https://youtu.be/Tys9hS10w_g?si=sXxvHccg-l0t8dCBYou spend a few hours out of the rest of the afternoon treking about on foot, occasionally hopping onto one of the city trolleys and go about town. What roads you do have to cross to get to sections you needed was more taken up more by cyclists than car drivers so you could simply weave around them even as they moved like a flowing river, man and his tools. Heading into the center the mixed areas Individual houses, small businesses, and the odd suburb area blighting the Earth and contrasting against stretches of untamed wilderness that had been left to grow into forestry.
Residents say that in those woods the more wealthy, reclusive and otherwise manipulative sorts have staked out as home. Some you overhear theorize that it's some banal tax-scam they pull off to show they care, others that it's where they can engage in secret society rituals and form new conspiracies that come in whatever the speaker has as their Paranoia Object. Most likely answer? It is home to at least some Magi families, locals to the area, why they simply haven't come after you can be chalked to flying under their radar. However, if any of them are to have a proper Catalyst...it would be one of them. Which would require another follow up if things fall through.
Which speaking of, you arrive at your location. A solitary shop made up from a deep brown oak, the windows are dirtied to the point of making the inside seem like a looking into a blurry mess, a oval sign hanging off chainlink above the door reading:
'Stefan's Curios and Imports, Don't Ask How It's Gotten and it's Your's.'
On the door proper you see a generic 'CLOSED' sign, but you still come up to it fiddling with the handle. "Locked, guess he DID take my advice after all." You say aloud, but a mischevious smile crosses your face as you hold tightly onto the knob. The mana flowing down through your arm, into your hand, and into the brass itself lining it with greenish-glow. "Nicht." You huff, and with the word said you can feel the simple mechanism shift and come to a light click.
Opening the door and coming inside you cough a bit as you inhale a small bit of dust. Shelves are lined with both books and peculiar figurines of porcaline or stone, small tables having particular portions listing out what country the items come from, Persian rugs and Mandala embroderies line the wall shared with oil paintings of both noblemen and simple life scenes. And of course there is the glass display cases which show talismans and jewlery of various shapes and sizes, including the large one off to the right side of the room with a cash register on it.
