Grigory rolled off his bedroll, sore and hungry. The worn bedroll probably should have been replaced years ago. Stale straw from his sleeping corner poked through, it making the cheap undyed wool blankets even more scratchy. Sitting upright, Grigory rolled his shoulders to loosen his tightened shoulders, all without opening his eyes. Opening an eye just a crack, he confirmed the cold morning was still dark. As his mind sorted dreams from reality his scowl warmed to a grin.
“Imps! Make a fire in the stove, and use that to make me some tea and boiled oats for breakfast.”
“Merp!”
The groggy demonologist rubbed his stiff fingers together for warmth, and finally opened his eyes to watch the imps work. With a fumbling reach he found and put on his wire frame glasses. The fast agile imps stocked the stove, and one crawled all the way in, and lit the wood on fire all around it with small sparks of hellfire. Once the blaze was roaring, the imp crawled back out, and closed the iron door behind it. Grigory expected them to use just the supplies from his shelf, but was impressed to see two run into the woods, returning with mint and berries. Their otherworldly expertise extended to cooking, even though they had never eaten. The oats were tender and the texture was rich and creamy. The fresh berries made the breakfast more interesting and the mint added a subtle but pleasant note. His kitchen actually smelled great for once! With a relaxed smile Grigory finished his breakfast, and started getting ready for his trip.
He dug through the bag of kitchen supplies, and found his one silver plated spoon. With a grunt of effort he vigorously rubbed it on a clean dishcloth. In his distorted reflection he saw just how shaggy his whole appearance had grown. Standing in the faint light outside his cottage, he trimmed his beard with his eyes shut, like he had done countless times. His fingers' width served as a guide and a pair of sharp scissors made short work of his soft brown and grey beard. With a comb he found and cut out the bigger knots of his shoulder length hair, and then did what he could to even it out. Checking back in his spoon, he looked far more civilised, not that the bar was high. He picked a long sleeved linen button up, his waistcoat vest, and some clean pants. Washing his face with a wet cloth, he finally felt like he was part of the human race again.
He put some stale bread in a bag, put his satchel on top of yesterday’s handcart and commanded his imps to him. The creaking handcart full of boxes of mugs clinked and groaned as they pulled on the handle, while he walked a few steps behind to keep an eye on things.
Leaving the demons at the cottage to guard his meagre possessions was his first idea, but they wouldn’t be able to fend off an overly curious squirrel with their excessive safety. Besides, someone seeing a nest of demons would cause far more problems. Now that their path was approaching the road, these demons might have to go. Stopping for a second, he gathered the totems up and outvoked them one at a time, each demon vanishing soundlessly into non-existence.
The obvious drawback was now he had to haul the heavy cart himself. A challenging task for the first leg, where the road was uneven and muddy. Grigory carefully eased the delicate cargo over tree roots and exposed stones. It was a half morning walk last time he walked to Fjallfeil, but with his heavy cart, the sun was high in the sky by the time he saw the first of the farms. His undershirt was soaked through with sweat and his trousers caked with grey mud. Grigory stopped in the shade of a leafy oak and pulled his comb out of his satchel. He straightened his beard and his dark brown hair, removing an alarming number of pine needles and moss strands. Looking at his old wooden comb with its missing teeth, Grigory added it to the mental list of things to be upgraded once he had some proper tools in the agile hands of his minions. He got out his handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his face and palms, then brushed off the shoulders of his vest and shirt, clearing dust and forest debris to make him look merely dishevelled rather than feral. With a vigorous snap he shook the cloth clean, wiped his black framed glasses off, and stuffed the handkerchief into his vest pocket.
With a sigh to clear his mind, he squared his shoulders and made the final leg of his trip. For the first time since starting his journey, he thought about the actual mechanics of how to sell these goods. Typically he did business directly with some of the farmers in the village as there wasn’t a store to do business with. Knocking on every door in the tiny community to sell mugs seemed like a poor use of time, and these are alarmingly nice mugs. Actually alarming. People get murdered for worn boots in a place like this, and these are glossy iridescent mugs with original art that would look impressive on the Emperor's table. That alone will raise questions about where these mugs are from. They might assume as a nearly penniless traveller, Grigory had stolen them! All it would take was the thinnest pretext to execute him and claim the goods for themselves.
Grigory came to a full stop and started stroking his beard as he tried to think his way through this. There’s an inn with a public house, and come to think of it, they probably will want the mugs more than any one farmer would. Grigory looked down at his muddy handcart, realising it had nearly as many mugs as there were households in this tiny village. Obviously there won’t be enough buyers for that many at any price. He dismissed his more outlandish idea of claiming to be an exotic travelling prince selling heirlooms. That won’t work in a village that already knows him as a hedge wizard from the times he’d done odd jobs here. Thinking on it for a few seconds to form the barest skeleton of a plan, he resumed his walk to the village green and into the pub that sat on the edge of it.
Grigory entered the low ceilinged Plowman’s Crown, the damp slightly smoky air smelling of simple food and spilled beer. His eyes took a second to adjust from the noon sun to the dimness of the pub, even though the windows were open. Thankfully the place was mostly empty, just two white bearded farmers smoking pipes and speaking in low voices at one table. The demonologist had spent the night here a few times in the past and knew the owner, or at least had spoken to him a few times. The muddy wooden wheels rolling on the wooden floorboards made an embarrassingly loud grinding and creaking noise. Looking back at the two lines of mud he'd tracked in, he wished he had thought to wipe the mud off the wheels or even leave the cart outside. The owner emerged from the kitchen and looked deeply offended by the time he got to the counter. Still the grinding and squeaking continued as Grigory crossed the finally few steps, cringing apologetically the whole way. The thick chested former farmer with rough calloused hands and short cropped blonde hair didn’t even look at Grigory, instead staring at the two lines of mud across an otherwise clean floor.
“Good Afternoon, Brawlins!” Grigory said with as big of a smile and as much confidence as he could muster.
“Oh mighty master wizard. I see you are back,” the publican drawled, slowly and with contempt, finally moving his gaze onto Grigory.“I assume you are here to tell me that you’ve mastered some sort of floor cleaning spell?”
“Err. No, I’m afraid that research is yet incomplete, but I am closer than many people think! No, this time I’ve actually come to thank you and your entire village before I move on for good.”
“I’m just glad your long and sweaty journey has improved my life already. I was just telling the boy that we was almost out of mud.” The contempt was still there and thick, but with the thin ribbon of good hearted sarcasm lightening it slightly. Even the ghost of a memory of a smile was at the very edges of his lips.
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“If you’ll indulge me and listen to a long tale, I’d be happy to offer you a more useful token of esteem!” Grigory patted the top box on his cart for emphasis. Brawlins’ eyebrows moved the barest fraction, granting him permission to continue.
“The real reason I’ve been up here all spring was to find reagents for a specific contract. A great prince of the Southern Seas, where the sun is so hot even the lizards wear hats, had asked for some custom drinkware that could magically keep a drink cool. Everyone knows the fridge stones can do that for weeks at a time, but he was asking for something more elegant and refined and much smaller. I was able to complete the contract after months of great effort but the final step was challenging beyond belief! A quarter of them shattered, half were totally inert and a quarter successfully held the enchantment. While they aren’t the priceless artefacts that will be the envy of a dozen princedoms in the Southern Seas, the inert mugs are still perfectly serviceable to hold drinks, and they are fairly attractive!”
With a flourish, Grigory pulled one of the top boxes off his cart, slid the wooden lid open along the slot, and revealed four mugs packed in wooden shavings. Grigory gestured to the tavern keeper to pick one up.
“Ohh my!” he said as he lifted one of them. The entire spectrum of light in delicate bands danced as he slowly rotated the mug. The imprint on that cup was of a fox in the woods stalking a bird. Both animals were captured in exquisite detail, the trees textured and vivid. Brawlins’ eyes grew huge as the full value of such an item caught up with the visceral impact of the workmanship.
“And you’d give me one of these here mugs, fer free, just as a thank you? For letting you stay here at full price, I think a total of three times?” Brawlin asked incredulously.
“Oh my no!” replied Grigory.“You can have TWENTY boxes as a thank you!” and moved several boxes right onto the counter. “You see they are pretty heavy and I’ve got no real use for mugs on my long trip home,” he continued.
“This Souther Prince fella, are him and his goons going to be looking for this stuff?” asked the tavern keeper, who had a knack for noticing problems long before they darkened his door.
“Long gone! His agents' carts picked up the real artefacts weeks ago, and they are likely on a ship and over the horizon already. Honestly I didn’t even tell him about the failure rate, I have a reputation to protect!” Grigory said without missing a beat.
Brawlins picked up the second mug in the set and gazed wordlessly at its imprint. This was the same scene but a few seconds later, with the fox ready to pounce. Holding such a masterwork in his rough hands felt like blasphemy.
Grigory continued, “I hate to be a bother, and not to take up your time, but do you know of anyone that would trade me a horse and wagon for fifteen more boxes of these mugs? There were some bad dealings with an apprentice, and I’ve found myself without reliable transport back to the guild tower by the capital.”
In a show of enormous self control, Brawlins pretended to think for several seconds, without a flicker of greed or excitement.
“Well these parts are more unsavoury than you’d think. And I’d hate to see such an esteemed enchanter as yourself come to a bad end. Hows about as a thank you, for your thank you, why don’t I give you mine for those other mugs? I've got another horse and wagon anyhow, and I was thinking about selling one of them anyways,” Brawlins said with genuine empathy and concern.
“Your kindness and generosity is more than I could have hoped for!” Grigory said, in his best impression of a naive academic that doesn’t understand the value of money. Which was extra compelling since it wasn’t an act as much a spotlight on his existing attributes.
“Well then, all that’s left for the day is to sell these final few boxes of mugs for provisions and some coin for my trip! Oh - you’d buy and sell mugs for the pub all the time, do you reckon 200 glindi is fair? For a set I mean. Someone would pay that to have some nice cups for their tea I bet?”
Brawlins stepped forward. “Won’t hear of it, I’ll take them off your hands for 250 a set, there are some regulars I’d be happy to gift them to. And to make your trip safe and comfortable I’ll even throw in our spare mattress and a few sacks of grains and potatoes!” Tricking an out of touch academic out of a fortune is fine, but he honestly didn’t want him to come to a bad end.
The tavern keeper managed to not trip over a single word even as he was doing more mental math than he had in years. Conservatively, even to a middle man it's likely a few thousand a set, and double or triple that to the right noble. He might have just traded a horse and some potatoes for a castle this afternoon!
“Oh, Well I guess you can have the hand cart too,” Grigory said as he gestured to the filthy thing. “I certainly don’t have any use for it now! And sorry about the mud, I honestly wasn’t thinking.”
“Don’t give it a second thought! Why don’t you sit right here. I’ll get the kitchen to make you some lunch and I’ll load your new wagon and hitch the horse,” said the now sugary sweet tavern keeper, with fresh incentive to get him on his way.
Brawlins came around the counter, calling to the kitchen to make a lunch special, then moving the few boxes from the counter back to the muddy cart. Brawlins quickly wiped down the wheels with a bar rag from his apron pocket and wheeled it into the back room.
Grigory tried not to listen for the sound of sliding wood as each box was quickly checked just out of sight. He sipped the beer the server brought him in a plain red clay cup as he thought to himself that some of the very best scams are where each party scams the other.
He was enjoying the last few bites of the sage sausage in a rich salty gravy when Brawlins returned.
“All set, friend! I meant to tell you before I went, I’m going to unveil the new mugs at the harvest festival in a few weeks, and it would mean a lot to me if you could keep this transaction to yourself, so as not to ruin the surprise. For the kids ya know?”
“I’ll be rumbling out of here in a wagon in just a few minutes, so I can say with confidence not a soul will hear it from me. Oh, about that money?” Grigory asked as if an afterthought.
“Of course! Of course! Here you are! The horse and a stable cat are kind of a bonded pair. Cat’s never had an interest in mousing, but maybe he can be a familiar or something for you!” As he spoke he placed a stack of coins on the counter, including some of the fat electrum ones the accidentally ascetic mage hadn’t touched in literal years.
“Oh I guess, I’ve never really had a cat before, what’s his name?” Grigory asked as he dropped the coins into the secure triple stitched pocket of his satchel, making a slightly musical noise as it hit the ten small ebony totems he’d put there this morning. He was far too polite to say that the whole familiar thing is more a misconception from ostracised mages wanting companionship than anything magically useful.
“Oh I ain’t ever named a cat, I guess he’s not minded so far,” the innkeeper said with genuine surprise. “Horse is named Buckwheat though!”
“I’m sure I’ll figure something out with the cat, and thank you again for being so helpful!”
The commotion of Grigory getting on the wagon and woke up the fluffy black cat that was somehow already asleep on the seat. It sat up and looked slightly offended, but made no effort to move away. A quick pet and a gentle push to the passengers side of the bench seat seemed to satisfy the cat and he laid back down.
“You fit the part at the very least, and it might be time for me to have someone to bounce ideas off,” Grigory told the cat as he guided the cart back to the cottage, and to the glorious post drudgery future.