Finding someone to watch the house was relatively simple as Lin asked one of her friends to do it. I had seen Lin hanging out with the fox kin girl who was about our age. Lin had introduced us but other than that I hadn’t had too much interaction with her. She seemed nice enough though and I had no objections.

I had kept my head down for the most part while we had been living in our new home so hadn’t met too many people around town. I was still lacking common knowledge about the new world I found myself in and didn’t want anyone finding out I was from another world. Also, the girls were very protective of me to put it mildly. They glared at any strange girls that came near me and never left me alone while we were out in public. I had more or less gotten used to them clinging to me by this point.

We would be taking most of our valuables with us so the main thing we were leaving behind were the books in the library. The library was made as secure as possible and with someone looking after the place, I felt reasonable safe leaving the city. So with that done, we said goodbye to Lake City and headed to Ashen.

It was decided that we would take carriages between the cities this time to get there faster and hopefully make it harder for our enemies to react to our movements. Lux’s meeting with his mercenary buddy wouldn’t take long and then we would go straight to the capital. Ann had looked into the next auction and would get us there just in time to include our items.

I hadn’t noticed anyone spying on us while we were at the mansion. Lux and the girls hadn’t mentioned anything either, but it was better to be safe than sorry. It wouldn’t be that hard to spy on us with all the boat traffic and traders coming and going. I was sure we would be noticed once we got to Ashen.

The trip to Ashen was uneventful but I wished we had time to visit the hot spring before leaving. Sadly, we wanted to get to the East Harbor as soon as possible. We had taken our time planning and preparing for the trip. Ann and I had even finished our latest spells. Now we had to stick to our schedule to make the next auction and to reduce the risks of being found out and attacked.

The girls and I waited in the carriage to keep out of sight while Lux met with his mercenary leader buddy. I didn’t think Narsus himself would come with us as he had to lead the Silver Comets. I was just hoping he could spare someone reliable. The meeting didn’t take long and Lux soon joined us back in the carriage. He gave us a thumbs up as he got in and we sped off toward the capital.

It seemed Narsus was tasking two of his members who would be joining us in the capital after they made their preparations. Lux wasn’t sure who yet, but we would meet them soon enough. Lux trusted Narsus to pick the right people which was good enough for me.

The ride to East Port was thankfully uneventful as well and we soon reached the outskirts of the capital city. It was larger than the previous cities on the island and comparable in size to the cursed city. Unlike the previous cities of the island nation, the capital actually had a wall around it.

Our carriage got in line with the others waiting to go through the massive wooden gates of the city. Looking up, I could see the occasional guard walking along the top of the stone wall. We got through with no problems and headed straight to the auction house. This one was much larger than the one in Ashen and just as fancy.

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I noticed most of the buildings in East Harbor were taller than in the previous cities of the island, with most being two or three stories with some even four stories tall. The auction house was situated in the business district but was closer to the rich part of town where most of the nobles lived. The surrounding businesses also catered to the rich and were all suitably impressive. I was looking forward to doing some shopping. I had my fingers crossed that we would finally be able to find more magic bags either in the fancy stores or in the auction itself.

We entered the auction while the carriage waited for us. The interior was very similar to that of the previous auction house. A repeat of last time happened with us ushered into a private room while the employee eagerly looked through our treasure. Our items were quickly approved for the auction although we made sure to save enough potions for ourselves.

On the way out we grabbed a list of items for the upcoming auction. Since it was the last day to submit items, the list should be mostly complete. Unfortunately, there were still no magic bags on the list. Our next stop was an inn. Lux knew of a nice one with good security, so we headed there. It was getting toward evening so we would have to look at stores tomorrow.

We got the usual two rooms with Shadow deciding to stay in Lux’s room. Probably a good choice as the girls were rather rambunctious that night. I still managed to get some sleep but not nearly enough. After a lavish breakfast we hit the streets of the capital city. Lux was the one most familiar with East Harbor so he led the way. Shadow had chosen to sleep in.

Our inn was fairly close to the business district, so we just walked. The streets were already crowded so it was difficult to see if anyone was following us or not. We had given our treasures over to the auction house but still had the magic bags themselves and plenty of cash on us. The others didn’t seem too concerned, so I put it out of my mind.

The first few stores we went to were busts. There were plenty of expensive items but nothing that I wanted or needed. We had dressed in our nicer clothes so the upscale businesses wouldn’t turn their noses up at us. The girls’ dresses were especially cute, and I wished they would wear them more often. The streets were too crowded for me to hold hands with both of them at the same time, so they had to take turns.

Finally, we found a store that was actually selling magic bags. There wasn’t much of a selection. In fact, there were only two of them. Neither were the larger backpack style ones unfortunately, but I was still excited. The two shoulder bags would work just fine. I was originally hoping for just one bag but seeing two of them in front of me there was no way I was leaving without both of them. They were expensive of course and we were now scraping the bottom of the barrel as far as cash was concerned.

The girls thought it was funny how excited I was at finally having a magic bag of my own. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as I hung the bags over either shoulder, with the straps making a cross over my chest. They were each brown leather and reminded me of the classic Indiana Jones style bag. The extra bags would go a long way for what we could bring with us and more importantly, what we could haul back.

With that out of the way, we got something to eat and went back to the inn to change into our normal clothes. I gave Shadow some food I had saved for her, but she still didn’t want to leave the room. We then left the posher part of town and went to where normal people shopped to get supplies for our trip. We would need to wait until our loot sold to be able to afford all the supplies we needed since the magic bags had been so spendy. We could still do some window shopping and place some orders in the meantime.

We would have to stay in the capital until after the auction. Hopefully in that time Lux would hear back from the ship captain and our mercenary escorts would arrive. With any luck the ship would be able to meet us in East Port and we wouldn’t have to make the trip all the way back to West Port to board. The longer we stayed in the capital, the more time our enemies had to make their moves.