The Erstwhiles

Bargains

The outskirt town of Yarl, Once dense with ship makers and artisans now bustling with merchants, an intersection to the port city of Yamensis provides it good traffic for business. Its streets are lined with shops selling anything from pungent spice, rare linen, weaponry, and exotic pets. Its pavements, forever blessed with dust of the desert to its west though its people have learned to live through it for the sake of trade.

"I'll give you fifty lits for those rifles... no questions asked as to how you got em'! Stole em' likely, but I don't discriminate... that's the trick to business ain't it?, if you throw in a lil kiss from the lady I may throw in five more lits for ye'..." Said the shopkeep eyeing Lyra a small wink escapes his eye. He hulks about the other side of the counter barely fitting the small space, though it seems he's able to adeptly move in it not knocking anything off of his shelves nor the goods he had closer.

                       "We have three more... make that two hundred lits..." Kaja said as he abruptly spread the guns on the counter.

"These are imperial grade, almost new, the stones barely a nick in em' but it's always business for you Kaja, never knew a better talker than ya," The shopkeeper mused, stowing the guns away. He reached out to Kaja, his hand and arm swollen veins of sickly blue visible as a taint of grease sheens over them. Kaja over the money.

                        "The sage of Gumul... is he real?" Kaja asks as he counts the payment.

"Pshh! If he'd be real he'd be dead by now, I say keep out of that tower ye' hear ain't nothin good bout' it tell ya'... Not that you'll reach the top of it anyhow... They used to keep prisoners there ye' know... Hundred o' years ago they throw em people who'd be against the empire... a grim shithole ain'it?" The shopkeeper explains his grin wide and expectant.

                         "How do you get in?" Kaja asks

"Now why would I tell you that?" says the shopkeeper, his thumbs twiddling one another

 "Don't you want us to steal spoils for you?" Lyra interrupts them, the Shopkeep grins at the idea.

"See here that tower ain't really like a tower... it'd be more of a gigantic bucket if ye' ask me... The top of it is the only way ya' can get in and unless ye' have a ship strong enough to stay aflight' that high then mayhaps ye' can ask the tower to kneel for yer'!" The Shopkeeper laughed as his fat form shakes from it.

"Where can we get a ship?" Lyra asks by the doorway, her face pinched up as a hand covers her nose. Her posture as if ready to leave, disgusted by the humid and mildew stench of the shop.

"Girl, yer' two hundred lits ain't enough to get you a ship! but... There's a yard not far off from here last shipmaker round' they'd been making a craft for a Lagranian noble ya' see... Maybe ye' can steal that too!" The shopkeep says as he cackles and retreats to the back of his shop.

Atop the balcony is a pub of sorts tables lined up on the deck, seats taken and some waiting. The vantage there provides a view of the streets below. People walk and weave against each other as if they were the blood of the town. "Here, I got us something to eat... smoked ketter calf and deleen," Kaja went to lay them on the table and took a seat across from Lyra.

"These are safe to eat,right?" asks Lyra, eyeing the sizzling slabs of meat, a glaze of honey shimmers on its braised tenders and a bottled liquid clear of color, nothing out of Lyra's ordinary "what the fuck is a ketter?" she thought to herself. Kaja proceeds to put some on his plate and eat and Lyra follows suit. She pulled the ring on the bottle and the drink began to fizzle, she took a sip, the taste of citrus spikes her tongue and mellowed by its sweetness slowly her mouth turned cold. She turns to check the bottle, its rim begins to emit cool air, the bottle itself has become ice cold. "It wasn't cold earlier, is it supposed to do that?" Lyra waves the drink in front of Kaja.