Mireya stared at the sixth object that had been shoved
in her face so far, blinked a few times so it wouldn’t seem so close, and tried
not to laugh. “Not that one either.”
Dawn heaved a melodramatic sigh when she took back the
artifact, a bottle that had been labeled with Chant and hadn’t seemed useful to
Mireya. “Please just let us buy you a fun magic item for this heist?”
“Gladly,” Mireya said brightly. “But I don’t want you
to get scammed.”
Shane was spinning in a circle to see in full the shop
that was nestled inside the criminal den of the Arcade. Such a shop should have
seemed suspicious to anyone; it was filled with artifacts that were certainly
unregistered as magic items and customers making illegal purchases. However, Shane
was apparently oblivious to it all. “Is that likely to happen here?”
“Very,” Mireya informed him. “And this is the shop I
trust the best.”
Leilan looked at the shelves distrustfully. “At least
we’re not here for much.”
“What about this?” Dawn asked hopefully, holding up
another bottle. “It’s a Salve potion.”
“Best case scenario, it’s water,” Mireya said, adding
a tease to her voice. “Worst case scenario, it’s water with cheap magic that
will give you poisoning when you’re already in trouble.”
“Nope.” Dawn quickly set it back on the shelf.
“Is there anything here that might be worthwhile?”
Leilan asked.
“There’s this whole section here that we haven’t
looked at,” Shane suggested, moving to the far side of the aisle. “It’s pretty
dusty.”
“If no one’s bought it, it’s a bad sign,” Mireya warned.
Undeterred, Dawn moved over, holding up a dust-covered
candle. “This stuff looks more forgotten than the third of the Bridger siblings.”
Mireya took a sudden interest in a set of metal rings
in front of her at that comment.
“Who is that, again?” Leilan asked.
Dawn nodded. “Exactly.”
“I think their name starts with a C,” Shane said
slowly. “I can’t remember at all, though.”
“No, Casper’s perfectly famous,” Dawn said.
“So is Camilla,” Leilan added. “There’s a third C name,
I think— anyway. Point made, this stuff is very much forgotten.”
“These have Force,” Mireya said suddenly, slipping the
rings on her fingers. There were eight of them, four for each hand, all of them
rose-gold metal. “According to the label, I think they’re supposed to—” To test
her thought, she reached forward, closing her hand as if to grab something,
then pulled it towards herself. The candle in Dawn’s hands got free, drawn
towards Mireya as if held by invisible hands. “Well, look at that.”
“We should definitely get those,” Dawn said, as Mireya
returned the candle to its shelf without even touching it.
“How about these?” Shane asked, pointing to a few small
metal spheres from another shelf. “They’re supposed to be Projection smoke
bombs.”
“Those are super useful,” Mireya agreed. “They can’t
be tested before you buy them, but usually the ones from here work. Usually. Regularly
enough that I haven’t quit business with them. Anyway, buy a few.”
Shane nodded. “Does this place have actual explosives?”
Mireya pointed a couple of aisles over. “Back where we
got the nylon climbing ropes. I guess those could be good to have, as long as
you’re buying.”
She expected little of it, but when Shane turned to leave,
Leilan stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. His forehead had creased from
his confused frown. “Why do you want those?”
“Backup,” Shane explained. “They’re easy to use quickly
if something goes wrong. I hope none of us will have to do anything on this
heist, but they’d be good to have.”
“Well, yes, but…” Leilan’s brow furrowed. “Why
explosives specifically? Are you sure?”
“I know how they work,” Shane said, in a strangely
flat tone. Mireya watched Leilan’s look of confusion turn to one of… pity?
Concern? Sympathy? “I’d be able to use them myself.”
“I think what Leilan means is that he’s wondering if
you’re comfortable with them.” It was definitely pity that Mireya heard in Dawn’s
voice.
“I’m fine,” Shane muttered, but it wasn’t far off from
a snap. “I’ll be back.” He moved away from Leilan, disappearing around the
corner of a shelf. Leilan sighed softly, watching the space where he’d been.
Mireya cleared her throat. “Is there a reason why he
might not be comfortable with those?”
Dawn bit her lip. “It’s a long story. If he says he’s
okay, and it was his idea, he should be alright. He probably just didn’t want
us to make a big deal of it.”
“Is there anything else we need from here?” Leilan
asked, a little hurriedly, and Mireya got the message that this was a personal
matter for Shane. That was fine. Keeping secret identities was a problem, but
she could respect privacy.
“Not really,” she said. “You can still look around
while we wait for Shane, though.”
“I wish we could look for Favia,” Dawn said
distractedly, and from Leilan’s side-eye, Mireya immediately knew it was
something that she shouldn’t have said.
“Favia?” Mireya asked, fighting to keep the curiosity and
glee out of her voice.
“Dawn’s bodyguard,” Leilan said slowly, obviously
reluctant to share the information. “She went missing here yesterday. We went
searching, but we weren’t able to find her.”
Five people with closely guarded identities. A reserved
suite with a vibrant teal room. A bodyguard necessary for protection. She wasn’t
liking what she was learning.
Instead of frowning, Mireya nodded sympathetically. “I’m
sorry to hear that. I’m sure she’ll turn up soon.”
“Hopefully.” Leilan smiled thinly, as if he already
knew that was a weak promise to make in the Arcade. “I’m going to go find Shane.”
“Probably a good idea,” Mireya agreed. “See you in a
minute.”
She expected Dawn to say something similar as Leilan
left, but she didn’t hear anything from her. Turning around told her why. Dawn
was staring intently at an artifact that Mireya had seen on display a few times
at this shop. It was a set of earrings, made to look like a pair of snake eyes.
The dark pupil slit was obsidian in the center of a mother-of-pearl circle.
Dawn reached forward to touch one, but pulled her hand back before she actually
did, and turned to Mireya.
“These have Rationale,” she said. It wasn’t much of a
question, but the statement wasn’t accusing either. Just a flat realization. “That’s
what the label says.”
Mireya wasn’t sure whether to shrug or to nod. “Rationale
isn’t inherently illegal. It’s just frowned upon, and that’s most of the policing.”
“Some uses of it can be prosecuted,” Dawn said. “Only
when it’s used on other people or intended to affect them, but— that has to be what
this artifact is for.” She blinked, looking back at the earrings. “Isn’t that
what this is for?”
“Dawn, this place is made for criminals, built by
criminals, run by criminals,” Mireya said softly. “I don’t think you should
have to like everything you see here. Just don’t be surprised when you see it.”
Dawn’s face was difficult to read. Her expression wasn’t
closed-off, but it had settled into some emotion that Mireya couldn’t quite
label. “For the most part, this doesn’t seem like a place with good people. There’s
just no good reason for this to be on the market.”
Although she felt the urge to tell her that lawlessness
wasn’t synonymous with wrongness— that anarchy wasn’t bad, because the Houses were
so much worse— Mireya didn’t think she could say that, even though she guessed
Dawn would be one of the most responsive of the five to an opinion like that.
Dawn wasn’t wrong about how Rationale would be used to harm people, either.
What did she mean by for the most part, though?
Had she just not wanted to call Mireya a bad person to her face?
If that was the case, it stung a little. She wasn’t
even sure why it stung.
“Whoever eventually grabs it probably isn’t going to
have the best intentions,” Mireya admitted. “However, I know it’s been sitting
there for a long time, unpurchased. Not everyone here is rotten to the core.”
Dawn slowly nodded, looking a little reassured. “I
guess that’s true.”
Feeling more hopeful, Mireya was about to shoot her
shot with additional persuasion, when she felt it nearby. A buzzing sensation
of nearby electric current, like a murmur in her bones. She felt it often, but it
didn’t feel like someone had flipped a light switch this time. No, it was a fierce
hum of power and high voltage, one she could almost hear in her ears.
She stepped out of the aisle, and almost immediately saw
who was most likely to be the source of it. The owner of the shop was sliding a
recently purchased item, some thin device that Mireya couldn’t identify, across
the counter to its buyer, who was wearing some bizarre white outfit with a
helmet. The buyer turned the device off, and the feeling went away, but it was
quickly replaced by shock when the buyer turned around.
She was looking at a fully suited astronaut.
Mireya shook the Force rings off her fingers— which were
slim enough for the action to work— and let them fall to the floor. The clattering
it created caused to Dawn to startle and look away from the earrings. She wouldn’t
be able to see the astronaut from her position.
“Sorry, can you buy those for me?” Mireya said
hurriedly, already leaving the aisle. She didn’t know why she had to check
out the astronaut, but she knew that she was going to. “I’ll meet you back
here.”
Behind her, she heard a confused “Okay?” from Dawn.
The astronaut saw her the moment she was out of the
aisle, because she’d stepped right into their exit path. A quick glance at the stranger’s
light-up bracelet told her that she was actually in his exit path,
because even though his identity was completely concealed by the spacesuit, she
was still lucky enough to tell what pronouns he used. They stared at each other
for a moment (at least, she thought he was through the helmet), before Mireya
tilted her head towards the exit, an indication that she had questions to ask
him, outside the shop. Both of them stayed still for a little longer, neither one
making the first move.
In the end, the astronaut did make his way to the
exit. By bolting towards it.
Points: 26988
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