Gates of Eldaria (Part 4)

***Evening, on the streets of Eldaria***

"Zzzztss... It's cold..." Elaina said shivering.

"You are wearing the thickest coat out of us all." Ren pointed out.

"I know... Still..." She replied with a soft timid voice, descending deeper into her coat.

Luca pointed to Sylvie who was happily leading ahead of us wearing just her regular clothes. "Look at her, she needs nothing. Immune to the cold!"

Sylvie stopped in her tracks and looked back at us at the mention of her name. "Hmm? Oh, this... This ah... Yep, the cold doesn't bother me. I use my magic to warm up my body so there is no need to wear all of those heavy fluffy clothes... Fluffy... I want fluffy clothes..." she now looked at us sadly with big eyes like a puppy.

"Share with me some of your power Sylvie. Give me some warmth!" Elaina said from inside her coat with a muffled voice.

"I'm sorry, I don't know how to do this on other people yet. But if you want some warmth..." she came trotting over to Elaina and hugged her tight. After a moment, Elaina hugged her too.

And thus there we were standing, three of us guys watching two girls get intimate in the middle of the road.

Elaina finally popped her head out of her coat. "Ah, she is so warm... I want to keep holding her."

With that, Elaina hugged Sylvie's arm and both of them went on ahead with big smiles, leaving us guys behind.

Ren shook his head with a grin and followed them on with me and Luca by him.

As we caught up to the girls, I asked Ren. "So where are we going first?"

Ren replied. "Well it's already evening, so not many places around the town will be open now. Luckily, the adventurer's block isn't one of those places. Since adventurers apparently don't sleep, most of the establishments over there are open long into the night, some even past midnight. Especially taverns in the area. Adventurer taverns are too wild for well-mannered simple citizens, so mostly it's all our kind."

I shirked off the thought of that. "I don't know about that. I don't drink too much. Sometimes for formal occasions like a banquet at the royal palace, but I don't think I have ever had alcohol for leisure."

Ren gave me an awkward look of surprise as if I was the one being weird not drinking alcohol day and night.

"First, don't call it Alcohol. Just don't, even if they are. There are different types of alcohol, which have names of their own. Give them some respect, oof.", He then turned to the others. "What about you guys? Am I ever gonna have drinking partners?"

Luca raised his hand. "I'm fine with it. I can hold my liquor, as long it's something light and weak."

Ren scoffed at him. "You are not supposed to say you can hold your liquor if you only drink light and weak. What about you girls?"

Sylvie just stared at blank space, pretending to ignore the question, while Elaina tilted her head back at us. "I'm good with alcohol. Just don't expect me to get wasted."

Ren pressed his forehead. "Again with the alcohol. You all need an education."

"Well, not tonight though. We are gonna get our first request tomorrow.", I pointed out.

Ren waved it off. "Fine fine. But once we are back, I'll teach you all what a real drink is. First rounds on me!"

"Ooh, there there. An armor shop. Liam and Elaina wanted to check those out right?". Sylvie suddenly exclaimed pointing it out.

"Ah yeah..."

"Alright wait.", Ren appeared in front of us, stopping us abruptly. "There is something I must tell you guys, an advice if you must. Here in Adventurer's block, there are many armor shops, gear shops, and weapon shops. And most of them are pretty good. As an adventurer, you should check them all out objectively and subjectively. Choose which shop you like, stick to it, and build a relationship with them. It would be helpful in the future for unexpected situations where you could need some extra help, or something out of the box. For even the shopkeepers, it's good as they get an assured customer, who they will be willing to help even if the request gets a bit unusual. Got it?"

And with that, we started our evening tour.

Indeed there were many shops. Some specialized in certain types of armor and gear, while some had the best to offer from all. Elaina who had till now been hiding and freezing from the cold, all of a sudden forgot about it when she found a weapon shop, which according to her was 'heaven'. She found just the right type of arrow that she preferred and set her eyes on a beautiful elven wooden bow with silver braces and a leather grip so soft and pleasant to touch, even I was impressed when she brought it to show me. It was a bit expensive for all of us, even for me, so I passed a gold coin to the shopkeeper in secret to 'save' the bow for a better day.

Sylvie went awestruck when we entered another weapon shop, supposedly the largest and the best in Eldaria. And I guess their claim wasn't too off the mark. The quality, number, and variety of weapons they had was astronomical, and of course, the price of some of those weapons was as well. Sylvie kept running here and there looking at weapons, most of which she wouldn't even use. Rapiers were long forgotten the moment we entered it seems...

Obviously, I don't go everywhere declaring that I am the Hero's son, but the owner of that shop immediately recognized who I was and came out running to greet me. He did seem familiar, so I guess I must have met him somewhere? Other customers were shooed aside and I was suddenly a celebrity. Such an awkward situation for me, as I had to apologize to other customers for their inconvenience. I was shown a lot of swords, the best in the shop, some of which seemed too decorated and fancy for any practical use, but not gonna lie, some of the other swords seemed just too good to not hold in my hands at least once. However, I already had the most perfect sword I had ever seen, and nothing could match the feeling of holding Lightbreak in my hand. So I just left the shop with a promise to make him my main weapons dealer and a special blade cleaning cloth worth 5 silver coins that he gave me for free.

For Luca, he said he would look for a blacksmith instead to have custom knives made.