>>5365118>>5365109>>5365102>>5365100>>5365002>>5364917>>5364821>>5364809You dismiss the Herbalist—something which seems to catch her off-guard, though she voices no objection. As she turns away, you see her posture change slightly, and an expression of anxiety mar her freckled features. Wary of the feeling in your chest which this in turn elicits, you shuffle her out all the faster, giving her just enough time to clean up and return to her proper (non-apron) attire.
Only then do you breathe (and sleep) easy.
When you wake and rouse once more, your forces are readying themselves for departure. To no great surprise, you find that it is your new Degenerate Infiltrator recruit—alias “Pejman”—who has been saddled with watching over your kobold and dwarf slaves; Agno, in turn, watches over the fire lizards as usual. Karz is huffily hunched over his journal, scribbling something down; Davora the Herbalist meets your eyes shyly, and affects a smile, though you can see some inscrutable (and no doubt illogical) complications of her mammalian mind behind the façade.
You don’t let it trouble you. You have other, more urgent, matters to attend to… Such as shopping
The vast majority of what you sometimes dare to think of as ‘your hoard’—Your dwarf-looted wealth and abundant Devourer-gold—is still in Bloodrise. It, like that which you brought with you, is ultimately no more your possession than anything else—it belongs to the Serpent Priesthood, who may dole it out to fulfill the ambitions of the Grand Design (such as it is), according to their judgment. Even that which you brought it theirs by right, first and foremost… But there is an implicit understanding that an agent of darkness may keep what they kill to some extent, and that one such as you should be allowed to reinvest looted wealth into strengthening your position and further advancing your goals. It is by this logic that you argued the Chaplain into allowing you to upgrade your forces’ equipment… But this, in turn, depleted much of the fragment of your hoard which you brought with you.
All this is to say: you have JUST enough coin and barterable gems to trade for the exotic and expensive object of your desire. You spotted it out of the corner of your eye on your last pass through the small-but-varied and eclectic bazaar adjacent to this base, where surface-traveling Infiltrators hawk and trade the spoils of their exploits above. Specifically, you have your eye on…
