2.1 A Bow, An Axe, And A Claymore

Despite its recent reputation, Khon-Pak marketed itself as a city of trade. Tourists went to see the pretty trading materials, then returned home to see their ugly trading materials. Like anyone with common sense, its founder had decided to grow it upon an oasis, and because the water there had some weird magical thing going on, it was pink, and so were the palm trees. Luke had also told him that story often.

"Hey, you," the driver told Cérise. "Wake your friends up. We're almost there."

"Thank you," said Akiha, startling them both. He sat up with a sigh. Had he also stayed up all night? Cérise had taken a nap at the tavern and was used to standing guard, anyway, but this guy? Sluggishly, Akiha reached out to pat the giant furball Two-Rabbit had transformed into, to no avail, so then he moved on to Mish, slipped, landed on her lap, caused the latter to scream, and thus woke everyone up.

The driver extended a paw to them. "Entrance fee is one zuli."

While the rest still assimilated reality, a squinting Snail reached for her satchel. Between her and Cérise, there was a Mish and a Two-Rabbit. He would've told her to cut it out otherwise.

Mish was the next to react. Right as Snail handed the coin, she made a show of pushing Snail's wrist to the side. "Allow me, sweetie."

"It's fine. I can... um..." Snail glanced at Cérise, who looked away. "...okay."

"You'll need it once we reach the market, trust me."

She paid, and the road trip was saved yet again. There were a few other wagons in queue, so it took a while to actually get into the city, but once they did, and they stretched, and other travelers from other wagons did the same, Cérise had to fight the urge to... to run off somewhere. Too familiar. Too much.

Thankfully, Akiha drowned whatever feeling tried to surface by announcing, "We'll stock on supplies and grab something to eat, but please remember our main objective: we must try to find more recruits."

"And portable baths," said Mish.

"Are there not public bathhouses available? I'm pretty sure I..." Akiha trailed off upon taking in their expressions. "Is there something wrong with them? Are they unsanitary? The one I used in Morr was very comfortable."

Two-Rabbit informed, "The water is pink."

"...and...?"

Cérise bit back the urge to say 'no self-respecting adventurer bathes in pink water'. He extended his hand at Akiha. "Let's just get rid of the pamphlets."

"Letters," Akiha corrected, like anyone cared. "Since it's so early, I don't think many warriors will be around to take them. How about we groom and eat first?"

There were at least a dozen mercenaries around them, but Cérise said nothing. If Mish were as experienced a fighter as she seemed, she might've noticed this, but she seemed far more interested in the pinkness of her bathwater. And food. To be fair, same. "I know a great place," she said, as if on cue. "Great falafel."

Two-Rabbit seemed pleased. Cérise found him far less annoying than the rest, by virtue of reacting to things only when necessary (to him). Trains were bad. Unnecessary time stalls were bad. Falafel was good.

It'd been a while since he'd last visited Khon-Pak. As the first sun awoke, so did food stands, painting the city with the scents of their products, the colors of their awnings. Other than this, it was quiet, and it was empty.

Unfortunately, Mish began to talk again. "Sweetie, I know the best place for weapons."

No, she didn't. Speaking of which—as the roads widened and came to life, at the corner of the street, overshadowed by taller, flashier buildings, stood a shop where a child arranged weapons to sell. None of them were swords. Cérise stopped walking. The quartet of idiots didn't notice, so he strayed off the group and straight to the armory. Snail was a good reference point anyway, so it wouldn't be hard to find them later.

The kid at the shop seemed younger than Snail, though with giants and their weird aging patterns, it was really hard to tell. When Cérise approached, the boy clasped his hands together and smiled. "Good morning! What are you looking for, sir? A bow, a lance? An axe, perhaps?"

Cérise wandered into the shop. "Where are the swords?"

"We have those, too." The boy scurried past him, to the back of the shop. He came back dragging a cardboard box. To mitigate the poor impression, he drew a sword from the stash, handing it to Cérise by the hilt. "There you go! Feel free to try it. Just not with me."

So he was one of those Spunky Kid sellers. "If I were to hit it with my current weapon," said Cérise. "Which one would break? Mine or yours?"

"Yours, I'm afraid."

"...sure. Let's try." Cérise unsheathed his own blade. To his credit, the kid's smile thinned as soon as he realized what it was made of.

Before Cérise could strike the first one, the kid squeaked, "Wait!"

He did.

"That's—that's... how...?" The boy cleared his throat. "Can I... can you lend it to me? Just a moment. Please."

He did.

Upon taking Cérise's scimitar, the boy traced its edge with his fingers, frowning. "I get it now. It's ordinary steel, but the edges have... diamond dust? Where did you get this?"

Cérise should've lied, but he didn't feel like it for some reason. "I made it."

"Oh, of course you did. No wonder you—" The boy cleared his throat. "Sorry." He swished it around, as though trying to cleave a mosquito. "It's so light, but... why? Isn't it brittle? Doesn't the diamond dust flake off?"

"It is, and it does."

"Then...?"

Cérise shrugged.

The kid stopped once he choped the edge off a nearby table, punting the ripped piece under it. "...wait..." He squinted. "...so then mine would win. Even if yours is sharper, it's so thin it'll shatter. Here." He returned it. The Spunky Kid was back. "Let's try. Let's do it. If mine wins, you'll have to buy something expensive."

The last blacksmith he'd shown that sword to had called him a slur, so there was that. Cérise drew his blade. So did the boy. 

Before the kid lunged, however, the bells at the entrance chimed. He nearly stumbled. A trio of heavily armored, heavily muscled mercenaries paraded inside. Cérise couldn't hide his scimitar in time, so one of them pointed at it. At him. "Hey, what the—is that a sword?"

He did not respond.

"Stop it," said another one. "Where are the claymores?"

Fully back to Spunky Mode, the kid dropped his sword so they wouldn't focus on it more than necessary, punted it under the chipped table, then scrambled to the other side of the shop. "Good morning, good morning! Come along!"

The third brute was a girl. Since she was almost as tall and bulky as the other two, with Cérise barely reaching her chin, it took a moment to assimilate this. Her voice being so high and soft didn't help. "How about axes? My... our... budget is five hundred zuli."

The boy stopped. "For all three of you? Hmm... let me see what I can find."

The biggest brute picked a (sheathed) dagger hanging from the ceiling the way one would fruit from a tree. "Five hundred should be enough, with how shoddy these look." He pointed the weapon at the child, who flinched. "How much for this one?"

"Four... four hundred... three-fifty, just for you."

The first brute, who was also jarringly softspoken, yanked it off the third brute's metal-clad hand, then snorted. "I wouldn't even pay a hundred. Why is everything overpriced in this city? What is wrong with you people?"

“Vit, shut up,” snapped the third brute, “I’ll take care of the cargo. It’s safe under my watch. Remember? If it weren't for you being a careless, scatterbrained imbecile, we wouldn't need to be doing this in the first place." Vit rolled his eyes. Ignoring this, the biggest brute told the boy, "Hurry up. Get us a bow, an axe, and a claymore. Five hundred zuli for all of them."

The kid glanced at Cérise like he had anything to do with this mess. He didn't, but mercenaries annoyed him, so he said, "Not everything is as cheap as your armor."

Predictably, the trio turned to him. The kid swallowed. He said, "I'll—I'll go get my dad. One second." Then he bolted.

"Svart," yapped the first brute, Vit, "Did you hear him? He just called our dragon-forged armor cheap. While using a sword. Man, this place is really something else."

Svart waved him off, nudging his head at Cérise. "So? You a shopkeeper, right? Hurry up. Get us the weapons."

Cérise almost told them that dragon-forged armor was a scam because dragonfire was cooler than furnaces, how people fell for the gimmick, paid double the price to look like walking trash cans, but if they were ignorant enough to fall for such a trap, then this would fall on deaf ears. Since the boy hadn't showed up yet, Cérise paced through the shop as though he knew where anything was.

The brute girl said, "Hey, by the way. Svart. Ask him about the bounty."

"...right. While you're at it, kid, have you heard anything about a bandit on the run?"

Cérise roleplayed as a vendor. That was his life now. The cheapest axe he found, based on guesstimates, would be around three hundred zuli or so. Not like these idiots would tell three hundred quality from three thousand. "Something like that," he replied. "Is this about a Haku?"

"Who."

"Never mind, then."

"People like these don't know," Vit said. "Just drop it. By the way, if five hundred isn't enough, I can add another hundred into the budget. Is that better? Just get the cheapest bow you find for me."

'People like these'.

Where were the bows in the first place?

The brute girl slouched when she approached him. Cérise grit his teeth. "I can add another hundred," she whispered, even though they all could hear her with how claustrophobic this place was thanks to their... girth. "Do you sell enchanted weapons?"

"No." And if they did, he didn't care.

"How about... oh, right, I forgot. Nonlethal weapons, please."

"Nah, nah, make them lethal," said Vit. "It's the Sand Wraiths were going a—"

"What?"

"Against..." Vit trailed off. He stared again. The three of them did. Cérise hadn't raised his voice above a mumble in years.

Svart's eyes narrowed. "So you have heard about the bounty."

"I... I'm not... what b—"

The metallic hand clamped onto his neck so suddenly Cérise failed to react until it shoved him against the counter. It took a newcomer screaming—the owner of the shop, and the child's father, probably—for it to dawn on him that, yes, he'd just been seized and thrown against a table as though he were a sack of sugar. "Don't play fool, kid," hissed Svart. "Tell me what you know."

Unlike sacks of sugar, Cérise had to breathe, and getting strangled didn't help.

The blonde girl scrambled towards them, toppling an axe along the way. “Stop it! Svart! You'll kill him!"

"What the fuck, man?" Was Vit's contribution. "It's not that big of a... stop stop STOP!"

But he did not. Next thing Cérise knew, Svart had tossed him out of the shop, right through the windowpane. Cérise was still seeing double by the time the trio went after him. As dizzy as he was, he couldn't even move without stabbing himself with glass shards. "Listen, kid," growled Svart, despite looking, acting, and thinking younger, "Either you tell me what you know, or I crack your skull."

At the shop, the father huddled with his son. What else could they do? Call for help? And put themselves at risk even more? The more this pack of savages forgot about the armory, the better. Other shops around them quickly shut their doors. Cérise managed, "A group of travelers mentioned—"

Svart stomped right next to him, crushing the shards of glass as though they were clay. "I know you know what they are. So don't start."

"...of course I do. Monsters, that's..." He broke out coughing. It started off as fake. Didn't end that way. If he'd had anything to eat these past twenty four hours, hadn't drank himself into a stupor, hadn't pulled an all nighter... well, the list went on and on. Point was, under optimal conditions, the situation would be different. "...what they were, but they're all dead now."

"They're not."

"Yes, they are. What are you talking about?"

Svart's face twisted. Was that a smirk? A grimace? Who knew. "Wouldn't you know, kid?"

And because he hadn't eaten, slept, had drunk too much and had just nearly gotten choked to death, Cérise's face betrayed him. Even knowing that no one could possibly tell what had happened with the Wraiths, save for him and Snail, his pulse raced. Svart, of course, took this as a sign of accompliceship. It was impossible to dodge without turning into minced meat, so Cérise couldn't do much when the guy picked him up again—by the neck, of course.

"DIE!"

But it wasn't Cérise's intrusive thoughts saying this, because, for one, that voice was too high and, for two, the word would be kill.

Svart used the free hand to block Mish’s blow before it landed; using her momentum, he tossed her over his shoulder. Had she learned nothing? She rolled in the air, landed on her feet, then showed the dagger in front of her face as though she wanted to hide with it. "You have five seconds to let my servant go, villain," she said.

Her what.

"Of course," mumbled Svart. "Val! Take her out."

The brute girl, who'd been morosely standing at the armory's entrance along with Vit, jumped as though someone had slapped her. Cérise was at a point where things were beginning to split. One girl, two girls, three girls. One arm, two arms, three arms. Where had Mish even come from? Had Cérise taken that long? From what he'd seen, Mish offering herself to come and pick him up in lieu of Snail seemed pretty in-character for her, and for once, it was a good thing. As for how she'd found him... well, they weren't exactly keeping a low profile.

"Val!"

Since Svart's grip was impossible to break from, while he was busy screaming, Cérise swung his legs as far as the unfortunate position allowed him to. Svart immediately covered his face; Cérise kicked the elbow of the arm that'd held him. Clad in metal or not, reflexes were a thing, and so the vicegrip loosened enough for Cérise to skid before collapsing on his knees. 

This time, the wheezing was very much real from start to end. Svart swore, but the moment he lunged to seize Cérise again, he froze, for his victim had drawn a sword, and its tip ended a hair's length away from Svart's neck. When he swallowed, his Adam's apple brushed it.

“Svart—!”

“Stay back!” He yelled at the Val, the female brute. Funny, since he'd just told her to strike.

Mish rolled behind Cérise like the liability she was. "Come at me, villain!" She... taunted?

Cérise would've told her to go bother someone else, but he could barely speak.

Svart stepped back, pantomining... no, summoning a claymore. It glittered like diamond, hissing, for it was made of ice.

Speaking of brittle.