20 - Fill the Gaps

After he wrapped up training, Joe decided to make a few purchases for the quest. With only around thirty-five hundred gold pieces to his name, he decided not to go too crazy with his spending. He wanted to keep a couple of hundred in reserve for living expenses and to pay for a more permanent place to live soon. The Captain's Glass was comfortable but not cost-effective.

Besides the shops scattered throughout Fort Coral, there were two open-air market areas. These were the Cargo Bazaar in Seaside and the Crafters Market between the districts of Kilning and South Wall.

The first one was a potluck of merchants and goods coming off the ships from the northlands, Defiance, Cazmaloq, and the southern desert cities. You never knew what kind of deals you'd find there, but he had been warned it was a 'caveat emptor' environment. It was loud, with hucksters barking out items for sale, trying to unload as much as they could before departing again. Joe had also been cautioned to watch his purse there. Pickpockets were rife in the Bazaar, and there were more than a few skills that allowed thieves to plunder spatial bags as well as mundane pouches.

Joe was far more familiar with the Crafter's Market as it was just south of the guildhouse and the Captain's Glass. The Market, and the shops surrounding it, were more sedate. If you purchased something and encountered an issue with it, you could return it to the seller to discuss the problem. A merchant from the Bazaar might be there for a day or two at a time before they shipped back out to sea. Joe wanted goods he could count on. Especially since potions were on his list of things to buy. With reusable items, he could test them to make sure they didn't have some deceptive spell on them to fool [Identify]. That wouldn't work with potions. It's not like he could spit the potion back into the flask once he was sure it wasn't water, enspelled to look like something else.

The Market surrounded a central fountain that depicted the four founders. Mira stood with her arms and eyes raised to the heavens. Tintze had his hood up and his face mostly obscured. He held a set of scales and a handful of coins. Jequa carried a scroll and a staff and bore a thoughtful expression. Lastly stood Margen. The large warrior dwarfed the other three. He wielded a long, slightly curved blade, etched with runes.

Around the fountain were merchant stalls spaced in neat rows. Lines of palm trees helped define the row and offered some pleasant shade. Even further out, numerous shops and small eateries ringed the market area. Joe started with one of the outer stores, choosing to get his consumables from Kargyll's Vials. Joe had expected to meet the store's namesake, but alas, Kargyll had sold the shop years ago to a dwarf named Orunnda, who admitted her name didn't flow nearly as nicely.

The first thing Joe bought was replacement mana potions. Even with [Swap Stamina] available to him, he wanted a way to restore his mana without having to take it from another resource. He bought four uncommon mana potions. They were not as good as the elixirs he splurged on with Jink's money, but these were reasonably priced, compared to the rare versions.

While he was in the alchemist's shop, he also bought some other potions. The two came from a bargain shelf. The first was an [Infusion of Ogre Size] in case he had to deal with a swarm of apes and did not want to get pinned down. Because it would only last for a minute, it was only twelve gold. The other was called a [Brew of the Herd], which, for an hour, lets the imbiber become one with the nearest group of animals in medium range. If things went very badly again, Joe thought he could use the potion to blend in and recover.

After those two bargains, he splurged on a few potions to make sure he had something to solve the problems his healing skills couldn't fix yet. He grabbed a [Tonic of Antitoxin], an [Ampoule of Antipetrification], an [Elixir of Bubble Breath] to prevent drowning, and an [Ichor of Iceskin]. The last one prevented heat damage from fires, just in case Joe had another Beguilburr scenario.

After that, he grabbed a snack of grilled fish and spiced slaw wrapped in breadleaves. These trees were common around the southern coast, and honestly, their foliage tasted almost exactly like the flour-based wraps Joe knew from Earth. They were just a tiny bit more fibrous and, of course, bright green.

After that, Joe wandered through the stalls looking for bargains. He picked up a pair of throwing axes that he liked the feel of. He had planned to go to one of the weapon shops nearby for these, but he found haggling for the matched set too much fun to pass up. The hatchets weren't anything too fancy, but they were hefty weapons, which added to their damage and were blessed with a minor distance enchantment to offset the extra weight.

His next purchase was not something he was looking for, but a lucky find he stumbled across at one of the booths. It was called a [Jotun Bullet Bag]. The large race was a fan of slingshots that propelled not marble-sized bullets but shots the size of golf balls. The bullet bag had the [Arming] enchantment, similar to Joe's [Alchemy Belt], meaning it would load a chosen item from the sack straight into your hand. Joe could use this for [Grit Razor]. The rocks he used for his spell were bigger than the jotun bullets, but he could easily fit six or so stones in the belt pouch. Since the {Earth} spell was already slow to cast, anything that sped up the process, such as instantly summoning the rocks, was a good bonus.

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While he was picking up the bullet bag, he noticed the leather merchant was also selling wand-holsters. At the moment, he only had one such implement, but a holster would be a much better way to access it. He spent another seventy-five gold to get one with arming as well, and then turned around to head back to the merchant he had walked past a minute ago, who had had a whole rack of wands.

Joe's purse was down by a third, so he knew he couldn't spend a crazy amount on wands. He found out that wands varied widely in price, and it seemed the least contributing factor in terms of cost was the skill the wand possessed. A very nice dunian trader named Chanaquoth Sunorus explained the differences to him. Dunians were an earth-touched variant among the elemental races, just as Hah'roo belonged to air-touched galelings. Chanaquoth's skin was a chocolatey brown, the same shade as the soil Joe remembered in his mom's gardens.

The trader explained that wands came in three main varieties: charged, charging, and recharging. Charged wands were typically the cheapest. They had a set number of charges of the skill built into them. Once those castings were expended, the wand was used up and useless. The next most affordable option was a recharging wand, like the [Rod of Oneirism] he had obtained from the pirate fight. Recharging wands had a set number of uses that could be extended at any one time. Then one had to recharge them with a mana source, like the way Joe refilled the [Slow Stone]. The better one was with the affinity of the spell, the easier and faster the recharging was. Many of them had a cap on how often they could be recharged as well. Joe asked Chanaquoth about his rod and found out that its seven recharge slots couldn't be filled more than once an hour.

The last type was charging wands. These items drew directly on the user's mana, basically, allowing someone to cast a spell they didn't know. These were highly prized, but they had drawbacks. Besides being the most expensive variant, they were also the least efficient. They required considerably more mana than if one actually knew the spell.

Being on a budget, Joe looked at the charged section and found almost all of them were just too expensive to consider. He bough the cheapest one he thought would help him.

[Wand of Thornhide] (Charged (28) - Common) Inflict moderate {Wood} damage to attackers when they come into contact with you. Duration: 10 minutes | Range: Touch {Wood}

He figured this could be useful if he was getting overwhelmed by apes. It cost him 3 gold per charge, leaving him with just over two grand.

For his last purchase, Joe sought out something to enhance his claws. He wandered through the market booths until he spotted a stall that had gear for catfolk races. There he found several sets of gloves with open-tipped fingers that were designed to let the feline people use their talons when they wanted to. The tigress woman behind the counter helped Joe try on several pairs for comfort while discussing what kind of enchantments he might want. It turned out that the most cost-effective damage enhancement was called [Dire Claws]. It made existing natural weapons inflict damage as if they belonged to a larger creature. Since one had to already have natural weapons for the modification to work, the enchantment cost less than one that gave straight boosts to weapon damage.

Joe spent eight hundred gold on a pair of [Dire Claw Mitts] that were incredibly comfortable. The garments had one opening for all four fingers and one for his thumb, which he liked better than the individual finger holes. As a bonus perk, they had minor adjusting, repair, and cleaning charms built into them. Given that they would likely be splattered with gore each time he used his claws, it would be nice not to have to burn cleaning charms after his fights.

He still had an hour or so to kill, so Joe sat down on the edge of the fountain and spent some time going over his new gear and recent advancements.

Name: Joseph (Joe) Morris Race: Changeling Level: 13 Experience: 30,458 / 31,640 ATTRIBUTES · Strength: 6 · Vigor: 13 · Dexterity: 3 · Perception: 6 · Spirit: 16 Available Attribute Points Unspent: 0 RESOURCES · Health: 1,377 / 1,377 · Stamina: 2,210 / 2,210 · Mana: 4,802 / 4,802 CLASSES · Primary Class: Healer · Secondary Class: Baleful Warder · Tertiary Class: None SKILLS STRENGTH SKILLS: (6 / 6) · [Heavy Hand] (U) rank 18 · [Hunter's Pursuit] (C) rank 9 · [Savage Claws] (U) rank 8 · [Steadfast] (C) rank 14 VIGOR SKILLS: (13 / 13) · [Bonemail] (C) rank 8 · [Efferous Endurance] (U) rank 19 · [Healer's Ward] (U) rank 10 · [Deaden Flesh] (U) rank 11 · [Morphic Form] (U) rank 14 · [Rattlebones] (U) rank 2 · [Stun Block] (U) rank 9 DEXTERITY SKILLS: (3 / 3) · [Swift Strike] (C) rank 14 · [Versatile Weapon Expertise] (C) rank 25 · [Whisperstep] (C) rank 13 PERCEPTION SKILLS: (6 / 6) · [Assess Wounds] (C) rank 19 · [Forceful Fist] (U) rank 15 · [Identify] (C) rank 29 · [Night Eyes] (C) rank 6 · [Tracker] (C) rank 6 SPIRIT SKILLS: (16 / 16) · [Crystal Mind] (C) rank 13 · [Curse Cleaver] (U) rank 4 · [Dispel Noxa] (C) rank 5 · [Grit Razor] (U) rank 3 · [Healer's Touch] (U) rank 29 · [Homefire] (U) rank 21 · [Mesmeric Command] (U) rank 1 · [Pack Master] (C) rank 3 · [Purge] (U) rank 18 · [Swap Stamina] (C) rank 8 TRAITS · [Anyone] (Racial) · [No one] (Racial) · [Sneaky] (Racial) · [Dual Cast] (Hereditary) · [Ideal Alias] (Hereditary) · [Iron Mind] (Hereditary) · [Beastmaster] (Achievement) · [Chill Bane] (Achievement) · [Death Toll] (Achievement) · [Defy Death] (Achievement) · [Durable] (Achievement) · [Hobbler] (Achievement) · [Overachiever] (Achievement) · [Punching-Bag] (Achievement) · [Signature Skill] (Achievement) · [Spirited] (Achievement) · [Survivalist] (Achievement) · [Tactician] (Achievement) · [Thick Skinned] (Achievement) · [Undaunted] (Achievement) · [The Seal of Passing] (Prophetic)

With better equipment and a much lighter purse, he left the shopping district behind and set off to meet the crew of the Tide Dancer for their bon voyage blowout.

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