The Mysterious Merchant (16) : Almadel has visited Destiny City to take part in the Star Festival for several years now, and he has been very vocal about the importance of this ritual of his. Every year, he arrives with treasures, and usually a bit of trouble, too.

This year, he isn’t there at all.

On the same hill where he usually peddles his wares, there are no tables. No barrier. No merchant.

There is only an odd pulse of energy broadcasting its presence fixed to a single sidewalk sign, too ornate to belong in front of the expected coffee or sandwich shop, set on a patch of even ground. The dark wood had a gilded frame and on the sign, elegantly scrawled in fancy, iridescent ink: ‘Now Hiring: Emergency Part Time Assistance. Looking for fearless, battle-savvy exterminators. Please arrive promptly, Friday June 21st, 10 PM. Will reward HANDSOMELY.’


While last year she had stumbled upon Almadel’s hill, this year Mel intentionally made her way over. In truth she’d been hoping to meet the man again, perhaps during another one of Destiny City’s festivals, however over the past year she had no luck so far. Since their last meeting she had made a discovery or two, the biggest one being about herself while the other involved the little “trinket” he’d given her last year. While the former was information she didn’t think he needed to know, it did provide context as to the how and the why of her discovery regarding the latter.

But maybe he didn’t need to know the specifics.

Regardless of whatever information she intended to share, she had to first find the man in order to share it, so she trekked to the hill and, upon arrival, blinked at the empty space before her. He was nowhere to be found, nor were his wares or any semblance of a setup that indicated that maybe he’d just gone off on a bathroom break or something.

Frowning, and a little bit confused, Mel moved closer and looked about the space. Much like certain other spaces in DC during a festival, she got an odd feeling about this one. Was it a pulse of energy? An aura? A signal?

All of the above?

She followed that feeling until she got to a sign, oddly out of place with its rather more intricate design compared to the storefronts behind it. Someone tried to dress it up for a bit of festivities, though, and hung a small basket full of this year's colorful charms on one of its corners. Amused, she grabbed one and slipped it into her pocket before taking another look at the sign. The fancy script seemed to scream ‘Almadel’ to her, though, and she felt a small bit of relief to know that he was still around. Perhaps not physically present, but still. There was some comfort in knowing that he’d been there.

Reading the sign, though, that relief was quickly replaced by concern. Not that they were friends or anything like that, but Mel did value their acquaintanceship for what it was–a pleasant enough, very simple business relationship. She also found him interesting, and had a feeling he might have an answer or two for her about the plenty of things she had yet to learn about the war between Order and Chaos, or perhaps her wonder, or really just about anything in the universe.

Was that expecting too much from him?

Maybe. All the same, she had questions, though if he was as much of a businessman as he projected she had a feeling she’d have to barter for those answers.

Even that were to be the case, he still had to be around in order for her to even try and barter, so.

Quickly, she jotted down the details in her phone and tried not to let her imagination get away from her. Words like “emergency” and “battle-savvy” had her thinking that this would likely be best handled while powered up, which suited her just fine. She had her trusty frying pan as Ekstrom, on top of whatever fighting skills she’d picked up from kickboxing. The “exterminators” part was also curious, and she couldn’t help but wonder if that meant they were dealing with a pest of some kind.

Hopefully not. She wasn’t the biggest fan of bugs. She could handle them just fine for the most part, but growing up she also had her dad and three older brothers to rely on if the bug was too big or too fast or she was too sleepy and didn’t want to bother dealing with it.

Ah, the perks of being the baby girl.

“Guess I’ll just show up and find out,” she said, eyeing the sign one last time before turning to leave. For good measure, she pulled her phone back out and set a number of reminders. There was no chance in hell that she was going to miss it.

678 (gdocs)