South Bound: The Quest for Hastrajal (RP)

Play around with roles and whatnot in here, I suppose.

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MrFlyingAmoeba
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Re: South Bound: The Quest for Hastrajal (RP)

#61 Post by MrFlyingAmoeba »

Valentine raised his fists into what could be mistaken for a fighting posture, before it became apparent that he was merely expressing his excitement. "Fantastic. This is going to be great." So many things to be looking forward to!

Naoko pressed her lips together, making quiet growling noises in her throat while her two tails twitched, irritated. Stupid ghost, having more magic than me. While the small kitsune would never admit it to anyone, she was rather insecure about her powers, despite the fact that she would naturally become more powerful over the centuries even without much effort.

Nyen briefly glanced at the remaining people in the church before disappearing back to her realm. The elemental of lightning did not bother asking Valentine for permission, not currently viewing him as worthy to actually dictate such an action. Of course, nobody in the church would have known this, and would have probably mistaken it for some sort of mental dismissal by Valentine.

"Well, I suppose that I'll be meeting you two outside later." The mage began leaving the church, pushing his still grumpy familiar ahead of him gently. "Farewell for the moment!" Back to Nathaniel's inn to let him know that he was leaving, and then to wherever that ghost had pulled him.
Red Mage Statscoski wrote:That is not how we do things around here, buddy. First we have to argue incessantly over semantics.

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Lief
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Re: South Bound: The Quest for Hastrajal (RP)

#62 Post by Lief »

Chuckling quietly, I took a step back and took in the fruits of my labor. A small store front with a large multitude of goods and arms and only with half of the gold I had been supplied with too which gave me more than enough gold to buy several longsword. Of course it was a bit smaller than what I had hoped for which meant that Ash had to sit outside but aside from that, it was perfect. Its location was pretty good too, in an area that was fairly high traffic but was lacking in any other similar stores. Of course I had to wake up fairly early and drag Ash out of bed with me as well but it was well worth it. With a smile I slipped behind the counter and waited for the street to start filling with people, Ashley sitting on a chair next to one of the poles supporting the awning.

Several hours later, I realized why I managed to get such nice real estate for such a low price. To put it simple, the people passing by were simply not interested in buying things. It was a good thing that I had the foresight to purchase some small food items since that was the only thing selling right now. None of the other items were selling, at all. Not even getting Ash to promote the goods did the trick, though in hindsight that may have been just a bad idea from the start.

Sighing, I sat down on the wooden stool behind the counter and took a look around. It seems like I will have to do a bit more work to get things to sell here. But how exactly would I accomplish that? That was the question. Gritting my teeth I started to list out my options on a piece of paper, to burn time if anything.

-------

Allison wandered through the streets, stopped to look at a few of the sparse stalls every now and again. None of them had anything close to what she wanted, and it had been long enough since her last visit to the city that she didn't recall where the main market was.

With a sigh, she waved off a shopkeeper's compliments, continuing down the street. Not an uncommon tactic, make a lady feel pretty enough and she'll buy out your shop. Unfortunately, even if she didn't know of that tactic and if that stall did have anything she wanted, she only had ten gold.

A frown made its way onto her face, dirtying her gentle expression. Ten gold? She'd be lucky if she could purchase a decent dagger with that! She shook her head, gentle expression returning after a moment. No better time to practice bartering than when you're broke.

Then something caught her eye; what appeared to be a guard standing outside a stall. Armed with a sword taller than she was. Ridiculous. It was an unusual sight. Might be worth checking the stall out. So Allison approached it, looking over the wares.

"Ah, finally, a weapons stall!" She exclaimed quietly, more to herself than the owner or guard.

-------

To be honest, I actually failed to notice the customer. It wasn't until Ash let out a cheery"Afternoon~! You looking for anything?" did I quickly push away the papers I had been writing on to the side to look up at the first person to look at the woman that had made her way to the stall. She was, well, only slightly shorter than me. Fellow red head too, though I have never seen anyone with hair that shade of red though. It was almost like paint!

Smiling at the red headed woman, I decided to check with what exactly she was looking for. For all I know, she might be my only customer all day. It'd be an absolute tragedy if she were to leave without buying something.

"Afternoon there." I said, my tone relaxed and easy going. "You looking for something?"

-------

Allison made a slight wave to the guard as she looked over the wares, about to answer when the shopkeep spoke up.

"Mm, good afternoon." She returned the greeting, glancing towards the woman for a moment before letting her eyes wander over the various blades once more. "I'm looking for a cheap sword, but I'm apparently in the wrong area to be finding many weapon shops." She chuckled, reaching out for one of the longswords on a rack.

Gripping the blade, she hefted it off the rack and inspected it for a moment, turning it around in her hands and testing the edge and point. A slight frown crossed her lips for a split second before her face returned to its gentle expression. Raising the blade, she leveled the edge with her eyes, noting the tiny bit of warping.

"Mediocre quality, high amount of impurities likely..." Allison mumbled, lowering the blade as her eyes wandered over the rest of the blades. Unfortunately, she didn't have the time nor gold to find another shop.

Looking back at the shopkeep, she set the blade down on the relatively small counter. "How much?"

-------

"You know, I'm standing right here." I commented, voice dull. It wasn't my fault that I couldn't afford anything better at bulk! I mean, was it my fault that this was technically the most profitable way for me to buy and sell weapons? Technically, I could have bought a pair of well crafted swords at the price I paid for the eight or so swords I currently possessed but there was no way for me to quickly recover my expenses from that.

Glancing at the blade, I took a note of the rack that the woman had removed it from before running a quick inventory. Standard adventurer longsword, hand and a half, average quality steel... That had cost me about, what? Two, three gold? I could probably mark it up but the chances of that working well on this woman was low. At best. "Well," I started, voice bored. "I'd give you the usual shill about this sword but it seems you know your blades, huh? I'll put it at eight gold, what say you"

-------

"Right, sorry. Didn't mean to say that out loud." Allison replied with an apologetic tone in her voice, eyes wandering over the rest of the blades once more.

"Eight gold? I'm sure the blacksmith that made these spent that much on materials for an entire batch of them, maybe less." She looked down at the blade on the counter for a moment, then her gaze returned to the shopkeep. "I don't take you for the kind of person to have gotten ripped off on such a poor blade, so instead you're trying to exploit people's lack of knowledge to make money." She spoke in a low tone, not wanting any passerby to hear.

"I'll give you five gold for the blade. Alternatively, I can use my unique skills to turn a few below-average blades into good ones."

-------

"Look..." I started softly before motioning for the taller woman to lean in before whispering quietly. The taller woman might be some sort of wizard or magic user but hopefully, they weren't beyond a couple low brow sales methods and gender sympathizing.

"Between you and me, I'm not exactly making that much money. You know, because I'm not exactly the type of person they expect. You know, because I'm, well," Pausing, I discretely motioned at my chest for a moment before continuing. "So, yeah, I`m not doing so well on sales. I'm pretty sure someone such as yourself get where I'm coming from."

"How about this," I started slowly, voice hesitant. Hopefully, the sympathy factor might help me for this play. If anything, I might just keep her from storming out of the store just yet. "I don't lower the price but I sell you a set of daggers as well?" As I mentioned the daggers, I started motioning towards the small rack of steel daggers that were next to me on the counter. "They're decently made and I'm sure if your talents are as strong as you claim them to be, you could turn them into something good."

With any luck, the taller woman would be willing to cave after a good sob story and a relatively good deal. I was still making a fair profit in any event, so long as she didn't walk out. Still, something was nibbling on the corner of my curiosity and I just had to know the answer. "Excuse me for prying, but why exactly do you need weapons anyways?"

-------

"Mm. Female shopkeeps are uncommon, even more so the ones that sell weapons. Which is odd, you'd think us womenfolk would be all for using our feminine charm for monetary gain." Allison chuckled, glancing around the small stall once more.

"As per your question... A quest, I suppose you could say. To save a damsel in distress. Sort of." She eyed the shopkeeper with curiosity as she spoke, though she couldn't blame the woman for wondering.

After a moment of awkward silence, she spoke again. "Very well," Allison pauses, locking eyes with the shopkeeper. "The deal is acceptable, however," She paused again, reaching into her pack to fish out the small pouch of gold. "You wouldn't happen to know where I could get a bedroll, would you?"

-------

"It probably has to do with us being the fairer sex." I answered, air quotes abound as I layered on as much sarcasm as I possibly could onto those two words. "So I guess people must think I have no idea what I'm doing."

Rolling my eyes, I turned my attention back to my ledger. Now that I actually got a sale in, I would have to update it. Of course, I managed to catch that bit about questing. Ah, yes, questing, the age old answer to any adventurer's financial problems.

"Well, there should be a store down the street that sells that stuff." Answering the woman's question, I pointed in the rough direction of the store. "Shouldn't be too pricy."

-------

Allison nodded, a light chuckle escaping her lips. "Perhaps, perhaps."

Having retrieved her coin pouch, she dumped it on the counter, retrieving two coins and sliding the other eight towards the shopkeep. "Now then... Do they come with sheathes, or am I going to have to figure out how to carry them myself?"

Upon being told where to find a shop that sells adventuring supplies, more or less, Allison nodded slightly and made a mental note to buy a bedroll or blanket.

-------

Reaching beneath the counter, I placed three sheaths on the table before me."They come with, don't worry. I'm not going to charge you extra for that."

Of course, it's not like selling the sheaths for money would have made me too much of a profit anyways. They weren't exactly expensive pieces, simple leather and metal construction. I probably could have made them myself and they'd be of the same quality. Still, small free items always were a way to build up customer loyalty.

Of course, I realized that while I had been musing about all this, the other woman had left, having taken the sheaths with her. With a sigh, I looked at the empty store. That was quite possibly the only sale this day. I wonder if the reason why there hadn't been anyone truly was my gen.... waaaaaaaait a minute.

Pursing my lips, I looked around the store once more to confirm that, yes, I was the only one here. The seat that Ash had been sitting in was now empty. Damn it. I couldn't exactly leave right now. Cursing I ran to the entrance and glanced about the street. No sign of the airy blonde. Damn it, she might not be smart but when Ash decided to do something, she got it done.

Sighing, I turned back and in the process of doing so, spotted a note tucked underneath her chair. Odd. Ash wasn't one to leave notes when she decided to do something odd. Reaching down, I plucked it from it's current position and opened it up. Let's see... 'decided to join on quest', 'will be back soon', and 'wish me the best'. All written in overly elaborate script and with about a paragraph of exposition for each section.

With an exasperated sigh, I looked in the direction that the other woman was supposed to be headed for. I had to remind that girl that she was supposed to help me. When she got back that was, whenever that would be.

-------

With a small grunt, Allison shouldered her now relatively heavy pack and started walking down the street. She had purchased a small bedroll for one gold, leaving her with a single coin left for food. Food could wait, though, she had eaten a big breakfast and had a few preserved edibles in her pack. Still, she'd be in need of money soon.

"There's likely some work around town I could do to earn a few coin..." She mumbled to herself, turning a corner and heading towards one of the city's gates. Before long she began to feel as if she were being followed, and stopped walking. She took a glance over her shoulder, not noticing anything out of pla- That's quite a big sword there... Looks like the one that guard had...

With a shrug, Allison continued towards her destination, passing through the town gates before long. Let her follow. I'll figure out why later.


((This is not a revival, just felt like it should be posted here now that it's finally done. Myself and a few others have taken it upon themselves to make a reboot of this, though, and I'll be posting that shortly! Keep an eye out! EDIT: Here it is!))

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