Chapter 38 - The fantasy tower
The first location Scarlett visited with the others was a shop located in The Coins district. She knew from the game that it dealt mainly with magical equipment and artifacts. When she had been thinking of what to do with the Cabal Adepts' armor it had been one of the first places that came to mind. With most other places, she couldn't be 100% certain whether they had a tie to the Cabal or not—even though she assumed most didn't—but this one she was sure could be trusted. Chiefly because it, along with the old man who owned it, was involved in one of the questlines to repair a divine piece of equipment—the most powerful tier—when you played the 'good' route in the game.
After arriving at the place, she'd had Fynn and Rosa stay behind as Allyssa and Shin helped her bring the equipment inside the shop. The old man working there—who'd been a dead-ringer to how he appeared in the game—had looked surprised at the assembly of gear, but hadn't made any special comment about it. It was possible that he recognized what it was, but Scarlett doubted that. It was more likely that he was just taken aback at seeing several identical sets of such quality, especially with the damage some of the pieces had.
It turned out the equipment itself wasn't of much use to him—he didn't show much interest in reselling it, and Scarlett had subtly warned against doing so—but after some negotiating with the man, they had instead come into an agreement regarding the materials themselves, which he did have some interest in. In the end, they agreed that he would buy six of the eight sets she had, with her deciding to keep the two most intact ones in case she ever needed them in the future.
Unfortunately, the owner hadn't been able to immediately give her a price for the six sets he bought. He was uncertain of the exact material, and enchantments, placed on the equipment, as well how much of it was repurposable. Apparently, some enchantments on gear could essentially be recycled depending on some factors Scarlett didn't quite understand, which wasn't a feature in the game. But that was something Scarlett had had an interest in, so she had asked him to send her a notice when he had appraised everything and to inform her if any of the enchantments could be recycled. His rough guesses for a price from just the first glance had been somewhere in the upper thousands for all six of the sets, which had been less than Scarlett had wished for. But hopefully that estimate would change in the future, after he'd had more time to look into it. The sets were mixes of rare and epic equipment, after all. In the game just one such set could probably run for well over twenty thousand if it was brand new.
After having finished at that shop and bid their goodbyes, Scarlett had left The Coins district behind along with the others. Traveling along the bustling Sunset Walk to the Ascendant Court at the heart of the city, they'd journeyed past the ever-active Mausoleum as well as the grandiose Ustrum Assembly, all the way to the northern part of the city, where the Wise Quarter was located.
Elystead was divided into eleven districts, and of those, the Wise Quarter was one of the smaller ones. This part of the city was dominated by fewer, but more extensive, buildings — several of which Scarlett knew as schools or academies of some sort from the game. It wasn't quite as busy as the rest of the city was, though there were still a decent amount of people here as the Light Fest itself was just one day away.
They were currently nearing the eastern end of the district, where a tall and wide tower of smooth white stone stretched into the sky, a few balcony-like framings with blue light hovering above them jutting out from the structure at even intervals all the way to the top. This was the Elystead Tower: the most prominent mage tower in the empire.
Officially, all of the mage towers in the empire were subsidiaries—for lack of a better word—of the Ustrum Assembly, although Scarlett recalled that it wasn't quite that simple in reality. While the Ustrum Assembly was the main authority on matters of magic in the Empire, it acted more as an organization or guild. One that the towers belonged to, but didn't necessarily heed all the time.
Regardless, Scarlett's visit to this place didn't have anything to do with its internal politics or workings. Rather, she'd gone here mainly to get information on a certain matter that related to some of her future plans.
When the carriage stopped at the edge of a round square in front of the building they all exited the vehicle in short order, with Rosa gazing up at the tall tower and letting out a whistle.
"It looks even taller up close," Fynn said as he too admired the complex structure. "I almost find it hard to believe that humans could build something like this."
"It's the second-highest structure in the capital," Shin commented, his head turning around as he appeared to take in their surroundings. This square was one of the most active spots in the Wise Quarter, with people in different-colored robes milling about to and fro. In other parts of the city it wasn't too uncommon to see guards and people walking around with weapons on them, but here there was almost none of that. The young Shielder appeared to have observed the same custom, considering he had left his sword and shield in the carriage. "The twin spires of the Dawnlight Palace are the only ones that are taller."