The next order of business was to drop my fruit off at Tarron’s. It would be a relief to my sore ankles and knees when I could finally put down all the food I was carrying. I wasn’t expecting the short innkeeper to be so excited when I walked into his quiet common room. Apparently, the sweet desserts and exotic drinks he was able to make out of my last delivery were a huge hit. His success almost backfired when he ran out of stock before most of the nobility could get a taste but that only drove them wild for more. Tarron took my fruit for twice as much as he did last time.

My 31 mangoes, 17 Guava, 26 Starfruits, and 23 Papayas went for just a couple coppers shy of 10 Silver. I was suddenly a lot more comfortable with the seven and a half silvers I just spent on abilities. Before I could leave, Tarron pushed a tray of meat-pies at me. They weren’t quite as fresh as the last batch but I accepted the gift all the same. The only strings attached to the gift was that I bring Tarron more fruit when I can. I was planning to do that anyways and all the pies but one went into my inventory. I munched on the other as I made my way to Finnegans.

The old man likewise seemed excited to see me but after a few seconds, it became clear that he was more excited about seeing my shoes. I left him to inspect the slippers while I moved on to a Jeweler he recommended.

Barnaby & Finch’s Oddments Emporium was, different. The store windows were boarded up and painted with all sorts of high-end knick-knacks. Gold and crystal chandeliers, Bronze busts, Necklaces heavy enough to give any monarch stiff shoulders, and silver tableware to name just a few of the images I could recognize.

Inside was an even more confusing jumble. I could see that the windows were boarded up because the merchandise was piled so high it would spill out onto the street if given the chance. I could imagine that a few of the items advertised on the windows might be buried in here somewhere but most of the items were much more commonplace. A few open paths wound between the piles and a voice called out from somewhere in the maze.

“Hello and welcome! I’ll be with you in just a moment.” A clattering and tinkling preceded a curse before a thin man hopped one-legged around a pile and into view. He wore a smock and a delicate-looking set of spectacles with too many lenses pushed up onto his brow. The avalanche subsided and the man looked up to me.

“Welcome, welcome! I am Mr. Finch and this is my Emporium. What might I help you find today?”

“Hello, Mr. Finch, you can call me Patrick. I’m actually here to sell, not to buy.”

“Excellent! I do love a chance to expand our inventory. What have you got for sale?”

“Hold it!” Rumbled a new voice from somewhere in the piles of merchandise. “How many times do I have to tell you? We have too much merchandise as it is! You have to sell something before buying anything new!”

Mr. Finch cringed and adopted a look like the teacher just caught him passing notes. He offered me an apologetic smile and an explanation.

“That would be my partner, Mr. Barnaby. You’ll have to forgive him, he’s a little obsessed with profits and the like.” He waved at the air like the idea of profits was an annoying fly buzzing around his dinner.

“I’m obsessed with keeping this sinking ship afloat for just one day longer! Do you want to sleep out on the streets tonight?”

Mr. Finch chuckled.

“Don’t mind him, he’s always been a touch overdramatic. Shall we get back to business? What pretty odds and ends have you brought me?” His hands were fidgeting now and he was bouncing on the balls of his feet. I was about to produce my gem-stones when a stocky man with ink-stained fingers and beady eyes sidled carefully into view.

“I said no Finch! What do you plan to pay him with? Dust? We certainly have plenty of that hanging around. Why don’t you put those freakishly long arms to use and sweep the rafters?”

“Mr. Barnaby, I am seeing to a customer at the moment, would you please show a bit more hospitality? Nothing is more important than our clientele after all.”

“Bah, clientele, all you care about is your collection!”

I cleared my throat awkwardly and Barnaby rounded on me before he remembered I was a potential customer and formed a practiced smile.

“I apologize for my overenthusiastic associate but we are not currently buying. On the other hand, we would be happy to provide you with anything you might need.” Despite Barnaby’s obvious experience, there was a touch of desperation in his voice.

“I do have some coin and a need for merchandise,” I said while looking around at the piles towering over us “but I have no idea what you offer.”

“That is where I come in!” Proclaimed an excited Mr. Finch “Just tell me what you desire and I will produce a few of our items which best fit your ambitions.”

Barnaby rolled his eyes and crossed his arms but stayed quiet.

“That’s a tricky question. I suppose I would take some silver rings suitable for enchantment, but I can’t think of anything else I might need that I don’t already have a supplier for.”

Mr. Finch shook his head and clicked his tongue at me.

“Such a boring request. I asked what you desire, not what you need.”

“Well, I want to become a mage but I’m stuck on a ship for the next few months.”

“Now that, I can work with!” Finch said as he slipped around a corner and out of sight. Rummaging, muttering, and occasional clattering which caused Barnaby to flinch were the only signs the man was still in the building. I stayed where I was near the entrance, afraid I might get lost further in. A few minutes later, he came back with an armload of sticks, rings, books, and scrolls.

“Okay, there are all sorts of tools used by magi. I can tell just by looking at you that you have yet to gain an affinity but that’s okay. It only limits our choices a bit. We have Mana regeneration rings but I can see you already have one of those. We also have a nice selection of mundane rings ready for enchantment.” He presented me with a handful of silver briefly. The rings ran from simple bands to elaborately carved serpents, their eyes glittering with gemstones.

“We also have a selection of second-hand instruction manuals.” He said casually dropping a stack of books on a nearby pile and leaving a pair of scrolls to balance precariously on top of them.

“And then there are the fun items. We have a nice selection of wands meant for personal defense. A lot of magi scoff at wands. They seem to think of them as an admission that they are not skilled enough to cast their own spells. I think that’s just silly. No mage tries to gain every affinity so what happens when you need to cast a spell that’s outside your capabilities? No, Wands are very underrated and it’s never too early to start practicing useful skills!”

I wasn’t going to argue. If wands would let me start casting magic right now I was going to get at least one. The Sea-Lion showed me just how unprepared I was for any real threat and it would be nice to have the means to put some hurting on my enemies from a safe distance.

“This is your least expensive option. It’s a wand that transfers raw mana into raw force. It’s the magical equivalent of throwing a rock. I would recommend some of these, however. They are similar but the difference is right here” He indicated the tip of the wand which was oddly shiny.

“We embed a Gemstone in the wand and as the mana filters through the crystal lattice, it takes on an affinity to a limited extent! It's not as efficient as a traditionally cast spell and the wands will break down with use but it's much easier than years of meditation and study if you ask me. This wand contains a sapphire and will produce a spray of ice and frost on command! This one is tipped with Onyx and produces bolts of shadow. Very useful when facing heavily armored opponents. This one is tipped with Malachite and will produce a stream of acid!”

He went on to describe the weapons like he was on the home shopping network showing off a set of porcelain figurines. I was pretty tempted but didn’t think I had the stomach to cover someone in acid. I interrupted the excited salesman.

“Do you have any wands that can stun targets at a distance?”

“Why would you waste energy stunning an enemy when you can set them on fire instead?” He asked with a ruby-tipped wand in hand “I promise you, your enemies won’t bother you after their eyes melt.”

I shuddered.

“That’s a little too much deterrent for my tastes. I just want to stop thieves from shivving me in the back. I don’t need to start a blood-feud.”

“It is possible, but I haven’t ever received a request for such a gentle wand before. I’d need to make it from scratch.”

“You know how to make wands?” Finch drew himself up to his full height for the first time.

“Of course I do. You’re looking at a fully-fledged Artificer. If you can imagine it, I can make it!”

I was suddenly itching with the desire to learn how to make wands for myself. If I wasn’t on a tight schedule I would have begged him for lessons. They seemed desperate enough for coin to accept. As it was, I looked through the books and scrolls.

The books were titled “Magical Theory for Beginners”, “Horton Fairbrook’s guide to Meditation”, and “An introduction to Runes”. The scrolls had more impressive names. “Cloak of the sage” and “The third eye opens”. The scrolls were related to specific techniques and would be hard to master without any clue how magic works. The first book would let me start getting to grips with the rules of magic. The second would set me down the path of cultivating an affinity. The last one was related to magical crafting and enchantment. I wouldn’t have time to meditate or craft for the foreseeable future so I only bought the first book. It was a steal at 25 coppers because of its secondhand nature. I also bought the force-wand for a silver piece and four bands of braided-silver for another two silver coins. Now that Barnaby was mollified, I got around to selling my uncut gems. It turned out that my topaz could be used to make stunning wands though Finch tried to convince me to let him make lightning wands instead. My garnets could be used to make wands that would spray sparks, not useful for more than a firestarter. When he saw the two chunks of Lapis lazuli, each the size of my thumb, Finch got excited.

“Oh my! I could make you something really special with this! If I cut and polish the stones, and add a bit of silver, I can make you an accessory that will be extremely beneficial for a new mage.”

“What do you have in mind?” I wanted to know more about magic and the properties of these stones.

“Oh, but that would be telling.” Finch tapped his nose with a finger “Why don’t you leave your gems here. I’ll make you a stunning wand and a special item for you to pick up next time you come by but you can take the rest of these books and scrolls in the meantime. I don’t think Mr. Barnaby would like it if I paid in hard coin.”

“That seems like a lot of gems in exchange for one item I want, a mystery item, and a couple of books I’m not ready to use. Why don’t you throw in an extra stunning wand and a sparking wand? That leaves an extra two topaz and six garnets to pay for the labor and books.”

“I think you are underestimating what I can do with Lapis-Lazuli. It will take a good amount of silver to pull off what I have in mind too. That silver has to be factored into the cost as well.”

That reminded me of the solid chunk of silver which had been sitting in my inventory for months.

“Could you take this crest in trade, or maybe melt it down to provide the silver you need?” I asked as I held out the silver crest I picked up from the soldiers so long ago.

The color drained out of Finch’s face. The door slammed shut behind me and Barnaby took two furious stomps in my direction before nearly pushing me over with a poke to the chest.

“Who sent you? We’ve already paid up for the month and don’t feel in the mood to play games. You tell that rat Gunner the next time he sends a hooligan to harass us we’ll send what’s left of him back in a bottle!”

I couldn’t help but notice the green-black of malachite sparkling at the end of the wand he had pointed at my face. Surprise and fear wrenched my hands into the air.

“Don’t shoot! Finnegan sent me! I’ve never met anyone named gunner!”

Barnaby shot a glance over to Finch who had adjusted his spidery-spectacles so a pair of purple lenses sat over his eyes. When Finch nodded, Barnaby relaxed visibly, but not completely.

“What the hell do you think you’re playing at, waving around the crest of the Black Cranes? Are you trying to get yourself killed?” Barnaby strained his voice so he landed somewhere between a hoarse shout and a whisper.

“The Black Cranes?” I asked, turning the crest towards me so I could see the stylized bird with its spear-like beak. “I’ve never heard of them. I just picked this up by chance.”

“Well put it away! You don’t want anyone seeing you with that. Good folks will assume you’re a Crane and nasty folks will slit your throat for that crest! There are only a hundred like it and if you want to join the brotherhood, you have to get your hands on one. That originally mean theft but it means assassination more often than not these days. If you want my advice, you should throw that thing into the deepest part of the ocean in the dead of night.

“Can’t you melt it?” I pleaded while pushing the crest towards Barnaby. He backed up like it was radioactive.

“They’re enchanted. Destroying one is a good way to attract all the Cranes within a hundred miles, and they don’t take kindly to do-gooders breaking their stuff.”

I shoved the crest back into my inventory. Barnaby pushed the books and scrolls into my arms before pushing me out of his store. Just before passing the threshold, I dug in my heels.

“Just a minute Barnaby. I’m not leaving without some assurance that you’re not going to cheat me.”

“That’s rich, the man with a Black Crane’s Badge doesn’t trust me.”

“Oh yeah? Well, I’m not feeling too trusting towards someone who knows so much about dangerous criminal syndicates. Either we sign a contract or there’s no deal.”

Barnaby ground his teeth before spitting out a “Fine.”

With a little concentration, I could feel my Magical Contracts ability. It was weird, like an extra appendage I never had before today, but I had no trouble controlling it. With a little mental flexing, a glowing sheet of paper began to form out of thin air before me. I could feel something pouring out of me in a rush. I was a little like taking that first glorious piss after four or five beers. I hoped it was mana. As I thought about the terms I wanted, words filled the page.

“I will leave 12 unprocessed gemstones with Mr. Finch and he will provide me with one stunning-wand, one sparking-wand, and a special item of his making involving silver and Lapis Lazuli the next time we meet. If I don’t like the item, I retain the option to demand the balance of our transaction in items of equal value.”

Finch and I sealed the contract with a drop of blood each. As the drops touched the paper, I felt more mana pouring out of me until they were transformed into glistening red signatures. I rolled up the contract and put it in my inventory.

“Mr. Finch, It was a pleasure meeting you. Mr. Barnaby…” I ducked out of the store before I could say something I regretted to the man with the malachite wand.