Chapter 15

The magical trinket markets in the "Moonshine" district of Bloody Coin City were the only thing painted in shy shades of blue, the rest of the city boasted a fiery red, very appropriate to the character of the people who live in the city: All gaiety, savagery, and a lot of death; the merchant population takes refuge in this district, carrying heavy loads from the various human crafting cities, where they are bought with great alacrity by a civilization that lives for the comforts and envy of hoarders; this particular city is the proud possessor of the "New High Elves".

 Apart from the genetic traits of their race, they can be seen in the streets wearing exaggeratedly elegant clothes, fabrics woven on certain dates with animal fibers of extinct or about to become extinct races, they travel without decorum, although they are quite wealthy, almost everything they spend on magic scrolls, They are now a source of pure and fresh magic, they are the cache of the "pure" elven race, they can be seen walking around these bazaars, checking every magical item, from a rustproof spoon to pianos and organs capable of stimulating some emotional waves that only their race had, but they have a passion for elven scrolls. ... only they can activate them (they are activated by pronouncing the runes printed on them), the magic stored in them can be recharged within a magical field a few times before being affected (although they never regain their original power), and there are very cheap but deadly ones.

No wonder merchants and consumers turn away when the high elves arrive, although they have no magical power of their own they always carry weapons, they have been known to kill people for the sheer joy of it, but they are rich, billions of their silver and gold coins circulate on the days the foreign bazaars open in every city on the continent, but here they are more aggressive, They are the power behind the government, the magician Caparoja, who provides magic to this city, is too busy to get some weapons with which to attack the Caparoja of the neighboring city of Wild Eel, nothing strange between magicians who think about how to seize the secrets that the other has, besides they do not have the courage to face those who in the past had enslaved humanity.

 A seller of items rescued from the dark woods hangs a sign where he offers an authentic map of mana, long gone, these scrolls were made with cloth from some of the greatest wizards of all time, is a map tattooed on human skin with a few drops of blood treated in such a way that never dry, In the presence of a considerable amount of magic a portion of the blood is oriented on the map leaving a bruise and a dark spot in the direction of the source, the drawback is that modern maps made with different skins of many beings mysteriously disappeared in the city at the hands of this race rigorous and cruel, these maps work but require magic to activate and deactivate, they can be used in any city, They can be used in any city, but they all point to the dark woods, they cannot be erased once you get there, the following points are impossible to reach, since the map is drawn with each summoning, it costs a lot to get anywhere, but the old ones, made with the skins of the dead, these maps are magical in themselves, they require no more than their instructions to be read in their language, Since morning a pair of spies watch the premises and frighten the adventurers who approach, when everyone begins to raise their business they arrive, red suits them well in their garb, pale skins adorned with exquisite ornaments of fine jewelry, ample cloaks floating over their bodies hide perhaps the most important reason why they rule in Bloody Coin.

The seller receives them with some resentment, it is known that these new elves do not support contact with lower beings, as a dwarf he felt helpless to see the holstered weapons, not to mention the rumors of what happened to those sellers who sold something false to the "high elves", They demand the item with a gesture, he hands it to them, protected by a finely carved silver box, they take out the map, and when it is verified that it does not contain magic, the box is thrown to the ground, where many other merchants fight for such an excellent piece of goldsmithing, which they could sell for no less than 500 p. The card is unfolded and examined, they take out a "tahumanometer", a device invented by a Capablanca without malice, who was commissioned to measure the magical field of objects, the amount that came out was slightly low, that tore a grunt from their mouths, suspicion tinged their words when they asked about the origin of this piece.

 -When I was digging in the obsidian mountains- said the dwarf-I made the mistake of exhausting the magic of my lamp in the middle of my search, fearing attacks from the hobgoblins or giant insects that abound there, I ran forward like mad, suddenly I saw a small light at the end of the highest tunnel, there protected by this silver box - with some sadness the dwarf observed how some troll slaves belonging to one of the many richest merchants used to keep the objects of dispute - I found the map, I unfolded it, hoping that the scarce light of the cave would allow me to find my way - the elves were beginning to look bored and he hurried to finish the story - the thing is, I opened it and a red dot was marked with a very faint line in one direction, I followed it and arrived at the entrance of the mine, where an apprentice Capablanca was recharging the batteries of the lanterns, When I arrived I checked the map again and it was there where I saw that the lines of the cave had been erased and now showed the small mining town where I live - the dwarf stopped when he saw the expressions of the elves, hard eyes, shining with greed, despite being a seller from long ago he was prudent placing a reasonable price of 10 gold- Are you interested? 

The elves turned the map over several times, rolled it up, and tucked it into the folds of their leader's cloak.

-Dwarf," they said, "the price you are asking is an affront to the elves, and since it seems authentic, we have decided to pay you, do you mind, merchant? 

-I only find it surprising that you honorable elves could tolerate a request from this humble merchant?

The look of disgust was still at a tolerable level, so I took advantage of this opportunity from the heavens.

-I ask for your intervention, the human Ferwood always sells goods without being sure of their quality, I have several customers who went with him only to discover that the security they thought they had bought failed them and in many cases brought them death. 

 The merchants turned away in horror from the vendor in question, he was already desperately searching his pockets for something, when the elf pulled out one of the most worn looking scrolls, the merchant was holding a small piece of paper and a small box, they both shouted, the elf's "burn" was mistaken for the human's "reproduce", Immediately the box obeys the command and repeats the only word it has stored which activates the human's scroll "protecto", everyone looks on in amazement, the flame emitted by the elf's scroll hits a shield of light, the look on the merchants' faces is one of alarm, they knew the elves used weak spells to kill anyone they were not interested in and now one who was going to die was resisting them! 

 The look of the elves is one of hatred, not because he is not dead, it was because they had recorded the elven voice of one of them, a human who committed the worst of sins, he wanted to be more than what he was. Shouting a string of words in Elvish, one of the apprentices took out a sealed parchment, breaking the protection and summoning what was written there, "divine wrath" the sky darkened as the merchant changed his smile to a grimace similar to that of a fish, the ray of light flooded the square, as it faded leaving only a speck of dust where a merchant once stood.

The high elf's head frowns, he snatches the parchment from his assistant's hand, the paper, after downloading a spell of this potential, gradually loses the brightness that flooded it during the execution, the fabric wrinkles and darkens at the edges, "damn," the high elf thinks, "it was a gift when he joined the guild, but I shouldn't have used it in this case, it was very expensive and now it's damaged, even if it's charged we won't be able to use 100% of its power, it should have come alone, the spell I used would have finished this mediocre shield in less than a minute, so everyone could see the one who deserved the punishment of an elf burn, Anyway," he turned to the dwarf, who felt like a person who happily went into a dragon's lair, stole an egg and boiled it at the entrance, discovered the mother and the fact that she was not happy about what he had done, he took a step back, but the elf's attention was not there, "Merchants," he said to the countless eyes that watched everything from the corners of their premises, "this dwarf asked for justice and we gave it to him, the human's belongings and his goods belong to him as payment for the frauds and grievances against his person, if we find out that something similar happens in the future, you will not sell here again, remember: You may have magic or gadgets, but we are more powerful and no trick will save you from our wrath," he turns around and walks away with a firm step, the merchants can only look at the dwarf with hatred, in that moment he knew his luck had run out, he took all the things (including the human's), The merchants were spiteful people and had the money that few societies had, their revenge went unnoticed by the elves, outside their society nothing mattered to them.