Chapter 22: A Night on the Town

Chapter 22: A Night on the Town

“Well, that’s not good.” Perry muttered, looking up at the sign.

Dave’s Magical Emporium closed for High Tide. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Perry only had a few more fights worth of supplies, he was flush with cash and wanted to buy some of the more interesting spell components.

And then this.

Perry glanced around the streets of Funkytown and spotted a Belark wobbling along the sidewalk with its deceptively awkward gait, but none of Dave’s thugs were around. The place was well and truly abandoned.

“Now what?” Heather asked.

“I guess we ask around.” Perry said with a shrug, heading over to the magical critter.

It looked like what you would get if you took a yeti and stretched it out to ten feet long and make it walk on all fours with a S-shaped spine.

“excuse me,” Perry said in halting Manitian. “do you where um...find Dave?”

The Belark huffed and shook its woolly head, sinuously walking around him.

Hmm..no choice but to keep asking around.

Perry and Heather walked along the street, asking around here and there as the sun gradually went down and the nocturnal magical creatures emerged.

“Hey, you look familiar. Is your mom Hexen?” an overly friendly humanoid creature with a sharklike smile asked as he walked them towards Dave’s place.

“Yeah,” Perry admitted. “Just looking for Dave to buy some ingredients.”

“Oh my gosh, you must be her son, Paradox Zauberer! Hey everybody!” The shark-mouth turned around and waved to the empty alleyway.

“This is Hexen’s son!”

Carnivorous creatures popped out of the woodwork. One of them even peeled off the wall of the alleyway behind them, his skin un-mimicking the brickwork as he holstered his braining club.

“Wow!”

“What’s it like to live with Hexen?”

“Is she as cool in real life?”

“Is she married!?”

The ravenous mob of wicked-toothed creatures congregated around Perry, eager to devour celebrity trivia.

“Settle down, settle down,” The lead sharkmouth said. “Let’s not get carried away.”

Perry glanced over his shoulder at the mimic that had been behind them.

“Were you planning on eating us?” Perry asked.

“No, no!” the lead sharkmouth said as one of the alleygoers hid a butcher knife behind her back.

Perry maintained hard eye contact.Ñøv€lRapture marked the initial hosting of this chapter on Ñôv€lß¡n.

“...Yes. Sorry.”

“No harm no foul,” Perry said with a shrug. “Just try to keep it to the sick and the old, am I right?”

“As if old sick people wander around Funkeytown at night!”

Perry and the creatures devolved into a gale of laughter as Heather looked on with a concerned expression.

“Anyway,” Perry said, wiping tears out of his eyes. “Hexen wears jeans and a t-shirt when she’s off duty, likes cooking, watching cartoons and nature documentaries. Yes she’s married, No, I’m not gonna tell you to who, and it’s a different kind of cool when she’s your mom, but still cool.”

“Awesome...”

“And to answer your question,” The lead ambush predator said, “Dave’s lair is about two blocks south, under a bowling alley. Can’t miss it.”

A police car flashed down the street outside the alley, ghostly flames shooting out of the windows, cackling as it sped through the streets, pausing the discussion until it was out of earshot.

Perry raised a brow and pointed over his shoulder.

“High Tide,” the leader said with a shrug.

“I was only six during the last one, so I don’t remember much about it.”

“Well, there’s one good thing about High Tide...” The sharkmouth said.

“It’s never dull!” A squat woman with a muzzle meant for tearing flesh supplied.

Perry blinked. What on earth would an old folks home need that-

“Gorlock horn.” Dave said.

“Say no more,” Perry said, holding up a hand. “I don’t even wanna think about it. I’m renovating a piece of land and was looking to buy ingredients for these spells,” Perry said, offering Dave the list he’d compiled.

“Floating Armaments as a bulldozer? Hah!” Dave said, shaking his head. “There’s a thought. Why not just use Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation? Ingredients are a bit more expensive individually, but you’d save a lot of time and castings, get it all done at once.

“Reasons.” Perry said. Gretchen’s Idyllic Manifestation required the caster to have a concrete idea of the structure they wished to create, and the intent to make it. Since Perry was not the actual caster, he doubted a cluster of cells on a microchip could have a solid grasp on architecture or the desire to create it.

I mean, unless I hooked them up to a CAD program, maybe? Even then, would the spell count it as the tiny clump of cells having an idea in mind, or would the CAD be treated separately?

“Ah.” Dave said, nodding. “I gotcha. Well, -“

“Actually, could I get a sampler of the ingredients for that? I’d like to see if I could make it work, anyway.”

“No problem.”

“You know, if you’re going for inexpensive, you could try using Dregor’s Binding, sugar, and some ants.” Dave said.

“Dregor’s Binding? Isn’t that the voodoo doll spell?”

“Well yeah, but you can also use it on land,” Dave said. “Basically you make a model of a larger area with Miniature Vistas, replace any spot you want to be demolished with a powdered sugar replica, bind the two objects together with the binding spell, then place a pet ant colony right beside it. Ants’ll remove anything you want gone in a matter of days with no further input.”

“How much would that cost?” Perry asked.

“For both spells, some sugar and ants? ’bout five hundred bucks.”

That’s even cheaper than I was thinking. Might be a bit time consuming to make sugar storage containers, but cheap.

“Sign me up,” Perry said. “I still want the spells on the list, though.”

“Alright,” Dave said, motioning for them to follow him. “These are pretty intense amounts, You got the cash?”

Perry flashed a ten grand chit he’d gotten from John for the express purpose of splurging at Dave’s.

“Excellent. You know, it’s lucky you’re coming here during High Tide instead of my shop. Some of these items haven’t even been entered into my inventory yet, which makes it much more convenient for me to avoid paying taxes on them. Tell you what, I’ll even give you a discount. Half the tax savings. Then we’re both guilty.” Dave gave him a mischievous grin.

“Sweet.” Perry said, nodding.

“Something for you, young lady?” Dave asked, looking to Heather. I’ve got beauty products,” He pointed to a rack as they were passing by it. “If that’s not your thing, I’ve got love amulets over there. The legal kind, and the sort-of legal kind. We don’t do the totally illegal ones because I detest mind control.”

“Why do you assume I want makeup and love charms?” Heather asked. “How about some brass knuckles?”

Dave was quick on his feet.

“I don’t have anything pre-made, but I do have the materials to make some rather interesting weapons. I’ve got some unbonded haunted iron, vengeful steel, giant bone, metallic slime, which is great for blackjacks, and nontoxic, unlike mercury, by the way. Dragon molts if you wanna make some armor, a few performance enhancing potions made by a seller I highly recommend.”

“What’s haunted iron?” Heather asked.

“Quite simply, haunted Iron is a piece of iron that a ghost has taken permanent residence in. It must be worked below a certain temperature in order not to destroy the ghost, but assuming you do it right, Attacks with weapons made from them have triple the staying power, as they hit physically twice, and metaphysically once.” Dave said, selling it hard.

“They all have their likes and dislikes, but I generally sort them into two categories. Ghosts that get along well with women, and ghosts that get along well with men. Then you can find one from inside that pool that resonates well with you.”

They stopped in front of the haunted iron rack and were met with two separate piles of scrap iron. On the left for women, were mostly things like knitting needles, cast iron pans, irons, and other cleaning and cooking paraphenelia.

On the other side, were axe heads and crowbars and a turnwheel on a pressure hatch, among other manly things.

Dave held up his hands as they looked at him askance.

“Look, I don’t tell the ghosts which iron to haunt, alright?”

“What’s giant-bone do?”

“Giant bone has a grain to it that slightly realigns gravity in the direction of the grain. It helps keeps those lugs standing, but when fashioned into weapons, can create something that handles like a feather while hitting like an avalanche, a perfect choice for someone with delicate wrists.”

“I want enough Giant bone to make a new handle for this frying pan,” Heather said, reading the tag on the pan. “This lady was awesome. Killed three enemy raiders with it before she bled out.”

“That’ll be six thousand dollars.” Dave looked at Perry.

Heather looked at Perry.

“What?”

“I helped with the Locust, but I didn’t get paid for it.”

“So?”

“Half.” Heather said, holding out her hand.

“Dangit,” Perry muttered, pulling out five more chits. He knew this would happen and came prepared, but he’d secretly hoped it wouldn’t.