Kapitel 21: Chapter Twenty One - I visit Julip town

The cook's son, Mino led them from the foodhall down a path that connected with several others some way down the forested mountainside. Them. For Jin Li had decided to join this journey.

After returning home and losing half his fair to the man, he had begun to refine a few healing pills in order to have something of value to trade with in town. Having become bored of cultivating, Jin Li took it upon himself to interrupt Leon's concentration, which resulted in another miniature explosion within the cauldron's depths and the loss of the herbs there in.

"D-do you have to do such things!" Leon had yelled.

"Yes," Jin Li had admitted. "This Lord is still waiting for you to take one to a town or city, but you are playing around with pill making instead." Leon had scowled at him, which simply amused the man. This little mouse dares to act brave in front of his almighty self! He had watched as Leon cleaned out his cauldron.

"N-not p-playing," Leon had muttered. "N-need Pills for tr-trade."

"Trade?" Jin Li's eye's had narrowed.

"Being t-t-t.. guided to t-town tomorrow," Leon had admitted.

"This is good news! When do we leave?"

Mino turned out to be quite the chatterbox, but this was not necessarily a bad thing, for quite a lot of interesting information spilled from his lips. It was just that Jin Li, who Leon had pretended was a student from the outer school for warriors and an old friend, was becoming increasingly irritable.

"Normally, students go t' Julip town on griffins, with teachers," he rambled on as he guided the oxen drawn wagon along the track. They had boarded it on the outskirts of the outer school, where the land became flatter and more open. Although they were still some way above sea level, the forest trees had been left behind for grassy hills, the track snaking around the greater inclines. "But the griffins take 'em to the heart of town. They ne'er get t'see the best shops n folk."

"What do you mean?" Leon asked, despite the jolting of his bones on this rough ride, he was enjoying the change of landscape immensely.

"Like, the town is a coin," Mino said. "Wha' most folk see is the bit that is for them fancy folk an' top cul-tea-vators." Leon's lips twitched as he heard Mino's version of the word. "So they see pretty store fronts an' shops and think like the wares are all top notch too, right?" Leon nodded, feeling he understood what Mino was trying to say. In new town developments in his old world, the shops would look clean and spacious and tended to attract crowds of shoppers away from older or more run down areas. Chain stores tended to fill these areas. However that just meant there were unseen treasures, smaller, more unique shops hidden away from view and waiting to be discovered. Mino claimed he would show them around an area just like this.

The houses they first came to were made of a mix of wood and stone and were huddled together. A maze of pathways both wide and narrow wove around the clustered buildings. The roads were made of loose and chipped stone, much like the track they rode along for the past few hours and everywhere was slightly stained with soot. Children played happily in the street without care, all wearing hard-wearing hemp cloth sewn into plain dresses and trousers. Adults chatted as they kept one eye on them and another on travellers.

Mino first took them to an apothecary. The shops were scattered in amongst the houses, thus were unlikely to be found if you did not already know they were there. Leon asked why there first; he had planned to trade the pills directly for the items he wanted.

"Ah, Mr Clawse says all pills need come through 'im," Mino advised him. "Summin' 'bout side effects n takin' the wrong amounts?"

"Oh," Leon replied. That made sense. If a person was to take too many of a pill in to short a time, they could do serious damage to themselves. The apothecary was probably concerned about this. Mino led them into the shop to trade.