Sil practically skipped up the stairs, hopping past the planks and casting his expectant brown eyes onto the merchant. Loren simply nodded at him, a taciturn smile on his face, and turned to walk into his room in the tavern, holding the door open for Sil when he entered. Sil hopped onto the bed and leaned forward, chin in his hands, eyes cast up. Loren had his attention.
The older man closed the door and leaned against it. The shadow of a smile emerged on his face as he reached his hand into his pocket, rummaging about a bit before taking out a velvet-covered box about as long as his forearm. Under Sil’s widened eyes, Loren opened the box, revealing a sharp-looking object shaped like a large, symmetrical arrowhead.
“I just finished a deal for your father, and he wanted me to hand the result to you. This little thing,” he rubbed his fingers over the flat side of the glossy material in a well-practiced motion, “was surprisingly hard to get. Root of night cedar. I could give you a whole history of the material - Heralds know the merchant I bought this from felt the need to - but I’ll leave that to your father; he probably knows more than I do. Depending on the skill of the crafter, something made with this could go for 20 or 30 gold reals. This thing is pretty rare even in the cities, and you should know by now how hard it is to get quality goods from outside the village.”
Sil nodded and looked down, surprised to find his arms extended, palms up. Loren’s warm smile grew as he carefully handed over the root. His arm sagged; the material was strangely heavy for something a little bigger than his hand. Sil, taking care not to touch the sharp edge or point of the root, used both hands to inspect it.
It was beautiful. Its shade of black, the kind of dark that drew in the gaze and didn’t let go, was something Sil had never seen before, not from anything he’d worked with. As his fingers brushed over top, his eyes sparkled at the glossy smoothness of the material. Though Loren had introduced it as a root, Sil didn’t see it - no tree he’d ever seen in the pictures or diagrams had roots shaped like this. For all Sil could tell, it was a finely-hewn piece of wood, though not polished or varnished, from the swirling grain.
I could use this… the young man’s mind spun with ideas and applications. Sil suddenly itched for the ability to magically conjure paper and pencil so he could start writing and drawing and writing.
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He shook his head softly to regain his bearings and looked up to Loren gratefully. Still wary of the edges, he gripped the root and asked the merchant a question tentatively.
“Why- what did Dad want me to do with this? Couldn’t he have just picked it up from you?”
Loren snorted.
“Ask him yourself later, kid. But for now, I say we go back to drinking.” The burly man chuckled to himself and tossed the velvet box that had previously housed the root to Sil. Thankful he wouldn’t have to put the root in his pocket - he was sure that was an awful idea, even if it could fit - Sil pried open the box and set the night cedar in there almost lovingly. Loren opened the doors again, casting a glance behind him, “Be quiet about the root. There are people in this town who… hmm. They’d love to take that off of your hands.”
Sil nodded again and buried it inside his coat pocket - it was a fit! As Loren headed down the stairs, Sil lagged behind on the bed, smiling slightly to himself. Maybe he was starting to redeem himself in the eyes of his father after all, despite the aftermath of the wheel incident. Sil couldn’t help himself and chuckled a little. His father had struggled to see the humor in that one.
He hoisted himself up and off the bed, wandering downstairs and sitting back down. Quickly did he regain his conversational bearings, and it was but a few seconds before he was back in the thick of it, slapping the table and roaring with laughter.
Suddenly, the doors burst open in a loud shriek, then a violent thud, that silenced the crowd. Sil was the first to throw his head back and look in the sounds’ direction, fearing the worst - the return of Abel and Zalo. Once his eyes landed on the newcomer, though, he immediately stood up and rushed over. The familiar man’s face, usually meticulously groomed and cleaned but now damp with sweat, was instantly recognizable: a friend of his father’s.
“Arlo- what happened!?”
Something was wrong. Arlo was supposed to be up in their home above the store, participating in the weekly game of cards that had seen Sil mercilessly evicted. What in the Shroud saw him here, drenched in sweat and messy enough for Sil to swear the mysophobic man had lost his mind?
The silence now seemed more grave. Sil’s mind was too occupied with terrifying thoughts to pay any attention to it; instead, he grabbed the disheveled man’s shoulders, arms shaking, and stared at him urgently.
Arlo forced out his words through desperate inhales.
“Ma-Mateo- something’s happened to Mateo. He suddenly- just- go to your house! Run!”
As exhausted as Arlo was, he gripped at Sil’s wrists with alarming vigor and shook him. The man’s gaze was panicked; every instant that passed sent him into even more of a frenzy. Something was very wrong.