Weaponsmith Woes

Midafternoon on a glorious spring day, the sun westering on towards evening, finds Dolan striding through the streets of the marketplace, his steps unerring, but slow. He hasn't failed to stop by the sweet roll stand that he made so much of a few days past, and now has in his possession an absolutely enormous sweet roll dripping with honey and cinnamon, and he tears himself off a piece of it to shove into his mouth. Given the events of the last few days, he is fully armed and armored, the clawmark still not yet burnished out of the breastplate, although it has been otherwise cleaned. That will take some serious doing.

So the *last* couple of days have been interesting.

The werewolf attack definitely topped the list, but is practically forgotten next to the events that followed. Magpie had gotten halfway through Dolan's directions, then had to dodge a cart and engage in a little stress-relieving yelling ar the drover about it. Which promptly drove the rest of the directions out of her head, but she was pretty sure she knew where she was going, right? It's just a market!

Six hours later it was somewhere around midnight, and Magpie was struggling out of a gutter, with mud and twigs in her hair, and no idea where she was. Luckily a nearby tavern had directions to the College and beer, and armed with both, the gnome was at least able to make her way home. Then, when she finally fell asleep, the nightmares.

And not even fun nightmares, like showing up to your thesis defense and forgetting your pants.

It wasn't until the day *after,* when she was poring through treatises on lycanthropy and how it changed geopolitics in Stormgard (a great example of a defensible thesis that is just plain *bad*) that she remembered burning the stall and meaning to pay for damages.

Which is why she is running through the Market, now, trying to figure out where the bloodstains used to be.

The bloodstains on the ground have long since been washed away, but it's not that difficult to find the stall that was somewhat fire-singed. A curiosity shop beside a weaponsmith. The stall is manned by a large man with arms that are no stranger to the bellows, one of his wrists curiously wrapped in a bandage as he hawks his goods to those that pass by. His prices mean that few stop to look, but the quality of his good can not be denied.

Interesting, indeed, to say the least. But - a gnome running through the markets is bound to attract attention, and Dolan would know that motley outfit anywhere. He quickly swallows his mouthful of sweetroll and shouts. "Oy! MAGPIE!" as he wanders up to the stalls in question, stalls that he is unlikely to forget anytime soon.

Triangulation!

Magpie's path angles in the *right* direction, and when she finally skids to a halt near the stall, she has to lean over and catch her breath, copper-chain headdress winking in the waning evening light. When she finally has breath enough to form words, she throws her head up. "Hi! Yes! It's me! I am *SO.* *SORRY.* About your stall, sir, did I break anything?"

Initially the man brightens at the sight of Dolan, standing a little to the sword-side of his stall to bring the eye to the weapons he feels the man might be interested in. These little tricks of the trade are important to a salesman. He starts to offer a greeting and then he spies Magpie and his smile trickles down to a frown. "You!" He grunts the word out and folds his arms over his chest. "Yes you did. Look at this!"

He points to the bottom of his stall where the damage is clearly the worst. Looking at the stall, it's barely standing. He has a few weapons leaning against it to keep it from tilting over in fact. "I'm lucky it hasn't collapsed on some passerby!" He frowns at Magpie.

Dolan stands just a little back from the goods, although his eye is definitely roving over the displayed weapons and goods on offer. The attention drawn to the damage, though, kills that, and he lets out a low whistle. "Yeah, that's wrecked. I had nothing to do with that, my friend, she came all on her own," he volunteers. "Those beams want replacing, there's no fixing that."

He tears off a bite of sweetroll, offering, "We're lucky those werewolves didn't kill anybody. Were you hurt?" He nods at the bandage on the seller's wrist.

Dolan's analysis is accompanied by Magpie's frantic, jingling nodding and huge green eyes. "I tried *really hard* to not hurt anything sir I promise, but then a bunch of werewolves started just *swarming* that guy! I thought he was going to *die* if I didn't do something, and I didn't have a lot of options! And I really meant to stick around and pay for the damages but... Y'know... I got *really hungry,* then I got even more lost, and... well I mean..."

Shaking her head, the gnome looses a heavy sigh. "Anyway, I'll still pay the damages, since I can't just fix it. I'm *really really sorry,* sir."

The question about his injury makes the man look down at his wrist and he blinks in surprise as though he's forgotten that its there. "Oh this? You know I'm not sure where I got it. Woke up this morning and there it was. Damndest thing. Just a little bit of damage. Nothing serious."

He shrugs and looks at the gnome. "You don't look like you have the money to be slinging around to fix my stall, but if you're willing to pay the damages then I'm willing to forget the whole thing. Even be willing to let you work it off."

"Uh huh. Don't happen to remember any howling last night, do you?" Dolan leans against the stall counter, still careful not to touch the goods and popping a bite of sweetroll in his mouth. At least he's not talking and eating at the same time? He waits to speak again until he is done chewing.

The offer of working the money off produces in Magpie, a strange, nervous laugh. "Ah... aheh... ahahaha... um... Yeah trust me sir, we'll *all* be happier if I just pay damages. I mean I'd *totally* be happy to work it off, but, the last time I worked at the student commissary I kinda got banned from ever dealing with customers again. I didn't steal anything! But there was a whole thing, and you don't deserve to have to put up with it. Seriously though, how much does a new stall cost?"

Dolan's line of questioning *very clearly* piques the gnome's interest, but, there's rude and there's *rude,* and as long as the stall's owner is willing to let it go, there's no good reason to upset him.

"Howling?" Asks the weaponsmith and then shrugs. "I thought that was just in my dreams."

He turns and yells back to someone next to him who turns out to be the curiosity shop owner. "Jameson! You remember any howling last night?"

The man in question has a bandage on his neck and he shakes his head slowly back and forth. "Nah. Howling?" He waves the weaponsmith on and the man smiles at Dolan.

Then he turns his gaze back to Magpie. "Iffin you insist. The stall repairs are gonna cost me about a hundred gold. You got that?"

GAME: Magpie rolls perception: (12)+6: 18
GAME: Dolan rolls perception: (11)+7: 18

"Not a chance, man." Dolan tries so hard to keep the look casual. He really does. But, the stare he levels at the shopkeeper is one that many would consider unsettling, given the artificial eye. "So you remember in that fight that wrecked your stall that I got bit pretty good, right?" Monch monch monch.

"A hundred? Yeah, just a second..." Magpie edges toward a shambles of crates and pots, then turns her back and... the only real way to describe it is *shimmies,* as if retrieving her money from someplace best not accessed by *any* thief who doesn't want to lose a hand at the neck. Part of that is truth, but mostly it's to disguise the hand-gestures made to gather some magic, and the look back between shopkeeper and holy man carries some of the 'Don't you *dare* look!' to it.

So it might be a touch startling, when Dolan hears as plainly as a stage-whisper in his ear; ((Hey are bandages like a new fad in the city or something? You can whisper back and I'll hear it by the way, but just wondering if you noticed how many people look like they got *super* clumsy in the last couple days.))

Turning around, Magpie beams brightly at the shopkeeper, and toddles up to the stall. Then pauses, gets on her tiptoes, hops up a little to get a good sightline, then hops again, slapping two stacks of five platinum coins on the surface. "There y'go!"

The shopkeeper distracts himself from Magpie's gathering of her money by talking to Dolan some more nodding his head to the man's words. "Yea I remember that. It was weird right? The way those guys were biting folks. Felt bad for the sith-makar they were attacking. Didn't even mind that much you borrowing the blade to chase them off." He looks back at Magpie as she turns around and he quickly makes the money vanish. "Thanking you miss."

Dolan stops, blinking hard at the gnome as she fishes money from personal places, and murmurs, turning himself away from the shopkeeper. "Yeah, I'll tell you later."

Then he turns back to the shopkeeper. "Yeah. Sorry about that, I didn't exactly ask first, but it really was a fine weapon. Anyway, so my girl's a Sunguard, right? When I got in, the only reason I got to eat dinner before she dragged me to the Seeress' temple was because I brought it in hot." He flashes a cheeky grin. "She was _not_ happy. Anyway, so the Seers told me after they'd looked at the bites that I was lucky, I wasn't infected, but they said a really dangerous version of it was going around. Then last night, they got attacked." He can't hide the shudder that ripples through him, or the troubled look he wears. "One of the Silver Guards almost died under my hands. If I were you, I'd ask the Seers about what happened, they might know where it came from."

He swallows, hard. "Look, I know that you asked me to tell you where you could find her, and you'd cut me a deal on that blade. Is that still good? This is still a fine weapon, but ... I think I need the enchantment."

"Welcoming you, mister!" Magpie chirps, clasping her hands in front of her. "And uh... Again, seriously sorry. But werewolves aren't, like, a precision instrument. The more there are, the more dangerous they get, y'know?" Magpie says, as if she had any real-world experience on the subject. "Maybe listen to the man, because I kinda like this place. Don't wanna worry about anyone else getting hurt."

The shopkeeper gives Dolan an odd look. "Don't rightly know what all that has to do with me. I'm just a simple shopkeeper, the Temple of Eluna don't want nothing to do with me." He smiles though. It's not a harsh statement. "'sides. Who'd watch the shop? As for the discount, I'm as good as my word. I saved that one for you and everything. You deserve a nice blade after helping that Makari, and fer bringing the little lady."

"Course." Dolan's subtlety is lost on the shopkeeper, unfortunately. He looks over the weapons on display, and his eyes settle on the blade he'd borrowed the other night, but he hesitates. "That's really kind of you, but I'm not sure if I can swing it. I might need to do a little more work and come back for it, would that be all right?"

Magpie turns back toward the crate-pile, and starts clambering her way up to an elevated seat. As her back is turned, once more Dolan hears ((So is it *bad* if we just say 'Go make sure you don't have a bitey sickness?' Because I'm about there, and I don't know if I should.))

Once plopped down and secure, Magpie looks to the shopkeeper. "So out of curiosity, does *anyone* know where I can get like a map or something? This city's *huge,* and even if you don't have to account for extradimensional wizard-stupid, it's *really* hard to find my way around."

The weaponsmith grins at Dolan. "Yea the prices aren't cheap. I can't hold the specific blade for forever, but I'm always here and I'd be happy to hold the discount for you as long as you need. You seem a good enough sort, and we could use more level-headed folk around these parts." His eyes slide to Magpie a bit too predictably. "You could check with the mages guild. I'm sure they've got all sorts of maps. Or the library. Iffin you don't have an affiliation with the former."

Dolan nods his understanding, seeming to accept the explanation readily. "Then I'll see what I can arrange." Another bite of flakky sweet roll. "Thanks for that, hey. Just, if you get a chance, you might want to go by that temple and have that looked at. I was glad my girl dragged me."

"--Because when werewolves bite someone they can spread it like a sickness and turn into werewolves and bite more people and if it's really bad it can go on and on until everyone is puppies!" Magpie blurts, then claps her hands over her mouth. ((I'm sorry! I panicked!))

The man stares at Magpie and then suddenly laughs. The guy in the stall over next hears his laughter and joins in. It's that kind of laugh. The man shakes his head. "I'd know if I were bit little lady. This weren't no bite. Just a scratch is all." He pats his arm and shakes his head again. "Not worth worrying yer little head over. Much less the Elunan folks."

He nods politely to Dolan. "Beggin your pardon for disagreein."

From Dolan's expression, he's not agreeing, but handles it politely enough. "No pardon needed, that's your right," he accepts. "I can't tell you what you ought to be thinking. I'll definitely be keeping you in mind when I'm ready for that nice blade.” He's nearly finished with the sweet roll, and licks his fingers when the last of it is gone. "As for you, Magpie, I said I'd show you where that shop was."

It's the laughter that seems to do it; whether she's too little, or too cute, or perceived to be too dumb thanks to setting his stall on fire, Magpie's warning *will* go unheeded. That Dolan gets the same response helps a bit, but it's quite clear that the young Gnome is just a little bit crushed. "...Yeah okay," she says after a moment, dejected, and hops off the crate pile. "Never gonna find the place myself... C'mon, let's go."

As you leave you can't help but notice the other various people with their bandages. Some makeshift, some well done. It's not just the weaponsmith... There's almost too many people who are hiding bandages or wearing them thoughtlessly. One man at least looks at his thoughtfully after waving goodbye to the pair that stopped by his stall. His eyes linger on his wound for a long time after and then he smiles at his next prospective customer.

A sense of wrongness is left in the wake.

-End