Yancy guided Larvesta over and initiated the interaction.
This time, Xatu raised its head, eyes beneath the hood calm and serene. It didn't mention the purple stone from their last encounter. It acted as if they'd never met before.
Yancy fished out a rusty scrap of metal—the most worthless item in her pack—and selected it for appraisal.
Xatu extended its wing with a beckoning gesture. The metal piece floated up before it. After studying it for a moment, a low, raspy voice spoke:
[Initial appraisal: 10 silver coins.]
Yancy's eyebrows shot up. That wasn't cheap for a beginner. A loaf of bread only cost 5 silver.
Still, she paid up. Ten silver coins vanished. Xatu swept its wing over the scrap, and a faint light flickered.
[Obtained 'Worn Steel Armor Piece' (C-rank item)]
[Effect: When equipped by a Steel-type Pokémon, increases physical defense and special defense (minor boost).]
[Special Effect: When equipped by a Steel/Fire dual-type Pokémon, additionally increases Fire-type move power (minor boost).]
Yancy stared at the appraisal results, stunned.
Steel-type Pokémon? Steel and Fire dual-type? What the hell was any of this?
Her current team—Larvesta, Squirtle, and the Dragonair chilling at home—none of them were even remotely Steel-type. Let alone Steel/Fire. She'd never even heard of that combination!
So basically this thing was just useless junk now? She'd blown 10 silver for nothing!
[Hahaha got scammed on the appraisal!]
[Steel + Fire? Does that even exist?]
[Streamer just threw away 10 silver!]
[The RNG gods are cruel!]
The chat erupted.
Yancy couldn't help feeling disappointed. Xatu seemed to read her mood. Its low voice spoke again:
"If the appraised items don't suit your needs, visit the blacksmith's forge to the left of the guild entrance. You can smelt and break down items to recover materials, or upgrade and enhance equipment. You could also try selling at the marketplace."
Blacksmith's forge? Upgrades? Selling?
Yancy perked up immediately. After thanking Xatu, she headed straight for the guild's main entrance with Squirtle in tow.
The moment they stepped outside, rhythmic, heavy hammering echoed from the left.
A workshop even larger than the guild's main hall came into view. Flames roared at its entrance and waves of heat washed over them.
A massive Charizard covered in crimson scales stood with its back to them. It wielded an enormous forging hammer nearly as tall as its body, bringing it down hard onto red-hot metal on an anvil.
Each strike sent sparks flying and produced thunderous clangs.
Its thick tail slammed against the ground for balance. Powerful back muscles rippled in the firelight, radiating raw strength and the focused intensity of a master craftsman.
The air was thick with the smell of iron and smoke.
[Holy shit! A blacksmith Charizard!]
[Look at those muscles! That power! Badass!]
[The detail on this model... Marry me!!]
Charizard seemed to finish this round of forging. It gripped the glowing metal with tongs and plunged it into a massive water barrel beside it.
A geyser of white steam exploded upward.
Only then did it turn around, fixing sharp golden eyes on Larvesta and Squirtle at the entrance. It exhaled two bursts of scorching, spark-flecked breath through its nostrils. Its voice was deep and gravelly, with a metallic rasp:
"What can I do for you, little ones? Shopping for gear or need repairs?"
Yancy quickly had Larvesta display the 'Worn Steel Armor Piece' she'd just appraised.
Charizard extended one claw—scarred and covered in thick scales—and pinched the small piece of metal. It brought the piece close to examine, then flicked it with one finger, producing a dull ting.
It snorted:
"Just a little C-rank trinket. The steel's decent quality, but it's ancient. The energy's almost drained."
It casually tossed the piece back to Yancy:
"What do you want to do with it? Smelt it down? That's a 20 silver processing fee. You'll get some 'Hardened Steel' and trace amounts of 'Residual Fire Embers'. Want to upgrade it? One gold base fee, plus you'll need one 'Hardened Steel' and one 'Scorching Core' as materials. If you're lucky, it might upgrade to B-rank."
It paused, then added:
"I don't sell materials here. You'll have to find or buy them yourself."
Yancy glanced at her measly 15 silver remaining and her empty materials inventory. She understood immediately.
The blacksmith's forge was way beyond her budget right now.
She couldn't afford either smelting or upgrading!
[Welp! Sorry for bothering you!]
[Streamer: Excuse me, I'm too poor for this!]
[One gold coin... The streamer's entire net worth isn't even close to one gold, right?]
[Those materials all sound super high-level.]
She glumly had Larvesta tuck the metal piece away and thanked Charizard. With no money for upgrades, her only option was the market. Maybe she could sell this thing there.
Yancy clicked the interaction button.
"Squirtle, which way to the market?"
Squirtle pointed down a relatively busy path to the right of the guild entrance:
"That way... Just follow it... You'll see the stalls..."
They headed down the path. Soon enough, the sound of vendors hawking their wares reached their ears. Simple stalls lined both sides of the road with various Pokémon manning them or haggling with customers.
Berry vendors and herb sellers lined the path alongside stalls selling weird minerals and secondhand equipment.
Yancy walked along scanning the stalls, looking for one that bought items.
Just as she neared what looked like the market's center, one small stall by the roadside unexpectedly caught her eye.
The stall was incredibly unassuming. It didn't even have a proper cloth covering—just items casually placed on a smoothed stone slab.
The vendor was a cloaked Pokémon, entirely unidentifiable. At the moment it seemed to be lounging lazily, apparently not too concerned about making sales.
There wasn't much on display. A few colorful stones, some herbs.
But one item made Yancy's Larvesta stop in its tracks.
It was a clear glass bottle sealed with a wooden cork.
Inside, a fist-sized flame burned quietly!
The flame was pure, brilliant orange-red, without a trace of smoke. It flickered steadily, casting a warm but not blinding glow. It looked out of place with its surroundings—like a piece of captured sunlight sealed in glass.
Next to the bottle sat a crude wooden sign with four crooked characters carved into it: Mysterious Flame.
Yancy stared.
That fire definitely wasn't ordinary!
But this description, this sign... Why did it give off such a sketchy vibe?
She immediately guided Larvesta toward the inconspicuous stall for a closer look at the bottled flame.
She also noticed the vendor—or rather, the dark gray cloak draped over the stone behind the stall—was even weirder.
The cloak was deep gray with sleeves and hem hanging limp and motionless. It looked empty inside.
Chat exploded with question marks:
[Where's the vendor?? Nobody there?]
[That model's creepy as hell, like a ghost stall! Ghost-type Pokémon maybe?]
[What kind of nightmare fuel is this game cooking up now?]
Yancy tried speaking, her voice coming through Larvesta:
"Hey, how much for this flame?"
A voice answered, ghostly with a hint of playful mischief:
"Gold coins? Boring. Trade me something interesting instead."
As the words faded, an empty sleeve barely moved. Just the slightest gesture toward the space beside the stall, like brushing away dust.
Chat went wild:
[Doesn't want money, wants things? What kind of vendor is this!]
[Interesting stuff? How do you even judge that! Totally random!]
[Streamer, dump out all your junk!]
Interesting things?
Yancy looked at the thirteen question marks in her inventory, and it clicked. Wasn't this the perfect source of "interesting" stuff?
After all, the unknown was the most interesting thing of all.
Besides, these unappraised items were basically trash to her anyway. What if she got lucky?
She didn't hesitate. She immediately had Larvesta start pulling out those dusty, weird-looking unappraised items from her pack one by one, displaying each before the bizarre cloaked figure.
A gnarled root-thing, a broken bone club, a colorful shell, a cloudy glass marble, a creaky old iron box... and the most unremarkable-looking one—a dusty pebble.
The cloak showed zero reaction to most items. Not even the shadow inside the hood shifted. Yancy just felt an invisible gaze sweep over them before they were dismissed entirely.
She started getting nervous. Did this vendor think all her stuff was worthless?
But when Larvesta's little claws held up that dusty pebble for inspection, the ghostly voice seemed to show a flicker of interest, with slight amusement:
"Oh? This beat-up rock's been hiding something. It's got some age to it. Don't you want to know what treasure's inside?"
Yancy's spirits soared. There was a shot!
She quickly had Larvesta nod.
The voice came lazily:
"Appraisal fee... I'll just take that broken iron box from your bag. Looks pretty amusing."
A broken iron box for one appraisal? And the vendor actively asked for it!
Holy crap, this seemed like guaranteed profit no matter how you sliced it, right?
Afraid the vendor might change their mind, Yancy immediately agreed.
She watched as one empty sleeve of the dark gray cloak elegantly lifted. A faint shimmer swept from it, brushing lightly over the dusty pebble.
Crack... crackle...
Fine splitting sounds rang out as the stone's outer layer began flaking away.
Dust scattered in the faint light, revealing what lay within—a pigeon-egg-sized, warm, translucent golden amber!
Preserved inside the amber was a deep green leaf with perfectly visible veins. It emanated a verdant glow and an ancient life force you could practically feel through the screen.
The system notification popped up instantly:
[Obtained 'Ancient Leaf Vein Amber' (B-rank material)]
[Description: A rare amber sealed with pure ancient life force, an essential core catalyst for reviving specific Grass/Rock-type Fossil Pokémon. Extremely valuable.]
B-rank! Core material!
Fossil Pokémon revival!
Yancy's eyes went wide, her breath catching.
She traded that broken iron box for this?!
Her luck was insane!
The scare from the altar passage earlier and the frustration of appraising useless steel armor melted away instantly.
Chat lost it:
[HOLY SHIT! B-rank! God-tier pull!]
[Iron box for amber—I call BS unless you mail me the amber to verify.]
[Fossil revival? Why does that ring a bell?]
[Game: Surprised? Didn't see that coming?]
The massive windfall sent Yancy's confidence through the roof.
She still had a whole bunch of unappraised question marks in her bag!
Strike while the iron's hot!
She immediately started to pull out all the remaining items to have this mysterious vendor appraise them.
But that ghostly voice seemed to read her mind, cutting her off with a lazy chuckle:
"Don't get greedy, little one. The rest of that stuff... go find an appraisal stall and mess around yourself."
The instant the words finished, the dark gray cloak vanished along with the stone beneath it. Everything on the stall disappeared except that bottle of flame—gone as if erased from existence.
Only the smoothed stone slab and the quietly burning flame remained, proof that it hadn't all been a hallucination.
Yancy's Larvesta stood frozen with one claw still raised, staring blankly at the empty space.
Just... gone like that?
Talk about unpredictable!
She looked at the twelve remaining question marks in her bag, then at the bottle of mysterious flame, then at her pitiful 15 silver coins left...
Whatever. Time to gamble!
۞۞۞۞
~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones