Myst and the Magic Shop Part 7

Myst's grand plan of stepping through a door to Waterdeep and wandering around asking people until he found a magical items shop hit a bit of a snag when he stepped through the portal and heard the sounds of the city and realized that he didn't recognize a single word anyone was saying. "This might be a problem."

"I don't recognize any of the languages they're using," Kara admitted.

"What were you expecting, English?" Lewis asked as he looked around the old fashioned looking town that resembled some of the older parts of Europe.

"It would have been nice," Myst replied as he scanned the surrounding area with his X-ray vision, looking for churches or something that might pass for a wizard's tower.

Kara glanced at Diana. "Do you recognize anything?"

Diana listened to the conversation of some of the people walking past the alley the portal had connected to for a few seconds then shook her head. "No."

"I don't either," Clark admitted, a bit surprised considering his rather extensive study of languages.

Myst grinned when he spotted a sign with an image of a stack of books carved on it several streets over. He focused and looked into the shop, glancing over the old tomes of various sizes and shapes then looking at the thirty or forty something man behind the counter that was wearing robes and expensive looking jewelry. "I might have found a bookshop and a magic user."

"How does that help if we can't understand them?" Lena asked.

"Most magic users should be able to cast a spell to translate languages, if we're lucky, they'll be able to cast a spell to speak and understand languages," Myst replied as he pulled his attention away from the bookshop and focused on Kara and Diana. "Can I talk you into making sure no one enters the portal?"

"Let me guess, people aren't going to ignore it?" Diana asked, thinking about the portals to the game worlds.

"I doubt we're going to be that lucky," Myst admitted.

Diana glanced between Clark, Connor and Kara. "Kara can keep me company."

"Sure," Kara agreed, figuring she'd get a chance to explore once they found a better location for the portal and solved their language problem.

"Lead the way," Clark said, resisting the urge to fly up and look at the city he'd spent a fair amount of time exploring over the years with his D&D group.

Myst smiled as he headed down the cobblestone street at a brisk walk, wanting to take in the sights but not wanting to waste time getting to the shop that might be able to help them with the language barrier. He glanced between the shop signs, trying to guess what each of them was to keep from thinking about the extremely powerful archmage that might object to someone walking around his city from another world. 'At least he's halfway reasonable.'

"We should pick up some metamaterials," Lewis said excitedly as they started walking down the street.

"We'd need something to trade," Lena mused then glanced at Myst. "How much gold do you have?"

Myst shifted the strap of his satchel that was digging into his shoulder in an annoying, if painless way. "Assuming the D&D manuals are in the right ballpark, I should have enough to buy some decent magical items. I have a bunch of potions and magical gear they've probably never seen and I can make rings that let you absorb fire, lightning or cold damage and heal from it, that should be worth a king's ransom."

"Until they figured out how to copy them," Lewis mused.

Connor frowned when he noticed a group of four strangely dressed travelers walking towards them. "Heroes?"

Myst glanced at the group, fairly sure the handsome teenager wearing leather clothes was some type of rogue or melee fighter given the sword on her hip, while the man that stood almost four inches taller than him and was built like a bodybuilder was probably a fighter given his chain shirt and the massive axe on his back. The girl wearing red silks with some type of medallion might be a priest and the young woman in form fitting leather pants and a blue silk shirt with silvery bracers holding a staff was probably a magic user. "They look more like adventurers."

"We're the Flame Dancers," a tall woman wearing a blue silk shirt offered as she glanced between the attractive strangers that were dressed strangely.

"You can understand us?" Lewis asked in surprise.

The woman glanced at her companions that were looking at them blankly then looked back at Lewis. "My earring lets me understand and speak any language."

"Useful," Lena said, thinking of the hassle that could save her when she was dealing with some of her company's business meetings.

"Do you know where I could acquire a copy or something like it?" Myst asked, hoping she could save them some time.

The woman glanced at Myst's rings and bracelets, unfamiliar with the magic radiating from the metal and figuring her grandfather would be interested in making some trades and selling some of his stock. "Twenty gold and I'll show you the way and give you an introduction. It's not far but it is out of the way and the enchanter is a grumpy bastard."

"How do we know you actually know them?" Lena asked.

The young woman shrugged. "How do I know you've got enough gold to make it worth his time?"

"Half now?" Myst asked as he reached into his satchel and pulled out a handful of gold.

"Half on delivery," the woman agreed with a smile, glad that someone knew how the game was played, except she probably should have haggled a bit, but she wasn't going to complain and she had enough magic that twenty gold probably wasn't enough to start a fight over, especially not in the middle of Waterdeep.

Myst handed over the handful of coins. "Lead the way."

The woman glanced the coins over then stuck them in her coin purse she kept her walking around money in then turned to look at her group. "Slight detour. We'll swing by the shop first."

"Twenty gold for an introduction, easy work," the sole male of the group agreed, hoping Sapphire's slight detour didn't turn into a mess.

"First time in Waterdeep?" Sapphire asked as she switched directions and started walking back the way they'd come.

"Yeah, I've heard stories of the city, but this is the first time I've ever had the chance to explore," Myst said as he continued glancing between the people dressed in clothes you might find at a ren faire and the signs on the various shops as they walked down the street.

Connor frowned as they walked past a group of grubby looking children that smelled like they might not know what bathing was. "Shouldn't the kids be in school?"

"Some of the temples have lectures, but most of the children pick up a trade from their parents or work on the docks as laborers," Sapphire explained. "Some of them also get picked up by thieves guilds."

The girl in leathers scowled at the kids when they looked like one of them was going to get too close, causing the kid to turn and hurry off.

"Was that really necessary?" Clark asked.

"They're pickpockets, they should know better than to try to steal from adventurers, it's a good way to lose a hand," Sapphire explained.

"Lovely," Lewis muttered, making a mental note to avoid causing trouble while he was here.

"Shouldn't some of the temples help?" Lena asked.

"There are a lot of children, the temples can only do so much," Sapphire replied as she walked up to a shop with a cauldron on the faded wooden sign. "Don't make any loud noises, he's a bit jumpy."

Myst glanced through the door with his X-ray vision and saw a wooden counter that stretched across two thirds of the room, alchemy ingredients that lined the wooden shelves on the back wall and a man wearing expensive looking black robes that looked in his late thirties or early forties sitting in front of a fire reading a large tome. "No problem."

Sapphire opened the door, causing the bell over the door to ring. "Hey gramps!" she said cheerfully as she walked in with the group of strangers.

"Sapphire," the man replied with a broad smile. "What brings you by?"

"I ran into some travelers that don't know Common, they mentioned needing a way to translate languages," Sapphire explained.

"How much did she charge you?" the man asked as walked over and set his tome on the counter.

"Twenty gold," Myst replied with amusement as he fished the rest of the gold out of his satchel. "Do you actually sell magic items?"

"Now and then," the man replied. "Do you want a hat or a pair of glasses for the translation effect?"

"What's the difference?" Myst asked as he gave Sapphire the coins.

"The glasses also let you see and read magic," the man replied as he studied Myst's collection of unfamiliar magical items. "I have a more expensive pair of glasses that will even outline traps, unfortunately, they'll give you a headache after about twenty minutes because the glass warped while I was enchanting them."

"How much are the glasses that cause headaches?" Myst asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

"Five thousand in gold or the equivalent in magical items," the man offered, giving him a discount because of the flaw.

"How much is this worth?" Myst asked as he pulled out one of the rings of lightning absorption he'd created and set it on the counter.

The man pulled a Monocle of Identification out of his pocket and looked at the ring for twenty seconds then stared at Myst in disbelief. "Where did you find this?"

"On another world," Myst replied with a grin. "Does that mean you're interested in making some trades?"

"Oh course," the man replied. "Unfortunately, I don't have enough in the shop to make it worth it," he admitted, fairly sure the young lady had some idea of the value considering the rest of her gear.

"I'm sure we can figure something out. Do you have access to a belt of gender swapping or a less cursed version?" Myst asked hopefully.

"I have a ring that will let you swap back and forth," the old man offered. "I created it a few years ago for a rogue, but she ran into some trouble with a group of paladins after she'd paid me, but before she could collect. If you're looking for defensive gear, I have some weak Bracers of Armor that you might like and a Ring of Deflection that I'd be willing to part with. What else do you want?"

Myst glanced at the tome on the table. "Copies of spellbooks or enchanting notes."

"It might take a couple of days to copy everything and I'm sure you could get a better deal at one of the guilds," the man admitted.

Sapphire sighed. "Gramps, stop trying to talk her out of it."

"I'm just being honest," the man replied with a shrug.

"I appreciate it," Myst replied as he pulled a couple of potions out of his satchel. "Now, what do you make of these?"

0o0o0

"Is there a reason we're in the sewer hunting giant rats?" Connor asked, fairly sure there was something more important that they could be doing than walking through a sewer hunting giant rats.

“Tradition,” Lewis offered absently.

"They were building up and none of the local adventurers that could handle the problem without getting eaten wanted to deal with it," Clark explained as they continued walking down the surprisingly clean stone walkway over the river of waste.

"We're going to have to burn our clothes," Lewis complained as he shifted his grip on his repeating crossbow that he was field testing, trying to keep track of all of the dark corners where rats or other creatures might be hiding.

Clark glanced at his son who had swapped to his torn up street clothes. "They were already half in the grave."

"It's a style choice," Lewis replied matter of factly then raised his crossbow and shot at the giant rat coming out of another passageway about sixty feet away, sinking the bolt in its neck.

"Liar, you just like tweaking your uncle," Clark replied.

"It's a family tradition," Lewis replied with a grin.

"Why?" Connor asked.

Lewis glanced at Connor. "I can't remember the last time I saw Uncle Lex without slacks or an overly expensive suit."

"Ten years," Clark replied without hesitation. "He used to wear jeans when he'd swing by the farm, mostly because Ma would occasionally put him to work."

"I can't see Uncle Lex doing farm work," Lewis admitted.

"It was mostly dealing with the horses," Clark replied as he scanned the channel filled with sludge with his X-ray vision. "That was before he took over the company and started making weapons and cleaning up some of your grandfather's messes."

"What was my grandfather like?" Connor asked.

"No clue," Lewis admitted. "He died before I was born."

"Complicated," Clark replied thoughtfully. "He was polite but distant in public. In private, he was controlling and prone to voicing his displeasure, mostly that Lex wasn't making enough profit off his business ventures."

"Were they failing?" Lewis asked, trying to picture Lex failing at a business venture and coming up blank.

"No, they were making a profit and helping the community, they just weren't set up to make Lex a fortune so he considered them a waste of time," Clark explained as they continued walking. "If he'd actually stopped and followed the money through the labyrinth of shell companies Lex had set up, he'd have realized that Lex was basically using his father's money to build his own private research company and paying Lena to sit on various boards for different barely profitable companies that were giving him tax breaks for helping people."

"If he'd given him another five years, he probably would have sold the companies and come out smelling like a rose," Lewis replied.

"From what Lex said at the time, I'm fairly sure his father was going to screw things up to teach Lex a lesson but he never had the chance, he died of a heart attack while we were in the mountains celebrating Lena and Kara graduating college." Clark stopped walking when he spotted a gold ring under the sludge.

"How sure are you that he died of a heart attack?" Lewis asked, thinking of some of Lex's comments about his father over the years.

"Reasonably sure, Lex handed the funeral arrangements and had him cremated but the coroner that signed off on everything was friends with my folks, he'd have mentioned finding something suspicious," Clark assured him, not mentioning the fact that he'd checked the records himself and found nothing out of the ordinary.

"You think Lex had something to do with it?" Connor asked.

Lewis shrugged. "Not really, but Lena said her father had a lot of enemies."

"Give me a second, I want to try something," Clark said as he focused on the arcane formula he needed to pull his party trick off and wiggled his fingers, causing the ring to slowly float out of the sludge.

Connor stared when he noticed the slight glow around Clark's fingers and the ring as it floated through the air. "Telekinesis?"

"Magic," Clark replied with a grin as he used his cleaning cantrip on the ring. "I picked the trick up from Jason Blood a couple of years ago."

"What else can you do?" Connor asked as the sludge slid off the ring, leaving it looking sparkling and new.

"I can light candles, change the color of small objects and mend small rips or cuts in fabric, I don't have a lot of magical talent but even a couple of small tricks come in handy," Clark replied as he stuck the ring in his bag and continued walking, knowing they still needed to clear out a couple of giant rat packs before they were done.

"Do you think I'll be able to pick up magic?" Connor asked thoughtfully.

"If you're interested, I can ask Jason to give you a couple of lessons or you can ask Myst, she mentioned something about having a telekinesis book," Clark reminded him.

"Worth a shot," Lewis replied as he shot another rat, putting the arrow through its eye as it came around a corner.

Connor lifted his cudgel when five more giant rats ran around the corner and charged.

Clark drew his short sword and followed Connor with a smile on his face, glad that he'd taken Lena's suggestion for bonding with the boys.

0o0o0

"How many charges does the Wand of Polymorph Shoes have?" Lena asked thoughtfully as she looked over the list of magic items the wizard was willing to trade, wondering if it was worth trying to duplicate.

"I wasn't expecting anyone to actually buy it, just toss it on the pile," the enchanter replied without looking up from the tome he was copying into another book.

"The razor that can't cut your skin looks nice," Lena said thoughtfully, thinking of Kara.

"I never could sell that one, mostly because the razor is dull as a butter knife," the enchanter admitted.

Sapphire shook her head. "You're not doing a good job selling your wares."

"I mostly do commision work, these are the rejects and things that didn't get picked up for one reason or another and I don't think she cares," he replied, fairly sure they were just going to use everything for research purposes.

"I don't. We have the ring of sex changing, a ring of sustenance, a cap of disguise, everlasting rations, a scroll of Bigby's Middle Finger, a mirror that reflects things on a delay of twenty seconds, an indestructible bottle with a lid that has been glued shut, a healing belt, the glasses, the worn carpet of flying that has seen better days and a bunch of spell books and notes for the ring?" Myst asked thoughtfully.

"How are you doing for alchemy components?" the man asked after a couple of seconds of thought.

Sapphire shook her head. "You're a horrible merchant, gramps."

"I have a lot of reagents of questionable value that are taking up space," the man replied with a grin.

Myst laughed, more than happy to take some resources off his hands that he could use to improve his alchemy. "Consider us even then."

"Excellent," the man replied as he headed to the backroom to grab some boxes.

Lena glanced at the research notes the enchanter had copied. "How much do you think this will help?"

"No idea," Myst admitted. "Some of these charts look like something a computer would be useful for."

"It shouldn't be that hard to figure out the equation," Lena mused, already coming up with ideas that would fit some of the data points.

"Equations?" the shopkeeper called out hopefully.

"Some of these look like they have a pattern," Lena tapped one of the recipes. "This looks like chemical distillation."

"We learned that from the dwarves, it's how they make beer," he replied.

"I know a couple of better ways to do that," Lena said thoughtfully. "I should probably grab a chemistry book from the lab."

Myst looked at Lena then shook his head. "I'm going to make sure Kara and Diana aren't standing in the middle of the portal, I'll ask Kara about grabbing a couple of science books while you talk shop."

"Sounds good," Lena agreed, looking forward to comparing notes with the wizard, mostly because she might be able to learn something she could use for her company's research but also because it gave her a chance to learn something new.

Sapphire walked over to look at the books. "What makes you think the reactions have a pattern?"

Lena pointed at the notes in the book. "Everything seems to improve the more mountain ash you use, at least until you hit the point of diminishing returns."

"Up until you start getting inconsistent results," Sapphire argued as Myst left.

Lena glanced at the samples on the wall. "Two low results out of fifteen makes me curious if the samples were tainted."

"I wouldn't be surprised," the shopkeeper replied as he walked out of the backroom with several small wooden boxes. "I get a fair amount of my reagents from adventurers for cheap because they killed something and hacked it apart."

"They're not always as careful as they should be and some of them like tossing spells at anything that moves, if they hit the tree with a lightning bolt or fireball it might have tainted the results," Sapphire suggested.

"Or there was something different about the soil," Lena mused as the man set the boxes on the table.

"I think I have records of where the samples came from," the old man said as he walked back into the back to grab one of his notebooks.

"Are you the magic user in your group?" Sapphire asked, curious about the odd group.

Lena shook her head. "Myst is the closest we have to a magic user, my son and I tinker with inventions and Clark and Connor are usually more straightforward in solving problems."

"Nothing wrong with having a couple of fighters around to hide behind, it's tradition," Sapphire replied with a grin before dropping her voice to a whisper, "Do you have any suggestions on better ways to organize notes? My grandfather's organization methods leave something to be desired."

"I heard that," the man complained with amusement.

"I have a couple of ideas," Lena said thoughtfully, thinking that they could make a fortune selling notepads and pens.