Shard

  “Now then, before I fet, I ought to show you where we pick up supplies. Before we get there, you must not speak of anything important with the man; he is a known spy for the Church of flict, though he is quite open about it, and is also our official tact with them,” Morris remarked as he led Dawn into another se of the base of the spire.

  A few moments ter, they entered peared to be a rge warehouse, stocked with everything from food to furniture, and even a vault. There were half a dozen people in robes wandering around with clipboards putting things onto shelves or filling carts, and a man wearing a simple shirt and pants leaning into the vault.

  Morris stopped them by the entrand waited for the man in the vault to finish up, emerging with a rge bag that jingled as it moved. “Ah, hello, always good to see a new fabsp; Wele, Morris, I suppose I won’t be getting any juifo today, eh?” the man excimed.

  “Not this time, Frank. I’ve told her the basics, though I’m sure she would like to know more about you. You are pretty abnormal, after all,” Morris replied as the man poured a number of s onto the desk beside the vault and began s them into a drawer.

  Frank nodded and remarked, “Of course, of course! So if he told you the basics, you already know I’m supposed to try to get you to tell me things you shouldn’t so I report them. My attitude hasn’t made me popur with the higher-ups at the Church, but I am still useful, so they put up with me. I handle basically any supplies you could need, as well as buying charged and ented mana stoo distribute to the city. You could get a better deal elsewhere, but it would take much more time. Oh, and I assume that fox in your hood is an awakened, but there is o fear me; I’m not a zealot, even if I follow the God of flict.”

  With a nod towards her, he then waved behind himself at the others and tinued, “If you need money and don’t want to deal with or ot charge or ent mana stones, you work for me dealing with iory and delivery. This book here has a list of everything I get retively easily, and the staagazio the side show the on goods I always have avaible, feel free to take one! If you need anything else, just ask and I will try to get it for you—for a price, of course! Now, any questions for me?”

  Dawn simply blinked in surprise for a moment before finally asking, “Are you sure you follow the Church of flibsp; You seem far too cheerful, and you aren’t a warrior, I don’t think?”

  Frank smiled and replied as he nodded, “Certainly, I get asked that a lot! You see, what many, even in the Church, don’t uand is that flict is not all physical battle. The two of us will be in flict quite a bit, in fabsp; You want supplies, I want your valuables. You want the lowest price, I want the highest. We resolve our fliot with ons, but with words and mutual be. Too many of the zealots fet that flict is everywhere you look! Even farmers are in flict stantly, but with nature. Builders are in flict with the world as well. If those fools would only think for a few seds, things could be so much better for everyone!”

  Shocked, Dawn stared at the man while deep in thought before herself responding, “Thank you very much, I hought like that before, and I easily see what you mean. Maybe flict itself is not a bad thing, just some of its followers…”

  Beside her, Morris chuckled befrabbing one of the magazio hand to her and remarking, “See why we let him stay here? Quite a remarkable man, even if he spies on us. Now how about you order some food before we go? I’ll cover the cost this time.”

  Nodding, Dawn quickly browsed through the magazine and picked out some assorted food, and after cheg with Niphru aing a nod, included some cuts of meat as well. After Frank wrote dowhing, he called over one of his helpers to hand the list over, remarking that they could wait a few minutes or e back ter to pick it up, mentioning that deliveries were not avaible to trainees, as they were already quite close by.

  Following this, Morris directed her to follow him to pick up some basic training material and books on theory from a small library on the opposite side of the spire. Once Dawn had the armful of books he had pointed out, they headed back to her resideo put them away. Along the way, Morris mentiohat she should send a message bae, and gave her dires to the messeation, near Frank’s warehouse.

  Ohey arrived, Morris opehe door for Dawn and, seeing the stone he had keyed to the door, collected the token. Meanwhile, Dawn stepped around the pile of items that had been delivered from her cart. While she put her books up on the shelves, Morris unlihe key aur to his robe before stating, “I have to go for now, but take the rest of today and tomorrow for yourself, and we get started in two days. Do you need any help before I leave?”

  Dawn thought for a moment and hummed under her breath before shaking her head and replying, “No, I think I’ll be fine now. Thank you for the help so far, and I guess I’ll see you in a few days.”

  Nodding, Morris turo leave as Dawn began s through the pile of her belongings to put them up.

  A while ter, she finished up and, figuring enough time had passed, returo the base of the spire to see if she could pick up the order from Frank. Since she had spent time dealing with her belongings, she was able to pick everything up as soon as she arrived, making a quick stop by the messeation to pick up a ber to fill out, marveling at the birdlike golem for a moment before returning.

  After putting away the food, she decided to take a bath, grabbed two towels, and headed to the bedroom. The bed proved easy enough to move out of the way, and the cover seemed to work exactly as mentioned, even having a pce to hold the towels while she bathed. While she was slightly worried after the shower, it appeared the water that filled the tub was normal rather than the odd ‘sticky’ water the shower had used.

  After stripping and putting her clothes safely outside the possible spsh radius of the tub, Dawered, carefully holding Niphru’s head above the water while she scrubbed him . She did notice he was trying to swim, though he seemed uo support himself, so she put him on the cover beside her when she was done ing him and focused on herself. Once , she set the tub to drain while she toweled off Niphru as best as she could.

  Afterward, with the dirty water having drained, she refilled the tub with nice warm water and leaned back beside Niphru to rex for a while. After nearly falling asleep and ending up all wrinkly as the water cooled, she got out and dried herself off before returning the tub to its closed state and putting the bed back.

  With a quick trip to the bathrooms after dressing to dry the towels, Dawled down to write a message to her mother back at the vilge to update her on the excitement that had occurred on her journey, as well as how Niphru was doier after taking him to the Temple of the Green. Upon finishing the letter, she took one more trip down all the stairs to leave the message for delivery, auro her residence again, legs ag from all the travel up and dowairs.

  Seeing an opportunity to practice, she sat down on the floor and stretched her legs out while slolying healing to them, relieving the ache before she headed to bed to get some rest.