"Cool!"

Elan looks at Twilly.

"Do you want it? You did find it…"

"I doesn't think it would fit me very well, Elan..." Twilly holds up his tiny paws.

"And moglins are pretty tough anyways! You should have it—unless you already have a better ring?" 

"I do, actually… is there anyone around here who would want it? Or maybe we could offer it as a trade when we talk to the sneevil king guy."

Kind of a lopsided trade, though…

"If you're looking to sell it, I'd give you a couple of gold," Maya offers. "That's about the best rate you'll get around here; it really is quite a basic enchantment. You can always hold onto it for now and come and find me later, though, there's no pressure." 

"I think I'll hold onto it, then. Thanks!"

He gives her a wave.

"Oh, actually, before I leave, what kinda books do you have here? And what other stuff are you good at?"

Maya bounces up from her seat to give him a tour of the library.

"Well, over on that shelf I have the records of the Pactagonal Knights—mostly inventories and financial accounts, but there are some histories in there too! This chest here has architectural plans for every expansion and remodelling of Oaklore Keep going right back to when it was first built, and that one there has maps of the Oaklore region going back five centuries, as well as a few larger-scale maps of the whole kingdom. And then over here on these shelves, I have books about the history, folklore, flora and fauna of the Oaklore region. I'm always looking to expand my collection, so if you find any interesting books in your travels, bring them back here and I'll buy them from you!"

She deflates a little. "I'm much better with books than I am with swords, sadly, so I can't do a lot of adventuring myself." 

"Wow, your library is really good!"

Elan looks at her seriously.

"Aw, man, that's totally what being a wizard is for! My friend Vaarsuvius can't use like any weapons at all but they're really smart and good at magic. I guess you'd need to find a party to help protect you, and even then it can still be dangerous. And if you like doing library things better, then you should keep it up, because you're doing a really good job! I can definitely look for fun books, too."

"I don't have a natural aptitude for magic, either, unfortunately. Being a mage might have been interesting! But being a loremaster suits me just fine too," she assures Elan. "I just sometimes wish I could do everything at once! But I have to pick one, and I picked my beloved books." She pets the spine of the nearest one with a gloved hand. 

Huh, maybe you can only be a spellcaster here if you would have been a sorcerer back home. That would explain why there aren't clerics and why there seem to be fewer wizards around…

"Okay! I'm glad that you have your books, then."

He waves goodbye for real this time and leaves. To the armory!

The armory contains three knights, and a lot of swords, polearms, daggers, staffs, and so on. 

"Hello there!" one of the knights says cheerfully. "I'm Sir Pluss. Here for a new weapon?" 

"Hi, Sir Pluss! I actually have some weapons on me that Twilly found while we were at a sneevil fort. Twilly said they looked like they might belong to you guys, and Sir Valance said that you would know for sure!"

He takes off his backpack and starts setting the loot on the counter.

A plain metal sword. A wooden sword. A fancy-looking sword that's been broken in half! A sword with a gem-encrusted hilt. A sword with a wavy blade and a hilt styled to look like a cobra. A strangely blackened sword that crackles with static electricity when Elan touches it. 

There are also a few daggers, including one with a golden blade, alongside a spear with a spearhead of some green mineral and a staff that's strangely warm to the touch and has a large gemstone at the top. 

One of the other knights gets out a stack of papers and leafs through them. "Huh! This looks like the stuff from a shipment we were supposed to get six weeks ago, but it never arrived. Honestly, I'd given up on ever seeing it." He shows the paper to the other two knights, and between them they check what Elan's got against what's listed. 

"Serpent's Fang, Static Sword, Nature's Call...yep, it's all here!" Sir Pluss confirms. "See, Lee, I told you the shipment from Falconreach would get here eventually! Don't be such a pessimist." 

(Sir Lee grumbles under his breath.)

"Anyway, thank you for bringing us our lost shipment! What was the reward set at, again, Sir Rated?" 

"A hundred gold. Or, if you see anything you'd like to keep, you could take one of these weapons as part of your reward instead! Are you a sword man or more of a dagger man?" 

Well, it's not surprising that Sir Lee would feel pessimistic. Elan thinks seriously about Sir Rated's offer.

"I use a rapier that I got from my mentor Julio…"

He sets the rapier down on the counter.

"What do all these do? Oh, and did specific people want them?"

They probably wouldn't be offering if that was the case, but it doesn't hurt to check.

"Oh, no, these would just be going into our general stock," Sir Pluss assures him. "Looks like you've got a pretty good Metal weapon there, so you probably don't need another." He moves the plain metal sword and the gem-encrusted one to the side, along with the daggers and staves. "The wooden one is just a training sword, really, nothing special. So you're looking at Fang, Nature damage, higher chance to crit—" (he points to the wavy snake-hilt sword) "—or Static, Energy damage, bonus to dodging." (This is, of course, the blackened sword that gave Elan a static shock a minute ago.) 

"Static will hit a bit harder in general," Sir Rated adds. "It's hardly top-of-the-line, but it's the best quality sword out of this lot for sure. Whichever one of these you don't take now, though, you'll be able to buy one direct from Yulgar in Falconreach, who makes all of these and more." 

Hmmm…

These swords aren't bad, but Elan's getting kind of a low-level vibe from this place. Maybe even a level one vibe. Maybe that means he should try using the stuff that's here? After all, he's already noticed some differences in how magic works, so it might be better if he gets some practice thinking in this system.

But he likes the rapier he got from Julio. It's special! And besides, he has a magical destiny of some kind. If he was supposed to not use his 14th-level stuff, the magical destiny could have been about him when he was fresh out of bard college.

Nothing wrong with a backup, though. Although all his money is back-home money, so he should probably get some local money…

"If I take Static as part of my reward, how much gold is left over?"

"Fifty. And I hear you healed our sick and wounded earlier; you should talk to Junn or Rolith about a reward for that as well." 

The possibility that the sword might be worth less than fifty gold does not enter Elan's mind at all.

"That sounds like a good deal to me! Do you think it would be better to ask Rolith or Junn? Rolith's pretty busy, and I don't know where he is right now, but I don't wanna act like I'm shaking Junn down."

"Oh, I think Rolith's out walking his togs!" Sir Pluss says. "He should be back soon, and you can catch him then. Here's your sword and your 50 gold, and thanks again for your help!" 

"Thanks!"

Static goes into the backpack; gold goes into the backpack's coin pocket.

"Have a nice day!" he says as he leaves. Once he's out, he says to Twilly:

"I had an idea for talking to the sneevil king earlier."

"You did? What was it?" 

"I have a spell called Mending I can cast three times a day. If there are any broken boxes lying around here, or if we can find broken boxes on our way there, I could trade those and the magic ring for the Black Dragon Box!"

"Wow, that's a super cool idea, Elan! Wait, but didn't Sir Valance say sneevils don't do trading?"