The Caravan Master - whoever or whatever he was - shifted his gaze, looking at the mory forming on Aiko's hand curiously.
"That is an unusual mory, Miss Aiko."
Indeed. While most mories ford from sparks of light, so were different. The mories crafted by the spellsmiths of Fallen Valor, for example, manifested in a whirlwind of scarlet sparks instead. There were stranger ones out there, as well, even among those mories bestowed upon Awakened by the Spell. Those were usually quite special, albeit not always more potent than the rest. The mories crafted by the Lord of Shadows after his supposed death, however, always appeared like a torrent of darkness.
Aiko smiled.
"Well, you know how the Spell is. It likes to be fancy sotis."
The Caravan Master chuckled and glanced at her with the sa curious smile.
"Indeed I do. We, rchants, have to know these matters by heart - people assign additional value to the strangest things, after all. A flashy mory can cost ten tis the price despite not offering any additional benefits. I prefer my mories powerful rather than flamboyant, personally. but that doesn't an that I wouldn't want to get my hands on a couple of the latter, and sell them for a fortune." He laughed.
Aiko's smile was a little forced by then. The Caravan Master seed perfectly human.
That was the creepiest part, really. How flawlessly he blended with the crowd, no different from any other person she had t.
But Aiko was convinced that he was not, in fact, human. That was what made her skin crawl more than encountering the creature itself did.
"But what mory are you so eager to show ? You wouldn't be summoning a weapon, would you, Miss Aiko?" There was no threat in his voice, and yet, Aiko suddenly felt cold.
She raised an eyebrow.
"A weapon? Goodness gracious, surely not. What am I going to do with a weapon in these heels?"
She wasn't lying, either.
Her stilettos were indeed not what one would want to wear in a ferocious battle. Granted, Aiko could float and fly as she wished, so that wasn't an issue. Still - she was a lover, not a fighter. Well. the "lover" part wasn't going so well for her, to be honest, but that was beyond the point.
'Who cares? I love money! Now that's true romance.'
Finally, a hand mirror made of polished silver appeared in her hand. It was quite a stylish little accessory, etched with gorgeous patterns and inlaid with finely carved pieces of obsidian. The Caravan Master studied it carefully.
"Not a weapon, after all."
He glanced at her and smiled.
"Still. it seed that I've been discovered. How vexing. I thought I perford the role of this human well. I even ca while the Star is gone, and the Shadow it casts is gone with her."
Aiko shivered.
'Not a human, then.'
Her suspicion, unfortunately, had turned out to be correct.
'How did this thing pass the inspection, dammit?'
What stood in front of her was not the Ascended rchant she had been supposed to et. Instead. it was a vessel of the Great Terror, Skinwalker.
The forces of humanity were currently locked in a losing war against the detestable creature in the Eastern Quadrant, where it was supposed to be contained. The fact that a vessel of Skinwalker had made it all the way to Bastion, past every counterasure put in place to prevent just that eventuality. Was concerning. Actually, it was frightening.
Aiko forced out a smile.
"Whatever do you an?"
With her other hand, she pulled Little Ling closer.
The vessel of Skinwalker studied her for a few seconds, then smiled politely.
"I am curious. How did you see through my charade?"
Aiko felt an impulse to mock the Nightmare Creature, even if she was powerless in front of it.
She could have told him how Little Ling had disliked his scent, and more importantly, how he completely failed to understand what kind of people rchants were. in front of Aiko of the Shadow Clan, of all people!
The distressing creature had been steadily improving its ability to mimic human behavior, cunningly making one counterasure invented to contain it after another aningless - but it still failed to truly fathom what it ant to be human. It couldn't. All Skinwalker could do was imitate humans while not truly understanding what it was imitating. in a sense, it did the opposite of what the practitioners of Shadow Dance were supposed to do. Not that there were nurous of those, even with all the training.
In any case, Aiko really wanted to gloat.
But why would she explain what exactly it was that the Skinwalker had done wrong to the creepy bastard? So that it could learn from its mistakes and perform better next ti?
'Yeah, no. I am not giving this thing a heroic monologue. After all, I am not a hero. I am a babysitter. For today.'
Little Ling hugged Aiko, sensing that there was sothing wrong. So distance away, Quentin was cautiously making his way toward them.
Returning the Skinwalker's smile, she glanced at her hand mirror.
"Let finish explaining about this mory first. I summoned it for a reason, you know?"
She turned the mirror this way and that, casting bright reflections on the cobblestones.
"This here is a prototype of a mory my boss has been developing in his free ti. Communication is a serious problem in the Dream Realm, actually. Sure, the Immortal Fla is already working on a solution - a Dreamscape for the Dream Realm, or so such. Making it safe from all the horrors of this world is proving to be a problem in and of itself, though. Hence, we ca up with our own solution. Ah, if only there was a way to mass-produce them! But I am getting off topic."
The vessel of the Skinwalker tilted its head.
"Communication? Are you hoping to commune with , Awakened? Unity. community. yes."
Aiko coughed.
"Thanks. but you are not my type, sorry. Sadly, it's not like I can do anything against you, can I? I an, I am a re Awakened, and you are a Great Terror. What am I supposed to do?"
Oh, but I do feel the need to inform you of sothing.
She pointed to Little Ling, who was clinging to her.
"This here is my dear friend's child. And my friend is a real she-wolf when it cos to protecting her boy. Coincidentally, today, we learned that everyone in this city loves his mom very much. Do you know why? Because she is Saint Athena, Raised byWolves, Steward of the East. the War Beast. You should know her well, considering how nurous of your vessels she has destroyed."
Aiko drew Little Ling closer and covered his eyes with her hand.
Then, she smiled radiantly.
"Right, returning to the mory. It has a really awful na, so I'll spare you the pain of hearing it. I an. I am perfectly capable of coming up with a awful na of my own! Today, let's call it."
Aiko paused for a mont and then said in a solemn tone:
".Call Mommy."
And just as she did, sothing thundered in the sky above them.
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