Glossing over the embarrassing fact that this dude had just busted him for letching a little bit over a four-hundred year-old ice-golem babe, Seymour introduced himself:

  “My name’s Seymour, what brings you into the depot today?”

  “Pleased to meet you, Seymour, I’m Thornton Gring.” The young man proudly placed his knot of sticks upon the counter. Bits of dirt and possibly treebark sprinkled onto the glass top. He nodded at the weird little bundle, causing the comically large turkey feather stuck in his silly Robin Hood hat to droop way down till it damned near touched the counter. “I’m wondering what you’ll give me for this. I’d like to trade it for a catalyst or two, if possible. They’d be my first.”

  Seymour dodged Thornton Gring’s turkey feather to have a closer look at what he first believed to be a birdnest, but which he quickly realized was actually a small wreath like you’d hang on a door at Christmas time.

  “Have you already evolved a class?” he asked, making smalltalk while he began his examination of the item.

  “I have not,” Thornton answered. “I’m hoping that by adding some catalysts to my sigils we can compel it to appear.”

  “Sure thing, Thor. Do you mind if I call you Thor?”

  “Thor, huh?” His eyes took on a daydreamy quality while he tried on the new name. “You know, I think I kind of like that. Thanks, Seymour.”

  “I’ve got your back,” Seymour assured him, seamlessly shifting into Salesman Mode. “And so does Dragon Dan’s. We carry the largest selection of catalysts anywhere, so I’m sure we’ll find something perfect for your first. But before we get to that, let’s take a closer look at this little treasure you’ve brought in today so we know exactly what kind of budget we’re working with.”

  His catalogoggles were hung from the neckline of his shirt and he slid them on to study the wreath-like object Thornton had placed upon the counter.

  It was made from interwoven sticks and was generally round in shape, though Seymour could recognize subtle angles, sacred geometric patterns in the weaving, a sure sign of magical working.

  His mind drifted back in time for a moment. This wreath was exactly like something Penny Amberwine would have made, wasn’t it? Like the pinecone she’d used to trigger a portal and the honeycomb she’d turned into a recording device.

  Someone in Thornton’s family had crafted this thing from regular old sticks found in the forest, weaving them in such a way that the plain, mundane twigs had become a sort of magical circuit. Without the type of scaffold Penny had employed in her artifice—objects around which she webbed her thread like pinecones and hunks of honeycomb—it must have demanded weeks or months of delicate work to weave these twigs into the precise configuration required to imbue it with magical effects.

  Using his goggles, Seymour examined the wreath’s properties:

  The way the goggles worked, Seymour could access detailed information on each of the blessings by simply focusing on their names for a few moments, which would trigger a separate tooltip.

  The first two blessings—Rapid Skill Gain and Satiation—were mostly self-explanatory. He gave their descriptions a quick scan and confirmed that they would increase the rate at which the blessed person received skill-ups and reduce the need to eat or drink, respectively, and both of these enchantments had been applied at the Neophyte Rank, which meant only the most basic, general effect of those spells would be imparted. These both seemed like common enough enchantments. But the third blessing wasn’t something Seymour was familiar with at all, and it appeared to be a rank higher, so he focused on its name in brackets and called up its details:

  It certainly struck Seymour as an unusual effect, but one which he could immediately see the value in to perhaps a family of miners, for whom the ability to sense vibrations in cave walls could mean the difference between escaping with their lives or being buried under a cave-in. Or maybe a family of hunters who specialized in prey which lived just beneath the ground, judging by the ability added to Pallesthesia at adept rank, which would help them to evade detection during the hunt.

  “This is some fascinating folk artificery you’ve got here, Thornton,” Seymour began, turning the wreath over in his hands. The ease with which he bantered despite not feeling truly comfortable discussing magical items surprised and relieved him. “I take it you have a family member skilled in the craft?”

  “My Nana,” Thornton replied, puffing out his chest just a bit. “She’s self-taught.”

  “Impressive.”

  Seymour knew from the brief orientation spiel Eusebio had given him earlier that in all likelihood this simple wreath was the Gring Family’s most valuable possession. That was why they’d sent it along with Thornton – nothing else they owned would have been valuable enough to trade for the catalysts he needed.

  Eusebio had schooled him earlier on exactly this situation, since it wasn’t at all uncommon: a young member of a poor family develops a promising set of Virtue Sigils but doesn’t have the additional good luck to have those same sigils then organically synergize into a class. Evidently that sometimes happened; once a person manifested their third sigil the potential existed for them to gain a class – even without adding a single catalyst.

  Thornton’s family had decided to exchange the wreath for a chance at evolving an adventuring class the more common way, through the application of catalyst. They would trade the enchantments placed upon their home in the hopes that adding Thornton’s first sigil power might help him become an adventurer, which would in turn lift up their entire house.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Seymour felt for him. It must have been a ton of pressure and expectation for any young person to bear. He’d barely scraped through one and a half years of college, himself, and when he finally bailed his mother hadn’t let him hear the end of it.

  But that didn’t mean he could abandon his impartiality. Purchasing required discipline; Eusebio had drilled that much into him earlier in the day. Before he could make Thornton any sort of offer on his wreath, he needed to determine its true value, removed from any emotion.

  And to accomplish that task, he’d simply apply Dragon Dan’s Fair Value Formula:

  Seymour blinked. All of this pricing guide stuff would have been an overwhelming amount of information to remember if he couldn’t simply call up these tables with a thought and have them display on his goggles.

  To determine what the shop would offer for the wreath made by Thornton’s nana, Seymour first added up the values of the trio of effects. That meant two neophyte effects at a value of one-hundred each, and one adept at one-thousand, for a total of one-thousand two-hundred.

  Next, he checked the rarity and origin of the item: uncommon and crafted, respectively. That triggered a two-times multiplier, landing on a final sum of two-thousand four-hundred imperial chits. The less-than-perfect fair condition wasn’t a factor for an item like this, and in general the condition of something only factored into the price if an item was truly exotic or rare or simply collectible for whatever reason.

  As he completed the basic head-math, Seymour shot a glance over at Eusebio, who stood nearby, casually chatting up a pair of elf-maidens dressed in white gowns. Must have been priestesses or something. He seemed to sense Seymour’s gaze and leaned back out of his conversation to deliberately nod in his direction, as if to say, that’s right, trust the formula.

  “It really is a beautiful piece,” Seymour said, holding the wreath up between himself and Thornton so they could both admire the craftsmanship. “It’s obvious your Nana has a gift.”

  “Thank you.”

  “As for what it’s worth in trade; I can give you twenty-four hundred chits.” He exchanged another look with his manager, who nodded once more.

  “The Depot prides itself on paying top chit,” Eusebio called, raising his voice to be heard over the din of shoppers. “Twenty-four hundred will buy you some basic catalyst with room to spare. Congratulations, Mr. Gring, you’re one step closer to becoming an adventurer.”

  “Thank you.” Thornton’s voice sounded genuine, but his brow became deeply creased as he considered the offer.

  “Is something wrong?” Sarevja the sexy ice golem had reappeared. She squeezed tight to Thornton's side, her right elbow hooked in his left. “You look worried.”

  “Now I have to pick out a catalyst, right?” He dragged his hat off his head and the turkey feather slipped from its fitting and fluttered to the floor. Thornton didn’t notice as he compulsively crumpled the hat in his hands. “And it has to be the right one. It has to work.”

  Sarevja nodded sympathetically. “Sounds like a lot of pressure.”

  Just then, Eusebio arrived with his arms loaded with thick binders, the likes of which Seymour used to keep his football cards in when he was a kid. Eusebio looked about to fall over, like he’d taken on too many of the binders at once, and then he dropped them all on the countertop between Seymour and Thornton with a smack!

  When it came to catalysts, it turned out that in addition to essences and cards there were a couple other mysterious objects that could be applied to sigils in order to manifest magical powers. Eusebio had explained that words and pages could accomplish the task, as well.

  The cards always represented a specific figure like The Archer, The Banker, The Drunkard, etc.. These all looked like they belonged in a tarot deck, like the Card of the Gambler Seymour had used to acquire Cash Out.

  And then of course there were the essences. These were all basically just sparks of pure magic, encapsulating subjects that were entirely conceptual like Invention, Time, or even Magic, itself. Dathon had described the Essence of Invention as a metaphysical object, and that description seemed totally fitting to Seymour.

  But in addition to those types of catalysts, what the Heschians called words and pages looked like wrinkled sheets of parchment, sometimes mere scraps, with either poems or encyclopedic entries written on them, respectively. These could be slightly more esoteric than the cards, with poetic names like Words of the Winter Dawn or the dryer, slightly more pragmatic-sounding Page of Metalworking.

  And all of these catalysts—cards, essences, words, and pages—could reportedly only be found as treasure that could be looted in the depths of the dungeon hidden deep within Vol’kara. Apparently it was a big reason for the dungeon being the destination for treasure hunters and adventurers looking for fame and fortune. Collecting catalysts seemed to be a major pastime for most adventurers, in large part because they could always choose to overwrite a catalyst which had previously been applied to one of their sigils, meaning their powersets could be constantly evolving to better suit their desired styles.

  While the essences required a more specialized means of storage, the binders which Eusebio had just dropped on the counter contained thousands upon thousands of words and pages and cards.

  Thornton, Seymour, and Sarevja all looked at him with various expressions of shock and horror. His own quickly turned to confusion.

  “What? Did I do something?”

  Sarevja shook her head.

  “I’m sorry about him,” she said to Thornton. He’d gone pale at the sight of the thick binders and the complicated, life-altering decision which they represented.

  “What’s the matter?” Eusebio repeated. “I just thought I’d lend a hand. This is exciting! Right? Look, these two binders here have all of our words and pages up to twenty-five hundred chits; and this one is full of cards. Sorry, there are fewer cards at that price point.” He winked at Thornton. “Only around three thousand, last time I checked.”

  And at that, Thornton Gring fainted and only Sarevja’s intervention saved him from collapsing to the floor.

  “You’re such a stupid jerk, this is the biggest moment of the boy’s life.” She bared her perfect, iceberg-white teeth at Eusebio while straining to ease Thornton down gently. She cradled his head on the floor. “You knew what you were doing. Quit standing there with that smirk on your stupid jerk-face – get the boy some water!”

  Eusebio just laughed and turned to Seymour. “So, Little – are you ready to have some real fun?”