Cosmic Bump in the Road

[Caden Law]

The problem with teleportation (http://www.althanas.com/world/showpost.php?p=103420&postcount=37) is that its mechanics work in one of two ways: You're either in two places at once or you're nowhere at once, and due to a few paradoxes that the Einstein Faeries haven't quite sorted out yet, that effectively means you're everywhere at once no matter what method you used.

Which, more or less, means that Caden Law went from spouting off incoherent movie references one second to being everywhere in the universe the next. Then something arcane kicked in (probably a Spite Imp to the shins, nasty little buggers that lot) and everything went haywire and at the same moment he was vanishing in a blast of golden light and song, he was also reappearing a few hundred to a few thousand miles away. Possibly an ocean away, possibly an alternate universe away, possibly five years ago or ten years from now -- it doesn't matter. Regardless of Where and How, Caden arrived screaming, upside down and barreling sideways out of a Randomly Selected Tent somewhere in that backwater bastion of bastardly bizarre bargains and bereavements, the Bazaar.

Which Bazaar is anyone's guess.

Naturally, he came to a stop with the unintended aid of a rather burly looking gent with more nose-warts than teeth, and probably less sense and decency than both. Said-gent took an equally unintended boot to the chin on the way down, and somewhere between Momentum and Hilarity, Caden ended up standing on his feet in the middle of the street, surrounded by a hundred pairs of blankly staring eyes and sagging jaws to match. Disbelief's the name of the game whenever a Wizard pops up, at least until they start fireballing everyone's asses...and this one looked a little too beaten up to do that.

"Where am I?" Caden asked, in much the same way a deer asks headlights why they're not following the rules of the road. He did so in Raiaeran, which very well guaranteed that nobody understood a word he said barring a minor miracle. It also bears mention that most of the Gods are out to lunch right now, so that's not even on the table.

"Ah," he sounded again, just as the Sixth Sense of Magic met with the Seventh Sense of Doom for a bit of tea. "Right. Teleporting mishap. 'Kay then." Cue a few moments spent crab-walking off the street so that a cart doesn't run him over and Mister Few-Teeth wakes up with similar intentions. This is followed by a few more seconds Caden took to pat himself down and make sure he didn't have any new and unpleasantly gaping holes in his anatomy.

"Wonderful," he concluded, in the way that men do when the last second reprieve's been called off and the riflemen are taking their places on the firing line. The keyword here, of course, is Second. Because a second is a unit of time and a Wizard with any amount of time is a dangerous thing. Caden had been given an hour and he'd turned around 400 men from farmers to pitchfork-wielding Spartans. Now he was in a Bazaar, with 365 in gold pieces.

"Time to do some damage."

Note the manic grin and the spontaneous blaring of the Rock Anthem For Saving The World (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO1y7WQfD9c). You'd hardly think it's appropriate for a shopping trip, but this is one of those rare exceptions to the rule.

Purpose in his step and Time's fingers intwined like Mr. Burns in his shadow, Caden stormed forward and went barreling through the Bazaar at full speed, looking for the first Magic-oriented shop he could find. He'd lost his wand at the Bridge of Souls (http://www.althanas.com/world/showpost.php?p=90100&postcount=14), lost blood and health besides, and now he had a little bit of time to make up for the damage. Caden would not waste it.

* 550 Gold on the assumption that the Temporary Gold hasn't randomly evaporated yet, since it's still in my profile as of this posting. If it's gone, I'll edit that bit to 365, my current Real Gold amount.

[Moonlit Raven]

On a stool in front of the opening to a large tent a small child perched on a tool much too tall to be safe for the little girl. Bright green eyes unblinkingly watched the people hurry back and forth, once in a while she looked back at her mother as she straightened the shop or turned her head to rack a individual that peaked her interest. Small draconian wings fanned the air slightly to help her keep her balance.

~~~

For the thousandth time I glanced out at my daughter and had to stop myself from calling to her to climb down. The morning had already been wasted in a battle with the girl over the choice of places to climb up on. Instead I resolved to watch her carefully and let her learn from the error of her choices if she did indeed fall.

A thick fringe of blood highlighted black hair fell into place as I tilted my head to hide my eyes as my child looked back at me. Through it I watched her and studied her once more.

~~~

The little girl didn't fail to notice the odd sight of a man flying out of a tent and crashing into a large man. Her eyes widened slightly as she thought there might be a fight and where there was fighting there was blood. Glancing back at her mommy she wondered if her mommy would take her to the butcher shop again today and left her pick out something as a treat.

Standing up on the stood she stretched to watch the man as he hurried up the streets towards the shop and the others farther up the street. A gust of wind caught as one the slowly fanning wings and pulled her off balance. Crying out she shut her eyes and prepared to hit the ground, the thought that she should have listened to her mother occurred to her.

[Caden Law]

Shop to shop, tent to tent, shack to shack, Caden ran for it. Every five seconds, you could hear the Wizard cussing up a storm in some strange, new language; two or three of which probably don't even exist in any modern form. Existing translations of these obscenities include: Soiled goat's milk! Broken broomstick on an old man's head! Harry Potter Fanfiction!

Obviously, nobody's quite sure what that last one is and it's a (generally) safe bet Caden made it up on the spot.

No, we never break the Fourth Wall 'round these parts, ma'am. Never. :p

Six shops became seven became eight became nine, and the Wizard ran himself ragged in the interim. He shouldered through crowds left and right, and was soundly ignored in return. For the most part. Here's where Rincewind's Plot Sense kicks in again, folks: Caden stopped. Jarringly, to the point that he wasn't just in mid-step, but mid-turn, and only one foot was barely on the ground at that. Witness the Laws of Physics bending a little as Caden seemed to literally pivot in place while the rest of the world stood still or moved to allow for it.

Mind you, he still fell over backwards and wound up getting trampled by a horde of visiting dwarves, but let's not go into that. He got back up and that's the important part, because he wound up staring right into Tent #9567, where a little girl was falling -- except he didn't quite notice that so much as he noticed the wings she had. Wings are, in Caden's experience, a sure guarantee that Generally Arcane Things Be Happening Here. So while the kid went falling, Caden went running. Across the street again, where Tall Ugly And Toothless was just now getting up. He took one look at the incoming pointy blue hat, screamed in a rather shrill, high-pitched sort of way, and immediately cowered down in the middle of the street.

Caden leapt over him.

About two seconds later, give or take a fish, a wagon-load of Salvic Salmon swerved to avoid one or both of them. You can probably guess what happened after that.

In the meantime, Caden tripped, hopped on one foot and then the other and finally staggered and fell over, elbows and chin first against the countertop. Suffice to say, he had been to war and he rather looked the part. Smelled it too. That's one thing people don't really talk about when they describe war: It stinks. Of mud, of blood, of spent spellwork and death in general. Even his Hat looked a little worse for wear, flopping somewhat readily over the forward half of the brim. His face was entirely obscured for a few moments, during which anyone with half an ear-drum could've heard him catching his breath (which could be construed as a kind of ice-age hunt for breathy mammoths, with little lung-people hurling spears at intangible objects and somehow hitting the mark).

"Okay," he sputtered in Salvic, hands clenching and loosening. "I'm going to stand up now. I won't be lightheaded and I won't look clinically insane or anything. On the count of three...

"One...two..."

Up he went. And he was lightheaded and he certainly looked like someone who only just got by the men in white coats, but that's about par for the course for a Wizard. A harshly shaken head later, a few comical blinks, and finally a working of the jaw to make sure it hadn't broken off from chin-butting the countertop, Caden spoke.

"Wouldn't happen to sell any wands, would you? See, I'm fighting in this war, over in Raiaera, and a teleport spell went wrong, and I'll probably be--"

As if some sadistic higher power felt like lending credence to his story, his goggles vanished right off his face with a flash of gold. Caden sputtered obscenities in Aleraran for a few seconds, then nonchalantly took his regular glasses out and threw them on.

"Wands, yes?" he asked, like this was an everyday sort of thing.

[Moonlit Raven]

Sorry for the delay.

I watched my daughter pick herself up from the ground and dust herself off. I was more than a little relieved that she seemed unharmed, and more irritated than upset. Finally I let my gaze turn to the seemingly less than sane man that was asking for a wand, having finally pulled his face off of my counter.

Dubious, I stared at him for a long moment. Was this the type of person that really should have a wand or any other magical items? Hiking a brow I nodded.

"Yes, we have wands. Is there a type of wood or enchantment you are particularly looking for?"

[Caden Law]

Another flash of gold light; Caden knew on instinct that he'd just lost money with that one. More pressingly was the flash that followed it, because this one was visible from the back of his throat as he tried to speak. Understandably, the words jumbled up on the way out of his mouth, resulting in something very much like an audio traffic jam. Caden lurched forward, writhing momentarily and then...

He straightened up. Shook his head about almost violently, then explained it as, "Teleport spell...just took the food out of my stomach..." Note the rather disturbed look on his face, punctuated by the implicit understanding that the spell could take out an organ or two on the next go round. He spoke quickly now, his Salvic accent showing a little more than usual, "No need for specific enchantments, just a focal object. The best I can get for 365 gold pieces. A wand cored with Damascus or Liviol would be nice, but I'm not exactly--" Pop and the left sleeve of his coat vanished. Beneath it was the stark white sleeve of a shirt, clinging somewhat to a rather scrawny looking arm. Caden didn't even blink this time.

"I'm not exactly picky," he finished, somewhat understandably.

[Moonlit Raven]

Sighing I ignored the oddities happening around the frantic man as if it were an everyday occasion. The first time that something disappears that isn't on him... or in him. Oh, by the gods that's a horrible thought, I'll wack him hard enough to knock what little sense he has left out of him.

"I have unstained oak with a core of Damascus, it runs right at 350. For a wand with livol, it's a whole hell of a lot more expensive that what you quoted as your price limit." I shrugged apologetically, out of the corner of my eye I watch my daughter climb backup on the stool. Suppressing a sigh I vowed to chop that stool into pieces just as soon as I was finished helping the, gentleman.

[Caden Law]

"I'll take it!" Caden said, much more loudly than needed, but never disregard an enthusiastic customer. Even as he was shouting, he was jabbing a hand into his coat and pulling out a rather well-used, greyish-brown pouch. He opened it, then quickly dumped out all 350 gold pieces -- and a few more just because he was in such a rush.

Which was a good thing, since the pouch went pop and was gone with a flash of light almost the second he was done providing payment.

Caden just shrugged at it. What else could you do, really?

[Moonlit Raven]

Giving the gold a quick count I push the few remaining pieces into a small pouch for the guy and handed it to him them swept my gold into a larger pouch. Now where did I place those wands again? Tossing the pouch into a gold into a lockable box and kicking the heavy lid shut I turned and searched for the wands.

Once every few seconds I glanced at the guy just to make sure he was still there and still had all of his bits. I honestly expected his head to suddenly go missing the way objects were suddenly popping out of existence with him. Under a pile of map I located the wands buried in a crate full of strips of cloth. Snagging several of the cloth wrap wands I returned to the counter.

"Here you go. Make sure you don't lose it." I smiled at the man and began re wrapping the wands to put them away. "I'm not responsible for mishaps or the sudden loss of your newly acquired item due to the nature of the odd magic around you. Have a good day."


Transaction complete. Caden Law loses 350 GP and gains 100 EXP for good IC interactions,