The small room was cramped to a halt; even the floor was bustling with riff-raff and various stuff. There was no way that one could take another step without crushing the things that were lying on the ground. It was like a battlefield—a battlefield that the commander (the shopkeeper) knew like the back of his hand.
There were shelves covering the walls from end to end. There were all sorts of bottles with chemical warnings and glassware that contained weird liquids inside that sealed even weirder things that looked like creature parts.
herbs of all colors hanging from the ceiling, a messy small work desk with various tools on it, and parts of unfinished work piled up here and there.
The man who just finished smoking his Oceanweed by the window strided through piles with ease and moved onto his desk. He grabbed some sort of strange grease bottle and some rags and worked lazily with them for a few minutes, just to yawn and toss them aside in a pile.
"Ahh, what a boring day..."
Well, there was no way for him to know he would even miss these shitty, boring days, but now he was just grumpling without a care for the world.
There wasn't any work for him to do anyway; his supplies were thinning and the requests he got couldn't be done without them, and to make things worse, his coins were even thinning faster.
"Isn't there a filthy wealthy customer for me to scam without remorse, huh?" He thought to himself that Muggs bastard was literally living off of his reputation for that, and the dumbass riches made a trend out of it.
he sighed
"Let me take a stroll for a bit then, said the man as he made his way to the door.
clink*
*THUMP*
"EEK"
"Ah!"
His head bumped into a stone-like thing, and as he fell back, he caught a glimpse of his culprit of a wall.
There was a girl in white clothes. She had fair long hair and a beautiful face with a slightly red bump on her forehead, which he understood was a freshly made staggered backwards with the impact, but she still seems to be doing fine. Their eyes locked as she was about to say something. With a mad look on her face, the stairs under her rear feet made a strange sound.
*KRRACK*
"huh?
"HAAH, WATCH OUT!"
"WHAAAAAH"
He saw the girl falling down, lunged forward, and reached out with his hand.
Shit, I really have to get it fixed, fuck, he thought to himself. He grabbed his hand as he was about to breathe a sigh of relief.
*Swoopie*
"ACK!"
His hands slipped from the grease he just used to work.
"YOU DUMBAAAAAS..."
There was nothing to do. He was at fault for, well, several things, so he had to make up for it.
The hand that slipped started to glow ever so faintly. He pointed his finger at the girl. The ring on the index finger that looked like an ivy with thorns started to slither on his finger, and in an instant, the thorns that grew in size skewered his hands while dying it red with blood. His eyes started to glow green.
countless branches of whip like ivy emerged and jolted. They grabbed and enveloped the woman as he was just about to hit the ground.
...
"Sorry for the stairs. Ah, I want to have some tea I made." He tried to force a smile to ease the mood.
The woman, who was just about to break a considable amount of bones, was still panting like hell.
"And sorry for the headbump..."
"Umm, greasy hands too, he said with a defeated voice.
"You fucking bastard."
"A-Ah but! normally that trinket was supposed to skewer you whole heheh"
as he saw her face whiten more he hurriedly continued
"B-But you know i made it so that was comfortable for you i even change the compositon to direct the damage towards myself"
he mumbled as he continued consoling her clumsily
"there were some several uncertainties and i was lucky but hehe"
...
"So, is it to your liking? ,The tea?" said the man with an awkward smile, that she had already seen so much from their short acquaintance.
"It is passable."
"..."
She looked at the man. Even though she "climbed" the shop with nothinh much to expect, she was still disappointed. The room was a mess. There was garbage lying everywhere. The man in front of him wasn't any better. He looked quite weird with his pants, which seemed to have more pockets to count with fingers, and his likewise patchworked long coat. He had lots, lots of rings, necklaces, bracelets, and sorts of stuff with no sense of fashion or harmony between them. His wawy, messy hair had a strange kind of dark blue going on it. As she looked closer, she looked more like a teenager who had a rough life, less like a back alley drug dealer.
"U-umm, maybe you could please not stare."
"..."
"I'm not very good at eye contact at all," said the man while anxiously waving his hand in the air, trying his best to avoid offending her.
"Taara, Doctor Taara."
"W-what was that? said the man, as he didn't hear calmly speaking women between the rustling of his clothes.
"My name is Taara."
"Oh, that's a lovely name."
"?"
*sigh*
"Hey you, whats yours, Huh?, I didn't have a hard time communicating this much even with my mute patients" frowned the woman as she crossed her arms in front of him.
"Hmm, but didn't it write Nazars? Why would I put up somebody else's name? And even if it's all weary and teary, there's my old buddy spinning the sign and shouting like a lunatic. Didn't you notice any of them at all?"
"ack!"
She reddened in an instant, and his white skin wasn't of any help hiding it either. The man's tilted head tilted even more.
"U-umm, thats thats, common courtesy, yes, common courtesy, dont you know haa!?" stuttered the woman as she contemplated for a second to come with a decent comeback.
"Ahh, I see. It seems like a hassle, though,commented the man with a deadpan.
"aaaah"
"Okay, okay, sorry, I was joking. Well, Im not good at these things, so dont mind me, so let me properly introduce myself."
"I am Nazar ArBaltaze. He made a little greeting gesture, saying that she understood that it must be a custom from another region of the world. Maybe she wasn't as bad as she initially thought.
"You tell me your problem, and I see what I can do; charms, talismans, scrolls, or magic devices. you got it all," he confidently proclaimed as he opened his hands wide, gesturing the entire room.
"Doctor Taara Debec, you tell me your illness, and I see what I can,said Taara as she mimicked the same kind of bravodo of his with a big smile on her face
She has been scouring the city nonstop for several days, leaving no nooks and crannies unlooked by behind herself, and on this shabby attic of a shop, call it a sixth sense or guts although dissapointed at first she knew it was the place she was looking for.