“Unless you have a buyer,” said Alfric, shrugging. “We haven’t found any
seeds or plants yet, so it’s not urgent.” With Isra, they
said Isra.
Alfric was glad to hear from them and to know that they were okay. Business was continuing along as normal, and there had been no signs of Lola or the others, for which he was grateful. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all going to go south.
As they stepped into the entad shop, Verity was contemplating what she was going to buy, if anything. A musical instrument wasn’t a must for a bard, but it could be helpful in many ways, and it was how she’d been trained as well as being her preference. The problem was that entads didn’t tend to have the most convenient forms to them, and a dungeon was as likely to produce a baryton or a viol as it was to produce a drum or a lute. In fact, the dungeons would also produce instruments that bore only surface similarities to the kinds of things a luthier would make, bespoke items that seemed as though they had been manufactured by some alternate alien world. The many-finger flute, which she kept strapped to one leg, was useful in that it could make some of those instruments usable when they otherwise wouldn’t be, which Alfric had brought up days ago. She’d appreciated the insight.
The lute was Verity’s preferred instrument, the one she practiced with every day, but like any self-respecting conservatory-trained musician, she was well versed in musical theory and had practiced to some level of proficiency with many different stringed instruments. Still, if she found a proper entad instrument, there was likely to be a transitional period in which she simply wasn’t up to snuff with it, and she loathed the idea of giving up her lute, which she had a long, fond familiarity with.
The entad shop was a small one, by comparison with some of the enormous places available in Dondrian, but it was nice and cozy, in a way that a lot of places in the area seemed to be. In Dondrian, many of the shops seemed to be using their space as a way to seem grand and imposing, but in a place like Liberfell, where land was plentiful and the population was relatively small, there was no need for that, so they went with making it as welcoming as possible. It was an interesting difference and one of the things that had made Verity happy that she’d chosen to come so far away from the big cities.
Verity found herself mildly impressed that Alfric had been carrying around the fifty-pound book for so long. She was, at least, glad that she wasn’t the one who had to do it. She busied herself with looking at entads while Alfric and Hannah talked to the shopkeeper, a boy around their own age.
Each of the entads in the shop had a little card next to it, which described the effects of the entad and its particulars, including how it had done on something called a scratch test and some details of its provenance and testing. The costs weren’t listed, which was somewhat traditional in these places since each entad was, by definition, unique.
There was a pencil that would never run out of lead, a matchbox that could make matches out of plain sticks, and a pillow that could change size. Verity stopped at a dictionary that would give the definition of any word you spoke aloud, in any language, with the caveat that it would give made up definitions if the word didn’t exist.
“
The definition appeared within the pages of the book. ‘Kworma: noun, Chelxic word for friend or ally, often used as a term for a customer or conversational partner.’
“
‘Besidle: verb, coming up to a friend who doesn’t know you’re there.’
Verity took some joy from this small thing, but she had no
