officer that appeared to be Brendan said.

"Plus the fact that we are this close to Wergon means that we're probably going to be attacked at least one more time before we get there. Stay sharp," Winston the second of the trio said.

"Well, if they attack they'll have another thing coming, best believe we won't take it easy on them." Brendan said.

That was the last audible thing Ryan heard before they moved farther away from his position, the yelp from Leo probably forgotten.