Chapter 2: First Trade

I live with him as an apprentice and he is my senior. He teaches me how to shapeshift into a humanoid creature, so we can blend in and trade with others. After 5 days, I can do it, my appearance is a human. Slender, tall, male and with desert clothing. But my jaw is not perfect so I get scolded. These early days, I have to hide it with a mask on my face when I go out and trade with him. Posarol summons a llama from ground with sand. When I ask him about it, he kindly replies: "If you live long enough, eventually you can use one of your souls to make another body and control it. The more souls you have, the more bodies you can make". That explains why sand folks here do not even use any kind of animals to transport but use their own soul to mask themselves in the desert.

****

- What are we gonna trade today? Posarol?

- Some fruits, spices, clothes and 4 knives

- Now you mentioned it, I haven't eaten or drunk anything for days...

-You realize that sand folk don't need to eat or drink right?

-That is wrong, really wrong. Everything that lives somehow needs kind of consumption like eat or drink

-Well, we are special. We are made of souls, we have something called determination to live on.

-So why do we even need to trade fruits and spices?

- Newborns like you should know that the most valuable things in this desert to those who need to eat and drink are consumable supplies. My hobby from my previous lives is just purely trade and bargain. I think Powan was an elf, who worked as a tailor. Ha! Ha! Ha! Samil was a hard working orcish wood dealer, and Rolaski was a human, who worked as a slave trader, but he was kind to many slaves and orphans. So many experiences with those lives. Maybe you should work on your human appearance properly, your jaw is way too wide that even a boa has to be jealous of.

- Where do you get fruits and spices from?

- Desert elves

- I only know about elves who live in forest but never heard of these folks

- They got banished from forests to this desert, our king was generous enough to shelter them and he ordered us merchants to give some food to feed them for some time. The elves were in debt with us, they are in alliance with us. They live oases from near the west of our kingdom. The west is more comfortable for elves as it is much cooler and damper from the scorching sun. Plus there are more hills there to prevent sharp blade winds in this desert.

- According to my knowledge from my human life, when the sun rises in the south and sets in the north, elves usually live in the southeast. Because they prefer to receive soft sunlight from early mornings and also the west is too cold for them

-What else can you remember?

- While orcs live in the west where many thick fur bulls live, humans live in the southwest near the stormy sea. In the south, dwarves live on mountains. On volcanoes in the north, drakes live there. Northwest has trolls and Northeast has saurians.

-But there are things that you are wrong, the sun rises at the south west and sets at north east, volcanoes are at the middle of the continent, orcs live at the north, humans live on plain grass land near forest of elves and mountains of dwarves. I mostly forget where in the name of Lamento they are, but I fuzzily remember some details

-What continent are we on?

-Rethanal

-I come from Rethanal but what happened?

- According to our king, 400 years ago, there was a comet that crashed and changed how the sun rises and sets. It was a big shock. My souls were from an era that had war between demons and other races. Our king said my era was 600 years ago. What were yours?

- My memory is kinda blurry. I think mine were an era when many races were at war…..

- I have heard this before, it should be 200 years prior to my era. So it could have been 800 years since your deaths.

-That could explain why I know how to speak way too early than normal folks.

-Perhaps.

-Speaking of our king, how old is he now?

-He is about 2000 years old.

-That must be a joke right?

-I am 298 years old now. That is not even a joke. Sand folk can outlive races, including trolls but undead is not the case since we pretty much have some similarities. But here is the fun part, sand folks live on determination while undead live on something that they feel like "I need to do this" or "I must obey my master until I can get to the soul realm to meet Soul god". And our king is the oldest sand folk around. Perhaps, he is the first sand folk

-What is our king's name?

-Dewion

-And he is known for?

- The title of our king is literally "The Sandman", also known as "Lazy old fart", since he does nothing at all, sleeping and dreaming for more than 300 days long. Ironically, "The Sandman" in my time was the God who takes care of our sleep in our folk lore.

-Wow, just what a lazy king

-We can say all we want. That lazy old fart sometimes wakes up to solve our major problems, otherwise, he has his bodies frequently answered the problems that he solved before. You know how many bodies he usually has? 1000! He can actually have like 10000 bodies, and his own core can be shifted into sand. That is the immortal ability that some sand folks can have. No one can kill him by slashing his core. Ah yes, some sand folks did die in the raid 100 years ago, but we killed all of those human bandits, no one survived to tell the secrets of sand folk

-How did you kill them?

-We cut them off one by one with our sand storms. They mostly died from blood loss, we burnt their corpses to ashes, and the wind carried the left. Speaking of which, we have almost come to the human trading post.

From a distance, I see an oasis. Within a moment of riding, I see a tent. Cone shaped, made of leather, four pins and it is brownish. Posarol makes a high pitch whistle. From the tent, a figure shows himself out. A short board human, brownish skin, with black beard and he is wearing white clothes.

****

-What took you so long, Mr. Lisor?

-I am so sorry, i have just picked up this young man. He is my new apprentice. His name is Bira. There are things I want to show you, Bamor.

-Why? Posarol? Why Bira in all the names you can think of?- I whisper angrily

-Any other convincing name in this desert?- Posarol scolded in his whispering

-Hey, what are you two talking about?- Bamor questions us

-On the way, Bira somehow dropped his own bag of water and now we are in crisis - Posarol hides the conversation in his calm voice

-Youngsters huh, they often carelessly tie their bag loosely. What do you have in your bag there? - Bamor is curious

-Some fruits, spice and 4 daggers. Nothing is out of the ordinary from my usual trade- Posarol smiles

-You folks are interested in books? I remembered that you had been looking for novels, and some kind of drawings. What is it called? - Bamor offered

-It is called you know, beauty paintings… And they are not for kids, you idiot - Posarol disappointed

- What kind of fruit do you have? - Bamor asks

Posarol pulls out something that looks like a marble from the big bag. It is purple and kind of squishy. I had seen this fruit before, it was a grape. But unfortunately, drakes don't like eating fruit, dwarves drink alcohol like no tomorrow, that fruit was forbidden in human society when I was living since that goddamned forsaken mad drug addicted bishop who thought it was much better to live off sap of a certain plant, than eating a single harmless grape. I really hate you now, Delfotir. Then I see Posarol throws the fruit into Bamor's hand. He catches it and asked:

- What is this? Strange, I haven't seen this before

I swear to Lamento that I will choke Bamor if Posarol isn't here. Have you lost your mind? Bamor, this fruit is mostly everywhere in the human kingdom after Palos The Second allowed it to be consumed after killing Delfotir. And his goddamned son had been eating that thing ever since the unban.

- It is grape, Bamor - Posarol answered

- It tastes kinda sweet and has a nice smell. But to disappoint you, this is worth only for a water bag that your apprentice lost if you have a cluster of this. - Bamor bargains

- I have two clusters - Posarol answers

- Two bags of waters - Bamor replies

- I have this kind of spice, a small bag of it might worth a novel - Posarol offers

- Give it to me, you mysterious bastard - Bamor laughs

Dried, red and it has a distinct smell of sharpness. Even though I can't feel the pain that Bamor is experiencing. This is no doubt, pepper. The spice that I had used to prank certain nobles in order to humiliate them. It was a jester thing to do for his own spectators.

- It hurts me, Posarol. Close the bag for Lamento's sake. I got the idea. This is really worth a novel you need- Bamor cries

Posarol closes the bag that caused that poor merchant's eyes troubles.

- The spice for royalty and nobles. If you have a barrel of this stuff, you will be filthy rich for life- Bamor continues the line as he wipes his tears.

After the first trade, I and Posarol go for another destination to trade those daggers, our eyes are looking at the setting sun. Although we do not need to drink or eat, why did he lie about me dropping the water bag?