Crack!
BOOM!!
It wasn't even dark yet, but thunder was already rumbling outside. Then the rain came pouring down in sheets.
Seeing the ridiculous downpour, Edgin, Holga, and the others couldn't help feeling relieved that they'd managed to take shelter in a rundown stone room off the side hall of the abandoned castle. It was dilapidated, but at least it kept out the rain.
They paid no attention to the merchants across the way, and the people on the other side left them alone, too. Separated by nearly fifty yards of rain, both groups settled in on their own territory, lit fires, ate, and rested, preparing to spend the night waiting for the rain to stop so they could continue their journey in the morning.
Once the five of them had settled in, eaten, and rested, Simon—the rookie warlock who'd been acting rather mysterious earlier—finally had time to explain to the ever-impatient Edgin, Holga, Doric, and the curious little Annie what a magic merchant was.
It turned out that, just as they'd seen, magic merchants were a tall but extremely frail people, not suited to fighting, especially when it came to physical confrontations.
They could defend themselves if necessary, and were said to be capable of using invisibility and Dimension Door, but most of the time they relied on negotiation or some mysterious trick to escape danger rather than fighting.
Like most merchants, they were a shrewd and selfish people. If they had to venture into a potentially dangerous area, such as most human cities, they would certainly hire a group of adventurers or mercenaries as attendants and bodyguards to help them avoid trouble.
What interested Simon most was that magic merchants could use all kinds of magical items without restriction, including swords, scepters, magic scrolls, and certain items that