Hearport Harbor had a bustling port, too busy for Hanks tastes. He made his way deftly through the crowd, past the hucksters trying to sell things he would never need, use, or want, past the perfume saleswoman selling to those that didn’t like the smell of the ocean or the smells of a city with a grossly inadequate sewer system, past the pickpocket thwarted by the magical ward Hank had on his pockets, and past the beggar that didn’t know what to make of Hanks clothes so just assumed he was wealthy. Hank hated being sent on errands and the sooner he got this done the sooner he could leave. He was down at the docks now, a different kind of bustle was here, the throngs of people had been replaced by a smaller number of larger men, all busily hauling goods from ship to warehouse and vice versa, most people knew where they were going and knew to stay out of the way of the haulers who couldn’t watch where they were going. A throng of people gathering around the furthest pier told Hank where he needed to go. A simple translocation spell instantly moved Hank to the front of a building and walked towards the back of the crowd ignoring the gasps and mutters of ‘wizard’ the witnesses let out. Which brought Hank to his next obstacle, the crowd its self. Hank had been to over a dozen worlds and had yet to encounter one where a man walking on water wouldn’t draw some attention, this would solve his second problem and allow him to simply walk around the crowd and probably get the attention of the person he was looking for. There it was, at the end of the pier floating in the water, what he was looking for. It was a small floating shop tall and wide so that it fit right up against the dock and so the shoppers and shopkeeper were at the same height, made with enchanted wood and filled to the brim with every manner of good that the proprietress could fit in it. She noticed Hank instantly, long light blue hair, with deep red eyes that could cause a sailor to dive overboard as easily as she could spot a good deal. She wore a coral necklace that sat in her cleavage, and a low-cut top made from large fish scales that shimmered in the sunlight and blended in with the dark blue scales on her tail.
“Well hello there,” she said looking right at Hank. “It’s generally considered poor form to cut in line.” A grumbling of agreement rose up from the crowd at her comment.
“I’m not interested in buying any goods.” Hank replied cutting to the chase. “What I seek is information on where I can find the wreckage of a ship called the Onphanion.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
Hank pulled a broach out of his pocket and tossed it to her. “You’re the mermaid merchant that sold this correct?”
She looked it over carefully. “Who wants to know?”
“Me.”
“You?”
“Yes me,” Hank said conjuring a small coin purse into his hand and dropping it on the counter with a loud THUNK. “1000 gold coins for detailed directions to the shipwreck you pulled that broach out of.”
She’d been a merchant long enough to know when a coin purse was enchanted to hold more than it’s size would allow. She had also been a merchant long enough to know that somebody who could conjure one with a flick of his wrist was not somebody that you messed around with. “Well I don’t remember exactly where it was, but…”
“Could you bring me there?”
“Well I could but the Sahuagins have claimed those waters now it’s too dangerous to go without half a navy at your side.”
“I’ll guarantee your safety,” Hank said. “To the shipwreck and then back to your home or wherever.”
“First rule of being a merchant is, ‘no amount of gold is worth your life’.”
“I’m a very powerful wizard, Sahuagins in any number don’t concern me.”
A chuckle arose from the crowd. “Never fought Sahuagins before have you kid?” “He just wants to get the mermaid alone.” “We all do.” The chuckling rose to laughter.
“I DON’T RECALL ASKING FOR ANY OF YOUR OPINIONS!” Hank turned towards the crowd using a low-level fear spell on them. Not enough to cause a stampede, just enough to make the gathered crowd find somewhere else to be.
“Hey come back,” she hollered after the dispersing crowd. When her pleas to return went unheeded she turned back to Hank. “You ass.”
“Apologies, I don’t tolerate idiots very well.” Hank sighed thinking fast, until he noticed something in her stall. He reached out and grabbed it and held it up to her hair. “You sell your hair.”
“Mermaid hair is highly prized among surface dwelling tailors for it’s qualities. And there are far less savory ways to make money off your body.”
“1000 gold coins and a spell that will let you grow this much hair in a day.” Hank could see it in her eyes, she was already trying to figure out how much she could make off her accelerated hair growth. “It’s not like you don’t have access to a wizard.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The enchantment on your necklace. What’s that worth an extra five, maybe ten percent on your prices?”
“Forty,” she said sheepishly. “It’s not my fault they’re all a bunch of perverts that can’t take their eyes off my chest. OK first we go and drop of my shop, then IF and only if my wizard friend says that the spell works as you say it does, I will show you where the shipwreck I found the broach in is. If whatever you’re looking for in there isn’t there that’s your problem.” She extended her hand. “What are you looking for anyway?”
Hank took her hand, shook it and ignored her question. “My names Hank.”
“Merlisa.” She said with a smile. “And you’re hauling the shop.”
“And that’s why I can’t be topless in Hearport.” Merlisa now bereft of her top. “They called it a riot, but really only two people got strampled. That’s barely an occurrence in my opinion.”
“Strampled?” Hank asked wondering briefly if his translation magic had made a mistake.
“Yeah strampled, it’s when a surface dweller gets crushed to death by another surface dweller using their legs.”
“You’re mashing together the words trampled and stampede I think.” Hank said. “Trampled is the one you want to use.”
“Are you sure?”
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“I’ve had legs my whole life and have used words associated with them for almost as long, trust me on this.”
Merlisa was starting to get annoyed at this wizard, she was swimming as fast as she could and he was still keeping up with her, while pulling her shop. Even with magic that should have been impossible, but here he was underwater, breathing, talking, swimming just as fast as she was. “So enough about me, tell me something about you.”
“Like what?”
“Well where are you from for starters.”
“Pennsylvania,” Hank said.
“Oh? I’ve never heard of that city, it must not be on the ocean. Is it nice?”
“Every time I stay away for long enough I want to go back,” Hank replied. “Then I do and I remember why I left.”
“Ah,” Merlisa said holding on to her followup question about his family. “Well I’d be a poor merchant if I didn’t ask, so where exactly is this Pennsylvania and what kind of goods could I sell there.”
“It’s upon another world,” Hank explained. “Things like mermaids, Elves, Dwarves, and Orcs are all creatures of children's stories. Nobody thinks they actually exist.” Merlisa cursed herself for not asking for triple the gold, if this wizard was a planar traveler he could have afforded to pay a much larger amount. Oh well she’d make millions of gold coins off of that hair growth spell he was going to give her, provided she didn’t oversaturate the market. “How much further?”
“If we can keep this pace up we should be there in an hour or so.” Merlisa responded. “Why do you need to take a break to renew your spells?”
“No I’m fine, I was just wondering.”
Merlisa really wanted to pay better attention to him when he was casting, she didn’t even notice him cast the spells on himself before they started their journey. “Have you seen many worlds?”
“I’ve seen hundreds,” Hank said. “But I’ve only been to a couple dozen at most.”
“You said mermaids, Elves, Dwarves and Orcs weren’t on your world, what other races besides Humans are there?”
“None.”
“None?”
“None, just Humans.”
“Was it always that way, or did you purge all the non-Human races?”
“Don’t know,” Hank said. “We have stories of non-Human races, but no evidence, and until recently my world was cut off from the rest of creation.”
“Cut off, how?” Merlisa asked.
“It fell out of phase for a few thousand years somehow. Now it’s coming back into phase.”
Merlisa may not have been human, but she had spent enough time doing business with them to know when to stop a line of questioning.
They made the rest of the journey mostly in silence. As the last of the light from the sun was disappearing they came upon the Merfolk city of Ralthas. It wasn’t a city like any Human would call it. Dug into the sand of the ocean floor was a massive crater several miles wide. In it were several blue domes that led to a subterranean cave system that housed 20,000 Merfolk. “Welcome to Ralthas.” Merlisa said cheerfully trying to lift the mood. She pointed to what Hank had assumed was a junkyard of some kind. “We can leave my shop down there in the storage area. Then we’ll go see Yosta, he’s my wizard friend, and if he says your hair growth spell is what you claim it is we can leave for the shipwreck first thing in the morning.” Hank nodded in agreement. The ‘junkyard’ as Hank had thought it was turned out to be some kind of storage place for things too large to fit into the caverns below. Large heavy rocks dotted the area with holes carved into them so objects not too heavy to float away could be secured with rope made of seaweed. They were just done dropping off the shop when a group of three armed and armored Merfolk approached them.
“Hail Merlisa. You have returned early. Who is your legged companion?” The one who Hank assumed was the leader of this group of guards asked. Now that Hank could take a look around he saw about twenty more groups of guards swimming around, several of which had stopped swimming and were now keeping an eye on Hank and Merlisa.
“Hello Jerondo,” Merlisa said. “My trade mission was cut short by Hank here. He’s a wizard interested in a shipwreck and he’s paying me to escort him there.”
Jerondo took a moment to size Hank up. “He doesn’t look like any wizard I’ve ever seen.”
“He does command some powerful magic,” Merlisa spoke up after Hank didn’t. “He was able to keep up with me swimming at full speed while pulling my shop so he’s got some talent.”
“Which shipwreck is he interested in?” Jerondo asked narrowing his eyes at Hank.
“The one over by the Sahuagin reef,” Merlisa said suddenly finding something on the sandy floor she’d rather be looking at than the guard.
Jerondo reached out and grabbed Merlisa’s chin and looked directly into her eyes. “He hasn’t bewitched you has he? That is a very dangerous area.”
“He hasn’t bewitched me,” Merlisa said pulling away from his grip. “He’s just offering enough to make the risk worth it. Now if there is nothing further I need to go see Yosta before it gets too late.” The guard nodded and Merlisa led Hank to one of the blue domes, which was hollowed out with a door on one side. There were two guards inside it that gave Hank and Merlisa a once over before allowing them down into the caverns. The caverns were wide enough for five Merfolk to swim abreast with room to spare, and were lit by glowing rocks affixed to the walls every so often. Occasionally they would come to a split with a sign, usually made of a flat slate with letters carved into it and affixed to the ceiling with rope. Eventually the path they followed narrowed to only allow 3 Merfolk to swim abreast and there would be doors with light and the sounds of conversation coming out of them, and most of them were covered by a curtain made of shells. Merlisa stopped at one of them and called inside. “Yosta are you home?”
“Come in!” A voice called out from inside. Merlisa pulled back the curtain and bid Hank to follow her. “Merlisa, I thought that was your voice, you’re back early. Who’s this?” A merman inside asked seeing Hank. The room was round and could comfortably fit about 6 adult Merfolk, and had three doors leading to other rooms. There wasn’t anything in the way of decoration in this room, everything had a purpose. Hank recognized a few things and magical equipment modified for underwater usage. The underwater alchemy set was a rare sight, Hank had never actually seen one before. Merlisa had brought Yosta up to speed on what was going on. “Show me the spell.” Yosta said. Hank moved over to a table, with one wave of his hand he created a small hemisphere on top of it that had no water in it, with a second wave he conjured a book into it, and with a last he opened it to a page. Merlisa was not a wizard of any kind, Yosta however was and what he saw disturbed him, he only sensed three spells, one to conjure the book, one to open it to the page, that left only one spell to summon the dome and then drain it of water, he knew of no spell that could do that. Yosta took to studying the spell before him, it looked simple enough, only one problem with it. “There are black boxes where the components should be. I can’t very well say this spell will work without knowing the components for it.”
“I would be very shocked if they weren’t readily available in Hearport,” Hank said. “I can’t very well give you everything you need to cast the spell before you’ve done the agreed upon task, they are common I promise.”
“Not good enough,” Merlisa said. “The spell is no good to me if I can’t acquire the components easily.”
Hank thought it over a moment, and then with a flick of his wrist the black boxes over the components disappeared revealing them. Yosta and Merlisa were soon satisfied that the spell would work as advertised and Merlisa and Hank then left Yosta’s home. Merlisa lead Hank a few doors down to a dark room and pulled the curtain aside. “Welcome to my home.” Hank entered the room, Merlisa made her way over to a stone on the wall and touched it with a second nearby stone lighting it up. Unlike Yosta’s home Merlisa’s was decorated all over, mostly knick knacks from the surface world, a few stone carvings, several objects made from worked metal, probably kept as a status symbol given how hard it would be to work metal underwater, and in a glass case a painting of her sunning herself on a rock with the sun setting behind her. “It’s a little cramped but I have an extra hammock you can sleep in. Oh are you even going to be able to sleep underwater? I completely forgot to ask.”
“I’ll be fine, how long do you need to be ready to go?” Hank asked.
“Well we can grab a quick bite to eat, then sleep. We can’t leave now, it’s too late, we can leave first thing in the morning though.” Merlisa said moving some stuff around.
“Fine,” Hank said sitting down on the floor. “I will emerge in 10 hours.”
“Emerge from what?” Merlisa asked turning back to face him, only to find a small hemisphere of pure black on the floor.