Blissfully oblivious to the storm his visit to the Dreamscape was causing back in the real world, Sunny opened his eyes on the Altar Island of the Sanctuary.
Because of how much time he had spent fruitlessly searching for worthy opponents on the Colosseum, he arrived on the Chained Isles much later than he usually would. The sunset was still a few hours away, and the sky was clear and bright. He was welcomed by the familiar murmur of flowing water, the rustling of leaves, and a cool breeze.
Sunny flinched slightly and threw a resentful glance at the deep pool of clean water surrounding the small piece of land on which the altar and the ancient tree stood.
During his first visit to the Sanctuary, Saint Tyris herself had brought him here from the real world. Both of them had appeared near the altar… there had been a small problem, though. Sunny had materialized a bit further than people usually did, and as the result, plunged straight into the pool instead of landing on solid ground.
Not a big setback. However, in a moment of disorientation, he almost had a heart attack. Falling into water reminded him of his first minutes on the Forgotten Shore just too much. For a second, he had thought that he was back in that godforsaken place…
Ever since that day, Sunny never ended up in the water instead of on the soil of the Altar Island again, but the scare that first time had given him was still fresh in his memory.
'Not today!'
With a triumphant smirk, he left the white altar behind and headed toward the ring of tall menhirs.
Now that it was day, the Sanctuary looked more populated. Groups of Awakened rested on the grass of the park, some discussing upcoming ventures into the wilderness, some simply killing time until they were able to return to the real world.
One couldn't just enter the Gateway immediately after appearing in the Dream Realm. Perhaps because the soul wasn't able to withstand traveling between worlds too often, perhaps because the Spell did not wish for them to return too quickly, or perhaps for some another, unknown reason, Awakened had to wait several hours before being allowed to use a Gateway again.
The exact time they had to wait was slightly different from person to person, but in general, it was somewhere around ten hours. During these hours, those Awakened who did not wish to risk their lives in the wild expanses of the Dream Realm usually went about their business or fulfilled their duties to the Citadel.
A lot of work went into keeping human enclaves in the Dream Realm going. Apart from the obvious demand to keep watch on the walls and fight off attacking Nightmare Creatures, mundane tasks like cleaning and preparing food were also shared among the inhabitants of the Citadels.
In a sense, each Citadel was a settlement — some were small, some large enough to house thousands upon thousands of the Awakened. The population of the three Great Citadels was even higher, with hundreds of thousands of humans visiting them every day.
The Sanctuary was a rather tiny Citadel, in comparison, so each of the Awakened anchored here had to do their share of work to preserve it.
Luckily, Sunny had been assigned a role of an advanced scout — in exchange for his reports about the things he noticed during his expeditions and the movements of Nightmare Creatures across the Isles, he was all but freed from other tasks, only occasionally having to do a small chore or stand watch during the darkest hours of the night.
He was rather happy with that situation.
Sunny greeted a few people he was on somewhat friendly terms with, entered the interior of the Sanctuary, then headed to his room. Now was a good time to finish the things he had not done during his last visit.
Namely, exchange the soul shard he had collected for Memories or credits… oh, and to properly study the ancient coin to draw and describe it for Teacher Julius later.
But the useless coin could wait. Right now, Sunny really wanted to satiate his avarice.
Unlocking the chest that stood at the foot of his bed, he fished out the soul shards off its bottom and unceremoniously threw them into the pack. The strange fruits he had gathered during his last journey also went there, leaving the chest more or less empty.
Noticing the golden coin glinting between a few curios that Sunny had collected in the past two months, he hesitated for a moment, then shrugged, picked it up, and hid it under one of the Puppeteer Shroud's vambraces.
'All set…'
It was time to haggle.
Returning to the park contained within the inner circle of the Sanctuary, Sunny glanced at the Awakened gathered there, walked over to a big, sun-washed rock, and sat down on it. Taking out the soul shards, he placed them on its surface and waited patiently, pretending to be bored and indifferent.
It almost looked as if he was simply enjoying the sun, while the soul shards had somehow appeared near him by accident.
In the beginning, Sunny had to walk around and initiate trades, but by now, the inhabitants of the Sanctuary had already caught wind of the fact that he often had soul shards to trade. Sunny just had to keep his trading operation seemingly humble, at least on the surface.
If people knew how many Nightmare Creatures he really killed, things would become a bit difficult. He was known to be from the Forgotten Shore, which gave him a bit of leeway of how deadly of a hunter he could appear to be, but it was still wise to keep the full extent of his competency to himself.
Of all the people on the Chained Island, only Saint Tyris and her trusted aids knew about his SS evaluation. So whatever soul shards Sunny didn't sell to the local Awakened, he sold directly to the White Feather clan, leaving all parties satisfied by the arrangement.
Soon, the first customer approached, looking at the gleaming crystals with burning eyes.
Sunny smiled brightly.
"Oh, hey there. Looking to trade for a shard or two? Well, you're in luck, my friend... Sunny's Brilliant Emporium is currently open for business!"