Just being at my shop was enough to lift my spirits, no matter what else was going on, and on a good day, being here made everything even better. I had painstakingly collected every single item and curated the collection perfectly.
I had procured ancient tomes from the far reaches of the realm, animal sculptures from nearby towns, and even a few hand-painted pottery sets from across the sea. The most eye-catching things in my shop were the colorful tapestries slung across the walls and hanging from the ceiling. I had collected a tapestry from every single town I had traveled to, and they gave the shop a warm, comfortable atmosphere.
I wasn’t proud of myself for much, but I was proud of myself for this. Extremely proud.
Nothing gave me greater satisfaction than providing a customer with exactly what they were looking for. Folk really underestimated how much a perfectly placed trinket could transform a space, and I was an expert at finding them. My wares were the items that could turn a cottage into a home. Into a space of comfort and personality.
Humming to myself, lost in thought, I fished around in my satchel for my iron set of keys. The pesky things always sank to the very bottom, under my abandoned pastry wrappers and spare writing utensils.
An annoying presence itched at my senses, enough to mildly irritate my nose.
After fumbling around for a few seconds, I finally pulled out my iron key and jammed it into the slot.
At the first crack of the door, I caught a whiff of an acrid scent so strong it made my eyes water. It wasn’t anything I had ever encountered before, and it wasfoul. It reminded me of something between rotten vegetables, animal waste, and the cleaning solvent Kizzi used to clean up stubborn spills.
The scent smacked me in the face with the force of a stampede when I pulled the door open wide.Gods! What died in here?
I yanked my tunic up over my face and braced my hand on the door frame to steady myself, though my lungs tried to rebel. It took a few minutes before the smell had dissipated enough to make entering my shop bearable. With shaking legs and trembling nerves, I entered. Slowly. One step at a time.
I took a quick glance around and everything seemed fine.
Surprisingly, there weren’t any rotting carcasses in the middle of the room. Thank the gods.
The comfy sitting nook in the corner still had all of its seats in place, and the yellow cushions looked as fluffy as ever. The shelves full of trinkets were still spread throughout the place as they had been when I’d locked up last night. Even my plants looked bright and vibrant, their leaves slowly inching toward the light coming in the front windows.
My worktable was where it had always been. Even the jar of flowers I had purchased yesterday were still in full bloom, right where I had left them.
Nothing seemed abnormal. Maybe I was just imagining the smell? I wasn’t sure my brain was capable of conjuring up something sorankbut the tonic could have really been messing with me.
Still, my eyes burned, and I kept my nose covered.
Shrugging off my apprehension and trying to convince myself that the tainted thirst tonic was giving me olfactoryhallucinations, I propped the doors open to let the lingering smell out, whether it was real or not.
My eyes dripped with tears. I wiped them away, annoyed, as I made my way over to my worktable to get everything organized for the day.
I trailed my fingers over the shade of a beautiful, beaded lamp that I had recently added to my inventory, rescued from a small, dusty shop in the beachy town Tidegrove. The salesperson hadn’t even put up a fight when I haggled with her, and she sold me the beauty for an extremely low price. A score that still made me smile when I thought about it.
I tucked away my spare pastry in the cubby below my worktable, pulled out my sales ledger, and set out my favorite quill and ink. I needed to update my inventory logs today.
“Sookie!” I called out.
Sookie usually greeted me right as I walked in the door, and I should’ve noticed earlier that she was missing. The smell had thrown off my rhythm. Perhaps she was taking a nap. That critter really loved naps. A quick glance around the room proved that theory false. There were no furry bodies curled up on any cushions, or on my bed in the loft.
Sookie came and went as she pleased–nobody could keep that adorable beast contained if they tried. I had learned that lesson the hard way.
Sookie was my second-best friend, behind Kizzi, of course. Sure, she was a cat, but I was convinced that she had the soul of an old, wise witch. I didn’t have proof of that, but it was a longstanding theory. I seemed to gravitate towards witches.
Regardless, she was excellent company.
Shrugging off Sookie’s absence, trying not to let it bother me too much, I got to work.
Before I made much progress, I caught a flash of movement from the corner of my eye. Quick as a crack of lightning, Imanaged to turn in time to see a beetle about the size of a silver coin darting into one of the cracks in the mortar of the floor.What in the realms…As I looked around and peered closer at my shop, I realized I could catch hints of the blasted insects everywhere. A reflection of a shell here, legs squeezing into a crack there. The place was crawling with them!
I never had a pest problem in the past. Sookie usually took care of that for me, so to see the place swarmed made my stomach churn and my blood pressure skyrocket.
Ihatedbugs.
In the midst of my panicking, I heard a massivecrrrrrrrack. And then another. And then another. Plumes of dust filled the air as my shelves began collapsing, dumping my priceless collection of treasures onto the stone floor.
