The Abyss Market

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The Springfield Abyss Market itself turned out to be located in the Springfield Convention Center, or rather in a barrier copy of it. The building layout was the same, as far as John could tell, but most everything had been repurposed in various ways. Smaller rooms for meetings and closed panels were turned into individual shops, while the large convention floors had been turned into magical bazaars.

Stalls ranged from a simple table with arrayed goods to small buildings inside the building and even a few that were actually floating in the air, with a short stair of floating tiles to reach it by. Goods ranged from mundane looking stuff like outdoor gear, cosmetics and clothes, across body armor both modern and medieval, weapons ranging from morningstars to machine guns, and small animate constructs, to fist-sized glowing crystals, hovering brooms, and blatantly manapunk devices that he couldn’t discern the function of at a glance. Magic item glitters were mostly common and uncommon, but it didn’t take much looking to spot the blue glitters of a rare item, and the floating stalls were of epic rarity.

The people present were every bit as interesting as the wares. Humans were the most numerous, but even they didn’t quite make up half the crowd and ranged in appearance from mostly normal to something out of an anime or Final Fantasy game, including a guy that looked like he was dressed in nothing but belts. Second most numerous were people of the common fantasy races like elves, dwarves, and orcs. He spotted two goblins and a single gnome, who looked like the incarnation of ‘burned out retail worker’, as well but wasn’t sure if their apparent scarcity was because they were actually a lot rarer or just because their small stature meant they mostly disappeared in the crowd.

The exoticism didn’t stop there though. He saw lizardmen, harpies and lamiae, by the Asian interpretation of the term, and other people with animal characteristics ranging from nekomimi to full blown furry. Groot-like tree people, people with wings of feathery, batlike or insectile appearances, people with 4 or 6 arms or two heads and a few that towered over the rest at more than half again John’s height.

There were also creatures made from what appeared to be more or less solidified elemental matter, per the list Qhila had mentioned earlier. Many of them had bodies that were not humanoid at all, and if not for the presence of names and titles in their nameplates, John would likely have assumed them to be beasts, rather than people.

John could easily have spent the rest of the day here, just taking in the sights. Or at least spent enough time that his social batteries flatlined completely and he would have to lock himself in a room alone for the rest of the day.

The reason he did not was that Qhila was very obviously having a hard time. Her posture was tense enough to make John’s shoulders feel sore just standing next to her, her stride was just urgent enough to feel rushed rather than purposeful, and her head was on a swivel, eyes whipping to and fro, evaluating everyone they passed for potential threats. So instead of acting like a tourist, he sent her a message in the party chat.

[John]: I’ll try to Observe people nearby, starting with the high Level ones.

Rather than respond in chat, Qhila spared a moment to catch his eyes and nodded.

Paying attention to Levels, and Observe outputs, like that, John noted a few things. First was the Levels of the crowd. Most people were sitting somewhere between 20 and 25, which naturally led to stat ratings that were mostly in the 5+ stars range. Above that, however, people were spaced out a lot more, with maybe a tenth of the crowd above 30 and the highest he saw was an earth elemental titled “chief magic mall cop” at Level 62.

Below that range, most people were still above Level 15. Other than the gnome and the goblins, the only people below that were smaller elementals and beast-like creatures with classes like “familiar” or “servitor”, or children and young teens. The latter were almost universally accompanied by some higher Level chaperone of some sort, and most also had a title that made it very obvious that they were under someone else’s protection, like “ward of X”.

The few that weren’t had “alert” or “on edge” or something similar in their emotions listing, though it was clearly not to the degree of anxiety that Qhila was displaying, as evidenced by it generally being number 3 or 4 on the list.

That was all a bit worrying, but pretty much none of the Observe results gave indication of the people having any interest at all in him and Qhila, though there were a solid number of information blurbs, classes, or titles that made John glad that these people weren’t a part of his life. Also, elementals titled “magic mall cop” were more numerous than he would expect mall cops to be in a mundane mall, so it seemed like the people in charge took the customers’ safety seriously.

All in all, he wasn’t sure Qhila’s level of alertness was warranted. On the other hand, she knew the Abyss better than he did. And the rat ogres could be because of someone targeting her.

In any case, they remained vigilant and unaccosted throughout the trip. Given how tense Qhila was, John opted to stay in the background so as not to make any of the purchases take longer than needed.

They mostly stuck to the hallways and individual shops, avoiding the bazaar halls, including at least once where it would have been shorter to go through a hall. Probably to avoid the densest crowds.

They made three stops for alchemy ingredients at what looked to be specialist shops for minerals, oils, and herbs, respectively. The latter was manned by elves that looked less than pleased to see them. After leaving, Qhila unpromptedly explained that the things they had picked up there were native to an elven Kingdom that exclusively exported to elf owned vendors. Which was also why they had bought only fairly little at that shop; the stuff that could be had at Grave Concoctions, Qhila would rather buy there.

They also visited a store that was full of electronics parts, except that the visible circuit boards all had a bunch of crystal studs in them and something about how the lines on the boards were arranged seemed… off. Like having passing familiarity with Japanese symbols and thinking they were the only Asian script, then coming across a text in Korean.

In addition to selling John’s robot scrap and a bunch of arcanotech scrap of her own, she picked up a package of parts and traded a box of empty mana batteries for charged ones in an order that the proprietor, an old-looking talking squid, had prepared for her in advance.

In the basement, they unloaded three sacks of other salvage of Qhila’s to a trio of lizardmen in what looked like some sort of mixed workshop. John had carried the sacks in his inventory, and when he had asked her how she usually got bulk salvage to market, she had shown him a hand cart and explained that she was still saving up for a “pocket space”, which was apparently the correct term for a hammerspace bag.

The only thing that puzzled him enough to ask questions at the market itself was their last stop, before leaving for Karason’s. “A money changer?”

Qhila nodded while casting a glance at an old woman in a leather jacket walking past them. “Yes. Karason will give you a better price if you pay in gold, he’s a dwarf. Well, maybe not on the security systems, they’re already on a huge discount.”

That made sense, and discounts were always nice. So without further ado, they changed a bunch of cash to golden coins, and a few silver, and left the Abyss Market itself. They did so via barrier hopping, with the nice detail that half the barriers were already there as the pavement bit of store barriers for stores that weren’t in the market itself.

Almost immediately upon leaving the primary market’s barrier, the tension and hypervigilance bled out of Qhila. She still seemed about as on guard as she usually was outside of her nest, but it didn’t feel like her nerves were on a hair trigger.

“Is the market really that dangerous? I mean, I trust your judgment, it just seems weird considering the amount of security staff and I’m trying to wrap my head around it. And I would kinda expect fewer people to go if it’s dangerous too…”

“The crowd is essentially the problem.” Qhila stopped and turned towards him. “It takes fairly little mana to put a kobold at your mercy, or anyone else in that range of power. Little enough that someone good at hiding their signature is going to be difficult to notice and even harder to pinpoint in a crowd as large, varied and full of active and passive magic as what’s at the Market.

“Once you get to people with aura strength in the typical range for non-feeble demihumans, it takes enough power that while it may not be instantly pinpointed, it’s exceptionally hard to hide what you’re doing well enough to stop security from just locking down that hallway or trade hall.”

“I see.”

She turned away again and continued walking. “The safest place in the Market’s neutral zone for us is somewhere nobody else knows about.”

“Like your nest.”

“Exactly. The second best is the shops around the Market itself, where there isn’t enough crowd to disappear into, but Market Coalition security is close enough to respond rapidly and the store owners really don’t want their customers harmed.”

That all made sense, and perfectly explained why Qhila was calmer now. It was still a deeply fucked up thing to need to worry about though, and John wished there was more he could do about it than just get them Leveled to 20.

Regardless of John’s frustrations, they continued down the street and around the corner to Karason’s. The real world shop was a gun store as well, and the only change on the outside upon entering the store’s barrier was that the logo in the front door window changed to a pair of crossed rifles over a snowflake, accompanied by a smaller symbol of a mallet with an oversized, ice-blue head.

Before heading inside, Qhila pointed to the smaller icon. “That’s the clan mark for clan Icehammer. If you’re to do business with dwarven strangers, look for a clan mark. The dwarven clans don’t care about charging exorbitant prices, or racial surcharges, though Karason does neither, but they do care about quality standards and treating honestly with your customers. The customary punishment for breaking either of those while trading under clan mark is essentially unpersoning in the eyes of dwarves, complete with shaving off the beard and burn-scarring the jaw so a new one can’t grow.”

That sounded pretty brutal, but John didn’t really have time to ponder that more as Qhila went inside. A bell had the proprietor look up from his magazine, the kind you read, and put it away. The dwarf looked middle aged as best John could tell, with some light wrinkles around his eyes but no gray in his red beard.

Contrasting his hairless scalp, the beard was huge. It went all the way to the man’s belt and was broad enough to almost hide the shoulders of the barrel chested shopkeeper. There were at least a dozen small braids woven into it in a symmetric pattern, each adorned with one or more rings. The rings were a mix of silver and gold, with a single one at the center being of a different, silvery-white metal that John assumed to be mithril.

“Ah, wee miss Vrenk, welcome back. I see you brought a friend.” He stepped out from behind the counter with a sweeping, welcoming gesture as he spoke, then turned his attention towards John. “[Welc’me tae me shop, lad, Ey’m Gisli Karason o’ Clan Eishamm’r. Wha’ cannae do ye fer?]

The dwarf’s switch from clear and fluent Low Draconic to a Scottish accent so thick it took John a moment to figure out what had even been said was like getting slapped in the face with a bagpipe.

“[Uh, I’m John Newman, pleased to meet you.]” He scratched the back of his neck. “I think we should stick to Low Draconic though, for politeness’ sake…”

“Aye.” Karason nodded, also revealing that there was a touch of accent in his Low Draconic. “I didn’t want to assume though. What can I do for the two of you?”

Feeling gentlemanly and stuff, John gestured for Qhila to go first. “I need two boxes of injection darts, a box of frags and a box of pull-wire detonators.”

The dwarf cocked an eyebrow as he went to retrieve the boxes from drawers around the room. “Oh. Been busy, or are you just stocking up in case the Emeralds come knocking?”

Qhila shrugged and seemed for a moment like that was all the answer she intended to provide, before saying, “A bit of both, I suppose. You wouldn’t happen to have heard of people running afoul of feral rat ogres since the GROies got to smiting, by chance?”

“Could be.” He scratched his beard. “A couple of customers mentioned running into leftover beasts out and about, but didn’t specify the kind. Given what the green scum got the boot over, I figured it would be ghouls or somesuch…”

Qhila made a thoughtful hum, but didn’t pursue the topic further and they completed their transaction, after which Karason turned his attention to John. “So lad, is there anything I can do for you, or are you just tagging along?”

“I’m here for a gun and a home security system, or rather two of the same one. It’s the mundane-friendly CWI one that’s on sale. Also, Qhila says you can tell me how much an… unusual weapon might be worth?”

“Aye, that I can. My niece is manning the home security desk upstairs.” He gestured towards a staircase leading upwards. “Don’t mind her youth, she knows her stuff. As for the appraisal, I’m going to waive the fee since you came in with a return customer. Now let’s see this exotic weapon o’ yours.”

“I’m not sure exotic is the right word…” John commented sheepishly as he took out the Pipe of the Sewers and handed the enchanted length of pipe to the dwarf.

Karason cocked a bushy eyebrow when he saw it, but didn’t comment before looking it over closely. Then he took out a gold-framed monocle from a chest pocket hidden behind his beard and looked it over again, before shaking his head. “You’re unlikely to find anyone willing to buy this as a weapon. I would say you could probably get a half-crown and maybe a few hawks at a reclaimer, but that’s about it. If I were to hazard a guess, someone probably didn’t want to risk messing up an actual weapon doing enchantment practice.”

John didn’t know what that appraisal even meant, the currency slang not matching what he’d seen prices listed in on the Abyss Web, but Qhila looked unsurprised as she nodded. “I figured it would be something like that, but it was odd enough that I thought an expert opinion would be best.”

Deciding that he could just ask Qhila about the crowns and hawks stuff in a bit, John proceeded to the part about getting a gun. “About the gun, I need something suitable for a novice for self defense. Hopefully mostly against beasts, like rat ogres or, uh, stuff you might run across in the forest barrier.”

Karason nodded, but needed no thinking time before making his recommendation. “I’d say the best for those purposes is either a handgun or a shell shotgun. A handgun is easier to carry, faster to draw and isn’t hampered as much by armor or armor-like hides, while a shotgun has more raw stopping power and is easier to hit with. For the shotgun, you can also trade some ease of hitting for armor, and barrier, penetration by switching to slugs, but if you’re not used to thinking in terms of clear lines of fire and risk of overpenetration, I would recommend holding off on that.”

Since his inventory outshined most of the benefits of a pistol, the choice was pretty clear. As for the slugs, he would steer clear for the time being. While he had been to the range with Sam a few times, thinking in those terms was not something that came natural to him. “Shotgun, definitely. Sticking with shells to start with, as you said.”

What followed was the dwarf showing different shotguns and talking about their various advantages. He got a bit too technical for John to follow on multiple occasions, but the sparkle of enthusiasm in the store owner’s eyes was familiar and made it clear that he was basically a nerd that had gotten started on his favorite topic and was trying not to overwhelm the Gamer too much with specifics and jargon. So, given that John had Observe to bridge the understanding gaps, he didn’t have the heart to stop the dwarf.

In the end, John went with a gun of Karason’s own design. Observe had backed the dwarf up in speaking highly of it, so John had no worries about him being biased, consciously or otherwise, in favor of his own work.

John wasn’t sure exactly how he felt about the thing being able to one-shot him. On one hand it made perfect sense, and he hadn’t expected to be able to walk off a shotgun blast. On the other hand, comparing it to the damage numbers he had done so far, he felt like something of an idiot for not buying a gun sooner.

That was something he could beat himself up over later though, so John thanked Karason and went upstairs with Qhila. While climbing the stairs, he leaned in and muttered, “So, what even are half-crowns and hawks?”

“Crowns is slang for Gold Sovereigns, because the purity standard is called crown gold. Hawks are Auction Standard Silver Coins, because they’re smaller than the mundane American Silver Eagle coin.”

“Ah.” Going by the exchange rate at the money changer, that put the pipe at somewhere around 300 to 350 dollars. A bit more than he had guessed at yesterday, so he was happy with that.

A sign at the second floor revealed that it held melee and thrown weapons, as opposed to the firearms, bows, and crossbows downstairs, while home security was on the 3rd floor, so further up they went.

Unlike the weapon stands and display models on the floors below, this one was dominated by info stands in various company colors. The text and images looked like they mixed easily understood sales pitches with technical jargon and diagrams, at least at a glance. John wasn’t here to browse though, so he approached the counter immediately.

It was manned by a dwarven woman who was mucking about on her phone. Her lightly freckled face was framed by a pair of thin braids, while the rest of her auburn hair was bundled into a thicker one down her back. The thin braids were threaded through rings like the ones in her uncle’s beard, silver on the left and gold on the right. The braids were long enough for said ends to rest on the top of her bosom, the large size of which her conservative business casual outfit was utterly unequal to the task of toning down the appeal of.

He didn’t gawk though, for two reasons. One was that in addition to the rings in her braid, she wore a ring with a white gemstone on her finger. While John didn’t know dwarven customs, that looked to him like either an engagement or wedding ring, and even before he had consciously acknowledged its presence and potential meaning, his subconscious had already flagged her as off limits. The other was that he wasn’t here for babe spotting, and even if he were, then the best course of action would be to ogle Qhila’s butt, not a stranger.

Frida Ingridsdottir Icehammer
Artificer Lvl 21
Favorite Niece

As John and Qhila approached, the dwarfette put away the phone she had been messing with. “[Hello, what can I help you with?]” Unlike her uncle’s thick accent, Frida’s English was clearly and easily understandable to a non-Scot such as John.

“[Your uncle told me you were the one to talk to about home security systems. I’d like two of the CWI Stronghold series one that’s currently on sale.]”

“[Of course you do. Aside from a single order of parts for a DIY type, that’s the only thing I’ve been selling all week. Not that I blame you, it’s a solid system and one Niflheim of a discount.”] She chuckled. [“Someone definitely got axed for that.”]

“[Oh?]” Qhila had noted that the discount was suspiciously large, but she couldn’t think of any angles for corporate bullshit that actually made sense for them to play with it.

Frida nodded firmly. “[No way to recoup the cost on maintenance and repairs during the system’s lifetime without having people seek third party craftsmen instead, and if it was a push to expand the loyal customer base, there would be more marketing to go with it. This smells like someone in middle management at the local facility messing up and getting far too many systems made, followed by a scramble to get them sold and free up the floor space for what’s actually supposed to be there.]”

“[Well, their loss, my luck, I guess.]” John shrugged. “[By the way, how’s your Low Draconic? We’re kinda leaving Qhila hanging…]”

The dwarven woman’s professional smile slipped for a moment, revealing a brief grimace. “[Poor, I’m afraid. Languages are unfortunately not my forte.]”

Qhila made a gesture as if waving the concern away. “[Is fine. I have what I came for.]”

“[Never mind then, I suppose.]”

While the last few spoken exchanges had happened, Frida had picked up a pair of boxes from a stack behind her counter and put them on the table. Each was white cardboard with a subtle, off-white fractal pattern and black lettering revealing them to be the security systems in question. Each was about the size of the packaging for a computer keyboard.

“[There you go. Do you know how to set it up?]”

John scratched the back of his neck. “[Not really, but it’s supposed to come with instructions…?]”

“[They include detailed instructions, yes.]” She nodded. “[The basics are that there are three types of sigil cards in there, one for perimeter, one for entrances, and one for physical weaknesses. You put the perimeter ones in the corners of a polygon around the property, entrance ones on doors, fence gates and the like, and weakness ones on places that aren’t supposed to be entered or left by but where something could, given the right size or effort. Stuff like chimneys, AC vents and windows. Fire escapes too, if you have any that don’t get used otherwise. Once that’s done, activate the control unit. It’ll put up visual instructions for the rest by illusion.]

“[You can add sigils later too if needed, as long as they’re from the same set, but it’s more of a hassle so it’s best to just get everything ready beforehand. Whoever activates the control unit gets designated as the owner. You can register trusted individuals if they or an essence sample is present on the property. Registering mundanes is not necessary, but any Abyssal pets are, even mundane-passing ones like house cats. If anything that assenses as Abyssal enters the property, the system scans present trusted individuals’ auras for awareness of that creature. If awareness is detected, it prompts the trusted individual and the owner to flag that creature as a guest. If the flag is denied, the prompt ignored for 10 seconds, the individual uses active magic or causes property damage before being flagged as a guest, or the awareness scan comes up empty, the individual is flagged as an intruder and subjected to mana suppression, and painful and disorienting psychic pulses while the owner and all trusted persons on site are alerted.]”