Return of the Runebound Professor

Towering buildings rose up all along the main street, casting the white cobble in shade even though the sun was nearly directly overhead. Dawnforge was the closest thing to a city on Earth that Noah had seen since he’d gotten to Arbitage.

Everything was dense and tightly packed together, and even the shortest structures around them were at least three stories. It felt like the architects had gotten fed up with the size of the city and had just decided to build straight upward instead of expanding in any other direction.

Of course, according to Moxie, there was a massive forge somewhere beneath the city, so it wasn’t like they could have built downward if they wanted to.

The streets were densely packed with an interesting mixture of people. The vast majority of them looked to be adventurers – grizzled, confident, and bearing their weapons openly. Many of them had Imbuements covering their armor, and more than a few had splatters of blood or recent battle damage on their gear.

The remainder of the passersby felt like they’d fit in better in a posh castle or a room far beneath the earth. They either carried no weapon or carried a dagger so small that it probably wasn’t going to do much more than slice bread.

Neither group seemed to pay the other much mind, and everyone moved at a hurried pace toward whatever it was that they were doing. The streets themselves weren’t completely packed full, but they were too busy to stop and stare for too long – which was exactly what Lee kept trying to do.

“Don’t stop in the middle of the street, Lee,” Moxie said, grabbing Lee by the sleeve of her shirt and pulling her along as she ground to a halt to eye a man pulling a huge cart of fish along the road.

“I was just thinking about helping him.”

“By eating the fish to lighten his load?” Noah asked with an amused raise of his eyebrow.

“Maybe he got Revin’s All-Seeing Eye,” Moxie joked. The three of them continued down the street, Moxie at the lead. She seemed to have a plan as to where they were headed, and Noah was more than content to let her lead while he just took in the city around him. “We can stop to look around the city some other time, Lee. There’s no rush. It isn’t going anywhere.”

“I always wondered about that, actually. Why are your cities still?” Lee asked.

Noah tore his gaze away from a skyscraper made entirely of polished stone to look down at Lee. “What?”

“You know. Cities should be able to move if there’s a really big threat.”

“I’m not sure what your definition of a city is, but they generally don’t tend to move too much,” Moxie said. “Is it different in… well, you know. Where you came from?”

Lee nodded. “They aren’t exactly cities. Most of us generally don’t live that well together, but there are occasionally reasons why we’d trade or otherwise gather. They’re very lightly enforced neutral grounds where gatherings are slightly less deadly than normal. They move around.”

“How?” Noah asked.

“With their legs,” Lee replied, as if that were the most obvious answer in the world.

Noah opened his mouth, then closed it. If he started quizzing Lee on exactly what the Damned Plains was like and why her cities had legs, then someone would overhear their discussion and that would probably lead nowhere good.

“You’ll have to tell me more about that later,” Noah said.

Before he could say anything else, Moxie stopped by a large, four story building. Its stone walls supported a large wooden roof that jutted out in every direction around it. If they’d actually needed any extra shade, it would have been great. Carved wooden stilts propped parts of the building up, and it was hard to tell if they were there for decoration or function. Noah sincerely hoped they were the former because they didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the building’s structural integrity.

“Here,” Moxie said, stepping off the road and walking up to the open doorway. “I nearly missed it. It’s been a while since I last visited.”

“What is it?” Lee asked.

“A merchant,” Moxie replied. “A decent one. There are a lot in Dawnforge, but Thaddius is fairly honest and I don’t think he’ll try to scam us too hard because we aren’t regulars.”

“Too hard?” Noah’s nose scrunched. “That’s the scale we’re working with? I suppose hoping for an entirely honest merchant would be being too greedy?”

“More like delusional. Not unless you’re a well known or powerful adventurer,” Moxie said with a laugh. “I’d include a high up member of a noble family or a renowned Soldier, but I don’t think either of those are in the plans anytime soon. Come on.”

She headed inside the building, Noah and Lee trailing behind her. Almost immediately, the scent of leather and tobacco assaulted Noah’s nostrils. It hit him like a sledghammer, bringing memories of Earth bubbling up.

The shelves were lined with – well, just about everything. Skulls, horns, shields and weaponry, rows upon rows of vials – all was stuffed into every nook and cranny of the tall, twisting wood shelves that lined the inside of the building. There were so many random assorted items that they spilled out over the floor into small piles.

If there was any organization to the store, Noah didn’t see it. The only clear thing was a path that had been carved through the goods, leading up to a small semicircular desk at the back of the store where a large, slightly overweight man that Noah presumed to be Thaddius sat puffing on the biggest cigar Noah had ever seen.

A thick layer of greyish-black smoke curled along the ceiling like a rain cloud. Almost instinctively, Noah called on Natural Disaster to gather the smoke and push it away from his group.

Moxie led them all up to the counter and he studied them all through a half-lidded yet interested eye. He pulled the cigar from between his lips and coughed into his fist, shifting to lean forward and get a better look at Moxie.

“How can I help ya today, my good friends? Anything you want – I can procure it. Just say the word. Thaddius is at your beck and call, and I guarantee the best prices in the entirety of Dawnforge. My personal seal of guarantee on it.”

“I’m Moxie Torrin,” Moxie said bluntly. “We’ve met before. Pleasure to re-make your acquaintance.”

Thaddius squinted. He tilted his head slightly to the side, then grunted and stuck the cigar back between his lips, taking a long draw before letting the smoke trail out through his nose. Noah directed it away from them once again – if Thaddius noticed, he didn’t seem to care.

“Moxie, Moxie. Ah! You’ve grown a bit since you were last here,” Thaddius said, rubbing his chin. His gaze flicked to Noah and then down to Lee. “And who might this be?”

“A friend. This is Vermil, and the short one is Lee.”

Noah couldn’t help but notice that Moxie had left his last name off. That was probably for the best.

“I could not possibly be more thrilled to make your acquaintance,” Thaddius said without the slightest hint of sarcasm in his voice. He extended a large hand to Noah, who grasped it and shook. “So, what can this hardworking merchant get for you? For friends of a friend, I give a discount. You’ll not be treated better anywhere else in Dawnforge.”

Really laying it on thick, aren’t you? That’s the second time Thaddius has promised to make sure that his shop is better than all the other ones. Generally, that makes me think it definitely isn’t. Then again, if all the other locations are worse than this one, maybe we’re still getting the best of what we can.

“I don’t doubt it,” Moxie said. It was difficult to tell if she meant her words or not. Moxie gestured to the bag in Noah’s hands. “We’ve been doing a little hunting outside Dawnforge and wanted to offload some of the trophies we picked up so long as you can afford them.”

“Afford?” Thaddius let out an affronted snort. “I am no mere merchant, Moxie. I assure you, anything you have is more than within what I can afford. Come, show me what you have.”

Noah hefted the bag onto the counter before Thaddius, setting it down with a loud thump and a slight squelch. He’d done his best to make sure he hadn’t squished any of the more… malleable things he’d taken from the monsters, but there were more than a few things that probably hadn’t survived the trip entirely intact.

Thaddius pulled the bag over to himself and peered into it, his face unreadable. He reached below his desk, taking out a pair of long, flat ended tongs and pulling monster parts out of the bag carefully, laying them out on his desk.

Teeth, bones, claws, several hearts, cuts of armored hide, and everything Noah had liberated over the course of the past few days gathered in a large pile before Thaddius. The merchant didn’t speak a single time while he examined everything. He spent several seconds per part, occasionally pausing to jot something down on a strip of paper with a large, multicolored quill. It took him a little over ten minutes to finish.

“You have brought quite the haul,” Thaddius said with a wide smile. “I can see why you had fears – but much of this will only be usable in specific circumstances, and only to the right people. I will have difficulty selling it for a high price.”

“Before you start the haggling, I also have this.” Moxie took out the poison sac from the spider Noah had frozen and set it gently on the table before Thaddius. The merchant’s eyes flicked down to it, and Noah saw a flash of greed within them.

“One more thing, actually,” Noah said, reaching into his own bag and pulling out the faint glowing horn. He’d been carrying it around a while, and it certainly felt like something that would earn at least a little bit of coin.

Thaddius barely even looked up as Noah set it on the table. His eyes were fixed on the poison sac.

“Was it properly removed?”

“Yes. Frozen too.”

“For preservation? Wise,” Thaddius murmured.

Not exactly planned, but I’ll take credit for it.

“So?” Moxie pressed. “How much? And keep in mind you aren’t the only merchant my family knows, Thaddius. You get one offer. Make sure it’s good.”

Noah caught Lee staring at one of the monster hearts with a hungry look in her eyes and shot her a quick glance. Lee scrunched her nose at him in annoyance but took a step back from the table.

Thaddius carefully picked the poison sac up off the table with his tongs, closing one eye and squinting at it with the other. The tip of his tongue poked out of his mouth as he turned the sac left and right before setting it gently on the table.

“Decent,” Thaddius allowed. He looked to Noah’s horn and a small frown flickered across his wide features. “But what is this you’ve placed here, friend? I don’t recognize it.”

“Took it off a Bleater. It was an annoying little bastard. I figured it’s got to be worth a fair bit because its horn is still shining. Even if nothing else, it’ll make a pretty mantlepiece.”

“So it would,” Thaddius murmured. He studied the horn for a few more seconds. “Was this from a mutated monster?”

“It was. I assume that drives up its price?”

Thaddius grimaced. “Perhaps. Not all mutations are good. Some simply serve no purpose or can even be detrimental. I’d not pay extra for a bad part.”

“This isn’t a bad part though, is it?”

The merchant shot a glance at Moxie, then cleared his throat. “Quite the diverse spread you’ve brought before me, little Torrin. However, I’m afraid I have an objection.”

“Oh?” Moxie raised an eyebrow. “What?”

“You said I only get one offer. That simply cannot be. I am a merchant.”

“What’s that meant to mean?”

“I must follow my nature.” A predatory grin stretched across Thaddius’ face as he held his arms out, as if reaching to envelop them in a hug. “It is time for us to haggle.”

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