“So do you just own me now? What exactly did you end up signing at the guild offices?” Anastacia asked as she and Emilia wandered towards the magical equipment store she had once bought her staff from some time ago.

The priestess shrugged. “I’m not entirely sure. I think I’m supposed to make sure you’ve got a roof over your head, clothes to wear and enough food, but also every contract you sign automatically involves me as well, but not the other way around. I also agreed to give you some basic education that you more or less already have – reading, writing and such, public decency is the part I’m a bit worried about. I’ve also got ‘a moral and legal obligation’ to make sure you learn and act according to the values enforced by the guild, which I’ve already given up on. There were also a bunch of weird little details and they gave me a guidebook I need to read up on.” She listed the more pressing details of their new, strangely one-sided agreement.

“Do I get anything from any of this? I’m still very confused why I didn’t get to have any say in any of this…” The necromancer wondered and glanced inside a cloak shop she had been eying for a few weeks. She would have gotten a new one but was far too attached to her current garb to just outright cheat on it like that.

“Getting to have me in your life isn’t enough?” Giggled Emilia. “I suppose you do get everything I own if I die.” When she turned to see what Anastacia thought about it, the honestly of the glaring disappointment on her friend’s face was almost insulting to the priestess.

“Do you even own anything? I thought you had some kind of an ascetism thing going on, since you’re a priestess and all that? I mean, you literally wear the same uniform every day and I have never seen you in any other clothes. Does it even come off anymore? You know you can tell me if you’re stuck in your armor.” The necromancer openly criticized her friend’s way of life.

“Depends on the night.” Emilia whispered and pretended to cough. “Aaaanyway, I’d open that mouth of yours a little less wide if I were you, I can legally force-feed you broccoli now – besides, I own plenty of great stuff, like my collection of relics! I’ve carefully curated every authentic relic we’ve ran across. I have the ones we took from Crescent way back when, a chalice from the shrine of Homara I cleansed, an hourglass from the temple in that town overrun by bandits we had to deal with, a supposed fragment of Callistas I rescued from those looters…” She listed before noticing that once again, she had only lining up more and more instances of Sylvia’s joyous word being spread in the form of her armored fists.

Anastacia stared at the priestess with an almost pitying look. “What do you even do with your money?”

“Well usually I have to refill whatever first aid equipment I’ve used to keep you and Gil in one, non-bleeding piece. Aside from that, I put aside a bit to save up for the temple and a bit more to a fund for when inevitably one of us burns down a town or something and the guild refuses to cover it – since I know you or King aren’t going to have any money left, and Gil needs to save up for retirement.” Emilia said with plenty of snark in her tone. “And I’m not going to call anyone out, but recently a whole bunch of it has gone towards paying someone’s gambling debts, so they don’t have to work in a brothel.”

“You also hired a courtesan!” The necromancer yelped in response, refusing to take any of the blame directed towards her.

Emilia considered pointing out that she was merely extorted for money to get a chance to learn about other deities, but it felt futile and didn’t even sound all that much better.

“How about this: I’ll put in some money from my last quest into the town burning fund, if you treat yourself something nice from the magic trinket shop? And I mean something substantial, not like a notebook or a pen or whatever.” Suggested Anastacia suddenly. She felt a bit bad for Emilia having to go out of her way to save money for the entire party just in case, especially when the likelihood of something going wrong enough for the funds to be needed was almost certainly going to be her fault.

The priestess frowned, she didn’t really need anything fancy and would have rather let Anastacia have money for her own eccentric ends. After all, while light on possessions, her past life as a devotee of Sylvia had been one that she had chosen to stick to, whereas the necromancer had been nothing less than a prisoner and obviously found more delight in material goods.

“But I haven’t used magic for years now, nor was I particularly talented in the first place – it’s all basically party tricks at this point. I don’t know what I’d even do with anything magic related…” She worried.

Anastacia stopped in her tracks. “You can do magic?”

Emilia shrugged. “Priests and priestesses of Sylvia were supposed to use magic while paladins were the brawn of the operation. I’ve always been more inclined towards the punchy end of things, but paladins were always a veritable house of sausages if there ever was one, and I didn’t want any part in it for… various reasons. That, combined with my prayers doing more than just filling the coffers of the temple, made magic a bit useless to me, but I did put it in my resume when I first joined you guys.”

“I don’t remember seeing a resume.” The necromancer laughed and reminisced about the past. “If I remember right, we found you on a bench and you just never stopped following us.”

“I had my reasons to stick around.” The priestess smiled serenely, she only had at best some vague memories of the few sober moments of her first couple of weeks in Valor and didn’t really care for dwelling in the past. Luckily for her, they had finally reached the shop and the matter could be dropped.

Between two large display windows was an unassuming and rather small white wooden door that didn’t seem to be connected to either of the displays. On its left was a lineup of strange armored boots with pointlessly high heels, and on the right, a selection belonging to an apothecary next door, neither of which was in any way magical in nature and there was no way the shop could fit between them.

“It’s in the basement.” Anastacia pointed out and nodded towards a small grated window below one of the display windows.

On the other side of the dirty glass panel was a barely visible sign for the shop they had come for. The text on it was highly stylized and hard to read, but with some squinting one could perhaps get a good enough glance to see what it says: ‘Sadyure’s Secret Sorcery Supplies - Secure, Safe, Seldom Suspicious!’ With an even smaller remark of ‘D’thra devours donkey dicks during dinner!’, no doubt signaling the high degree of class that they could expected.

Having managed to make out what the sign had to say, Emilia glanced at the sign of the shop above it, called ‘D’thra’s stabilized combat heels’ with the proud slogan of: ‘Never yield your style!’. The odd shoes on display were a curious combination of typical sabatons, shin guards and rather unwieldy-looking boots that had a tall, almost spike-like heel on them. While the armor itself seemed perfectly adequate, the priestess couldn’t help but to take a look at her own well-served armored boots. Their bottoms were more or less flat, with the very slight heel at the back simply holding the strap for the armor in place. Truly, nothing about the odd shoes seemed in any way beneficial in travel or in combat.

The priestess tested her theory by trying to walk without her heels touching the ground, and quickly came to the conclusion that whatever these ‘combat heels’ were for, was either extremely gimmicky or required non-human feet.

In the corner of the display window was a small handwritten card with an arrow pointing at the tiny window below it with the message: ‘Disregard the cellar dweller.”

“What even is this place…” Emilia muttered and wondered if they had strayed a bit too far from the north gate.

Anastacia grabbed her hand and opened the small door to reveal a tight staircase to the basement of the building. “Don’t worry, they know what they’re about. Please, just do not mention the shop above this one – I can’t live through that twice.” She warned her friend and started the descend.

The first staircase led them down by maybe five meters before making a turn to the left, and strangely enough, continued down from there. They should have reached the floor below with just one set of stairs, but the creaky wooden stairs kept on leading them down for another five meters before making yet another turn into yet another staircase.

This continued a few more times, but since Anastacia didn’t seem worried about it, Emilia kept her doubts to herself. She did, however, start noticing repeating patterns of cracks in the brick walls, and the fifth step on every part of the staircase was a particularly creaky. All of this suggested that they weren’t actually descending deep into the bowels of the earth, but were instead looping the same short patch of staircase seemingly endlessly. Strangely enough, the miniature crystal lanterns hanging from the ceiling didn’t appear to care for the looping effect the rest of the path had. Sometimes there were more than one lantern in a single staircase, sometimes one of them had gone out, sometimes the lantern itself was missing but the chain it used to hang from was still there. In some extreme cases, where the sole lantern had gone missing or out, an additional one had been jammed between the handrail and the wall.

Noticing her friend’s worries, Anastacia spoke up. “We’re on a waiting list. They probably have another customer or are on a break. You only need to climb two floors to get out at any point, so we’re not screwing ourselves by going down.” She explained reassuringly and stopped Emilia around halfway down the flight of stairs before continuing down herself.

When the necromancer disappeared behind the next turn, she immediately appeared at the top of the staircase and had to squeeze past her friend to do another lap and repeat the trick.

“There’s a ton of possibly dangerous things for sale, so they’re not allowed to let in more than one group of customers at a time. Apparently, people tend to fiddle with merchandise while waiting.” Anastacia said and sat down to wait.

“Most places solve that problem with a waiting room instead of an endless staircase that’s probably at least somewhat risky if it malfunctions.” Emilia sighed and sat down next to her friend, though they barely fit on the same step in the narrow stairway.

Anastacia shrugged. “Mages.”

For a few more minutes, they waited while going through the various obligations they now had toward each other and exactly how much of them could they just ignore without causing issues with the guild.

While Emilia definitely planned to use it as an excuse to limit some of the outright stupid things the necromancer had a tendency to do, she didn’t want to make her feel like her freedom was once more being trampled or, nor did the priestess actually have the ability to enforce anything on her beyond just asking nicely – but regardless, it was a nice addition to the weight of her words, even if it just let her force a healthier diet on the girl.

Anastacia on the other hand didn’t even realize she had the option of simply refusing to do anything Emilia could now legally order and that there was absolutely nothing the priestess or the guild could do about it. Instead, she planned to comply for the most part, but not without doing it as begrudgingly as physically possible, like she had done for most of her life.

Suddenly a door opened behind the turn at the bottom of the stairs and immediately filled the stairway with a scent of herbs and an almost burning chemical smell that felt like it probably wasn’t something one should breathe.

“Proceed, people! Masters must mind mittens, can’t caress catalogue.” A voice summoned them into the shop.

The adventurers got up, finished the last flight of stairs and stepped through an oddly small door even Emilia couldn’t quite walk through normally.

On the other side was a rather tightly packed room that was hardly bigger than Anastacia’s room at the inn. Lining the walls, from the floor to the ceiling, were countless wooden drawers, each with a small brass handle and a number burned onto them with a brand. Some of them were barely large enough to fit a piece of jewelry inside, but the larger ones were almost two meters wide and big enough to hold staffs or the like. In the middle of the room was an isle with more drawers built in the sides facing towards the door and the counter on the opposite side of the room.

The only source of light in the was the tiny barred up window with the sign Emilia had seen from the street. It barely lit the room enough to make the number labels on most drawers visible but left the counter and whatever was behind it completely obscured by shadows.

“Don’t touch the drawers before they tell you to open one, and never open more than one at once.” Anastacia whispered to her friend and stepped up towards the shady counter. “Hi, you sold me a staff quite a while back and-“ She tried to greet whoever was the owner of the business, but was interrupted by a series of loud clacks made by someone in the room above them, walking across the floor with shoes that sounded like they had metal on their heels. She tried to start again a few times but didn’t even get as far as on her first attempt before being interrupted.

“Ignore incessant idiocy, ridiculous racket rarely rests.” A voice from the darkness sighed with oodles off disdain dripping off every word. “Should Sadyure serve somehow? Rightly recall reckless runt recites runes regarding rime?”

Though the shopkeeper remained shrouded in shadows, Anastacia could feel them just fine – she however couldn’t tell what the owner of the emporium was, only that they were a living thing of not quite human shape or proportion. Last time she had visited the shop, she had tried to ask why Sadyure kept themselves hidden but didn’t get much of an answer either – nor did they give a reason for their peculiar manner of speech, which often came across as pointlessly rude.

After waiting for the stomping above them to subside once more, Anastacia tried to state her business once more. “Yeah, I do ice magic. I bought a staff for it here but had to spear a giant ghost snake with it, so now I kind of need a new one. My friend needs to treat herself with something nice as well, so if you have any recommendations, it would help a bunch.” She managed to say right as the racket upstairs resumed.

“Are they dancing up there or what? It’s starting to get really annoying.” Emilia commented on the noise and stared at the ceiling. Suddenly the inappropriate notes on the windows started to make sense to her.

“Endlessly eroding ears, constant clacking clamor caving composure cavities. Complaint claims can’t cause compromise, might magically maim malignant moccasin maker.” Sadyure groaned with so much hate in their tone that the weirdly phrased threat didn’t sound at all jokey. “Postpone personal peril post-purchase. Anticipated armless Anastacia ages ago, prepared pointy products posthaste perchance prodigal pygmy’s pole perishes. Ruinous rumors run rampant regarding rowdy runt… Suggested stock stashed safely – storage sixty-six.”

Both adventurers began looking around for the aforementioned drawer, only to discover that they were arranged in a completely nonsensical order and there was no telling where the right one was, and it certainly didn’t help that the numbers went far higher than the actual number of drawers.

The reason for the pointlessly complicated arrangement became apparent as the shopkeeper’s muffled gleeful chuckles became louder, but yet another fit of stomping from upstairs killed them quickly.

Thanks to the poor visibility it took a couple of minutes of searching until Anastacia finally found the right drawer at the very bottom of the darkest nook of the room. She rolled her eyes at Sadyure and pulled it open.

Carefully laid on a velvet cushion, was a set of four daggers. Their broad but somewhat short blades were chipped from the same crystalline material Anastacia’s staff had been made, and a thin piece of it continued all the way to the pommel so that simply gripping the dagger normally allowed its use as an energy sink for ice magic. While not bad in any meaning of the word, the craftsmanship was somewhat rough compared to the blacksmith’s works, but the necromancer could always get a new hilt and grip fitted on them by him. Nevertheless, her eyes lit up when she saw the knives as she immediately grabbed one in each hand and began swiping the air with them.

“I’ll take all of them!” Anastacia decided without hesitation, grabbed the other two daggers and pointed their blades in the opposite directions – causing much worry to the priestess as she flailed about.

She was about to try and do a bit of ice magic by cooling the room, but as soon its effect was supposed to begin, Anastacia could feel the magical energy get forcibly ripped away from her hands to the direction of the shopkeeper.

“Practicing powers pointlessly proves prohibited.” Said Sadyure, sounding extremely unimpressed, almost like they had predicted that Anastacia would immediately attempt to use her new weapons. “Purchase payment processed, enjoy equipment elsewhere.” They continued suddenly.

“What?” The necromancer gasped and took out her now noticeably emptier purse. “You didn’t even tell me how much they cost…”

“Anastacia avoided asking amount, processed purchases persist permanently.” The shopkeeper said dismissively and though it was impossible to tell in the dark, the adventurers could feel Sadyure move their attention towards the priestess.

The mysterious merchant kept humming for a while, as if trying to get a read on Emilia, but for some reason it was talking quite a while. “Durable divine defenses deterring deeper divination, Sadyure’s superior sorceries successfully slice shielding, magics most mighty meagerly muster memories…” Their words were accompanied with a constant ruffling and clanking of equipment in the dark, as they no doubt performed rituals and ceremonies required for spells beefy enough to challenge whatever blockades Emilia’s profession provided.

The priestess felt uneasy for being under such probing, but if it helped Sadyure with figuring out what to offer to her, she wasn’t going to complain. Not only did she not know what was on sale, she didn’t know what she wanted to buy, or if she wanted to buy something – just buying whatever the merchant offered would make things easy and the necromancer happy.

Eventually, the shopkeeper’s scrutiny was interrupted by yet another series of sharp steps from the floor above them. Emilia could hear something fall behind the counter and roll across the floor as Sadyure quietly cursed the shoemaker. “Patience petering past peaceful personality, cursed conceited cobbling cock…”

“Umm… Do you have a suggestion for me?” The priestess asked worriedly, hoping to distract the mysterious sorcerer from their hateful grumbling.

“Hmph. Her holiness’ heart halved hopelessly, purring partner preoccupying personal part, higher hands holding her holy half… Balancing both becoming bothersome.” The owner of the shop explained. “Sorcerer Sadyure secretly supports selected side, cedes costs completely.”

“Waaaait!” Anastacia yelled suddenly. “Why are you giving her stuff for free?! The entire point of her coming here was to spend money, and why didn’t I get mine for free or even a discount?!” She protested.

Sadyure laughed in the darkness. “Collecting complainer’s coin can cover costs. Shorty should’ve stayed silent.”

Anastacia glanced down and could see her entire purse vanish this time, as the shopkeeper made her pay instead. “Damnit!” She yelled and dashed out of the shop before more of her things started to disappear for speaking out of turn, or worse yet, before the merchant decided to void her purchase.

“Seek storage seven, gracious gift given gladly. Only open once on one’s own.” The sorcerer said as one of the small drawers slowly slid open, revealing a tiny black case, small enough to fit on one’s palm.

Emilia took the item given to her and inspected it for anything strange, but as far as she could tell, it was just a simple wooden box that had been painted pitch-black and polished carefully. Though she wanted to, she didn’t dare to shake it in case whatever was in it was fragile.

Giving and inquisitive look at the shadowy side of the room. “Why?”

“Personal past. Several seasons since someone sank ships seeking slaves, protected poor peddler’s precious person.” Sadyure explained wistfully before the moment of reminiscence was ruined by more sounds from the shoe shop above them. “Time to terminate trade, certain conjurer craves cursing cleats…”