Moving Mountains

12

.^^ Warm-Blooded Fire Wyvern ^^

— Josef —

Two weeks passed in the blink of an eye, really, as I got the two shops in the city ready for distributing merchandise. The Guild supplied workers and a few appraisers, (who I Gifted Identify to, to make them more efficient,) and I filled the stores with basic inventory.

The two buildings were side-by-side, so they shared a basement, where all the inventory was stored, and also below that was a living situation, which, because of the location on the edge of the cliff, had bay windows made of titanium-meshed glass, giving natural light to the basements and the shop as well.

I also secretly sponsored the businesses of the dwarves in UnderTown, (the Eleven businesses that existed, besides the ArcBrand Forge,) by selling their Smithing work in my armor store, under the banner of 'Apprentice Work', due to its Rank B to Rank A- quality, and then the fish and such that didn't sell and was going to rot was worked into fish oil and chum, the chum dumped into the sewer to spike the water around the fishing lures, and the oil sold in the Alchemy Store.

I spent most of the two weeks creating basic elements in their crystalline and liquid forms, creating a repertoire in the store, and even Gifting four young people from the Guild with Alchemy D+ to help replenish stock when I wasn't around. (Though I found the way to dissolve the vassal thing, so they weren't tied to me.)

After that was settled, Saccharine and I headed northwest, across the bay and towards the mountains that the Wyverns were descending from, the 'Catskull Mountains'. It sounded strangely derivative of the Catskills, a real mountain spine in America, and I was forced to reason that they'd been named by someone with a limited knowledge of the mountains of my old realm, another Dead Hero.

Or, hey, maybe they just had a buncha cat skulls laying around? What did I know, huh?

—

I'd conceded to a horse, this time, and was busy collecting pelts, as we traveled, by an ingenious method of my own creation.

I had created a massive amount of new arrows, nearly 200, each one Runed with the return spell, then enchanted with Hidden Space, meaning it could hold 128x2x.2x.1ft^3, which was 5.12ft^3, just enough for most pelts, barrels of meat, and the bones that I got from preserving them. Those arrows, once full, were stored in one of the leather map tubes that hung from my horse's saddle.

He wasn't an elf-horse, but rather a massive brute of a horse that I'd taken a liking to not only for his size, but for his immovable disposition. He'd stood his ground while a Dire-Bear charged him, and I'd known he was perfect.

Obviously, his name was Hercules.

—

The mountains, as we got close enough to examine them, were basic conical mountains, the tallest of them barely 2000ft tall. Saccharine saw my frown, and raised an eyebrow. "What's wrong?"

"I'm disappointed, is all. I used to climb mountains for fun. Those are boring." I shrugged.

He laughed, shaking his head. "You're disappointed in the mountains? That's adorable!!!"

"Oh shush, you, I've climbed mountains that overlooked clouds, where the air is too thin to breathe, and the cold turns your breath to ice, and where your eyes can burst like balloons if you don't blink! And the air freezes your lungs in your chest, it even stops your heart if you're not careful and prepared." I grinned when he snapped his gaze at me, surprised and concerned.