The second floor stretched before Reidar. It was basically a maze of gutted department store displays repurposed into makeshift living quarters and other things. Mannequins were lying stacked in corners, their plastic limbs tangled like casualties of war.
For some weird reason, the first thing Reidar thought was to use them as monster bait.
The air smelled strange, a mix of mildew and wood smoke. Reidar slipped past groups of survivors busy with chores.
Those who couldn’t fight did their best cleaning or crafting with whatever spare materials they could find.
Clothes were everywhere; they were in a mall, after all. There was food too, and other stuff, even electronics, though they probably didn’t work anymore because of mana. They even had a car section, but those weren’t running either, something Reidar wanted to investigate as soon as he found the time and someone expert enough to fix whatever was broken or malfunctioning.
Reidar searched around, boots scuffing laminate. A child’s drawing taped to a pillar caught his eye. Stick figures were fighting a scribbled monster; crayon flames engulfed the page. He wanted to tear down that thing, as he had an inkling that the painting was representing the untimely death of the kid’s parents, but refrained to avoid upsetting anyone.
Near the broken escalator, a light pulsed behind a curtain of hanging tarps.
Reidar pushed through and froze.
<HOLY S—>
The Vendor was there, bathed in the light of the torches illuminating the inside of the mall. The thing had two legs and two arms, but... the rest was wrong.
Translucent webbing stretched between its elongated fingers. Blue skin glistened under a membrane-like coating, slick as a deep-sea creature.
There was no nose, just slitted nostrils above a lipless mouth. And those eyes, obsidian orbs, swallowed the light, unblinking, as if the elements, or the light itself, weren’t bothering it at all. A human would have hated it.
The crown of its head sprouted six undulating tentacles, if they could be called such, each with some small holes that Reidar had no idea what they could be used for.
Reidar had seen plenty of ugly things since the world went sideways. Rift-Sprites with their weird porcelain skin, Glimmerfangs covered in crystal teeth, and plant monsters dripping sap like blood.
But this... this unsettled him deeper. Not because it was monstrous in appearance, which Reidar was... almost used to, at that point, but because it strangely wasn’t.
The Vendor didn’t snarl or drool like a monster would. It wasn’t looking at everything and anyone as if it wanted to eat them.
No, instead, it was sitting on a chair, fully clothed, and frankly, those clothes were pretty and of clear high quality.
The difference from the monsters he’d faced so far really got to him. People here were barely holding onto scraps of their old world, but this thing, utterly alien, even bestial for some of its features, carried itself with more order and calm than any human could manage.
No aggression, no hunger... just... friendliness.
The worst part wasn’t the Vendor’s appearance, but the way its presence made humanity feel like the interlopers. As if they were the ones who’d stumbled into its world, ragged and unprepared.
Reidar’s hand twitched toward his wand. The creature tilted its head, tentacles swaying like seagrass in a current.
"I know," the creature said. "I seem to have that effect on all of you. Guess it can’t be helped."
Reidar forced his breathing to calm down. Weeks of Rift-Sprites and crystal wolves hadn’t prepared him for this.
Those were beasts, predictable in their savagery. But this... this was something civilized. The difference grated on his nerves.
"Sorry... It’s just that... I didn’t quite expect... What are you, by the way?"
The creature, Keth’moran, spread his webbed fingers in a pacifying gesture. "Thalassari. Merchant caste, from the dimensional trade consortium. You may call me Senior Salesman Karxun if formality comforts you. Otherwise, just my name, Keth’moran, will be enough." He chuckled.
"Reidar Miller." Reidar relaxed a little but was still nervous. "I’m here to—"
"Purchase goods. Obviously." Keth’moran’s obsidian eyes crinkled at the edges. Another chuckle vibrated deep in his throat, the sound unnervingly human.
"Relax. My profit margins depend on your continued survival, so I’m not going to rob you blind. Regardless, things might get quite pricey."
Reidar stood there doing or saying nothing. The Thalassari vendor looked at him.
"So?"
"Oh!" Reidar forced his shoulders down. "Sorry. The things I’ve fought..." He gestured toward the windows. "It’s just that... I’m not used to this kind of... appearance... You’re not one of the monsters, I presume... but... it kind of makes me nervous..."
The Thalassari tilted his head while his tentacles swayed. "Don’t worry, it’s perfectly understandable. My species finds your lack of chromatophores equally weird, and I’ve been on so many planets that whatever weird thing I see doesn’t bother me anymore."
A snort escaped Reidar before he could stop it. "Fair enough." He scanned the empty space behind the vendor. There were no shelves, no crates, just water-stained linoleum. "How does this work?" the human asked.
"It works based on a proximity protocol." Keth’moran invited him to get closer. "The System handles the rest."
Reidar took cautious steps toward the vendor. A blue-rimmed notification flashed across his vision.
—[TRADE REQUEST RECEIVED]—
Senior Salesman Keth’moran Karxun (Thalassari Merchant) wishes to start trading.
Available Currency: 22,693 Survival Points
Accept/Decline
—[«END»]—
Reidar jabbed Accept. The air shimmered, reality fracturing into grids of light. Countless items materialized in floating holograms—weapons, armor, skill books, and stranger things his eyes couldn’t delve into. Each bore a Survival Point cost.
"Browse at leisure," said Keth’moran. "Though I’d prioritize elemental resistance gear given your..." A tentacle flicked toward Reidar’s singed cloak. "Combustible recent history."
"You know about that?"
"All the vendors know about the First Killer, and what you did later only added to your fame. It doesn’t happen every day... No, every century, that a single person is able to get multiple titles in just a day, and on the first day at that."
"You keep in touch with the other... vendors?"
"We all do. It’s necessary to make sure our goods are always stocked and to eventually bring stuff to vendors in other parts of the planet who might need some particular items for the groups of survivors they are assigned."
Reidar thought about that for a second.
"So, you get assigned areas based on the survivors?"ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel⚑fire.net
"On their numbers, to be precise. The minimum number is 100 survivors. Less than that, and we can’t go."