The others followed after her, each of them reacting in an obvious manner at the shock from breaching the barrier. Zef just twitched a little, Makhus audibly gritted his teeth, the woman in red and Sigmund both shuddered. The woman walked a little ways into the courtyard, just behind a wall, beckoning them to follow as she drew a circle in the soil with her sandal.

“Step in, I will put up a sound ward,” she said, and when they did as she asked, she drew in a deep breath of Fog, rapidly performing finger-breaking gestures with her left hand and murmuring an incantation in Kargarian as she did so. A second breath. A third. A fourth. Finally, the circle took on a yellow glow, the air around them took on a shimmer, and a deep thrumming noise enveloped them.

“Now, where are my manners? My name is Arnys Krishorn. I wish to offer you a small fraction of our profit from selling to Willowdale, under three conditions. Firstly, the permission to set up shop in the vicinity of this property. Secondly, you do not enter the building proper until such time that our caravan has arrived, as aforementioned “set up shop”. Thirdly, the deactivation of the property’s perception ward for the duration of our stay, so that your entry into the building may be observed and thus attract potential customers.”

“Define a small portion,” said Zel.

Arnys’s smile grew just a little wider. She dragged from her pipe, and letting the smoke roll out of her mouth, she spoke.

“Three percent from all of our sales made on the streets of Willowdale, which increases to five percent plus a flat eighty-three gelt from every merchant who uses the area in question. Thousands of gelt - perhaps not enough to make up for the amount you gave up in exchange for this place, but still a considerable sum for something that minor. If that’s not enough to convince you, I’d be willing to write you a voucher for any one act of currency exchange with our caravan up to a limit of thirty-thousand gelt or equivalent, without our usual exchange fees,” the Woman in Red promised brazenly, wearing a confident, well-humored expression carved into her face with slight crow’s feet. It was like she knew exactly what to offer.

“Eighty-three?” Zel raised an eyebrow.

“Currency exchange rates, you know how it is,” justified the merchant. “I take a small cut too, but that’s besides the point.”

“Why? Where’s the catch? And wouldn’t you need to ask the governor about this sort of thing?” asked Makhus, reasonably suspicious of the circumstances.

“No catch. The amount of profit the agreement will generate will far surpass the investment from either side, and create a rapport between our parties to ease the facilitation of future dealings. It’s just good business, really,” smiled Arnys. “As for the matter of permission… I believe that the deed should explain that to a sufficient degree.”

“Old laws written before the city had expanded to include the property,” Sigmund stated plainly. Arnys nodded agreement, taking another pull from her pipe and looking back to Zelsys.

“Why do you think stalls near this place will bring in enough extra profit to justify this whole affair? Clearly, you think my entry into the main building will somehow attract many people, but why?” Zel continued the line of questioning that Makhus had begun.

“You came here to get a closer look at it, did you not? I expect that your bout with the golem which administers the entry trial will put on a better show than any we would be able to,” she explained, looking at that horse-man statue.

Then, out of nowhere, her eyes snapped to meet Zel’s and her presence became like something between a sword’s edge and the static before a lightning strike. Her smile went from warm and accommodating to nearly predatory and she added, “Besides, I wish to see what Ikesian Storm-soul Cultivation looks like in action. That alone is enough to justify the expenditure in my mind. So how about it?”

“Sure…” Zel nodded, holding out her hand, only to pull it away when Arnys reached out to shake it. “On one condition of my own. Our next agreement will pertain to exchange of knowledge. Techniques for techniques. Arts for arts. If my own knowledge by some chance happens to not be of interest, I’m sure there’s an extensive library of Black Horse techniques to draw upon.”

“Most agreeable,” Arnys nodded. They shook hands, sparks flashing between their palms before they even touched - Zel’s white, writhing tendrils, and Arnys’s yellow, hair-thin instantaneous sparks.

The merchant-woman settled her pipe in the corner of her mouth, snapped her fingers, and the sound ward vanished. She leisurely walked away, overtly swaying her hips as she went, turning around one last time with three last words.

“Remember our deal.”

A step beyond the bounds of the gate, just out of sight - and she was gone. Zelsys knew in her gut that all four of them could go looking for that woman right now and they wouldn’t find her unless she wanted them to.

For a few seconds they just stood there in silence, absorbing what had just transpired. Sigmund piped up, “I never thought they actually made deals like that.”

In response to the others’ questioning looks, the historian shrugged and added, “Kargarian merchant shows up out of nowhere, offers a deal, then just goes poof - history books’re filled with accounts like that. Always thought those were exaggerated… Guess not.”

“Well, might as well look around some more while we’re here,” Zel said, and indeed, so they did, the others quickly finding at least one of the numerous things to be found upon these sprawling grounds. Herself… She just didn’t know where to start.

There was a firing range, a number of multi-part dummies attached to heavy-duty mechanisms of all sorts, and a small grove of supernaturally verdant trees all right up against the western wall. The northern wall - immediately opposing the gate - was partially lined with the very wooden and stone pillars which she had seen through the gate, as well as entire boulders and even human-sized slabs of solid metal, with several gigantic slabs of blackstone just embedded into the dirt in front of them as flat flooring.