Sell you a Bridge chapter 326

July 1st 2016 Traverse Town, 11:00 PM EDT

"Huh."  Said Rana as she glanced around. "This isn't really what I was  expecting." She didn't sound bothered or anything, just interested, and I  had to tamp down a smile at her obvious interest. Admittedly this place  was different than anywhere we'd ever been. Both Twilight Town and the  two Gothams were cities in the truest sense of that word. This place was  quaint though. It was more like a village.

Still. "It's  pretty nice though." I liked the atmosphere. The gas lamps in particular  were sort of historical. I turned to Roxas and Namine. "So. We're near  one of the others. Since there's only a few of them and two are  connected to you two, any insight on how to find them? Do you guys have  some kind of keyblade radar or something?" I'd seen that on an anime  once, and I always thought it was a cool idea.

Roxas  answered first. "No. But we can sense our own. I...THINK one of them is  here. I feel something. Hard to give details." He looked to Namine in an  odd mix of confusion and frustration. I was guessing she'd managed to  unlock some but not all of his memories. To my surprise though, I was  picking up a lie from him. Specifically a lie he was telling himself. He  felt like he knew her but he didn't. Not exactly. It was murky.

I  shook the oddness of as I addressed the blonde. "How about you? Any  chance you know who we're looking for or where they are?" I was asking  as a formality, and didn't really expect to get a response, but to my  shock, she actually nodded quietly.

"Yes." She said in a  soft voice. "If Roxas can sense him, it's almost definitely Sora. As for  how to find him...I don't know. My memories of Sora are cloudy and  uncertain at best. Not to mention I wasn't around for his time here. We  might just need to look around for him." She cringed a bit, as if  expecting us to get angry, as she glanced around at the town as if  confirming how big it is.

We didn't get angry, obviously.  "Hey, no big." I said consolingly. "We have a name to ask around about.  That's a hell of a lot better than we were doing ten minutes ago.  Between the two of you we have plenty of information we can use. If  anything I'm the one whose sorry. I got my aura sight for tracking, but  if it's been long enough I won't be able to pick anything up. I won't be  much help."

Zee cut in. "No need to be so gloomy boys and  girls. I can do a tracking spell in my sleep." She paused. "Actually, I  might have to if we don't find a hotel or something. i'm exhausted. How  about you guys? You down to rest before we get started? It is like  eleven PM. We could all use the downtime after the last week of training  too." I winced. She was right. We needed sleep. Or at least some of us  did. We could get started looking tomorrow. We just needed to find a  hotel.

Unfortunately we didn't know where anything near  here was. I looked around with aura sight, trying to find someone to  ask, and managed to spot a few presences in a shop on the other side of  the square. I pointed between the pair of gas lamps in the center of the  cozy little area. "There's someone in that shop over there. We can  check that out and see if they can steer us towards a place to sleep."

The  shop itself was a bit different than the rest of the town. Where  everything else was understated wood and plaster and stone, this place  had a bit of flare. A massive glowing sign proclaiming 'Jewelry" in neon  lights over a gold fleur de lis, with a smaller nearly identical sign  in a frame surrounded by light bulbs. "They might not be equipped to  handle information requests. I think they sell Jewelry." Drea said  wryly. "But that's just a guess."

I snickered at the  obvious sarcasm, heading toward the pair of double doors. As we  approached I could see the lanterns hanging at the corners were blue,  with red ones around the side. The multicolored lighting on cobblestone  gave the whole place a surreal vibe that actually kind of worked, and as  we approached I pushed the door open without knocking once I noticed  the open sign.

The inside of the shop was actually pretty  nice. A wide open space with walls lined with cases of necklaces and  rings and charms. There was a brick fireplace with a stone chimney in  the corner near the door, and a green counter on the side opposite.  Behind it stood a sloppy looking blonde man with spiky hair, in a white  shirt and jeans. His eyes flicked to us as we entered. "Oh, good. More  kids." He said grumpily around the toothpick he was chewing. "You lose  your mommies boys and girls?"

"They went off to look for  your customer service skills, so we'll probably never see them again." I  responded without thinking. Then I winced because I needed to ask this  asshole questions and he probably wouldn't be in the mood after I  insulted him. To my surprise though, his lips split into a grin around  the toothpick.

"Well now." He chuckled gleefully. "Kids  with spine then. What do you want? If you're here to buy I'm happy to  sell, but in my experience kids tend to be looking for handouts." He  smiled fondly. "I didn't really hate the last one, granted. But I could  do with some customers." His eyes, which had been scanning us, stopped  on Roxas, looking almost confused for a second before he shook off the  flash of what his aura told me was familiarity.

Zee's eyes  snapped to me excitedly and I rolled my own. "Fine." I said with  exasperation, pulling out my card. An effort of will to shift reality  and the card on the counter 'just happened' to take my bank. The guy  would get paid either way, and it wasn't a huge change. My power had  done weirder. I gestured to Drea and Zee. "My girls would like  something. Put it on the card." I tossed it to him casually, and he  caught it with a raised eyebrow.

He didn't recognize it,  obviously, but he didn't argue, obviously not worried about it until his  software told him it wouldn't work. I didn't know what kind of system  he used, but since this place was, based on the aura signatures, some  kind of interworld hub, I imagined it wasn't the first time he'd seen  strange monetary systems.

Ignoring the interplay, Zee and  Drea darted over to look through the cases as Rana turned to me with a  pout. I just shrugged. "Daughters only get presents on birthdays. Sorry  sweetie." She muttered something unflattering about me being a biased  jerk, but I piously ignored her slander.

I held out a hand  to the man as they looked. "I'm Morgan by the way. Nice to meet you. We  just got to town and I was looking for some place to stay. Maybe a  hotel or something?"

He smiled, biting down on the  toothpick as he grabbed my hand with a firm squeeze. "Cid. Nice to meet  you kid. Yeah there's-" He was cut off by the sound of an earsplitting  squeal that nearly rattled the damn glass in its panes. I spun to see  what the problem was and saw Zee practically plastered to the glass in  that case, eyes locked on the jewelry inside with a manic intensity.

At  first I didn't understand what the hell she was freaking out about.  Then I saw the aura of the jewelry. Fuck. I was going to be spending a  lot of money here. Magic. Every single fucking thing in the cases was  enchanted. Some with protection spells that reminded me of Master Yen  Sid's, some with what looked like augmentations of some kind. Some with  elemental boosts that reminded me of Eddie's Bonds of Flame keyblade and  Artemis's Photon Debugger. But every one highly magical.

"Pardon  me." I said tiredly. "I have to go prevent the complete extinction of  my bank account." I was almost unnaturally rich. But this was all magic  gear, and I had no viable idea of the exchange rate here. For all I knew  every chain cost a million dollars. I strode over to peel Zee off the  glass, turning her to face me. "One thing." I said sternly. "We don't  know what these will cost, and I'm not buying you a hundred samples of  the same enchanting style for comparison."

"But-" My sharp  glare cut her off and she sighed dramatically. "Fine. I'll pick one of  the thunder bangles. I should be able to reverse engineer that spell  since I already know it back to front." She raised an eyebrow. "But I  want the most powerful variant. I did a quick scan spell and I think it  has supplementary strength and defensive enchantments I can pick apart."  Her violet eyes gleamed with a manic intensity that told me saying no  would be more trouble than it was worth, so I just rolled my eyes and  nodded.

She grabbed it and dragged  it over to the counter, Drea smiling at me and grabbing a much cheaper  looking chain with a protection enchantment on it. Cid was watching with  amusement, despite the talk of potentially stealing his business by  figuring out her own enchantments. He just rang them up, using the card  I'd passed him to pay for both. Of course, as soon as she got hers, Drea  passed it to Zee, who squealed with joy and immediately retreated out  of the shop to begin murmuring incantations under her breath for some  kind of scanning spell.

I  sighed. "Sorry about her." I said to Cid. "She really just loves magic.  I promise you won't see any of those spells popping up in a shop across  the street or anything." I thought Zee's obsession with magic was cute,  but not everyone would be quite as enthused as me. Especially if she  might be horning in on their business.

To  my relief though, Cid just laughed it off. "Don't worry kid. I don't  mind a bit of research. My daughter is a bit of a nut about her own  hobby. Cindy is liable to take your damn car apart while you're still  inside it see what you're working with. It's kind of nice to see kids so  gung-ho about learning really."

"Nice  enough that you'll refund my money?" I said hopefully, but Cid just  shot me a mocking grin that matched my own. I wasn't expecting cash back  anyway. Focusing on what was important here, I came right out to ask.  "You mentioned helping us find a hotel? Because we just blew into town  and need a place to stay. Preferably somewhere a little swank." I  glanced out the door to where Drea was leaning on the wall next to Zee.  "My girls are accustomed to a certain standard of living."

More  accurately I was accustomed to giving it to them. I like spoiling Zee  and Drea. Making them sleep in a run down motel for no reason was  pointless. Cid raised an eyebrow at my description of them, but let it  go, clearly deciding it wasn't his business. Taking out a piece of  paper, he wrote out a rough map and some directions to the Traverse Town  Hotel, and then wished me luck.

I  liked the old man, and I told him I'd be back the next day to shop  again. I was sure Zee would want more jewelry, and maybe Cid would have  some leads for us to chase. In any case, we'd taken care of the first  night, and it was time to turn in. Even I was starting to get tired.