Silver sighed as she leaned on the counter, resting her chin in her palm and quite pointedly ignoring the tip of a battered and chipped sword being waved about quite close to her face. “Look, I already told you: I don’t want your stupid magic sword. First of all, it looks like you’ve spent all day hitting rocks with the damn thing. Second, I already have like, a thousand used magical swords for sale.” 

“But they aren’t this sword, counter wench!” the loin cloth wearing oaf on the opposite side of the counter bellowed, waving it about like it were something made to be waved about harmlessly instead of something that would, if not seriously maim one of her other patrons, definitely give them a nice case of lockjaw. “This is a precious historical relic! A storied weapon whose history goes back hundreds of years. The blade Alexandros the Fine, King of Carnacus, Duke of Epitain, Marquis of Silfar—”

Given that his spield would probably take a while and be interminably boring, Silver stopped listening. It was always the same. This magic sword is the whosit of the whatsit from the whenit that killed the whateverit, repeat ad nauseum until she realized that praying to be spared from this suffering was pointless because the gods had clearly chosen to condemn her to the deepest, darkest hell imaginable.

Like, did adventurers just not understand what a store was? 

She was going to have to write to the guilds. Again. They had to add economic literacy to their tests unless they wanted the entire system to collapse when the merchants pulled out of it. Better to let the Blighted Lands consume everything then ever see another dripping sack of dragon testicles dropped on her counter. 

“— Slayer of the Demi Lich, Beater of the Silver Falcon, Hunter of the Twelved Horned Horror—”

She sighed. The previous record for longest weapon chronicle she had dutifully endured had been a meager two minutes, thirty-nine seconds. This one was already coming up on the five minute mark, with no end in sight.

Customers – the sort of people who actually wanted to give her money so that they could take things out of her store – were piling up behind him. Many of them looked about ready to throw in the towel. The new cherry-flavored healing potions were not worth waiting for this blowhard to finish.

“Okay!” she conceded, throwing her hands up. “Fine. You win. I will buy the stupid sword of whoever the whatever if you just shut up, okay?”

He beamed. “That is more like it!” He slammed the thing down on her counter hard enough to chip the wood.

Testing the weapon’s feel in her hands, she took a deep breath and mentally lined up the facts, including her current stock, the relative rarity of fourth kingdom artifacts, and how much she hated the man in front of her. “I can give you five gold in credit.”

He stared at her. “Excuse me?”

“Five gold,” she said, hand tightening around the weapon’s hilt as she sensed where this was going. “In credit. For all the reasons stated prior.”

“That is outrageous, counter wench!” he thundered, slamming his hands on the counter hard enough to crack the wood. “Credit? Who wants credit? I need actual gold! And five is barely enough for a pack of healing potions! This is a fourth kingdom relic! Why, if I put a notice up on the board at the guild saying I was selling this I could get at least three hundred gold. Easily.” He snorted as he rose back to his full height. “You are a ripoff! I wish to speak with your manager!”



The magistrate would later rule in Silver’s favor, declaring that she was not responsible for the man’s resurrection fees, as his decapitation was very clearly a case of self-inflicted harm.