“Yeah, of course I’ll help you buy a healing potion for Yang. How much time do we have?” Max said.

Lily said, “She seems stable, just steadily getting worse. We have a few hours at least. Maybe more, but I don’t want to chance it.”

“Alright, I’ll go get my bag and we can sell stuff to get money,” Max said as he started walking back up the stairs.

Before he got far, Lily said, “Leave the bag, just grab your biggest orb. They call them monster cores here and they are basically currency. The white ones are like hundred dollar bills.”

Max hurried up to his room as he thought about what she said. If the tiny white ones were hundred dollar bills, how much were the big ones worth? Ashley had taken the biggest one from the titan, but he still had two big ones in his bag. He grabbed them and stuffed them in the smaller day pack he had brought. Since he hadn’t had breakfast, he grabbed a few granola bars too.

James asked what he was up to as he hurried around the room. Max explained what they were doing and asked him to tell the others. James offered to come along too, but Max figured it would be easier to negotiate for the healing potion with fewer people. As Lily and Max headed out, the hotel owner called out to them.

“Hey, my friends, wait a moment,” Hammurabi said. “Whatever you do, don’t sell your magic cards.”

“Why not?” Lily said, standing in the doorway impatiently.

“The cards you got when you arrived here are special, they are called heart cards. You have to have a heart card central in your deck or you can’t use the cards you pick up from monsters. Many of us didn’t know that and sold away our birthrights. Don’t be like me, keep your heart cards,” Hammurabi said and looked down to his chest.

“We’ll sell everything else before we sell those. But we won’t let our friend die,” Max said. The passion in his voice surprised him. He had only known Yang for three days. Why was he willing to do anything to save her now? He shook his head and headed out before he spent hours trying to psychoanalyze himself.

Lily knew where they were going so she took the lead. She said, “We can’t go straight to the alchemists, we need to exchange our bigger orbs for white ones. Anything bigger than white has variable value. It’s like gems, some kinds are worth way more than others, you need to have an expert look at them.”

“So that’s where we are going? The jeweler that deals in orbs?”

“Kinda, yeah. But Hammurabi said that only the rich wear them. They are usually used to power the magical tech all over the city. For example, all those flying vehicles need a monster core to work.”

“Interesting. It’s like fuel. People head out to kill monsters and they sell the orbs, uh-monster cores, to power the city. I bet monster hunting is a lucrative job.”

“After yesterday, I don’t think I want to be a hunter,” Lily said.

Max nodded along. He wasn’t going to tell her that he would love to be a monster hunter for a few months. Sure, it’s insanely dangerous, but why go through the portal if you don’t want to fight monsters at least a little bit?

Lily led the way to a large shop near the gates to the city. There was a group of armed and armored people exiting the gates. Two Lunuk, three Paj, and a human. It looked like the human was their porter, his pack was almost as big as the one Max left at the hotel.

Their destination had a sign written in a strange script. It looked like someone had taken cursive and mashed it with wingdings. Despite that, the translation magic let him read All that is Magic and Good. The store had large glass windows that displayed monster cores and magic cards. Some of the biggest cores were the same size as the ones Max had in his pack. All of the cards on display were a shade of silver, so that meant they weren’t heart cards. Maybe Hammurabi was right and their cards were very rare.

There was a Lunuk guard just inside the door as they walked in. He loomed over them, as if daring them to try something. Max stepped to the side and took in the shop. It was a high end store, selling mostly magic cards and monster cores. There was a third category of random bits and bobs. A sparkly necklace, a beaded bracelet, a pair of metal keys, etc. Each item had a small notecard underneath it. There was a small glass case in the back, with a Paj standing behind it.

There was something compelling about him. He had a fancy tunic, and like all Paj he had centipede-like tail. His skin was green, but he looked humanoid. It was interesting how closely the alien species matched the physiology of humans. For example, he could easily tell the Paj’s gender with a high degree of confidence. Fascinating.

By the time Max finished his examination, Lily was already talking.

“... so I hope you can forgive my negotiations as my friend’s life literally depends on how much we can get here.”

The Paj gestured towards himself. “Well, let’s see what you have. As much as I sympathize with your plight, keeping this store profitable is the only thing keeping me out of the wilds.”

Lily nodded and reached into her bag. She pulled out four large orbs, two of them swirling with a green color, one blue, and the last held shimmering flakes of black and red. She must have brought her own orbs as well as Yang’s. Max walked up as they talked, but didn’t pull out his own orbs just yet.

“Greater cores, good. That means it's worth my time. I was briefly worried that a seedling like yourself might have brought me white cores,” the Paj said. He brought each one to his face, carefully examining them. “Let’s start with the small. The growth cores are common, worth five whites each. That is a set price, do not attempt to negotiate it. The blue one is a wind core. Still somewhat common, but very much in demand in the City of Wild Plums. I’ll give you eleven whites for it. The black and red one is a blended core. Sometimes that is good, sometimes that is bad. In this case, it’s bad because it doesn’t register in my interface. My Insight is level 16, plenty high enough, but the builders are silent. I’ll give you five whites for it.”

Lily set the blended core to the side decisively. “Alright, so your offer is 21 whites for these three cores, right? How about 25 and we call it done?”

“I appreciate you didn’t ask for 40 whites, but 25 is still too much. I can do 22.”

“Deal,” Lily said right away.

The Paj gurgled happily. “A sapling after my own heart. Decisive.”

He swept the cores off the counter and pulled out two small bags. Then he added two white orbs to the pile on the counter. Lily checked the bags and then swept everything into her backpack. Then she gestured to Max to take her place at the counter.

Max lurched forward. He had gotten distracted by the cards under the glass. There were a dozen of them, but one in particular held his interest. It was an advanced Armor card. It was a citadel suit, so he could use it. He couldn’t see how much it cost, but he really wanted it.

Putting the card out of his mind, Max placed his two orbs on the counter. One was the same blue as Lily's had been, and the other was a bit smaller and had swirls of red inside. The Paj’s eyes went wide and reached for the red orb first.

He held the monster core up to his face and examined it closely. Then he nodded to himself and set it back down. He gave the blue orb a cursory inspection and then set it down as well.

The Paj knocked on the glass counter with a single knuckle and said, “I’ll give you 25 for both.”

Max almost accepted without thinking. He narrowed his eyes. The shopkeeper had a high Presence and was trying to lowball him. The Paj went straight for an offer without separating out values. He hadn’t mentioned what type of monster core the red one was. Max assumed that meant he really wanted the red orb. He separated the two orbs to different sides of the counter.

“The blue one is clearly another wind core. I’m fine with the same price for that one, 13 whites,” Max said. “But I don’t know if I want to sell this red one. Can you tell me more about it?” As he talked, he watched the Paj. The shopkeeper kept his eyes trained on the red orb the whole time.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“As you can see, it’s a bit smaller than the wind core, so that means it’s a lower grade. The red color could mean it’s a standard fire core. It could be a lava core or a detonation core, but the chances of that are very slim.”

Max nodded along, very reasonable. Then he shook his head and chuckled. The guy almost got him again. “You have Insight at level 16, don’t you? You know it’s expensive. Give me a real offer for it or I'll take it with me.”

The Paj made an annoyed click. “Yes, I know it’s a detonation core. But you can’t take it anywhere else, I’m the best dealer in town.”

“We are leaving town tomorrow. I can always sell it in the next city,” Max shrugged. He started to feel bad about using the negotiation tactic. Maybe he shouldn’t try to squeeze every bit of profit out of the guy.

The Paj clicked again and said, “Fine. 18 whites for your detonation core.”

Max pocketed the red core out of habit. His brother always told him to be willing to walk away. “Not good enough.” Internally, he was yelling at himself. He should be nicer to the Paj.

“Wait! I’ll do 25 for it, but that’s the most I can do, my mother’s word.”

Max acted like he was considering for a moment and then said, “39 for both.”

The Paj grumbled and pulled out four small bags of orbs. He took a white one out and pushed them forward.

A wave of relief passed over Max as he handed over the orbs. Fighting against the man’s presence was hard. It wasn’t mind control but he felt like he was being mean to a friend. “Thank you very much. I look forward to doing business with you again.”

“Go save your injured friend and see how generous I am feeling when you return to buy my wares,” The Paj said and turned away.

Max’s smile slowly fell. He had done it to himself again. He always got focused on winning when he was haggling. He should have listened to that feeling telling him to take it easy. He kept forgetting that he needed to keep a good relationship with these people. He tsked at himself.

There was nothing to do about it now. He swept the bags of white orbs into his day pack and followed Lily out of the building.

They hurried past the red wood towers and occasional stone building. The wooden pathway below them gave off a dull knock with every step. There was a metal building in the distance, shining like an oil slick. Max made a mental note to check it out later. His stomach growled and he added breakfast to his mental list of to-dos.

Eventually, Max noticed that the silence between them was growing awkward. They hadn’t said two words to each other since they left the hotel. “Hey, Lily. You doing ok?”

“I’m fine,” she replied curtly.

“Oh. Ok. I just wanted to check in with you, it’s been a rough few days. You seem stressed. I got a good night’s rest last night, but I bet you didn’t, what with Yang being sick and poisoned.”

“I’m fine,” Lily repeated with a frown. She glanced over to Max and then softened her expression. “Well, none of us are really fine. We’ve seen more pain and death in the last two days than anyone should see their whole lives. But I’m not going to fall apart. I got this.”

Max held up his hands. “I never said you didn’t. You’ve always struck me as competent and in control. I just brought it up because I’m barely holding it together myself. Everything sucks and I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m stressed all the time. And when I do occasionally feel calm and relaxed, I feel guilty. Yang is still hurt, how can I sleep well? Kezhi died yesterday, why aren’t I still crying? I don’t know how to feel.”

“Oh. Sorry, I wasn’t thinking about how you were feeling. I guess all of us are in our own heads a bit. The situation with Yang is hitting me hard,” Lily said. “It’s honestly making me really angry.”

“Angry? Why’s that?”

“My father put her in this position, but I feel responsible. It’s the same reason I left home. He treats people like they are disposable, just means to an end. Growing up, he would punish our maids if I did something bad. One time when I was fifteen, I ran away from home. I’m pretty sure he had Nurul killed for letting me escape.”

Max swore in shock.

Lily nodded, “Yeah. It really messed me up. I did whatever my father wanted after that. I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else getting hurt because of me. I felt like a pampered slave. The only way I could get some freedom was to come to the states for my gap year.”

“Your father sounds like a sociopath.”

“Yeah, most billionaires are. Sane people don’t get that rich. Anyway, that’s why this situation with Yang makes me angry. It’s like my father is controlling me from another world. I want to yell at Yang for making me feel this way, but I know it's not her fault. The whole thing makes me so mad.”

“Damn. You know none of this is really your fault either, right? You can’t blame yourself for what a sociopath does, no matter what he says.”

“Yeah, my head knows that, but my heart hasn’t gotten the message yet,” Lily said with a shrug.

They had stopped outside their destination, an apartment building on the edge of the human section. The ground floor was a business with a glowing sign that said Potions and Sundries. The building was the same red as the others, but it wasn’t made of wood. Instead, the builder used thousands of red buckets and stacked them together. It reminded Max of bricks.

Max gestured to Lily to let her lead the way. He was going to let Lily handle the negotiations for the potion, he didn’t want the healer to get pissed off at him.

There were rows of potions lined up on the shelves, everything behind slightly wavy glass. Black writing on the glass explained what each potion did. Max used his Insight to identify them, but the writing on the glass always had more information. Lily skipped past most of them and stopped at the healing section. There were three potions, labeled Lesser, Medium, and Greater. None of them had prices listed.

A tall man hopped off his stool and walked up to them as he said, “Howdy, folks. Name’s Jake and this here is my magical market.”

Max turned to the shopkeeper and squinted. Was the book reference intentional? Jake held a neutral smile for a moment before he broke out in a grin. It was intentional.

Lily stepped forward. “Hello. Our friend is seriously injured. The hotel manager, Hammurabi, said we need a healing potion.”

Jake nodded, “I know Hammurabi, he’s good people. I assume he told you healing potions are expensive?”

“Yes. We just sold some monster cores so we could afford it,” Lily said.

“Alright. So, the lesser one should handle any flesh wound as long as it didn’t break bones. The medium one will handle broken bones and repairing major wounds. You don’t need the greater potion, because if it was that serious, they would already be dead.”

“We think she was poisoned by the feathered serpent we fought.”

Jake tsked, “Bad luck, that. Lesser potions don’t handle poisons. You’ll have to use a medium. Sadly, that’s a lot more expensive.”

“How much?”

“Ok, before I give you the price, just know that I don’t haggle with healing potions. Making one literally takes my life force and puts me in danger of dying. The medium health potion costs 10,000 knuts, or 25 whites if you have those.”

Lily sighed in relief. “We can afford that, no problem.”

“Good. I hate dealing with people that can’t afford them,” Jake said. “Breaks my heart to tell them no.”

Lily pulled out everything she had and set it on the counter. Max added two of his and then gave Lily a bag of ten so she didn’t have to foot most of the bill. She tried to refuse the bag, but Max insisted. She rolled her eyes and tucked away the bag of orbs.

“Just give me a second to inspect all the cores,” Jake said. “Sorry about the wait, but some people try to pass off white rocks as monster cores.”

“Really? And you can tell them apart just by looking at them?” Max said and pulled out one of his white cores. It just looked like a white stone to him, even felt like one. He tried to focus on it, but his Insight didn’t trigger.

“Yeah, my Insight’s high enough so I can always tell. Wait. Are you guys new to spinworld?”

Max nodded. “Yes, we got here just a few days ago from a tower in the wilds. It was rough.”

Jake winced, “I’ll bet. I portaled into a wild tower too, three years back. I was the only survivor from my group. Lemme give you a bit of advice. Choose Sight if you plan on hunting monsters, choose Insight if you plan on staying in the city. But always have both in your group no matter what.”

While he talked he pulled out the medium potion and handed it over. Max’s Insight triggered.

Medium Health - 1 Use

Lily thanked him for the advice and accepted the potion. Max thanked him as well and followed Lily out. She did great today, she hardly needed Max at all. He wondered why she hadn’t stepped forward and been the team lead a few days ago. For that matter, Gus had been a great leader during combat. Both of them would have been better leaders than him. He would have to talk to them about it later.

Back at the hotel, Yang was lying on her bed with her eyes closed. She looked terrible. Her skin was pale and her breathing shallow. James was at her bedside with a damp cloth. He put it on her forehead to cool her down. He looked up as they walked in.

“She’s not doing good,” James said. “Did you get the healing potion? We tried leveling up her Resistance because the tooltip says something about resisting poisons. It wasn’t enough.” He turned back to her with a concerned look on his face.

“It’s fine,” Max said. “We bought a healing potion. I’m sure it will be enough to kick the poison.”

Lily was already at her bedside, tilting her head up. “Swallow this, Yang. It’s a healing potion and it’ll fix you right up.”

Yang swallowed, not opening her eyes. The potion bottle wasn’t large and it only took her a few moments to down it all. They all watched her, waiting to see if it worked.

Something was happening. Her skin was heating up, waves of red slowly working through her body. Over the course of several minutes, she started looking better and better. Lily smiled and stood back up. James didn’t move from his spot by her bed, he was still too concerned about her welfare. Max wondered if his friend was developing a crush.

His train of thought was derailed when Ashley walked in.

“Gather everyone up. I got some big news,” she said.