We were a mean purchasing machine. There wasn’t much room in town for a bazaar, so most of the various shops were much more permanent establishments, if somewhat specialized. Cassie was a lot better at finding her way around town than either Shiana or I were, and unlike the outpost, shopkeepers didn’t immediately try to kick me out when they saw me enter with the girls, although they did keep a close eye on me.

“The Blacksmith had a shrine to Brogan in it,” Cassie told me as we were about to enter an outfitter. The place was clearly intended for adventurers as well as general goods, and since we weren’t being picky about money right now, I was willing to put up with slightly inflated prices. It was now evening and most places were starting to close, but we had gotten supplies for several crafts including leatherworking, armor and weapon repairs, sewing, and even a bunch of cooking supplies and seasonings I had wanted. We would have been scraping the bottom of the cash barrel, but some of the enchanting materials Shiana had obtained from band-looting sold for a decent price, as none of us had the slightest idea what to do with traditional alchemical stuff that [observe] couldn’t identify.

I nodded at Cassie and she beamed, “I was able to activate my new class since it takes a blessing. I actually have a mystical mount now! I cannot wait for you to see it, it’s not a horse at all.”

“What is it?” I asked her curiously.

“A racing slug!” she replied excitedly.

“Wait, what, seriously? A giant speed slug?”

Cassie giggled, “No. not seriously. You are going to have to wait to see what it is.”

I sighed deeply and then smiled at her. “You know, you had me going. Do you need any gear for whatever your mount is?” I said, wondering if we were going to have to head to the tack shop early in the morning. We were already planning on hitting the air market, where the majority of food every day was brought into the town and sold. It looked like wagoneers brought food to the city limits and sold it to a set of vendors and innkeepers every morning. This particular outfitters kept some longer-term perishables like beet sugar, honey, grains and oats, and salt on hand as well, and was used both by adventurers and by locals as more of a general store.

She shook her head, “No, It is a summon. It comes with all the stuff for riding and doesn’t need to be taken care of. Which is good, because an animal handler I am not.”

I nodded as we began perusing the wares. This place was big, and the shopkeeper, a human by the name of Brinn, noticed that we were looking at a big variety of things including bags of grain, he sent a teenage boy named Killiam with a little slate and chalk to help us.

I asked the teenager, “Killiam, are you familiar with dimensional storage?”

At his surprised nod, talking kobold, right, I smiled, “Good, we are going to go through and add stuff to our storage, you write it down, and then we can pay for it when we get back to the front, rather than marking what we choose and then grabbing a wagon.”

Killiam looked back at Brinn, and Brinn nodded and called out, “That will be fine. I have sold to adventurers before. Just make sure he writes it down BEFORE you put it into storage. I keep track of my inventory, and if anything else is missing, I have a contract with Red’s guard.”

I nodded and we went through. Bags of grain, a couple of gardening tools, some seasonings, and I even found a light anvil and hammers! They all went into my inventory along with a large number of earthenware jars with cork lids. I had purchased a number of expensive glass flasks at the alchemy shop, to use for my alchemy experiments, but I’d had far more luck making edibles and salves, since apparently you needed a far greater knowledge of alchemy to attempt to concentrate the stuff, and a pot of salve was very useful in between fights. I did, however, finish off my alchemy kit with both small bronze and iron cauldrons. Some of the herb mixtures I made were fine in my cookpot or kettle, but if I wanted to try my hand at more dangerous concoctions, I wanted to keep them far away from food.

Speaking of which, I had also obtained some loose wool and muslin for bandages from a fabric shop, that I intended to boil, dry, and then roll up. There were bandages on sale here, but they were just rolls of fabric in a box without even an attempt at keeping them sterile. Cattail fronds would work just fine as absorbent materials wrapped in a muslin pad.

Buckles, a bunch of twine, the list was quite long. I let Cassie do the bartering after we were done, and kept having to pull stuff out of my inventory to make a show of putting it back while she worked her magic. We were not completely tapped out monetarily, but by the time our shopping trip was done I was utterly broke again, and even Cassie was running a little shy.

We headed back to the guild and purchased a room overnight and a delicious dinner, if you considered delicious to be the same friggin stew everyone else seemed to serve. If I could have found space to cook, I would have made something instead, especially since I wanted to try some of the monster meats we had collected with my new cookware. The room had two beds, and I was more than happy to roll up on the floor in my bedroll. For some reason, the padded mattresses were not particularly comfortable.

That evening, both the girls joined me in my evening stretches. It was sort of a mix of yoga and Tai Chi, but we were all much more powerful than we were before, and it took a lot of hard work to get my enhanced physical fitness skill working, especially since I was so lightweight that stuff like bodybuilders and push-ups required someone sitting on my back or pushing me down to be useful. It would have worked better outdoors where there was room, but Shiana had joined me the night they caught up with me, and mentioned two days later after hard exercise that both her stamina and dexterity had increased. After that, Cassie was doing pushups and Tai Chi stretches in her full armor every morning and evening.

The next morning, Raphael was still in our party, much to my appreciation, and when we came downstairs he was waiting for us in the main area, looking a little bit frazzled, but eating a bowl of morning stew. It was different from the evening stew, being a sort of porridge with bacon chips mixed in, and beside it what looked like a large chunk of bread with some kind of white butter or fat smeared on it.

We sat down at his table and I grinned, “Enjoying your morning feast?” I asked him.

He shrugged, “It’s kind of boring, but it’s still better tasting than handipaks. A tofurkey omelet might be nutritionally balanced, but it still tastes like grainy paste unless you add enough jalapeno sauce to cover the taste, and then it all tastes like jalapenos.”

I nodded and slipped over to the bar to toss a couple of coppers to the morning girl, who was a surprisingly bright and chipper brunette half-elf, and waited while she brought over our morning feasts.

Cassie started to dig in and then made a face. “Now I see why you said we don’t need this place. The bed was nice, and it was good not to have to keep watch, but now I am sort of wishing we had gotten up earlier and headed out to a campsite. You have totally spoiled me for food.”

I shrugged and started slightly loosening one of my straps that had gotten a little tight on my armored vest. I may be a kobold, but for a kobold, I was improving my body. All hints of the fat I had first appeared with in the world were gone, and I was working my physical fitness skill as much as possible. To be honest, in this body exercising was a lot more fun than it used to be, and according to Shiana their physical stats improving felt rather good as well.

“Well, we still need to hit the bakery and then the farmer’s market. One thing you definitely cannot make over a campfire is fresh bread, and my temporal storage should be able to keep a lot of loaves fairly fresh. We can probably afford to be picky.”

“Temporal storage?” asked Raphael.

I nodded, “That’s what I call the section of my storage that keeps things from going bad. We can put fresh loaves or cooked meals in there too, which I have a sneaking suspicion Cassie is angling for right now since she knows I still have some chili in there from dinner two nights ago. I haven’t been able to find corn or tomatoes yet, so I had to use flatbread, but you would be amazed at how tasty chili can be even if you have to substitute ingredients.”

He nodded slowly, and said, “I have seen corn and salsa in the AH here, why didn’t you just grab some from there?”

“The AH?” I asked him curiously, “What’s that?”

“Umm, the banks have an auction house set up. It’s not perfect, but they can communicate orders long-distance and then have stuff shipped to you. It costs a lot, but there are merchants always heading between the cities, and escorting deliveries is a pretty decent quest if you are traveling. I escorted a merchant From Kenlath, my starter zone, to here. The banks have a really powerful communications system set up, that’s why you can have bank chits that work almost everywhere in Rhydia, but supposedly you can order goods in one place, wait a week or so, and then it will get delivered. It might take longer and be more expensive if you are ordering perishables, though, because a merchant or adventurer with a stasis bag will have to carry it, like yours, but assuming the caravans don’t get hit by an event or bandits, it’s a pretty good system.”

He chuckled, “The Wyvern was the second quest I missed out on, that’s why I was so strapped. The first one was recovering a bank train from a group of bandits, but when I got there a group of local adventurers had already mopped up. They didn’t offer to share the quest.”

I nodded, “That sounds like a really good idea if we stay in one place long enough to get it, but it might be easier in the long run just to travel to where the goods are sold since I have a stasis bag of my own. At least a lot cheaper.”

He grinned, “Wait till you get higher levels. Then the cost is almost a joke compared to how much you can make clearing out a dungeon in the same time.”

Cassie finally went back to eating her porridge. I was already done, only having finished off half the bowl. While technically an omnivore, Kobolds survived a lot better on meat than grains, and I still was a small creature eating a medium creature serving. “I think Cassie is just addicted to my buffs,” I remarked.

“You have buffs?” he asked, “Your class is set as a monster adventurer. I have never partied with one before.”

I shrugged, “Kobolds get a skill called scrounge, it lets us see the potential uses of a bunch of different junk we collect. We don’t get normal spell points, but we can inject a little energy into the improvised things we craft to make them special. Well-cooked meals by people with high cooking skills can give you some fantastic buffs, but since I know what I am doing, I can make foods with lower levels of buffs pretty easily.”

Cassie nodded, “Yeah, and his food is amazing. He could get stupid rich if he just took a job as a professional chef, but he has this gigantic quest he’s doing that no one knows about, but following along gets us lots of experience and loot and we get to do good things for people, and as one of Brogan’s paladins, I am exactly where I need to be.”

I shrugged, “I am pretty good at making old recipes with the food here. It’s not that tough, but the cooking is kind of primitive. They tend to make a few foods and then just use magic to change their flavor.”

Raphael Nodded, “I know, right? I would love to have some of my Abuelita's recipes here, and the food is better than basic, but I picked weapon crafting and cannot unlock another craft skill till level 20. I didn’t want to get stuck in a crafting class, I wanted adventure, so it will be a long time till I can get cooking.” He slid his bowl to the side as we prepared to leave. “Can you train people in your crafting?”

I shrugged helplessly, “I have no idea. I know that it’s tied to kobold racial abilities with scavenging, so you might not be able to unless you can find a way to turn into a kobold. I don’t recommend it since it sort of wreaks havoc on your love life if that’s what interests you, but… while we travel, I guess I could try?”

he grinned and reached over to pat me on the shoulder. “You are a good man. Err...kobold. Whatever your secret quest is, if it helps us to grow, and maybe comes with hidden achievements, I will happily match my path to yours.”

I nodded, “That’s what I had in mind. I do have one definite request of you, though, sort of outside of the normal party thing, as a person.”

He looked pleased, “Of course, I am indebted to you. Name it, and I will see if I can assist!”

“Is there any chance You could get me some of your Abuelita’s recipes? I love South American food.”

He grinned, “Consider it done. And if you can make them here, I will be even more indebted to you.”

I was thinking of delicious south American food for nearly the next hour, while we picked up a load of fresh, semi-edible bread, fresh vegetables, milk, eggs, both cottage and solid cheese, buttermilk, yogurt, and one of the vendors even had a couple of jugs of apple cider vinegar! It was cider gone bad, and he was initially trying to pass them off as local potion, but I could use it.

I bought both jugs and gave him a silver each, which was more than he was asking. Vinegar had a huge number of medicinal effects, and apple cider vinegar should be much nicer than basically the spoiled white wine I was carting around. I still intended to try and make my own vinegar, especially white vinegar, but it opened up a whole lot of recipes. Spoiled fermentation worked on some level, but to make really tasty food vinegar required designing the fermentation from the beginning.

I was almost terrified to see what my soul space looked like loaded with all of this stuff. Right now it was just stacked in piles in my park, and the temporal knot was a designated area near the creek, but I might have to find some way to organize it. I could pull anything out of there just by thinking about what I wanted, and I didn’t want to ruin the park that Mnemosyne seemed to enjoy so much, but maybe I could make some shelves or something.

I must have been thinking hard about it because I got a message.

Don’t worry, I have it taken care of. Oh, and I was also able to find an evolution that I think you might want to take since it won’t unlock without having added essence, and it’s very important. It is a big evolution, though, and requires twice as much essence, so we will need to wait until you have gained it to unlock it.

I sent her a flash of gratitude as we started to head towards the league’s exit. “Should we pick up quests along the way?” Raphael asked.

Shiana answered, “No, nobody travels between here and the heart of the Winnowrill. It’s higher level, and relations between Rhydia and the Winnowrill are…. Strained. The only thing I could find involved bounties for the Winnowrills, which is who we are going to see. If people want to cross, they don’t go through the jungle, they take a boat to Rabbit Run.”

Raphael looked thoughtful for a moment, “Rabbit Run? Oh wait… I saw that on the race screen, it was one of the starting locations for changechildren. Wait, are the Winnowrills troglodytes?” he asked curiously.

Shiana nodded, “Yes, but they don’t like to be called that. It’s considered an insulting term, like calling you a half-beast. They prefer to be called Winnowrill or Winnowrill elves or jungle elves. We are going to call them whatever they like, as we are hoping to gain reputation from them for doing quests, and we might need to enlist their aid.”

We exited the city. The guard who had been there before, Clay, nodded to us as we left. Two hundred yards out from the town, there was a crossroads. To the east was a small offshoot of the town onto Lake Solan, where several boats were moored, an area enclosed by its own log palisade, but it looked somewhat more disposable without the stone fittings of the rest of the town.

We crossed the bridge and went past the warf, where the road ended. There was a dirt path along the lake, but within less than an hour the terrain went from heavily forested to jungle marshland, and the trail ended at one of the many stream deltas choked with willow, birch, and cypress trees, as well as heavily spreading giants that my [observe] identified as Chukkas

After a quick discussion, the four of us separated slightly. Shiana and Raphael both seemed to be comfortable taking the tree route, running from branch to branch with ease, mostly along the Chukka trees whose thick branches often dipped right down to the ground. My lightness and broad feet allowed me to comfortably run along most of the ground cover and mud without incident, and Cassie finally revealed her mount with pride, a small brown bear that seemed to have no problems handling the marsh.

We were not worried about traps or bandits, not this far off the beaten path, but we were keeping our eyes open for wildlife, and our vigilance was rewarded after about four hours of travel when a quick hiss from Shiana brought us all to a stop. The pause lasted for just a moment before Raphael dropped silently out of a tree, dodging sideways as the low-hung branch he had been on was suddenly consumed by a torrent of fire.

A loud splashing and squelching noise ahead of us heralded the arrival of another Marsh visitor, which brushed aside the low-slung flaming boughs in pursuit of the Jaguar-man. At first, I thought that it was a nest of snakes, a huge nest of snakes when I realized that broad, fangless, hooded heads were all connected into a huge serpentine body. The individual heads were at least a foot across, and the snake body where the six heads met was probably half of Raphael’s height, the heads rising twining up 15 feet in the air on their slightly more slender necks.

Hexapyrohydra (Dangerous)

This is a six-headed fire-spitting hydra. It is capable of spitting flaming breath once from each head via chemical reactions before it needs time to regrow its ignition system and recharge its chemical pouches. You can attack the body or the heads. It regenerates quickly outside of combat, and cannot be killed without destroying its main body or killing all six of its head. If even one head is left, it can regrow them at a rate of one per day.

The heads tried to follow Raphael as he dived to his right, and one of them struck at him as he ran at a low-hanging chukka branch. I was moving towards the side of the body that was starting to turn away from us and was building up a loop of essence through my arms to [channel] and [push] it through my staff.

I thought he might be done for, but he pulled both of his blades. His khopesh were reforged and he held them above his head as he rolled under the branch, which interfered with the head’s cobra-like strike.

I was not heavy, and a living creature like this would not take much damage from [pushing] aspects into it, but I was nearly as strong as a normal starting human now with the essence connected to all of my meridians and channeling chi through strikes or my staff magnified the strike power significantly at a small cost in mana.

With a small flash of light that I could only detect with my [observe] active, I leaped and allowed my fingers to slide along the staff until I could leverage an overhead bo strike off of my shoulder and torque it into the base of one of the necks, the heads facing away from me. I was rewarded as the flesh collapsed, and I could feel a crunching noise along the wood as vertebrae, more than one, collapsed under the chi-enhanced blow. The neck started folding, and two of the heads turned to face me.

One of the heads, as it turned, was suddenly knocked downwards by a fletching that seemed to sprout from the top of its head, and smacked firmly into the earth beneath it. Shiana had just used ‘power shot’ and, like I did, decided that despite more targets, the heads were less well-armored than the body, and were a better likelihood of killing it quickly.

Cassie had a different idea, and her bear slammed heavily into the side of the hydra’s body, with enough force to push a coil of its body about five feet across the marshy ground. She was howling a taunt, and her bear wrapped its arms around the body of the snake as she rolled off and smacked her hammer against her shield.

I was a little distracted, as one of the heads struck me. I guess the heads were not going to blow napalm over its own body, and it was not a constrictor. The head was reasonably fast, like a cobra strike, but I slipped into my zone for just a moment to see where it would strike, and then sidestepped, dropping my hands and stick to the ground under me as I charged another chi strike into my tail and spun on my hands, dropping my tail on top of its head as it struck downwards only inches away from me.

The blow drove the head into the ground, and even my small weight was enough to crack the top of its head. I noticed that Raphael was in the air, leaping with both swords drawn at the remaining two heads in an impossible bound as they turned to face Cassie, and then something incredibly odd occurred.

In defiance of all the laws of physics, he seemed to stop in midair and then started spinning, with both blades extended outwards while he drifted towards the necks. The move was not particularly powerful and looked flashy as heck, like something from a Street Warrior video game, but he barely clipped the two necks and the dance move lasted long enough to get him killed if Cassie’s taunt were not distracting the heads.

Another arrow blossomed from one of the heads, just in front of its eyes, forcing it towards the ground and closing the mouth while the last head struck at Cassie, slamming her shield as it tried to bite at the wood. The descending head was not dead despite its new feathered headdress, but a rising strike with my chi-charged staff that dropped my mana to 82% knocked it back upwards, breaking its neck and ending the head. Cassie managed to strike the last head lightly with her hammer, but it recoiled at the last second so she barely clipped it.

I almost stopped fighting as I watched Raphael dash towards the main body of the Hydra, a weird set of outlines following behind him as he struck at the snakelike main body. He gouged a couple of nice chunks out of it, striking with both blades at the same time, but again I was confused. Flashy, but he wasted half of the force he could have delivered on two strikes against an undefended, armored target, and his balance was way off. If he had done a single strike with the hooked tip of the Khopesh with a follow-up slash, his sword could have dug halfway into the damned thing and crippled it or lopped the last head completely off.

I rolled backward, out of the way of the thrashing, and sprinted over to assist Cassie. It was not necessary, though, as she managed to get a heavy hit on the head right as it struck again. Her blows were not fast, but she timed it perfectly, caving in the side of its head and bringing the monster to a final halt. Its tail was still lashing but it was clearly dead.

Raphael Glowed for a brief moment to my [observe] and then started laughing as I could tell he had just leveled up.