You sure could, though a mall might not be the best place for higher end art or most forms of gold - they will have jewelry and some relatively mass-produced paintings and prints and statuettes, though.

I don't even know what I'd do with lots of Treasure. I'll probably just lose it. I still don't have anywhere to put it. But feeling like I'm missing out on something is annoying. That's also why I wanted part of the concert money even though I didn't know what I would do with it. 

Money has the advantage that you can store it digitally and don't have to keep track of it!

Huh. I guess I can just keep it for later. Unless I die.

"You two are talking?" Seeker's projection asks. "I cannot hear your song, River. I would appreciate it if you could repeat in sound what River says to you, Mahkemiken."

"- oh, sure, I can do that," says Mahkemiken. "Sorry. We're talking about how she can store her money for later, unless, uh, she dies."

"-I would try to laugh but it would probably sound unnatural. River, you are probably not going to die. I think you are too used to wandering. I think you should buy whatever catches your eye and keep the rest of the money."

River gives a thoughtful tail-swish once this is thought back at her through Mahkemiken. I know that. I'm not afraid or expecting it. But it might happen. Mahkemiken, if I somehow die please just give all my money to Seeker and tell him to use it for the benefit of all Kin.

Mahkemiken does her best to live-translate this.

"We should just go shopping for now. I'll discuss this with River later."

What all is there to see in a mall?

Furniture store. Smoothie place. Sunglasses. Coats (the shop name implies it's seasonal clothes). Jewelry. A shop with fancy olive oils and suchlike, with free samples. Fresh hot croissants! Shoes. An entire store devoted to socks. Yarn and fabric and sewing stuff. Baby clothes, sized to the current season. Popcorn and other puffed grains. Candy. Novelty gifts, like desktop mist machines that look like foggy gardens, globes that arc pink light toward your finger if you touch them, and lava lamps. Toy store. More clothes. Food court.

Both Draak buy lots of stuff from the novelty gift shop. And a few things from the toy store. And some jewelry. River is cheerfully fascinated by it all. Seeker adds a sewing machine and fancy oils and spices to his list.

"It surprises me that so much space is devoted to clothes, even though it shouldn't - it makes sense given your biology. I think we never needed protection from exposure, so cloth is a niche product with some useful applications, not an essential of civilization."

"Yes, and people use it for personal style too, not just warmth and weatherproofing."

"Because it has elements of personal style, some Draak might find clothing interesting. Decorating ourselves is an occasional hobby. Or they might reject it because it's alien. I'm not sure which - some of each, most likely. Could I get some - things - of cloth and a very long scarf?"

He can sure get some bolts of cloth and a very long scarf in any color he wants.

Excellent. He's racking up quite a bill, but not a house-sized bill. The auction of Rods of Healing should cover it and then some.

What about an electronics store?

The electronics store has everythings and larger computers and game platforms and nice cameras and AV equipment and smart lights and you can try everything there, that being why they bother to have a physical store. There are games!

River wants a camera she can use with claws!

Seeker tries all of the games on display, able to use the controls without damaging them through the projection.

None of the cameras are designed for claws but the shop-purples will try to help! Seeker can try the rhythm dance game and the game where you assassinate people and the art game and the motion capture fighting game and the puzzle games and the virtual reality exploration adventure.

Something fairly large, with nice physical buttons as opposed to a touch screen is workable. River is fascinated by talk of shutter speed and focal length and so on.

While the assassination game is intriguingly predatory, it feels deeply strange to commit violence without actually committing violence. Puzzle games land best, though it's amusing to try to fight in an Amentan-shaped body. Seeker buys some of everything, including most of the best-rated puzzle games of the last five years.

How much do the thirty Rods of Healing end up auctioning for? More like 'enough to cover the shopping spree' or 'enough to buy some plots of land'?

The latter!

Seeker doesn't buy any plots of land. He mails out the Rods of Healing with the best possible delivery services and full insurance, even if insuring such precious items is expensive. He collects all his purchases, and he and River go home.

In Baravi, Bloom talks with geneticists, learns the local language, hangs out in the desert, tends flowers, and soon enough arranges to see the same set of people day after day as winter ends and spring begins.

Some months later, with the southern spring having just begun, Bloom tells her blue guide, I think I am ready for a first experiment. It would be best to first try one of the people I've been repeatedly seeing.

The worst-springer in the bunch, a purple with scars on his arms and a purse-sized dog he brings with him everywhere, is readily convinced to volunteer.

If I try to adjust your spring twice, the side-effects will be much worse the second time. I think it would probably be a bad idea.

With that in mind, would you prefer I attempt a dramatic reduction to the low end of Amentan springs, with more risk of side-effects, the most likely of which is reduced sex drive for the entire year not just in spring, or a more gentle reduction to merely average springs with less risk of side-effects?

I don't know what either of those things is like. ...honestly I miss being a kid and not springing at all. Try the first thing? Please?

Very well. I will do my best. You surely know by now that there is some risk in this, so I thank you for volunteering... It will take perhaps ten minutes and hurt a little bit, so I think you should lie down for the Enkindling. You should speak with Ruan to have a bed brought, and I will meditate to prepare for this.

A bed is acquired. The purple lies down.