Store credit? That's about as bad as asking if we're okay being paid in gift cards. Pretty much exactly the same, actually. I look up at the sign, which is written in a language I can't read, but the symbols make it obvious enough. A 'W' with a line through it and a symbol sort of like a 'C' but with a square top and a line at the bottom.

"I haven't seen anywhere offer store credit before." Clutter says with curiosity. "If credit's all we can take, does that mean it works everywhere in the city? Or actually just this one store?"

Jumble huffs. "If I could understand what this thing's saying, I'd be able to tell you. But noooo… we can't even see the goods. Goodbye."

She turns away from the shopkeep and pulls me and Clutter out of the shop. The construct's head trails us as we go, and the moment we cross the threshold it goes right back to whatever it was doing. Without stopping she leads us to another store, and instead of shelves, this one has display cases.

And a store credit only sign. She hums in annoyance and turns immediately to leave without even speaking to the shopkeep. Not that there'd be much of a conversation to be had. We enter and leave a dozen shops, each of which has the exact same sign, and each of which has magical blurs instead of any actual products.

"I don't get it." She mutters. "Why's the quest doing this? Are we the only ones getting the blurry product treatment?"

I shake my head. "It has to be fair. So either everyone's getting the short end of the stick or nobody is."

"It's probably just another stupid roadblock." Clutter chimes in. "The quest seems like it wants to keep us here for as long as possible–there's no other reason it'd be bothering with all these delays."

I nod in agreement. The quest hasn't exactly been subtle with how long each step could've taken. Why bother delaying the appearance of the paindne constructs at all? Just have them spawn in when we take a tower. And what was with the constructs with bubble heads? We haven't seen anything like them since day one.

Everything's just… not coherent. Whether there's a reason for that or not, I don't really care. But if the quest keeps it up with these delays we might be here for way, way too long.

"Hell, we might still be in the transition process. Give it ten hours and those shelves might be stocked." I glance into the closest shop and sigh. "Let's try exchanging some bones. Maybe it'll make the products appear, or at least give us a list of things the store's selling. Shit, even some price tags would be a welcome addition."

Jumble sucks air through her teeth. "Don't you need coins, though? Not just potions or whatever these places are selling?"

"We can do both." Clutter suggests. "Take store credit from these places, then resell the stuff at another one. Yeah, it'll cost us some Worth, but we can't relocate with all this stuff. Unless you know how to uncensor our inventories?"

Frustration bubbles onto Jumble's face as a cute pout. She crosses her arms and leans against me, stealing glances my way in what I assume is an attempt to judge my feelings on the matter. I offer her a smile and a shrug, which she responds to by blushing and looking away.

"I don't know how, sorry." She grumbles. "Maybe… if we bring Click here, do you think it'd be able to show us where the stuff in this district is? Or would he need to access a… port, or something?"

I shoot her a look. "You know you're the only one who'd be able to tell us that, right?"

"I know. I know." She says. "I'm not used to saying this stuff out loud yet. So, um… some of the stuff I say is stuff that I'd normally only say in my head, okay?"

"Ignore the questions that aren't directed at us. Gotcha." I pat her head, then motion at the store. "Which one do we risk first? Shelves, cases, tables, or cauldrons?"

Clutter perks right up. "There's one with cauldrons?! That could be magic for the workshop!"

"It's right down there." I point down the hall. "So I take it that's your vote?"

He nods vigorously. "Yes."

"Then you can go first. If the cauldrons are actually filled with magic, I'll be lining up behind you to buy some. You–"

Clutter nods vigorously, then zooms off midway through my sentence. I watch him turn into the store with cauldrons inside, beeline for the construct in charge, and drop half of his bones on the counter. All the while buzzing with enough excitement that you'd be hard pressed to think he wasn't tweaking on something.

"He's so excitable." Jumble mumbles. "Am I that excitable? I don't think I'm that excitable."

I reach up and scratch between her ears. Her tail sets to wagging and she turns to me with another pout.

"You made me lose my train of thought."

"I know." I say with a grin. "C'mon, we need to make sure he doesn't get ripped off."

Jumble huffs, but nods and starts walking anyway. She can't hide how her gaze gets pulled to a store with a layout I don't really recognize–a mix of shelves, tables, and upright cylinders fill a very cramped space to the point that it'd be impossible to walk in with a backpack on. I silently make a note to make that my choice after we check out Clutter's.

"Um, I don't know if this is a good deal." Clutter says awkwardly as we step into the store. He turns to me with a pleading gaze. "Is three credits per bone a good deal?"

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"That depends; are you talking femurs or finger bones?" Pearl asks, even though nobody but me can hear her.

I lean in to get a better look at what Clutter put on the counter. It's a mishmash of bones; ribs, a lower jaw with a few teeth hanging on, some straight bones I can't identify, and a scattering of smaller bones. The smallest of which actually does look like a finger bone.

"They can't all be worth the same thing, right?" Jumble asks. "That tooth is pretty much the size of the finger bone."

Clutter nods in agreement. "I know, but we can't talk to this thing. How can we…"

Jumble leans in and pushes all but the jawbone to the side. The construct twitches, then leans in over just the jawbone. It raises a hand to its chin, rubs one blob against another, then makes a noise like a lawnmower trying to start over and over again. A simple number appears in the air above the bone; eight credits.

"Oh." Clutter says sheepishly. "Thanks."

"It's nothing. You just got too excited." Jumble assures him with a smile. "Now are you going to do the rest, or are you shaking a little too much?"

Clutter shakes his head. "Nope, no, I can definitely do it on my own. I'm not that useless. Stupid fingers are just… vibrating."

He slides the jawbone away, then brings the smallest fingerbone up. A number '1' appears right above it, then he slides it away and moves the next bone to take its place. Over the next few minutes he gets each and every one of his bones valued, and it just so happens that the per-bone average turns out to be exactly three credits.

"I guess I should've expected that." Clutter chuckles. "So, um, does anyone have anything to say before I exchange some of this stuff? Because my brain's still too excited to think logically about this."

Jumble tilts her head to the side. "You could bring the bones to another store to see their prices."

Clutter frowns. "But I want the stuff from this place. Why would I go somewhere else?"

"Because 'store credit' might work at every store here." I say. "That's an easy thing to solve, too."

I pull a fingertip–complete with claw–out of my own bag of bones and set it down on the counter. The shopkeep values it at four credits, which is good enough, so I push it towards the construct. It makes its lawnmower-like noise again and puts its hand over the bone, absorbing it into itself as four pieces of grey material appear in its other palm.

Hexagonal coins with one triangular edge missing, making them look like a certain yellow video game character if he only had a few polygons to work with. I nod at the construct and accept the coins while I let my awareness meticulously run over them. Unlike all the other coins I've held, these don't feel magical at all. Just hunks of plasticy material with a hint of 'quest' lodged in them.

"Weird little things." I turn one around in my hand and try to push a spell into it. Nothing happens. "The system must've told the quest not to make these things have a Worth value."

Jumble nods. "Either you or me could've used them to farm more bones. With the airborne mana restrictions, it would've given us a really unfair advantage."

Airborne… right, that thing. The equalizer. I haven't thought about that for a good while. Maybe that's the reason the horizonguard hasn't bothered attacking yet; it takes way longer for him to recover the mana he spends. I nod to myself as I shove the coins into my pocket, then motion for Jumble to follow me.

"Clutter, do whatever you want here. We've proved that it works, and they're your bones to spend however you like." I say as I start walking towards the store Jumble had her eye on. "Just make sure you can actually buy the blurs before you exchange all your bones."

He salutes in confirmation, then turns to the shopkeep and pushes half of his bones towards the construct. I sigh and shake my head as Jumble giggles at the sight of Clutter diving in head-first.

"I really hope he can buy whatever's behind those blurs."

Jumble sticks her hands in her pockets and cracks a grin. "Our people, we've never been that great at dealing with interesting situations. Well, we're actually pretty amazing at dealing with the situations, but we're beyond bad at stopping ourselves and taking an objective look before we leap in."

"Clutter's been a damn good scout so far. And I'd say we've run into more than a few interesting situations where he's held his own."

"And a few he hasn't." Pearl chimes in. "Remember the graveyard with the tree?"

I tap her shell. "Shush, you."

She laughs and goes back to doing whatever she was doing. Jumble doesn't even flinch when I address Pearl, which is a little surprising. I'd have thought she'd take a little bit to get used to it, but apparently not.

"So where are we going?" Jumble asks, even as her gaze lingers on the store we're walking right towards. "We aren't… umm… we aren't going in there, are we?"

Her tail sets to wagging as she hops from foot to foot excitedly. She looks to me with pleading hope and excitement in her eyes, and as I nod, she squeals happily and rushes the rest of the way to the store. I follow closely behind, but instead of beelining for the shelves like Jumble does, I pull out the credits and put them on the counter for the construct to see.

It taps each of them in turn with its finger, then lets out a noise like wind rushing over a rocky beach. With a wave of its hand, magic cascades through the store like a rolling earthquake, filling each of the blurs with substance. I turn and lean against the counter as Jumble's tail almost smacks a forming lump of clay off the table, but just leaves a dent in the packaging shaped exactly like her.

Paper, inks, pens, paints, and dozens of reference books fill the store in the blink of an eye. Price tags pop up over each item marked clearly with simple numbers. Most of the stuff is only a few credits, but there's some stuff near the back that's encroaching on five figures. I can't even make out the things under the tags with my awareness–so they're either extremely magical or extremely protected.

I plunk my bag down on the counter. The shopkeep pauses for a second, then raises its hands and offers me a price of four credits per bone. I shake my head and turn to Jumble, who almost seems to have forgotten that I'm here. Except for the glance she throws my way every now and again while she parades around like a kid in a candy store.

"Is there anything worth buying in here for me, Pearl?" I ask.

Pearl instantly shakes her head. "Unless we find a store with stat coins or spells, I don't know if we'll find anything really worth it for you. Do you even have hobbies?"

I shake my head. "Not right now, no. Can't find the time for it."

"You should make the time. I mean, look at how happy Jumble is that we found an art supply store." Pearl plants her chin on her hands and lets out a wistful sigh. "I wish I could be that happy over something."

"Maybe it's just a paindne thing." I glance over at Clutter, who is nearly dancing through a now stocked row of bubbling cauldrons. "Once Jumble decides what she wants, we'll go see if Clutter found anything we can use in the workshop. That's a better use of our credits than spending anything on me."

Pearl nods in agreement, then turns as Jumble makes her way back with two arms full of supplies. "If we have any credits left after this."

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