The Emporium

Down an untrodden path lies a small building. Far away from any city or town, it stands alone in an open field. The only way to find it is to get lost or by already knowing where it is. Those that have stumbled upon it describe it as a sort of store. Filled with odds and ends but nothing of any real value. Its only regular customers are strange travelers.

One such traveler arrived at the building. He opened the door and looked inside. The place was cluttered with junk strewn all about. It looked as if someone had abandoned it and started using it as a trash dump. However, the traveler didn't leave. He simply waited. After a brief moment, an older man emerged from the junk and greeted the traveler. The man wore dirty clothes that seemed like they were made hundreds of years ago. His hair was thin and grey, but his green eyes shone with excitement. 

"Welcome to Adoria's Emporium, the best shop in Veshoa! Looking for anything in particular? Or are you trying to find a diamond in the rough? Whatever it is, I may or may not have it here! Even I don't remember most of the stuff I have here. So, browse to your heart's content," Adoria told the traveler as if he would leave at any moment. 

The traveler removed his hat so Adoria could see his face. 

"Oh, it's you, Sojou! Why didn't you say something earlier?"

"I could hardly get a word in." 

"Nonsense! Now, what brings you to my fine establishment?" 

Sojou set down his box and took something out of it. "I'd like to trade something in." 

Adoria grabbed the object. He turned it around in his hands, inspecting it. "I love it! What is it?"

"It's a fragment of a mask that was used to control a guardian beast." 

"Interesting. Does it still work?"

"Its powers faded after it was broken." 

"Ah, I see. That'll bring the price down a bit. Although it seems like a rare item, so I think it'll still fetch a fair price. Do you want to trade it or sell it?"

"The usual." 

"Trading's more fun you know," Adoria said as he handed Sojou a large bag of coins. 

"If I ever find something I like here, I'll let you know." 

"You could at least look around at first. I've gotten some new things since you last came. Though, I'm not sure where I put them." 

Sojou looked at the endless piles of junk. "Maybe some other time." 

"Ok, but before you go, I wanted you to look at something in my storeroom."

"Show me the way." 

Adoria lead Sojou to the back of his store, where a staircase went to the basement. The stairs went down quite a ways. The basement opened up into a room much larger than the shop above. Neatly stacked shelves ran the length of the room, reaching from the ceiling to the floor. They were organized and labeled with various tags. 

"Who do you have trapped down here that organizes all of this?" 

"No one. I did it all myself." 

"You're saying that you can do all of this, but you can't make the upstairs look presentable?" 

"That's just the stuff I haven't got to yet. I always say that I'll clean it up someday, but I just keep getting new stuff." 

"Sorry about that," Sojou said with a laugh. "What was the thing you wanted me to look at?" 

Adoria walked down past rows of shelves.  "I know most of my customers are seekers, but I'm no seeker myself. I don't really understand how most of these things work. Most people just sell me stuff without explaining anything. Now, some things are activating or something, and everything is going awry." 

"Awry? How so?"

"Things have gone missing. I see strange lights from time to time. Some loud bangs and noises come from down here. I don't even feel safe coming down here by myself." 

"Let's have a look around then. Do you know of any spot in particular where these things have happened?" 

"Follow me." Adoria turned to a row of shelves and combed through it. He found a pair of shoes and brought them out. "These things have been giving me a lot of trouble recently. They start to move all on their own like they're possessed." 

"Well, I can tell you that they aren't haunted by any spirit or anything. These look like running shoes. When worn, they give a person a large boost in speed."

"Why don't all travelers use these then? That sounds like it would be quite useful to someone such as yourself." 

"They would be useful if that's all that they did. While they do increase one's speed, they also don't stop moving until they're out of energy. There's no controlling them once they get going. That's most likely the reason they've been moving on their-" Before he could finish his sentence, the shoes leaped out of Adoria's hands and started to run about. 

"I didn't do anything to them! Why'd they start moving?"

"That's odd. They normally only move once on someone's feet. There must be something else in here that caused it." 

"We can worry about that later. For now, let's catch those shoes!" 

Adoria and Sojou ran about the storeroom, chasing after the running shoes. Eventually, they came across a large bell standing on the ground. The shoes ran into the bell, causing it to ring. Instead of producing a loud sound, no sound came out at all. The two of them stopped for a moment in confusion. Sojou turned to say something to Adoria, but no words exited his mouth. Adoria tried to say something back to the same result. 

After a moment, the sound returned to their ears. "What was that?" Adoria asked. 

"A deafening bell. When rung, it mutes all sound in an area for a short amount of time." 

"I thought it was just an old bell." A sound was heard farther away in the room. "I forgot about the shoes!" They both rushed over to where the sound came from. There they found an amulet. In a large circle around it was a transparent barrier. The barrier seemed to have pushed other shelves away, knocking other items to the floor. 

Sojou recognized it instantly. "An amulet of protection. They create a barrier around the wearer that's nearly unbreakable." As Adoria was about to comment, an object on the floor activated. It was a small box that shone a light on Adoria. Then, it created a sort of projection of him. The projection appeared just as he did, only purely white. It mimicked all of Adoria's moves opposite him, just like a mirror. 

"Now, there's a ghost of myself! Am I starting to see things?"

"No, it's there all right. However, it's no ghost. It's a reflection of you made up of energy. I'm not sure myself what its purpose is."

"How do I turn it off!?" Adoria yelled while trying to pull the box from his projection. 

Sojou walked over and covered up the hole in the box that the light was coming out of. The projection faded, and the box was deactivated. They looked along the other rows trying to find the shoes. It didn't take long for them to find another pile of things knocked over on the ground. Among the things on the ground was a paintbrush that started to emit colorful light. 

The light shot to various things around it, changing their color. Some black things were turned green, and some blue things were turned red. "What's going on now!?" Adoria yelled in confusion.

"I've never seen something like this either. Although, it is still a paintbrush. If we can wash the paint off it, maybe it will stop. Do you have any water on hand?"

"I think I have something," Adoria said as he searched through the storeroom. Shortly after, he returned with a bottle. "Once you open this bottle, water will continue to pour out of it until you close it. Don't get any of the water in your mouth though, it's toxic." Adoria handed Sojou the bottle. He opened it and dumped water on the paintbrush washing off some dried paint. The light's stopped coming from the paintbrush, but the colors didn't go back to normal. 

Adoria took a moment to breathe. "Why is all of this happening? It can't just be the shoes running into stuff, can it?" 

"Even if some things got knocked over, they shouldn't activate unless someone was controlling them. There must be something in here that's setting them off." 

"Do you have any idea of what it could be?" 

"No. These things come in all shapes and sizes. There's no telling what it would look like. The only way to find it is to find where more things have been activated. The more frequent the activations, the closer we'll be to what's causing them." 

"Sounds like a plan." 

They walked past shelves looking for strange occurrences. One shelf had a blanket that glowed. Sojou touched it and noticed that it was radiating warmth. There was nothing else of interest on that shelf, so they moved on. Another shelf contained a book that was spewing pages all over. Adoria grabbed the book and bound it to stop the flow of the paper. Yet another shelf had a sword that burst into flames. Sojou promptly put it out with the bottle of water. Next to the sword, was a top that spun violently. 

"I think we're getting closer," said Sojou. 

"Good. I don't know how much more of this I can take." 

The floor of the next row of shelves began to warp. It sunk into one point. Everything around it went down into the hole. However, instead of falling into the hole, things remained still as if they were still standing upright. 

"Help me!" Adoria yelled as he was pulled toward the hole. 

"Grab this," Sojou said as he extended his walking stick toward him. Adoria grabbed the other end and Sojou pulled him back to the stationary ground. 

"We need to end all of this quickly, or my emporium will fall to ruin."

As they were walking by the next row of shelves, Sojou could feel his hair start to stand up. He quickly realized what was happening and dropped his staff. A bolt of lightning discharged from down the row straight to the staff. Sojou looked at the shelves from a distance and saw a small golden sphere generating lightning. He quickly ran back and grabbed the warm blanket and wrapped it around the sphere stopping the lightning. 

The next row had all sorts of things flying around and flashing with light. There were too many things happening at once to determine what was causing what. "It should be close by," Sojou said while dodging something flying by his head. 

"With all these things activating, how are we going to find the exact thing that's causing it?"

"If I get close to it, I should find out what it is. You should stay back. It might be dangerous." 

Sojou carefully made his way along the shelves. He ducked and jumped over various things moving about. At the end of the row, he found a large statue. Once he got close to it, a light flashed and his staff activated. 

"We need to end all of this quickly, or my emporium will fall to ruin."

"I think I know how to end all of this now," Sojou said as he ran past the next row dropping his staff beforehand. Once he reached the statue, he simply tipped it over, smashing it on the ground. Immediately after, all the movement, lights, and the noise stopped. Adoria rounded the corner and approached Sojou. 

"So, this statue was the cause of all of this?"

"It emitted some kind of signal that seemed to activate the artifacts."

"Did you really have to break it, though?"  

 "I probably could've deactivated it, but it would've only been temporary. Destroying it was the quickest and best solution." 

"That's fine with me. I thought that statue was ugly anyway. I think you've just saved my entire shop. I don't know what I would've done without you." 

"It's no big deal. I was just helping out a friend." 

"Well, no matter how altruistic you are, I still want to reward you. I'll let you pick anything out of here that you want to take with you."

"If you insist." Sojou took his time searching around the storeroom for something he wanted. After a while, he returned to Adoria holding his prize. 

"Are you sure that's what you want? There's plenty of other things in here." 

"I'm sure," Sojou said as he held up a large hat. "This hat is almost indestructible, and once activated, can serve as a light. It's perfect." 

"Alright. Suit yourself." 

They said their goodbyes, and Sojou set off on a new journey.