The real currency of the magical economy is favours. Mages are specialists: A typical mage is great at one thing and poor to useless at everything else. If he’s faced with a problem that requires a different type of magic from the kind he can use, he can’t do anything about it—but he probably knows someone who can. And that mage might need someone else’s help a bit further down the line, and so on. Established mages have whole networks of friends and contacts to call on, and let me tell you, mages take those favours seriously. Failing to pay your debts in mage society is bad. We’re talking “sold to Dark mages as a slave” levels of bad. Of course it still happens if the guy in question thinks he can get away with it, but it’s rarely a good idea in the long term and at the higher levels a surprising number of things run on simple promises. They might not be as good as gold, but they can buy you a hell of a lot more. That was the basis on which I’d been working for Talisid last night. He hadn’t offered payment, and I hadn’t asked, but all of it was done on the understanding that the next time I asked him for help he’d give it to me, no questions asked.
Or maybe not. But life would be very boring if it was too predictable.
Anyway, to get back on topic, what this means is that anyone with enough magical items to set up a shop is generally powerful enough that they don’t have any reason to sell said items in the first place. They also tend to be leery (for good reason) of putting large stocks of highly valuable items in an easily accessible place. Or maybe they just think serving customers is beneath them. Who knows.
There’s a certain band of items, though, that you can make a business out of selling—the stuff that’s just useful enough to be worth keeping but not powerful enough that a mage would bother to trade a service for, like old or weakened focuses, or the kind of one-shots that don’t do anything dramatic. Then there are rare components, which don’t do anything useful on their own but are really inconvenient to run short of right in the middle of a ritual. And finally there are things that aren’t magical at all, like crystal balls and tarot decks and herbs. They’re pretty much useless for anything except window dressing, but they’re good camouflage.
Put all of that together and you’ve got the contents of my shop. There’s a roped-off area in the back-right corner next to the door to the hall that contains the genuine magical items, or at least the weaker ones. Two shelf stands hold a collection of nonprecious and semiprecious stones, as well as figurines and materials, and a rack holds herbs, powders, and various types of incense that together make the whole shop smell vaguely like a herbalist’s. Staffs, rods, and blades of various types take up another corner, and you can get a good view out onto the street through a wide window, which was currently streaked with water from the steadily falling rain.
And lastly, you get the customers.
My clientele used to be strictly small fry. A tiny fraction who knew what they were doing, a slightly larger fraction who sort of knew what they were doing, and a whole lot whose knowledge of magic would fit on a Post-it note. After the business five months ago, things changed. My shop suddenly got popular, and adepts, apprentices, and even mages started coming along.
Trouble is, along with the influx of knowledgeable people, I’ve also picked up a whole lot of idiots. On a Saturday like today, I’m lucky if one customer in five knows enough to be trusted. The rest …
…well.
“Hi, I’m looking for some gaff coins?”
“You want the Magic Box, other side of Camden. Here’s one of their cards.”
“Oh. Which tricks have you got?”
“None of them. You’ve got the wrong shop.”
“So what do you sell?”
“…”
“Wait, this is supposed to be a real magic shop?”
“…”
“Oh my God, you’re serious! Ha-ha-ha!”
“…”
“Ha-ha … oh man, this is awesome. Okay, okay, I’m going.”
“Um …” (giggling)
“Can I help you?”
“We’re looking for—” (more giggling)
“…”
“Have you got, um …”
“Take your time.”
“…a wand?” (chorus of giggling from all three)
“No. And my name’s not Harry and I didn’t go to Hogwarts.”
(yet more giggling)
“Um … hee hee … what about …”
“…”
“Do you know how to find any vampires? Like, the really hot ones?”
“I want a refund for this spell.”
“Which spell?”
“This one.”
“Hmm … ‘A Spell to Make You Win the Lottery.’ I’m going to go out on a limb and say it didn’t work.”
“I want my money back.”
“Your money, right. How much did you pay?”
“Fourteen ninety-nine.”
“Uh-huh. How much would you expect to get from a lottery win?”
“At least a million.”
“…”
“…”
“And you don’t see a problem with this.”
“What?”
“Okay. The first problem is that you’ve got a product here with a sale value of fifteen pounds—”
“Fourteen ninety-nine.”
“Fourteen ninety-nine, sorry, which is supposed to win you over a million. Now, stop and think how that would work.”
“I don’t care. I want a refund.”
“Right. The second problem would be I never sold you this spell.”
“I bought it from this shop.”
“That would be quite impressive, given that I don’t sell spells.”
“I know my rights. If you don’t give me a refund I’ll sue you.”
“If your understanding of the legal system is on par with your grasp of economics, I don’t think I’ve got much to worry about.”
“Oh, is that right? I’m going to call the police! I can get this shop closed down, I think you’ll find!”
(stomp stomp stomp SLAM)
“…”
“Um, hello? Excuse me?”
“Yes?”
“Uh, could I get one of those spells to win the lot-tery?”
“Hi!”
“You again?”
“Yeah, I decided I didn’t want to go all the way across Camden. So what tricks do you sell?”
“We don’t sell tricks.”
“Okay, okay. So what ‘magic’ do you sell?”
“Could you not make a hand gesture in the air when you do that?”
“Sure. Whatcha got?”
“Just what you see.”
“Okay, okay.”
“Um, hi.”
“Hey. What do you need?”
“I heard you can … uh … find out things?”
“Who told you that?”
“Uh … it was … can you find out something for me?”
“Not likely.”
“But I need to know! It’s really important!”
“Fine. What is it?”
“I … I need to know if my girlfriend’s cheating on me.”
“Probably.”
“What! Why?”
“Because if you’re asking that question, the answer’s probably yes.”
“So is there any way to use magic to talk with people who’ve … passed on?”
“Passed on?”
“I mean, died.”
“No.”
“But all those psychics say—”
“Psychics make their living telling people what they want to hear. Magic can’t let you talk to someone once they’re gone, and as far as I know neither can anything else.”
“So … there’s no way they can send a message?”
“No.”
“Nothing at all? Once someone’s dead, that’s it?”
“Yes.”
“And they couldn’t tell anyone how they died, right?”