@platonicluv QuoteLady Ashpire,
You wrote to me asking for two books. The first was The Many-Starred Veil Vol. I by Flemulus Grix, on how to find places thin between the physical and spiritual worlds. The second was Internal Alchemy by Ewan ap Rhys, on how to change your humors through diet.
I cannot deliver them to Darken Vei. If you want to see the books before buying you will need to come yourself or send someone. My shop is by Northgate. There is an eatery there, Sakaya's Slophouse, where you can find clean beds. Stay there and I will send word.
-Niamh
Niamh sat at her desk pouring over a ledger. She had more than enough coin squirreled away, though business had begun to slow in recent months. "Someone putting the squeeze on necromancers again, you think?" she mumbled to Jeb, a porcelain frog clad in an ascot and fishing rod. The shop had many cheap trinkets just like it, all a ruse to disguise the true nature of her business. As much as she hated to admit it Niamh had grown accustomed to them. To the frogs at least.
It had been a month since Niamh sent the letter to Lady Ashpire. She did not expect much to come of it. It actually did not sit well at all. A young girl, with no academic background, sniffing after random and unrelated magical books? Her usual sort of customer would kill, quite literally, for the chance to find and steal her merchandise. But Niamh couldn't pass this chance up. The girl was offering a small fortune for both books.
"Hey, kiddo!" she called out into the maze of shelves. Silence. Probably deliberately. She rose from her desk in a huff. Eventually she found her quarry, a small boy perched on the window-sill and juggling a ball. "Ewan!"
"Oh. Hi there!" he was transfixed by his attempts to toss the leather ball higher and catch it. There had not been actual magic to do in weeks, and the other chores to earn his keep were mostly done.
"Maybe don't bounce that indoors." She was met smirk of amusement.
"I need you to go to Sakaya's and see if that girl, Raisa, is here. Bring her back here if she checks out."
--
Sakaya's Slophouse sat amidst the maze-like shantytown that climbed Zantaric's western walls. The upper floors served as a cramped boarding house, while the bottom floor was an eatery. It was dark inside but for the glow of a firepit at the center, tended by an enormous woman with the face and tusks of a pig. The air was hot and heavy with the aroma of grease and garlic. Various grotty sorts sat hunched around tables finishing off their midday meals. There were fisherman in reeking overalls, tribeless Adelans on break from farm labor, and whatever else passed for honest folk in Zantaric. A small Serenian boy with a shaved head, clad in sandals and a loin cloth, darted into the inn and ducked around a server, nearly tripping her in the process. It was hardly like adults stood aside for him! He pattered up to the bar.
"Hi! Uh-" he stared up at the boar-woman as she ladled gobs of heavy soup into a bowl, meeting his gaze with dark glowering eyes. "-So I've asked over and over and over and over, but, has a girl called Raisa Ashpire come to stay?"
