Zaneck eye twitched as he heard some squealing outside. Slowly, he opened them and saw that a bunch of girls had gathered around in front of his store. Darned useless squabble, he thought as he pulled his hood lower and returned to his short rest but suddenly, the bell on the door rang as someone entered. Zaneck saw that it was one of the customers he had yesterday, one of the richest to boot. He stood up and welcomed him, “Welcome back, sir. How fares the swords?”
“Ah yes, very good. The blade is as sharp as people claim they are,” he commented. “I have returned for a certain problem with one of them however.”
Zaneck’s eyes twitched at ‘problem’, there were rarely any complaints about his merchandise and most of them were because of the customer’s stupidity. “What seems to be the problem, sir?”
“Well, yesterday while we were sparring with them one of them broke. I would like a replacement for it, if you may,” the customer placed the sword with a sheathe on the counter. Zaneck pulled the sword from its sheathe, indeed it was broken and he felt it was lighter than the sword he sold the man, “Sir, I sincerely hope you are not trying to get a free sword out of me. This is completely the wrong sword, its balance is wrong and the blade is rusted on one side. All of my merchandise is newly made before sale,” Zaneck called him out on this with certainty.
“W-Why t-that sir, is such non-sense! T-This is certainly the same s-s-sword t-t-t-that I purchased yesterday,” the man stuttered as he tried to save his argument. “Look! It even has the same hilt and sheathe!”
Zaneck smiled and began playing with him as well and curled his lips into a grin, “Are you sure about that? My memory may be deteriorating, but I still remember everything I have sold for the past five days and believe me, there were many sales. All the swords I sold were in black sheathes, this one is silver.” The man backed off slowly step by step until he was at the door, then making a break for it. Zaneck sighed, these people just didn’t know to play the swindling game, and according to the rules the man had just lost the game. Business was slow, and he was only entertained for several minutes. He sighed and blew out the flame lighting the room. He took the wooden sign that said ‘CLOSED’ and hung it on the door before locking the store. As usual, he had a black tunic on and a small cloak hovering behind him which concealed his bow. He walked for several minutes before stopping in front of a tavern, the Golden Lizard. This wasn’t his regular choice for a tavern but he was feeling lazy today and pulled the door.
Inside was a loud hellhole, the perfect place for his temper tantrum. He tripped into the person in front of him, a wealthy looking man. “My apologies,” Zaneck apologized. “It’s fine, just make sure it doesn’t happen again,” he said as he sauntered off. Zaneck grinned, he had cut the money pouch hanging off the man’s waist as he ‘fell’. He looked in his hands and saw a pile of gold, “I’ll put this to better use.” He let out a small chuckle and walked into the tavern.