The collective shock at Albert not having a ‘guy’ for everything passed hard, but it did pass. When they had regained their wits and understood the world once more, Kiara led them back through the Goblin Market. They covered a good deal of ground, including passing through a circular area that served as an open-air bazaar for merchants who lacked a permanent storefront.

“You could call this the Goblin Flea Market,” Albert said with a wheezy snicker when they passed through.

“It’s really helpful for eidolons who are just starting out, especially if they don’t have a support structure helping them out,” Griffin added.

After a few minutes walking through the warren of tunnels — allowing Aaron to browse a myriad of stores both strange and exciting — they found their way to a shop unlike any of the others Aaron had seen so far.

The storefront was taken up by a wide window over a counter and there was no visible door to access the shop itself, like an old newsstand built right into a wall only with a storage space behind it. The marquee above the window read Don’t Spare the Rod.

“Don’t spare the rod,” Aaron read with a snort. “Clever.”

Hundreds of small boxes were stacked on shelves in the wall behind the counter, which was unoccupied when they arrived. A grinding sound, almost a hiss, came from behind the shelves. Kiara stepped up to the counter and rang an intricately decorated brass call bell sitting atop it. The grinding sound came to an immediate halt.

A Japanese woman emerged from behind the shelves. She had an ageless quality and could have been in her twenties or fifties and wore a long sleeved shirt and thin leather apron hung from her neck, both of which were covered with a hint of woodshavings. She smiled brightly when she saw Kiara.

“If it isn’t my favorite customer,” the woman said. “How are you, Lavigné?”

“Ooh, she even said it the fancy way,” Griffin said, performing a congratulatory golf clap.

“Mac, these are some friends of mine - Albert Lang, Griffin Smythe, and Aaron Abrams,” Kiara said, gesturing to each of them.

There was a chorus of nods and nice-to-meet-yous from the guys as the woman brushed the last remnants of wood shavings off.

“Welcome to my shop, I’m Masaki Maki, but you can call me Mac. You here for adjustments and repairs, or something else?”

“Aaron here is going to try his hand at delving with us, so we wanted to make sure he was properly equipped,” Kiara said. “Nothing better for dealing with dwellers than a good wand.”

Mac clearly agreed with that sentiment — naturally, since she was a wandmaker — but Albert and Griffin quietly expressed their objection with the eloquent rejoinder of making fart noises. Aaron had no frame of reference, but getting a wand sounded pretty awesome.

Will it choose me or is it more like D&D wands that have an anchored spell? he wondered.

“Pay these philistines no mind, they’re all brawn, blades, and bloodlust,” Kiara scoffed. “But anytime there’s something up on a ledge or across a chasm, guess who’s suddenly the belle of the fucking ball?” Kiara gestured at herself with both thumbs. Mac let out a tremendous guffaw and slapped the counter with one hand.

“Well put,” she said. “So, what did you have in mind?”

“Something versatile, good at any range, but without any magic that’s too complicated,” Kiara said.

“I think I have just the thing,” Mac said, turning around to scour the stacks of small boxes lining the wall behind her. “It’s very easy to use so even a novice to magic can wield it, but it’s got a variety of functions.”

She pulled out a long, narrow box and set it on the counter. There were no markings on the box as far as Aaron could see, but Mac had found it in just a few seconds so obviously she had some kind of organizational system she understood. She pulled the lid off the box, revealing a long rod made of wood so white it almost looked like bone.

“This is one of my favorite starter wands,” Mac explained. “I call it a wand of the elements, or an elementalist’s wand if you prefer. It can produce beams of heat and cold in a wide range of temperatures, so it’s useful for things other than combat, and it will fire darts made of obsidian, as well.”

“Fire, water, and earth; nothing for air?” Griffin asked.

Mac shook her head. “Not on the basic model. I have a greater wand of the elements that does lightning — bolts and beams — but it’s much more expensive.”

Griffin rubbed his chin. “How much more expensive are we talking about here?”

“Five hundred for the lesser wand, two grand for the greater,” Mac said.

“Is that reasonable for wands?” Aaron asked, then, remembering his cover, elaborated. “I never really did numbers on magic goods, just investments.”

Kiara nodded. “Yes, I’d say those are reasonable prices. I have five wands and I don’t think I paid less than a thousand for any of them.”

Mac coughed. “Your wand of wounding was only eight hundred.”

Aaron couldn’t imagine what that wand might do. Or, rather, he was imagining so many things with no way to rule any out. There was almost certainly no way it was a wand that just slashed or poked people, right?

“What does that do?” he asked, curiosity getting the better of him.

“It creates a small node of gravitic magic up to an inch deep inside the target, then the wand draws it back towards itself,” Kiara said.

“It’s super effective against particularly tough eidolons if their internals aren’t as hardy as their flesh,” Griffin said. “The results can be pretty gruesome, though.”

“It’s my holdout wand,” Kiara said. “I don’t use it unless I have to.”

“Are those prices firm?” Albert asked.

“I’d be willing to bargain if you want to pick up both wands, but I’m pretty firm if it’s one or the other.”

Aaron’s companions took a step away from the store to discuss which option was better. Aaron stayed at the counter to talk to Mac.

“So it seems like the wand doesn’t choose the wizard?”

“That fucking hag,” Mac spat, rolling her eyes. “No, even a wand designed to be an unrestricted focus for magic — and that’s pretty rare these days — isn’t sentient or anything like that. You might find wands that have a better resonance with your own style and energy, but you can get the same benefit from a set of golf clubs or a bowling ball.”

“Not a Potterhead, I take it?”

“That hag — aside from being a shitty person — has caused entire generations of people to make my job more of a pain in the ass. They all want to touch every damned stick in my shop until Galadriel whispers in their ear or some stupid thing.”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“But that can’t happen because wands are usually built to perform one or more specific feats of magic,” Aaron said. “Plus the terrible person thing really works against her.”

“Who’s a terrible person?” Kiara asked, stepping back to the shopfront with Albert and Griffin.

“The Scottish hag,” Mac said.

Kiara sucked on her teeth. “That shithead is the worst thing to happen to the eidolon community in centuries. Tons of people awakening to magic that wouldn’t have otherwise, but they’re almost all magi and half-convinced the stuff in that pap is how things actually work.”

“We wanted to get the greater wand,” Griffin interjected. “You sure we can’t talk you into coming down a little? I mean, we’re talking two hundred twenty two platinum and two gold. At least knock off the two gold.”

“Platinum?” Mac said incredulously. “You’re telling me you delvers are going to make a purchase this size and use coin instead of aetherium? Don’t get me wrong — there’s something viscerally awesome about a big heap of coins, but we’re talking several pounds of metal you’d be plunking down on my nice glass counters.”

Griffin took a sudden interest in the floor, which he began to nudge with the toes of his shoe. Albert slapped him on the back with a laugh.

“Griff doesn’t have the tables on gems memorized, so he can’t do the math quickly and worries it makes him look stupid,” the smaller man said. “That’s why he handles the metal and I handle the shiny rocks.”

Albert produced a small leather pouch from somewhere and began to pull out clusters of small gemstones, rolling them onto the counter like the most extravagant marbles in the world. He kept dropping stones until there were ten in total, each a deep, vibrant red that shone in the light of the market. Then he added one more, this one a lustrous blue with a glossy sheen to it.

Finally, he pulled out a single gold coin and held it up between two fingers. Aaron saw that it was marked with two lines crossing each other to form an X or a large, lowercase T. All of the coins Aaron had seen so far had been the same size, most with only a single line engraved into them.

“Sure you won’t knock off the two gold?” Albert asked.

The markings are some kind of compounding, uh, ideogram, Aaron realized. To represent numerals, maybe?

If one line stood for one, then two lines probably meant two. That meant the more complicated coin with a line carved vertically through an X — literally three, distinct lines — was likely meant to represent three. If so, four was most likely a cross over an X, making an eight-pointed star. Aaron had no idea what five, six, or anything higher would be.

“I’m sure,” Mac said, setting a flat metal plate on the counter, then scooping the gems into a small bowl made of dark stone. “Besides, the greater wand doesn’t just have added functions, it’s also more durable. That means longer between adjustments or recharging.”

Mac placed the bowl on the metal plate, the gemstones inside tinkling pleasantly. Runes appeared on the plate and began to glow with a soft white light, the bowl matched suit soon after, then the gems themselves began to glow with the same light. After a few seconds, the glow around each precious stone changed to match the gem’s color. That seemed to satisfy Mac, because she lifted the bowl and poured the gems into a small drawer behind the counter.

“Fair enough,” Albert said, setting the gold coin on the counter. He slid the wand’s long, thin box into his dimensional storage and smiled at Aaron. “I can’t wait to see how you handle this thing.”

“Honestly? Same,” Aaron said.

“Why wait?” Kiara asked. “Mac has a very excellent testing chamber and it will give you a chance to get a feel for how to use it. I doubt you’ve had much chance to play with wands working with numbers.”

“It’s true, I’ve never had the chance to try using a wand,” Aaron said.

“Sure,” Mac said. “Come on back.”

She turned and walked away from them down the small hallway behind the counter while Kiara led them around the side of her shop. A panel of the wall slid open at their approach and Mac beckoned them inside.

For a moment, Aaron felt the same disorientation he’d experienced at the stairs down to the Goblin Market when he glanced towards the front of the shop. They couldn’t have been more than ten feet away, but it was somehow at least twice that. The sensation passed almost before Aaron was even aware of it.

The area behind the shop was open but divided into two sections by a wall. The section closest to the front was a workshop — likely where Mac worked on her trade — and the one at the rear was a target range. The space had definitely been modified by dimensional magic; the targets went out to a range of fifty feet, which was easily three times the width of Mac’s storefront.

“Your wand isn’t restricted so you should be able to use it without needing to attune it, although it will be a little more difficult,” Mac explains. “All you have to do is aim and focus on the specific thing you want the wand to do, then it should do it.”

Albert had removed the box from his pouch and set it on the counter marking the edge of the range. Aaron slid the wand out of the velvet lining of the box; it was nearly as white as ivory, like the lesser wand, but shot through with thin veins of a blue so pale they almost vanished against the brighter wood. The handle was wrapped in bands of soft and supple leather that gave it just enough cushion to be comfortable. Aaron rolled the wand in his fingers and let it rest in his hand, finding a grip on it that would be good for him.

“So it does beams of hot, cold, and electricity, bolts of electricity, and, uh, stone darts. Is that right?” Aaron asked.

Mac nodded. “Basically, yes, although if you want to try the temperature beams, you’ll need to have at least a rough idea how hot or cold you want it.”

Aaron nodded and held his new wand upright, considering what he wanted the wand to do. This was aiming practice as much as training in how to use a wand, so the best choice would probably be the stone darts since they’d test accuracy and precision best. He could always adjust with a beam, as long as it kept going for a couple seconds.

He had decided and so, setting aside his giddiness at his first attempt at using magic — with an actual magic wand! — Aaron leveled it at the targets and tried to fire an obsidian dart.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, but with no more success. It took him several tries to finally fire a shaft of black stone and he was so surprised when he did he missed his target by a mile. There was a lot of well-meaning advice and some good-natured ribbing as Aaron continued making attempts for another fifteen minutes, but he was struggling to get the hang of it and only managed to conjure a dart every fourth or fifth attempt.

“It takes some getting used to,” Kiara eventually said, “but you’ll figure out what works for you with some more practice.”

They gave their thanks to the wandmaker and took their leave. With all their necessary purchases taken care of, they decided to meander the market for a bit and do some window shopping. It also gave Aaron a chance to ask a question that had been bugging him for a while.

From things the trio had said, Aaron had built the impression his security detail usually did some kind of exploration or treasure hunting. After their brief conversation with Kweeble, the gnome who sold extra-dimensional storage, he also suspected it was something done underground. Even what they called themselves, delvers, fit both those meanings pretty well.

But it seemed ludicrous — even more ludicrous than all the other ludicrous things he’d learned about in the past few days — that it could mean what he thought it meant. Surely, it was just a brain filled up with wild and fanciful ideas from video games and fantasy novels. Right?

Still… if he never asked, he’d never know.

“You guys keep saying I’m going to go delving with you. I get that it’s a cover story, but what does ‘delving’ mean?”

“That’s what the three of us usually do,” Griffin said. “It’s sorta like our job, I guess.”

Before Aaron could give the big man any guff over what a vaguebooking kind of non-answer that was and ask him to clarify with some god damned specifics, each of his companions took out their phones.

Why didn’t I get a message, too? he wondered

It didn’t feel great to be left out, but Aaron had only met these people yesterday and he had to remind himself they weren’t his friends, they were his security detail. He might feel like they could be friends, but they were still doing a job and they had lives outside of keeping him safe. It chaffed a bit, nevertheless.

Aaron’s fear of missing out evaporated quickly. Albert breathed out a curse and his escorts exchanged serious glances. They scanned their surroundings in a way that was more notable than their usual subtle methods; they were actively looking for threats, no longer bothering to maintain the pretense of being shoppers out to the market.

“What’s going on?”

“Maybe nothing, maybe trouble,” Griffin said.

They fell into a more guarded escort formation and picked up their pace as they moved through the market. Albert was in front of Aaron, Griffin behind, and Kiara to the side. They moved briskly, keeping a wall on Aaron’s other side as often as possible so no angle would be fully exposed.

“Our people are detecting a bunch of divinations being thrown at known drakus around the city; some have even spotted people tailing them,” Kiara said quietly. “There’s a chance the people who sent the assassins know you’re in town and are on the hunt.”