The Flying Emporium

Samuel, who was about to scold Timothy for his repeated interruptions, suddenly forgot what he was going to say. Instead, he couldn’t help but read through the three tooltips in front of him over and over again, not quite trusting his eyes.

Where Samuel from an outside perspective seemed like he was frozen, the young man next to him almost appeared to have turned stupid. His mouth continued to open and close again, but only sounds of unintelligible stammering left his mouth.

With all eyes focused on them, that wasn’t something easily overlooked and therefore drew the attention of most of the surrounding people. First and foremost, that of the adventurers that accompanied him. Those people that were Markus’ subordinates and were part of the Malcos Eagles had by now all gathered on the mountaintop and scanned their vicinity; The ship wasn’t unsummoned and continued to ever so slightly sway in the wind, floating as if it was really docked in a harbor.

All they could see was Markus’ expression, which almost made them embarrassed for him. But more importantly, it made them curious. He was surrounded by the two bigshots, so they figured there wasn’t any danger involved. They also had all been warned beforehand to not act rashly in front of this unimpressive-looking shop owner, who supposedly sold items that would be able to elevate their future performances to the next level; Whatever that meant.

But for those reasons, even if they were curious, they didn’t dare to come any closer and risk interrupting or otherwise displeasing them. They could only try to, more or less subtle, catch a glimpse of the items in the boy’s hands – in vain.

The remaining people, which was Krey and Andreas and his people from the Lion’s Head guild, who witnessed the reactions of the three people leading the group, didn’t need to see the actual items to know what these people were going through right now; They all had been there before.

So, while the sight was almost comical, no one laughed. At least not at anyone’s expense. Especially not since they weren’t tired of living yet.

In comparison to the other two, Mylana appeared to be rather calm. Even though she had a grave expression on her face, it wasn’t as obvious as even Samuel’s reaction; Not to speak of Markus.

That was until her voice betrayed her.

“Say… how much… how much is one of these elixirs?” She almost croaked as she pointed with a trembling hand. Samuel knew that neither of those was because of her age.

“Only one-hundred each! For the regular ones, that is.” Emily pointed at two of the bottles as she immediately answered the question, acting like an eager salesperson. While one-hundred gold coins were, even now, far from being a small sum to her, she knew those adventurers could easily afford it.

“The other one,” she hinted at the remaining bottle before hiding her small hands behind her back and using them to calculate, “is six-hundred. Four hundred for the combinator activation fee, plus two hundred for the two elixirs.”

If it wasn’t for little Sammy bringing her to this place himself, and if he hadn’t handed her one of the strange little purple-bluish resource-replenishing potions beforehand, she would’ve assumed this was someone’s idea of a joke. Quite possibly the last one that person would ever make. But judging by the green uniform, someone from the Society had already confirmed the authenticity of items sold in this store as well.

Now she really wanted to grab those elixirs in front of her, but with effort decided against it. Snatching items from the hands of her own mentee’s mentee would look anything but proper. More so at her age and with her standing.

“That’s quite… affordable.” The two men at her side almost instinctually nodded in agreement. ‘Affordable’ was an understatement if they ever heard one. Emily had been right with her assessment.

Even the way lower-leveled Andreas and his companions were easily able to stock themselves with all of Severin’s wares. So how could this price amount to anything in the eyes of someone who couldn’t even remember the time she wore a silver badge herself?

Still, Mylana wasn’t quite able to hide her impatience.

“But why don’t you show me that combinator you mentioned?” She said to Emily.

That was actually the main purpose of her visit. The potion was impressive, and so was the other stuff Samuel had brought and talked about, but the combinator was what really caught her interest. Besides the machine’s almost absurd-sounding functionality, Sammy admitted that even he wasn’t able to sense any magic fluctuating while it did its work! That was something she had to see in person.

“With pleasure!” Severin smiled at Emily’s response and gave her a satisfied nod as she led the way.

Seeing the old woman headed towards the self-proclaimed ‘Emporium’, Markus finally snapped out of it and hastily began to follow behind. Samuel was naturally quicker to react and had already matched his mentor’s speed.

“What do you think?” he asked her.

“I think with the limited usages you mentioned, there was no need for us to bring all these items with us after all.” Mylana laughed a good-natured laugh.

Samuel blanked for a moment but quickly answered, “Right.”

Knowing that the machine standing in the corner of Severin’s shop was able to combine not only items purchased in the shop itself but also those brought from outside, they had long planned what other items to bring and what combinations to test.

Antidotes like the one Krey had used, and other status removing cures. Defense boosting tinctures. Temporary weapon enchants which added flat bonus physical damage to attacks; Not entirely dissimilar to Severin’s weapon oils. Or just simple health and mana potions, which in exchange for their superior replenishing power compared to the ones offered by Severin, required a certain level to consume if one didn’t want to experience a potentially deadly magic backlash.

But all of a sudden, none of the possible combinations could make them excited anymore. With only ten activations a day, wouldn’t it be a waste to not use all of them on the stat-boosting elixirs?

“Maybe a few potions could still be worth it, considering the cooldowns.” Samuel could only argue weakly in front of this woman.