Special Delivery

Gonyaul set the sap filled ceramic pot near the door and crawled over to the third floor plank from the leftmost back corner of his shelter. He used his carving knife around the floor board to pry it up easily. Underneath was a roughly made box which he fished out of the hole. Inside the box was a sizeable amount of 7 years worth of wages he had been saving. Most of the time he lived off the grid and worked jobs, like the farm, that provided some forms of basic needs taken out of the wages before payment. When neither of those were available, he primarily was saving or spending very frugally.

Gonyaul was in the habit of living a humble non-materialistic lifestyle during his upbringing and he continued to be consistent in those behaviors even after being exposed to a world with much more variety to offer. In fact, the whole money idea took some getting used to. Back home, his people behaved as one big family and at best they had a barter system; however, it was more everyone just did what they needed to do so that everyone survived and thrived as one big team. But while money wasn't that big of a deal to him, it apparently was a big deal to everyone else. He found keeping it gave him the opportunity to be helpful to much more than just himself in this economy.

Yet, now it was getting colder than he thought his current work clothes wardrobe was going to be able to handle. He was going to start by purchasing one of those capote cloaks, the warmer cloaks with the hoods, to help him through the winter. He filled a bag with what he guessed would be more than enough coin, picked up the ceramic pot, and made his way into town.

On his way to the clothing merchant's shop, he did a double take when he thought he saw a young lady with bright red flames trailing from her head. But by the time his focal vision caught up to his peripheral vision, the individual had moved out of sight.

At the merchant's shop he was able to purchase a second-hand dark brown capote cloak that he thought would be most agreeable and functional. He actually overestimated how much money he needed to bring by quite a lot. The store owner seeing the plethora of coin sleeping soundly in his bag, convinced him that he needed a special set apart from his everyday patchworked and abused work clothes. He gave Gonyaul a long list of plausible reasons for continuing to shop. Gonyaul agreed and was genuinely intrigued by the individual's enthusiasm.

Now this particular shop owner, had a strong passion for fashion. He actually mistook Gonyaul for a woman from across the store and had started imagining the color combinations before he suddenly realized it was just an exotic looking male. While he was now confined to the usually less expensive men's section, he still felt obliged in sprucing up Gonyaul's drab and boring attire with some color. He pulled out all the sale's trick in the book and did a complete makeover. Gonyaul was overly trusting of the gentleman's expertise in the matter and was a willing participant; however, he refused to purchase a fancier cloak to go with the new look. It didn't make sense to get another cloak, or trade it in, when he literally just got a suitable one.

Gonyaul purchased everything the man chose; save the armor. He had no use of armor, but he did enjoy trying it on and seeing how it felt to wear.

As he exited the clothing merchant's store he passed an older lady with several kids in tow. Without hesitating he gave her his coin bag, with whatever was left. "For family.", is all he said as he placed it into the surprised woman's hands. He didn't even wait for any type of response, he just kept on moving out of the building.

As he walked to the Apothecary he noted how wearing a brand new outfit, the nicest he had ever owned, made him feel refreshed. And more importantly, how much warmer he was now. Once he arrived he tried to experiment with opening the door very slowly to see if it wouldn't trigger that entry sound; however, it still did.

It was a very brief exchange. Gonyaul and Tolan made eye contact. Tolan provided the normal shop keeper pleasantries upon seeing him again. Gonyaul just smiled and placed the ceramic pot on the counter. "The rest." he said and then started to exit.

Tolan expressed his appreciation; however, was mindful this time to hold off on offering any compensation. And just like he deduced from their last encounter, Gonyaul left without even so much as hinting at being paid for his services. His ability to discern this gave him a jolt of excitement he used to get when he was a burglar. And the ceramic pot the sap was in, wasn't even the store's and yet it too was left. What a peculiar fellow, Tolan chuckled under his breath.