bookpub Chapter 135: New Clothes
Chapter 135: New Clothes
Lassim and Cirra left the Marshlight Apothecary, heading towards Gossamer Goods as the streets of the swamp town were quieter now. The rush of the early morning had settled into a more languid pace.
They walked side by side, the soft squelching of their steps mixing with the distant sounds of the town going about their day.
As they approached Gossamer Goods, Lassim had a better look of it with a more keen eye that noted the shop’s exterior. With interest, he noticed that it stood out distinctly from its surroundings. It was crafted with higher quality materials that bore the rich, dark hues of polished swamp wood.
The windows were framed with fine, silk-like threads, shimmering subtly in the light, with full displays of manicured outfits in the windows. Examples of the luxurious fashion that awaited inside.
An ornament on the door caught Lassim’s eye as he reached for the handle to open it—a spider, jet black, with a bulbous abdomen marked by a skull-like pattern, smiling eerily back at him.
However, an odd detail was that its head appeared to be cleanly sliced off at an angle, an odd and somewhat macabre decoration that Lassim briefly pondered before dismissing it as just another eccentric local custom.
Pushing the door open, a bell chimed softly above them, announcing their arrival. The interior of Gossamer Goods was an enclave of elegance with garments of different colored spider silk draped gracefully across displays. Their textures ranged from whisper-thin shawls to robust, woven tunics and pants.
Lassim stepped in, entering in front of Cirra, as his battle instincts immediately flared up as he felt an intense prickling sensation—the unmistakable alert of a potential threat—that felt like a knife was pressed against his neck. He hadn’t felt this much danger from any of the Spirit Ascension cultivators like Hallen or Prince Kael and his generals since returning from the drow plane.
His hands twitched on his sides, an instinctual reaction as he was nearly ready to summon his halberd and rotate his full cultivation to its maximum. Yet, he paused, remembering the guardian’s threat as his eyes adjusted to the interior and caught sight of the shop owner.
She stood behind a finely crafted counter, her presence initially imposing with an intense, scrutinizing gaze that softened almost as quickly as it had appeared. The dangerous sensation immediately dissipated as her gaze relaxed.
Her upper body was that of a mature, older woman with no wrinkles with her long white hair flowing down in elegant waves. Her torso seamlessly transitioned into the thorax of a spider where a normal human’s lower body would be. Her lower half was that of the same black spider creature on the ornament on the outside door, the notorious red skull marking vivid on her back but just a giant version.
Attempting to practice his newly acquired language skills, Lassim carefully executed the greeting gesture he had learned, combining the arm movements with the guttural clicks and hisses of the Spider language. "[Skreeka lok varrak, tarrak skree varrak!]" he attempted, hoping his pronunciation was close enough.
The shopkeeper watched him attempt the greeting, a flicker of amusement in her eyes before responding in kind, "[Tik skree varrak lok, varrak tika lok!]"
After a quick smile that showed off the dimples on her cheeks, she switched to the common tongue, her voice slightly eerie but gentle, "Not bad, young one. But let your wrists flow a bit more like this," she demonstrated, her arms mimicking the fluidity of a spider’s legs.
Cirra, who entered after and caught his attempted performance chimed in, "I agree, but it helps to have you give the advice instead of me. Anyways, this is Lassim," Cirra introduced him, stepping forward. "He’s a new friend and someone who has agreed to pay me back for bailing him out with his communication issues with the town’s guardian and teaching him the language.
I’ll force him to help out with my re