The start of the week was always a refreshing breath of air on the small town of La'marri for as long as Aldis could remember. When he'd arrived so many years ago with his late mentor, the two had stumbled upon La'marri on this very day of the week. Contrary to some other major cities that the boy had read numerous articles about, La'marri was, at the start of the week, at it's peak in business and commerce. This was because the first day of the week was always, with only a few weather-related exceptions, 'Market Day'.
La'marri received a great many passersby on a regular occasion, be they mercenaries, adventurers, dispatched platoons from another, larger city, and so forth. The more common of any and all travelers, however, were traders; Merchants who made a living going from place to place, buying and selling wares of profit and value which often held origins unknown. A small town like La'marri tended to receive a surprising showing of such merchants, and while they were permitted to hawk their wares at any point of any day while the markets were open (with permits, of course), the start of the week seemed to be some sort of unwritten rule that they all agreed on when it came to really, really setting up shop. Entire tents, wooden carts and pallets of items were laid out along the entirety of the marketplace, stalls of La'marrian residents and traveling merchants alike blending into one another to create an illusion almost like that of a bustling city. It was fascinating... at least, to Aldis.
Ever since he had been on his own, he would take personal time to himself to attend Market Days. Merchants from around the world brought items that he'd never seen before each time, and each time he'd scour through them for all sorts of unique trinkets and doo-dads that caught his interest. Oh, the merchants would give their best spiels about how amazing and one-of-a-kind each item was, but Aldis didn't particularly listen. He knew what he was looking for each time, or at least, had an idea of it.
He sought out items which held magical power. Why? It wasn't like he used them. You'd imagine that a mage would want power for that very reason, but Aldis just liked to study them. He'd come across a few trinkets here and there, often times holding curses similar to the ones he'd learned of in Hillibrad's Grimmiore, or enchantments he'd never seen before. In either case, he'd always take them home to examine and play with them a bit more closely, away from prying eyes; La'marri was a nice town with townsfolk that seemed to prefer not to pry into each others' lives, and for a mage studying the dark arts, that was helpful. He didn't want someone to get hurt if something he was studying went wrong... and occasionally, that did happen.
Today, in particular, he'd stopped at a stall near the center of the market, wherein his eyes happened upon a single book amid a mountain of adventurer's logs, historical documents, (likely) forged royal decrees, and raunchy stories of lusty reptilian housemaids. This book in particular, which sat off to a corner of the stall (apparently the merchant didn't see much value in it, else it would've been front and center with the lusty reptile?), was a tad bit... different. Aldis could feel this, but not see it, which intrigued him. Hillibrad's Grimmiore often talked about the concepts of Ley Lines-- magical veins of natural energy flowing across the land-- and their convergence points. This book interested him due to the fact that it... well, felt... the same way such a convergence point would. Which didn't make much logical sense... and thus, spurred the depths of Aldis's imagination. He didn't hesitate to capitalize on it-- which wasn't saying much, considering no one else seemed to really be looking at it.
"Um, excuse me? How much for this one?"
