Joe did not quite know what to expect the Shoppe to look like, but it fulfilled all his expectations and more. As soon as he entered, he could feel the atmosphere that harkened him back to his youth, treasure hunting in antique stores with his mother. The room was cramped and was wall to wall with shelves and cases filled to overflowing with weapons, armor, books, and various items he had no idea what they were for. It was like a medieval roadside knick-knack store. The ceiling was low, and every corner had a heatless torch lighting the rows. There were bins full of knives, some had gloves and others had rocks of various types. Everything smelled like a combination of leather, metal and old books.
Joe could see that far in the back was a counter. It too held small baskets and boxes on most of its surfaces and behind the counter were more glass enclosed cases with things that moved and things that glowed and one or two things that both moved and glowed.
“Whoa.” Joe exclaimed. Bixby let out and appreciative woof. Joe smiled at the now enormous hound in the cramped aisles of the Shoppe. He warned, “Don’t go wagging your tail or your liable to break something and I don’t want to have to pay for it.”
Bixby glared at Joe for a moment and snorted then began sniffing through the aisles. Not knowing the rules, Joe opted to head to the counter to see if he could find an employee to help him. He sidled through the long shelves and finally stood before the counter. He could see an innocuous wooden door behind the counter, but there was no one there. Just as he was about to call out, the door creaked open and a short, elderly woman came hustling out.
She wore a teal peasant’s dress with a stained leather apron tied around her waist. Her movements were a bit manic and jerky. Joe also noted that she looked like she was a thousand years old. Her face and hands were wrinkled and weathered. Her long white hair was tied up in a precarious bun on the top of her head. She chewed on an unlit blunt cigar; her teeth stained a slight yellow. With clear, sharp brown eyes, she peered up at Joe, a single eyebrow raised. “I don’t know ya yet.”
“Um. That’s true.” Joe was slightly taken aback by the odd greeting.
“Ya ain’t never been ta visit old Maude before.” She looked him up and down then squinted at Bixby who came trotting up behind Joe. “Nope. I’d have remembered someone like you and your dog.” As she spoke, she walked to the end of the counter and lifted a portion then strode over to Joe. She came right up to him and began circling him, poking here and there with an old, gnarled finger.
“Whoa! Hey!” Joe exclaimed while lifting his arms, turning to follow her movements.
She clucked a few times, completely uncaring of Joe’s response, then turned her attention to Bixby. She took Bixby’s muzzle in her ancient hands, brought his head down to her level and turned his face this way and that, then lifted his gums and inspected his teeth. He began to growl low in his throat and then she stopped and just stared at him. The growl died and she nodded her head, checked Bixby’s right ear then patted him on the head. When she seemed satisfied, she wandered back behind the counter, pulled out a stepstool then leaned on her crossed arms on the counter. “Well now, I’m Maude. You’re Joe and Bixby. Now we’ve met and I like the cut of your jib, so what do ya want?”
Smiling despite his confusion, “Do you greet everyone this way?”
“Not hardly. Only those what’s worth meeting.” She squinted up at Joe.
After a long and awkward pause, Joe said, “Um, well. As you may know, we are new to the System and, um, I…we...” He gestured at Bixby, “Have never been in a Shoppe before. We have a lot of stuff we’ve collected that we’d like to sell. We’d also like to see if there are some things, we can get to help us and our friends out.”
Maude continued chewing on the stump of her cigar. She cocked her head. “Well, let’s start by taking a peek at whatcha got to sell.” Her eyes went a bit glassy, then her expression changed to one of surprise. Her gaze seemed to stabilize, and she took the cigar out of her mouth. “Huh. I see. You looking to sell all of that?”
Joe blinked, “Um, what? All of what? Wait, did you just look at my inventory?”
“Yup.” She replied smartly.
“How? I didn’t share it or give you permission.” Joe stood shocked.
“My Shoppe, my rules.” She said simply.
Joe shook himself out of the immediate effects of his surprise and looked at Bixby who just shrugged. He turned back to Maude, “Well, I guess I want to sell most of it. Some of it I want to keep, to help a few people out, but mostly I want to see about buying more spells and books about the System.”
Maude nodded her understanding and motioned for Joe to follow her. She came around the counter as before and then walked down a side aisle. Joe and Bixby followed behind, both a bit bewildered by the woman. She led them to a far wall with an unassuming door and beckoned them to follow her.
They stepped into a warehouse. Or something equivalent. It was shaped almost like an airplane hangar with high vaulted ceilings and was about the size of a football field. The entire building was empty except for the walls all along each side. There, Joe saw a wooden work bench that ran the complete length of the walls on three sides. Joe’s voice echoed in the rafters, “That was unexpected.”
“It’s my critter space. You have some large beasties, and this is the best place to unload them for inspection. The room is bespelled, so anything dropped in here won’t spoil or rot.” She gestured at the room, “Also the best place for large amounts of general stuff that needs sorting. Feel free to unload anywhere.”
Joe was impressed. He made a mental note to see if New Santa Cruz could get something like this. He moved out about thirty yards and unloaded the dragon, the griffon, and the burrowing horror. Maude indicated that anything smaller could be set anywhere along the side tables. After a few minutes, Joe had unloaded all the intact bodies and many of the uncured leather hides. He even dropped the substantial amount of mana worm steaks he still carried. Moving down the line he then laid out the items he picked up from the dragon’s hoard. He hesitated at removing the egg, but then it too went on a table.
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As he unloaded his inventory, Maude wandered among them, looking them up and down, then she put her fingers in her mouth and let off a loud whistle. From the door they had just come through, a small brigade of odd-looking men came marching in. At first, he thought they were halfkin, but the closer he looked, the more they looked like lawn gnomes without the pointy hats. They wore cotton leggings and tunics covered in leather aprons that had all manner of stains on them. Each one came pushing a metal cart full of tools. They lined up obediently near Maude chatting among themselves. Joe could see that they all eyed the dragon greedily.
Maude spoke to them in a strange lilting language, and they settled down, waiting. She turned back to Joe. “These are my appraisers. With your permission, they’ll render the bodies down to their useful parts and sort everything by rarity. Once they’re done, we can talk price.” She looked at Joe expectantly with a raised eyebrow.
Joe glanced at Bixby who gave him an, “It’s your call” kind of look. Joe said, “Sounds reasonable.” He waved a hand towards the small men, “They won’t take anything will they?”
At that the men all muttered angrily, and Maude took her cigar stub from her mouth, “Now why in the System would you go and cast aspersion upon their fine character? These gentlemen are professionals.” As an aside, she stage-whispered to Joe, “Besides they’re under contract, they steal, they lose money and status among their guild.”
“Oh. Okay.” Joe nodded his understanding and spoke loudly to the gnomish men, “Sorry fellahs. Not used to dealing with professionals. I apologize.”
That seemed to mollify the men and Maude called out in the sing song language and the small group dashed over to the dragon, pulling various tools and implements off their carts. Maude grabbed Joe’s elbow and guided him and Bixby back to the Shoppe proper.
Once inside, she brought them back to the counter, “So you’re lookin’ for spells and information. Anything else?” Bixby let out a few barks. Joe was about to translate, but Maude answered, “Yeah, I can see why you’d maybe want something like that.” She thought for a moment and pointed, “Two aisles down on the right side at the very end on the bottom. There’s a whole basket of them.”
Joe watched Bixby happily trot off down the aisle, he turned to Maude, “So you speak dog too?”
She gave Joe a look like maybe he was slow, “I speak all languages. Can’t be a good merchant if you can’t talk to your customers. You always ask dumb questions?”
Joe chuckled, “Apparently. We’re very new to all of this and just trying to process it all and learn as we go.”
“Aye, integration can be rough, I’ll give you that.” She slapped her hands on the counter to clear the air and changed the subject. “Shall we get down to it?” She pulled a large book out from behind the counter and set it down with a thud. It looked like a hard bound telephone book. She squinted at Joe then placed her hand on the cover of the book. It immediately decreased in volume down to a handful of pages. She slid it over to Joe, “Book of spells. At least those that you’re allowed to learn.”
Joe took the book in hand and flipped it open. There were several pages of text, however it was all incomprehensible. The text squirmed and wiggled in his vision. He tried injecting some Mana into it and the text shifted to English. Excitedly, he began reading through the listings. There were several dozen spells within the realm of his class as an Umbral Warden. There was also a load of spells available because of being Soulbound to Bixby. As he flipped through the book, Bixby came trotting back up with something in his mouth. Joe paused his reading and grabbed the thing Bixby presented. “What’s this?” He focused on the object that turned out to be a plain looking collar with swirling glyphs engraved into it.
Collar of Limited Transformation
This collar, when worn and activated will transform its wearer into a singular form that they must establish upon first invocation. With a small expenditure of Mana (100), the wearer can assume the predetermined shape at will. This is a true polymorph and not an illusion and cannot be broken unless the wearer releases the enchantment, or the collar is broken or suppressed through magical means.
Joe looked quizzically at Bixby who let off a string of barks, woofs, and growls. Joe’s brows shot up, “Dude! That’s a great idea! No more scaring the locals unless you want to. Definitely going home with us.” Joe placed the collar on the counter, “Might as well start a pile.” Before he went back to thumbing through the spell book, he asked, “Anything else you want?” Bixby answered and Joe agreed. Moments later, Maude and Bixby were walking through the aisles. It was odd to hear Bixby speaking to another person and having that person answer back. He shook his head and dove back in to reading.
It was almost two hours later when Joe and Bixby had completed their shopping trip. There was an array of things laid out on the counter and Joe had cherry picked a handful of spells he thought would be useful to him and Bixby. He rested his hands on the counter and asked, “So, what’s the damage?”
Maude gave Joe a questioning look.
“Sorry, turn of phrase that I suppose you have no reference to. It means. How much do I owe you for all of this and the spells.”
Maude nodded her understanding and said, “The idiom translated, but not well. The System tends to bugger things like that.” She chewed her stubby cigar and waved away the conversation, “Anyway. You got yourselves a fine collection of things here. My boys have tallied your items from the other room as well. But before we get to the overall total, do you want to sell everything you dropped off or did you have some thing you wanted to keep?”
“I’ve been thinking about that. I think that all depends on the answer to my next question or possibly questions.” Joe leaned forward on the counter, “In my city, we have some people that have support classes like leather smith and alchemist. But they are all still new to the System and not of a very high level. Can they actually use any of the materials that I brought in?”
Maude thought for a moment, “Yes and no and… eventually.” She twirled her cigar in her hand and elaborated. “For crafts-people, the better the material, the better experience they gain. But, some material will simply be too high of a level for them to effectively work with and they can’t pull the best results from it. In my experience, most adventurers tend to sell the higher tier materials if they do not have access to high level artisans. But you may want to hold on to some of this and feed it in drips and drabs to your people as they level. You’ve got a load of materials for them to work with. I’d say for a newly integrated world, having access to what you brought in would give a large number of people some serious levels once they started working on things.” She paused and then added, “Of course you’re gonna have to trade with them or just outright give them the materials as I doubt any of them can afford even a small portion of what you’ve got.” She stuck the nub of cigar back in her mouth.
“That’s kind of what I thought.” He sighed, “Can you list out the things that you think are way too high of a tier for my people to work with or even come close to working with until they hit the advanced rank of their class?”
“Sure.” Maude pulled out a note pad and pencil from under the counter and scribbled in it for a few moments. She pushed it over to Joe and he let out a low whistle. She nodded sagely, “Ain’t none of your smiths gonna be able to work Dragon until they’re well into their advanced ranks. Probably not the Horror either, but your alchemists and enchanters can probably benefit from some of the things like the blood and various parts.” She grunted, “Up to you though.”
“Alright, I think that looks good. Let’s do that. He pointed to a few of the items on her list. “I’ll keep those and sell the rest.” He stopped and gazed at Maude for a moment, “And, thank you for being so nice. After what we’ve encountered, I really didn’t know what to expect here.”
“Now don’t be getting all misty eyed and go all lover boy on me. I’m a married woman and got no interest in changing that, even though I like ya well enough.” She winked at Bixby who snorted in amusement.