《The World of Araven》Chapter 6. A guided tour
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"[Holy shit, it's a real live fairy!]"
The ten inch tall person on the counter had light green hair, honey golden eyes, and pointed ears that were long enough to look a little bit like antenna. Also she was glaring a bit at me now with her hand on her hips.
"I know us fairies are pretty amazing and all, but thats a bit rude to say."
"[Woh... You can understand me?!]"
"Yep, that one of a fairy's unique abilities, to understand any spoken language."
"[I can't say I was ever expecting to be able to speak to someone in English ever again, this is pretty cool.]"
Needless to say, Allen was quite confused by the conversation. He kept looking back and forth between us trying to decipher the conversation from only what the fairy said.
"[Well I am Ambrjrn, nice to meet you. As you can see I am in need of clothing.]"
"Nice to meet you Ambrjrn, I am Lilly Dewdrop. I would judge by the fact that you have sustained flight magic this whole time that you will be growing a lot faster than normal children. Is that why you came to my shop?"
For Allen's sake I decided to switch bake to the native language. Now that I thought about it, I had never asked what it was called. I will have to ask someone about that in the future.
"Yes, my old clothes were ruined on the way to this city, and I have been growing a good bit every night. Do you think you will be able to help me?"
"Doesn't sound like a problem. I use a unique fairy magic to make my clothes, all you have to do is give it a bit of your mana and it adjusts to your size. Although my clothing is more expensive than normal clothes, averages around a full silver per piece, can you afford it?"
"Yea, shouldn't be a problem."
That was true, Audric had specified that I was allowed to spend all the money he had given me, so I had no qualms with buying expensive clothing. I had around 20 full silver coins, and enough silver bit coins to make up several more. So one set of clothing wouldn't be a problem.
"In that case browse through the samples we have on display, once you make you selection call for me and I will bring out the clothing from the back. Oh, and some of the clothing comes in different colors than what is displayed so feel free to ask what they come in."
After that Lilly sat down in a fairy sized chair on top of the counter and began reading a book. Aww... So cute... So I began to walk around the shop and observe the displays. There was quite the variety, various kinds of trousers, shirts, vests, capes, half capes, cloaks, shoes, and even underwear.
In the end I decided on a pair of trousers made of a material similar to jeans, a light weight long sleeve shirt, socks and shoes, a proper pair of underwear seeing as I didn't have any, and a cloak. I was going to buy them in the colors they came in, which was shades of brown, before Allen suggested I should match them to my hair.
"I wear red because it goes along with my fire attribute, but I think you should get clothes that matches your hair, that would look so cool! White hair is rare, so just imagine all the girls you could pick up in a matching outfit!"
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He had a point, I should definitely role with the white hair and eyes thing, and I knew just how to do it. I approached Lilly at the counter.
"I selected these," I point to what I selected, "could I get everything in black and the cloak in white?"
"Sure let me go get it."
Lilly flew into the back room and came back a few moments later carrying a tiny stack of clothing. She placed it on the counter and told me to channel my mana into it. I did so, and over a few seconds the clothing grew from fairy sized up to my size. Giving it a brief inspection, I was satisfied with my selection.
"The cloak and pants are a full silver each, the shirt is six silver bits, the underwear and socks are two silver bits each, and the shoes are seven silver bits. That comes out to three and seven."
I brought out my bag of money and paid for the clothing. Lilly showed me a changing room off the side of the main room. I changed into my new outfit.
I was now wearing fully black clothing, except for my my cloak, which was snow white like my hair. Now that I no longer needed to keep bare feet off the ground I dispelled my flight magic and gave out my new shoes, which had leather bottoms and black cloth tops, a try out. All my clothes were very comfortable and fit me perfectly just as promised.
After saying goodbye to Lilly and having her thank us for our patranidge, Allen and I left the shop. By that time it was nearing noon.
"Say Allen, do you know any good places to eat lunch?"
"As a matter of fact I do. It's a few streets over, so lets fly there."
He led me to a less busy side street and summoned his flaming wings and took off. Now that I was more familiar with my flight magic, I could summon it instantly, and so I raced off after Allen.
Allen ended up leading me six streets over before landing in front of a simplistic wooden building. The sign on the front had a picture of a fish stirring a pot with a wooden spoon. The words below said something along the lines of 'silver fish' or something like that.
The inside of the building was very pleasant. Lit well enough to see, but dim enough to keep the ambiance of a restaurant. Over half the tables were taken by a wide variety of people, from what appeared to be a group of battle hardened mercenaries to a family with two children.
We were greeted by a young girl, maybe around seventeen in appearance, shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes, she was pretty cute. She greeted us in a cheerful voice. "Welcome to the Silver Bass Canteen... Oh hello Allen... I wasn't expecting you today."
All the sudden she started acting bashful. I turned to Allen to see his reaction, to find that the ends of his pointy ears were growing red.
"Oi, did you bring me here just so you could meet up with your girlfriend?"
Allen flashed a guilty grin my way as the ends of his ears grew even redder.
"Maybe I did, but I wasn't lying when I said the food here was good."
"Eh, I don't mind. Let's just eat."
The young woman cought on like a true professional.
"Right this way to your table. Oh and Allen, I get off at six today."
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Allen's mouth grew into a wide grin. Wow, this guy was head over heels for her.
"Of course Vera, I will be waiting for you."
We were led to one of the smaller tables farther to the back of the building, it didn't seem like there were menus because Allen began ordering right away. I didn't know what to get so I asked for the same thing. As we waited I tried to spark up a conversation with Allen.
"So you said that your last name was Flamewood, right? Now I don't know much about elves, but do all elves have last names that are related to the forest in some way?"
"No, that's just the forest elves. I am a high elf that belongs to the Flamewood clan. Have you ever heard of the great clans?"
When I shook my head no he continued.
"On this continent, there are five great clans of high elves. There is my clan, the Flamewoods, named so because almost all of clan children are born with a fire attribute. Then there is the Worldtree clan, which has a nature attribute. There is the Blueriver clan, who possess the water attribute, the Newmoon clan, who have the shadow attribute, and the Sandstorm clan, who's children are born with either the earth or wind attribute, and sometimes both."
"Even though the royal family is human, the great clans hold a lot of sway in the government. The kingdom won't risk losing our backing. I know you are new here, so this is probably something you should be aware of. Some of the people from the clans a pretty easy to offend."
Allen was surprisingly forthcoming with information. It seems that not everyone from these clans is as nice as Allen.
"But won't your clan frown on you dating a human?"
"Hmm, they might, but the current Flamewood clan head is pretty easy going, and I am not anyone important in the clan, so it should be fine. If I was someone important then I would have to deal with some kind of arranged marriage."
By that point in the conversation our food had arrived. Vera had brought us both a plate and a mug, which she set down before us. After giving a glance around to make sure no one was looking, Allen snuck ak kiss onto her cheek. Vera blushed and ran off to help other customers.
Back on earth I had never had a girlfriend, always being more of the shy type, I wonder what it feels like to be in love the way Allen is right now? Who knows, maybe in the future I will find myself a hot cat girl to date, nya.
The food consisted of a plate of salad, topped with a wide variety of thinly sliced meats and vegetables. In the mug was some form of blue fruit juice. All in all it wasn't as exciting as breakfast this morning, but was still very good none the less. Allen talked a bit more about his clan, an interesting people, but no information that was actually important.
After lunch we spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the merchant district. Allen pointed out any shops I may need to visit in the future. I tried to make mental notes of where everything was, but in the giant city I probably ended up forgetting the location of half of the stores.
Of particular interest were the blacksmiths, the sheer number of styles and weapons was mind boggling, from plain iron short swords to pole arm weapons I do not know the name of made from blue metal with golden details. Some of the weapons were made for mere decorations, but most were clearly intended to be used in combat.
When the sun began its final decent, Allen decided to go his separate way.
"It's almost time to go get Vera, so I will be going on my way. You know how to get to your home from here?"
"Ya thanks, I will be fine. Oh and I hope you have fun tonight."
"Thanks, and if you decide to try out for Othrode academy at the upcoming exams, I will be there keeping an eye out for you."
"I might see you then, if not I hope our paths cross again."
Allen gave a friendly wave as he took off into the sky. I retrieved the crystal from my money bag and began to hone in on Audric's house.
Once I returned to the house, I found that both Audric and Porten were already back. They were both in the living room that we had first teleported to having a polite conversation about Porten's activities while Audric had been away. Porten noticed my entry first.
"Your back. How did your tour of the capital go?"
"Very interesting. Quite the impressive city, but it has a severe lack of skyscrapers. Lot of people though."
Audric joined in the conversation.
"Sky... scrapers..." He hesitated at the term I had put together in their language. "What are those?"
"A type of tower that is common back home, most are a lot taller than the tower at the palace. They are called skyscrapers because the 'scrape the sky'."
Porten jumped back into the conversation.
"Really?! That's the tallest tower on the continent! What type of magic did they use?"
"Nope, no magic, just pure mechanical genius."
Audric began to steer the conversation in a different direction.
"I see you bought new clothes. Who did you buy them from?"
"A fairy named Lilly."
"Oh, that means they are size adjusting right? Quite the valuable purchase for someone still growing."
"Yea, my new friend from the Flamewood clan suggested the idea to me."
"You made friends with someone from the Flamewood clan? You sure have been busy. Was it a boy named Allen?"
"Yes it was."
"Ah, well I met his father at the magic counsel today, nice man, from the way he spoke he was quite proud of his son. I believe he said his son was attending the Othrode Academy."
"Speaking of the academy, do you think I can try out the entrance exams?"
Porten who had fallen silent spoke up. "I'm sorry, but Othrode only accepts the best in the kingdom, I'm not sure if you could make it."
Audric gave a snort in humor. "Ambrjrn, I doubt you would need to attend the academy, but if you want to try then I am fine paying your tuition."
Porten fell back into silence with a shocked expression. I thanked Audric for offering to pay before asking him a question that had been itching in my mind all day.
"By the way, nobody ever told me what this language is called."
"It's trade Commons. It was first developed by merchants to make trade easier. Now it is the state language as well as widely spoken in ports around the world."
After that the conversation continued for nearly an hour, but nothing else of interest was mentioned. After that we all ate dinner together.
Dinner consisted of slices of meat that were incredibly tender and full of spicy juice. There was two sides of vegetables, one similar to broccoli and the shaped like a sliced red pepper but tasted like green beans.
There was also a side similar to grits, soft rolls, and a cheesy casserole. Audric and Porten drank wine while I chose to drink water.
Afterwards I was shown by the slave to the bathroom, where I was surprised to find functioning amenities, such as a sink, toilet, and even a shower. All powered by magic of course. The soap was a little sub par, but passable. After bathing I practiced using water and wind magic to clean and dry my new clothing.
After that I was shown to a guest room and promptly fell asleep.
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