The sun beating in through the window awoke Elyon as she groaned and made her way out of bed to shut the shades on the window. Judging by the shadows, it was already nearly lunch, but from what she could see looking out the window the city was only now starting to awake from its earlier booze-induced slumber. It seemed as if she was one of the more early risers, as when she wandered down to the inn proper there were only a few people where the night before it had been filled. Ange was, unsurprisingly, not there. The poor man had probably drunk himself into a coma for the next 12 hours.
This left her once again to wander by herself, although at least time she felt a little more at home. It turned out that throwing a crazy party and dancing with strangers for several hours straight was more than enough to make her feel like she belonged. Stifling a yawn, she decided to head back towards the market place. Much to her disappointment, it appeared as if the bookseller was long gone, although his spot had been taken by another vendor. Much to Elyon's amusement, this one appeared to be equally invested in their own work.
The feather the girl held in her hand scribbled furiously against the paper below, drawing long lines in blotchy black ink. Other objects covered the vendor's booth which gave off a soft reflection of the world around them. The girl seemed to be muttering something to herself, the wide-brimmed hat precariously close to falling off her head.
"Apologies for interrupting you, I'm new to town, what exactly are you selling?"
Ever so slowly, they turned their head to look up at Elyon. Their face was hard to read, but it was clear they were quite surprised about someone actually coming up. With a quick shuffling, they slid their work to the side before standing up.
"Well, just about anything! Minor runes, a few mana-dispensers. I'm sure someone like you knows, all magic has a certain…smell to it. Water like petrichor, earth like fresh dirt, fire like brimstone, wind like cut grass, maybe you'd be interested in a scent generator? I also have, uh, other things"
"Other things?"
The girl glanced around before nodding. Elyon just looked at her, still as confused as before. Was everyone in this town trying to off-load some shady piece of their inventory?
"I uh, got kicked out of my mage school for it, but it's basically a measure of one's potential. They really didn't like that it didn't give the rich bastards a better result"
This was enough to make Elyon snort as she picked up the device that they had slid forward. It seemed to just be a small wooden cube, covered in the same ink and scribbles that the seller had been using before the pair had started to talk.
"Just try to pour some mana into it, assuming you are a mage. If not, then I'm uh….not sure why you came here in the first place. The brighter it glows, the more potential it has. Most people only end up with a tiny amount of light though, so don't expect too much"
Once again, it also seemed as if she had picked quite the unique seller to approach. With a huff, Elyon took up the challenge and stepped forward.
"Trust me, I'm somewhat of a prodigy at juggling with wind"
With that quite bold declaration, she closed her eyes and felt the flow of the world around her. Almost instantly, the box twitched in her hand before imploding inwards in a flash of blinding green light, making both of them wince. Filling the air with the scent of wet grass, the rest of it turned into fine mana dust before slipping through Elyon's fingers to disappear against the ground.
"Um"
"Uh"
They both looked at eachother. Then back to the box, then back to each other before either of them spoke.
"Was that supp-"
"No, that wasn't supposed to happen! What the hell did you do?! I've never seen a reaction like that before. Maybe I constructed it wrong…no, that was the same one teacher used…aaagh this makes no sense"
The seller threw up her arms in defeat as she sighed and slumped back into her chair, eyeing Elyon with suspicion. She let out a soft hiss, although the guilty look on Elyon's face slowed her down just enough to speak again.
"Either you've got more raw mana then my teacher, which is unlikely, I somehow messed up the runes, even more unlikely, or it's just old and broke down, which seems…the…most likely"
They almost seemed bitter to admit that it might have been a problem on their end, which made Elyon all the more amused given they would likely have tried to sell it for quite the exorbitant price. Woops.