Waking up and getting dressed with Grace was only marginally less awkward than getting undressed had been last night— because she wasn’t over with taking my damn bra off. I really wish I wasn’t such a… a damn klutz. Gosh I felt my cheeks heating every ti I thought about that incident.
Thankfully we made it down to the inn’s common room in ti for breakfast, and then we were heading out the door. Troy decided that we’d be heading out of the city as soon as we had directions to travel in. All that needed to happen was for to approach random strangers with five armoured people at my back and get a reasonable response from them. Nothing wrong with this plan at all.
“Right, this isn’t working,” Troy sighed as the fourth person gave odd directions.
It wasn’t that they weren’t giving us the wrong directions per se, it’s that none of them agreed on where a good center for magical artificing would be, and on top of that, none of them seed particularly interested in clarifying the matter.
“What’s going wrong?” Adam asked, fiddling with the strap of his helt.
I waited for soone to co up with the obvious answer, but none of them did. I guess they weren’t aware of the stares we were getting? Or maybe they were and they just weren’t connecting the dots.
“I think it’s the armour, it’s scaring people,” I sighed, then took a chance and began to take off the physical portion of my disguise. “Would you all mind if I went and spoke to so people without… you know, five heavily armoured people at my back?”
Troy gave a chuckle and nodded, “Yeah, okay. I should have figured that out. The locals weren’t exactly keen to talk to us back in the middle-east either. Can’t entirely bla them either. I guess you can act as the interpreters did for us.”
“I don’t like the idea of Ryn off on her own,” Grace said quietly. “I just, you know… she’s kinda hot property right now. Soone might try and grab her.”
“Emphasis on the hot,” Kit muttered so low I was almost unsure he’d said it.
“Well, you could always change out of the armour, Grace,” Troy said matter of factly.
“But, where?” she asked, gesturing around us at the bustling market.
“Just find an alleyway or sothing, fuck,” Jas groaned.
I frowned at Jas, then tentatively took Grace’s hand. “Co on, we’ll find sowhere.”
“et us back here in two hours, you two,” Troy called as I led an angry Grace away.
That Jas guy was just asking to have his balls popped like grapes. Half the shit that ca out of his mouth was infuriating to Grace and awkward to .
We wove through the market crowds as fast as we were able, until we found a side street that we could duck down. Finding an alleyway wasn’t hard after that, they were always just so reliably available. The first stretch was rather disgusting, but we found a quiet nook where she could change.
“Dunno why it has to be who gets changed,” Grace grumbled as she began to take her armour off. I knew she had basic clothing on underneath now, so I wasn’t too concerned about her undressing, but I still turned my back regardless. “Could have been one of the guys who helped.”
“Because people are more willing to talk to a pretty face,” I replied absently as I kept lookout. “And you did kinda volunteer yourself by pointing it out.”
Grace was silent for a mont, the sounds of her undressing coming to a halt for a mont. “You think I’m pretty?”
“Huh?” I asked, turning around to look at her. “Yeah, of course. Anyone can see it.”
“A lot of people don’t,” she said quietly, her expression… distant.
“Well, they’re wrong,” I frowned. “I thought you were pretty back when I first t you too. In between admiring the way you could wrestle an umbrella and a door at the sa ti.”
Her expression changed quickly to one of amusent at my words. “Yeah, I’m not going to lie, that was tough. The wind was nuts.”
“Yeah,” I smiled, then playfully bopped her on the shoulder with my wimpy little fist, “Strong girls are cute too.”
Her smile was happily bashful as she murmured, “Thanks, Ryn.”
“No problem, now let’s go woo so magical materials rchants,” I said, lowering my voice into what I thought was probably a sultry tone, all while fluttering my eyelashes. Was I being girly? This is girly right?
Grace gave an amused smile. “Alright there little lady, careful where you point those eyes.”
“Hey, I’m not little. You’re only just taller than ,” I grumbled as I turned my back again to let her continue.
“Yup, sure,” ca her sarcastic response.
I didn't reply, instead I stood there and pouted, waiting for her to finish. Once she had her more normal clothing on and her armour stuffed into her pack, we left the alleyway and returned to the market. From there we made our way through the crowds towards the small section of the market that sold things that a magical artificer might be interested in buying. Almost imdiately I wondered why it was a small section. Barely a dozen vendors sat in the shade of their tents.
Approaching the nearest one with Grace in tow, I asked, “Hello! How are you?”
The older man behind the desk looked up and squinted. If he could even see past his huge eyebrows. “What can I do for you? You don’t look like the type to be needing anything from my stall.”
“Oh, I um… I’m asking for my friend here!” I said, motioning to Grace. “She’s interested in learning about um, this kind of stuff.”
“Can she not speak for herself?” he asked disinterestedly.
“She doesn’t speak Anve,” I told him, shaking my head.
Damn, why was this guy so damn grumpy? Should I just cut my losses and move to the next guy?
“Hmph, alright,” he huffed. “What do you want to know?”
“We were just wondering if there’s any city that’s well known for this type of, um, magic,” I said, pointing to the various crystals, tals, minerals, and powders he had on his table.
“Depends, do you want a gathering of three practitioners, or a gathering of hundreds?” he asked. “I know of Din, far to the east. They have a well known guild of Constructors. Then there is Huerdan of Davenken up in Abernesia, who is known to have hundreds of Constructors under his employ. Finally, if you are willing to venture into Obrec lands, you have Millowhall down in Clan Mossbed territory.”
“What is… Obrec lands?” I asked tentatively, knowing he was going to be angry for the question.
“Oh co now girl! I will not be fooled by such ridiculous, base questions as this! Go, I will not speak to you,” he exclaid angrily, making shooing motions. “Damn young un’s and their pranks!”
“Fuck, alright,” I frowned, backing off and taking Grace with .
Before either of us could try to talk strategy, I heard a voice call out from a few stalls over. “Hey, miss? Old Eurig being his usual-ol’ helpful self?”
We both turned to see a much younger rchant at a similar stall, and he was all smiles. Confident, cocky smiles… ugh, whatever. I had joked about using our looks to our advantage after all, like he was probably going to try and do.
“Yeah, uh… I was just asking what Obrec lands are?” I said, repeating the question to the guy.
“What? You an you don’t know what an Obrec is?” he asked, almost moving into a full on laugh before he realised we were serious. “You really don’t?”
“We’re not from around here,” I said as a way of explanation.
“Right, well… an Obrec, they ain’t human. Sure, they look sorta like us— they got the face and the body. Hands just like us, too, but their legs— they go backwards at the knees! They got hooves on the end of them too, and fur across they backs and the like. Horns on their head too and big pointed fluffy ears, sorta like a goat’s ears.”
“That… wow, okay,” I blinked, trying to figure out if this guy was ssing with in turn.
Was he really talking about like, an alien race here? No, they sounded more like a fantasy race than anything else… this was nuts!
“Yeah,” he nodded. “What about them were you asking?”
“We were asking about cities known for their um, Constructing? He ntioned a place called Millowhall,” I said uncertainly.
“Oh, aye! Millowhall is known for its practical shapers of the arcane, that’s for sure. Almost the whole city is dedicated to the craft!” he nodded enthusiastically. “I trained there, I did! Almost didn’t survive living with the Obrec though, they’re… a rowdy lot. They love their drinking, their fighting and… their loving,” he told us, lowering his tone at the last, into what he probably thought was an attractive baritone.
Sorry dude, these two girls aren’t interested. Of course, the re thought of the fact that I now counted under that “girl” term had my heart doing a happy little jig.
“Right… uh, how do we get to this place? We’re looking to travel there and see it,” I asked, feigning more enthusiasm than I felt.
“Oh, you’ll want to follow the river south as far as Infigwaun. Then you’ll want to cut south east. The roads through the Mosteghunoksia plains are a little… rough, so I’d be careful there if I were you,” he warned gravely. “After that, you’ll find the Obrec mountains. Love their mountains they do, but they aren’t like normal mountains. Bloody great plateaus and pillars of rock— thousands of feet tall, with the densest forest you’ll ever find in the ravines and valleys between. Those mountains are bad news if you stray off the paths. They ain’t hunted their monsters down into the ground like we Anves have.”
I hoped the Mosteghunoksia Plains weren’t as rough as their na was to say, because… damn. As for the Obrec mountains, they sounded pretty already. I was excited to see them, and their people, too— even if he made it sound super dangerous.
“Right, okay… thank you, that’s actually really helpful!” I said, genuinely happy that we had a place to go. Gosh, we’d be seeing an entirely new sentient species for the first ti too!
“No problem ladies, if you see old Brenin Boughbreaker, say hi for , and tell him he owes a shipnt of Tassupine already,” the stall keeper told us good naturedly.
“I will, thank you!” I nodded, giving him what I hoped was a winning smile.
“Safe journeys!” he nodded in return as we wandered off.
Moving back towards where we were ant to et the others, I felt Grace’s arm slip through mine. The contact had my whole body buzzing and loose limbed, and almost imdiately I was forced to lean on her for fear I'd fall over.
I peeked up at her in surprise, and she shrugged, “You can’t get lost again if I’m holding on tight. At worst, I’ll end up on so wild fucking adventure along with you this ti. Plus, the crowds here are rough.”
My smile was involuntarily and wide in reply, and I looked down again before she saw my heating cheeks. Gosh damn, she was really making this whole thing hard on .
Rather than waiting almost two hours to find the others, we tracked them down instead. It wasn’t hard, they... stood out. Although one of them was missing at the mont, and I couldn’t tell who, because three guys in armour looked the sa from this angle.
“Hey, which one of you is Troy?” I asked, glancing between them all.
One of the helts rang with his distinctive, dry chuckle, and I turned to him, relaying what I’d found out.
“Wait, there’s really other sentient races on this ring?” Grace asked, and I realised she wouldn’t have been able to follow the conversation with the vendor.
“Yup,” I nodded. “Apparently so.”
“Well then, that definitely falls under our mandate. Let’s get down to this… Millowhall,” Troy said, butchering the pronunciation. “Right after I figure out where the fuck Jas has gotten to...”
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