Sam and I head off to the market to buy some adventuring supplies. Paying extra close attention, and quite a bit more money, to buy some good food for on the road, we wouldn’t want Carol to get disappointed after all. I do get the feeling that some of the merchants are giving us a bit of a discount but they are not really saying anything apart from thanking us for buying their merchandise.
After our bags are filled up nicely with tasty foodstuffs we head over to the stables to see if there’s any mounts we can buy. The stables are in one of the offshoot streets away from the market and it’s noticeably less busy around here. I do kind of understand why. The smell of food is a lot more enticing to be around then the smell of stables after all. You probably wouldn’t hang out around here purely for fun.
We head inside of the biggest stable and look around for the stablekeep.
“Hello, is anyone here?” Sam calls out. A couple of the horses peek their head in to see what’s going on.
“I’ll be right there with you! Give me a second!” A lady’s voice rings out from one of the stables.
Sam and I patiently wait by the entrance as the horses quietly just go back to their own business. We don’t have to wait long before the lady who called out to us steps out of the stables on the right and closes the door behind her. It’s a drakone lady who is about a head taller than me, adorned with blood red scales which match her just as red hair and irises.
“How can I help you?” She walks over to us, wiping her hands with a piece of cloth.
“We would like to buy a couple of mounts if that’s possible.” Sam replies. “We are traveling with two others to the east and a couple of mounts would definitely be helpful.”
“Okay.” The lady nods. “Do you need speed or carrying capacity?”
Sam looks at me for a reply. “Is there much of a difference?” I ask. “I’m not that familiar with that many different mounts.” After all, I'd only really ridden a horse and the walker. And from what I could tell, the horses we’d used before just seemed like bog-standard horses to me.
“Well, if you want speed I can recommend direwolves.” She beckons us to come along with her and takes us past the stables. While the stables closest to the entrance all contain horses of various sizes, when we get to about halfway the stable these horses get substituted by enormous white and gray wolves. The first wolf that sees us quickly makes its way up to the door, so quickly that I bounce back a bit.
The drakone lady laughs. “Don’t worry, they don’t bite. They just want to sniff a bit. They are always very curious about nekote.” I really don’t know if I should be too reassured about that, but at least this one had a rather friendly look in its big blue eyes. When I approach it, it doesn’t hesitate to give me a big lick on my hand. Its big tongue tickles quite a bit which makes me giggle.
“Looks like she likes you.” The lady chuckles.
“You don’t really see these around much, do you?” Sam pats the big doggie on her head as she talks with the lady. “I’ve not seen any around anyway.”
“Indeed you don’t, they are in fact quite rare. I acquired these about two weeks ago from a merchant that belongs to the biggest guild in this city. It’s about the third time I’ve ever had them in stock since I took over this stable from my parents. But I always try to buy them when I see them because they remind me of one my parents had when I was little.” The lady gives the direwolf a scratch behind her ear. “Although I have to admit they are often quite the tough sell. But I don’t mind keeping them around for a bit.”
“I would assume they would sell out really fast.” I reply.
“Merchants don’t really buy them because they can’t draw carts or carry heavy loads. And most adventurers that come over tend to get turned away by the price. Since they are quite rare, they also cost quite a bit. And since they are less versatile than horses are, they often really make the decision to go with horses instead.”
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“How much can they carry? One of our party members is quite big.”
“I don’t think that will be much of a problem, they can easily carry two people on their back, but you can’t pack them with extra saddlebags like you can with horses. If you want to know their weight limit, the best guess I would be able to make is a fully steel armored knight with one full large backpack.”
“That’s still quite a lot though…” That would still easily carry my sister as her armor is lighter than normal. And as she had said earlier, carrying both me and Sam at the same time wouldn’t be an issue.
“Can they fight as well?” Sam continues with the questions.
“They can.” The lady nods. “They get fiercely protective of the person they bonded with and these claws and teeth are not only for show. It’s another reason why you don’t really want to weigh them down. Because it slows them in combat.”
“Hmm.”
The direwolf nudges me with its nose, asking for some more pets. “Sam, I think we’ll need to get these.”
“Looks like it, doesn’t it?” She chuckles and then looks over the drakone lady who is also smiling. “So, what do they cost? We need four of them if that’d be okay.”
“For four of them? I think I can cut you a deal for 50 gold pieces. But I can throw something extra in if you want to buy them for that much.”
I imagine a pouch with 50 golden dwargon, hold my hand behind my back in which the pouch appears and then offer it to the lady. “Will this do?” The direwolf next to me looks quite confused at the little magic trick I just pulled.
“Let me see.” She takes the pouch, looks inside and pulls out one of the coins. She looks rather impressed. “Wow, I don’t think I’ve seen coins like these before.”
“They are from the other side of the ocean.” Sam explains.
“Wow, have you been there yourself?”
She nods. “In the matter of fact we have.”
The lady’s mouth drops open just a little as she stares at the coin. “I think 40 of these coins will do. They are bigger than our golden coins, plus some collectors might want to pay more for these as is.”
“Are you sure? We are not hurting for money.” I know that probably isn’t the smartest thing to say to a merchant, but this lady does look like a rather fair merchant to do business with.
“How about I throw you in some premium saddles as well? I think that makes up for the ten gold pieces. They weigh less than the normal ones.”
“Sounds like a deal to me.” Sam offers her hand which the lady quickly shakes.
“Alright, wait here for a bit, I’ll go and bring the saddles over together with that other extra I promised.
We both give her a nod and she walks off behind the corner of the stable. In the meantime I can just pet the direwolf which makes me one happy Amicia.
While we are waiting we get a message from Carol and Max that they are ready to meet up again a bit earlier than expected. So we tell them where we are and after a short wait, they arrive in the stables as well. From what I can tell, Max has updated her armour a little bit, mostly just adding ticker pieces of leather to her pauldrons and leg armour. But the biggest difference I notice is the very refined looking two-handed double sided battle axe she has hanging on her back. The last one looked pretty crude and had a certain jerry rigged look to it. But this one really looks like an instrument of war. It’s very nicely polished too.
As for Carol, she has replaced her staff with one with a much darker grain of wood. The side and top of the staff are inlaid with what looks to be white crystal. As for her outfit, it doesn’t look like it changed at all.
“I hope you don’t mind we spent a bit on our armour too.” Max smiles as she walks over. Although she does stop for a second as she sees the direwolf.
“Not at all. Did you get something new too, Carol?” Max asks.
Carol smiles and lifts her robe so we can see her legs. She's wearing some kind of white leggings which to me looks like it sparkles a bit. I can tell from the craftsmanship that those are definitely of a high quality. “I got a shirt and leggings with a protective weave. They should protect better against elemental spells.” Carol then looks back up and finally sees the direwolf as well, a bit surprised and much like I did, she takes a step back. “Wait, are those the things we are going to ride?”
“Yep. But don’t worry, they are nice.” Just as I say that, the direwolf takes advantage of me being distracted a little and gives me a big lick on the side of my face. Both Max and Sam burst into laughter as they see it happen. -Yep, I think this diredoggie is going to be my mount.-