The dark purple SUV made a right turn on Creek Avenue, with a sudden change of lighting - mainly from the dim light of evening from when they left, to a much brighter street view. For a supposed avenue from the magical underworld, the street view did not look that much different from the view of the civilian world - aside from a few of the meticulously designed magical street lamps that were floating in mid air and had small humming birds flying around.
"Now, this is the insides of the Creek Avenue, do you want me to slow down or even take you on a small tour? Or do you just want to head to the academy directly?" Garret asked.
"Are you kidding? There's an option for a tour?" Jason jumped out from his sofa: "Tour please!"
"Yeah, from my estimation, we still have an hour before we have to go to make it in time. So we have some time to take a tour." Garret slowed the SUV down and turned right again: "Let me know if you want to head down and walk - there's a lot of side roads connecting to other streets, you may get lost if you are not familiar with the area."
When the SUV pulled into a small side street with small wooden stores and houses on both sides, Jason and Carolin couldn't help but open the side window and look out.
The first thing that caught Jason's eyes was a two storey store with a sign that said "Artistic Elements", and there was a tree near the door of the store, which was actually waving at walkers-by like a human street sales promoter. The tree had different colored ribbons on its branches and trunk, which gave off faint but pleasant glows around the whole tree.
On the other hand, Caroline was drawn to a store that with matte silver grey metal exterior and a sword in a tall dark stone. There was also a slowly horizontally spinning shield on near the entrance, and under the sunlight, the shield reflected a nice dark red shine.
"Can we get off here? I wanna take a look at that weapon store." Caroline said.
"Sure, just in a moment." Garret slowly pulled the car over to the side of the road.
"You sure it's okay if we parked here?" when Caroline got off the SUV, she saw that it was still partially parked on the normal road.
"Yeah it's fine. The road will push the car away and expand when there are other cars driving this way. One thing the non civilian world doesn't have as much is traffic jams." Garret smiled and said: "And feel free to take a look, but hold off on buying anything - they can smell inexperienced buyers from miles away, and you'll get ripped off in no time."
"Understood. Boss told us this multiple times - he told us to consult a friendly guide on shopping advice before making a big purchase." Jason smiled and said: "I just wanna take a look at the 'Artistic Elements'."
"And I wanna check this one out, it's a weapon store right?" Caroline pointed at the shop with a sword in a stone in front of it.
"Yes. But let's stick together. Which one first?" Garret asked.
"The weapon store looks fun. Let's try that one first." Jason nodded.
There was no one inside the weapon store, there were only racks on and by the wall, with weapons placed on them. Most of them were swords and short knives, and some of them were shields and arm braces.
"Hmm, there's no one here?" Caroline asked.
"Yeah some weapon shops do like this kind of feel. If you actually picked something they would come assist you. But they usually don't have anyone pushing their products in shops. It's kind of a branding thing." Garret looked at some of the broadswords and long swords on the wall and said: "It's a weapon, not car insurance."
"Well, to be honest, we had the wrong first impression when we went to Wen's Miscellaneous & Everything." Caroline chuckled: "The owner there pushed kinda hard, on everything."
"Yeah that's kinda different. Wen's is a very peculiar store." Garret smiled and said: "First thing is they sell a little bit of everything - and if you don't know the owner or know someone who knows the owner you might get ripped off. And the weapons there are almost always second-hand. My family sometimes sells our excess standard issues there, the owner really knows how to appeal to customers."
"Isn't this Mr. Garret Peyton?" right this moment, an old woman with a slight slouch walked out from behind the shop: "What brings you here?"
"Hello." Garret appeared surprised to be recognized: "My apologies, I didn't mean to intrude. I was just showing my friends around. They're new here."
"Oh no, don't apologize. We welcome everyone here." the old woman nodded at Caroline and Jason with a smile: "So, what do you young masters have in mind? Usually we let the customers choose first, but since we have a Peyton in our store and we have some really good products in stock, I decided to come out here and help you. So what kinds of weapons are you looking for?"
"We're actually not looking for anything … just taking a look and trying to see what options are out there." Caroline smiled: "But what do you have here??"
"Well … I was thinking something like small daggers, throwing knives and maybe even guns?" Caroline scratched her head and said.
"So small weapons with capability of long range attack? We do have some. But I'm afraid not many." the old woman smiled and shook her head gently: "But let me see, we have some small arm crossbows with pretty good range and damage. As for guns, the Peytons are the expert on it."
"Really? " Caroline and Jason both looked at Garret at the same time: "I didn't know your family builds guns."
"Well, yeah, my brother was very interested in magical or enchanted guns." Garret scratched his nose with a hint of embarrassment: "He's getting pretty good, but it is still considered side business."
"Here it is, we call it 'Hawk Strike'. " just after a few seconds, the old woman pulled out a small one-hand crossbow from one of the boxes behind the counter and handed it to Caroline: "It shoots our customized short bolts, and the bolts can have special heads and shafts, you could combine different heads with different shafts for different scenarios. It's pretty good for hunting and even combat."
"Nice. " Caroline tried aiming with the hand crossbow and played a bit with the string: "How is it against ghosts and apparitions?"
"Hmm, that's a tough one, this one was not designed for those." the old woman appeared quite surprised by the question: "Why, do you have this special need?"