'This is the place,' Morne thought, looking up at the sign overhead.
He was in front of a small shop called "Lenderm's Leather Goods," in a bustling city called Sen just inside Ondethale, near the western border.
He had spent what was left of his meager wealth to get here and had taken what he could carry of the food from the hideout and put it in his knapsack to save what money he could.
It was enough for the trip plus two days, so at least he wouldn't have to worry about starving any time soon.
Normally he wouldn't have been able to cross the border on that amount of coin, but he was lucky in that Untelneb was only a day away from Sen by carriage, another reason it was a popular tourist city.
He had also paid for the absolute cheapest trip he could, which meant conditions similar to his trip from Cetregor to Untelneb.
Now he was broke and with limited food, which was why he had made a beeline for this store.
The passersby almost exclusively had the brown hair and gray eyes with square pupils the nation was known for, making Morne stick out like a sore thumb with his different appearance and larger-than-average height.
He received quite a few stares from them but didn't care either way, too busy readying himself for what might be a trap.
The chances were extremely low; after all, he had learned of this from the Coltha's book, which turned out to be a journal of some kind.
But while the chances were low, Morne knew humans. Loyalty was a rare trait, especially when it involved a demon they hadn't seen in decades.
Along with the basics of magic that any competent Mage would know, along with a few Spells to get Morne started – Spells he hadn't yet had time to learn – the Coltha had written about his ventures in the mortal world decades ago, most notably his dabbling in business and economics.
This "Lenderm's Leather Goods" was the fruit of the Coltha's labor, a small business that had been around for several years. It never expanded to other cities, but it was a popular destination for the citizens of Sen.
They trusted the shop to make, maintain, and repair their leather items, and as usual for small businesses, they knew all of their frequent customers by name.
This is why when Morne strode in, tall and stone-faced, the woman behind the counter instantly went on high alert as the nicely-dressed window shoppers froze in their tracks.
"Can I help you?" she asked politely, a smile on her face that didn't reach her square eyes. Her accent wasn't as thick as some of the others Morne had met on the way here, though she was distinctly Ondethalian.
She was no older than twenty-four, but stood her ground with courage. Morne could tell it wasn't just the security of the city that gave her this confidence, and concluded that she was likely a Mage.
"I'm here to speak to the owner," Morne replied.
"I'm afraid he's out at the moment," said the woman. "But I'd be happy to relay a message for ya."
"No need," Morne replied. "I'll wait."
"Did you perhaps need anything commissioned?" asked the woman, trying to keep the smile on her face. She hated people that couldn't take a hint.
"No," Morne shook his head.
The woman waited a few seconds, expecting an explanation, before sighing. "He won't be back for another three hours," she warned. "And I can't have you in here startling the customers. Follow me."
Morne followed the woman to the back of the store, to the relief of the customers, and was directed to sit in a chair in the workshop.
Morne did so gladly, his immense bulk causing the metal chair to groan as he situated himself.
"Wait here," the woman said. "I'll have him see you when he arrives."
Morne nodded.
When the woman left, closing the door behind her, he held out a hand and muttered under his breath.
"Entak Netku."
The Coltha's journal appeared in his hand, summoned from the demon's dimension, and he promptly cracked it open and started to read.
During the trip here, he had spent his time learning what little the Coltha had written down about this business.
Unfortunately, there wasn't much, and what little there was had been written in what Morne dubbed "demon talk." This just meant that it used strange analogies using subjects Morne had never heard of; things that made sense to a demon, but not to a human like Morne.
Morne had devoted his time to attempting to make sense of them, only giving up when they pulled up at the city and he had to get out. Needless to say, he had wasted his time.
Now he skipped that section entirely, flipping to the fifth page, which contained the information on magic mentioned before.
The first thing Morne read of was Chimh. Chimh was the name of the magical energy that powered Spells. It was naturally generated within a Mage's Chimh Well, where it was then held until use.
The Chimh Well was one of the most important parts of a Mage. Knowing that one's Chimh Well existed and being able to sense it was integral to Spellcasting.
The Chimh Well was located in a Mage's stomach, in a pocket dimension of sorts that also held their Towers.
Morne stopped when he got to this point.
'Was that what that was?' he thought. 'Is this what this is?'
Closing his eyes, he turned his attention to his stomach, where the energies of hot and cold had concentrated after the trial.
He was unsurprised to find a small world there, a world that held a stone well and a large stone tower sitting atop one of many mountains.
'So this is my Chimh Well,' he thought, corroborating the appearance with the book's description. 'But why does it look so small compared to this tower?'
He opened his eyes, resuming where he had left off to get his answers.
"A Mage's Chimh Well naturally expands marginally with Spellcasting, although the process is very gradual," he read quietly. "Chimh Techniques can accelerate this process, along with more unorthodox methods such as deals with demons or rare fonts of natural magic."