A Hand-Woven Universe

Noone"s eyes went wide as he saw the hundreds of weapons scattered on the floor and packed into boxes. Noone had enough experience by now to sense the deadly intent of each, but for the life of him he could not guess how one would use most of these.

There were spiked iron b.a.l.l.s on chains and odd blades curved into the shape of crescent moons. Each one seemed st.u.r.dily made, but Raelith did not give any of them a second glance. Instead her eyes focused on the two people scurrying around the shop packing the weapons away.

"Tilda! We"ve customers." The man"s voice was gruff and hurried, not even stopping to acknowledge Noone and Raelith as he continued packing away tools. Noone had trouble understanding him, he had an accent that lilted his voice with odd syllables.

"Yes I see that! I"m not blind old fool!" The woman"s voice was much more understandable, but still harsh - presumably made so after years of dealing with the man.

Noone couldn"t take his eyes off either people, Noone was fairly sure that neither of them were human.

The smaller man stood around four and a half feet, but he was incredibly stout, body covered in dense muscles. The way his voice echoed through the cluttered room was enough to show off his strength. He had long hair Similar to Tobias"s and a full beard to match. His body was covered in various amounts of leather.

"This must be a dwarf?" Noone thought. Trying to remember what Rae had taught him about the various races.

The woman was equally small, but much thinner than her male counterpart. She had black oil stains on her hands and forehead presumably from wiping sweat from her brow. She wore a thick brown leather ap.r.o.n over her otherwise normal clothes. She had raven black hair tied back in a tight fishtail.

"And the woman too...?" Noone kept quiet but was unable to keep himself from staring.

"What can I do ya" two for?" She quickly approached Rae and Noone, easily circ.u.mventing the various sharp and dangerous instruments on the ground.

"Here to sell." Rae said. She wore her usual smile, as though there was nothing strange with the picture.

The woman"s eyebrows went up and she quickly looked the moon-elf up and down, making sure she was serious.

"Well, I don"t know if you"ve gone blind or dumb, but if you can"t tell we are both getting ready to move shop out of town. Army"s comin" and all that. So, if you"re buyin" we can help you, but otherwise…" She flicked her head towards the door, making her position very clear. Noone said nothing as he watched Raelith to see where this was going.

"Well. What about for these?" Raelith looked at Noone, motioning him to pull out his battle axes he retrieved from the tribesmen several weeks ago. Noone"s eyebrows went up but he easily took the axe"s out of their sheaths.

The woman looked at the weapons carefully, not at all intimidated by the size of the man holding them.

"These are battle axes from the epoch tribe, yeah?" Her brow furrowed. These were indeed very rare. The quality was similar to steel weapons of the common world, but many were willing to pay for the novelty of an epoch tribe weapon.

"Mhm. Will be worth quite a bit I"m sure. Many people will like to get their hands on it. I wouldn"t even be considering selling it right now if it wasn"t that we are strapped for cash. But if you can make a good offer then we will happily hand them over." Raelith"s smile never dropped even slightly.

"Would. Would be worth quite a bit." The woman emphasized. "Not to keep bringing this up, but their armies are headed this way. Soon the battlefield will be littered with tribesmen weapons. These will become worthless then. But since I can tell you"re in a pinch I would be willing to offer you-"

"There"s no need to finish. Whatever price you were about to say would not be enough. Even with the influx of weapons from battle, how many of them will be in as good of condition as these? And even then, none of them will go to you, if you are planning on running inland to escape the tide."

Noone stared at the two women go back and forth, unsure what to think.

Suddenly the dwarf stuck his head out of a doorway leading to the back of the building. "Who said anything about runnin"!?" His heavily accented voice called out, offended by any accusation that made him out as a coward.

"Oh shut up you old fool!" The woman yelled back, obviously annoyed. Raelith chuckled slightly but very quickly hid it behind her usual smile.

"I will offer you half a gold piece. That"s the best you"re gonna get here in Ardgla.s.s."

Raelith watched the woman carefully, half a gold piece was going to be her bottom line, obviously she had underestimated this woman by a fair bit. Despite this she decided to press her luck.

"Oh please." Rae said. "You could sell this inland in any city for two and a half gold in the right market. Even after this whole "war" business gets settled there"s no way their prices will drop by more than a gold piece." Raelith was extremely familiar with weapon markets, she knew for certain what these could sell for.

"Well then you can just go there and sell it if you"re so invested in making more from it." The small woman huffed and was getting ready to shoo the two customers out. She had more important things to do right now.

"Fine. Half a gold piece but throw in a pair of battle-axes of equal quality for my friend here. Otherwise he will be left weaponless." Raelith"s smile brightened. She knew she would have been able to get more from the woman if she pressed, but instead she decided to take the low coin and get some weapons out of it instead.

The woman looked both of them up and down. Finally, she sighed. "This is why I don"t like dealing with you capital folk. Even you clerics are too shrewd." Her voice was obviously resigned to the exchange.

She walked across the floor of scattered weapons and brought back five silver pieces and a pair of dual battle-axes similar to Noone"s in weight.

Noone handed the two tribe-axes over and replaced the steel axes in his waistband.

"Thank you." Noone said. The woman was surprised by Noone"s voice. It wasn"t especially deep in contrast to his size, but it had a st.u.r.dy quality to it.

"Mm. Well. At least one of you has manners." The short woman gave a pointed glare to Raelith who merely maintained her smile. Finally, she handed over the silver pieces to Rae.

"Thank you very much." Rae said.

Both Noone and Rae left the shop, stepping out into the crowded sheets.

"Noone, take this." Raelith handed the five silver pieces to Noone, who laid them out in his palm. Each piece was a circular disk around an inch and a half in diameter. At one point it seemed something was engraved into the silver but had been worn down by time.

Noone did not question the currency, Raelith had already given him a very simple explanation of coin and exchange. Noone equated it to the currency used in Tapestry. Although there, currency was mainly a formality and otherwise ignored. Everything in Tapestry was free, any exchange that occurred was usually in the form of direct trade, or IOU"s.

Here in the common countries, currency seemed to be taken very seriously.

As if reading Noone"s thoughts Raelith couldn"t help but chuckle. Maybe it was the way Noone handled the coin that tipped her off. "Noone. You must be very careful with money. In this world, everything comes back to money at some point. There is nothing you can"t buy or sell for the right price. And there are people willing to go to any length to get more." Raelith offered what little advice she could.
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"Here. Let me show you where to exchange these for some smaller coin." Noone followed Rae to another building, a st.u.r.dy structure made of stacked clay block. Out front was a sign that Noone didn"t recognize.

"Bank?" Noone said, unsure of the p.r.o.nunciation. Raelith nodded.

"Yep. You can exchange your cash here for smaller denominations. Amongst other things." Raelith put her hand to her chin, thinking. "You go in. I will wait out here. Exchange two of the silvers for coppers. 200 coppers." Noone looked at her, understanding that she wanted him to do this on his own.

"200 coppers." Noone thought, setting the number in mind.

Noone approached the front doors, just by sight he could tell each one was incredibly dense. Obviously, this building was meant to be secure, moreso than the others in the area.

Just as Noone was preparing to push the door open, he noticed someone approach from the other side through his extended sight.

Not only were his senses extended in a full sphere three meters around him, but he had no problem seeing through walls and doors. So far Noone had not found any material he couldn"t see through.

Right now, Noone saw an extremely tall and unfamiliar being approach from the other side. Not wanting to get in its way, Noone opened the door and stepped back a little, letting the other being pa.s.s first.

Noone found himself unable to take his eyes off the man. A single glance was enough to put Noone on edge.

Dragonborn? Raelith"s voice sung through his memories as he recalled what she said about such beings. However, Noone couldn"t help but feel her description did not do them justice.

Dragon descendants of the northern regions. Extremely strong and versatile combatants with inborn abilities. Covered in scales with "lizard-like" features.

Of all the races Raelith had described to him, dragonborn seemed like the rarest.

Noone glanced up at the dragonborn"s face as he pa.s.sed. The blue scales made for an intimidating sight. Noone wasn"t used to having to look up at another person. He had grown used to being one of the tallest in any room.

Suddenly the man looked down at Noone, making eye contact. Noone immediately felt pressure in his mind, small stings of static seemed to be building up within his skull.

Strong. A voice in Noone"s mind warned.

Noone smiled and nodded to the man, trying to come off as una.s.suming as possible. A strategy he learned from Raelith.

The man"s lizard-like eyes widened slightly in surprise. Had he felt some mental resistance from this… human?

"Odd. Never seen a race like him before." The dragonborn thought. But he nodded back and continued on his way. He was not unused to stares from people who had never seen a dragonborn before.

Noone entered the bank, but used his sight to watch the dragonborn until he had moved too far away.

After speaking with a few people, Noone managed to find a clerk and exchange two of his five silver pieces to two hundred copper pieces.

Noone had drawn a few looks from people within the building. The white lines on his body radiating a gentle glow and showing off his densely-muscled stony flesh. Even the clerk found herself curious about this weird being.

Upon realizing Noone did not have a money pouch on him, she gave Noone a complimentary coin sack, placing the coppers within.

Noone smiled, giving a polite thank you and heading outside.

Everyone watched Noone exit, as if trying to decide whether he was human or some very foreign other.