“Hey, do you know if these coins are made out of gold? Or are they just gold plated?” I’m about to go into an office supply store when I notice a pony sitting on a bench that hasn’t noticed me yet. Since everyone else slowly drifts away when I try to approach them I decide to ask this unfortunate soul the question I forgot to ask the guards when I was leaving the castle.

“Coins? You mean bits?” He starts to answer me but when he turns to look at me he gets properly startled, “By Celestia’s mane, what the buck are you?” He jumped so hard he fell off the bench, haha.

I resist the urge to laugh at the poor stallion and give him a deadpan stare, “Elf. Before you run off screaming can I please get the answer to my original question? It’d be immensely helpful and all you ponies keep avoiding me.”

The guy slowly gets up and stammers out, “Y-yes they are solid gold.” Wow he actually answered me, and there he goes. For some reason I’m not offended, but I really didn’t expect an answer. This is good for me though as now I should be able to easily fulfill the conditions for the ritual I want to do before I go to sleep tonight.

I keep walking in my original direction towards a store with a quill on it’s sign, apparently they should sell charcoal. The 2 guards at the castle entrance mentioned looking for a quill store because charcoal is mostly only used for rubbings. They didn’t know where to buy incense though, so I’ll ask this shopkeeper and with any luck, they’ll know.

There’s a bell chime when I walk through the door and I hear someone yell from the other side of the store, “Welcome to Drill’s Quills! Be right with you!”

I start making my way towards the back where I believe the mare’s voice is coming from and reply as I walk, “Ah don’t worry about it, I’m coming to you.” I’m in a small hurry so I’m just going to approach her and save myself a minute or two. At least that was the plan, but right after I finish talking the universe decided it was time for me to make a roll.

Perception Check
19, +5. 24.

Out of the corner of my eye all the way at the end of the aisle I see some charcoal. “Oh, never mind I actually just found what I was looking for!”

After a brief period of silence the mare replies, “Wonderful! Just ring the bell at the front when you’re ready to check out.”

“Will do.” I start making my way down the aisle when I notice something, there’s no prices on any of the products in this store. That’s…. Weird? Is that normal around here? Wait, the castle is in this city and I bet if they have royalty they have nobles as well! They must leave the products unmarked so they can upcharge rich schmucks that come in here. I wonder….
Manual Insight Check
12, +5. 17.

I’m pretty sure I should only have to pay 3 “bits” for this charcoal. Let’s go see if my price gouging theory is correct.

I ring the little bell on the counter and quickly an orange unicorn mare comes around the corner, she’s got silver hair like me! Nice to put a face to the voice. “Heya! You find everything okay? Name’s Drill Bit by the way.” I’m surprised she is showing zero reaction to my alien form. This feels nice.

“Oh yeah found it pretty much instantly, just gettin the charcoal today. I didn’t happen to see any price markers on your shelves, so what’s the damage?”

“Damage? No, there's no damage. Our prices are just always shifting so much cause the importing is inconsistent so we try to match the price for our supply. We figured no point in putting up price tags if we just gotta change them every week.” Ah, guess that slang doesn’t work here.

“No sorry I meant what’s the damage to my bank account, haha. I’m uhh not from around here so I’m unfamiliar with prices.”

She squints with one eye and moves her mouth to one side of her face while looking me up and down a couple times before finally speaking, “That’ll be 12 bits!”

Oh this bitch. She must think I’m some foreign diplomat using a government funded- wait I am government funded. No, that’s besides the point! It’s the principle of the matter! She didn’t even try to hide that she was eyeing up my net worth from face value. “That seems a bit high, I was thinking more like 3.”

Persuasion Check
9, +1. 10.

She looks a bit shocked but I’m not sure if it’s because I accurately guessed the price or because she’s genuinely offended and I just gave her a huge low ball. She responds quickly though, “Alright, alright I’ll admit 12 was a bit high, but I’m barely making any profit at 3. My real price is 5.”

Ah, my insight check must’ve given me the price for her to buy them. That or my persuasion roll was too low for her to give me the real price. Either way, I’m happy with 5. I drop the coins on the counter and as I’m dropping the charcoal into my bag I ask her, “By the way, would you happen to know where I can get some incense and herbs?”

“You a shaman or something? If you take a right out of here and go down to the fountain and make a left you should see the natural remedies store. It’ll have a pestle and mortar on the sign. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you’ve been enjoying Equestria so far!” She seems nice. I’ll probably make this place my regular shop for ink when I start scribing spell scrolls. Oh shit wait I need magical ink for that.

I quickly speak up before she gets out of my line of sight, “Oh wait, miss, do you happen to have magical ink? Perhaps imbued with mana or one that you ponies use specifically for writing runes?”

“Yes sir, but we keep that in the back. If 12 bit charcoal had you worried you don’t wanna know how much the ink is.” My face twists up in annoyance. I guess that’s to be expected. I'm pretty sure even in the game the ink for spell scrolls was expensive as all hell.

My trip to the natural remedy shop is unfortunately not quite as smooth as the quill store. I had to calm down the clerk and convince them that I’m a guest of the princess. Ended up showing him the card Celestia gave me for when I come back to the castle later. After that though it was very smooth. I got a couple of incense and some herbs for 9 bits. Now I’m just about back at the castle, and I didn’t see any places that sell braziers. Hopefully there’s one sitting around here in the castle, I’ll probably ask the guards.

I walk up to the entry gate for the castle and ask the unicorn guard to my left, “Hey do you know if there’s any brass braziers sitting around the castle grounds?”

“There is but why are you asking, day court has been closed for a few hours now so public access is restricted until tomorrow morning. Please return then.” Oh it’s a mare this time, guess the shift changed while I was out?

I reach into the bit bag and pull out the access card Celestia gave me, it’s a small black rectangle with a crescent moon raised up 3D style in the middle with a few golden stars. On the back it has my name in pretty cursive silver letters. “Sorry I should’ve shown you this first, but I didn't realize the shift had changed since I left. Figured if you were the same guard that I talked to when I was leaving a few hours ago I’d just be let in hassle free.”

The unicorn mare grabs the card out of my grasp with her telekinesis and squints at it suspiciously. She flips it over and looks over it quickly before floating it back to me. “What’s this supposed to be? You think I’ll let you in cause of this? I’ve never seen this in my 8 years of experience.”

The normal pony next to her gives her a nudge with his forehoof and points at the card, “Weren’t you listening at the shift brief? Her Majesty’s sister has returned and with her return the night guard is going to be stood up again for the first time in 1000 years. They showed us the Badges for the lunar guards and it looks just like that one! Anyways sorry about that sir.” He steps to the side and opens the gate.
I just offer a wave of my hand and reply with, “Don’t worry about it, if it’s brand new then it’s an understandable mistake. But, back to my original question! Is there a brass brazier somewhere on the castle grounds? I swear I saw one earlier when Shining Armor was testing me, but I don’t remember where I saw it.”

The mare decides to rejoin the conversation, she gives a small cough in embarrassment, “Apologies sir, yes the training ground is littered with the braziers, we use them for lighting and to mark off the different areas. Just go through the front door and take a left, go way way down and you’ll see an exit door on the right that should put you out near the barracks and training ground.”

The gate closes behind me after I walk through and I call out, “Thanks for the help! Stay safe, both of you.”

Let’s go perform my first ritual.

After about an hour I’ve finally got the summoning circle drawn on the ground using the charcoal. The leftover charcoal is sitting in the brazier with the herbs, 3 incense are lit on different areas of the circle. I sit down and hold my palms out towards the brazier and begin to chant. It sounds like nonsense, definitely not English, but I think I get the jist of it. After 10 minutes of chanting the incense reach the end of their sticks and go out, the fire also magically extinguishes.

I look around a bit in confusion wondering if my autopilot muscle memory magic thing messed up the ritual. I don’t have to wonder for too long though as a bat flies out of the brazier and begins to fly in circles around my head. I can’t help but crack a huge smile in excitement as I hold out my hand and extend my index finger for the bat to hang on to.

It does 1 more lap around my head before hanging upside down on my finger while staring at me. Oh no I have to name it, I’m terrible at naming things. Dracula? No, too lame. Alucard? That’s a little better but still no.

My struggle is interrupted when I hear a deep voice in my head, “Master, please just stop. I already have a name, it’s Callisid.” Oh right I can communicate telepathically with the familiar.

“Nice to meet you Callisid! I’m Ignis Ferrum and I’ll be honest I’m surprised this worked. As far as I can tell this plane isn’t connected to the standard planes of Faerun.”

I’m not sure how he pulled it off but somehow a bat manages to look confused he responds, “If you had tried summoning a new familiar that would likely be the case, but master I’ve been your familiar for well over 50 years. Has something happened to your mind Ignis?”

……Huh?

Author's Note

Couldn't think of a good title, so decided to just make a joke that references every D&D group I've ever been part of. Without fail almost every time we go shopping it somehow ends up taking the entire 4-6 hour session to do the shopping. I don't know how we always manage to get so sidetracked just shopping around.

The bombshell drops this chapter! This has strong implications for the true origin of Ignis' physical body.

I'm not sure where I found the motivation write another chapter the day after the last one but hey I'm not gunna complain about it. This one is a little on the shorter side, so I'll try and make sure I still release a chapter within 7-8 days of this one. :P

Thanks for reading!