The Illicitous Dungeon

The marketplace Therina headed to was a large open square with hundreds of stalls set up. In the surroundings were lots of commercial shops which were the fronts of trading conglomerates which spanned multiple cities, potentially even beyond the borders into other kingdoms.

The largest guilds were like this, as they were organisations which spanned across the entire world. They still had to pay tax to the kingdom the guild operated in, but they had much more power than any single kingdom.

They facilitated the trade of anything and everything, although the prices of items were often more expensive, and their prices for purchasing items less than their local counterparts. They were however, the safest and most trustworthy option for buying and selling things, and they had a reputation to uphold to ensure no client of theirs was ever ripped off.

Therina walked into a small smithery in an alley off the marketplace, the smell of smoke and oil ripe inside the smaller building.

"How can I help ye, miss?" A short, stocky dwarf asked her from behind the counter as he watched her looking over the swords, maces, armor, and various weapons and defensive gear on display.

"You found a blacksmith shop run by a dwarf! This is just too perfect!" Styx happily cheered and laughed in her mind, causing her to quizzically raise a brow, which the former couldn't see.

Therina walked over to the counter, a polished wood bench kept in pristine condition.

"I have some metal to sell, will you buy it?"

The dwarf looked her up and down, appraising her armor and weapons with the eyes of an expert. He could tell that it was roughly made by a still inexperienced hand, but efficient in serving its purpose.

"Aye, should it be of sufficient quality."

Therina opened her shoulder bag and took out one of the manasteel ingots for the dwarf to inspect.

"Manasteel it is," the dwarf nodded to himself and brought out several items to test the quality of the metal, from hardness to mana conductivity. "Tis' pure manasteel too, although of a rather average, just above low, quality. Tis' sufficient at least. Miss, going by the weight, I can offer ye 16 silver coins for this 'ere ingot."

She was about to agree when Styx whispered in her mind to barter on the price.

"25 silver coins, it is still a valuable metal."

"Perhaps this miss thinks manasteel is more valuable that it is? 6 silver is already a fair price, it is not that much of a valuable item. Are ye from a nationless village?"

Therina didn't reply and glared at the dwarf who only raised his stocky arms in a shrug and sighed.

"Manasteel is produced all over the kingdom. Tis one of the most basic metals, used in basically ev'ry magic item. Its greatest value is how much of it is needed and that it takes longer to refine than standard steels due to the mana injected into it."

Styx understood that this meant manasteel was worth far less than he anticipated. It was one thing if the dwarf was trying to cheat his elf, but his explanation was very reasonable. For such a highly developed society, especially one based around magic more than science, such a basic material was quite common.

"10 coins per ingot," Therina bluntly said after a quick interlude with Styx.

"I would be making a loss, but I like ye, miss. I can give you 7 silver per ingot."

"He can do better than that! Offer him first pick on future sales!"

"I will come to you first when I have more to sell, but give me 8 per ingot."

The dwarf seemed to think about it for a while and was about to try offer a new price, but Therina was losing her patience and glaring at the dwarf, causing him to chuckle to himself.

"Aye, 8 silver per ingot, but ye come to me first in the future as long as it is a smithin' material."

Therina took out the rest of the ingots in the bag, lining up 5 ingots along the bench. The dwarf smith weighed each of the ingots and tested them, and after confirming they were all of the same quality, paid her with 40 silver coins.

The only comparison she had for the value of this amount of money was the prices of the surrounding swords.

The cheapest iron dagger was sold for 50 copper coins, while a standard longsword of decent quality cost anywhere from 2 to 15 silver. These were of course all steel, maybe with traces of other metals mixed in. A sword like Therina's made out of pure manasteel would be valued in gold coins.

"Hey, hurry up and give him your name. This is PR, you hear me? PR!" Styx constantly yapped in her mind like a backseat driver, although the elf secretly enjoyed hearing his voice, so it wasn't exactly unwelcome.

"Dwarf, my name is Therina, I will return when I have more to sell."

"Aye, miss, I will wait for then. Ye can call me Gordan."

Therina then left and first headed toward one of the city halls in the city. There were close to a million residents in this city, so there were six or seven government offices around the city, all overseen by the city lord and his noble house, Duke Ashburn.

She was visibly disgusted in all the crowded humans in the city hall, but held it in under the constant placating of Styx. Once she paid a silver coin and completed the registration process however, she immediately left.

With her own identity card, Theresa was now protected by the kingdom's laws, but was also obliged to follow them herself. However, she had no actual intention of following human law.

At the marketplace, she spent several hours browsing through all the stalls, of which she spent 2 silver coins on several bags of different seeds for various food and a couple of low level spiritual herbs.

She then went to a bookstore where Styx learned that books are very expensive.

Standard introductory books which consisted of about ten to twenty pages cost a minimum price of around 10 silver, while those which had fifty or more pages were calculated in gold. The more advanced the contents were, the higher the price increased even further.

Styx really wanted some advanced books on magic and magic arrays, but even the cheapest one in the store was already 10 gold coins, while middle level books were priced around an average 5 to 10 platinum coins.

He had Therina buy a single cheap book with introductory information about mana and ways the skills of different classes use it. It was only the first book in what appeared to be a series of ten, but it was enough for Styx to satisfy his curiosity.

"Excuse me, madam," A middle aged man with a slave collar entered the shop with a package under his arms addressed the elderly shopkeeper.

"Harold, I have been telling you to call me Miralda for years," The shopkeeper sighed to the slave man who was relatively clean and dressed neat. "How have you been?"

"Work has been tough, and I can really feel it in my legs these days."

"Oh my, you have been delivering my parcels for the last decade, sit down for a bit, will you? I will brew a cup of tea."

"Sorry, madam, but you know how it is. Work is always busy, and they drive me like a slave."

The man chuckled at his own joke and the old lady's brow relaxed as well. They continued have a brief discussion, on of the highlights of the man's day, but Therina had already left and was no longer within earshot.

"Do you think slavery is bad?" Styx asked in her mind all of a sudden.

"What do you mean? Why is it bad?" Therina responded under her breath, glancing around the wandering shoppers in the market and spotting several slaves.

"Do you believe that it is wrong to deprive people of their freedom?"

"I do not believe so. The weak are at fault for being weak."

"Then what about you and your village? Your hatred for humans?"

Therina's expression darkened, her creased brow becoming a flaw in her otherwise perfect beauty.

"…"

"You know that is hypocritical, right?"

"I don't care. Irregardless, I was weak back then too, which I could only blame myself for."

"Hmm? But you are still weak."

Therina's steps faltered at that comment and she looked like her anger was truly about to burst out. Even though Styx couldn't see her expression, he could tell how uncomfortable she was with this conversation.

"What is your point in saying all this?" She practically growled out between clenched teeth.

She may hold deep affection toward him, but that didn't mean she couldn't get mad.

"Nothing in particular. I am fine with you the way you are, after all. I was merely curious on your view towards the matter, given that you barely escaped that fate."

It was already late in the evening as the buildings in the city cast the streets in shadow. Therina found an inn called The Wanderers, a large tavern on the ground floor crowded with drunk rankers and travelling merchants enjoying a merry celebration as a bard troupe sang and danced on a stage.

"I would like a room for one," Therina stated to the tavern mistress after slipping through the crowd of drunkards and mugs splashing ale.

The tavern mistress was a human with long flaxen hair tied up in a rope braid and freckly face. She didn't have the prettiest face for a human, but her buxom and low cut top, similar to the barmaids who ran around bringing customers more drinks, was more than enough to get men to keep ogling her.

"By yourself, or in a share room?" She asked while eyeing up the elf in front of her.

Therina didn't even try hide the disgust in her voice as she immediately responded, "By myself."

The tavern mistress wasn't offended in the least as she had already seen every kind of customer there was to see.

"Not a problem, miss. We have several types of such rooms available, the cheapest being 60 copper per night, then 1 silver 20 copper, and finally 2 silver per night."

"I will take a 60 copper room. I will pay for 5 nights in advance."

"Thank you for your patronage, miss. That will be 3 silver altogether."

Therina paid the fee and received a rustic iron key with the number 305 engraved on the handle. She then went up to the third floor and found her room, a small but clean four walls and a window, with a single bed and a chest to secure her belongings in, the lock on it matching that of the door.

She wasn't yet ready to sleep for the night, as there were other tasks awaiting her. She merely ensured she had somewhere to sleep for the night and eating some prepared rations for dinner before heading back out into the streets.

She didn't trust her belongings in a human establishment without her being present, so she carried everything along with her.

The sun had completely set by now, but all the main streets were lit up by magic streetlamps, thin wooden pillars extending up which had a basic light magic array engraved on their tops. The array was designed to be triggered when the light level dropped below a certain point before activating its ambient mana absorption function and producing several ball of soft light around them.

All of the main streets had these balls of light floating above them, each various shades of white, blue and red. It was unknown if this was by design, or a particular mana quality shining through above others.

Carriages also had their own light arrays installed in them to see, while wealthier people walked around with magic tools to produce their own light.

The assortment of lights was a beauty to behold, and even Therina was stunned by it all, but she quickly dispersed that thought and begun heading to her next destination – the slave markets.

~~~~~

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