These Things Are For Sale (Open)

[Aqua]

Timestamp: First cycle of Cryxatum, Summer Era XIV PF

The neighborhood was not a particularly good one. Like much of Old Prime, it consisted of dilapidated houses, shoved far too close together, in constant danger of coming completely undone and falling down where they stood. The streets seemed narrow, and were choked with refuse and noise. Thin-faced children peered out of windows or raced desperately from one building to another. Surly-looking men leered with menace into dark alleyways. It was a scene of poverty, of hunger, of gloom.

But on this particular brightening, the boy in the center of the intersection didn't seem to notice. He wore an expression of deliberate, passionate concentration, as if he were in some kind of contest that would determine his fate for the remainder of his life. He was probably thirteen or fourteen ordinations, of average height for his age, wearing a worn tunic and trousers and a shabby-looking cap. Next to him was a small wheelbarrow, which was piled with books.

"Serale!" he called out, his voice much louder than one might have expected. "Would you like to help kids like me take an educational trip to Jaedaxia?" There was no doubt in his mind that anyone listening to him did want to help him, for he allowed no pause before going on.

"I've got books for sale, books for sale! You want romance, action, adventure? Try the Kannonball Kira books by Ra'ari "Roy" Aarcha. I've got all three, all available for the low, low price of five crowns a book. You won't find these prices anywhere else, trust me on that. Or, if you want something more highbrow, try The Book of Coins, written by the master alchemist, Adrian de Aquinas. I have two copies left, and they can be yours for twenty crowns. They're easily worth twice that. Come and see!"

A few children, a nervous-looking young woman, and a middle-aged dorin walked over in response to this advertisement. The boy gestured to the wheelbarrow, and they began picking up the books and looking through them to try and get a feel for the contents.

[Henry Brightblade]

Henry walked down the poor neighborhood feeling a type of sadness and loneliness. The streets of Prime were filled with people like this, and if it hadn’t been for his mother moving them out before the plague, Henry could have very well been living like these people. He could see that some were people who just needed someone to show them the way to being better. Others were beaten and had given up on doing anything more then surviving. Still some more preyed on the weak and hollow, it was easier then preying on those that could defend themselves.

Henry had come because he needed reassurance that what he was doing was the right thing. He had given the paper to the dean to try and help these people. These houses would probably be torn down and the materials used to make slum apartments. Some landlord would receive moneys from the government to offset the cost for the people to live there, but in the end would it truly help them? Would the huddled children and broken mothers be better because of it? Had Henry done something only just to change there world and not make it better?

Henry kept walking down the broken cobble stone streets. Chunks of street cobbles had been broken over the winter and no one had done anything to repair them. While street debris some from folks a few bits and pieces from the buildings surrounding Henry were littered around the street. Flies and maggots had overtaken most of the waste and began to dry it out from their continued feeding. The air smelled staler as if the buildings hid the available breezes and held onto the rotting waste smell. Even stray dogs seem poorer and more depressed in this part of the city. For as Henry heard the outcry from the child a stray dog walked a sad path right in front of Henry. For a moment the dog lifted his almost sorrowful head to look at the boy and then it moved a painful motion back to Henry.

The dog had a natural droop in his neck that made the animal look like it held his head in shame. Its left eye had gone milky either from a fight or a disease, and its shaggy coat was probably covered in fleas. Yet in its one good eye, the animal spoke, I have lived and that was enough. Perhaps no more, nobler of a statement could have come from any man or child, but Henry bowed too the dog and allowed him to go on his way.

Henry stepped over the offal and continued onward too his wheel barrel of merchandise. Henry had on a pair of sturdy work boots and old pants and work shirt with the sleeves cut off. He didn’t want street urchins to think he was some student coming down to there parts of the woods for some kind of charity penance from the gods.

Yet Henry knew he would buy a book from the lad, if nothing more then to encourage the boy to always try and reach for something better. As Henry looked at the spine of each book for its title, he wondered if they might be a real treasure in here. Something that might actually be of use to him, then again if there was he might wonder where did the boy find such a tome? So Henry allowed the children to look through some of the more basic books as he tried to find something of interest for himself.

[Aqua]

Although the boy's wheelbarrow had plenty of books in it, most of them were copies of the same things. There were three books by an author named Ra'ari "Roy" Aarcha: Kannonball Kira, the Krazy Katta, Kannonball Kira and the Kalamatous Kiss, and Kannonball Kira Komes Klean. The covers showed a lithe, sinuous katta female wearing almost nothing except a few carefully paced shreds of ripped clothing, and the interior of the books seemed to be precisely what one might expect, a mixture of rollicking action and rather explicit love scenes.

The other book that the boy had mentioned, The Book of Coins, looked to be a good deal more substantial. It was bound in leather, and appeared to be an academic text on alchemy. It might be more suited to Henry's intellectual bent, if the topic was something that interested him.

Most of the wheelbarrow was simply more of the same. At the bottom, there were a couple copies of the second edition of A Primer to Arcana, both of which appeared to have been obtained used, as they weren't in the kind of fresh-from-the-bindery shape as the rest of the books. Nonetheless, they were still perfectly serviceable, with all the pages present and accounted for.

The boy looked over at Henry. "Anything catch your fancy, sir?" he asked in a practiced salesman's voice that belied his young age. "The finest works from the presses of Jagarts publishing, most respected and profitable publisher in Medonia and Jaedaxia. I'm sure there's something here for you, sir." One of the adults held out a copy of one of the Kira books, and the boy accepted payment for it smoothly, without taking his eye off of Henry.

[Henry Brightblade]

A faint look of disgust and a shimmer of intrigue was placed on Henry face as he picked up the Ra’ari Aarcha series. It seems that Kira a katta female was quite the naughty kitten. Yet, in younger times he might have been tempted by sword fights and romantic interludes. Now he had Mareka to take care of, not to mention if she found these books lying around the apartment… who knows what kind of ideas she would think. Besides it was a delicate enough enterprise that Henry was in now… if Mareka decided to start confiding in her father then Henry wanted to make sure that he wasn’t going to be receiving a Katta Female servant as well.

But as he picked up the leather text of The Book of Coins, he started flipping through some of the pages. What he saw he was intrigued, yet… Alchemy, the only way for me to make money would be to go out and find a new formula. Still with Ikos and hard work that may actually happen and it would be Henry’s own money, but the price 20 crowns! Henry placed the book back down feeling less certain about the investment that The Book the Coins could represent.

Henry kept searching through the pile till he came to the bottom of the wheelbarrow and saw the Primer to Arcana. The old man had told Henry that if he sought other thoughts of magick, in the end he would never be a mage of great repute. Granted, Henry had the itch to go forth and throw fire or teleport himself across the city, but Ikos was subtler and required imagination. The runes worked not on some visible level, but in a subtle way that made people act in a fashion that they thought was natural. A wish could be said asking for Henry to always say the right thing to a perhaps to start a friendship. Mysticism could do that as well, but Ikos could also help you find things by chance instead of knowing everything about it. Ikos could stack a card deck so you could always win. Make your hands toss dice in a way so that you would never crap out. Nay, Arcana was important, but Henry began to think that he should at least know something of the other spheres…

“You have a nice base collection, and I am sure that for the variety of people coming off the street this would be plenty, but… I was looking for something else; either some classic novel for my own reading at home, or something a little more specific when it came to Arcana.”Then again Mareka might very well wish to practice the alchemy or Arcana… well maybe not Arcana, but alchemy might be a decent hobby for her.

Henry felt let down a little he hadn’t thought only three type of books would be for sale in this wheel barrel.“What about an old journal or some book of poetry? I am afraid that as far as technical books you have… they just don’t intrigue the subtler side of me.”

[Aqua]

The boy looked at Henry with a little bit of confusion. Most people were more than happy to buy a copy of one of the Kannonball Kira books -- it was the most popular series of books in the history of Enamoria, after all, and the Kira craze was sweeping through Prime as well with astonishing rapidity. He wasn't used to his selection of materials being criticized, even if it was done gently.

"Erm...Kira is a pretty classic novel," he said uncertainly, not really understanding Henry's words. "But if you want something else..." Henry would almost be able to see the gears in the boy's head turning -- he was a born salesman, and he very much wanted to be able to close a deal.

The boy reached into the bottom of the wheelbarrow and picked up one of the copies of the Primer. There was a small publication that had been hidden underneath. It was twelve pages long, more of a pamphlet than a book really, but it had obviously been put together with some care. The boy's fingers wrapped around it, and then he handed it to Henry.

The title on the front was printed in a script font. A Small Selection of Katta Poetry, Transcribed from the Original and Rendered into the Common Tongue by Ra'ari Aarcha, it read, and beneath the words was a simple line etching of a katta sitting underneath a tree and reading a book. The corners were a bit bent, but otherwise it was in good condition.

"It's from much earlier in Aarcha's career, before the Kira series," the boy said, regaining his confidence. "Fewer than a thousand were printed; I got a couple of the ones that weren't sold at the time in my last shipment, stuck in between some of the other books. It's out of print, and it's a steal at five crowns." He looked at Henry with the eyes of a shark, hoping that this find had piqued this rather demanding customer's interest.