48 A little bit of Profit
Emperor Vandor looked through the items in the displays. There was a little bit of information about each one, explaining its benefits and properties in more detail.
< Outdoor Ring: Provides protection against hot and cold weather, as well as spells to shield one from rain. This ring makes keeping valuable goods dry and secure easy and will help you with staying warm when it is cold outside and cool even in the hottest desert. >
< Spider's Touch Set: This set of boots and gloves is made from thin, but robust cloth, enchanted with magic to make climbing a lot easier. A skilled person can even climb totally flat vertical walls with this set as the boots and gloves will attach to any surface >
< Carthographer's Delight: This pendant combines an eagle's view and a picture memory spell and can be used in conjunction with memory or map crystals. Attach the crystal to the pendant and it will create a map of the surrounding land, even while you move around >
Some of these things were definitely oddities. Not extremely powerful in terms of spell power, but extremely convenient.
Even Vandor had rarely seen such complex magic items before.
Then he found another section in the shop, this one was definitely intended for people who would be looking for something to protect themselves. The prices were quite high for these items and he really wondered about the effects.
< Magicweave Robe, Various Enchantments: This robe was crafted by using magic thread, in order to make it completely resistant against all but the most devastating magic attacks. It will block all kinds of physical weapons and is completely resistant against normal fire.
Enchantments include heat and cold resistance for the wearer (for regular climate), a shield enchantment, various miscellaneous enchants like size changing, color changing and cleaning as well as an enchantment to reduce strong impacts.
Be mindful that even though the robe itself will be highly resistant to various conditions, like falling into a pool of lava, this effect does not necessarily apply to the wearer as well. >
Now Vandor was really impressed. This piece of cloth looked anything but ordinary and when he used his magic power to sense the material it was as if looking at the sun, it was extremely bright.
Maybe magic thread really was what it said, a thread made out of pure magic power in some way.
"This is really impressive. How did you manage to make it?"
Myra nodded, as this was indeed one of her best works. "I had help with the design of the robe from a tailor and then did my best to replicate this design with magic thread. Once done I enchanted it."
"Its main benefit is that it's lightweight and really hard to destroy. With an enchantment like it already has to reduce impacts, things like arrows, crossbow bolts, a spear charge from a mounted rider even shots from a catapult if they just hit the fabric, will cause no harm."
"Amazing." A voice could be heard at the entrance to the shop. It was easy enough for a magic knight or mage to overhear the conversation even from the entrance.
Duke Pharrell was just coming into the shop, as he also wanted to see what this young woman would have for sale.
When the Duke noticed the Emperor, he froze for a moment, before getting down on his knee to pay his respects to their Sovereign.
"Greetings your Majesty."
"Ah, just stand up already Duke Pharrell, I'm just here to buy some things, not to cause a scene." Vandor told him to rise and then focused on the items again.
"Princess Myra. It is nice to meet you again." When the formalities were done, the two powerful figures were behaving like little kids in a sweets shop, looking everywhere, excited whenever they found something that seemed useful or special.
Yannis explained all the items properties, as Myra had taught him and did his best to help them find what they were looking for, while Myra returned to her earlier place to watch the situation.
Especially the healing items seemed to impress them, as the only items that were known that could heal in Luminos were either alchemical potions or some divine items channelling the power of the gods.
Myra's items however, did not seem to be holy relics of any kind, they just felt like they had nothing to do with any divine entity at all.
"Oh, what's this? Duke Pharrell suddenly found something that surprised him. It was a thin book that had just a few pages.
Compared to the other items that were valued at tens or even hundreds of star steel coins, which would be thousands or tens of thousands of gold coins, these booklets were just priced at 1 gold coin each. It was each, because there was not just one, but a whole stack of them, all with the same title and likely the same content.
< Primer on Spirit Summoning: Spirits are not tools and the way to achieve the strongest bond with one is through their friendship. This is a guideline how to summon a spirit and form a bond without bringing harm to the spirit in the process. >
"Is this really just priced at 1 gold coin?" he asked a little bit confused and Yannis nodded.
"Princess Myra told me that she wanted to spread the information about these techniques. She does not like the way spirits are treated currently. The gold coin is mostly a gesture of goodwill, as it took her highness some effort to make it."
"May I take a closer look at it?" – "Of course your Grace, please go ahead."
With Pharrell so interested in a little book, Vandor also took a closer look at the section. There seemed to be many of these booklets on many topics. None about combat or war, but he could see a few about healing magic.
It seemed like Myra provided quite a collection of techniques and spells that would help many people in the future, basically at no profit for herself.
"I'm taking these two and this one as well, oh and the robe please, I still need a gift for my niece. I'm sure she would be happy about being able to drop that bulky armor she is always complaining about."
Emperor Vandor quickly bought several items and soon after the Duke also added several things to his shopping list.
"Myra, would it be possible to make requests for a larger amount of armor like this robe?"
"In theory, yes, but it will have to wait for another month or at least 3 weeks until I receive all the materials that I require. Depending on what you need exactly the enchanting process will also take a while."
"Ah this is already good. Then we will talk about this in a few weeks again. Why don't you come to the palace when you are a little bit less busy and introduce me to your little family?"
"Sure, I would love that, I will stop by when things calm down a little bit more here."
When both the Emperor as well as the Duke finally bid them farewell, after they bought some items each, bringing a smile to Yannis face, as they just made a huge profit, Myra noticed for the first time that a large crowd was gathered in front of the shop.
With both the Emperor as well as a Duke inside, no one dared to enter and disturb them, but once they came out, Celestial Armaments was quickly flooded by all kinds of commoners, merchants and wealthy nobles.
If it were not for the rather high prices, they would have likely been completely sold out within the first few hours of opening the shop.
"Phew, they are finally gone." Both Myra and Yannis were exhausted. They did expect a lot of people who would be curious about the shop, but never did they expect that celestial Armaments would be totally overrun with such a crowd.
"Haha, your highness I know it was an exhausting day, but we should be happy to have received so many customers and sold such a large amount of items. How much did you invest in making these items if I may ask? We nearly made 12.000 star steel coins just today."
"Uh, I think about 3.000." Myra replied sheepishly.
"You only invested 3.000 star steel coins making such excellent items? Then I really set some good prices, we made four times what was invested, even with the workers and taxes this is an excellent outcome!" Yannis seemed proud of this achievement.
After Myra told him what the items would do, she left it up to him to set the prices for these items.
Yannis did a lot of research on magic item prices, but he was still a novice when it came to these things and he was slightly worried that his prices might be too high and the items not getting sold.
"Erm, Yannis …" – "Yes your highness? Is something wrong with my calculations?"
"You know, it's 3.000 gold coins, not star steel coins."
Yannis look was picture perfect and if she wasn't feeling a bit embarrassed about selling items for such an expensive price, when compared to the cost to make them, Myra would already have laughed quite hard just by looking at his expression alone.
It took Yannis quite a while to calm down again after he realized that they sold items at about 400 times the price that was necessary to make them. For a very long time he had a big bright smile plastered on his face.
--
With celestial Armaments first day becoming a complete success, Myra was rather busy making more things to sell, over the next days. It was always a race against time, teaching some people how to help her with the basics, how to make the raw items for her to enchant, as well as actually making or finishing the items when she was not teaching.
Sometimes she even taught the kids, but as she didn't want them to already start working at such a young age, it was mostly about theory or simple steps, she never employed them as helpers in any way.
Even the finished products they made together were usually gifted to them or used for other charitable purposes.
By the end of the first week, she had created formations that could enchant things a lot quicker without her direct involvement.
By the end of the second week she had all those smith's, jewellers and tailors trained to the point where she only needed to add the finishing touches on most simple items and they would be able to use her formations to produce most other things on their own.
Myra was really happy that by the end of the third week, she would be able to take some time off again. Even during all the hectic with the newly opened shop, she still spent time with Rae and Aaron, but her sleeping time and time to just relax and read some books was drastically cut short.
"Aaron! We're home!" Myra called out to Aaron, who was still in the courtyard training his sword skills to keep from losing his edge.
She quickly gave him a hug and got a kiss in exchange, while Rae was also receiving one on her cheek.
"I prepared dinner today." Aaron commented after a while.
"Yay, no need for me to cook then. Thanks dear."
While his cooking wasn't excellent, it always made Myra smile, not just because she didn't have to do the cooking, but the simple fact that he cared enough to help her with it.
Myra and Rae were just coming back from an afternoon trip to a little river in the area. It was a beautiful place with ducks and swans frequenting the place and lots of room for a young girl like Rae to run around and explore.
Climbing trees, feeding the ducks and fish that came over to her quickly when they noticed that she brought food and all the things she had never done before when she was still living in poverty that seemed so typical for young children. Myra even taught her a little bit about playing a flute and Rae was delighted.
Now that they finally came back it was close to getting dark and Rae seemed exhausted. Even Myra was a little bit exhausted even though she wasn't a child.
Relaxing at home after a good meal seemed like an excellent way to spend the remaining day.
"Have you heard from Nell? They seemed to have encountered some trouble with that Lindwurm."
Aaron asked, once Myra had put Rae to sleep with telling her one of her stories.
"Oh, do they need some help?"
"I'm not sure yet, he didn't say they were in danger, but I have a bad feeling about it. He mentioned something about the Lindwurm not being on its own."
Myra didn't take a long time to consider. "I can go there tomorrow with one of the cats. I want to at least take a look, if there's no trouble I can always come back and still be here in the afternoon, but I don't want them to get hurt."
"Don't worry too much about it. None of them are weak and if they really needed help they would have told us. Let's just relax for tonight and then go do something about it tomorrow morning."
"Mhm, sounds like a good idea."
"I think I'm going to take a bath. Cleaning spells are nice, but it's just not the same as a good hot bath."
"Oh I would like to have a bath too!" Aaron quickly agreed to the idea of a bath.
Blushing Myra considered what she should do. "I can add some soap that will make bubbles in the water. With the flower root this should be nice."
"Sure, if that's what it takes to take a bath with you. Hiding behind some bubbles sounds fine." his happy smirk made it really hard to be upset with him and Myra finally agreed.
"Well, I want to take a relaxing bath, with clear water, the relaxing part will be very hard." At this point of the discussion, Myra was no longer just blushing a little bit but completely red in the face.
She could not deny her attraction to Aaron though, nor the point that they had a daughter and might very well marry at some point in the near future.
Thinking about marriage and how Aaron would always try to avoid the topic, Myra decided that this was the right time to go on the offensive.
"When do you plan to marry me?" her question turned his smirk into a cringing look.
"You mean these events where all kinds of distant relatives stop by to give some pointlessly long speeches, well wishes and words of advice that I never asked for?" he sighed.
"I hate these events, but if it is what it takes to marry you, then I would happy to whenever you like."
Aaron still couldn't believe he just agreed to marry someone. All his life he refused to even think of such a thing, but in a matter of months this belief that he would be a lone wolf forever was not just shaken, but it was completely destroyed and buried as soon as Myra arrived in his life.
"Then let's set it for some time before I turn 16. I don't want all the trouble with the new kingdom to hit before we get the chance and it will still give us a few months to prepare."
Aaron just nodded. The whole thing was suspect to him. Wasn't a marriage proposal supposed to be this mushy romantic thing that boys and even men prepared weeks ahead of time and had sleepless nights over?
"Should I not propose and have a romantic dinner with you or something?" he asked her directly, already used to the strange synergy of their relationship.
If you have a question, just ask, if you are worried, just talk about it. It was a very simple, very straightforward relationship and took a lot of time getting used to it, but it had its advantages.
Myra smiled happily. "It's good that you remembered. I'm sure you can come up with something nice, after all, you're already taking advantage of me before we are even married!"
Aaron rolled his eyes. "Aww, just some hugs and touches, we're not even at the point where we have to worry about … " he stopped in the middle of his sentence when he noticed Myra's stare.
"As my dear wifey says, I'm sure to come up with something nice."
Myra had to laugh and headed into the bathroom first to prepare the water and soap. "I'm not your wife yet, you still have to work hard otherwise I might not say yes!" she called back at him, causing him to smile even more.
Sometimes, life was just good, even if it would mean to deal with things like a marriage here and there.
'At least it's a one-time thing. I definitely don't plan to go through this a second time' Aaron now finally knew why so many people would focus on just one partner.
His conclusions and reasoning though would surely make many people just shake their heads in disbelief, but then they would likely never understand the relationship he had with Myra anyways.
