Across the city from the newly rebuilt Hephaistia tower, Laurence, Peter and Fen were looking for the mysterious Rishif in the south-western flea market. Or at least that was what Laurence claimed.
The clues Jim had given Winoa were a reference to an idea that he and Laurence had come up with one day. Every time they would enter a city both boys would try to set up imaginary characters in their spare time. For Laurence, he would set up a humanoid puppet called Elamin, who would work as a shopkeeper. Jim on the other hand, with his gifts connecting to the Book of Order, would set up a string of family ties relating to a non-existent figure in a group of people called Yammy. This Yammy would be his pseudonym should he ever need to go to ground, and with the bonus of an aura masking brooch and flesh mask that he got Laurence to make it was a very convincing disguise.
To make the characters seem more realistic they bulked their backstory up and added flavour. Laurence decided to forego people entirely and as such every instance of Elamin that he put into place was intended to live, and age, for two hundred years before returning to its original form and resetting and acting as the puppet’s son. It was a simple cycle and one that Laurence could take over at any point. Jim's character was slightly more difficult to deal with because in actuality there was no figure of Yammy to replace. That was where Rishif came in.
Laurence scanned each stall as he walked by, looking for any sign slipped into the design of the shops or the crests people wore. His truesense roamed unabashed, scanning every single thing that he went by; people, buildings, tools and even food. It only stopped when he reached the end of the market, and the various pop-up stalls petering out completely. Turning round, he ushered Peter and Fen towards him before directing them to come close.
“So, I found the target and a problem”.
“You found Mr Rishif?” Fen asked, looking around wildly.
“I did”.
“Wow! None of the people we asked had heard of him”.
Laurence smiled and ruffled the boy's hair before continuing, “The issue is... I also noticed we are being followed”.
“Who by?” Peter asked, a positively malicious grin appearing on his face. “I'll make quick work of them”.
“Seven people, if I wasn't liberally using my truesense I would've never spotted them. Also, I know you will, which is why you're going to go and talk to the man selling mangoes about Rishif. Tell him there's a platinum shard if he can tell you where to find such a person, and follow his advice”.
“What are you going to do?” Peter replied.
“Simple. I'm going to draw half of the people following us to me while you can kill the other four without issue. Once they are dealt with, we can shake the other three and I'll take us to see Jim”.
“You know where he is?” Fen interjected, the excitement was written all over his face. His first brush with espionage was something he seemed to enjoy.
“Why do you think I'm telling Peter to speak to the mango seller?” Laurence smirked. “I'll set up shop here to make a few shards with some trinkets”.
Immediately Laurence took a table and a tablecloth out of his storage ring. He placed down the table, covered it with the simple white cloth and then turned away for a moment to set up a tarp with an odd square spiral icon in the background. With his truesense he watched Peter go speak to the man selling mangoes and Fen go and play amongst the throng of people. Seeing them disappear, he smiled slightly before placing a stool down and setting out various nicknacks that he had created upon the table. He put out a sign that simply said ‘suggest a price’ and relaxed.
Over the next hour, Laurence relaxed and watched people come and go. Occasionally he would sell things, then rearrange the objects left in order to make one seem more appealing, or to simply just make a fancy shape out of the creases in the cloth. It was idle work as he watched the world and made plans.
After forty minutes Fen returned, carrying a simple marionette that was covered in glyphs. The marionette was odd. It had no strings attached at all and was made in a similar fashion to that of Fen's own puppets. It also sported a strange stone on its back, with the symbol of the Book of Death scored into it.
“Where'd you get the puppet?” Laurence asked curiously.
“Some nice ladies bought it for me. I could see the glyphs shining from across the street, but nobody else seemed to notice them”.
“Well how much did they buy it for?”
Fen stopped and thought about it for a full minute before saying “Two silver shards”.
Laurence swallowed loudly before he began to laugh uproariously. He kept laughing right up until Peter arrived back at the stall Laurence had set up.
“I don't think I've seen you this happy since we were children,” he commented as Laurence wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes.
“There is very little that gives me as much joy as someone failing to realise the value of an incredibly rare object”.
“Oh? Did you find a treasure amongst this tat?”
“How much would you value a soul marionette? One specifically made to keep the soul of a person who was still alive?”
“Are you kidding me?” Peter knelt down and carefully took the puppet from Fen's hands. As he turned the puppet over and looked at it carefully he sighed. He glanced nervously at Laurence before handing the puppet back to Fen and sighed. “It's worth cities, and I'm not being hyperbolic here. The last time one of those was sold to my clan we shelled out twenty entire stellar diamonds from it”.
“Fen got a billion percent discount on it then”.
“What?”
“Two silver shards”.
For a while Peter just stood and blinked at Laurence, his mouth slightly ajar. Slowly he began shaking, before his movement evolved into full blown laughter as well. Eventually he stopped and stretched his jaw out, moving it round in circles as he peered at the trinkets on Laurence's table.
“So when are we dealing with the people left following us and meeting this Rishif then?”
“We aren't. We're done,” Laurence replied. Immediately both Fen and Peter stared at Laurence like he had grown a second head. They glanced at each other in confusion and then looked around for some illusory man or other figures that seemed out of place but there was nothing. “Look,” he continued. “There's two more stops we need to make before we can leave Thought and pick up that key we need. The first is the Absolution tower, because I have no idea where the Absolution homeland even is, so I should probably find out from my family”.
“And the second?” Peter asked.
“You'll see,” Laurence replied as he began closing down his stall. “Tell you what though, I'll explain what happened the moment we get in the Absolution tower”.
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