It didn't take all too long for me to realize that I was dead broke. Looking into my pockets, all that I pulled out were the 22 copper coins that had been dropped by the slime. A soft sigh left my body as my shoulders dropped and the excitement I had felt slowly drained out of my body. How was I supposed to find lodging? How was I gonna have a meal to eat? I needed to find an easy method of getting money. Walking around the city I would read signs that I came across, though most only had pictures, and I would look for any place that seemed like a good place to sell my goods. I had made a right turn from the building of which I had entered the city, this then forced me into the wave of traffic moving deeper into the city. Luckily this allowed me to see more shops, but none that would take small items like stone and wood.
As I was being ushered forward by the movement of the traffic I would spot a store with an ax on the signboard. This seemed like a good place to sell the wood I had just gathered. Pushing my way through the traffic and to the shop, I would find my way onto the sidewalk. Shaking my head a bit to get focused, I would then push the door open as a small jingle played over my head from a small bell. A bit startled by the sound I would look up at the top of the doorway then look into the store. On the wall there was some wood carved paintings of the sorts, as well as some wood, carved statues. From the backroom, the sound of monotonous scraping could be heard. Though it wasn't even a second after I had entered that I heard from that room,
"I'll be out a minute, look around for a bit and be right there."
As the scraping sound would stop and I could hear the groan of a middle-aged body pushing itself up to make its way out. What came through the back doorway was sort of what I had expected to appear from it. A large man with a graying beard emerged from the doorway, he was round in shape and had a kind smile on his face. He was tall as well, around six foot seven or so.
"Now what can I do for ya."
He would say as he looked down at me as I stood at the counter. My five foot six-seven self seemed like a midget compared to his gargantuan size. Taking out the wood blocks from my bag and placing them onto the counter a perplexed look would make its way to his face.
"Wow, this wood is really well polished, and how did you transport such good quality wood?"
He would murmur to himself. Not sure if he wanted an answer or nor, I would simply say,
"I have my methods, but umm...would you be willing to buy these off of me?"
Looking up from the woodblocks and down at me, he would let out a slight laugh before saying,
"Of course. These wooden pieces are in great conditions and I could make small figurines with these size blocks. Now you wouldn't happen to have more would you? I'm just gonna assume that the bag you have there is a magic pouch and thus I'm gonna assume you have more wood pieces in there, so follow me."
Being the naive and trusting young individual I am, I followed the man to the back of his workspace without even thinking of the dangers this could hold. Luckily for me, this large man was kind and thus I was not attacked nor was I put in any form of danger, rather the man took me to his storage room in the back of his shop. His shop was split into two sections, the main shop area and the workspace in the back. Here the man kept all his tools and works in progress. He also had wooden trunks, less than six feet in length leaned up against the wall in a method of storage.
"You can take all of the wooden pieces you have out of your bag and stack them near the trunks there."
Doing as instructed, I would slowly take out the wooden blocks one by one from my inventory, carefully stacking them up. I was only able to give him 40 or so wooden blocks before there was not much space in his designated storage area. The man watched me with a perplexed and interesting look. It seems that the item that I had acquired by chance was an extremely powerful item. With even more blocks to spare, I would simply stop at what felt comfortable telling him,
"That is all I've got, so what's the offer."
I was trying to put on professional salesman confidence and as you can tell, it does not seem all that good. With a kind smile, the man inspected the woodblock that I had given him to inspect the first time.
"I'm not sure how you came to have such a fine sense of craftsmanship, and the time to gather and refine so much wood. Nor do I know how you came to be holding such a strong spacial bag, but what I do know is that I can offer you 15 gold coins for that."
If my thoughts were correct, one gold was equivalent to 100 silver coins, which one silver coin was worth 100 copper coins. Selling my wood just now was one of the best things. I had no idea on the price of items in this city, bah let alone the world, but this seemed like a deal I could not pass up. Nodding happily, the man would walk to his backroom, pulling out a pouch from a large metal cube. Laying the coins out atop the metal box, he would count 15 coins off and hand them to me.
"Now you keep them safe, and if I ever need wood blocks again, I will make an attempt to contact you. I wish you safe travels." He would say as he made his way back into the room where he had grabbed the coins from and shutting the door to it shut. Taking this as my sign to leave, I would place the gold coins into my pockets and walk out of the store and once again onto the busy streets.
Now on the sidewalk, as opposed to the highway through the middle of the kingdom, I was able to see all sorts of different shops and people as they passed by. My current goal was to find a restaurant of sorts, somewhere where I could spend some coin to find a meal or two. As I made my way through town, one location, in particular, caught my eye. It seemed to be a saloon of sorts, but the shop it was connected to was also an inn. Dining there meant killing two birds with one stone, a good deal if you ask me. So I made my way to the inn. The sun had just made its way over the top of the sky and was on its way down to hide behind the horizon once more. Walking into the saloon at the bottom floor of the inn, I was greeted by a young woman not much older than me handling multiple cups of alcohol. Walking around the saloon floor handing out drinks and food were other waitresses in simple clothing. A white button top with a brown vest over it and an apron or skirt of sorts to hold small tablets to write on. These tablets seemed to be made of paper and they had what seemed to be scratchers as opposed to the modern pen. Scratching down the order, they would stab them on a metal spike near the kitchen and a cook would grab it and begin to make a meal. This place operated much like a modern diner would work, but not like I know a thing about modern diners. Finding an open seat at an empty table, I would patiently wait for a waitress to come to my table and tell me what they were offering.
After a short while, the girl who had passed me when I had first entered came over and said,
"Hello there, this ya first time coming to this place?"
"Uh...yeah, what do you guys offer for lunch?"
"Well, today the chef is making either a pork cut or a stew. I mean ya can get both, but that'll be difficult to finish."
"U-uh okay then, can I just get the soup?"
"Sure thing." She would finish the conversation off before scratching what appeared to be the word "soup" onto the parchment she would then walk away from the table, leaving me to listen in to the stories around me. The groups that sat among me were all men of much larger stature than me, but what I lacked in body mass I made up in my observant nature. Trying to focus on a group behind me, I could hear them speaking of the adventure they had just completed and they finished their conversation with a celebratory cheer. A few tables over, a man was crying to one of the waitresses about how he had just been dumped, and on another table, a group was speaking about taking a new quest from the adventurers guild.
Adventurers guild...where had I heard that overused fantasy troupe before? Either way, the idea of joining the guild piqued my interest and a personal quest was retrieved in my mind. The contents of this self-proclaimed quest were to find the guild and join it. Traveling the world was my main goal and being in a guild meant for adventure seemed like the right way to go. Fantasizing about joining the guild, my food came, and many parties that had come to eat during the mid-day lunch period paid for their food and left to go back to work. Soon the once filled to the brim saloon became a space filled with only drunks and the employees. Eating my soup calmly, it would be finished in a timely manner. Waving down the same girl who had given me my food, I would ask her what the nightly rates were like here. A slightly confused and angry look would appear on her face and I would quickly reiterate what I was saying, explaining that I had noticed that this place doubled as an inn and that I wanted to know how much a room would go for per night staying there. With her face calming down, she would tell me that the rooms cost 6 silver a night. Not knowing if that was a good deal or not, I gave them one of my 15 gold coins telling them this is an advance for the new two weeks. Thanking them for the wonderful food, I would stand up and begin to walk to the doorway before I was flagged down by an older lady that had come from the back.
"Excuse me young man, but you're leaving without taking your room key."
With a slight sense of embarrassment, I would follow her towards a counter near the stairs up to the inn space. Handing me a key with the number 4 and the name of the saloon carved into it, I would place it in my pocket and begin to walk towards the exit once more. Returning to the sidewalk, I finally had a good meal and a place to return to once the night hit. Though today had been rather productive, there was still more to do before the sun fell over the horizon. Walking through the city, I would stop at random shops along the street. Buying their goods, I would eat just about every little snack and or small meal I could get my hands on. Though looking for the guild should have been my main priority, exploring the city was also something I also wanted to do so that was my current mission. Walking through the city, I would not only stop to eat but also to walk into shops and look around. Many of the shops sold similar goods, but some stores that I walked through were interesting to me. One that I found odd was a store that sectioned itself off by a commoner area and a nobles area. It was a book store, and all the items on the ground floor were only meant for commoners to look at, though if a noble chose to they could look around there as well. As for the second floor, only members of the noble class could go to the second floor, and even if a commoner wanted to see what books were on the second floor they couldn't. This was a bit annoying to me seeing as the books meant for commoners were all in a failing state. Most seemed second hand and were written in simple language that anyone could understand. Judging on the quality of the words in the commoner books, it seemed that reading was something uncommon to commoners. Making my way out of the book store, I would look around some other stores along the sidewalk before walking into a store that had claimed to have something to do with magic. As I was looking through the store, I noticed a staff that looked similar to the one that I had gotten from that small sack that was currently holding my berries. Walking over to a counter, I would tap one of the items that were on the counter there. A small chime would play from it and soon from the back a woman would appear. She was in simple garbs, a similar color scheme that any commoner could be seen in. A white long sleeve undershirt and a brown vest over it, with brown pants and shoes to cover up the lower half.
"What can I do for you, young man?"
"I noticed that you had a staff similar to one that I have in my own possession, I'm new to this city so I'm not sure if there is an appraisal place, but could you tell me a little bit about this staff I have?"
I would then take out the copper staff with a purple gem. She didn't even look at it for a minute before answering my question,
"It's a low-grade magic amplification staff. It goes for cheap because the formula on the gem is normally poorly made, and the copper is a fairly bad conductor."
"Oh, thank you."
I would say as she nodded and walked back into the back of the shop. I looked around for a little bit longer. When I exited the building I noticed that the sun was starting to set, so now seemed like a good time to make my way back to the inn I would be staying at. Also, it seemed like all the fatigue I had acquired over the past day and a half was finally getting to me and my eyes lids begun to feel heavy. Once at the inn, I skipped dinner and walked straight to my room. Sliding the key into the keyhole at the proper door number, I would toss my bag into a corner of the room before throwing myself onto the bed. Knocking out in under a minute, this signaled the end of my second day in this world.