The Creeping Hand Of Fate (5)

"How much for the potions?" I ask the excited little girl.

"Nick! I got us a good price! I haggled him down!" She responds. I gaze at the beleaguered man on the other side of the counter.

[It looks more like you bullied him. Well, you're his daughter, so he's brought this upon himself in one way or another.]

"Great, what do I owe you?"

"Oh! I know; why don't you tell Josh to take me out to dinner?"

"No, I meant for the potions. How much do I need to give you for the potions?"

"Oh, four ninety-five," Sakura says, sounding slightly disappointed. "But, you know, you could–"

"No!" I say, interrupting her. "I'm not getting involved in your love games. Tell him yourself."

Sakura pulls the same act she used to work over her father. She looks at me with big puppy dog eyes and extends her lower lip.

"That's not gonna work on me." I smile and laugh to cover up how much my heart hurts when she looks at me like that.

'Humph.'

She frowns, crosses her arms, and turns away. I mentally wipe the sweat from my brow before pulling out my pouch full of money. I remove four hundred and ninety-five Denarii from my bag and place it on the table. It's clear that I still have some money left based on the shape of the pouch, and I can see Jacques raise one of his eyebrows. Sakura pours out her share of the purchase, but she has even more left over than I do. Jacques's jaw clearly slackens as he stares at her bag. We call Josh over, and he pays for his portion, by which time Jacques has recovered enough to make the transaction, and we walk out of the shop very satisfied.

"Is your father going to be okay, even though he sold us potions at those prices?"

"He'll be fine; he's just being over dramatic. Besides, I can always loan him some money if he needs it." She shakes her bag of money in the air, which makes a loud jingling.

[Ruthless to the end. Her poor father.]

Sakura laughs and chats loudly with Josh as he carries the sizable box of potions.

"By the way, is there some way for us to carry these on our person without them breaking?" I ask.

"The glass is reinforced, so we really don't have to worry about them breaking, but we should get belts to carry them." I can see what looks like a latticework of metal inside the walls of the bottles. Sakura explains everything and turns towards the armor shop. "They should have some at Marshall's shop! He works with my dad a lot. Most adventurers carry potions in one way or another. Marshall always asks my dad what kind of potions people are buying and how to set up the pouches."

"Okay, let's head that way. How are you holding up, Josh?"

"I'm fine." He looks just as determined as ever, so I can't tell if he's struggling or not. I decide to just take him at his word. We walk to the market square and head past the fountain. I can see Shinobu arguing with Tyrion.

"Don't touch me!" She curls up and turns away from him.

"I'm not trying to touch you; I just want to help."

"No, no! You're with him!" Shinobu runs away from the square while covering her face.

"Is everything okay?" I walk up to Tyrion to see if I can help.

"What do you care?"

"I'm just trying to help; no reason to bite my head off."

"I find that hard to believe after how you treated her earlier today." His brow furrows as he looks down at me. Being a couple of years older than me, he stands at least a head taller.

"I was giving her good advice, and you know it. I just worded it poorly. I was going to apologize to her later."

"Go away!"

"I'm just trying to help!"

"What the hell do you know?!" Tyrion shouts and walks toward me. He's looking directly down at me with a snarl on his face. "Everyone around you just dies anyway!"

All the blood rushes out of my face. I stand, silent, in shock, unable to even think of what to say. He managed to nail my biggest fear. I do everything I can to help the people around me, but most of the time, it feels like I just make things worse. Tears form at the corner of my eyes, but I blink them away.

"You're right. I'm sorry." I walk away, broken. The kids are chatting on the other side of the plaza.

"I think I'm just gonna go home."

"Nonsense, let's go shopping!"

Sakura leads the way into the armor shop in high spirits. I just want to go home and hate myself for a while, but I follow her for now.

We walk around the moderately-sized shop with isles that reach the ceiling. Many different types of armor are grouped on the walls: metal breastplates, leather shoes, chain mail shirts, padded pants, luxurious robes, steel helms, scaled gloves, and all sorts of other combinations. We meander around until we come to a wall full of leather belts. There are many different styles of belts, but fortunately, we have the potions with us to see which we want to use.

"So what's the load-out we should use?" I fight past the heavy feeling in my chest and ask a question.

"Nick is sad."

"He's fine." Sakura ignores Josh's observation and goes on to explain her idea. "We should have at least one of each, except for the stamina and healing potions. We should have at least two of those."

At that, she strides confidently up to the wall and starts pulling off belts.

"Try this one." She throws one at me, and I put it around my waist.

"Josh, can you put that box down and start handing me potions."

He obediently places the container on the floor and starts sifting through the mess of glass bottles.

[Okay, the healing potion goes here, the stamina potion goes here, I think the speed potion goes here. I don't see a spot for the Ghost Walk potion.]