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« on: April 04, 2020, 03:31:57 am »
Everything seems peaceful for a few moments. Or, well, as peaceful as anything might get in a bustling market. If not for two things.
Firstly, one of the stalls in the middle of the market specialises in charmed and cursed items for adventurers. Charmed items are, of course, used for exactly what you assume they might be, but cursed items have a surprising amount of uses; pawning them off onto annoying rivals, using odd combinations of curses and charms to amplify the power of both or even using them as trash to set off traps in dungeons. Needless to say, there was an entire cottage industry off selling cursed or charmed items secondhand; at least, the ones that weren't clingier than a blob to a particularly delicious piece of cake.
Secondly, there are three types of adventurer foolhardy enough to venture in dungeons to find charmed or cursed items to begin with instead of having some sort of artificer make them; while not cheap, the process is why so many charmed items can be found in dungeons to begin with. Firstly, the desperately poor. Secondly, the type that actually enjoys adventuring. Thirdly, and most importantly, kleptomaniacs.
"Dude. Don't touch that."
"Don't touch what?"
"We didn't pay for that. Put it back."
"I don't know what you're talking about-"
"I said put it back!"
"L-let go! It's not like they'll miss it!"
"P-put it back!"
"NO!"
Suddenly, two jars go flying out of the crowd. One jar lands squarely in the middle of the crowd, the shrapnel turning itself into bees as the crowd starts screaming, running about and pushing people away to get away from the bees. The Bee-Jar Curse, as it was well-known, was a favored anti-adventurer defense by irritated homeowners in the late 2900s to protect their homes from being raided by drunk adventurers for food and money; the rationale was that, if one knew that the jars were going to turn into bees when broken, they'd be less likely to raid them, while not understanding what kind of mortal peril an adventurer is generally willing to confront for their next paycheck.
The second one smacks Shoes directly in the face, covering the entire horse's form in smoke, the force of the explosion pushing people back from Shoes. A distinct smell of gunpowder, ale, pinecones and magic fills the air.
The sheer chaos manages to split 42-1 and Momo off from the rest of the group as the tide of the crowd sweeps them away like currents at the shore.
In Momo's case, despite the crowd shoving him about, the man has enough muscle on him to generally manage to keep upright as he ends up being shoved into an alleyway.....only to feel a rope wrap around his ankle, yanking him upright and upside down rather suddenly.
The whip-wielding Revivian, upside down, hears a voice behind him.
"....I-I did it! I did it!"
In 42-1's case, being jostled around by the panicking crowd avoiding the bees, he's pushed closer to the Adventurer's Guild. Being that the crowd is rather dense, he can barely see half an inch in front of him past the next person, and combined with the pushing and pulling, ends up taking a tumble and tripping over someone.
And 42-1 lands right on top of them.
"Ah!"