Chapter 138: 136 – Speak of Iron

A laugh rang out from him, “Because I am! I thoroughly appraise each and every item you see upon these shelves, and sometimes, something with a will of its own comes through. They don't like being on shelves. They demand new owners. New wielders, most often. I am not one to keep such objects prisoner, so I leave them untagged. They sell faster that way, and I can make sure the wrong sort doesn’t buy one. That belt…”

He gestured at the box. 

“That belt has seen terrible things. It is possessed of an angry spirit, and it demands a wielder better than the wretch who sold it to me. Know that should you not provide such a thing, it will find its way out of your grasp… Or simply cease functioning. As I’ve already told you, artefacts are temperamental things.”

Zel could tell he was just making up the belt’s history as he went along. He was lying, but there was no malice behind it - he was spinning yarn around a core of truth to make it seem more appealing, as a Pawnbroker is wont to do. Nevertheless, such a belt was thoroughly intriguing - even if it wasn’t something she saw herself or Zef using. Perhaps Makhus would like it. It certainly sounded like something he would take an interest in.

“How much?” Zef asked.

“Do you see a price on the tag? Make me an offer.”

And so, Zelsys did just that, trusting her instincts to guide her in haggling.

She pulled out her Tablet and willed it to expel one of the plainer rings from the Locust Queen’s hoard - a simplistic serpent coiled around itself, clutching a perfectly spherical piece of cloudy purple jade in its jaws. 

The Pawnbroker damn near said out loud “a little more”, to which she willed an earring of similar simplicity to pop out - a simple piece of jade set in an equally simple piece of gold. 

It clattered on the counter, spinning in place as the Pawnbroker stared at it. She could all but see the cogs turning in his head. He picked it up, squinted at it, waved one hand about it and made those hair-thin tendrils go all over it.

“These were… Created by a dungeon,” he breathed. “Yes, I believe this will do.”

Zef cut in, “How can you tell?”

The Pawnbroker held out the ring, “Look. Look closely. It’s clean, both physically and spiritually. Nothing made by a human hand is perfectly clean - even golems and machines leave traces, traces that can be targeted by scrying magicks. Objects like this ring have a very particular value to very particular people… I am among them.”

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“Clandestine business dealings, we get it,” Zel nodded. “And that stuff about the belt - you were just spinning a yarn. I could tell.”

Making no effort to backpedal or conceal it, the Pawnbroker freely confessed: “And yet you still bought it! Sometimes a good story is a better sales pitch than any other. In truth, I got it off one of the Iron Brotherhood representatives. Doesn’t happen often, but whenever a sworn-in Brother runs off or gets kicked out, they put a deterrence hex on the dreg’s old gear and sell it off to the nearest trusted pawnbroker. From there, whoever has the wherewithal to actually pick it up off the shelf also has the right to buy it.”

The deal had effectively been finalized by this point, the Pawnbroker having stowed the ring somewhere under the counter whilst Zel packed most of what Zef picked out into her Tablet, paid for the rest, and left the tent behind. 

After a short while of continuing to explore for its own sake, Zef brought up the currency exchange offer that Arnys had made and suggested they make use of it, “While we’re already here.”

Finding the currency exchange was easy, once they actually walked down the street looking for it. It was a huge tent of comparable size to the stage, barely squeezed into a square just off the main street. Despite the number of people milling in and out, it was not a source of noise. 

In front of the entrance stood two bulky humanoids that at first seemed to be golems, but the way they moved and looked at her betrayed the presence of humans within. They towered over everyone else, being at least one and a half times as tall as a normal person, and held similarly giant halberds with curious crystalline components that seethed magic. 

The tent’s interior was subdivided by a great number of metal walls mounted to a metal scaffold, its central hallway filled by guards in much more human-sized, albeit still golem-like armor.

“...Wait, are these Kargarian Tankmen?” Zef thought aloud, squinting curiously at some of the guards as they walked. One of the guardsmen’s heads snapped towards her, he gave a sharp nod, then returned to standing at attention. Their armor was rather curious - Zel saw metal underneath, but the plates were painted, glyph-etched stone. Perhaps the Kargarians had recycled the armour of old golems. 

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Following the main hallway led them to a larger room with three counters, manned by middle-aged Kargarian women. After speaking with one about the currency and general amount of it they wished to exchange she directed them to one of the side rooms.

Within awaited two more armored guards, a small customer space, and a barred counter with a large sign on the upper portion. Behind it were no vaults, no piles of money, no visible connection to a storage vehicle. There was a series of curious devices from weights to registers to things Zel didn’t recognize, some on the other side of the counter and others on tables, all surrounding…

...A four-eyed humanoid dragon? Or a humanoid lizard? It was a bizarre creature either way.

Its scales were the colour of freshly-pressed olive oil - that is to say, bright green. Besides this, it had four arms - one pair where they were expected, the other freakishly long, double-elbowed, and rooted on the upper back, tiny bits of nigh-transparent membrane stretching between their joints.

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