Chapter Nineteen

Neon-yellow walls burned into her eyes. Green string lights hung from the ceiling, creating a nauseating puke color against the already brilliant walls. The store was a discombobulated array of items, thrown together in piles on mismatched tables of varying heights. It felt oddly homey, like a collection of trinkets that had been lovingly curated by an old woman with several cats.

The smell of lavender, smoke, and strangely broccoli wafted up from the back of the store. Moira subtly covered her nose as the distinct scents bombarded her nostrils.

A dwarf sat at a tall desk in the back of the store, pointedly ignoring them. Half-moon glasses rested half-way down his prominent straight nose, hiding intelligent eyes. Dark hair fell down his face in soft curl, he brushed a curl out of his face and sternly focused on the paper in front of him. His intricately woven beard was clearly in his way as it toppled over the desk and down to the floor.

Sloane coughed loudly. “Fendrik, I’ve got a customer for you.”

“Sloane.” Fendrik grumbled as he stared up at them. “What did I say about coming into my shop—you’re banned. Get out!”

Moira glared at Sloane. Clearly, the elf was trouble.

Sloane raised her hands placatingly. “Fendrik, my friend Moira here, has something good to trade. Come on, just let me in this once.”

She gestured at Moira, urging her towards the desk. Moira gave her one last piercing look, and stepped forward, placing the monster core on Fendrik’s desk.

“I’m looking to sell this monster core.”

Fendrick grumbled, giving Sloane another dirty look before adjusting his glasses and examining the core.

Sloane winked at Moira and angled towards Fendrick’s desk. Moira raised an eyebrow, but Sloane ignored her.

After a minute of examining the core, Fendrick’s eyes widened, and he took off his glasses and looked up at Moira.

“This is in perfect condition, and it’s from a level 35 monster. How in the world did you get this?” He leaned forward, his stomach pressed forcefully against his desk. “There’s almost always some sort of damage to a core during retrieval, and you can’t be more than level 15.”

Fendrik turned toward Sloane again. “Did you steal this and put this poor girl up to selling it?” he asked accusingly.

“No! Of course not! I can’t believe you’d even ask me that!” Sloane replied, widening her eyes innocently.

Moira cleared her throat. “I got it in a Dungeon, as a reward. That’s probably why it’s in great condition.” She purposefully left out her looting ability and the fact that she’d killed the monster herself. She didn’t want to bring any additional attention to herself.

Sloane and Fendrick both turned and looked at her in surprise.

“You got this in a Dungeon? What Dungeon? Where?” Sloane asked incredulously.

“I stumbled into one by accident several miles outside the city,” Moira replied, surprised by their reaction. Moira had assumed that Dungeons were normal here, just another aspect of their strange system.

“There isn’t a known Dungeon near Tersus—or at least there wasn’t,” replied Fendrik.

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“What’s it called?” Sloane moved closer, her voice quivered with excitement.

“Uh, it was called Grow or Die. I almost didn’t make it out alive. It took me two weeks to even make it out.”

“Must be a new Dungeon. I haven’t heard of a new Dungeon appearing in years,” said Fendrik.

“This is huge. Can you imagine the Questers that’ll be swarming to Tersus?”

“All the things they’ll need to buy—I’ll be rich.” The dwarf’s eyes gleamed with greed.

Fendrik and Sloane chattered on in excitement. Their animosity with each other was all but gone with the prospect of a new Dungeon. Moira stood silently by the desk, all but forgotten.

“Questers?” Moira finally asked.

Both stopped talking and slowly turned to face her.

“You’ve never heard of Questers? What kind of backward town did you drag yourself from?” Sloane said.

“One who’s never heard of Questers—clearly,” Moira snapped back.

Sloane smirked. “Questers seek out Quests to level. And Dungeons, they’re surrounded by potential Quests.”

“Is that the only way to find Quests? To just stumble upon them?”

“Well, no, of course not. The Quest Guild has a running list of them they can assign, but they aren’t as good as the ones near a Dungeon.”

“Let’s not get too ahead of ourselves. This supposed Dungeon needs to be verified by the Guild. It might not be a true Dungeon—the girl hadn’t even heard of Questers before. She could’ve just stumbled into a complex Quest.”

Sloane’s shoulders slumped down, the excitement draining out of her. “But, you think it was a Dungeon, right?” she asked Moira.

“Yes. I know it was one.”

“How?”

“It was in the name.”

Sloane’s eyes brightened with amusement, and Moira stifled a laugh with a well-placed cough. The strange elf was growing on her.

“The monster core, then. What will you give me for it?” she asked, changing the subject.

Fendrik watched her carefully before looking back down at the core. “I’ll give you nine gold for this.”

Moira scoffed, catching Sloane’s eye. The elf smirked from behind Fendrik. “Nine gold? You just said it’s in perfect condition. And I just gave you priceless info on a new Dungeon. That’s really all you’re going to offer?”

Sloane jumped in. “Wow Fendrik, that’s a new low, even for you. Scamming a perfectly good customer.” Sloane tutted.

Fendrik’s face turned beet red and his mouth thinned into a line as straight as a guitar string tightened to it’s breaking point. Moira held back a chuckle as the dwarf furiously looked back and forth between the two of them. “I just—well, I suppose I could give you twelve gold—but that’s as high as I can go. I need to make some sort of profit.”

“Deal.” Moira stuck out her hand to the flustered dwarf.

He looked down at her hand and back at her before cautiously sticking out two fingers and tapping her palm. Moira looked down at her hand in confusion and slowly lowered it.

Fendrik swiped the core from his desk, quickly placing it into a pouch at his waist. He grabbed another pouch from inside his desk and slowly began counting out the twelve gold coins, placing them in a pile in front of her. Moira grabbed the coins and subtly added them to her Inventory, leaving out a single coin that she passed to Sloane.

“Thanks for your help, Sloane.” Moira looked over at Fendrik, “and thank you for your business.”

“Make sure you verify that Dungeon. If it really is a Dungeon, there’ll be a reward,” Fendrick said, staring purposefully at Moira.

“I’ll make sure to do that.”

He nodded once and turned his attention back to his paperwork, clearly happy to be done with them.

Moira stepped out the door, and back into the shadowed street; Duke stepped in line beside her.

“Wait,” Sloane called as the door slammed shut behind them. Moira looked at the elf curiously. She’d already gotten her gold, which was likely much more than she was expecting to get paid for a tour around the city. What else could the elf want from her?

“You still need a place to stay, right? I know a tavern with clean rooms not far from here. I could buy you a beer?”