Off to the riverside district! There continue to be more people out and about as the day goes on. The buildings are also a bit taller on average in the richer areas of town, though they shorten back down right up against the water, probably for stability reasons.

Walking into the riverside district from the northwest (the relative direction of Jewel's from downtown), he'll encounter a jewelry store first. It doesn't have the metabolic atmosphere that the Prosperous Clothier did, and is much smaller, similar in size to Jewel's, but aside from those factors its decor would seem to put it alongside the clothes store in terms of its class. There's a wide-selection of form factors, including rings, bracelets, arm bands, earrings, necklaces and chains, all with a great assortment of designs and gemstones, and even some metals with strange colors and optical properties that aren't familiar to Conrad. Unfortunately, at this store at least, none of the merchandise is labeled as inscribed.

It's all very pretty, but are any of the things inscribed? He'll ask the shopkeeper whether it is. If not, he'll leave immediately. His own ring of protection +1 is a simple affair: a plain iron ring with an engraving of a square. It doesn't look magical or special, save for the fact that it's free of any corrosion or tarnish.

The shopkeeper will honestly be just a little confused at first. "No, none of our products are inscribed. Where did you did get the idea they would be?"

"Where I'm from, we put effects on jewelry like rings, necklaces, and earrings." Not a lie, because he said 'effects'. Not inscriptions.

The shopkeeper scoffs. "And I'm sure you write poetry on grains of sand, too."

No one will stop him as he leaves. Bit of a bust, that!

Hmph. He wants to figure out how to write an echoic inscription on a ring just to spite the person. 

Yes, it was indeed a bust! He'll go to the clock shop now. Hopefully there'll be something better there.

Conveniently, the consumer clockworks is not far from that jewelry store. It's also fairly small, maybe a bit smaller that Jewel's even in terms of square footage. It's a bit of a weird shape, too, a single long and relatively narrow room with the pay counter at the back. There's two long tables along either side of the room, both of which are completely covered in various ticking clocks and clockwork devices. The walls are likewise totally bedecked in machines.

A short old man with snow-white hair sits at the pay counter and yells in greeting, "Welcome, welcome to Gildergard's Clockwork Emporium!"

It's honestly a bit hard to hear him over all the clocks, at least from the very front of the store.

He walks closer so he doesn't have to strain himself in trying to hear the man. 

"Do you happen to sell pocket watches, or any sort of portable timekeeping devices? It has to be precise to within an action. Er, that's half a round. Wait." He thinks over his words from the language Lord Echo gave him. "It has to be precise to within three seconds. Do you have anything like that?"

Any pocket watch a caster has has to be precise to at least that, or it will be entirely useless for trying to figure out spell durations.

"Certainly!" The old man replies much more audibly, lowering himself slightly to retrieve a long, wide, thin box from under the pay counter, which he will then place on top and open, revealing several pocket watches, varying slightly in size and design, ticking away. "These are my most popular ones, but I have lots in the back. They're all good to at least the second. Any other features you're looking to help narrow it down?"

"To the second is good for me. I want the watch to be durable and robust. After precision, that's the most important desideratum. I'm willing to pay extra if you have inscribed watches. Less important desiderata are that the watch doesn't gain or lose too many seconds in a day, and that you don't need to wind it so much. If there's some effect that lets it run indefinitely, I'll also pay extra for that. I'm not so concerned about aesthetics – a simple unadorned one will be fine."

The man nods continuously as Conrad gives his criteria, waving his hand over the pocket watches before settling on a simple one, a smooth brass case with a white faceplate that, if Conrad looks very carefully, is covered in tiny script, exactly the same color as the faceplate and only visible due to being slightly indented. "As tough as they come, gains less than a second a year, self-winding, echoic set, and," he gently presses the pocket watch's glass, causing the faceplate to become illuminated, then squeezes the watch's case, causing the illumination to amplify significantly, projecting a visible beam of light through the not-very-dim storefront, before squeezing it again to extinguish the light, "back-lit with flashlight mode. This to your liking?"

He has the good sense not to let his face change when the shopkeeper is directly showing him this item he's interested in. It's bad practice. He might not have followed that same principle with the other shops, but he's going to have the presence of mind to do that now, because this seems really fancy. Even fancier than the previous fancy things he's already bought.

He surprises himself by maintaining that even expression when the flashlight mode comes on. That was really neat. He doesn't prepare Light even when he had his spellbook, because that's evocation, which is his opposition school.

"What do you mean by 'echoic set'? Does it come with a chain? How much is it?"

"It's set with an echoic inscription rather than a knob." He demonstrates, placing his thumb on lightly indented section of the case, the watch's hands swinging to one time, then another, then another, before coming back to 10:13, presumably the current time. "Just think what time you want it to be."

He chuckles. "That one was pretty tricky to figure out. As for a chain, it doesn't come with but I have a selection. This one on its own will be 6 ducats 20 pounds, and depending on length and material the chain could be from 6 to 12 pounds."

He looks closer and finally notices the fine indentations.

"I see. An echoically inscribed watch. As an aside, do you use other inscriptions in your watches?

I want the chain to be long enough that I could wear it around my neck and still hold it up that I can see it without having to crane my neck back. Brass to match the watch is fine – how much will that be?"

See. Lord Echo is the best: telepathically controlled watch! Your servant praises You, Lord Echo, greatest of the winds.

Is it heretical to use non-echoically inscribed items presumably not, because Lord Echo hasn't complained about that. If They complain about it, he'll burn them all in a pyre.

"The lighting is inscribed, on the faceplate, and the durability and self-winding are both partially from inscriptions on the inside of the case. Length..." The man raises a splayed hand up holds close to but not within Conrad's personal space, apparently taking some informal measurement, "28 inches. For brass that'd be 8 pounds. All together 7 ducats 4 pounds. Anything else you're looking for?"

"Mm, I assume the lighting is poetic and the durability is metabolic, then? And no, I'm not looking for anything else, this is good."

If nothing else happens, he'll hand over the money. The moment the watch enters his hands, he'll dispel his Neutral Face and make a face of glee over having the echoic set watch. 

"Lighting's poetic yes, durability's metabolic and chorismic. I take quite a bit of pride in being a competent inscriber with all four." The man (perhaps Gildergard, from the store's name?) takes the offered bills and coinage.

When Conrad reveals his true expression, maybe-Gildergard smiles and chuckles. "You've got a good game-face! Wouldn't want to play you at stickler. You have a nice day, and if you ever need anything clockwork, remember the name Gildergard!"

Right, it seems that the chorismic also does abjuration-like effects. Hm. He'd like to learn how to be able to inscribe all four winds. Is that heretical he should really stop reflexively asking himself whether things are heretical. Given that Lord Echo can read his mind seemingly cheaply, he's sure They will inform him if he ought not to consider certain things. He doesn't think so, in any case, given that They have already not intervened with him using and wearing non-echoic items. Is inscribing similar to scribing scrolls? He hasn't taken the scroll scribing course, so he wouldn't know. Damn it.

He laughs. "Thank you, and I will. You have a nice day too."

He'll place the watch into his shirt pocket and go to the tabulary Maple recommended. Hm. Before that, he'll take stock of his finances. He takes out another piece of paper.

+ 200d  0p  0o: Dr Bishop's gift
-   0d  2p  0o: breakfast
-   0d  0p 11o: bus ride
-   0d  0p  2o: map and tip
-  12d 16p  0o: clothes
-   1d 10p  8o: notebook, pens, paper
-   7d  4p  0o: watch
----------------------------------------
Result: 178d 14p 11o (51443o)

That means he has thirty eight ducats fourteen pounds eleven ounces to spend, still.

The tabulary is a bit more of a walk, and is only a couple streets away from the riverfront. The sign out front names it 'Swarthwalls Premier Tablets' and it's again a bit oddly shaped, narrow and long like Gildergard's, though it appears to occupy two stories of the building it's in, and unlike Gildergard's the pay counter is at the front, right next to the entrance. A shopkeeper is sitting there, looking a bit bored.

There are various tablets, some active and some not, on display through out the shop, and there's another customer checking some out close to the back, near the staircase leading to the second floor. It also sounds like there's someone walking around upstairs.

What metals are the tablets made out of? Are there any tablets made of say, wood or stone, or are they all metal? Hm, he wonders what the price range for the tablets are. Like with everything else he has, durability is the most important desideratum, even though he has Mending. Mending can fix a damaged magic item, but only if it isn't a very strong one. And it can't restore the magic of a destroyed magic item. Of course, if he becomes a very strong wizard here, somehow, then he can repair more things. He'll need Make Whole to restore a destroyed magic item's magic, and he doesn't have that – not even in his spellbook.

The second most important thing is storage. He wants the tablet to be able to store many pages. He's not really a drawer or an artist, and if he's going to draw something it's more likely to be a diagram than anything artistic, so it's fine if the tablet doesn't have support for color – he intuits that figuring out the inscription for a black-and-white only tablet would be simpler than including color too – and if the tablet doesn't support complex brushes and line widths and whatnot. He'll take it if it isn't a large increase in price, but otherwise he'll go without. 

The tablets are, to a one, made of metal, and of the same metal. It looks like silver, but it's too light and to rigid for it to be that, and still too rigid to be tin, and part of Conrad rebels at the thought that this society is so wealthy that they can use mithril like this, so Conrad isn't really sure what metal it is.

The various tablets that are active are all displaying text describing the features that model of tablet has. There's lots of features available, including something that sounds like it could produce that absurdly detailed picture Maple showed him automatically, but there isn't actually much variation in durability. Fortunately that's because tablets are all made to be nigh indestructible, since they're all still quite valuable.

As for memory, the highest memory he can find is a lot. 'over a million pages' though it doesn't list a specific number and also disclaims that images may occupy more pages of memory than they do visually. That tablet has loads of unnecessary features and costs nearly forty ducats. He can find a very minimal 'writing tablet' tablet with nearly four hundred thousand pages of memory, though, which is also much, much cheaper at only 12 ducats 12 pounds.

Notably, the speaking devices he's seen used a few times are, apparently, a type of tablet as well, and access to the communication network is a feature that many tablets have. You can use the network to transmit images or text as well as sounds, as long as the recipient is equipped to receive them. Tablets that only have voice features are generally the cheapest, and often have very little memory, basically just being a way to access the network.

Conrad cannot figure out what metal it is. It's not steel or iron, either. And not spellsilver – it would have tarnished by now. It could have spellsilver inside it, but he doesn't know what sort of enchantment would be necessary for the metal to behave like that. And besides, adding even a little spellsilver into something like this would cause it to become way more expensive.

He's no artist, so he has no need for it to be able to display and store extreme detail. Perhaps, in future, he'll get one in the case he manages to figure out Golarion wizardry again and has to make a textbook with manifold diagrams. But not now. 

He's glad that they're all made to take punishment. It wouldn't do if he accidentally dropped it and he lost all the pages stored within.

He's most interested in the 'writing tablet'. Can it still let you draw diagrams? And can it connect to the communication network? Hm, he's not sure whether the communication network is something that's free (absolutely ridiculous but this society seems ridiculously prosperous, so, and really it's not free if the government has a thousand underground dwarven slaves managing the communication network), or whether you have to pay for each message sent or received. And if so, how would you pay? Or perhaps it's some sort of monthly or weekly service, where you pay to get a token that works for that much time, where you can send and receive as many messages as you want.

He wants the tablet to be able to transmit images and text too. Monochrome is fine.

The 400 kilopage writing tablet does indeed come with handwriting (which seems to be present in every tablet other than the voice-only ones), with thin black, thin red, and broad translucent yellow pen-options, and can indeed access the network including both voice and visual messages though yes messages are monochrome only (the red and yellow pens will get converted to a darker and lighter shade of grey respectively).

Network access usually costs money, generally on a monthly basis though it's not uncommon to have pre-paid plans than extend for as much as a year or two. However, it's subsidized in Swarthwalls specifically, thanks to the research facility's part in helping invent the network in the first place, so as long as Conrad's accessing it in the city (or the research center, of course) it'll be free.

Hm, can he test the writing tablet? He'll try drawing his Arcane Mark: a cursive 'Conrad' with flourishes on the borders. It took a while for him to develop that, and he basically has his Mark on everything he owns. Well, until now. He doesn't have it prepared. Tragic. He supposes he can carve the mark into the objects themselves, but that probably isn't good for their longevity.

This just keeps getting and better. No wonder Lord Echo directed him to that facility – they're already very aligned with Them, it seems. Thank You, Lord Echo, for your gift of Sending, which you generously bestow upon the people of Swarthwalls.

Absolutely, he can test the functions of the very same tablet that he's reading the product information off of! It's maybe a little weird to writing directly with his finger rather than a writing utensil, but the illusion of the tablet's surface is tactile as well as visual, it feels just like the paper he bought back at Jewel's, crisp and clean.

As he signs his Arcane Mark, he'll brush against a bit of the linguistic information he received from Echo, and knows how to write his first name in the local script (the local language having a direct parallel to his name, conveniently enough), as well as an approximation of his last name.

As he's testing the tablet, a distinctly eye-catching character walks down the stairs at the back of the store. An enormous man, easily over 7 feet tall and built like a brick house, bare-chested and pale-skinned except that every inch of skin is covered with lines of fine blue script, with a shaved scalp and long, bushy mustache, he walks up to the pay counter, the clerk there quickly coming to attention and putting on a fake smile as he places a very large tablet and two small ones (that only seem smaller when held in his hands) on the counter. "I am purchasing these." He says, voice as deep as one would expect and with a thick accent.

"Th-that will be 122 ducats, sir," the clerk replies with half-hidden anxiety.

The man retrieves a billfold from his pants pocket, pays, and picks his tablets back up, all with odd slowness and sense of gravitas. "Thank you. Good day."