The Court fancy fighting robes were the simplest item there. The next simplest was for Court-aligned nobles. They were still robes, but they ended at the knee rather than the ankle. Below the knee, they often had ruffles or lace; one even had ruffles starting at the waist and ending at the knee. The entire top had embroidery; Serenity thought much of the chest was more embroidery than fabric. Andarit pointed out an open area with no embroidery on each and noted that it would hold the House symbol of whoever wore the clothing. It would have to be added if the display item were bought.

The type of clothing Andarit was planning to wear was next; it was for Nobles without a Court affiliation who were declaring themselves as competent at a combat Path. It was clothing that tried to look like armor without being armor. In some cases, armor was actually included, but that couldn’t be bought at the shop they were in.

At the same time, it was fanciful. Strange cutouts, skin showing in places that would be covered by armor, “armor” made of different layers of thin cloth stitched together to give the impression of leather armor or, worse, chainmail; there were a number of different options. None were anything Serenity would have been willing to wear if he had the choice, especially not into a dungeon. He’d seen armor made of paper that was far more protective than this stuff; it would be hard to find worse.

He hoped Andarit’s clothing was less horrifying, but after the examples the tailor showed him, he didn’t hold out much hope.

The fanciest clothing, by far, was the noncombat Noble outfits. They reminded him of the giant ballgowns you’d sometimes see on historical shows; Serenity couldn’t remember which era they were from, but it wasn’t anything as simple as a bustle and entirely too many petticoats. The outfits seemed to be designed to hide the fact that there was a human inside them instead of a puddle of gems, metal, ruffles, embroidery and lace. Serenity was fairly confident that some of them could have left the person out and you’d never know.

Serenity was surprised to find out that only the noncombat nobles wore jewelry unless it was a mark of status or magical. Serenity hadn’t expected that; most places didn’t place nearly that hard a distinction on combat Paths.

At least, he didn’t think they did; when he thought back, it wasn’t like he’d ever really moved in the circles of either nobles or native commoners. Vengeance was a foreigner, and not even part of an established group. He stayed with mercenaries when he was with anyone; no wonder he mostly thought of the combat Paths. Still, he knew he’d seen mercenaries wearing nonmagical jewelry. Some wore it because they liked it; others wore it because it was a way to show off or simply another way to store their wealth.

Serenity felt overwhelmed by the amount of information on clothing, so he tried to boil it down to something he could remember. “So, robes means a Court or Court affiliation, everyone else is noble; something you can move in means a combat Path. Is that all?”

Andarit shrugged. “Servants will be in simpler clothing and the royals are the only people who wear shimmer. Stick close to me or my father; we’ll make sure you don’t trip.”

Serenity nodded. “So I take it I need to wear something I could fight in that isn’t a robe and no obvious jewelry?”

Andarit nodded. “Something that shows off your armor and looks appropriately noble while still looking foreign.”

Serenity thought for a moment, looking at the outfits. The one common thing among them was that they were all overdone. “How about a tabard? It can be embroidered, if that is important.”

It took quite a bit of discussion with the tailor, who had never done anything like it before, but a tabard, essentially a sleeveless, open-sided shirt that extended most of the way to Serenity’s knees, was the final design. The tailor was unwilling to put it out without embroidery, and Andarit agreed that embroidery was essential, so Serenity ended up with a pair of feathered wings embroidered on the back of the tabard and a dragon’s head breathing fire on the front. It was positively simple compared to the examples.

The tailor was irritated when they said it was for the dance that night; he charged Serenity quite a bit to complete the embroidery with a Skill.

Serenity thought that was going to be the end, but Andarit was convinced he needed an entire wardrobe, not just clothes for one night, so she whisked him off to another store for “everyday clothing”. From the stares he got while shopping, Serenity had the feeling that wearing his evening clothes earlier in the day was not something the locals did, but he could “get away with it for now” because he was a foreigner.

The only breather he had was when he talked her into stopping by a shop that sold armor to nobles so that he could see what they usually wore inside dungeons.

The shop was a mix of practical equipment and equipment that was so ornate that Serenity would have had a hard time believing anyone actually wore it for real if he hadn’t seen it as Vengeance. The enchantments were more expensive on the fancy gear, but as far as Serenity could tell they weren’t any better. In fact, the best piece of armor in the entire shop was a plain leather helmet. Serenity couldn’t tell what animal the leather came from, but whatever it was resonated with the enchantments placed on it instead of merely accepting them.

“Why are you over there?” The young woman tending the counter walked over to Serenity. “We have better helmets.”

Serenity shook his head. “No, you don’t. I don’t need a gem-studded metal monstrosity enchanted to reduce its weight and not make noise. A good leather helmet with absorption, durability, minor status resistance, cleaning, and repair is much more like it.” The metal monstrosity was the first thing Serenity had noticed in the store. He hadn’t been able to resist identifying it, and the results had been depressing. It was quite possibly the most “costume armor pretending to be real” thing in the store.

Serenity shook his head and sighed then put the helmet down. When you got right down to it, if he really needed a helmet, he could extend his armor, and it wouldn’t fit well over his horns anyway.

“That helmet’s only three thousand kopeks. If you like it, it’s a good price.” The shopgirl seemed to want to make a sale. Or perhaps she simply wanted to make up for her earlier blunder?

Either way, she was correct. Less than a third the amount he could get for each tiny monster core did seem like a good price, unless they were even more valuable than he thought they were. At that price, it’d be worth picking up even if he only used it while he was in this disguise. He turned to Andarit. “Is that a good price?”

“Good enough to make me wonder what’s wrong with it,” Andarit commented while looking at the saleswoman.

The shopgirl shrugged. “It’s not fancy enough. Even the Courts want something that looks a bit more refined. Other than the ones who want the plainest of the plain to be obvious how unostentatious they are; it’s too fancy for them.”

The shopgirl seemed to have a serious disdain for the people who took a plain appearance to an extreme.

Serenity gave it another examination, looking for a hidden flaw, without success. What he did find was a small stamped piece of leather that simply said “Zon”. Serenity nodded slowly; that probably explained it. “Do you happen to know who made this?”

“No.” The response was fast enough it was completely unbelievable.

Serenity smiled lightly. “No idea at all? I already found the label. And it sounds like you’re probably not going to be selling much more of what he or she makes, not if you’ve had to lower the price.”

“Fine. I do, but …” She sighed and looked around the shop before gathering up a few other nicely made but unostentatious pieces of gear. “If you buy everything she made that I have in stock, I’ll give you the cards she gave us.”

Serenity took a look at it. All together, it looked like a single set of armor, from the helmet to the boots. The helmet was the only piece that was really large enough for him, but even it looked like it had really been made for someone a little smaller. Serenity knew that the absorption enchantment on the helmet would work better for someone who was smaller, as well, so even it wasn’t really designed with someone his size in mind, even though he wasn’t really all that large for a fit man.

It was designed for someone like Rissa.

It was far better armor than she currently had; he’d rate it as decent Tier Three armor. His dragonscale armor was better, but that was because it was dragonscale; when he was imitating modern body armor, it wasn’t as good as what he saw in front of him. “How much?”

She took it over to the counter and started adding it up. Her final verdict was concerning. “21,500 kopeks.”

Serenity wasn’t surprised; an entire suit of armor was quite different from “just” a helmet, especially since there should be other enchantments on the rest of the armor to make it fit better; straps could only do so much, especially for the boots. Serenity took his time and examined the other armor pieces to confirm that the enchantments were present. The Identify skill line was really a necessity for any delver; otherwise, you wouldn’t know if you had decent equipment or not.

Everything was as it should be. The armor that seemed too small ought to be able to adjust up to his size with no trouble. In many ways, it was too bad; the size-adjusting enchantment meant that there were fewer protective enchantments. Even so, it was a very common enchantment.

Serenity put everything back on the counter. He didn’t have enough kopeks left, and while he was confident he could bargain her down some he doubted it would be enough to fit in his budget after the damage Andarit had already done to it. “Do you take trade?”

The clerk’s eyes narrowed and a worry line appeared on her forehead. Her voice was strained when she replied. “Sometimes. It has to be in good shape. We also take Etherium.”

Serenity was sure there were other requirements, but they shouldn’t apply to what he was going to offer. “How about two tiny monster cores?” Based on the price he’d gotten at the other store, he was bargaining her down a little, but he was sure there was some wiggle room in the monster core price. All it had to do was be close and he’d be happy. A suit of armor for two tiny monster cores was an exceptional price.

She seemed startled; he actually heard her mutter “offworlder” under her breath. “Fine. Show them to me first so I can evaluate them.”

Serenity could understand that in a place that didn’t get many monster cores. He hadn’t returned the others he’d intended to sell that day to the Rift, so he was able to simply pull a pair out of his pocket.

She pulled out a glass lens and held it over the cores. Serenity was curious, so he identified the lens.

Identification Disk

This lens amplifies visual light and provides basic Identification information.

That made sense; it replaced the Basic Identify Skill. There was probably some kind of a case it went in to allow it to be charged; he didn’t see any visible traces of the enchantment on it, after all, so there was a decent chance it was a compound item or had a spell cast on it by the case it was in.

She put the lens away then looked up at Serenity. “These two cores plus a thousand kopeks.”

Bargaining. He could manage from here; he needed to bargain her down a little, but there was no need to push too far. “Five hundred.”

“Accepted.” She nodded and started packing the armor into bags once he handed over the kopeks. “Pleasure doing business with you.”