Bell, Mona, and Jude bid farewell to the others, seeing as how their paths had diverged the moment that they had all stepped outside of the bullet train.
Bell was eager to explore, seeing as how they only had about fourteen or so hours to explore before having to head back to the train.
Bell sighed as she walked, lamenting her woes internally. 'A shame... they don't leave until tomorrow morning... why doesn't he just have us check in three hours before then...'
Her lamentations didn't last long, however, seeing as how quickly she became mesmerized by the new architecture of Vatican City.
Instead of a billion of the same squares and rectangles being the architecture, there were spirals, arches, pillars, domes, and various types of roofs. Not only that, but the buildings were made of almost entirely white marble and other shining rock materials.
There were hanging gardens all around the city, the roads were narrow and crowded the closer that one was to the train station. The people all wore types of togas and had stitched patterns of various shape, size, and color.
Bell and her two friends passed a large man with spiky black hair. For reasons beyond Bell, he defied the presumed norm by wearing an orange gi with a blue belt wrapped around his waist.
The man was tall and bulky, and radiated an aura of unparalleled physical strength and martial prowess.
'I wouldn't want to mess with that guy,' Bell noted as she stepped out of his way, muttering a quick apology.
As the minutes passed, Mona occasionally guided the trio towards this mysterious tarot shop. On their way, they passed large parks as they ascended further and further around. The parks had a myriad of different types of trees and terrain, all seemed to mimic a different biome of sorts.
In the parks mimicking forests and grassland, families walked with playful children, smiles and laughter inviting the feeling of being content with life. A child brushed against Bell in a rush, running away from two other children close behind in a game of tag.
As the group ascended through various paths, the scent of meats and fruits started to fill the air, making Bell a bit hungry.
'Hmm, smells nice,' Bell thought to herself with a slight smile, she imagined eating a plate of steak and fruits.
Mona started to lead the small trio more and more as time passed, directly stating, "We're almost there... oh! Take that right."
As Bell took that right, she bumped into another tall man, he wore a blue skintight suit with a large, bulky chest plate. He looked down with an intensity that shook Bell for a moment, he then shook his head and continued forward, muttering something about a carrot to himself.
As he passed, Bell thought to herself, 'He had a really bad widows peak... and really spiky purple hair... what a weirdo.'
Mona and Jude passed Bell, who sighed and started following the other two. Their paces varied a small bit, Jude was the fastest, while Mona and Bell were close after, despite Mona being the one leading the trio.
After a few more winding pathways that Mona led the trio through, they found themselves in a dark and slightly dingy alleyway. Further into the alley was a small marble shack, its entire existence almost completely concealed by the dark shadows cast by the taller buildings surrounding it.
Its door was made of a light brown wood, and hanging off of a nail deeply implanted in the door was a wooden sign that read:
[OPEN]
Bell looked at Mona and said with an incredulous tone, "Are you sure that this is it?" To which Mona nodded.
"Yeah, this is it," Mona replied while looking at a watch on her left hand.
Bell opened the door, and what greeted her was the chime of a bell and a large gust of dust-filled wind. Bell coughed the dust out of her lungs and proceeded in, followed closely by Mona and Jude. Despite Bell having her outfit caked in the dust, Mona somehow seemed perfectly fine.
'Lucky that I was there to take all of it, I guess,' Bell thought to herself as she started wandering the tarot shop.
There were shelves along the walls, decorated with seemingly mystical items of various sorts. There were daggers made of a myriad of crystals, tomes, crystal balls, and more dotted the otherwise mundane items on the shelves.
The floor was entirely made of old, uneven wood with several portions of the floor being entirely warped. The room was lit by numerous floating lanterns and candles, enhancing Bell's idea that the shop was mystical in one way or the other.
The smell, however, was that of old books and even older wood, it reminded her of the orphanage that she, Lucas, and Audrey had spent a small while in. Unpleasant memories.
As bell started perusing the shelves, she spoke loudly enough for anyone in the building to hear, "Hello?" To which there was no reply outside of her two friends staring at her.
Bell shrugged silently, then began perusing the shelves, looking for anything of particular interest to her. The items were all labeled with prices, titles, and descriptions.
One such item brought Bell's attention, laying on a shelf was a round, closed metal case. A silver chain extended around the case, leading Bell to think it was a pocket watch.
Bell often needed to know what time it was, so such an item would be greatly helpful. Just underneath the item was a small button and an empty screen.
Bell tapped it, and the screen whirred to life, displaying neon green text with a colorless background.
[Name: Compass of Ages]
[Price: 113.190.85]
[Description: A compass procured from the corpse of a knight on the shore of a shallow river. When held, the Compass will lead to whatever one needs most in their life, but a curse lays deep within. This curse will lead the compass to occasionally lead one deeply astray from their goals.]
Bell stood still, observing the etched wreath on the outer part of the closed case of the Compass of Ages. 'Hmm, I have just above twelve million dollars right now... should I buy it?' She didn't entirely care about the curse, seeing as her goal was to simply get stronger, at least strong enough to survive the First Domain.
'It'd probably be a bit hard to-' Breaking Bell's train of thought was a whisper from Mona, which somehow felt like normal speech in the quietness of the antiquated shop, "Bell! Jude! Come over here!"
Bell looked around and found Mona looking at an item on a shelf further in the corner of the shop. She looked at Jude, then Mona, and attempted to quietly step on the wooden floorboards of the shop.
The floorboards creaked and groaned nevertheless; Bell didn't know why she felt the calling to be quiet but chose to not ignore that feeling. The entire building felt eerie, and a bit... off, in a way. It was as if the small, mystical shop that they entered was secretly a portal to another world.
The strangest thing about the mysterious shack was the fact that there wasn't an attendant at the checkout counter. In fact, there didn't seem to be any signs of life outside of the fact that the door had a small "open" sign.
No one had greeted them when the bell above the door chimed, nor when she greeted whoever might have been in the shop.
Mona stood in front of one of the tens of shelves in the shop, intensely examining an item. Bell stood beside Mona to find that she was staring at some sort of silver necklace with a cross.
At the center of the cross was an embedded purple gem, likely amethyst, if Bell were to guess.
"What's so special about this, Mona?" Bell questioned while examining the necklace.
Mona softly chuckled and replied, "Look at the price."
Bell tapped the display, which also whirred to life, and found the contents simply absurd.
[Name: Lost Sinner's Trinket]
[Price: Free]
[Description: Pillaged from the lockbox of a sinner who had committed grievous sins. Greatly improves one's luck at the cost of one's sanity. Whoever wields this trinket will have great temptations to commit one of the seven sins.]
Before Bell could say anything, Jude picked the necklace up and held it in his hand.
Mona and Bell looked at Jude with a look of exasperated shock. Before either could say anything, Jude spoke.
"We could run a casino dry, want to test my luck after this?" He dangled the cross in front of his eyes, mesmerized by the item.
Mona shrugged and Bell nodded wordlessly, still wearing a look of surprise on her face.
'This guy is crazy,' she thought, turning around to continue looking around. She turned the corner into one of the many aisles in the shop only to find the lights went out as she bumped into a brick wall.
She grunted in surprise and right after, a booming voice filled Bell's ears, "Oh, sorry about that." The voice was masculine, but was surprisingly soft, at least for the volume that it was spoken at.
Bell then felt something clamp on her arms, she was then in the air for a moment. After touching the ground once more, Bell looked up and found that she had bumped into a giant.
The man had a large, bushy, dark brown beard with short, curly brown hair as well. He wore a large, thick coat that made him look almost like Santa would have if Santa were thirty.
The giant man left Bell confused and silently walked towards Mona and Jude, both of who were coming to check on Bell. After a moment, Bell heard two yelps, one from Mona, and one from Jude.
Bell chuckled to herself, wondering who hit a higher note in their yelps. Rapid footsteps approached Bell, soon after, Mona and Jude appeared around the corner.
Mona looked like she had just come off of a roller coaster and whose expression exuded residual exhilaration. Jude, on the other hand, was pale and looked like he fainted on a roller coaster several times.
"You meet that tall guy?" Bell asked as she resumed her search for nothing on the shelves.
Mona spoke in a cheery tone while Jude had a rough time collecting his panicked breath, "Yeah! He's like seven feet tall!"
Jude had no comment outside of looking like a rabbit being hunted by a predator out in the winter forest.
Bell assumed that the tall man was the shopkeeper and continued looking for anything that drew her attention. There were several eye-catching items, but none looked like they would be really useful for Bell.
There was a strange concoction in a bottle, it was named [Sorcerer's Brew] and granted one of seven effects when drunk. Its contents would replenish themselves over time, and would shimmer different colors each time.
That one had a nasty curse where one of the effects were paralysis for three days straight.
On the same shelf was a pair of boots that had white wings on them, they were called [Herme's Boots] and looked to be taken straight from the god's feet. They were. Their effect was to greatly enhance one's speed and grant a person the ability to run on air for a short while.
The problem was that they were several sizes too large, and their price, too.
Mona found a snow globe named [Keeper's Orb], its affect was to allow one to create a "checkpoint" and "load" said checkpoint at a later date. The curse was too much for Bell, however, seeing as how the user would age ten years each time that it was used.
Jude had found a recurve bow whose arrows could be infused with any of the four elements. It's curse was that sometimes, the arrow would explode into fragments before being launched.
Bell was tempted to learn how to use bows for that reason alone, but decided against it after realizing that she would have to continually buy arrows.
Time would pass and several more unique items had potential, but their curse or price was too much for Bell to risk.
Bell would end up returning to the [Compass of Ages], finding its curse and price to be perfect. Almost too perfect, but Bell wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth and headed to the cashier's counter.
Mona was already speaking to the large man about something and had a metal bucket in her hand.
'Some sort of magical item?' Bell thought as she walked up to the counter.
"Can you see if the Oracle is in? We'd like to have a reading."
The giant spoke quietly and softly in reply, "He's in now, if you would all like to check out now and see him."
Jude walked behind Bell to the counter, Mona turned around and asked a question Bell already knew her answer to, "Do you all want to get a reading?"
Bell and Jude spoke at the same time, "Yeah."