The World Which Is

I get most of my supplies at the Caravan Market after getting up and having a good breakfast of eggs, griffon steak and hash brown. I probably won’t have griffon again, but that’s what was on the menu this morning.

I spent the evening going over the map of Toronto Aaron drew. The beds had sheets hung between them for privacy, and the ring provided enough light to read by.

It’s rougher than most of the others, with crossed out notes or ‘this isn’t there anymore’ comments under the name of a merchant in the margin with an arrow to the intersection of Well Town and Young. The sense I get is that he’s been to the city multiple times, and updated the map with each visit. There are no dates with the notes, so no way to know if any of them will still be around.

The one note that feels important, to him at least, is in the top left. “Check in at the Champlain Club”. It’s circled and underlined. There’s no arrow or an address telling me where it is, and the merchants I asked as I bought supplies didn’t know of it.

I managed to buy almost everything I wanted, with the longest being the second equipment slot set, because I had to stand in line at the guard recruiting office. They don’t let anyone simply walk in, even if it’s to use their store. It was half of what Chuck paid me; but it’s worth the investment. It frees space in my pouch and I can go from clothing to armor with one thought instead of having to equip everything individually. It even lets something carry over from one set to the other, so long as I don’t fill that slot. I don’t have to worry about my sword going away when I get out of my armor.

It does mean I have to stay in it until I leave the market. It rained during the night and the ground hasn’t improved. I’m not exposing my regular boots to the mud.

I spent too much, probably, on a thirteen slot backpack, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned growing up with only four inventory slots, is that there is no such thing as too many of them, and it comes with a dedicated slot to hang a weapon from.

Yes, pockets add two, but it only holds a half-minus treen of one item, and they come with size limitation that make them mostly useless, a good belt can have up to a half-plus treen slots with the same limitation, other than they’ll take bags or packs to expand that. My belt isn’t that good. Just four slots, one is taken by my pouch, one by my scabbard, one my knife, and one by my new quiver that holds two treen’s worth of arrows. Another good investment, I hope.

The recruiting office also offered skills, but none of the ones I wanted. With a few exceptions, like cooking, herbalism, and whittling, they were all guard and fighting related. I could have bought any of them up to a treen, if I could afford them, but I have better places for my points.

Unfortunately, none of the stores within the market offered skills. They need to be of a higher tier before that’s an option and other than the inn, the recruiting office, Chuck’s building, and the barns for the animals, nothing looked permanent, and that’s needed for a store to start ranking up.

I fill my personal inventory with salted meats for really cheap. The stuff keeps for just about forever, ensuring that I’m not going to go hungry, no matter if I can’t catch anything while traveling.

I don’t find a magical repair kit among them.

With the shopping I can do there done, I head for Trade Road, and walk the rest of the way to the city.

* * * * *

One thing Toronto is known for is the Tower. It’s visible, or so I’ve heard, from all over the place. Even from to other side of Lake Ontario, in Buffalo. While I can’t know if that’s true. It’s been visible since before we reached the market yesterday, and it’s there, like a guide, pointing me to the city. Even without a road, that spire with the bulb at the top would show me where to go.

There are more fields once I leave the market, but they’re smaller, and more varied. When water appears on my left, opening up into a large lake with trees and buildings on the other side, a sign makes my arrival to Toronto official.

Welcome to Toronto.

The Center of Ontario.

If you are planning on staying,

Follow Lake Way to York and go north

Until Queen’s Road and register at the City node.

If you are only visiting, enjoy your stay.

At least I know where I’m going. The city node will have all the skills on offer.

Lake Way doesn’t exactly stay by the lake, but it’s always in sight. What looks like barges pepper it, only they aren’t moving and people are walking along gangplanks between them.

I stop at some of the shops that line the road. They seem to sell just about everything, and the one selling healing foods tempts me, but I want to see about finding the emporium first. I’ve had some of theirs, and I know it’s good quality.

What I don’t know is how expensive they’ll be. Looking at the prices for those available here; they will not be cheap.

At one of them, I find out the Champlain Club in Adelaide, and that I shouldn’t go there. It’s not a safe place. I find it on Aaron’s map, outlined by Sherburn, Richmond, Berker Way, and Elizabeth, although I think it wasn’t always called that. There a short word scratched out over it.

Sherburn connects to the Lake Way, but well before York.

I decide to do my business before checking the club out and why it was important to Aaron. The person who told me where is it didn’t know what it was about.

Between the buildings are unnamed alleys and unnamed streets that are barely larger. Aaron didn’t bother with them. His map seems to have only the major roads.

Parliament, Sherburn, Jarvis, York, in the order I encounter them, although Sherburn wasn’t a named road. It was probably drawn in because it leads to the club. Further on, according to Aaron’s map, there is Spadina, Bathurst, then nothing until a box well on the west side of the city. How far it is, combined with what Herbert said, makes me think it might be the West Caravan Market.

York is lined with more stores, the buildings growing taller as I approach the city node. They are four stories high when I come to a small street with a plaque and the name Pearl painted on it.

I check, and that’s the street the Emporium is on. I enter it, and don’t see numbers on the building, which is going to make it tough to know if I’m heading in the right direction, except that by looking up, I see the road ends. I ask in one of the stores and I’m told Carlysle’s is in the other direction, two blocks.

I have to wait until the train of horse-drawn carriage pass by, then I’m on the other side of the street and hurrying along.

Carlysle’s Healing Emporium has a large sign over the window, and there are a variety of things on display. I avoid focusing on them. I don’t need the system blocking my sight with item after item. The store is in a long building that is uniform enough it might be a survivor from before the system arrived. Grandpa Louis and some of the older folks have talks about how one thing many of them appreciate since the system arrived is how buildings have personalities again, like in their youth, instead of being blank uniform boxes.

The inside is large and airy, a contrast to many of the shops I visited on my way here.

“Welcome to Carlysle’s Healing Emporium.” A rotund man exclaims. “Where all manners of ills and injuries will be tended. Satisfaction guaranteed, or your money back.”

“Hi,” I reply, utterly at a loss as to how to follow that. He’s older, like my dad. Dressed like many of the artisans in Court, rough clothing made to withstand spills and other wear that comes from doing their work. His is stained and burned in spots, but he wears a fine overcoat that’s intact.

He looks amused. “And how can I help you, young man?”

“I had one of your healing bars once.” I look around for something can identify, but it’s mostly bottles or boxes. “It had the address on the wrapper, and I wanted to see if I could afford buying some. They didn’t taste great, but they worked.”

“Do you have the wrapper by any chance?”

“No, I had inventory problems then. I wrote the address down.”

“That’s a shame, I offer a discount to anyone who brings them back.” He turns and walks toward the counter at the back. “And you say it wasn’t good tasting.”

“Sorry, it’s true. But it healed me right up. Started as soon as I took a bite. I never had that happen before.”

“Really? It’s rather standard.” He steps behind it and pulls a large tome. “It defeats the purpose of healing if you have to ingest it in totality before it will start working.” He leafs through the pages.

“The only person back home who makes healing food, makes a kind that only works once it’s all eaten.”

“Ah, so he is someone so skilled his food heals, not a healer who imbues what he cooks with the ability to heal.”

“I guess? I didn’t know there was a difference.”

“It would depend on the class, really,” he says distractedly as he reads.

After the fifth page read in silence, I run out of things to look at and really… “what are you doing?”

“Hmm? Trying to find how you could have gotten something like that. I don’t sell anything my apprentices make that is substandard.”

“Okay.” I look around for a few seconds. “Is that really something you need to do now?”

“Hmm?” he turns another page.

“I was hoping to do business? Or at least find out how much a bar cost?”

“Yes, of course.” He closes the book gently. “My curiosity does get the better of me at time.” He steps around. “What are you looking for specifically?”

“Something…affordable?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Do you have a sense of just what I sell?” he asks gently.

I shake my head.

“I see.” He considers something. “I don’t normally do this, but seeing how you’ve already had one that didn’t meet my standard, it would be a way to unload some of my apprentices’s attempts.”

“Why don’t you just offer them a lower price? Letting people know they—”

The man straightens and his face loses all joviality. “Carlysle does not sell inferior products.” He softens slightly. “What would people think?”

“Sorry.”

“It’s alright.” He steps through a door and I wait. “How about this?” He returns with a box which he places on the counter, taking bars wrapped in unmarked brown wrappers, and placing them in a line. A few he drops back in the box.

I focus on one.

Carlysle’s Advanced Healing Bar, Quality: Fine

Perception Check: failed

“How does this not meet your standard? It’s fine quality.”

He takes something from under the counter and hand me a bar wrapped in a brown similar to the ones on the counter, but it’s shinier, and decorated.

Carlysle’s Advanced Healing Bar, Quality: Excellent

Perception Check: failed

“Nothing I sell is less than excellent in quality.”

“The one I had was in a wrapper like this,” I say, remembering that.

He frowns. “That narrows who might have been selling inferior products. It’s a good thing he left and never came back.” He asks for the bar back and I hand it. “Here is what I’ll do for you. These all fine quality. Elsewhere they would go for two hundred each. I’ll sell you a dozen for a thousand.”

A quick focus confirms what he said. “Why not a treen?” I ask. He doesn’t look that old.

He stares at me. “Right, thirteen. You young folks got use to that a lot easier then I ever did.” He shrugs and takes another bar out of the box. “I can do a baker’s dozen.”

A thousand takes me really close to my cut off is I want to by a skill with money. But thirteen healing bars better than the ones Rich dropped on me…

“It’s a deal.”