The Pure Ones

Chapter Twenty-One

...

It was a new day, and Penelope, Gappy, Lily and I arrived at Clearshear. I rode through the narrow cobblestone streets on Galorian while Gappy rode right behind me on his own horse with Penelope holding on to his shoulders.

The first thing Gappy and did was find somewhere to keep our horses, the roads were too crowded to navigate with anything other than our feet. After paying to keep them at a public stable, we all returned to the streets.

There was barely any room to move, the streets were swarmed with buyers and sellers alike. An array of colorful shops lined each corner, a variety of goods were on display in each stall. All three of us were immediately ambushed by overenthusiastic merchants all advertising their wares to us.

Traders bartered and negotiated with their customers all around us, the noise from the haggling was so loud that I could barely form any thoughts. Street performers put on grand displays of their talents with the hopes of getting generous tips from onlookers. All of these things made the town dynamic and lively, but the one thing that remained the most prevalent was the presence of money. I could have sworn that the open air smelt faintly of silver due to the endless exchange of coins, it did not matter what was being offered, from rare and exotic birds contained in cages to ancient artifacts rumored to be cursed, there was always someone willing to pay for it.

Gappy and I looked at each other, we were definitely in the right place, all that was left for us was to find someone who was willing to buy, which we assumed would be easy.

Gappy approached a group of wealthy looking men with the bag that contained the large ruby, he carefully flashed open the bag and revealed a small part of the stone to them.

"I could leave here with more money I've ever had in my entire life, and you could leave here the only men with the largest most pure ruby the world has ever known. One thing's for sure, we could all leave a little happier than we came, so what do you say?" Gappy sweet talked the men.

"GET AWAY YOU FREAK!" one of the men screamed at Gappy as him and his group scurried away, Gappy stared at them with confusion.

"Freak?! And this is real by the way!" Gappy shouted as he chased after them.

A couple of similar encounters followed after that, we were either avoided or insulted by anyone we approached.

Gappy kicked at the ground and cursed, "I knew this wouldn't work!" he said as he gave up.

"Of course, it won't." Penelope said silently. Gappy and I immediately turned to her; it was the first word she had uttered in at least a day.

"Do you have any idea how we all look? How would anyone believe us?" she asked. Her question made us both look down at our clothes that were both poked with holes and tinted red with blood in a few areas. Somehow, I had completely forgot the terrible state we all were in after the fight with Zina, Penelope and Gappy were both lucky to even be alive.

"Well, maybe some new clothes wouldn't hurt." I said.

"We'll get ourselves clothes after we sell this damn rock, and you too aren't exactly good at this so we'll need help."

Luckily for us, as we explored a little further, we discovered a large pawn shop with a long line building up behind it. All three of us joined the slow-moving line without hesitation, everyone in front of us held objects of value in their hands getting ready to pitch outrageous prices to the shopper.

Minutes had passed and the line had only moved a few spots, Gappy twitched impatiently, still clutching the heavy rock in his hands. I peeked from behind his shoulder to see what was happening at the front of line, I could see the shopper nonchalantly turn away sellers who proved difficult.