We went another block before running into one of the boarded up shops. Ann got excited for some reason, but I couldn’t tell what kind of store it was from the broken sign. She informed me it was an alchemy shop which made me confused. I doubted any of the ingredients or potions would still be good. Ann must have seen my confusion so enlightened me.
“Old empire potions had incredible preservation magic added to them. If there are any potions still intact, they would be worth a fortune. Also, alchemy shops sold magical tools so who knows what could be in there.” Ann said excitedly. “Don’t current alchemists make potions? What makes old empire potions so valuable?” I asked, still confused. Technically everything here was from the kingdom but it seemed everyone just called it old empire since the kingdom copied everything from the old empire. I had stopped trying to correct Ann and just went with it.
“Alchemists do make potions, but they are only half as potent as the old empire potions. Not to mention no one has figured out how to make some of the potions.” She replied, heading straight for the shop. I just shrugged and followed her. If she was right, then this could be a real find. Lux and Lin seemed excited as well and followed along.
Ann stood back and let Lux rip the boards off the door. Lin and I kept a lookout in case the noise drew any creatures. I was somewhat surprised the battle with the boar hadn’t elicited any howls, but it had been over quickly and we hadn’t gone very far into the wolves territory yet. Ann was the first in followed closely by Shadow and I could hear her oohing and aahing. I chuckled while I let the others in first and followed behind.
There weren’t any windows overlooking the street so I assumed it would be dark inside, but I was mistaken. More of the glowing crystals I had seen in the tower were along the walls, creating plenty of light to see the contents of the store. There were lots of wooden racks containing clear bottles of different colored liquids and a couple tables of items.
If it wasn’t for the dust, it would look like the shop could still be open. I wandered around but didn’t really know what I was looking at so decided to just guard the door and leave it to the experts. I heard a muffled shriek behind me and spun around, thinking something was wrong. Instead, I saw Ann jumping up and down in excitement.
“I can’t believe it, enchanted bags and there are three of them!” Ann exclaimed, almost shrieking in delight again. Lux tried to get her to calm down without much success. I didn’t know what enchanted bags were, but they must be good from Ann’s reaction. I returned to watching the door, figuring I would get an explanation later after she calmed down.
I was hoping the bags would let us carry the potions since I didn’t know how we would transport them without all the bottles breaking. From what I could see all the potions looked to be intact and still had their labels. Whether they still worked or not I couldn’t say. One of the books I read mentioned potions so I had a general knowledge about them.
There were your standard healing potions, ones to cure poisons and different afflictions, ones to enhance your strength or speed for a certain amount of time, potions to replenish your mana faster, and the list goes on. There were different grades to the potions as well to make the effects stronger or last longer. It was all very fantasy like and kind of made me want to dabble in alchemy.
I could hear the family talking as I waited but I still wasn’t fluent so didn’t know what they were saying. I then heard glass bottles rattling against each other so turned to look again. Lin was tossing potions into one of the bags as fast as she could. Ann had another bag and was behind the counter shoving more items into hers and Lux was on the other side of the shop shoving even more potions and items from a table into his bag. As I suspected, the bags must use some form of space magic that allowed you to store way more items than would normally fit into a bag that size. I guessed it was similar to an item box in video games. I idly wondered how they worked or how many items you could shove in them.
It was something seeing item upon item being shoved into the bags without them filling up. I just shook my head and continued watching the door. So far I hadn’t seen or heard anything from the street, except the chatter of the birds that was ever present. The birds made a good warning device as they would quiet down or even take off if creatures showed up.
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Soon, they finished and we all went back outside including Shadow who appeared satisfied with her exploration of the shop. Everyone had smiles on their faces including me. I was burning with questions but needed to wait until we finished exploring since we still had to be on guard. Lux and Lin had their brown, leather looking bags slung over their shoulders. Ann’s was black and in the form of a backpack.
It took some searching but we found more boarded up shops a couple streets over. One of them was another clothing store which the clothing didn’t survive very well even with the shop boarded up. We were still able to find a couple pieces of new clothing and the store had some shoes so I was able to find a pair of boots that fit reasonably well.
The next shop was a more up scale type general store. I was hoping to find some more preserved food, but the closest thing was bags of seeds. I hoped we weren’t stuck here long enough to grow a garden from scratch, but the girls still took some of the seeds. The only item I picked up in the shop was a fancy looking magical compass that I thought might come in handy. Ann said all I needed to do was pour mana into it and think where I wanted to go and it would point in that direction. It only worked for places I had already been to though, so it was less than ideal. I tried thinking of Earth but the needle just spun in circles. When I thought of the mansion, however, it pointed in the right direction.
The girls each grabbed a decorated brush, a hand mirror, and some jewelry. I didn’t like wearing rings and such so didn’t bother but Lux dumped some of the more expensive looking pieces of jewelry into his magic bag. Lux probably had the right idea if we ever made it back to civilization so with that in mind, I looked behind the counter for any money and put some coinage in my pockets. Shadow seemed interested in the brushes so I decided to grab one I could use to brush her fur.
Once we were done with the general store, we saw one more store on that street that had been boarded up. Unfortunately, it looked like the store had already been broken into or the boards had just rotted and fallen off. Lux seemed excited this time and I shared his excitement as we had finally found another weapon shop.
Lux lead the way and we all went to the weapon shop. We had long abandoned splitting up at this point since everyone was so excited about the contents of the boarded up shops. It was probably better to stick together anyway. When he was about to enter, Shadow hissed and Lux stopped and brought up his sword. A growl came from inside the shop and Lux dodged out of the way after one of the six legged creatures charged out.
A second one charged out as well and we all jumped out of the way. The creatures didn’t seem to be dissuaded by our numbers and turned to charge again. Lux tried to bring his sword to bear but the creatures were so fast they were giving him problems. Lin was the fastest of the group and was able to keep up with the creatures, doing acrobatics and easily evading and counterattacking. Soon the one she was fighting was dead and I helped Lux keep the other one at bay while Ann tried hitting it with stone arrows. Shadow stayed in the back with Ann with her fur puffed out.
It was able to dodge her spells with little effort but couldn’t get past our weapons. When Lin joined us the fight ended quickly. We all breathed a sigh of relief and carefully entered the shop but didn’t see any more of the six legged creatures. One of the windows was open so between it and the door I could see fairly well. The good news was there were still items in the shop, the bad news was most were in rough shape.
It was evident the store had been open to the elements for a while. Most of the weapons had rust on them and anything made of wood or leather was in rough shape. There were some on display shelves or behind the counter that were of higher quality and had resisted the corrosion. They were definitely fancier than the rest and seemed to be made of more exotic materials.
Lux found a better great sword and a matching shield that were still in good shape. The girls were looking at short swords while Shadow sniffed around the back. None of the spears were better than what I already had, and nothing looked as good as my magic sword. The girls did seem to think some of the fancier weapons might hold enchantments so just grabbed all of them. It was amazing watching them store the longer weapons in the small bags, like watching a magic show as a kid.
Shadow meowed from the back room so I went to see what she had found. Similar to the previous weapon shop, this one had a smithy along with storage at the rear of the store. Shadow was sniffing around in one of the small storage rooms. It was darker in the back, so I conjured a flame to see. I had brought my phone just in case, but it was better not to waste what little battery life it had left. I had briefly showed Lux and Ann the phone after Lin had mentioned it but wanted to keep its use to a bare minimum. They were duly impressed and thought of it as a magic tool.
My light illuminated what looked like this world’s equivalent of a safe. It was made of thick metal and had two key holes. I thought about using my magical blade to slice it open but was afraid I would damage whatever was inside. Instead, I called for Ann and Lin. I thought maybe Ann had a lockpicking spell or maybe Lin knew how to pick locks. I was excited to see what the safe might hold.