Chapter 152 — What the Market Wanted

Chapter 152: Chapter 152 — What the Market Wanted

Morning came late for Arlen, the Foxglove’s private room considerably more comfortable than the modest exhaustion of his first dive deserved.

He found Kess waiting for him in the common room, already working through a plate of something spiced and orange, when he came down.

"Figured you’d sleep past noon," she said. "Most people do, after a first dive that actually asked something of them."

"Didn’t ask that much," Arlen said, settling across from her.

"Fifty goblins and a salamander’s still more than most first dives manage." She pushed a small waxed pouch across the table — the mutated claws she’d harvested the day before. "These are yours, by the way. You earned the finder’s share on the mutation, given you’re the one who flagged the layout properly."

Arlen turned the pouch over, genuinely surprised. "I thought harvested materials went to whoever collected them."

"Guild custom splits it toward whoever made the harvest possible, not just whoever held the knife." Kess shrugged, unbothered. "Ilyana’s team doesn’t need the coin. You’re still building your own footing here. Take it."

He pocketed it, and found himself, not for the first time since arriving in Aurenholt, quietly grateful for a generosity that asked nothing in return.

"Where would something like that actually sell?" he asked. "I’ve got the centipede venom too, from yesterday. Osric mentioned an alchemist might want it, but I didn’t get a name."

"Bellwyn’s, three streets from the guild annex. Runs the biggest apothecary counter this close to the Depths entrance." Kess finished her plate and rose, stretching. "I’d go today, if I were you. Venom doesn’t keep."

Bellwyn’s turned out to be a narrow, crowded shop wedged between a leatherworker and a shuttered stall, its windows lined with jars of things Arlen didn’t recognize — some pickled, some dried, one that pulsed faintly with its own soft, internal light.

The woman behind the counter looked up as he entered, her sharp eyes cataloguing him with the same quick, practiced efficiency Mina had once shown at Greyhaven’s registration desk.

"New face," she said. "Fresh clearance mark, too, by the look of that badge. What’d you bring me?"

Arlen set the waxed pouches on the counter — the Rootmaw Centipede’s venom, the mutated Rockhide claws — and watched her work through them with quick, sure hands.

"Venom’s good," she said, uncorking the vial and giving it a careful sniff. "Extracted properly, no contamination. Four silver for it — paralytic compounds move fast, alchemists across the city buy this by the week."

"And the claws?"

She turned one over, testing its edge against her thumbnail, weighing it in her palm. "Denser than ordinary Rockhide material. Mutation-grade, not common. Runecrafters like a material with a little extra bite to it, easier to inscribe without the enchantment slipping loose over time." She set both claws on a small scale, watched the needle settle, and named her price. "Two gold for the pair. Might get more from a runecrafter directly, if you’re willing to shop it around rather than take the first offer. I deal in volume, not premiums."

"That’s more than I expected," Arlen admitted, pocketing the coin.

"Most people expect too little, first time selling," Bellwyn said. "Common material’s common. Mutated, rare, or dense enough to matter — that’s where the real money sits. Learn to tell the difference and you’ll never walk out of a dive with an empty pack for nothing."

He thanked her, and lingered a moment longer than strictly necessary, curious about the shop’s crowded shelves — jars of dried herb he didn’t recognize, a rack of small vials labeled in a cramped hand, a locked case near the back holding something that caught the light like crystal rather than glass.

"You buy from anyone who comes through?" he asked.

"Anyone with something worth buying. Adventurers, mostly, though I get the occasional cartographer bringing back mineral samples, or a beast tamer with something that didn’t survive the taming." Bellwyn waved a hand at the shelves. "Alchemy runs on exactly what the Depths produces. No dungeon, no shop. Simple as that."

Arlen left with a genuinely fuller coin purse and a small, useful addition to his understanding of the city — one more thread in the wider economy he’d only begun to properly notice since arriving.

He found Osric at the guild hall that afternoon, hunched over a desk in a side room with several sheets of parchment spread before him.

"Report on the goblins?" Arlen asked, settling into the chair across from him.

"Population estimate, territory boundary, the two mutations." Osric didn’t look up. "Guild’ll want to know whether this is a one-time bloom or something worth monitoring properly."

"Displaced from somewhere else, maybe," Arlen offered. "Something pushing a second group into merging with the first."

Osric glanced up, something faintly approving in his expression. "That’s my working theory too. Above my judgment to decide whether it’s worth a proper investigation, but a fair guess."

They spoke a while longer, and it was Arlen who eventually raised the question that had been sitting with him since that morning.

"I was thinking of going back down myself, before your team takes me deeper," he said. "Alone. Floors one through three again, maybe further if it stays manageable. Nothing reckless — just getting properly comfortable moving through it on my own terms, rather than always inside a formation."

Osric considered that, setting his quill down entirely now. "Sound instinct, honestly. A party teaches you how to fight alongside people. Solo work teaches you how to actually read a floor — pace, danger, when to push and when to fall back. Different skill, and one you’ll want eventually regardless."

"You don’t think it’s too soon?"

"You’re Novice, cleared, and you handled yourself against fifty goblins without anyone needing to cover for you. I don’t see the concern." Osric returned to his report. "Ilyana won’t mind the wait, either. Our team’s got its own business the next week or so besides. Go find your own pace down there. We’ll take you deeper once you’re ready to go looking for it with company again."

Arlen left the guild hall as the afternoon light began slanting long across Aurenholt’s crowded streets, his coin purse heavier, his plans for the coming days settling into place with the same quiet, deliberate satisfaction he’d carried into every genuine unknown so far — not rushing toward the deeper floors, simply choosing, this time, to meet the Depths properly on his own terms before returning to company again.