Path To Radiance; First Ascent

Chapter 6 - Ground Work: Part 2

It's an outdoor stall with a middle-aged NPC man running it. He's wearing a green felt vest over a white short sleeve tunic and a matching green turban. Odd. Whatever he gets in exchange for the Tower Gems he charges for his merchandise gave this man a comfortable life. Let's just say he is modestly plump.

He speaks to me first, which is odd for me as most NPCs in other games have to be prompted to talk. "Oh, good adventurer. How may I best serve you today?" His accent is thick and strange. His curly white mustache sways as he bows.

"Good morning, good sir." I lay the politeness on thick. Traders are usually very clever and pompous. Politeness usually sets a good tone for the transactions ahead, unless the vendor smells an easy mark. "I heard you sell items for Tower Gems here."

"Ah yes. I do indeed have such wares. Have a look." He waves his arm and a screen pops up in my vision. It's solid blue. It's the vendor window I had imagined after talking to Brick about his previous shopping experience.

Welcome, Player, to Taz' Tower Gem Knickknack shop. What would you like to do today?

Buy
Sell
Quit

I explore the sell page first. It looks like Taz would take high-quality materials, like mithril bars, gold bars, etc., and give Tower Gems for them. Very useful to know. The prompt did say they could be exchanged.

The purchase page has a long list of crazy stuff. He sells private estates, streaming services for TV from back home, race changes, inventory upgrades, and housing upgrades. The list goes on and on. Mostly everything costs fifty Gems or less too. None of the Estates he sells are unlimited though. Taz said those are over anyone's budget so he doesn't stock them. I gape for a half-second. Taz didn't seem to notice.

I make a few small purchases then something catches my eye. It's super expensive but I can't pass it up. Labeled as unique, I have to sacrifice the one hundred and fifty Tower Gems. When I ask Taz what exactly "unique" means, he just responds with a chuckle.

"Ho, ho, my boy. Great question. There are other products in the world similar to that one, but no two are the same."

I take the plunge. Depending on how the next few days go would determine who I tell about my purchases.  Every time I make a purchase, that item would appear in an aura of light on Taz's booth. Placing everything I'd purchased in my bag, I go to the Skill Game shop next.

I would call the shop the Blockbuster of Skill Games. The layout of the sales floor is identical. I go up and down the aisles checking out the different games on their racks.

They have every kind of game I can imagine. There's a sports games section, football and soccer being the highlight. The RPG section has games like Link and World War III VR. The variety varies from gambling games to dating simulation, farming simulation games to fighting games, simple puzzles, and word games to games with imaginative worlds, just to list a few. I couldn't my favorite monster-catching game or my favorite RPGs. The shop is wall to wall games, however, so I do have a lot to pick from.

I purchase only one game, 'Bladed Duel'. It's a sword fighting game, pure and simple. The case says "bonus skill: Eloquent Blade" and has the symbols for Tanks and DPS on it. It's a multiplayer game too.

When I ask the shopkeeper how I was supposed to play these games, he asks me if I have my first estate yet.

"Every Player will own an Estate within the first few levels. Once you have one, you can purchase a game console." He waves to a glass case at the back of the store. It's very long with three shelves. Each shelf holds multiple models of one of the three main brand Game Nodes, either N, PlayBox, or Gamestation. The prices range from a few silvers for the single-player/single-game model to twenty Tower Gems for the "Game Pub" models that allow many people to play many different games at once.

I buy the most expensive N Game Station they have for twenty of my precious few remaining Tower Gems. Go big or go home as my father always said. N was the maker of the game I had picked too so the choice was easy.

After feeling like I spent all of my money, I go and spend even more. If Tella is going to be in my service, she is going to be dressed decently at least. I go to a clothing shop.

After fumbling around and embarrassedly asking the clerk for help, I make it out with a set of replacement clothes very similar to what Tella had on before. This set is black. She seems so stealthy to me. I also get her a slick black cloak. It's lightweight and dark as night. A deep hood flows smoothly into a cape that should reach to her ankles.

After securing everything in my bag, which is still far from full, I finally venture out to look for information on the Governor.