I had Crisplet in the brazier, who reached out to me using mana, expressing excitement and curiosity.

  As we walked through the streets, we passed the bookstore that I wanted to visit. Heading towards the building without thinking, Micca locked her arm with mine, guiding me away.

  “Nope, you can go there after you’ve had your lessons today!” she said happily.

  I looked back longingly at the storefront with its beautifully carved wooden entryway.

  Soon!

  Micca didn’t let me go until we got to the market. It was already bustling with activity and, like the first day, everywhere I looked I saw monster hides, the glinting metal of weapons, and the rainbow array of potions. Some stalls even had a cauldron set up, with cloth banners fluttering in the smoky breeze showing symbols I had to assume were guild and merchant associations.

  The streets were scattered unevenly with stalls. Only the main road through the middle was clear in the organised chaos, and the heavy smell of roasted meat and herbal mixtures hung in the air.

  Micca stood there looking around. I wasn’t entirely sure what she was searching for, but she seemed to have found it.

  “We’re heading to the alchemy supplies over there.” She pointed to a stall that had bunches of dried herbs hanging off hooks, with the booth table covered in various monster body parts—from eyes, to horns, to teeth—and a wide array of different powders in vials.

  Behind the counter stood a shrewd-looking older woman. I attempted to turn on my Arcane Foraging, but was bombarded with bright blue light all around me.

  As we approached, I heard Micca whisper to me, “Keep it small for now, a couple of vials at most, and regardless of what her first price is, we won’t accept anything unless it’s half the starting cost—or I’ll tell you otherwise if it’s a blatant scam. Okay?”

  I nodded. I could do this. I wasn’t completely useless at buying things!

  The lady rose to attention. “Hello, young ones. Come for some supplies, have you? Want to try your hand at the fine art of potion-making? You won’t find better in all of Farnox!” she said, waving her arm across the table.

  Nodding, I spoke up. “Hello! I was hoping to get some ingredients to create some basic stamina potions.”

  The only thing I really knew was the Quickroot Powder I had bought back at the adventurers’ guild. That day I purchased a lot, including the powder, for a total of one gold.

  “Absolutely, I have several here. We have Quickroot Powder, Tamsin Leaves, Vesset, Solmar Powder and Ulric Tail,” she said, pointing to each in turn.

  I closely examined each of them. The Ulric Tail was the strangest because it looked like a coiled rat’s tail that had been dried. The Tamsin Leaf looked fresh—vivid green with white veins running through it. Vesset was another powder with almost a pink hue in the jar. Lastly, was the Solmar Powder, and despite being called a powder, it looked more like orange sand, closer to the size of fine sugar.

  As she pointed them out, Micca was closely inspecting the items. I still didn’t know how her class worked outside of being merchant-based, but to buy her some time, I decided to ask some questions.

  “I apologise. I’m still very new to this. Do any of these have toxins I’d need to be concerned about—or perhaps a strong flavour?” I asked, feeling a little silly.

  The raised eyebrow confirmed that—but she remained professional. “You’re making potions, not soup, lad. But the Tamsin is quite bitter, if I’m being honest. The rest are pretty neutral. None have toxins that would survive the brewing process, so there’s no need to worry yourself. Is this your first time brewing a stamina potion?”

  Deciding it would be more believable, I nodded.

  “Then I’d suggest the Tamsin and Vesset to start,” she said, pushing the vial of Vesset forward. “These are the easiest to extract from. The Vesset is one gold per vial, and the Tamsin Leaves are twenty silver each.”

  I felt a small kick from Micca at the mention of the leaves, so I assumed that was a no-go.

  “No thanks on the leaves. Would you take fifty silver for the vial?” I asked.

  Before the lady could respond, Micca wrapped her arm around mine, pointing into the distance. “Oh, it’s George! Quickly—we need to go see him; we’ll come back!”

  I was dragged away before I knew what was happening. I didn’t understand why she was so excited to see George—we’d see him back at the inn tonight.

  I got my answer once we were out of earshot.

  “What was that?” she said.

  I was honestly confused. “Um… what did I do?”

  I heard Liane chuckle, but she stayed quiet. Micca looked at me furiously.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  “Trevor, what is our goal here today?”

  “Uh, to shop? And learn how to haggle?” I responded.

  Micca continued, “And what was our goal at that store?”

  I shrugged. “You said half of whatever she said?”

  I felt a piece of coal hit me—Crisplet had thrown it. I wasn’t sure if he understood more than I did or was just siding with Micca for fun.

  Micca sighed. “I said half, you’re right. So then why did you start at half? The whole point of haggling is to go back and forth—not just say your final price and get stuck. What would you have said if she had offered eighty silver after that?”

  Now I really felt stupid. I’d been distracted by the new ingredients.

  Micca shook her head. “Right. Next time, if you want to reach half, you need to start even lower. Try a quarter or a third of what they ask and go from there. If you go back and forth more than three times, you stop and say you’ll shop elsewhere. Got it?”

  I nodded before asking, “What was wrong with the leaf?”

  Micca smirked. “I don’t like bitter stuff. Right! Let’s go!”

  We did a small lap of the markets before returning to the stall. The lady noticed us immediately.

  “Welcome back! I didn’t expect to see you so soon. Still interested in the Vesset and Tamsin, right?” she said.

  I shook my head. “No, sorry—just the Vesset. Would twenty-five silver be fine?”

  The older lady looked offended. “You’d rob a poor old woman? Absolutely not! I like young alchemists, so the cheapest I could go is eighty silver.”

  I shook my head. “How about forty silver?”

  Again, she looked hurt. “I have a poor, sick daughter, and you’d steal from me like that? No, no—take pity on this old woman and her family. Seventy silver is the absolute lowest I can do!”

  My heart panged at hearing she had a sick daughter, and I really wanted to say yes, but when I looked at Micca, the stare I received told me I would much rather risk the wrath of the older lady.

  “Fifty is the highest I’ll go,” I said, still feeling terrible.

  “I won’t be able to afford her medicine with prices that low! Sixty silver and we’ll call it even?” the lady said.

  Again, I was about to agree—she needed medicine after all.

  But I felt another sharp kick from Micca. She had said three back-and-forths only.

  “I…” I began, but another kick stopped me. “Sorry, we’ll have to look elsewhere today. I hope your daughter recovers, though!”

  I had only made it three steps before the lady called out, “Fine, boy—fifty silver!”

  I could feel Micca steering me back. I had achieved the price—but at what cost?

  This plagued my mind as I paid the lady and stored the Vesset. Once we were out of earshot, Micca stopped and smiled.

  “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” she said.

  I was surprised she seemed so happy. “What about her daughter?” I said.

  Liane laughed. “Trev, you’re far too kind-hearted for this. Every merchant has a sick family member. Every merchant is struggling to put food on the table. Every merchant is days away from sending their child to the orphanage. None of it is true.”

  Micca nodded. “It’s just a tactic to get people like you to pay double—and it works more often than not.”

  Liane looked at Micca. “Did we ever tell you about Trev in Greenstone? This was before he joined the party. He bent over backwards to help a little girl he'd never seen before—didn’t even know if she was really sick. Went into the house with no protection at all just to cure her.”

  The story was interrupted by the arrival of three figures. The lead was a head taller than me, wearing pristine plate armour with a glaive strapped to his back. I couldn’t see much of his features with the sun’s glare off the armour.

  “That’s a very honourable trait you have, although easily taken advantage of. Do be careful,” a deep voice said.

  He continued, “My name is Artour, and we are with the royal guard. We’ve been informed by Captain Liam that you’d likely pass through town, and several of your teammates alerted us to your presence. It would be our honour to offer our services if you require guards while you travel.”

  Artour bowed, and the two behind him likewise bowed silently.

  I was caught off guard, but managed to find my voice as I saw Liane step forward.

  “Uh, no thanks. I have more than enough protection with me, I think—but thank you for the offer,” I stammered. I wasn’t sure if it was the right thing to say, but it felt right. We didn’t want royal guards trailing us closely, and inviting them would surely be a mistake.

  “Very well. If you need us, we will remain in town for some time yet,” Artour said, bowing again before leaving.

  Once they were out of sight, Liane leaned in. “They’ll probably be watching you constantly from a distance now—so be careful, Trev.”

  I nodded before Micca excitedly chimed in, “Back to shopping then! We have lots to buy today, and Trev barely made it through lesson one!”

  The next hour was spent going through alchemy supply stalls and potion shops. Three more vendors had a sick family member, and one even claimed he’d be dead within the week without life-saving medication.

  It was hard at first, but by the final one it became almost funny and much easier to disregard.

  Besides learning to haggle, Micca’s other goal was to teach me prices. Basic health potions cost from one to five silver, stamina from four to twenty, and mana—being the most expensive—always seemed to start at thirty silver.

  I also realised that even paying one gold at the adventurers’ guild, I likely got taken advantage of. Herbs like Virfolium were traded in coppers, not silver. In fact, most common herbs—outside monster parts or rare roots—were under five silver per vial.

  It was eye-opening to see how cheap everything really was.

  I picked up seven large sacks of salt for one silver each, and even then I was scolded by Micca because apparently the inn used to buy a sack for under fifty copper.

  When we stopped for lunch, however, I noticed there was no haggling when we bought the roast grumfel on a stick—nor when they bought the three fruit pastries. They didn't haggle at all.

  I purchased several new ingredients. At another stall, I bought eight Ulric Tails. These were dried, but I felt like using them in a stock would be easy enough, as reconstituting them should impart their stamina properties.

  I purchased three other powders besides Vesset: Ravlor Bone, which was endurance-based and stamina-adjacent; Gruna, used in advanced stamina products due to its difficult extraction—though truthfully I bought it because the colour was mesmerising, an ever-churning light blue and white shimmer; and lastly Merrowroot, used in both health regeneration and stamina. It was apparently abundant in the dungeon, but unless powdered, it degraded quickly when removed.

  I still needed to do my food shopping, and I saw a kitchen equipment shop that Micca promised we’d come back to—along with the bookstore after lunch.

  - Book 3 is complete over there.