Dialysis Book: Chapter 27: A double date

“I don’t know, I think this is about as good as it gets with him,” said Vicky.  She was talking fast, fast enough that my speech skill shard was having issues.  If I hadn’t been picking up the elven language in bits and pieces I might have missed some of that.

Aria wasn’t helping.

“If we are going to get in, he’s going to need to go to a groomer,” she said as we reached the new plaza.

“Groomer,” I asked.

“Barber, stylist,” said Vicky, glancing over at Aria before smiling at me.  “You look a bit rough for any of the nicer spots.  So we’re going to take you to get trimmed up.”

“At a place that works on humans,” I said, I was sporting a bit of a beard.  I’d been ‘shaving’ while on my hike just because I didn’t like to have that much facial hair, but now I’d been without a good shave in days.  The last time had been at the guild hall in Darven.

“Oh, yes, of course,” replied Aria as they led me down a branch towards a rather quaint looking elven shop.  For a brief second, I was hoping that it was some sort of a boutique shop.  It sort of was.

I made it three steps into the place before I was roughly sat down on a chair and an elven woman looked at me scornfully before pulling out a straight razor.  I swallowed and tried to speak but she grabbed me by the chin and started shaving me in a very controlled motion.  I’d never had straight razor used on my unprotected neck before so it was… lets see, what was the word?

Terrifying.

I had an angry elf woman with a razor on my throat.  I let my mind wander.  The inside of the establishment was full of human sized clothing, and some stuff for orcs.  An orckin mannequin, an orckaquin?, was dressed more barbaric than I thought I would work around town but at least it looked like it was high quality.

The human stuff was actually decent, and clearly made by elves.  I was used to Vicky and Aria in their adventuring garb, neither was wearing that at the moment.  The average elf in town was wearing something that I would describe as natural elven fashion.  Neither had the ears for the more elaborate garb favored by the more high blooded elves, so they wore natural looking garments.

Vicky was wearing a brown coat over an off white blouse.  She continued the ensemble with a long, pleated skirt made of something that was close to denim.  She wore shorts underneath that, given the number of strange paths, anything else would have simply put her underside on display.  She completed the outfit with a sensible pair of flat bottomed sandals that were tied up well above her ankle.

Aria wore overalls, made of similar denim.  She had a bright red shirt underneath that was almost so bright as to be painful.  The overalls ended just below the knee giving her room to wear high boots with a slight heel.  The wear pattern on the heel told me that she rode something.

Basically Vicky looked like someone dressing up like a hippy and Aria looked like a farmer’s daughter.

Neither wore makeup, though Vicky had a small jewel glued in line with her right eyebrow that drew your attention to her eyes and her ear.  Specifically, it let you focus on her right ear.  I gathered that was her better side.  Aria had several rings on, spaced evenly on her ring finger and pinky.  Her shooting fingers were not so adorned.

In all, they were dressed fashionable for elves of middling social standards.  They lacked the ears of the high born, but had far more disposable cash than your average elf.  As such, they kept up with all the current fashions, and this was the height of the current elven fashion.

I didn’t get it, but then again they didn’t see things quite the way humans did.  I wasn’t sure what to make of it when the chair I was sitting on ejected me.  I stood, without stumbling too much and looked at myself in the mirror.  I looked normal, though I still had blond hair.

Deep down, I was expecting some brown to leak through but my roots were good.  I’d been turned blond and that made me look different.  I wasn’t sure about what to make about my face, but every bit of stubble was gone.  I was smooth, baby bottom smooth.  All of my hair was the exact correct length for modern elven fashion.  Overall, I looked about as good as I could look.  I smiled and the elf rolled her eyes and stepped away.

Instantly the girls were on me, pushing me towards the selection of human clothing

“You’d look good in this,” said Aria, handing me the elven equivalent of a ten gallon hat.

“How about this,” said Vicky, handing me an open necked shirt that exposed my chest down to the navel.

“No, he can’t get into anywhere like that,” said Aria, handing me a vest.

“But what’s the point if we can’t get him dressed correctly?”’ said Vicky.

“The plan will work,” said Aria, handing me a large pile of clothing to try on.

I dropped the clothing onto the floor,”What’s the plan?”

“It’ll be fun, Max,” said Aria, grabbing the clothing off the floor quickly.

“What is the plan?” I said, full of suspicion.  These girls were up to something, and I didn’t want to be part of their vile machinations.

Looking over both girls, they were practically radiating suspicion.  They glanced at each other and finally Vicky sighed, “It was your idea.”

Aria looked down at the pile and sighed, “Talimor’s is opening tonight, they allow humans, and we’d both really like to eat there.”

“That’s the plan,” I said, uncertainly.  I was figuring something more dire given how suspicious the girls were acting.  They were taking me to a fancy restaurant?  On Earth, I’d suspect they wanted me to pay for them but they were paying for everything and further I absolutely could afford to take both of them to eat pretty much anywhere in town.

And we were playing innocent elven maiden later.  On Earth, hell… anywhere I’d have gone along with this in a heartbeat, so there had to be a catch.

“Well, there is a bit of a wait,” said Vicky.

“How long?” I asked, still searching for the downside.

“Next week, maybe the week after,” said Aria.

“You’d wait two weeks to eat,” I asked.

“No, we’d eat in the meantime but we’d have to wait to get into Talimor’s,” said Aria.

“They have a flan that is to die for,” said Vicky.

“So we are going to use you as a way to get in,” said Aria holding up a flier.

I took it.  The flier contained a host of contests for admission to the restaurant.  I stopped and pointed, “Best dressed human?”

“Well, there are a bunch of contests but we can’t hope to win anything but best dressed human,” said Aria uncomfortably.  She pouted and moved her hand up unconsciously to touch the side of her head.  “If you don’t have BDE you aren’t going to win any of the elven dressing contests.”

“BDE?”

“Big damn ears,” said Vicky, frowning and shaking her head.  Her ears were marginally bigger than Aria’s, but both girls had decidedly shorter ears than most of the elves you’d see walking on the street.  I thought they were cute, even if Aria’s ears were a bit sharp.

The sales girl, not the groomer, walked over, sauntered would be a better word.  She was wearing the more traditional stark white garment with sharp black cuts designed to make her look thinner than she already was, and she was already a negative size.  Aria looked like a tomboy, this elf looked ethereal, like she didn’t belong in the world.  Worse, she had longer and far more luxurious ears than my companions and you could almost feel both girls shirking back at the magnificence of them.

“Do you need any help,” she asked.

“No mistress,” they both replied in unison.  Chirped, even.  Mistress wasn’t the word, directly.  The word they used basically meant a woman of higher status than us, but it was more than that.  It literally meant a woman of higher status than us with our miserable short ears, who were like commoners.

In short, it wasn’t just nice to the person being responded to, it also demeaned yourself in the response.

“I offered,” she said flatly, in a tone you’d never hear a salesperson use on a customer.  She looked down at her nails, contemplating them for a moment while Aria and Vicky tried to figure out who had to talk to her.  Finally Vicky’s shoulders slumped.

“Mistress, this one wonders if you have anything that could make our human pop,” said Vicky demurely.  I was pretty sure my translation was somewhat off clearly ‘pop’ was a universal word in fashion.

“He seems adequate, perhaps too good for li-tel like you,” she said.  Li-tel was another elven word that there wasn’t really a good translation for.  It meant short ear, specifically it meant shorter ear than my ear. It was the non-insulting version of lo-tai.

I do not like the elven language.

“I don’t know, I think they are both quite nice,” I said, smiling at the elf.

“He speaks,” she said condescendingly, shaking her head.  “If he speaks at the event he will lose.”

“Maybe I have something worth listening to,” I said.

She smirked at me.  “I doubt that very much, but do keep talking.  I find your prattle amusing.”

Aria grabbed me and yanked me back hard.  She weighed 110 soaking wet and she pulled me back harder than my old buddy the linebacker had when I nearly got hit by a car once, “Mistress, this one is sorry.  He is very fun, but an adventurer.  They lack manners.”

“Indeed,” said the long eared elf.  “Dress him in this, it will compliment both of your peasant outfits.  Perhaps the judges will take pity.”

“Thank you mistress,” they both said in unison.  I tried to speak but Aria’s grip was tight, painfully so.

As soon as she left Aria shoved me into a dressing room before stepping out and shoving the curtain closed.

“Never talk to a high blood like that,” said Aria.

“She’s a shopkeeper,” I said, looking down at the pile of clothing.  I considered not wearing it, but I could see Vicky out of the corner of the dressing room and I was on vacation.

“Her blood is purer than mine, she can have us thrown out,” said Aria.

“Of the shop,” I asked, banishing my clothing into storage.

“Of the city,” said Aria, shaking her head.  She pulled back the curtain slightly as I was pulling on the pants.  I used essence to ensure a proper fit and Aria grinned.  I looked down and sighed.

“These are very tight,” I said, grabbing the shirt.

“They look good,” said Aria, waggling an eyebrow.  “It’ll be fun getting them off later.”

My misgivings about the shop were rapidly vanishing.  I wasn’t here to solve racism, or elven social woes.  They could all be assholes to each other forever for all I cared, I was on vacation and a pretty girl was telling me she wanted me to dress up so she could strip me later after she fed me.

I stepped out after I put on the hat.  “I look like a bohemian cowboy.”

“I have no idea what any of those words mean, but you look good,” said Vicky.  “I already paid so we can just go.”

“How much,” I asked.

“Five gold,” she replied, shooing me out of the establishment.

“That seems like a lot for clothes,” I replied, trying to think if I needed to pay her back.  Vicky snorted.

“Unless your loot game is very weak, that shouldn’t be that much,” said Vicky.

“You do know how to loot,” asked Aria.

“I let Shade do that,” I said as we got back into the plaza.

“What is he,” asked Aria.

“I am a poop ninja,” said Shade, causing both elves to jump.

“Don’t do that,” said a startled Vicky, looking back sternly at my dog.  “Freaky mutant doat.”

“Do not insult Shade,” I said evenly.

Both girls looked at each other.  Vicky cleared her throat, “Sorry.”

Aria knelt down and began rubbing Shade behind the ears, “He’s such a good boy.”  She smiled brightly at me and glanced over at Vicky, who likewise knelt down and started scratching.

“See, we both love Shade and wouldn’t do a thing to hurt him,” said Vicky.

“Good, only a monster would hurt a dog,” I said.

“Yeah, and you are only violent towards monsters,” said Vicky with an odd smile as she stood back up.

“Of course,” I replied, adjusting my bohemian cowboy costume.   “Where is this restaurant?”

“Next plaza,” said Aria.  “Shade can come too, of course.”

The elves started walking and I followed behind them with Shade.  They were plotting how to best employ me to get into the restaurant.  I looked around and spotted Spivy on a nearby bush.

Of course, that meant she wanted to be seen.

I cleared my throat, “Sorry for leaving you.”

“I knew where you were, besides I was playing,” said Shade.  “I do not like getting dressed up unless it is a costume.”

“Wait, are you implying I’m in a costume,” I said.

“You have a cowboy hat on,” said Shade.  This was not my first cowboy costume, sadly.

Grumbling, I looked around and spotted an elf girl running around with antlers on her head.  Checking to see if they were real, I realized they were a headband of sorts.

“How much,” I asked.

The elf looked at me, “I’m not supposed to talk to lo-tai.”

“It's for him,” I said, pointing to Shade.

Shade sighed, and then turned on the puppy eyes.  The little elf girl’s heart instantly melted and she handed over the headband.  Suitably attired, Shade and I continued following after the elves.

The next plaza was called Heartwood, and was in the core part of the elven city.  This was where the rich elves did rich things.  I saw several large structures actually inside the massive plaza, which boasted a massive garden as well as an amphitheater.  Most of the other plazas were around the size of a football stadium, this one was at least four of those smashed together.

Everything here screamed expensive.  I spotted a stand selling ice on a stick for five silvers.  There were a number of food carts here catering to everyone’s needs, and the elves were milling about watching things or listening to the live bands playing.  Every musician was an elf.

The place screamed money, and I had the disposable income to be here, but as we entered a large elf made a b-line straight towards me.

“Girls,” I said and Aria and Vicky grabbed me by the arms again.  The security elf paused, and then stepped back.

Aria smiled, “This one thanks you for your diligence.”

We stepped past, entering the plaza proper.  It tilted down and I realized my initial estimate of the size was low.  In the bowl of the plaza were dozens of small, but still substantial, trees where single businesses resided.

The first one was a cheesery, with hundreds of kinds of very old cheese for sale spread out between dozens of tree trucks that were tied together with reeds to made up the structure.  The leaves up top were so thick, I doubted any rain could actually get through.

A young elf, no older than fifty, was handing out samples and the girls boldly walked over and took several.  I approached, and the sampler turned and sped off towards another potential, elven, customer.

“How do the trees get like this,” I asked.

Aria looked around, taking a moment to realize I was talking about something so mundane as the cheese shop.

“It's only a thousand year old cluster of trees carefully grown together using botany and druidic magic,” said Aria.  “There are places like that all over town.”

“Dunwald’s fine boots had a second story,” said Vicky, glancing down at her footwear.

“Had,” I asked and she gestured with her nose towards a conspicuously empty spot in the plaza.  I would have expected a shop to be there, but instead it was just grass and a few dozen sprouts that might have been very young trees.

“What happened,” I asked.

“Mom and dad are fighting,” said Aria as she sniffed the air several times then turned towards a fudge shop, “We might stop?”

“Please,” said Vicky, and I was on a shopping trip.  That actually made my life a bit easier, because after the boot store I was forced to hold the bags.  When I was doing something for an elf, security paid a lot less attention to me.

By the third shop, a scarf seller with hundreds of different kinds of silken scarves, I was officially done.  Unfortunately, I was carrying so many boxes by this point that actually moving was proving to be challenging.

“Can I just put this in inventory,” I grumbled, but that didn’t work.  I was out of space, even with my alchemy bag and I didn’t have a generic one.

“I have room,” said Shade, who was eating a piece of cheese.  He got free samples.

“Just take what you can,” I said as Shade began bopping things with his nose.  Each time he bopped, the item vanished until he’d cleared off all of the boxes and most of the bags.

“Do you want me to get that,” asked Shade to my remaining load.

“No, I need something so security thinks I’m a manservant,” I said looking at Shade.  “How did you get so much inventory space?”

“I bought a bag from the vendor over there,” said Shade.

I walked over while the girls were trying on scarves.  The Spacial Connection was a dimensional storage bag shop that specializes in artificial leather made of mushrooms.  I could tell this because there was a girl singing the praises of the shop just outside, giving a history of the place.  It was 900 years old, and still had its first owner, an elf named Evendel.

He looked annoyed.

“I just want a bag,” I said.

“Lo-tai want of many things,” said Evendel.

I considered my options, briefly.  I could argue, I could fight, I could point out the general hypocrisy of everyone here.  Or I could lie.

“My ladies have gone on a large shopping trip and desire that I purchase a bag so that I might hold more of their stuff,” I said, then cleared my throat.  “I mean, more of their fine goods.”

Evendel looked at me for a long moment, “Twenty gold.”

That wasn’t even worth negotiating about.  I handed him the coin and he handed me a bag.  I nodded and left.  Spivy chuckled.  She was hiding in the leaves of one of the shops, in her squirbit costume.  One more tiny animal wasn’t going to raise any red flags.

“Given up,” she asked.

“They are so far up their own asses I don’t see the point,” I said, dropping the bag into my inventory.  It occupied one slot, but the bag possessed 9 additional inventory slots.  That was a net positive of eight.  Unlike my other bag which was purely for alchemy, this bag had two open slots that allowed me to put anything in them as well as six specialty slots.

Unfortunately, the specialty slots were more in tune with shopping than anything an adventurer could use.  I didn’t have extra weapons storage, but I could store fourteen separate clothing items.  There was even an option for storing two whole outfits in the bag in a separate pocket.

“I may have gotten ripped off,” I said.

“Probably, but you are going to be everyone on a shopping trip’s best friend,” said Spivy.

“What did Aria mean when she said mom and dad were fighting,” I asked as I walked back over to the scarf shop.  The girls were gone, but Shade found their tracks easily and we started after them.

“King Rogen and System Lord Domagal are fighting, they are trying to do it quietly but when their agents clash there is invariably some secondary damage,” said Spivy.

“In the middle of town,” I asked.

“Who’s going to stop them,” replied Spivy.  I considered that and she continued.  “The elves are waging a quiet little war between them like they always do.  They will get tired of it soon enough and everything will return to normal, and this is an elf city so I mean very normal.”

“You think they’d fight outside of town,” I said.

Spivy hopped from branch to branch, stopping when we reached a rock candy store where the elven girls were both sampling everything.  Aria spotted me and smiled, her lips stained pink with the candy.  Vicky looked at her and laughed through blue teeth.

“If they did that there would be more casualties, and it would be harder to hide,” said Spivy.  “Elves don’t like disruptions, so they are going to do their level best to pretend nothing is happening.”

“Doesn’t the king have an army, or a police force?”

“The king’s agents are the primary police force, or as much of a police force as an elven city needs,” said Spivy.  “They get by with far fewer than a human city would need, but most of the mortal tier agents in the king’s employ operate as police, fire, or whatever else is needed.”

“You think they’d have a pretty big fire department,” I said looking around at the massive trees in every direction.

“They have magic, so fire really isn’t that big of a concern,” said Spivy.  “A fire that consumed that shop could be handled by someone with a heroic core easily, and the king has a number of those just looking for fires.  Heck, certain adventurers could do a pretty good job.  Fizzy has spells and Madox could just absorb the flames.”

“But they are mortal tier,” I said.

“Mortal tier adventurers who are focused on certain things can do pretty well as a firefighter.  Shade could learn some shadow spells that leach the heat out of things, which he could use to put out fires but he’d need to get them to the heroic rank to be really effective,” said Spivy.

“But I like fires, they are warm,” said Shade.

“Big fire, the kinds that burn down your house and kill people,” I stated.

“Those are bad fires, I do not like them, Chum,” said Shade.  “I will learn to put them out!  As a good boy, I should protect people!”

I patted Shade’s head.  “I assume light is terrible for fire prevention?”

“One of the worst,” said Spivy. “You could burn things, but you don’t really have a mechanism for stopping flame.”

I looked around at all the elves milling about.  This was the height of their culture, and it failed my vibe check.  This was not a place I wanted to vacation at.  “Where to next, Arden?”

“Done with this place already?”

“Yup,” I said looking around.  The company was nice, and the adventurer’s guild was better than Darven but I was just about done with this place.

“You are still a bit short on coin and there isn’t a direct flight,” said Spivy.  “See if there is another quest tomorrow and then we’ll work on going someplace less elven.”

“Works for me,” I said as Aria and Vicky walked back over.

“Okay, the restaurant is opening, we need to get you to the entrance so you can get us in,” said Aria, glancing over at the crowded field outside the newly opening establishment.

“I’m not really feeling it,” I said, annoyed with elven culture.  “I’d rather just go back to the guild.”

Vicky’s shoulders slumped and Aria looked defeated.  They both looked at the crowd and sighed.

“Yeah, it's a long shot anyway,” said Vicky after several seconds.

“I know, I just wanted to see what it was like inside,” said Aria sullenly.  Then she smiled at me, with that cute smile of hers.  Except there was something new, there was a kernel of sadness in it.

“You’ve never been in?” I asked.

“With ears this short, no,” said Aria.  “I figured with you we might have a chance, but that’s not likely.”

“Let's go then,” I said walking towards the eatery.

“You want to go now?” asked Vicky.

“You didn’t tell me they wouldn't let you in either, now that I know they are keeping all of us out, it is a quest to get in,” I said.

“Why a quest?” said Aria.

“Because adventures don’t fail quests!”