While Darren and Aispin began meandering their way through the village, Essairyn was already nearing the shop. Its red roof was visible between the gaps of surrounding buildings. That bright cherry color was the defining factor of the store according to Aispin. So she knew that she had found the right place.

As Essairyn picked up her pace, her eyes connected with another shock of red. A tall, lithe man was leisurely departing the store. For a split second, Essairyn thought they made eye contact. But the man casually turned his head with the rest of his body and continued on his way as one would do to a seemingly invisible stranger. Although brief and uncertain, the exchange made Essairyn halt in her steps. That man was the same one Darren had bumped into when they were walking together in Byar'non.

The girl's pause prompted Akari by her heels to look up at her in puzzlement. Following Essairyn's line of sight, the little fox jumped up a nearby barrel to discern the cause of her sudden stop. Spotting scarlet locks flowing gracefully behind a well-dressed man, Akari snickered softly.

"What? You saw a good looking guy?"

Partially closing her eyes in disgruntled disbelief, Essairyn turned toward the little rascal. A small, defiant huff escaped her frowning lips. "And what's with you and pointing out good looking guys all the time? Is that why you sat so cozily on Aispin's lap for the whole ride?"

A sly grin curled the corners of the fox's mouth. "What? Did you want to sit on his lap instead?"

"Wuh- You—!" Lavender eyes popped open at the ribald remark. Ignoring her urge to squish that smile off those mischievous cheeks, Essairyn whipped her gaze away and tromped a few steps of the way toward the store.

Although curious about the redhead's unexpected appearance in Farinheld, Essairyn pushed aside fluttering inklings of the man to the back of her mind. It was a small town, so she would eventually figure out his identity.

Once inside, all thoughts vanished at the sight of the shop interior. The somewhat dimly-lit, large space was orderly crammed to the brim in an assortment of bright wares. From daily necessities of townspeople to essentials for passing adventurers, the store covered all the bases of potential visitors. It was a true one-stop convenience shop with all the quaint, rustic allure of the old countryside. Most would hardly be impressed by such a store, but to Essairyn, it was affirmation of living in a bygone fantasy.

Her body swayed eagerly toward the ceiling-high, open-back shelves on the right which seemed to be the side for adventurers. One shelf in the middle was dedicated for potions of various colors and likely differing purposes. She carefully picked up a bottle to inspect the rich, blue-green liquid swirling inside the delicate glass. The celadon glimmered enticingly, casting soft flecks of light onto nearby surfaces. With the bottle still in hand, she bent down to a lower shelf to look at the other colors more closely. The clink and chime of glasses as she repositioned bottles sent small thrills flushing over her countenance. Her lips parted in awe at the magical charm of these multi-colored potions.

But composing herself, she fixed her eyes resolutely on the shelf for item labels. Seeing none, she confusedly inspected the bottle once more for labels. However, she only reconfirmed that it was indeed devoid of any designation on the glass or cork. Slightly troubled, she pondered for a moment before resigning herself to ask a clerk which was a mid-potion.

Straightening up from her crouch, Essairyn returned the celadon potion back to its proper place. As her fingers left the glass bottle and her vision refocused beyond the foreground of potions, her lavender eyes glimpsed green ones.

"You—" Her lips uttered a word before her momentarily blank mind could stop her from suddenly speaking. At the inquiring sound, the man on the other side turned his head and peered through the wall of magic potions. She could no longer see those virescent irises. Was I just imagining it?

Quickly rebounding from her blunder, Essairyn waved her hands at the hooded man. "Ah, sorry!" She withdrew her flustered gaze and diverted her attention back to the potions, waiting for the stranger to walk away.

But he merely smiled a soft expression. "You," he began with subtle bow, "we meet again."

Essairyn's gaze spun back to the man shrouded in a dark gray cloak. Her eyes scoped the visible parts of his face, searching for familiarity at his apparent recognition of her. The sharp jaw, lips curled in a soft smile... She flicked her eyes away in self-consciousness. It was the hooded man from Reisparte market who had helped her with the swindling Ayvirdizite merchant. Although she had few physical features to base her conclusion, Essairyn was sure that it was the same man. They hadn't talked much, but that indescribable timbre of his voice was already unknowingly memorized in her heart.

"You're the man from Reisparte market." Her statement bordered on a question.

"Yes, that's me, princess." His light chuckle sounded almost like a purr. Essairyn's eyebrow involuntarily twitched at the throaty yet velvety voice. She subtly shook her head in order to break off the strange attraction to the sound. It seemed when one lacked visual features, the mind automatically focused on other sensory details.

"Which one is a mid-potion?" She hurriedly cut straight to the point, wanting to end this itching bashfulness sprouting from her chest.

He nimbly picked up an emerald potion by the collar of the bottle. "A mid-potion is technically any potion with middle-level potency, but the term usually refers to health potions in native jargon. Here," he handed her the potion, "it's the ones with the double band on the cork."

Essairyn's eyes lingered on a silver ring on his forefinger. The ring band was etched with elegant, intricate, ice blue designs that coiled around a sapphire-violet hued gem slightly larger than the ring width. She hadn't spotted the ring on his right hand before because she had only seen his left palm during their Reisparte encounter. Otherwise, she would've surely noticed and remembered it.

Moving her gaze from the ring, she took the bottle by the heel. "Thank you," Essairyn replied in a cursory but grateful tone. As she picked up similar sized bottles of the same color. she noted that each cork was marked by a number of bands from one to three. Earlier, she hadn't realized the significance of the thin stripes around the top of each cork.

The man watched her silently take every double-banded, green potion off the shelves. He observed her purposeful avoidance of any eye contact in the realm of his hood; even though, she couldn't actually see his eyes. With an amused, internal sigh, he plucked one mid-potion off the shelf and headed to the register on the right side of the store. Another register on the opposite side allowed for quicker check-out as well as better store surveillance.

His actions did not go unnoticed by Essairyn who had taken all available mid-potions on the shelves. She only managed to collect a little over a dozen before running short of the one hundred and twenty needed. Although one additional potion wouldn't make much difference in her quota, it would significantly add to her current number. So, she followed the hooded man to the register in order to retrieve the last one. At the very least, she was quite positive that he didn't actually need it. But something told her that he had another idea in mind while taking it when she very clearly needed as many as she could get.

As she walked up to the check-out counter, Essairyn felt awkward at the sudden realization that she had stuffed all the potions in her magic cache for lack of external carrying capability. It feels like I'm stealing, but I didn't see any shopping baskets in here... Do people not usually buy this much? Ten dozen seemed like a lot to me, too... Brushing aside her concerns, Essairyn figured the coordinator of the mission had reason for the high number. It wasn't actually Aispin who set the potion quota. He merely received it from Bodraig.

Coughing faintly, Essairyn prepared to explain her situation when the hooded man turned his body toward her and informed, "They're getting a box of mid-potions from storage. How many do you need?"

"Ah," she murmured with her mouth slightly open, caught off-guard. "T-ten dozen?" It sounded almost ridiculous to say it out loud when the shelves carried no more than twenty of each size and type potion.

But the hooded man merely nodded as if it was normal and looked back behind the counter where the clerk left. Unbeknownst to him, this gesture and movement revealed a snippet of raven black hair fluttering against the side of his right cheek. Essairyn spied the stray strands before they drifted languidly back in the shadows of his hood. Keen curiosity flickered within her at the combination of the few identifying features about this man. In her ardent imaginations, crossing paths once again with a mysterious figure entailed a greater story. Their second, unexpected meeting was for a reason. She needed to know his name.

"What's your—" "Okay, sir! Here're more mid-potions; how many did you need?"

Essairyn subconsciously flashed a sharp glare at the clerk who had just returned. Her disappointed expression faded before either men could glimpse it.

"A hundred and twenty." The hooded man nonchalantly replied.

"A hundred and twenty!!" The clerk gasped, almost losing his grip on the box just before he placed it on the counter. "These potions don't come cheap, sir! Why do you need so many anyway?"

The cloaked man gestured toward Essairyn to the right behind him. Stepping forward, she gave a succinct explanation. She, along with others, were on a mission assigned by the Knight's Order. Immediately, the clerk accepted the abridged clarification. He was a chatty young boy of no more than nineteen years, but even he knew to stop questioning when it came to Knight missions. Additionally, strange occurrences had cropped up in their town. So he was relieved that help had finally arrived. However, the seemingly large entourage of knights, based on the amount of potion she was buying, unsettled him. It suggested that their town problem was greater than expected. No one, besides the Knights knew of the first mission's failure in Farinheld.

The clerk processed the transaction, not minding that Essairyn had temporarily stored some mid-potions in her magic cache. To the common people, a Knight's integrity was worth their trust. Unfortunately, their store didn't carry more than forty mid-potions in stock. As a small town business, they didn't have the means of storage or selling capacity to warrant such a high number. Adventurers didn't usually buy more than one because regular, one-banded health potions already cost a synde while mid-potions were four times greater at a quarthe eleuar. This was a small fortune to common people who could live off that amount for a couple weeks.

Essairyn would soon see the socioeconomic disparity between that of villages, towns, and cities. Her tins of gourmet candies would be small luxuries to the Farinheld townspeople. And merchant families like the Andelrins were considered financially privileged despite their nomadic life. Such was the difference between farming, working class people and businesspeople. Adventurers and low-class knights fell in-between. Mages and upper echelon knights were on a whole other level far above the general populace.

After storing the mid-potions in her magic cache, Essairyn left the store with the hooded man. Just as she was about to head in the direction of the inn, she suddenly remembered that she never got a chance to ask who he was after the clerk's interruption. She turned to her side only to see that he was no longer next to her. She spun all around and searched the sparse crowds in front of the store, but he was already gone. An odd sense of loss permeated Essairyn. The enigma remained a mystery. A dull murmur crept from her lips.

"I don't know your name..."