As the thick metal door slowly rose with Hao’s straining groan, a cavernous space opened up to them.
With all his strength, Hao threw the door up, causing the entire place to tremble violently.
Northern, startled, looked up and looked at Hao.
“What? Ya gat a problem with me?”
Northern shook his head with a forced smile, “Aha, not really. Just the door.”
“It won’t fall on ya head so move!” He exclaimed, prompting Northern and Ellis to trudge into the space before them, albeit with ‘extreme caution’ and ‘persistent looking up.’
As Northern and Ellis walked inside, they were greeted by the high vaulted ceiling supported by thick, weathered pillars that seemed to groan under the weight above.
The floor was uneven, cracked flagstones jutting up at odd angles, creating treacherous footing.
Weak beams of light filtered in through high, arched windows, coated in a thick layer of grime and cobwebs.
The air was thick with the scent of mold and the faint, unidentifiable odors of goods long forgotten.
Rows of rickety wooden benches faced a raised dais at the far end, its surface scarred and stained from years of abandonment.
Behind it hung a tattered, once-opulent curtain, now faded and threadbare.
Hao led them through the curtain; behind it were stacked wooden boxes and closed barrels.
He stopped and turned to them.
“I will ask clearly and ya better not be joking with me. Ya gat serious items ya can sell?” He asked with a frown.
Ellis’s face contorted into a likewise expression.
“We wouldn’t have come this far if we weren’t serious.” He responded.
“Fine.”
Hao turned and easily carried a wooden box that seemed to be twice his size, he dropped the wooden box on the ground and turned to the next, like that he began to unstack them.
When he was done, he turned to Northern and Ellis, dusted his hand and said:
“Here we have armors and charm items, ya won’t find much that are interesting but should anything catch you eyes ya can let me know.”
Northern folded his hands, looked inspectively at the boxes before turning to Hao. freewebnσvel.cm
“I don’t understand something…”
Hao shifted his gaze to the person speaking.
Northern continued, “are these really items?”
Hao scowled at him immediately, “What?! Ya doubting my geunity?”
“No, it’s not that. I’m just thinking, don’t items usually return to the soul? These seems like they have been here for a long time.”
Hao stared squarely at him for a couple of seconds, then heaved a sigh.
“Seriously, this kid, ya don’t know anything, do ya?”
Ellis exhaled too, he turned to Northern.
“There are varieties of items and their uses… really we can’t just begin to fathom how much they can do. So it shouldn’t be really surprising that these items can stay out of the soul for a long time.” He turned to Hao, “although I suspect that he likely has another item that is making that possible.”
Hao smiled, “Looks like this one us sharp witted…” he slapped his hand on one of the boxes. “It’s the wooden boxes. There are two types of item, in case ya don’t know, bound and unbound. Bound are items that are of course tied to ya soul, those ones can sit right in ya soul, there are also unbound items. These ones only stay outside ya soul, however, regardless of ya location they can always appear to ya the moment ya will it so.”
Hao folded his hands, “I’m shocked that ya don’t know when you are carrying an unbound item around.”
Northern raised his brows, “Huh? Me? Where?”
“That cross bag on ya…”
Northern held the bag, “This?”
“What ya think? That’s a bottomless bag ain’t? What price ya willing to have for it? I can give ya something good.”
“Uh, nope, this is not for sale? But are you serious? This is an unbound item?”
Hao scoffed, “Look at this guy. What ya think it is? Some ordinary bag? Stupid.”
Northern frowned slightly, ‘I don’t really like being called stupid but I guess I deserved it. I didn’t really think about it like that. Damn it, there’s so much I don’t know, I feel so stupid even.’
Hao turned his head to Ellis.
“So what ya giving me? Be quick, these darn party leaders on the edge, damn curfew. Can’t have customers stay around long.”
Ellis raised his brow, he was more interested in what the man had just uttered than the items they were about to trade.
“A curfew?” He inquired.
Hao looked at him silently for a couple of seconds, “What? Ya didn’t hear? Where the hell y’all live. Everybody in this castle knows about the curfew.”
Ellis bowed with a sheepish smile, “I’m sorry, we stay around the main city, we don’t know much going around here. But please can you explain to us?”
Northern didn’t mind what was being said and just inquisitively looked around.
“Well, the party leaders declared a curfew a couple of days ago. Some rudeboys claim they saw a monster with four eyes.”
At that point Northern froze, and slowly looked away.
Ellis’s face contorted seriously.
“A monster? Four eyes? What exactly is that?”
“What else?” He glared at Ellis, “Those darn party leaders think a monster has entered the city, they all being alert because there’s no telling when it will come again. They even raised a curfew and the security is now tight.”
Ellis slowly nodded his head.
“I see…”
He smiled, “Well then… can we proceed with the trade, I think we need to leave as soon as we can.”
Northern nodded too… vigorously, “Like he said. We don’t want to let the curfew catch us here. So let’s be snappy about it.”
Hao looked at Northern, then looked at Ellis. Then he sighed.
“Well, it’s all ya. Choose whatever catches ya eyes and I’ll give you…” Suddenly the man paused.
Northern and Ellis first looked at each other, then turned their gazes to Hao.
“Sorry? Is something wrong?” Ellis asked politely.
Hao looked at him with narrowed eyes, “Some damn person knocking on my door. I’ll go check. You too wait here…”
He said to them and turned away, not giving them a second to object.
Both of them turned to each other.
Ellis’s face turned pale, Northern had a breaking smile.
“Looks like some trouble has happened, what do we do?”
Ellis frustratingly rubbed his face, “I don’t even know… first we have to leave this place safely and not get dragged into all this nonsense.”
“I see… we can leave immediately after we are done here…” Northern insinuated.
And Ellis nodded, agreeing to it.
–
Meanwhile, at the door.
A green haired man with green armor and two dark skinned dudes behind him was standing in front of Hao, with a polite but somewhat crude smile plastered on his face.
He slowly opened his mouth and asked:
“I’m sorry to disturb you. We’ve been looking for a guy named Ellis, his slender, with a black hair and timid eyes. I hear he was sighted around here with a white haired guy.”