"Ah, an aspiring Mage?" the old man said. "Or perhaps a collector. Either way, I'm sure you'll find the grimoires of my store to be among the best in the empire."
"That's a grimoire?" Morne asked with a doubting tone, fishing for information. "How can you tell, when it does that?"
"Truthfully, I don't," the old man replied, brown eyes joining Morne's in scrutinizing the book.
Like Morne, the old man saw naught but incomprehensible nonsense, like someone had pulled each letter out of a hat.
"But," continued the man, "the person who sold it to me insisted that it was one.
"Whether it's true or not, it won't be of use to anyone except a collector of curios to display on their wall. So unless you are one such collector, I suggest you choose something else."
"How much?" Morne asked.
The old man nodded lightly, his suspicions of Morne being a collector confirmed. "Sixty Opyens."
Opyens, the singular of which was Opyen, was the name of the currency on Xryn. It was called that regardless of which nation minted the coins, as the Opyek Empire was the first to use coin-based currency, and the name stuck.
The order for Opyens went white, small silver, large silver, then gold. One white coin was one Opyen, one small silver was ten, one large silver was one hundred, and one gold coin was ten thousand.
Each coin was made of the metal of their namesake, except for white coins. White coins were made of a metal called Andesene, a precious metal slightly below silver in value.
In other words, the old man was asking for sixty white coins or six small silver for the book.
Morne had the latter, but that would leave him with only the single large silver that Treyflena had given him. That was still a hundred Opyens that he'd have to his name afterward, but Morne had no source of income to replenish his funds.
Even knowing this, Morne bought the book without hesitation. The ability to defend himself was far more important to him right now than money, and he could always buy a cheap bow and go hunting if he was desperate.
Morne's six small silvers and the small obsidian ball disappeared in the old man's hands, who took the book off the shelf and handed it to its new owner.
"I hope you are satisfied with your purchase," the old man said. "Because I do not offer refunds."
"I will be," Morne replied. "This will look nice on my wall."
He decided to buy into the old man's beliefs that he was a collector, as the other possibility would be far too hard to explain and might reveal his talent in Necromancy.
As for why the old man thought that with Morne's current clothes, that was easy.
Though the middle class of the Opyek Empire generally couldn't afford to traipse across the empire for reasons other than business, they sometimes had spare money that some spent on frivolities that didn't involve travel across the empire.
Such frivolities were rarely as expensive as the book Morne purchased for most middle-class civilians, but some knew how to save their coins.
The old man must have slotted Morne into the latter category.
"Then if that is all, please leave. You are free to enjoy my museum until it closes three hours from now or to leave the building, but I must request you keep this space open for other customers."
Morne nodded and left, handing the amulet to the receptionist and going halfway down the street before it hit him.
'Wait… "his" museum? Hm.'
Morne realized he had just met Mr. Malcinson, the owner of the museum. An interesting piece of information, but one not worth thinking too hard about.
He wandered into a small park and took a seat on a wooden bench, eyes fixating on the cover of his new book.
Even now, the words on the cover shifted and morphed to prevent him from reading them. He could only hope that the contents would be made legible to him somehow.
Without further ado, he set the book on his knees and flipped to the first page.
He let out a small growl when he saw that the black ink on the white page was doing the same as the title on the cover.
'If that demon bastard cheated me…' he swore.
He didn't know what he would do. Really, there was nothing he could do. But that didn't stop him from getting angry.
He swore right then and there that if that Coltha had cheated him and sent him after a dud of a book that required Morne to spend over three hundred Opyens, wealth that he had only held once before in his life, he'd find a way to rip the grinning fucker's head off.
Morne, due to his background, was unaware of just how crazy his thoughts were.
Let alone retaliating against a demon that could freeze time itself, anyone that knew anything about demons and the Trade knew that any lackluster results were entirely the fault of the mortal.
Demons didn't lie when it came to Trades, but they did omit information.
A mortal that bought information on a legendary sword might not have been told that it was guarded by a three-headed Basiladra, for example, or someone who asked for true love would be told who their true love was or what they needed to do to win their heart, but not both.
This fact was widely known among even those that would never be so foolish – or so desperate – as to Trade with a demon.
It was commonly accepted that any such results were entirely on the mortal's shoulders for not seeing through the word games of the demon.
What Morne was doing now was akin to insulting the emperor to his face and getting pissed off when he was thrown in jail. It was absurd.
But Morne didn't know this, and even if he did, he wouldn't care. He'd haunt that Coltha from the grave if that was what was required to settle the score.
Just then, as Morne's scowl deepened, the words shifted before his eyes one final time.
On the first page were two simple words: "Trial Start."
Then Morne's world went black.