Soul Merger

It really was a nice day today. A light wind kept things from being too hot, while the sunshine was a pleasant oddity. The markets were taking advantage of that, with hawkers shouting out their various wares. Seagulls wheeled above, looking for something to steal and screaming at the cats and dogs waiting to chase them off.

Their small group was plotting outside the main market area, Alissa using Clara and Rosalina's shadow to avoid attention. Rosalina had pulled out a list of supplies. "So Clara, you've done this before. What do we need for a trip?"

"Depends on how we're getting there," Clara replied. "Most common move would be to buy cart space as spare guards, since we don't own horses. Taking a boat wouldn't be any faster. A personal carriage would be, but we'd have to pay a good deal more." Alissa nodded to herself. Carriages would require hiring guards instead of working as one.

"Let's go with that," Rosalina said. "So we'll need food and bedrolls. What else?"

Clara closed her eyes as she collected her thoughts. "Packs if you don't have a good one, the usual cleanliness stuff, and cooking supplies. And get traveling cooking gear. You'll regret it if you raid your kitchen. There's plenty of towns along the road but you'll need to do stuff like boiling water on the go."

"I can help with that," Fili said. "You won't need to get heat powder."

"Thanks," Alissa said. "That stuff isn't nearly as safe as people claim." Her family had plenty of stories about heat powder starting fires despite being used 'correctly'.

Rosalina nodded. "As adventurers we should all have good packs, so let's find a place that sells traveling cookware. Come along!"

Clara blinked as Rosalina headed into the crowd. Alissa shrugged and followed after. The dragon woman obviously wanted to do more general shopping. The other two women were soon following along.

Sure enough, Rosalina caught Alissa and led the group over to a copper worker's stall a few blocks in. "Oh, they've got resistance charms in jade. We should get one for Akari. The friend I told you about who can frontline."

Alissa looked over the charms. Unfortunately she couldn't tell how strong they were. Resistance charms against minor elemental effects were common for travelers, but they tended to get easily overwhelmed when faced by real attacks. Add in the number of second rate engravers just mimicking the correct forms and Alissa had never really bothered.

Clara seemed similarly clueless, though she was checking the standard jewelry's quality pretty intensely. That made sense. A traveling merchant liked trading small high value items.

On the other hand Fili was peering very closely at the amulets and rings. Alissa noticed the woman's hand occasionally moving towards the merchandise, then stopping. She probably didn't want to slime the products. But that meant she might miss some details.

The next time the mage reached out and froze, Alissa moved to pick up the item. "What should I be looking for?" she asked.

Fili blinked up at her then blushed. "Uh, well the lines need to be even. Same with the depth. That's a charm against cold, so it should feel warm as well. And the copper fastener should give a little tingle. Like electricity."

The stone was warm, so Alissa checked that off the list. Concentrating on her fingers, she let her merge enhance her hand's sense of touch. Unlike the other sensory enhancements it wasn't usually useful, but right now it should help.

The edges pressed into her flesh as she ran her fingers along them, while the sensitive tips of her fingers could feel how smooth the polish was. She carefully followed each line, marveling at how precise engravers could be. "The lines are all good. I think the depths are mostly even, though there's a few slants here and there." She moved to the fastener and felt a light hum through her fingers. "And yeah that's electric."

The dwarf lady frowned at her comments. "Slants? Ma'am I assure you I follow all engraver's guild requirements."

She let her focus relax, cutting off the extra feeling from her hands. "It's about two hairs difference between here and here. See?" Alissa tapped the opposite ends of the stone.

The dwarf woman peered closely with a scowl, before recovering. "Wait, you mean hair's breadth literally?"

Fili giggled beside her. "That's well within acceptable tolerance for copper. The mithril work will have to be more exacting, but two hairs is good enough for goldwork."

Alissa felt her cheeks heat a little. "Sorry. I'm not really well versed in magic rules. Never really had the chance to learn."

"It's fine, miss," the shopkeeper said, her grin having returned. "My fault for getting defensive. Still, that's a nice skill you have there. I have to judge by the shadows, which can be a little hard with uneven stones."

"Doesn't come up often, but it can help," Alissa admitted. Mostly it was nice when searching for well hidden traps. The fine line between normal stone and a pressure plate became really obvious that way.

"Anyway I'll take it," Fili said, holding out her hand. Alissa let the amulet fall into the mage's palm then stood back to let the two haggle.

Rosalina wandered over to her side while grinning. "I suppose I should have mentioned I can sense the flow of magic through items?"

"You can?" Alissa blinked. "I thought there wasn't a way to detect magic?"

"There's no way to identify magic," Rosalina corrected. "Magic is easy to detect if you can sense the flow of energy like I can. What that magic is doing is beyond me. For situations like this however...."

"There's no reason to lie about the specific power granted." Alissa put that in the back of her mind for later. It could be quite useful in the future, especially in some of the deeper labyrinth floors.

Fili completed the transaction and rejoined them while sliding the amulet under her robe. "I'm hoping this will force me to rely on my slime less for warmth," she said quietly.

"Seems like your merge is more reactive than most," Clara said. "Is it hard to control?"

"I can force it to do a lot of things. But I can't keep it from just doing what it wants to 'protect' me." Fili sighed. "Great if I accidentally step on glass, but pretty terrible if it's not perfect weather."

Alissa gave the woman a pat on the shoulder before looking at the others. "So where are you dragging us next Rosalina?"

The dragon woman pretended to be surprised. "I don't know what you're talking about. I'm just looking for a place that sells good cooking supplies."

Clara shrugged along with the rest as they dismissed the lie. "Don't know about her, but I figure we should go to a pharmacist for medical supplies. Got a few good ones nearby."

"Are you forgetting you have a genius healer?" Rosalina asked, puffing out her chest. It was a good question.

"Can you heal cramps?" Clara replied sweetly.

Rosalina's grimace answered the question quickly. Well then. "Medicines sound like a great idea," Alissa said.

"Agreed," said Fili.

"We probably should," Rosalina admitted, smoothing her hair behind her horn crown.

Clara took the lead through the streets, weaving between the stands and around the more persistent hawkers. She led them to a permanent shop, advertising medicines and supplies. The front window showed several racks of blood restoring potions and flesh sealants alongside hard candies and canned fish.

The inside cut out a lot of the sounds of the city, letting the customers inside pour over the powders and potions with a little less distraction. Unfortunately that meant it was easier to bump into people or draw attention to yourself. Alissa instinctively headed to one of the corners. Best to move out when the space around her target items were free of male customers. The shopkeeper was a man too, but she'd deal with that when she was forced to.

"Um," A hint of strawberry in the air caused Alissa to look down. It seemed Fili had followed her. "What's your preferred cure for cramps?"

"Calm powder works best for me," Alissa said. "And thanks." It was nice of the woman to help her out here.

She saw Rosalina giving a 'covert' thumbs up and rolled her eyes. Not everything was flirting. She wasn't going to assume anything about Fili being friendly.

She relaxed a little as she saw Fili collecting the powder and a few other things. It was nice having friends though. It had been a long long time since she'd been able to relax with people.