A Bright and Shiny Life

The streets of Fluemberg are crowded. Refugees too poor for lodging crowd the alleys, and vendors begging for passersby to buy their scant defective goods on whatever rickety table or moth-eaten rug they could scavenge.

A few vendors have solid looking carts with better wares. Locals probably, who likely bought cherished heirlooms at desperation prices which they try to turn for profit.

Many of the goods are likely stolen. The local vendors might prowl through alleys at night accompanied by familial thugs and rob any vulnerable refugees– patrols having been bribed to ignore screams.

Even these vultures look haggard. They likely invested too much in trinkets and bribes believing the insurgency would be crushed much sooner– allowing them to liquidate their ill-gotten goods in a recovering post war economy before they join those they preyed on.

The few vendors selling food look much happier despite their carts being nearly empty save for a few pieces of half rotten produce.

I sigh.

This town, and many like it are on the edge of mass uprising, but now all the effort we spent getting them here is wasted.

In a few days news of our defeat will arrive, the refugees will start going home, pressure will be relieved, order will start to be restored and the people will become content to live under Arkothan boots.

Following the guard’s instructions I quickly find the store.

The sign is a blue incomplete three-line asterisk: the horizontal line and diagonal going bottom left to top right present, but with the other diagonal missing. The shape indicates a healer of body and mind but not soul and the colour an apothecary rather than doctor. Under the symbol written in the same blue paint is the word ‘Morrisons’.

It’s unusual for signs to have names on them. Usually, it’s just symbolic art or signifier since most are illiterate. However, I’ve noticed that every shop’s sign here has a name on it. Perhaps it’s some imperial law that’s finally being enforced in their new conquest.

I open the door to the familiar smells of drying herbs and boiling mixtures. Dimly lit and stuffy– the little natural light coming through expensive glass windows that restrict ventilation, and the unnatural light coming from the fires boiling potions and lotions.

The shop is divided by a wooden counter that separates a small customer area from the work and storage area beyond. This side of the counter is empty save for two chairs, one on either side of the room.

On the left chair is a muscular thug with a dented and bloodstained cudgel on their lap who gives me a scowling appraisal as I enter. ‘Does the kid look like they have enough money to buy here?’ They clearly think.

I look at them cooly– moving mostly my eyes with just a slight twist of the head– unintimidated by the cudgel.

Their eyes narrow, moving me from one category of potential trouble to another, but they don’t move to evict. Rather, they shout without moving their eyes away from me. “Morri! Customer!”

A gruff old man with wild white hair emerges a minute later– the guard staring at me the whole time while I pointedly ignore them. The old man–Morri, presumably– looks at me with the same obvious thought the guard had when I walked in.

“What do you want, kid.” Morri says.

I don’t let his tone affect me and take on the tone of a naïve child. “I’m an herbmonger traveling to central– gathering wares along the way to earn coin…The gate guard said to give you this.” I pull out the crude wooden plaque crudely carved with an Arkothan symbol of authority, the words ‘entry mark’ and a number.

Morri takes the plaque, looks it over, then looks to his guard to gauge their assessment of me before speaking. “And how do I know you didn’t steal this when you stole the herbs? Or forge it, for that matter. It’s not hard to copy.”

I shrug, changing my tone to match his wariness. “The gate guard didn’t’ say, but does it matter? This town’s desperate for supplies– garrison included. You need them, and if they are stolen the plaque is a reasonable excuse for ignorance. The garrison wouldn’t jeopardize their main medical supplier for something so minor and would be eager for a reason to look away, if it even came to light.”

“And if they used this as an excuse to renegotiate my prices?”

“Then they would be foolish. In peace time, certainly, but now? This town is a handful of intercepted grain shipments away from revolt, and the rebels are doing everything they can to make that happen.” I say, omitting that ‘everything they can’ isn’t very much at the moment. “Doing anything to worsen the opinion of influential town’s people would be doing the rebel’s jobs for them…

“Besides, you don’t need to worry about any of that. They’re not stolen, I picked them myself on the way here.” I finish with a smarmy smile and open hand gesture.

He considers this for a moment before letting out a guttural sigh. “…beh, kids these days. Come on, put your wares on the counter. I’ll take a look.”

I do as instructed, carefully taking out bundles separated by type.

“What’s that?” He says, pointing to a bundle of roots.

“Pallberry roots. Topical local coagulants.”

“… Well, I can always use more of those… Why didn’t you just say you knew what the herbs did instead of speculating on town politics like some smug bastard?”

“Were my speculations wrong?”

“You know they weren’t, that’s what makes you a smug bastard.”

I smile at the confirmation. “Having knowledge is necessary for me to have picked them, but not sufficient.”

“Maybe, but it makes it likely, no?”

I shrug as I finish laying them out, keeping a few goods ones for myself.

He sighs and hands me a thin folio. “Feel free to look through this while I appraise them. I’m always looking for the stuff inside and will buy them at a premium… Good haul, might take a while to go through.”

I nod and begin flipping through the papers. They contain illustrations of medical plants of similar detail to those in my book. I recognize most of them, but one sticks out.

“I’m not familiar with this one, do you mind if I make a copy?”

“It’s why I showed them to you.”

I nod appreciatively and sit in the vacant chair facing the guard who is still glaring at me. I ignore them and pull out the spell book disguised as a history text.

It would be simpler to transfer it to the Biblio, but there’s no reason to flaunt the disguise when I don’t know if they can pierce it and it’s a very remarkable cover. It’s unlikely, but apothecaries will often be hedge mages who can make magic potions, and the guard might be a disgraced knight for all I know.

The spell book looks much more similar to its disguise and was enchanted later, so it will be harder to pierce and might not be noticed even if it is. Fortunately, text can be transferred from one illusion to another with little effort (with some limit), so it won’t be a problem.

I sit there with the book propped against my leg and a charcoal stylus going over a blank looking page pretending to copy it. In reality the page has already been transferred but I need to make a show.

Perhaps I should be worried that Morri might be trying to cheat me while I’m not looking. He might steal a bit of herbs, then lowball me so much I leave in a huff without realizing any is gone.

However, besides not actually caring how much I get, I think Morri intends to treat me fairly. He’s giving me free knowledge on the off chance I’ll come back and sell him more, and that won’t happen if the deal falls through.

Besides, I know how much of each herb I have, so the theft would have to be small and not worth a competitor gaining supply. But even if he managed to steal all of it from me it would be cheap compared to the single new piece of medical knowledge, much less the potential that most of the folio was new to me.

So, I don’t bother keeping an eye on him while he goes over the herbs.

“All right.” He says a bit after I have finished pretending to hand copy the illustration, causing me to go back to the counter and hand back the folio. “It’s a good haul. I’ll give you three small gold and a large silver for the lot.”

I blink at the exorbitant price. I expected it to be higher than normal, but this is nearly twice the amount I guessed. It seems we were closer at succeeding here than I thought.

“Now I know what you’re thinking kid. You’re young and vulnerable just setting out in the world. Am I ripping you off? Well, yes I am.” He says with a smile matching the smarminess of the one I gave him. “But no more than anyone else in town.

“You might get better elsewhere, but you’d have to find it, and the effort ain’t worth your time. Besides, you’re not in a guild so some might just steal it from you.

“Finally, you’re going east away from the fighting. Prices will be lower there, so you need to sell it here or lose money, and that’s to say nothing about having enough coin to find a place to stay tonight.”

“All right, I’ll take the offer.” I say. He laughs as we shake hands then he goes to get the coins from his lockbox.

It’s obvious that he wanted to get even with me for my analysis at our introduction, but his tone reminded me of Gebal’s when he taught me some particularly nasty ambush tactic or clever survival technique.

He had a point about being ripped off. I wasn’t thinking about it, and I should have. If prices have gone up this much, who’s to say if they’re not actually ten times what I thought, and he figured he’d scam me while I still didn’t know. I thought it unlikely that the town would still be intact with prices that high, but food prices are what’re important and medicine might have increased quicker.

In a way it doesn’t matter. Even if I could have gotten ten times as much, what I got should keep me until I get to the destination, and I can always find more.

But it represents a complacency about money I need to shake. I’m too used to just taking supplies in raids. I’ve hardly had to use money at all in my life.

Sure, there were times when we infiltrated towns, and I was tasked with buying supplies, but we had so much stolen coin it didn’t really matter how much we got scammed since we could only carry out so much.

There were also merchants who occasionally met up with us, but those negotiations weren’t exactly normal. Their extremely inflated prices were all about the risk they were taking meeting with us rather than the value of the goods, and, again, we had so much money we didn’t care so long as we got food.

He comes back with the agreed amount and hands it to me. I briefly examine them for evidence of clipping or sweating but find none.

“Good doing business.” I smile. “The guard told me to stay at the Bubbling Otter. Do you know where that is?”

“Yeah, just go back to the main square and it’ll be there.”

“Are there any good tailers or shoemakers you’d recommend with ready stock or could alter what I need by when I leave tomorrow? I know it’ll be expensive here, but I’ll need new shoes if I’m going to walk to central, and it’ll be nice to have clothes that don’t look so beggary.”

“Might be cheaper than you think. All the killing means less people buying, and dead men’s clothes tend to end up back on the market. You might be able to get better prices here than even in central.”

“I see.”

“But if you don’t want anything pre-worn there are shops near the square. I’d recommend the Red Needle run by Serrith for clothes. She’ll insist on adjusting something new for you, which will be expensive and might cut a few hours of your travel time. But you have the coin and you’ll be thankful in the long run.

“For good travel boots I’d recommend Frathith. He’s a bit harder to find, you should ask at the Bubbling Otter… Make sure you get a room first; things will fill up quick if they haven’t already.”

“Thanks.” I say, heading to the door.

“Hey! Come back some time and sell me some more!” He shouts after me.

“Maybe when the fighting’s done– could be years. Stay safe old man.”