Book 2 – Chapter 57

The four of us entered the adventurer's guild around midday. Bella was her cheerful self, always a bit quiet but she seemed to feel a lot more at ease than she previously had been. Torien seemed happy, making snarky and sarcastic comments at Bella and her sister. Morrigan was energetic, though she tended to be a bit more shy and reserved around people she didn't know. And Mimi was hanging from my belt, quietly observing the people we interacted with, while hiding as a sword on my waist.

I smiled, likely the most genuine smile I wore since I was forced to buy the two twin girls from the slavers guild. The situation isn't ideal to me but I did what I promised, what I had to do. I bought the two of them before anyone else could, Morrigan wouldn't be forced to serve a man and Torien could belong to someone she could put her trust in. Neither of them would be taken away from each other. I promised myself I would give them as much agency and autonomy as I could. They weren't free but I am going to try to make their life feel as free as possible.

The adventurer's guild was a bit quiet at this time of day. Most people were out on quests and the remaining people here were either socializing or between missions. Mirianna was working again today, that was lucky because one of the main reasons I stopped by was to talk to her.

Mirianna looked up from the paperwork she was working on but her eyebrows rose in surprise when they scanned across the four of us. She smiled and waved us over.

"Hey Mirianna, I got an update on one of the outstanding problems we talked about last night."

She looked over the two girls who quietly stood behind me. "I see that," her eyes swept across my clothes. "I didn't take you for a noble. I would have put more faith in your ability to actually buy these two if I had known. It does explain some of your confidence in combat though. You must have been trained in the sword before you came to join the guild. What's your family name, I didn't remember seeing one your registration."

"I'm not actually a noble. I don't have a family name."

"Uh huh." She clearly didn't believe me but it didn't look like she intended to argue with me about it either. "So, am I correct in assuming you came to inform the guild that these two are now owned by you and there won't be any issues with the slavers guild then? If it's about your reward, the team we sent to verify the dungeon ruins hasn't returned yet and shouldn't for a few days at least. I also think it would probably be best to stay in town until then, we still have to work out some details with your new titles, though knowing the twins are with you now should make things a lot easier on that front. We can't force you to stay in town but we're also not going to issue you any new quests until the dungeon team returns either."

"No, after that last mission I think we all need a few days to relax and get our equipment sorted out. I just wanted to tell you there wouldn't be any issues with the other guild and make sure these two were still noted down as being in our party. Right?" I asked turning to Morrigan and Torien.

They looked a little surprised to be addressed but Torien quickly recovered, "Of course mist- er, Lilith. Even if given the choice, we want to stay partied with you."

Mirianna nodded, "Good, I'll make sure to update the records and mark your temporary party as permanent. Thanks for coming in to tell us about this, I'm sure the guild master will be relieved to hear she won't have to deal with more inter-guild politics."

"Great, maybe she'll be less scary next time," I joked.

"I wouldn't count on it," she replied with a laugh.

The four of us walked away from the guild and headed over to the guild shop next door. Since Torien and Morrigan didn't come with any gear we had to basically start over from scratch. I looked around the shop. It wasn't that fancy, it mostly just sold decent equipment and tools at a discount. No weapons though, we'll have to go somewhere else for that after.

"Alright girls, you two need to get yourselves some camping gear and equipment since all your stuff was taken. I'll buy everything reasonable, if you're unsure about anything you can go ahead and ask."

The two girls nodded and started looking at the wares.

I gripped Mimi's hilt and spoke through our bond. -- "Are you interested in anything Mimi? We can buy you some equipment if anything looks useful to you." --

-- "Hmm, I don't know yet. I'll have to keep an eye out. I don't really know what most of this stuff is for, past what I can get from [Perfect Identify]." --

-- "Well, the offer stands. If anything looks interesting to you just ask." --

-- "Okay!" --

I walked around for a while, I wasn't particularly interested in anything so I mainly just skimmed the shelves. It wasn't too long before the girls piled their purchases up on the counter. I looked over everything, most of it looked normal enough. Morrigan asked for a frying pan which seemed like a reasonable purchase to me. Everything Torien picked out was straightforward, though I did notice she had grabbed some basic chalk for herself. Probably a good idea after how useful my spare practice chalk came when we went into the dungeon.

She also bought a monster processing kit which, while pricy relatively speaking, would likely pay for itself no problem. Everything we bought came out to two gold pieces. Normally that would be expensive for everything but considering the sum of money I recently acquired, it felt cheap. I still had 60 gold and 92 silver left over so I wasn't really hurting for money, I just had to be cautious I didn't waste all of the money too quickly.

All four of us now had backpacks on, though a lot of the heavier stuff Bella and I shared had been stored in Mimi's pocket dimension. No reason to lug around bulky bedrolls when Mimi could carry it without any effort, I'm sure she'll be happy to carry the twins' things once we're not in public.

"Torien, do you have any idea where we should go for your weapons? You mainly use a bow but you also carried daggers."

"I never had to buy this stuff myself before so I don't have any idea, sorry."

The shopkeeper overheard and jumped in to our conversation. "Do you want good weapons or cheap weapons?"

I smiled, "Good weapons."

"Aye, I know of a good place though some people don't like to buy from them. I don't think you'll have the same problem those bigots do. The fletcher and smith are mousekin, they're good at their craft but between their stature and some people's... distaste of beastkin they don't get as many clients as they should."

I sighed. "People seem to care way too much about stuff like that."

"Aye." He nodded. "I'll give ya some directions."

"Thanks for the info." Once he pointed me the right way, I put a silver piece on the counter. "I appreciate it."

"Thank ya miss." He took the silver without any argument. Good man, I laughed to myself.

We started walking down the street towards the shop on the far edge of the town. If I had to guess the lack of business also had something to do with how far away from the rest of the shops it was. As we got further from the town center the quality of the buildings and homes got worse and the streets became a lot less straight and uniform.

Morrigan walked up to my side. "Are you sure it's a good idea to get new equipment from mousekin?" she asked.

"What? Why not?" I asked.

"Well... mousekin tend not to like catkin or cat demi-humans so...."

"...seriously? That's a thing?"

Torien sighed from behind me. "Unfortunately..."

I put my hand on my face. As if discrimination between the different fantasy races wasn't enough, now there's even discrimination between the different beastfolk races too?

I sighed. "Okay, we're almost there. If it becomes a problem then we'll just go somewhere else. Try not to antagonize them I guess, I'd rather not go looking all over town for a shop that won't have an issue with us."

Morrigan nodded and fell back next to her sister behind me.

Looking over, Bella shrugged. "I had no idea either."

The building we came up to was the nicest looking one in the neighborhood. Unlike a lot of the buildings in the surrounding area, all of the wood was straight and well-built, none of the metal fastenings or reinforcements showed any hint of rust, and the building looked much newer than anything near it. There was a wood fence blocking the back of the building where I could hear bellows currently being used.

A cowbell rang as we entered the shop. A short mouse girl with white fur and a pink tail sat in a chair at the counter. She perked up when she looked over but as her gaze flicked to the ears on top of Morrigan's head her smile grew a bit stiff. The inside smelled like fragrant wood and mostly covered up the scent of oil that clung to the metal pieces that decorated the large shop. There was a pretty wide variety of weapons, armor, and general blacksmithing products like stakes and horseshoes, as well as furniture of various kinds.

"Hello, how can I help you today. Are you and your friends looking for anything in particular?" She might seem tense but it didn't look like she was going to kick us out at least. The store was empty right now though so she may have just wanted to avoid scaring away her only customers.

"Yes actually, Torien is looking for a new bow and a few daggers. The shopkeep at the guild store told me you make quality weapons." I put my hand on Torien's shoulder.

Her eyes lit up and she smiled ear to ear. "Yes, we have lots of things in stock. Let me show you." She jumped down from her chair and barely came up to five foot tall. She walked around the counter and lead us over to an area somewhat near the furniture. There were four bows on a display shelf, each made of different kinds of wood.

"These are the bows I have in stock right now, I have a few more in the back but these are the ones that came out the best." She picked up one made of a cherry red colored wood that had arms that curved outward. "This one in particular I'm very proud of, are you looking for a long bow or a short bow?" she asked Torien. It seems like a lot of her hesitation had vanished and she instead seemed really excited to show things off.

"A short bow. That one looks perfect actually, may I see it?"

The mousekin woman smiled, "Of course! Here." She handed over the bow before ducking under the counter and coming back with a spooled cord. "We have a practice range in the back if you'd like to try it out."

Torien smiled back at her. "That sounds great." The mousekin led us out back where we could now hear hammering ringing from around a corner. Behind the blacksmith shop there was a small range with two round targets about 20 yards away.

Torien strung the recurve bow and fiddled with her arrows a bit before pulling an arrow back and loosing it down the range. She shot four arrows and by the fourth one, hit dead center on the target. She shot a few more, each hitting the center ring of the target with ease.

She paused before looking back at us with a big smile, "I love it."