After wheedling and coaxing and a little bit of begging, Eila finally revealed the secret.

“There are no [Ember Soots] at the stall,” she explained, taking him out onto the main thoroughfare. “You ask for them, and the vendor gives you one of these and the password for the day.” She held the piece of paper up. “There’s an address on here to a secret shop. It moves every week. It’s one of those ‘if you know, you know’ kind of places.”

“Cool. How do you know?”

She was quiet for a moment before responding. “Aidas showed me,” she said at last.

The conversation died out after that. She led them to a small, residential street. Peering at the slip of paper, she looked up and led them to a house. She knocked twice, said “Thunderball,” and then waited.

The sounds of many, many locks unlatching came from behind the door before it swung open. An impressively large man stood there, frowning down at them. An Adept deck swirled around him.

Judging by his black sleeves—which Tristan really needed to get some—he was a Dark user.

Eila smiled sweetly and handed over the slip of paper. The man grunted and stepped aside, eyeing Tristan suspiciously as he went in. Tristan eyed the man back, and the man grinned in a “Wanna go?” manner. That irked him, but he quickly got over it as he saw the wonderland inside the house.

The house’s living room had been converted into an emporium. Shelves lined the walls, brimming with cards, while display cases were arranged in neat rows in the middle with more cards behind the glass. At the back of the room, polishing some cards, was an elderly man who looked as if he should be snoozing in a retirement home, not running a shady, roaming card shop.

“Ah, customers,” the old man said. He tucked away his rag into his back pocket and squinted down at Eila. “Why, aren’t you Aidas’s little sister? Eila, right? How is he? I haven’t seen him in a bit.”

To her credit, Eila didn’t flinch. “Hello, Artuo. I brought my friend Tristan to buy and sell some cards.” She had a smile on her face, but Tristan noticed how her fists had clenched behind her back.

“Ah, a new customer!” Artuo exclaimed. Whether he noticed Eila didn’t answer his question about Aidas or simply didn’t care was unclear. He reached over and shook Tristan’s hand. “Welcome, welcome. You have some cards you wish to sell? Come here.” He brought Tristan over to a long table at the back of the room and stood on the other side. “Let’s see what you have.”

“Artuo buys everything and anything,” Eila explained, coming up beside him. “And he’ll give the best prices, too.”

“Everything?” Tristan said, raising his brow. “I have quite a bit to sell.”

Artuo nodded, smiling. A red tooth glinted. Was that a fire-chip? “Whatever you got, my boy.”

All right, old man. Tristan opened his [Binder] and began to unload everything he’d accumulated. Every piece of unneeded monster material, [Blueprint], and equipment. He liquidated everything except for what he got from the Devourer and Lancer, though he also threw in the [Earth Ray] from the Devourer as he wasn’t planning on using that along with some of the excess Devourer monster materials.

On the first stack of cards, Artuo was nodding along.

On the second stack of cards, Artuo’s easy-going manner started to diminish.

On the third stack of cards, Artuo was frowning.

By the fourth stack, the man was looking at Tristan with a mixture of awe and suspicion. Tristan placed the last card, the [Earth Ray], riffled through his [Binder] to check if he missed anything, then dismissed it.

“By the gods, lad,” Artuo said, staring at the trove of cards on his table. “How long have you been hoarding this lot for?”

About ten days, give or take. A few drops on the way back from the Dungeon too, I guess. He shrugged, then noticed Eila staring at him with more suspicion than awe. Ah. Maybe I should’ve held some back.

The man summoned a piece of paper and pen from his [Binder] and started rummaging through the cards. “It’s going to take me a bit to sort through all these. Go look at what I’ve got. Decide what you want. We can discuss the price after.”

Tristan nodded and went to explore. Time to shop, he thought, rubbing his hands with glee.

“Hey,” Eila said, gripping him by the arm. He turned to her with a casual “Hmm, what's up?” expression.

She gestured over her shoulder with a thumb, where Artuo was furiously penning on his paper and muttering numbers to himself. “How do you have so many cards? You’ve only been here for a week, have you not?”

Tristan looked up at the ceiling. “Something like that. Some of those are from the Continent, though.”

Eila shook her head. “I watched every card you laid down. You can only get those materials here, on Solossi.”

“How do you know that?”

She gave him a droll look. “I’ve spent countless hours studying monsters and their drops, both on Solossi and the Continent. I know my loot.”

Damn. If only you weren’t Adept. “Look,” he said, trying to change the topic, "we can stand here all day discussing monster drop logistics, or…” He gestured towards the bounty of cards in front of them. “We can shop. I’d much rather shop.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She pointed a finger at him, and he stepped back, wary. “This conversation is not over.”

He mock-bowed his head, and she growled but thankfully let the topic go.

—🃁—

Eila watched in bemusement as Tristan flitted around the shop, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at every card he saw.

“Eila, look,” he exclaimed, pointing at one of the cards in the display case. “It’s [Sunken Palace]. They have Field cards in here?”

“Too expensive,” Artuo said from where he was still tallying Tristan’s cards. “Stick to Adept and below.” He pointed at some of the shelves on the far side of the room.

“I didn’t say I was gonna buy it,” Tristan muttered as he trailed back to Eila like a struck puppy. He quickly perked up though as he saw another card on the shelf behind her. “No way. You got [Hall of Nightmares]? That’s a Master-level card. Why are you selling something like this in Solossi?”

“My clientele reaches far and wide,” Artuo said, a little primly. Then, he cursed. “You made me lose my spot. Stop distracting me.” He stabbed his pen at the shelves again. “Adept. And. Below.”

“He dropped his friendly old man shtick quickly, eh?” Tristan whispered to Eila before running off to the Adept cards.

Eila slowly followed after. Her thoughts were awhirl. How does he have so much loot? she thought, befuddled. He said he was only here for a week, but he has at least a month’s worth. Sure he was one of the most gifted cardbearers she’d ever seen, likely capable of killing monsters at a far faster pace than others, but still.

That Tristan was lying was obvious. But about what, exactly? Furthermore, why did she care so much?

Well, she knew why. But she wasn’t about to admit it to herself yet. Not with Aidas so fresh in her mind.

She forcefully thrust the thought of her brother away. She didn’t want to think about that quiet rowboat out into the ocean, scooping her brother’s ashes and spreading it over the water. When she rubbed her fingers, she swore she could still feel them.

“Eila,” Tristan called. She snapped out of her reverie and went over to him. He was looking down at some Adept Dark cards. “When are you able to forge?”

She blinked. That was a good question. “Today,” she found herself answering.

He looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Are you sure?”

Was she sure? She had no idea. But truthfully, the idea of losing herself in forging, especially an Earth Adept Trap card, was sounding damn good. She didn’t have any Earth Forgeperks, so it would be a challenge for her.

She nodded firmly.

“All right. I’m building my Adept deck today, then.” He started plucking cards from the shelf, cycling between the options, picking some up and putting them back before picking them up again with a shake of the head.

She settled back and let him go. There was another oddity here; he seemed to have a deep familiarity with these Adept cards. While that wasn’t uncommon, as people often studied indexes and compendiums to decide which cards they wanted in the next rank, it combined with all the other weirdness around him. A weirdness storm, of sorts.

Tristan waddled over to Artuo, his arms filled with cards, and laid them down on the table with a grin. The old shopkeep looked up.

“You can’t afford all of those,” he said, dismissing his pen.

“Aw, seriously?” Tristan said, deflating.

Eila joined him as Artuo read off his paper. “Your total loot comes out to 102 units of assorted Novice monster materials, 248 assorted Apprentice monster materials, 50 Adept boss monster materials, 18 Novice, 52 Apprentice, and 1 Adept [Blueprint], all Earth and Dark, and thirteen Apprentice equipment pieces. That all comes out to 2 whites and 87 blues.”

Tristan looked at Eila, clearly confused as to whether that was good. She nodded back, still stunned at the sheer amount of loot he had. 50 boss monster materials from the Devourer? He had lied about how much he’d gotten.

Realizing she hadn’t responded, she quickly said, “That’s a good deal, Tristan. As good as you’ll get.”

“The best you’ll get,” Artuo corrected. “To be perfectly frank, there’s no other store out there that’ll take this amount of assorted loot all at once. You’ll have to split it up, hit up at least five to six different shops to get rid of it all.” He eyed Tristan. “I’m saving you a lot of trouble here, young man.”

Tristan grumbled his appreciation. “Well, how much are these?” he asked.

Artuo pushed four of the fourteen cards forward. “These are 30 blues apiece.”

He pushed five more forward. “These are 50.”

He pushed the remaining six cards forward. “70. The total then comes to 7 whites and 90 blues for everything.”

Tristan looked crestfallen.

“How much are the [Blueprints]?” Eila asked, stepping forward. The old man turned to her and smiled.

“Ah, right. You’re a forger, are you not?” Artuo hummed. “I can give you the 30s, the 50s and one of the 70s as [Blueprints] for your total assorted loot. I’ll even throw in the item requirements for three of the 30s.”

“Eila, no,” Tristan protested, turning to her.

“Five item requirements and you have a deal,” Eila said. Then, she blushed. “Oops. Sorry, Tristan. If you’re okay with it.”

“Are you sure?” he said. “That’s too much. I can’t expect you to forge all that.”

“Honestly,” Eila said, “nothing sounds better to me right now than sitting down and forging all day.”

Tristan looked unconvinced. “I can just farm some more and gather the rest of the chips that way. It won’t take that long if I really try.”

That’s a very strange thing to say, Tristan, she thought, noting how the shopkeeper looked at him with a frown. She was going to have to talk to him about that, especially amongst people like Artuo.

“I need the practice anyways,” Eila declared. “I’ve been going out in the field too much. My skills are getting rusty. The Darks will be easy, but the Earth cards will be a good way to practice forging other cards outside my specialization.”

Tristan, the stupid boy, still looked unsure. She sighed and grabbed his arm, towing him away.

“Look,” she said, once they were far enough away from Artuo. “How about we make a deal?”

“I’m listening.”

“I’ll split half the cost of the [Blueprints] with you. You’ll need the rest of the money you save on the item requirements for the other cards anyway, assuming I can haggle Artuo to fronting five of the requirements. You might have enough chips leftover to snag a pair of cheap Adept equipment while you’re at it, not to mention you still need passage on an airship.”

Tristan frowned. “Why would you do that? That’s a lot of chips, no?”

It was. It was quite literally every chip she had, including the one she’d gotten from Aidas’s Binder. She took a deep breath. Guess I am admitting it now.

“If I successfully forge every one of those ten cards,” she said, “I want you to take me on as your forger.”