Crylus was lively.

For a port town that wasn’t a capital it was a pretty large city. It was actually larger than some of the other country’s capitals, which it kind of needed to be. It was on the peninsula that jutted out towards the equator where the Nevnua island continent was. While the rhinoceros faced bipeds were friendly enough to sometimes trade, it was one of two places that was firmly outside of Elf control. Since only natives were allowed to stay on the continent, it made trading there very lucrative, especially since the Nevnua dealt primarily with divinations.

Since this was the closest city to the continent, it became a hub for ships to stop at before they headed for the Nevnua, or a place for the ships to rest after they had come from there. Because of that, there was always a large variety of beings and opportunities here.

Starna had barely said a word as she got off the ship and headed into town. I’d hoped to have a little more backup in case someone recognized her, but we had only taken Hyer and Wizz with us. While the four of us were enough to sail the ship along the coast, even sending one more person with me would mean potentially leaving the ship unguarded as Storbek dealt with the port authority.

I stayed within arms reach of her as she headed through the streets like she knew where she was going. I’d been to Crylus many times, but I’d never needed to go to an apothecary, so I had no idea where to start looking for one.

“Do you know where you are going?” I almost ran into her as she came to a stop at an intersection and looked around.

“There.” The tanned woman pointed across the street.

I grabbed her arm before she was able to step onto the street and pulled her back. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

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“Why not?” She turned around to face me, pulling her arm out of my grasp.

“That.” I pointed at the symbol in the window that looked like a t resting diagonally inside a circle. “They’re Vampires.”

The mage paused for a second and closed her eyes as she thought. “I’ll be fine.”

I grabbed onto her arm again. “They turn mages if they think they can get away with making them a thrall before the authorities can stop them.” I pulled her away from the street. “You’re not going in there.”

She tried to pull her arm away, but I wasn’t going to let her just walk into danger when I was supposed to keep her safe, so this time, I didn’t let her pull away.

“Sectum…” The brunette glared at me and lowered her voice. “I’m a Veneficus, I’ll be fine.”

I let her go. A Veneficus was what the Elves called someone who had water elementalist abilities along with magic. Usually a person who had powers would have a single elemental ability or magic, not more than one. The thing about elementalists was that they were immune to being turned into a vampire, which meant that if the Vampires inside did bite her, they would have to kill her to keep her from reporting them to the city guard.

“Oh.” I let go of her. “I didn’t know that.”

She rubbed her arm where I’d held on to her. “I’ve done this before, so I know what I’m doing. You just do your job and make sure that I don’t get stabbed by a rare poison and everything will be fine.”

I nodded and followed her across the street. It was hard to see inside the shop due to the tinting of the windows to keep the harmful sunlight out. While a little sunlight wouldn’t be instantly fatal to a Vampire, it would weaken them and they’d start burning very fast. That sunburn would get even worse and if they didn’t seek shelter at that point, then they could end up with some scars that their self healing couldn’t fix.

The bell on the door jingled as we walked in.

I hoped they had what we were looking for.