“Hey, you can’t say stuff like that! Others might think something is going on between us.”

Sam took advantage of his open mouth, sticking the spoon in, dripping a smidgen of sauce onto his tongue. “I don’t know your reputation, but I’m nearly certain that being seen with me will cause your stock to rise.”

An onslaught of salty flavor tickled Chip's nose as he tasted the sauce. “That’s strange,” he said, “I don’t usually smell sauces before I taste them—“

Chip’s eyes watered as the wave of heat hit all at once.

“Water,” he gasped, turning left and right.

“Water? Oh, that’s extra,” Sam said, holding up a sign next to a mug.

1 pearl paid in advance before drinking. No exceptions.

Chip shoved a pearl into Sam's outstretched paw. It took a moment of gulping down the water before he was able to regain his composure.

“That…. was a mean trick,” he gasped, finishing the mug.

“But it did take you to a new place, didn’t it?” Sam replied. “And we’re friends now, I’ve decided. If we’re both going to be keeping an eye on this guard, then maybe we should work together.”

Chip’s nose finally cleared. “Well if we’re working together, I want more for my money,” Chip said.

Sam leaned in conspiratorially, whiskers twitching. “Such as?”

“I’m entering the festival contest in two months, the Baron’s contest. The three blast furnaces?” Chip pointed down the street to the corner, where a mouse was selling hot cakes, steaming off the blast furnace. “Those are the prizes, or at least that’s what I heard. If we won one of the furnaces, it would be easier for my uncle to sell his wares,” Chip said.

Sam looked at the mouse, dressed up in a loose tunic despite the breeze. There were thin plumes of smoke rising from the side of his cart, where the blast furnace was roaring. “So you’re looking for information, eh?”

“I’m looking to win,” Chip replied, “and I’ll take a bottle of that Isekai sauce. We need to figure out who else is on that judges panel.”

“We?” Sam said.

“We’re friends now.”

Sam smiled.

“In that case… I know a guy,” she said. “I’ll bring her with me for lunch. You know, for my free friendship fish.” Sam batted her eyes. “Naturally.”

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

“Naturally,” Chip repeated. “Do I know her? Your friend?”

“Probably not, since she’s a raven.” Sam was looking over his shoulder now. Chip could hear voices approaching, morning shoppers exchanging the typical chatter. “Off with you, I got some selling to do.”

And with that, Chip was pushed unceremoniously out of the stall, with an armful of spices and sauces to try.

He was twenty paces out when he realized that he hadn’t paid for anything she’d handed him. He hoped that she wasn’t going to put him on some credit system, like the company scrip that his family lived off of. Clams could be exchanged for scrip but rarely the other way around, and scrip was only good at the company store. You could get anything at the company store, in theory, but the real underground was trading the otters who made clams for their outside businesses, and of course the betting markets.

There was only one legitimate route to exchange scrip for clams, and many more illegitimate ones.

Returning to the bench by the cart, he saw that his father and uncle were talking politics again. It was always a risk when Stone came with them. Bad for business, Uncle Brit said.

“I’m telling you, Brit, it’s not natural what those foxes and mice and rabbits do,” Stone said, shadow boxing the air. Brit was bent over the grill, readying the first round of fish for the upcoming lunch rush.

“They settle down in mated pairs, and you think that isn’t right?”

“At least with the beavers, they’re doing the raft thing, even if they’re doing it wrong. I give them clams for style if not substance,” Stone replied. “Even if they call it a float, it doesn't float my boat, as they say.”

“You’d give them company scrip worth nothing to them outside of the community trust,” Brit replied. He beckoned Chip and his haul over, sniffing the load of spices, and pointed to one in particular. It just so happened to be the one that Chip was wary of.

“Ummm….” Chip said, “ You might want to try this out first before you just use it in an otterly stupid fashion.”

Brit looked at him, made a show of sniffing more deeply, and then he nodded. A fluttering of wings interrupted their conversation as a customer dropped in from the air.

“Ah, our first bird of the lunch rush,” Uncle Brit said, leaning over the grill. “What’ll it be?

Underneath a hood, a dark face with yellow eyes squinted at the grill. The bird pointed to the sweet isekai sauce.

“You know that’s hot, right?” Chip asked the raven.

“Did I stutter?” the cold voice said. ”Did I even say anything?”

Uncle Brit grumbled as he handed over a fish-on-a-stick. Chip crossed his arms. The fish disappeared under the cowl, only the tip of a black beak popping out.

A black beak, Chip realized. Birds from the aviary came to the stall often enough, but corvids were rarely among them. Taking a shot in the dark, he asked, “You’re friends with Sam, aren’t you?”

“I think that you’re looking for something special,” the raven said.

“I’m looking for some sort of information.”

From her pockets, the raven pulled company scrip, roughly one stick’s worth, and handed it to Chip.

“More where that came from if we can work something out. I’m River,” she said, finally lowering her hood. Her midnight blue feathers made her yellowed eyes stand out, almost eerie. A white headband held her feathers in a peculiar fashion, as if she had a warhawk.

“And you look fabulous, oh my Raven,” Chip said. Her tone had changed, much less stand-offish, and he responded in kind. “Did you get that headband as a gift, because you are working it!”

“Actually it’s from my work,” she said, “but that is a story for another time. Sam told me all about you, but I need to understand this festival.”

“Oh, let me tell you how we’re going to win it!”

Brit groaned as the two talked.

Absorbed in their conversation, neither noticed the large otter mercenary making his way around the bazaar.