Off in this direction there's an entirely different set of shops!

There's a magical pet store selling teacup hydras and griffins, beetles that shine like moonlight, something that looks like a cross between a dragon and a mouse, something else that's very fuzzy and has five eyes scattered around its face, toads with wings and horns, wolpertingers, spectral cats, and many other odd creatures, none bigger than a small dog. The owner has a golden newt on her shoulder that seems to be enjoying the view. In the very back of the shop there's an aquarium holding what looks like three ordinary goldfish.

Next to the pet shop, there's a confectioner, selling enchanted chocolate boxes - 20 enchanted chocolates for 99 Kiss each. There's a selection of magical desserts kept in a case with runes on it; the glass is cold to the touch despite the pressing crowd. It's labelled "R3 cake slices, 749₭ each." Each individual slice has further labelling on it showing the effect. A slice covered in assorted fruit says "energy and focus, 1 day"; a strawberry slice is labelled "Irrepressible good mood, 3 days"; a slice of orange sponge cake is labelled "inner warmth, 1 month"; and a lemon slice simply says "transcendental flavour." There's a bunch of hard candy and gummies and chocolate bars arranged near the cash register, 9₭ each; all of them are apparently enchanted with some kind of minor effect. The witch at the register is wearing a hairnet and bright purple robes.

Across from them, there's a small tent with an open flap and a big showy glowing sign-illusion with twinkling stars over the entrance, announcing that it's the Starfall Cafe. Through the tent flap, Marianne can see a considerably-larger interior, complete with a long bar and over twenty tables of seating. Behind the bar there's three hovering uniforms with no-one in them; they're somehow serving food and coffee, and a rune-tattooed witch is manning a cash register. 

One stall down from the implausible cafe, there's another tent with a compressed interior; through this flap Marianne can see what looks like a high-end jewelry shop, all glass counters with small objects laid out. The illusion-sign over the entrance announces it as simply VALERIE'S, as if she should know what that means. 

There's also a fountain, down a few steps, with a small garden space around it. The plants look unnaturally pretty, with too many flowers, too good of flowers, but also unmistakably real. The area is filled with a cool humidity to the air; it feels inviting and gentle. A witch is sitting on the fountain's edge, looking at her phone. There is a large violet crystal at the center of the fountain, under a glass case. 

Look at all these fascinating things! It is times like these she would like to kiss the universe. The whooooole thing, in all of its hydrogen-abundant majesty.

The pet shop has so many beautiful creatures and she grins at them all.

Some mortal-reminiscient part of her is very amused at the $7500 cake slices. Almost as bad as San Francisco. She is also impressed that witches are rich enough to just sell this kind of stuff on open market rather than making them for auction or commission.

The cafe is very charming and she would love to hang in it for a few hours so long as they don't expect her to buy a coffee the cost of a high end gaming PC.

Sadly, she needs to get settled by tonight and that does not leave a lot of wiggle room, which is horrible. Marianne loves wiggling.

She can ask Scythe to go get the HexVPN and laptops and any other important stuff sometime. She has been undecided on whether she ought to pay her demon — yeah okay she will. It's exactly the kind of reckless deranged kindness that wins people to the side of light. She needs Scythe to look up to her, to look up to her ideals, to want to be her, to want to be hand-in-hand with her. She also needs—

Hi, this is your vestige of common sense.

Life has been hard on me as of yesterday, but I have a proposal for you. Have you considered giving Cytherea less free stuff, instead of more? You've already given her the best deal of her eternal life, which among a half-dozen other things involved taking on permanent fatigue for her. You're never going to get that off until you dismiss her and you promised not to do that.

What do you think you're getting in exchange?

Hey, Vestige. I understand your confusion, but I do have a plan for the investment, look here—

I already saw that!! I can say without figurative speech that it is insane and you are going to lose everything you care about.

I'm not afraid to risk everything for a one percent chance of⁠—

—way less than one percent—

I will execute it perfectly and I will win.

Don't distract me. Try to help.

—sorry. I'll talk to you more about it later. When I'm laying in bed and can't sleep, perhaps.

It's okay if you think the plan is idiotic, I am open to other paths by which Liath of the Seventh might be subverted to my service.

You can't even subvert me to your service. I'm putting in my two weeks.

Work with me, sweetie. We both want the same things. I do actually need you.

We can be a better thing than Liath for Cytherea to entrust her faith to. It is not a high bar, particularly given that one is a torturess and the other a damaged torture victim.

Please don't freak out like we're going for the throat tomorrow. I'm aware that even corrupting our stepping stone is going to be the work of years, but we need to sink some upfront costs now. One of those is actually paying her for services rendered. She needs to be treated with the same rights and dignities we afford every other human being.

She takes sixty seconds of deep breaths.

Okay. I think you walked past the tailor, she's back that way on your left side.

Taaaiiiilor?

There's a small lacuna off to the side of the fountain that you could almost miss; it gives the impression that it's one of the worse spots in the market. 

There's a small store there with another one of those runed display cases; this one is holding pints of blood in blood bags, 10₭ each, and apples with a distinctly red tint, 50₭ each, and equipment for drawing blood. There's also a selection of R2 potions for 90₭ each.

And to the left of that, there's a small clothing store selling enchanted robes and suits and ties and so on, with a sign saying "mothergift alterations 75₭".

—she'd been letting her eyes skim over things a bit, carryover from thirty minutes ago when she couldn't afford any of it. But yep, those sure are the apples of sanguine repute.

She examines her mana bond. There's not all that much slippage so far, maybe an identify's worth, but the effect is starting to compound. She sends, Isabel, hi. I found the tailor, and directions.

Then heads in to the clothing store counter. "Good evening ma'am. If you'd excuse my ignorance — what is a mothergift?"

Got it. On my way.

"- A new one, are you?" The tailor's gaze flicks over the amulet at Marianne's throat, then looks away. "Mothergifts are - an inherited magic, shared by all witches. The basic ability is the ability to summon a hat, garment and rod. Even witches without any training in Witchery can summon them with ten minutes' focus."

"Oh. How is it done?"

She could run through all eight wells and should at some point, but she doesn't expect to be able to get all of them working on her own. Advice might help her figure out which one contains her ancestral hand-me-downs.

"Focus and meditate. Feel for the shape of the mothergifts - the hat is always a classic witches' hat, with a wide brim - the garment is considerably more custom but usually one piece for witches without training... And the rod is usually plain and unornamented, just a piece of polished wood, again for witches without training."

If Hawthorne told her to modify her witches' garments, she expects they would have meant those, not a set of normal clothes. "Thank you."

She sits outside on the curb and rummages around through her soul. She shelves her necklace so she can get a good look at what a specific substantiable soul-formatted object looks like, and she pokes her head in each well to look for more of those.

(Again she has the feeling that her skull has been remodeled into a jet cockpit overnight. It is very weird, having that blend between thought and things happening.)

There is definitely something in one of the wells! Three different somethings, though if she tugs at one they all want to come at once, as a unit.

Yoink!

They don't want to come easily - the manifestation is heavy, though guided like making a Kiss. It could take a little while.

She tugs them along.

Thanks grandma, by the way. Hope your immortality hasn't given out yet.

Partway through she gets distracted by witchwatching, lets them slip, and needs to start from the top with her eyes closed.

Eventually—