Freya POV
Freya was stumped, she was bamboozled, she was baffled, bewildered, befuddled, dazed, and most importantly confused... Freya wasn't a goddess so easily perplexed by anything after the many millennia she had lived.
Freya lay there on her lounging sofa overlooking the city and watched her newest enigma go about his day doing errands for his lazy ineffectual goddess. But she had no idea what the hell she was looking at.
Bell Cranel's soul was blinding purity in its innocence and such purity could be polished ever more. Which was why she had been considering throwing challenges in his wake to push him ever further. But this newcomer. This Jake Barris she only saw in her guise as Syr and finally captured the sight beyond the outer shell of his soul...
"Such filth, such depravity. Yet such overwhelming purity that it will enforce a stillness of order that which is death." Freya muttered as she used her divine mirror to gaze upon Orario remotely like a connoisseur of painting art she had to pause and literally drown herself in the endless beautiful vistas within the young man's souls and the equal horror-filled landscapes that she had to gaze upon equally to get the full picture.
"My Lady?" Ottar spoke with a questioning tone, but the giant of a man dashed forward to check upon his goddess as Freya's wine chalice slipped out of her hand when she used both hands to cup the mirror.
"Where did he go!" Freya all but screamed as her viewing session was torn apart like she was being deeply absorbed in the middle of the movie's climax and someone just rips the TV's cable out.
Ottar looked into the divine mirror and saw how Jake Barris had entered an alley and even as the mirror panned over to keep the young man in view, the young man literally disappeared into thin air with the alley having no such obstructions that could have hosted a tunnel or something that would allow him to hide.
"Lady Freya relax..." Ottar's deep voice reverberated, and Freya took a deep breath as she calmed down her overly stimulated emotions. "Lady Freya please look upon his goddess's home, I have a theory."
After a moment of hesitation, Freya did so. The Queen of Orario didn't fear discovery and getting in trouble with the Guild. But she did have to respect Seshat as a god who reveled in magic, craftsmanship, and most importantly rituals, and had like many other deities skirted the rules when it came to using their arcanum so her little abode was just as protected as her Folkvanger filled with all its adventurer's.
Within moments Freya had reoriented her divine mirror's gaze upon Seshat's workshop and low and behold easily visibly through the Cat goddess's sunning room's windows. Was Jake Barriss hiding behind a small hill of pillows of cushions that he was using as cover for his duel against his weird squirrel summons, in a pitch pillow fight that sent said pillows careening into one another at speeds that even level twos would nod in respect at.
"That Squirrel reminds me of Ratatoskr... He gave my Pantheon back in Tenkai many a headache. Hell, he even stole Heimdall's horn Gjallarhorn and almost started Ragnarök when he ran around all sides of the Norse Pantheon blowing the damned thing as hard as it could." Freya spoke with a haunted tone to her voice as she watched the damned mirror of the squirrel that gave her Pantheon, sneak a massive acorn into a wadded-up pillow and knock Jake over as the pillow unfolded midflight sending the acorn right into Jake's head.
"My lady, shouldn't you focus on how he teleported back home? Isn't teleportation the domain only the gods could have in Tenkai, and only in the dire needs Hermes could down here in Genkai?" Ottar questioned bringing Freya's mind back into order.
Freya silently nodded but looked into Jake as he repeatedly summoned his squirrel at the roof of the room, so the squirrel was caught in an endless loop of falling, she couldn't find whatever magical implement that allowed him to teleport across Orario and not trip every god's senses for the spatial distortion such a thing would undoubtedly cause.
For the next half an hour Freya merely watched Jake talk to his goddess and although the way the normally so calm and collected Seshat being driven to chase around the young man and his squirrel riding his shoulders made her chuckle, she had to raise an eyebrow as Seshat took out an obviously preprepared signboard.
"It's a pity I cannot hear what is happening through my divine scrying mirror... But in the end, we merely need to go to the shop in the morning." Freya smiled as she read the signboard and had to chuckle as she realized the young man was going to be swamped as even with his low level, his odd actions within and outside the dungeon has already alerted elements within the city that would be very interested in seeing what he could offer... Whether they could just buy or just take such treasures off his corpse made little difference to some people.
Freya's eyes stared at the sign that went below Seshat's shop sign and committed it to memory as she knew the store was going to be the center of Orario's next little bit of hubbub. 'The Terrarian's Inventory.'
"Ottar," Freya spoke up. "Bell's progress has slowed, unleash that minotaur that we discussed with you to begin training." Granted Freya hadn't given Bell his gift in the Grimoire yet. But a true hero and a man worthy of being her soul mate needed to be above all others... He could do without it and beating the Minotaur, whom her dear Ottar had trained would be a wonderful reason to gift him the Grimoire afterwards.
"Yes, my lady... Shall I post myself close to the battle? Even with his talent and progress the minotaur I have trained has slain a number of adventurers and has since mutated into a full aberrant. Bell likely won't be able to defeat it as a middling level one. I couldn't defeat it at such a level." Ottar frankly admitted and Freya paused as she pondered over her most faithful servant's warning.
"No Ottar... If he is to be worthy of my eternal love, he will overcome such a hurdle." Freya said confidently and with finality as she glanced over at little Hestia's little church and her eyes tightened seeing the shameless form of Hestia herself slipping out of her bed to crawl into the couch that Bell was sleeping within.
"I will begin the preparations then," Ottar said as he turned to do just that, as getting such a dangerous aberrant down into the sixth or seventh floor where Bell had been fighting as of late would be troublesome as he would need to muzzle and only release the minotaur when one of his Familia members gave the signal.
-
"I want magma armor as well," Gareth demanded and Loki's face twitched at the sight of her normally gruff and easy-going dwarf executive being so demanding. No this was literally the only time Gareth had demanded anything at all, well that wasn't just raising the alcohol budget with each of his level-ups to get past his ever-rising Endurance stat.
"Bah, what the hell good is magma armor good for anyway? Would he even be able to make the armor in your size you fat dwarf Haha!" Bete Loga yelled out laughing but then such laughter was abruptly cut short as Gareth threw his tankard so hard into the werewolf's face that it deformed on impact and knocked the werewolf's chair over with the werewolf with it.
The room was filled with the Loki executives and were supposed to be going over the details for their upcoming expedition but nope Gareth and Bete had been arguing about trying to find out the new kid on the block that had been running around in enchanted armor and was seen going in and out of the dungeon with unseen before tamed monsters.
"Enough!" Riveria finally snapped shutting the two up as she had noticed Ais had given up on the meeting and had mentally checked out to just munch on the fried potato snacks she adored.
"Thank you, Riveria," Finn said after he coughed and tapped some papers, he had on his side of the large circular meeting room table. "I will just say that as one of, if not the strongest Familia here in Orario. That coercing such a new adventurer even if he has an interesting crafting system could be seen as us taking the same path of being the overlord of Orario and none of us want to deal with the hate and constant attempts to sabotage our Familia that Hera and Zeus had to deal with when they loved to interfere with other Familia's." Finn explained logically and everyone nodded with Ais nodding with her jagamarukun bobbing with the motion.
Finn gave Gareth a look and then spoke. "Gareth you have been spending thirty percent of your armor and weapon funds on alcohol, so you are free to use the millions of valis you waste on exorbitantly expensive booze to commission armor or whatever you want. Just don't come off as strong-arming him as attempting to bully a talented craftsman is a good way to get Orario's blacksmiths to blackball you as we all know." Finn finished with Gareth chuckling at the memory of one of Freya's little pets stealing some super expensive bauble for her goddess and for a week the Freya Familia was blackballed by all the craftsmen of Orario until Freya herself apologized for the girls' actions.
People liked to look at Freya and Loki's Familia as the lifeblood and back that held up Orario's economy and was the end all, be all, that dictated how the world spun... But the truth was absolutely not the case.
The crafting Familia's that made the city's weapons, armor, and potions, had a stranglehold on the adventurer side of the economy, along with the Guild that controlled all the monster stones that allowed people to have clean water, and attuned monster stones that would fill all the monster stones machines that made life so easy, and thus controlled the civilian side of the economy.
"Think he can make me a pair of boots that will burn people?" Bete quietly pondered as the little bar tale that Loki confirmed as truth stuck to him as his boots were his very weapons and being able to burn opponents without needing to use magic to do so, could be useful. Plus, Loki was able to easily recognize who Jake's goddess was. As she had Seshat over here to the Twilight Manor several times to work on special rooms for herself and her executives
"Bah let's just go there tomorrow and find out Bete. Just don't pull your little strength is everything crap Haha!" Gareth said jovially and seeing Gareth and Bete making plans to do stuff other than prepare for the expedition Finn literally just threw his hands up in the air sending Loki into a series of cackling laughter.
"Ah... Can I go as well?" Ais asked raising up her hand and Riveria just face-palmed.
Finn's eyebrow twitched at seeing the majority of his Familia decided to play hooky and for a moment he considered asking his Goddess to tell everyone to stick to planning the expedition but seeing the expression of interest on Loki herself, Finn realized he would need to push back the expedition a day... Because no matter if Finn was the Braver and hope of the Pallum race, he still couldn't carry the Loki Familia on his back if all his damned Familia members decided to go mess around.
"Fine! Tomorrow we will be escorting Lady Loki to the store." Finn said scratching out some details on some paperwork and then throwing his pen on the table. "All of you get to bed at a reasonable hour, we are heading out early that way we can still try to stick to the expedition timeline we outlined," Finn ordered as he hopped out of his booster seat and stomped out of the room.
"Wait captain, don't be mad!" Tione called out as she chased after her love interest out of the meeting room while her sister Tiona finally snapped awake after curling up at the very start of the meeting.
"Hmm? We are going grocery shopping in the morning?" Tiona muttered wiping the sleep from her eyes as she looked around to see what was happening.
Ais shook her head and spoke as she stood up. "Nope, we are going to a new magic shop apparently." Then Ais herself left the room as Gareth and Loki began sharing some of the vintages they had picked up in the last couple of days.
While Loki's Familia was a hubbub of action for the next few hours, the rest of the city tuckered down as it welcomed the night to welcome the new day coming.
-
The next day I awoke bright in early so I could happily throw Seshat's super strongly smelling marijuana bushes into the back garden that way the whole front area didn't smell like skunk. Then I nailed in my own decorated sign board that Seshat made me for my own section of the shop to sell my own stuff.
After nailing in my 'The Terrarian's Inventory.' signboard just below Seshat's store signboard I took to my corner of the store which was like half of Seshat's floor space and it took a while to think up what I should sell here at the shop...
Then I realized money of course was valuable but rather than that, I needed and wanted adventures to go get my materials for me.
Health Potion- 10,000 Valis Tier one, Tier two 25.000. Tier three is 50,000 valis or half off if materials are traded, being the crystals from lights in Rivira, and dust from Blue Papillo butterfly.
Mana Potion- 10,000 Valis Tier one, Tier two 25.000. Tier three 50,000 valis or half off if materials are traded, being ten mutant or five aberrant monster stones of any monster.
Then I just generally added a bunch more potions I could create through vanilla and modded Terraria that I could.
Then I also quickly made some ultra-simple accessories like some Hermes boots that I was already wearing and considering upgrading when I had some more obsidian, but I also put on display Sandstorms in a Bottle as well as Anklet of the Wind and lastly some Lucky Horseshoes that will negate peoples fall damage supposedly.
"Jake the accessories are phenomenal, but you should consider putting up armor and weapons as that's the bread and butter for an adventurer," Seshat advised me after seeing me place all the little early game Terraria accessories on display and seeing them even I knew they were kind of broken when you consider how fast just wearing some feral claws would make Ais's sword swings as a flat twelve percent melee speed on her could be very important.
So, taking Seshat's advice I wrote down the armor sets I could make, their cost, and most importantly the special effects they would have. I then placed what I wanted for the armor sets mostly harpy feathers and other deep dungeon materials I couldn't get. As the other crafting Familia's of Orario had such materials on lockdown as there was never enough to go around.
I mean there was no way in hell I was getting past Revira and such in the dungeon with how strong I was currently. I needed to amass a bunch of money so I could buy materials like rubies and such to make heart crystals to inflate my terrible endurance stat and countless other things.
So just taking it easy and working on my crafting was the smart thing to do for now, especially building my contacts with other adventures.
With two hours left to the opening of the store, I got to work and rather quickly made three tungsten broadswords and a tungsten short sword as well as the tungsten I got from the dungeon last time. Then just for the hell of it, I decided to use some of the gold ore I got from the dungeon to make a Trident.
Then I made a note saying that magical weapons they must be commissioned. Because such things at least for me were going to be expensive and time grating but such a thing would be perfect for building up such contacts with the adventures of Orario while I sold my potions for stupidly cheap.
"Alright Jake, get settled in for a nap." Seshat called out as I excitedly sat on my side of the mostly empty shop my face twitched as I recalled how people knew Seshat's shop as the weed-smelling shop and that she had sold fewer things in this shop than you could count on one's fingers in the couple months she had been in Genkai.
Then Seshat lived up to her prior words as she literally just held Sir Fluffykins in her arms while she pulled a blanket over herself, and she just lounged on her long couch that was raised up high into the air to allow the cat goddess to overlook the shop.
"Should I go make some flyers or approach other Familia's directly?" I muttered frowning as I realized I may very well just be sitting on my ass as it's not like I had a reputation or anything that would attract people to change their lives using my products.
But before I could literally just leave the front door of the store was thrown open with a loud banging noise as a foot had clearly kicked it open with how said foot was still extending past the door.
"Chater!" Sir Flufflykins the First squeaked obviously freaking out, and as Bete Loga of the Loki Familia strutted in like he owned the place he was greeted by the shop's defensive measures made by Seshat. Overlooking the front door was a large pillar of extremely dense stone dropping down from above his head, which he stopped with a grunt of effort using both his hands but as his hands were up, that left his face and more importantly his groin available to be nailed by soccer ball sized acorns being thrown at level two speeds.
"Fuck! Guys help!" Bete screamed as he jumped backwards out of the shop allowing the stone pillar to fall down to the ground and block the entrance.
Then a loud howling noise rang out from around the store as the pillar being moved opened up the air holes and lines across the shop, so every breath of wind traveled through the store's perfectly crafted breathing tube like it was some kind of Amazonian death whistle.
"Hmm with this level of a racket the Guild and Ganesha will be here soon." Seshat said cheerfully as I covered my ears to block out the ear-piercing screaming noises coming from the infernal acoustic system my goddess has created with the building.
As I looked to her wondering how my cat girl goddess could even deal with this, I saw she was wearing a full fuzzy helmet that blocked off all noises and even had mickey mouse-like ears to shield and protect the leopard ears on her head.
"Seshat knock off the racket dammit!" I heard a voice cry out from outside somehow and Seshat made no sign that she heard the voice which was fair seeing as she had a helmet on her head.
I waved to her and as she focused on me, I said repeatedly that the person outside wanted you to shut off the noise.
"Fuck you Loki I don't wanna. You owe me fifty thousand Valis to fix my door and any damage done to the ground when Bete activated the trap." Seshat yelled out and I heard Loki curse but couldn't make out the words and then I heard Bete yelp as he was seemingly hit with something.
"Fine, you damned Egyptian Goddess. I will pay you the money, just open up!" Loki yelled and then Seshat had me begin pulling on a pulley system that was hiding in the drapes surrounding the walls. The system was so good that I was able to lift up the large stone pillar even with my own meager strength.
Once the pillar was up and out of the way and with the remains of the door's splintered remains from Bete and the pillar obliterating its shards that went everywhere, I heard Loki now clearly ask if she and her Familia could come in without the pillar being dropped on her head.
"Yes, Yes Loki, I won't drop the pillar again, but the traps inside here consist of behemoth toxic gases so maybe don't pull anything Haha." Seshat boasted and I saw Finn who was walking into the store pause as he seemingly revaluated whether he should even be on this side of Orario before the short man was pushed in as Loki all but bounced into the store.
"Ahaha there you are!" Loki said literally ignoring Seshat and just pointing at me as her almost closed eyes locked onto my position in my side of the store.
"Me?" I questioned pointing myself in surprise as I thought Loki had come to get Seshat for another build project or something.
"Yes you, you are the only one wearing glowing armor and..." As Loki kept talking about my armor being such a dead giveaway the rest of the Loki Familia executives funneled in, and my face twitched as the entire Loki Familia lineup seemingly entered the store.
"So, what do you want for such armor, and hmm? What's these thingies do?" She questioned as she approached my side of the store and took in the accessories I created.
I let Loki and the rest of the Familia read the general guide I had set up for the accessories I had set out and the small list of other ones I could create by order.
"Can I see the sword?" Ais asked pointing to the tungsten shortsword I had laid out and I nodded with the blond beauty picking up the sword to inspect it. "It's not that sharp and its heavy." She complained and the weight comment was far due to it being tungsten of all things.
"Ais Wallenstein, and the rest of you actually... Check the magic in my accessory and understand that I and my products are legitimate. Then I challenge you guys. Break that sword and I will build any custom weapon with enchantments you want." I bet confidently and I saw Gareth, Tiona, and even Ais eye the poor tungsten shortsword with malicious intent.
"Hmm? Then as the creator of these magical goods, what would you recommend for us?" Finn asked smiling and I realized this was a test as blacksmiths after years of working with adventurers would know what they needed with just a few questions and some measurements.
"Well, I have these Luck potions that give you a watered-down Luck development ability which will make any monsters that die around the drinker have a higher chance of dropping Drop Items. Surely such a thing would be useful for an expedition when you guys' are planning to kill floor bosses?" I said leadingly and Loki began vibrating at the sight of the star-shaped potion bottle.
"Let's see there are all these potions but no you want to know what gear or magical tools I can sell that will help you guys in particular... Lady Riveria, please try this on and cast a healing spell on Bete to get rid of any aches and pains he has." I said gently taking the extra Mana Flower I had in my inventory and put it inside a felt sack for fragile purchases.
"Tie the sack around your wrist or something before using it. It will cut the cost of your magic by fifteen percent and make your Mind regenerate faster." I advised Riveria who raised an eyebrow at the small sack I offered her.
"You mean no harm to me, and this won't have a negative effect on me?" Riveria asked bluntly and understanding where she was coming from, I coughed and responded.
"No, I mean no harm to you, and this accessor will only do as I have said it was capable of doing." I clearly said with Loki nodding in the background and with her goddess's assurance of myself speaking the truth Riveria took the Mana Flower pouch and tied it around her wrist like I suggested.
Then Riveria spoke "Breath of recovery. My name is Alf!" Then Riveria's ornate staff glowed as Bete took on a soft white glowing hue and the man straightened up as the high elf's magic cleared away the aches and pains that our little confrontation had.
"He spoke the truth... What do you want for this magical tool?" Riveria bluntly spoke as she more securely tightened the string that bound the sack containing a crystal flower sealed inside a mana potion to her wrist as though she was telling everyone she had already claimed it.
And her fears seemingly proved true as from the front entrance I hear Tione and Tiona curse and a velvety smooth voice carried within the shop. "Ohoho Jake don't sell anything too interesting yet, I would like first pick." And then I died a little on the inside as the goddess Freya, with fucking Ottar and Allen of all people escorted her into the now cramped store...
.