A Bizaar Purchase

[Falling With Style]

The Bazaar by its nature was always busy, but today took the cake. A large train of wagons, loaded with amphorae of some foul smelling substance and exotic silks alike, rumbled slowly down the packed street. The beast up front pulled the rig along with four enormous legs like tree trunks, putting one massive foot resolutely before another while a long, prehensile nose swayed side to side with the motion of its heavy skull.

Alcyone dodged the beast, fascinated but slightly apprehensive of the thing's sheer size. Two enormous tusks jutted from its mouth, and it flapped its huge ears in the cooling breeze. The young wizard had only seen such a beast once, when a caravan stopped by her academy, and was equally impressed and frightened by it then. This specimen stomped forward docilely, as if unimpressed by the small pink things scurrying madly around its feet.

The rest of the Bazaar was no less of a madhouse. A duo of fruit vendors howled their wares while displaying a strange selection of produce, looking if nothing else like a collection of giant eggs varying in color and size. The heavy clank, clank of a blacksmith working on a warrior's prized winged helm clanged heavily to one side, while the other produced the distinct smell of unhygenic fish.

"These people are crazy," she muttered, dodging a mule cart overloaded with manure that made her eyes water. Her hands clamped viselike to her pack, as even she knew that a crowded market like this was prime breeding ground for thieves and ruffians.

What she needed now, however, was something less mundane: a blacksmith working with - what was it called? Daemonicus metal? Dampless? Well, whatever lightweight metal it was that received magic well, she needed some of it. With luck, she'd be able to scout one out in this bloody place.

[Falling With Style]

Disguised threadbump. *Toothy smile.*

The hunt had gone on for a fruitless half hour's worth of dodging beasts of burden and rolling carts, each overloaded with exotic imports, and scurrying from one stall to the next. All this magical buzzing in the area was disorienting: how was she supposed to zero in on a specific type of metal when this whole market resonated with magical items of varying hues and frequencies?

The wizard had nearly called it a day when the tink tink tink of a smith caught her ear. She suspected it would be another charlatan, purveying secondhand magical swords or some such nonsense while having no real skill with a hammer or metal. Well, it was worth a try - she needed that Denescus (or whatever it was called) metal for her experiment. She walked over, dodging a gabbling herd of merchants who smelled unpleasantly of unwashed armpits, and made her way to the counter.

"'Afternoon."

[AdventWings]

"Oh, hello! Welcome to the Silver Spool! Uh, one moment please~"

Millie turned her head to look at the customer just as she pushed a pin into the mannequin's shoulder, sticking a stretch of cloth onto the other crudely-aligned fabric already strung up in a strange tattered shirt. Carefully putting away the box of iron needles where she would not trip on them, she headed for the counter to begin her work.

"Hi! How may I help you?"

The seamstress adjusted her glasses and pulled out a worn notebook, taking out a quill pen and standing ready to take the customer's orders.

[Falling With Style]

Whoops, wrong counter. The rust-colored eye darted back and forth, scanning a shopping list from behind its similarly-colored shield of hair. It flicked up, looking over the small stand she'd stumbled onto. Light clothing and robes hung all around, most of them employing some kind or leather or another. A mannequin stood, oddly menacingly -was it the collection of pins sticking out of funny places?- off to the side. All the clothing was entirely too light.

"Right," she said, looking back to the shopkeep, "I need a cloak - winter type thing, if you've got any." This ignored the fact that spring was already there, a few days of near-summerlike weather having gone by. The wizard knew this was a ridiculous request and to her credit did an admirable job of pretending it wasn't. Moving right along: "Also, a comfortable pair of suede gloves - something that protects from wind and cold, something I can buckle on to keep them put. I'd like a piece of thin steel about this big-" -at this, she held up a rectangle made of her fingers approximately two and a half by three and a half inches- "-sewn on to the back of each wrist."

She scratched her head, knowing this was a rather absurd request for a seamstress. "I know, if you can get steel. If so...about six ounces of finely ground iron powder, too."

[AdventWings]

Millie's quick fingers noted down the orders on a piece of paper, her eyes leaving the trail of black ink only once in a while to see that her customer was not feeling ignored.

Her mind's eyes searched the prices of each item on the list, adding and subtracting the necessary costs as needed.

"OK... Let's see. A winter cloak would cost about~ thirty gold pieces. The suede gloves are twenty-five a pair. As for the added metal plates, I'll see what I can do with the local smithy. However, iron powder is going to be a problem."

The seamstress almost wanted to let out a chuckle. Sure, ask a clothing store for ground iron powder. Everyone keeps them in a box.

But she resisted the urge to belch out an amused laugh. Instead, she stifled a giggle threatening to burst out and gave the customer some directions.

"I- ahem- I know a smithy nearby who can help you with the ground iron powder, miss. Go to the crossroad down the road to your right and make a left. The blacksmith is two doors to your left."

Returning to her calmed state after mentally laughing herself to contentment, Millie adjustd her spectacles before resuming her duties.

"The cloak are over there by the wall. The gloves are on the shelves next to the cloak wardrobe. Just bring the ones you like and I will see how long it would take to sew the plates onto it."

[Falling With Style]

The wizard scratched her head, wondering if she really did just ask a seamstress for iron powder. Well, the ones in Fallien sorta worked with metal, and it had made sense at the time...

Forget it, she told herself, her mind continuing to wander. The blacksmith's shop she'd been meaning to go to -before she stopped in at this seamstress for some odd reason- was just a few stalls down. She'd have to go check that out...right after trying on a few clothes. Specifically, a winter cloak and some gloves.

The gloves were relatively easy. Up here in Salvar, leather stuff cost a dime a dozen and one could find reasonably well-made stuff rather cheaply. She wasn't looking for top of the line; really any pair would do. Ah! Her eye picked a couple pairs from the lot. The first pair, a thick inflexible set of gloves made from the hide of some very thick-skinned beast, proved warm but entirely too cumbersome. They had some pretty excellent-looking buckles on them, though.

The second pair proved right for her. A pair of medium-sized suede leather gloves, these were a sort of slate gray with three brass buckles marching up her wrists. They were quite long, and went most of the way up her thin forearms. She tested their suppleness by writing a few words and practice diagrams and found them to her liking. Maybe not the warmest of gloves, but they were better than nothing, and quite supple. She didn't want to know what sort of beast they came from.

The winter coat proved rather problematic, considering of the cloaks available all were shifting to summer models rather than winter ones. The ones on display were entirely too light and flimsy for her purposes. Alcyone rolled one after another to the side of the stack, mumbling something about wind chill and altitude to herself, before finding one last winter cloak at the end of the rack.

It was hideous, and there really wasn't any other way to describe it. Functionally, the cloak was precisely what the wizard needed, but its appearance was nothing short of atrocious. For one, the cloak was an unpleasant shade of brown with reddish highlights, trimmed in awful spotty fur from some kind of hare and very obviously stitched together like some Frankenstein's monster of a garment risen from the bottom of the barrel. The wizard was about to put it back when she realized she needed to check the time.

Out went the astrolabe and -agh!- 'twas getting on in the day. She didn't have time for this. The wizard Alcyone muttered something about convergences and eclipses and loaded her future purchases upon the counter. After this, she'd be off to the blacksmith's -sooner if this seamstress wanted her to get the plates herself- for the reagents.

"Right. Twenty-five it is for the gloves, I take it, as well as the price for affixing those plates. As for this thing-" -she held the awful winter cloak aloft- "- I suppose I'll give you, er, ten." The wizard looked disapprovingly at the cloak. It really did look like something an apprentice knocked together in a drunken stupor from whatever they could find. Rather low quality and atrocious selection of materials, too.

[AdventWings]

Millie's eyes widened in confused horror when she saw the rag her customer was holding out.

How'd it- Who'd-?!

Her eyes narrowed, as if in recognition of the mediocre handicraft present in the item in question. No one would dare stitch on hare fur like that new kid.

...I'll have a word with you yet, Dakota...

"Uhm, haha. I think I can find you something better than this. Please allow me a few seconds."

The shop owner disappeared to the clothes rack in a flash, searching through the thick winter coats before whizzing by to the storage room. In mere seconds - not even a minute had passed by in between the bespectacled seamstress tripping over her own legs and tumbling across the room.

Running a hand through her disheveled do, Millie presented the wizard with a better-looking cloak. Functionally, it was basically the same as the one the customer had shown her. However, this one was of a heavier fabric - treated white cotton, how lovely - and with ermine fur trimming all around the garment.

"Twenty, only, ma'am." Millie smiled when she finally made it to the counter, letting the cloak drape across the table. "As for the steel plate, I can have it done within the hour. I should have it completed by the time you come back from the smithy, if you're willing to give me some time."

[Falling With Style]

And with the power of THREAD NECROMANCY (and realizing I totally forgot about it) I revive this rotting RP from the graaaave!

Finding the smithy turned out to be more difficult than the seamstress had let on. Or at least she had a rather liberal definition of the word doors - as it were, the wizard Alcyone was threateningly close to taking flight before she spotted the tiny stall.

She dodged a flock of gabbling merchants and their entourage, a train of camels (quite out of place up here, she noted) before attempting unsuccessfully to avoid a fortune-teller, a haggard wrinkly wreck of a witch looking rather forcefully to read her fortunes in the sky. "Rather too late," she told the old woman distractedly, seeing an opening in the crowd. "I'll be deciding that tonight."

Then Alcyone scooted from the melee of the road and up to the smith's stall, where she leaned upon the counter in anticipation. "Afternoon," she called, still glancing from astrolabe to sky.

When she had the smith's attention, the wizard rattled off her list of desired items:


Shopping List:

- 6oz. iron powder
- 4.5oz powdered carbon (coal or the like)
- 6oz blacksmith's flux (silica sand)
- 4oz. weight lodestone (magnetized iron)

...reminders: eclipse is TONIGHT! get it fast, head north of city....check alignment of venus w/ relation to saturn...

(The list is almost supernaturally long, but this is as far as she puts the poor smith to.)

[AdventWings]

Listening to the list was more than enough for the blacksmith to know what the mage was talking about. After all, Adam had been in through this sort of business once before.

"Will do. One moment and I'll have everything ready."

The Salvaran blacksmith disappeared into his storage room and, working off the list in his head, found all the materials Alcyone wanted.

Returning to the counter with the items in separate cloth pouches, he gently placed them on the counter.

"That would be a total of thirty gold pieces, miss."

[Falling With Style]

The witch coughed at the smithy's price. "Thirty gold pieces? That's..."

Just then, an invisible force washed over Alcyone as if magnetizing her bones. Tendons stood out on the thin wizard's fingers as she gripped the wooden counter, a drowning rat scrabbling for a hold upon a sinking ship. The astrolabe atop her staff read true, though: the eclipse still wasn't for hours. The hell was this bizarre grip it had her in, then?

"...that will be -egh- fine," she managed through clenched teeth. It was abundantly clear that she was only expecting to pay half that for a few bits of blacksmith's trash, but the moon's orbit certainly wasn't going to wait for her. Thirty gold pieces later, and with an insincere 'thanks' to the overcharging smith, Alcyone was on her way back to the seamstress.

One exercise in crowd-weaving later, the wizard placed her hand expectantly upon the counter, while the other practically wove itself into the brass magestaff for support. Her eye roved the shop in search of the seamstress.

[AdventWings]

"Oh, hi- AH!"

The greeting was followed by a tremendous thmp! as Millie hit the deck on all fours, this time taking just a little too much time to pick herself up from the floor.

Gosh, who'd put that mannequin torso down there? She groaned, visibly shaking from the fall. ...Oh, yeah. That was me...

"Eh, hehe. Um, yes. Your wares are ready. I'll... Put them up on the counter for you now..."

Edging along while trying to cradle her jarred elbow, she took her time to carefully bring out the wares for her customer. Having them ruined at the last possible minute was the last thing she want to happen.

"...That's... Forty-five gold pieces total..."

[Falling With Style]

The seamstress had done her job quite well. A plate of thin steel slightly larger than your average playing card was sewn onto the wrist area of each glove, while still preserving the slate-gray suede's suppleness. They felt quite secure on her hands. The cloak, as well, looked quite serviceable, being of moderate weight but still rather warm.

Their buyer, however, looked rather the worse for wear. A thin spiderweb of veins had appeared beneath her pallid skin and her rust-colored eyebrow slanted worriedly over its charge.

"Forty-five will do nicely," admitted Alcyone, mechanically stacking a precise three-by-three diagram of gold towers each five deep. "May the stars watch over you," she mumbled.

Taking her purchases, the odd young wizard disappeared into the crowd and was gone.

[AdventWings]

((Transaction Complete.

Falling with Style loses 75 GP and recieves the following:

- 6oz. iron powder
- 4.5oz powdered carbon (coal or the like)
- 6oz blacksmith's flux (silica sand)
- 4oz. weight lodestone (magnetized iron)
- White cotton winter cloak with ermine fur trimming
- Suede leather gloves with brass buckles and embedded thin steel plates
- 100 EXP for good IC interactions

See you next time!))