Fantasy Cursed Island

[Darkling0096]

Turac shrugged, "At least she's directed that towards other things. It's a shame, really, if you put on more weight and picked up a weapon, you might be as strong as dad." And as smart as their mom, on top of it.

 

[Fangs9090]

“I’m aware. But fighting physically with a weapon just doesn’t appeal to me. Perhaps getting fit would help me with some things, but I’d still favor magic above all else.”

 

[Darkling0096]

"Perhaps," Turac nodded, "But you might be less squeamish if you'd broken more noses."

 

[Fangs9090]

“I’m afraid to think what desensitizing myself would mean for the state of my mind.”

 

[Darkling0096]

"It would mean you are stronger for it," Turac rolled his eyes, "What exactly are we looking for?"

 

[Fangs9090]

“Anything. I really don’t know what information would be considered useful or valuable.”

 

[Darkling0096]

"Paying the scrivener? What exactly was the nature of her deal?"

 

[Fangs9090]

“I’m not entirely sure. She said if we agree to give her information that we find, she’ll share her information with us and offer discounts, as well as making our first order free. Considering the price of that first order, this seems terribly weighted in our favor, which is suspicious.”

 

[Darkling0096]

"That is highly suspect," Turac frowned, trying to figure that out. "How often do we expect to encounter her?"

 

[Fangs9090]

“I don’t know. She said she has shops all over, and we already have proof of two of those, a whole ocean apart.”

 

[Darkling0096]

"Then we'll have to assume she'll be around every corner," Turac sighed and listened around. It didn't seem to him that anything of note was going on, but if Ms. Barkley the wolf's bean farm having a poor harvest would get them that dragon rock, then who was Turac to complain?

 

[Fangs9090]

Roy nodded. “If she is honest though, that could be useful.” As they walked about, they did hear mostly rumors and gossip, small tidbits of people’s personal lives.

 

[Darkling0096]

"I suppose it could be used to quickly travel," Turac agreed.

 

[Fangs9090]

"I don't think she would allow us to use her shops as transportation. She did after all refer to her method of getting around a 'trade secret.'"

 

[Darkling0096]

"That's a possibility." Turac listenened around and shook his head, "if all we are going to get in this city is little nips of people's lives, we might as well make things up as uninformative as the information we bring is."

 

[Fangs9090]

"She wants information, not stories. And I feel like we're not the only ones to be gathering information for her, so if she finds out something we told her isn't true, it's liable to come back and bite us."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Well we are finding no information of use," Turac shook his head, "What use is a poor bean harvest to a scrivener?"

 

[Fangs9090]

"None, most likely. But it may be useful to someone else, perhaps someone looking to sell beans. If they go to her, she'll be able to let them know where a bean harvest was poor, and they'll know where to sell their beans. In exchange, she learns something that could be useful to another person, and so on. While she doesn't necessarily gain anything from these exchanges, that's still people coming to her business, which increases the chance of a sale. Not to mention gaining favor with people."

 

[Darkling0096]

"There are more reliable news sources than a psychic seamstress," Turac rolled his eyes at the name of the store. "I guarantee she doesn't even use psychic abilities, she's just built a reputation because of her ability to amass information from everywhere."

 

[Fangs9090]

Roy nodded. "I'm doubtful of anyone calling themselves a psychic."

 

[Darkling0096]

Turac grunted, "Divination magic is one thing, claiming psychic powers is another. And if she needs people to tell her things, she is almost definitely not a competent diviner nor a skilled enough psychic to make it part of her title."

 

[Fangs9090]

Roy shook his head. "So long as she remains useful to us, it doesn't matter all that much."

 

[Darkling0096]

"Ideally she will only be useful for the sake of this stone."


Back at the inn, Jalin was starting to get annoyed with Sinach's constant annoyances, spoke up to Katsuo, "Do you think he needs to breathe to keep yapping like that?" Sticking him in the bag of holding would solve the issue quickly, but if it would kill the serpent...

 

[Fangs9090]

Katsuo shrugged. "I'm unsure. That box is meant to be sealed to keep books protected, is it not? If he needed to breathe, he likely would have been struggling long before now."

 

[Darkling0096]

"It is watertight, not airtight." Air could penetrate where water could not. Jalin knew that from Niudisa's experiments. "Gases themselves rarely pose a threat to books..." He tapped the box to shut Sinach up again, "I suppose we can check in ten minutes and see if he is choking or not to solve that question ourselves!" he stood and picked up the box, gesturing to the bag of holding, "Can you open that for me?"