Tanalia groaned. “Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision,” Maria said. “It’ll be fun, I promise.”
“It’s never fun to lose all your gold! You said Irra was level thirty?”
“It’s just the gold from the dungeon, we can sell any excess loot we get.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with it,” Chariot said. “There is nothing wrong with a little friendly competition, so long as both parties follow the rules, and play fair. Maybe this could be a good way to rebuild Irra’s impression of us.”
“Who cares what she thinks, she’s a stuck-up bitch,” Tanalia said. “If I earn gold, I want to keep it.”
Maria sighed and walked with the two of them down the bustling road. “Well, it’s been decided. That’s what we’re doing.”
Tanalia scoffed. “Great. I suppose there is the bright side of you not having to turn in a cut of your reward from this.”
“It’s not that bad. It’s one of the requirements of working for the guild.”
“Why bother if they’re just going to take your loot?”
“Because they offer me services and in exchange I give them a small percentage of what I earn. It’s not that weird. The money can go towards things to help the guild such as the upkeep for the rooms, bathhouses, the kitchen, and Master Eardwulf’s recovery.”
“How is he doing?” Chariot asked.
“He’s doing… fine. I think. He was walking on crutches when he came to see me, but at least he has the energy to walk.”
“That’s good. It’s honestly horrible what The Ringleader did to him. We will find that foul man and bring him to justice one day.”
“One day is the keyword there,” Tanalia commented. “We still have no idea where he is.”
“Eardwulf is asking around if any of his old colleagues have heard mention of the Ringleader,” Maria said. “Until then we need to use this time to prepare and build our strength.”
The trio shuffled through the crowded marketplace on their way to the potions shop. The stands were lining the streets, making it hard for even horse-drawn carriages to pass with everyone walking back and forth between booths. Some were selling rare flowers that gave off an automatic scent that reminded Maria of honey, or strangely enough, perfume. Some stalls sold food, others sold monster claws, flayed tongues, and pelts. Herbal leaves were on display as well as feathers, hornwort, mushrooms, rainbow-colored moss, and the list went on. Some made for good cooking ingredients from what Maria could hear, others for—
“Ack!”
Maria stumbled back as she bumped into a petite girl, knocking her down, and sending her woven basket of assorted ingredients tumbling to the ground.
“Ow! Hey! Watch where you’re going!” she said.
Chariot helped Maria back to her feet.
“I’m sorry,” Maria said and offered her hand to the girl. When she reached up to take Maria's hand, her claw-like nails dug into Maria's palm. She winced. As her gaze traveled up the length of the girl's arm, she found that the girl had two large wolf-like ears buried beneath her curly, jet-black hair where human ears should have been. The girl's almond-shaped eyes were heterochromatic, the left a gentle gold, and the other reminiscent of a crystal-clear ocean. She looked no older than Maria herself.
"Are you alright?" Maria asked.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Chariot asked.
“I said I was fine!”
“You don’t look so fine,” Tanalia said. “I may have pointed ears but I can’t say I’ve seen many people whose ears are furry.”
The girl’s hand relinquished Maria’s drawing a knick of blood. She stopped, sniffed the air, then looked down at her nails where a droplet of blood dripped. “Oh my god I’m so sorry,” she said.
“No, no, it’s fine,” Maria said awkwardly, wiping the blood onto her trousers.
“No it’s not alright, I cut you!”
“Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t hurt at all.” Maria looked the girl over. She was wearing a robe not dissimilar to the one Maria had donned during her apprenticeship. Beneath it, a knee-length dress peeked out, and she was wearing… No shoes? The girl stood barefoot, her toenails as sharp and lengthy as her fingernails.
The wolf-girl huffed and knelt over to pick up her ingredients. Maria and Chariot did the same, helping put her spilled ingredients back into her woven basket. It was a strange assortment of leaves, berries, specially shaped twigs, coal, wrapped meat, and other oddities.
“Sorry I ran into you,” Maria said.
“It’s fine, I should have been looking where I was going.”
“What’s your name?”
“Lycia,” she said. A strange shuffling noise came from behind the girl. A large, bushy tail poked out from under her dress and lifted the seem of it as it wagged from side to side.
Maria couldn’t help but stare, almost mesmerized by it. “I uh… I’m Maria. This is Chariot and Tanalia.”
“Maria… Weird name.”
In an instant, Maria was reeled back. “Weird?”
Lycia giggled. “I’m just messing with you. I like it.”
“Oh. I like Lycia too.”
Her tail wagged faster.
As the ingredients were all returned to the basket, Lycia rose back to her feet with a smile. She brushed her messy hair out of her face. It was long, curly, and unkempt with strange tuffs of ashen white hair dotted randomly around her head.
“What’s all that for?” Tanalia asked, referring to the ingredients.
“Oh, these are for potions. My master sent me out to collect some for some orders we have.”
“Master? Are you working with The Adventurer's Guild?” Maria asked.
“Nope, I’m working with Master Blunog.”
Chariot smiled. “How convenient. We’re on our way to his shop right now.”
“Ooooooooh, new customers!” Lycia beamed. Her tail wagged faster. She brushed off her dress, and struck an elitist pose “I am Lycia Galric, praised apprentice of the one and only Moffavan Blunog.”
The trio stared blankly at Lycia.
“We know who you are,” Tanalia said. “You already told us.”
“I didn’t present myself properly,” she pouted.
Tanalia snorted. “You’re a praised apprentice who doesn’t even wear shoes.”
“I can’t wear shoes!” Lycia growled and lifted her feet. She had incredible balance, and leg strength, which Maria found off considering how easily she was able to knock the girl over. “See these?” Lycia gestured to her clawed toenails.
“Can’t you just clip them?”
“No, I have wicks!”
Tanalia shrugged. “Hm, shame.”
“Do you even know what I am?”
Again, Tanalia shrugged.
Chariot rolled her eyes and shot an annoyed glance back at Tanalia. “How have you never heard of demi-human? I can understand if Maria doesn’t know, but I would have expected you of all people to?”
“Why?” Tanalia raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t demi-humans pass through Mathh Aethel?”
“Sometimes. I’m just saying I don’t know what she is. She’s got ears, a tail, could be anything.”
Lycia sighed and bore a set of fangs. “I’m a wolf.”
“Ah, wouldn’t have guessed that. I figured a cat.”
“With that bushy tail?” Chariot asked.
Maria stood by in awkward silence, her eyes darting between the three bickering amongst each other. She raised her hand slowly until she grabbed Chariot’s attention. “So… what’s a Demi-Human?”
“We are human-animal hybrids,” Lycia said proudly, twirling her hand before resting it on her chest.
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“I’ve only come to know a few in my life,” Chariot explained. “I’ve worked with one before. They can be kind people.”
Maria looked back at Lycia and stared at her soft wolf ears. It wasn’t how Maria had expected a human-animal hybrid to look. She expected the ears to be atop her head, with her regular ears hidden by long hair. Yet, seeing one in person was something she certainly never expected to happen either. She wanted to reach out and feel her ears. Would it be rude to ask?
“Anyways,” Lycia clapped her hand. “I’m actually on my way back now, if you want to follow me.”
Maria looked back the way they had come. “Did we pass it?”
“Mhm. If you came from that way then you passed it by a few blocks. I know, it can be hypnotizing walking through the market palace.” Lycia took in a long, deep breath. “There are so many smells, colors, and textures!”
Tanalia shrugged again. “I’m all one for things smelling pleasant, but nothing here smells as good as the forest.”
“You just don’t have the nose for it,” Lycia giggled and skipped along. She led the trio to the storefront, a decorative shop, with a wooden sign hung above the door of a green flask pouring liquid out.
Blunog Elixirs and Tonics
Natural light streamed through the pair of storefront windows. Nestled between these windows, a shelf cradled a collection of herbs, spices, and assorted magical curiosities that filled the air with a thick, aromatic scent. Stretching along the length of the store was a solitary glass display showcasing an array of colored bottles, each labeled and priced meticulously atop a crimson velvet backdrop.
Lycia hurried around to the other side of the counter and placed the basket of ingredients behind her on a table with a variety of potted plants, and a stack of books. A portrait, beside a door to the back room, hung in the corner of who Maria assumed was Moffavan. He was old, like Eardwulf, with a long, gray beard fancied up with bowtie ribbons. He was bald, with light reflecting off his head, and a large pair of glasses tilted on his crooked nose.
“So, how can I help you?” Lycia asked with a smile. Her tail was visibly wagging from side to side behind her.
“Healing potions, for one,” Maria said.
“Which kind?”
“Which kind?” Maria raised an eyebrow.
Lycia walked down the row of potions with her hands folded behind her back and gestured to a series of healing potions in differently shaped bottles. “There are different types. Most adventurer’s like starting with Basic Health Potions. They restore fifty points of health. Then we got Advanced Health Potions and Greater Health Potions. Those restore percentages of your total health. Advanced heals twenty-five percent and Greater heals fifty percent.”
“Those… sound a whole lot better than what I had, yeah I’ll take a few of those.”
“Which ones?” Lycia titled her head.
“Oh. The Advanced ones.”
“I think we’ll all take a few of those,” Chariot said.
“I already know what I want,” Tanalia said. She walked further down the row of potions. “I’ll take three Archery potions, three Feather Fall potions, two Hunters potions, two Night-Owl potions—”
“I thought you claimed you could see better in the dark,” Chariot crossed her arms.
“It doesn’t hurt to have extra visibility.” She then turned back to Lycia. “Aaaand, three swiftness potions… along with a couple of Advanced Healing potions.”
“That's… a big order,” Lycia chuckled nervously.
“Do you have them?”
“Oh, no, we have them. I’m just saying it’s a big order.”
“What about invisibility potions?” Tanalia chuckled with a sarcastic tone.
“We don’t have any in stock, no,” Lycia said. “There aren’t a lot of people buying them so Master Moffavan doesn’t brew them.”
“People don’t want invisibility potions?” Maria asked. “When I was a kid having one of those was the dream.”
“People don’t really have a lot of use for—”
“Seriously? I can think of dozens of things you could do with an invisibility potion.”
Chariot and Tanalia both exchanged glances, for once, sharing a chuckle.
“What?” Maria looked between them.
Lycia cleared her throat. “Well…invisibility potions work on making you invisible. Just not… everything else.”
Maria paused for a moment and formed a wide O with her mouth before pursing her lips. “Ah. I see.”
“Mhm. People aren’t too keen on the potion wearing off. Especially if they’re in a public place.”
“Alright. Noted,” Maria said awkwardly. Though, it got the gears turning in her head. Being naked in public when no one could see her… it didn’t sound too bad. She could get away with a lot.
“There is some clothing out there that makes you turn completely invisible, but there’s always a caveat with it,” Chariot said. “It’s always something like you need to be standing completely still, or you need to be running at a certain speed. Anyways, I believe I know what I want as well,” Chariot then said to Lycia. “I already own a few Ironskin, and Endurance potions, but I’ll have one more of each, and two titan, rage, antidote, and thorn potions each. Oh, and the Advanced Healing potions.”
Lycia's ears flicked, then flattened, and her face dropped. “Well… we have all of those except for the Rage Potions. Master Moffavan placed an order on the ingredients, and we’re still waiting on them.”
“Then, it’s alright, don’t worry about it.”
“I can still make it!” Lycia said, raising her voice and practically jumping in place. “I can do it! You can place the order and I can have it done in a few days!”
“Oh, well then in that case, that’s fine too.”
Lycia's ears perked back up, and her tail flipped furiously. There was a sheet of paper on the desk that she had been scribbling notes into, and though the list was long, she didn’t look deterred, if anything the demi-human only got more excited. She then looked at Maria. “What about you?”
“Oh. I uh… I’m not sure. There’s… a lot of options to choose from.”
“Well, I can help with that!” Lycia beamed. “You’re a mage, I take it?”
“What gave it away?”
“I don’t know,” Lycia shrugged sarcastically. “It was just a guess. So for you I would recommend some mana potions over here. Same as with healing potions. We have Basic, Advanced, and Greater— And again the ladder two are twenty-five percent and fifty percent recovery.”
Maria bobbed her head as she stared at the mana potions. The bubbling blue liquid inside sparkled in the reflection of the sunlight. “Yeah, I’ll take some of those. I’d say six.”
“Alright, anything else?” Lycia shuffled over and stood behind a potion glowing so red it was like it was filled with magma. She was bouncing in place ever so slightly.
Maria rolled her eyes. “What’s this one?”
“Oh, why I’m glad you asked.” Lycia tapped on the glass over the potion. “This is an Inferno potion. Drink this, and a ring of fire will encircle you for three minutes. Anything that comes inside that ring bursts into flames!”
“Lycia!” A deep, gravelly voice boomed.
The girl yelped, and jumped away from the counter, quickly folding her hands in front of her, and standing upright. An older man, Moffavan from the looks of it, stood in the doorway behind the counter. The trio fell silent.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his face wrinkled and angry.
“H- Helping customers?” Lycia raised an eyebrow.
“Was that a question?” he growled.
“No, I just wasn’t sure why you would be confu—”
“Shut it!”
Lycia quickly fell silent.
“You’re late, I asked you to bring me the ingredien—”
“They’re right here!” She passed the woven basket to Moffavan.
“Idiot girl, I asked you to bring them to me and you left them sitting on the counter this whole time!”
“I just got back. I bumped into these three, and they were already on their way to come—”
“I don’t want an excuse from you. Worthless little mutt, you still can’t follow simple orders.”
Maria grimaced and stared down at the potion master. He walked, hunched over, towards the counter. Neither Chariot nor Tanalia seemed very comfortable either.
“I’ll finish up with them. Do as I say for once and put those ingredients on the back table, then get these girls’ orders.”
“Y- Yes sir!” Lycia quickly said and hurried into the back room.
Moffavan grumbled to himself and slammed his hands carelessly onto the glass display. “Forgive my apprentice. She can be… difficult.”
“I didn’t think she was difficult,” Maria said.
“You haven’t been around her long enough. So, who was ordering just now?”
“Me,” Maria said hesitantly.
“What do you need?.”
“Uh. Well, Lycia was helping me pick out some potions.”
“You’re a mage,” Moffavan said rather bluntly. “Mana potions, and Magic Power potions, that’s what you need.”
Maria was quiet for a moment. She took a deep breath and sighed. “Magic Power?”
“Real useful for people like you,” he growled. “It boosts your magic damage by twenty percent for three minutes.”
“Oh. Okay, that sounds good. So, I’ll have three of those, I already asked for six Advanced Mana potions, Advanced Healing potions… and I’ll take two of those Inferno potions.”
“Maria,” Chariot said, “I suggest some Ironskin potions for you. You don’t exactly have the best defense.”
“Oh. Okay, three of those as well.”
A few moments later, Lycia emerged from the back room, carrying a bundle of potion bottles in her arms. She laid them out on the counter and returned for another handful.
“Alright, that should be all of it,” Lycia smiled. “We don’t have the Rage potion, but we’ll brew you some up in a couple of days.”
“Thank you,” Chariot said. With each potion everyone grabbed, they dematerialized into a flurry of bright pixels and polygons before floating into everyone's inventory. The trio exchanged their gold and headed out.
“We’ll be back in a few days,” Maria said.
Lycia’s tail wagged. “I’ll see you then!”
“Quiet,” Moffavan said. He groaned and returned to the back room just as Maria stepped out. Once the door shut behind the trio, and they had walked a significant distance from the shop, Maria turned to face her party.
“Asshole,” she muttered.
“Mhm,” Chariot frowned.
“Let’s just get going,” Tanalia said. “Where’s this dungeon?”
“Master Eardwulf sent me the coordinates,” Maria sighed. “Follow me.”
Maria’s Potions.
x6 Advanced Health Potion - Red, regenerate 25% of health upon drinking
Duration: Instant
x6 Advanced Mana Potions - Blue, Regenerates 25% of mana upon drinking
Duration: Instant
x3 Magic Power Potions - Sparkling Purple, 20% increased magic damage
Duration: 3 minutes
x2 Inferno Potions - Magma Red, Summons a ring of fire around the drinker that ignites nearby enemies.
Duration: 3 minutes
x2 Ironskin Potions - Bright Yellow, Increase defense by 20
Duration: 5 minutes
Chariot’s potions.
x5 Advanced Health Potion - Red, regenerate 25% of health upon drinking
Duration: Instant
x3 Endurance Potion - Grey, Reduces damage taken by 10%
Duration: 3 minutes
x3 Ironskin Potion - Bright Yellow, Increase defense by 20
Duration: 5 minutes
x2 Thorns Potion - Lightish Green, Attackers also take damage
Duration: 3 minutes
x2 Titan Potion - Dark Green, Increases knockback
Duration: 3 minutes
x2 Antidote potion - Yellowish Green, Provides a cure for most poisons
Duration: Instant
Tanalia’s potions.
x5 Advanced Health Potion - Red, regenerate 25% of health upon drinking
Duration: Instant
x3 Archery Potion - Lightish Orange, 10% increased bow damage, and 20% increased arrow speed
Duration: 3 minutes
x3 Featherfall Potion - Light Blue, Slows falling speed
Duration: 3 minutes
x2 Hunter Potion - Dark Orange, Shows the location of enemies
Duration: 5 minutes
x2 Night Owl Potion - Bright Green, Increases night vision
Duration: 10 Minutes
x3 Swiftness Potion - Lightish Green, 25% increased movement speed
Duration: 3 minutes