Chapter 56: Catcall
"Woah!" Damien screeched when they suddenly popped into a wooden shop, falling to the ground with a loud thud that made the wooden mannequin beside him shake.
"Flappy is that you?" Came an old man’s voice from somewhere in the building.
"Aye sir," replied the little man, leaving Damien and his companions behind as he headed in the voice’s direction.
Damien forced himself to stand, embarrassed he was the only one who fell. The other three had landed gracefully on their feet like cats and were already busying themselves around the fashion pieces filling the shop, not in the least looking sick like Damien was.
He now knew there were a lot of ways to use portals in Gibbous, but every time he tried a different way—it still surprised him. The one they had used just now felt an awful lot like he was being pulled at high speeds through a cylinder tube against his will. Alas, he had no one to complain to. Ahara had stopped checking up on him in public since he told her off a few weeks ago—something Damien still felt guilty about from time to time.
Focusing his eyes around the shop they had entered, Damien wasn’t surprised to see that it was yet another large fancy rich people’s business located somewhere in Vespera’s hidden street corners—although, this one looked a lot more private considering how it was almost empty—leave for the five who just entered, the old man’s voice and a woman dressed in vintage clothing who was about to leave the shop.
A twinkling bell rang somewhere in the building as the doors opened for her, drawing Damien’s attention to the golden letters plastered by the glass walls where mannequins wearing Gibforge’s uniforms and some other modern fashions were displayed. It read:
SIR FOPPY’s FASHIONS AND UNIFORMS. EST 856 B.C. A mannequin was holding that sign up.
As for the interior, it was very neat and sparkly—not like the pearly walls at the bank in the Draconic region, but it was almost the same. The white ceramic on the floor had hints of sky blue in it and so did the ceiling.
’It’s bewitched,’ Damien thought when he saw how despite it showing the clear blue sky, twinkling stars were still reflecting on it.
It made Damien feel strange—like he had entered restricted property made exclusively for a selected few. He rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably, walking towards Ahara who was now pulling a white summer dress and asking Eden what she thought of it.