At the sight of the varied weapons Magnus presented to her, Avis beamed. "Hey, not bad. Thanks!" She listened to the explanations he presented for each weapon carefully, then picked up each of them in turn, testing their balance. While she did this, the Alftar woman in the shop approached the counter to speak to Magnus, an odd assortment of items in her arms. Avis tuned out the conversation, eying the weapons.  The three steel ones were all a little differently balanced but all seemed well made. She liked the feel of the mithril blade, but the balance of the hilt and blade would take a while to get used to. The Elven glass was fascinating, although she had no idea how strong it was. Avis secretly wished she could buy them all, even the overly showy and virtually useless Dvergar rapier. She weighed the practicality of a new rapier versus minor repairs to her armor. They would really be mostly superficial repairs, but she liked to keep her equipment in good condition. She decided to wait until the Alftaran and the shopkeeper were done. As she waited, she absently twirled the glass blade.<br/><br/>Larteis was utterly lost.<br/><br/>He had entered Goldenburgh with the intent to find its sizable library and peruse its shelves. If he had to leave home, he figured he could at least find some other books- most of the books in the Ilutent royal library were philosophy, too old to touch, or covered some complicated subject Larteis had spent many an hour struggling to understand. However, this plan quickly fell through when he had no idea how to get anywhere. He had attempted to stop a few people to ask for directions, but the reactions he had gotten thus far had been unmitigated terror due to Bellant, disdain from a man who apparently frowned on learning or 'dedication', as he had called it, and a polite smile from someone who couldn't speak Alftaran or Teryn. Larteis had given up and was instead morosely trailing through the city, Bellant following.<br/><br/>"You didn't think this through at all, did you." Bellant, who had been moodily silent all morning, finally decided to speak his complaints. His voice sounded like crushed gravel.<br/><br/>"I thought it through a little," Larteis said weakly.<br/><br/>"Well, you got out of the palace," the drake said. "And out of Eridis. You even got to this town. But do you have any, I don't know, plans for the future? That money you took-"<br/><br/>"Borrowed?"<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"Borrowed,</span>then, won't last forever." Bellant sighed. "This was a bad idea. We should just go back. Say you got kidnapped but escaped cunningly or something. Your father will be angry, but he's always angry."<br/><br/>"Why would he be angry at me that I got kidnapped?" Larteis asked. Bellant raised an eyebrow. Larteis winced. "I'll… I'll figure something out. But can you not talk about it so much? We'll be found out and then it'll all be for nothing." He came to a halt. "Now, if I could just find the library…"<br/><br/>Someone tugged Larteis' sleeve. The Alftar nearly jumped a foot, and Bellant swung around to face whoever had laid a hand on him, but it was merely a mildly annoyed merchant. "Excuse me, sir. If you could move your…" He waved a hand at Bellant. "Dragon. It's blocking the shop door."<br/><br/>Bellant glared at him. "You could just<span style="font-style: italic">asked</span>," he said. With this, he turned dramatically, nearly knocking over several crates with his tail, and shouldered through the crowd. Larteis followed, apologizing profusely to people the drake had bumped into until the two found an avenue of traffic that was less crowded. He sighed. How was he ever going to get through this mess?