Some of the convoyers were from Roko, and they made their way home for the night. The rest of the convoy mostly just slept in the warehouse, which surprised me, but it made sense since it was a roof over their head which they were already paying for, rather than also paying for an inn.
The floor was hardly comfortable, but it was still better than sleeping outside on the road.
In the morning, I accompanied Marshan on some errands, meeting with a few merchants and discussing imports and exports, learning what I could. It was not the most exciting lesson of all time, but it was practical and important.
Once that was done, I decided to get back out and explore the town. I wanted to check out the local Church, after what I heard the day before from that kid in the alley.
Turns out, a city as large as Roko has multiple Churches, so I wandered into the closest. It wasn’t fair to represent all of them based on what one reflected, but it was clear that only a certain type of child was welcome there, whether or not that was what the public were told.
I didn’t want to do a deep, investigative dive. Either the people who ran Roko or the Church itself forbade those children entry, or the locals and non-southern children made their life so miserable that there was no other choice but to stay away. In either case, it was a bad look.
Being over ten years old, and out of town, meant that I didn’t really have a place there, and when a priest approached me I decided to walk away. I couldn’t fix an entire city or a kingdom-wide institution.
At least, not with the power I presently had.
Still, I found myself worried about the kids. Maybe I could find where they did gather during the day and provide some food. I had several wild oxalires dismantled in my inventory.
I stopped, frowning. That might not be such a good idea, actually. I wasn’t staying here, and it was usually a bad idea to get people relying on you before you had to leave them. Looking down at Treepo, I was reminded of how I had initially planned to leave him to the jungle outside Mirut. I was bad at letting go. If I started down this path, I wasn’t sure where it would end.
I shook my head, setting those thoughts aside. I had business in town and limited time to get everything prepared before the convoy would be leaving.
Focus on that first, worry later, I thought.
I had a pretty decent shopping list in mind. First, I popped into a tailor. My clothes were an absolute mess thanks to my adventurous lifestyle, so I had some measurements taken and commissioned a handful of durable outfits. I was growing fast so I had them hem the pants so I could let them out later and had the shirts fitted slightly oversized so I would grow into them, but I had enough gold now that I could afford to buy some decent clothes now and replace them in a few years without it being much of a problem.
If I was going to be doing mercantile business with Marshan, looking better was important. While I definitely looked like a proper little adventurer with my armor and cloak, that wasn’t always the foot I wanted to put forward.
With adventure in mind, my next stop was a smithy. I wanted to discuss armor, and supply myself with things I could use to fabricate, adjust, and repair my own.
I showed one of the draconewt scales to the smith to ask about commissioning scale armor from them.
“This is magnificent,” he said, turning it over in his hands. “Where did you say you acquired this?”
“I travel with a convoy. It was something I picked up along the journey. It came from the west.”
The nice thing about my more muscled body was that, even with my short stature, adults seemed to take me more seriously. I just had to drop the cloak and flex a bit, and they could see my aptitude. Normally, a smith like this might question a ten year old with such valuables, maybe accuse me of theft, but I was already in a set of armor and the sword at my side told a story as well. I was well-fed and well-grown. There wasn’t much of a question that I was the rightful owner of what I claimed.
I doubt he thought I felled a draconic beast for the scales myself, but surely, I could have bought them.
“Huh,” he said, thinking it over. “And you have enough for a set of armor?”
I actually had enough for several sets of armor, which was the only reason I was even considering it at this point. Sure, a smith could probably tear down my child-sized armor to rebuild an adult sized armor in the future while only needing a partial amount of additional scales, but I could still put together a full adult set without even tearing this one down.
“I do,” I responded.
“Seems a bit of a waste to size it for you when you’re going to outgrow it so soon.”
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“Well, the road’s dangerous. We were attacked by bandits on the way here. Better safe than sorry, yeah?”
“I could put you in some steel,” he offered.
That was tempting, but I really liked the idea of using the dragon scales. That thing had been tough, but the scales were still light.
“Appreciate the thought,” I said. “If I outgrow it, I’ll figure something out. Maybe sell the first set back to you, if you’d be interested in repurposing it.”
“Well then. Guess I’ll get your armor together.”
With that settled, I headed to my third destination.
I stepped into the small shop, looking around at the few metal items on display, hearing the sound of delicate hammering from the back. I rang the small bell, and heard the hammering stop, the scratch of a chair, then footsteps.
The engraver stepped out from the back, looking down at me with momentary surprise before he put on the more even expression of a shopkeeper.
“Hullo lad,” he greeted.
“Good afternoon! I was wondering if I could commission some engravings.”
“That’s what I’m here for. You have a design in mind?”
I fished out some parchment from the pack I was wearing, handing it over.
“I do. I’m only in Roko for the rest of the month, though, so I’ll need this done in a dozen days or so. I’m looking for four of this first design, cut into any metal, whatever is cheapest will do. The simpler designs on the second page, I only need one of each, in gold. All done to scale with the parchment designs. Will you be able to get this done in short order?”
The engraver brought his face close to the parchment, studying my design, then glanced back at me.
“These for your teacher?”
The first parchment contained an enchantment circle I had copied from Belat. It was something very simple, just something for me to cut my teeth on learning the skill. I figured it was worth having a few spares in case I botched my first attempts to acquire the skill and melted them or blew them up–actually, I wasn’t sure what failure would look like, I would have to be careful–so I needed enough to experiment on.
The second parchment just had simple 4-point and 5-point magic circles. I couldn’t get away with ordering a 3-point or 6-point magic circle, but I could finally upgrade some of my stone discs to gold and gain a huge magic efficiency boost from the improved focal point that way.
I shook my head at the engraver.
“I’m not an apprentice, just a delivery boy. Headed to Haklan where I have a buyer,” I lied.
“Well,” he said, straightening up. “It’s a bit much, and I could do it, but I’ll have to rearrange some projects and put in some extra hours to meet my other customers’ needs as well. So it’ll cost you. Plus materials, and you’re asking for a lot of gold engraved.”
I pulled out a small bag of gold coins and tossed it onto the counter.
“Will that cover it?”
The engraver opened the bag, his eyes widening slightly, then looking up and giving me a mercantile grin.
“I believe we can come to an arrangement that will satisfy all parties with this, yes.”
Thanking the man after making final arrangements, I left his shop in a good mood. I had a few more errands to run, stocking up on goods and services I could never have acquired in Mirut because of the size of town or my own secret lifestyle, then I could head back to the warehouse for the evening.
* * *
On my way back to the warehouse, my detect skill set off, and I knew someone was following me.
I navigated down an alleyway, sneaking around a corner and setting up an invisibility and silence spell so I could get the drop on whoever was following me. I waited patiently to see who would pass by. Thugs again? Someone who had seen me spending money at the shops?
I relaxed when I saw it was the young street kid from the day before. After he walked past me, I dropped my spells and stepped out of the shadow.
“Can I help you, lad?”
The child jumped with a small yelp, spinning around quickly.
“How–ah, sorry, I didn’t mean to–”
“That’s all right. You were just hungry, yeah?”
The child nodded, his damascus hair bobbing. It was matted and badly in need of a wash.
I sighed, but I pulled out some more food for the kid. He needed to eat, and I had plenty. He took it gratefully, not running this time, immediately sitting to eat, belatedly remembering to say thank you through a mouth of food. I couldn’t help but grin.
“I won’t be in Roko for long, you know. Can’t feed you forever. You understand? This is temporary.”
He nodded, still eating. Treepo, formerly invisible while I was navigating the Rokon stores, emerged from behind me and waddled over next to the lad to lay down. The boy looked over and even stopped eating for a moment to pet him before tucking back into his meal. I decided to sit as well.
“So what’s your name, lad?”
The boy looked up at me, glancing quickly back to the food and then to Treepo, before answering.
“Soa,” he mumbled, in between bites.
I mulled that over. The language in the Horuth Kingdom had a very particular way about it, which was easily visible in the names of all the people I had met so far. I hadn’t heard of a name with multiple vowel sounds together like that before. I couldn’t even figure out, immediately, how I would write it given the way the diacritics worked. There was no W type letter to carry the accent mark for an A type vowel.
“Is that a southern name?” I asked, and the boy froze up. “It’s ok, I don’t mind, I’m just curious.”
Soa, cautious, nodded once.
“Well, it’s a perfectly nice name for a perfectly nice lad. Does your family live around here?”
Soa paused again, then shook his head. He had stopped eating.
“It’s… it’s just me,” he said quietly.
Oh. I glanced down at Treepo, then back to the boy.
I frowned. This is going to be a problem for me.