The next day, she did as she planned, after a nice meal and having said goodbye to the happy couple, their non-serious teasing fights were practically a comedy routine at this point.
Heading out, she headed to the middle city to find an apothecary and a tamer.
"Okay, there's the apothecary. I'll go there first. Then we got blacksmith, spell shop, magic devices, oh, there it is."
She had found both shops, so she went to buy something to deal with the burn that had formed on both hands.
Entering the apothecary, she was practically punched in the face by the multitude of smells in the shop. Whether it was the herbs that were hanging up or the potions being made, she didn't know, but it was almost enough for her to forget about entering and just let the burn heal on its own.
But no, she persevered and entered.
She had been to an apothecary before, the potion for the meal at the castle being what she brought before, but she hadn't been in this one before, so hadn't expected the attack on her senses.
The purchase of the burn paste went smoothly. The shopkeeper was helpful, but also dealing with a few other customers, so any conversation was over quickly. But, with her purchase in hand, she got to applying it on said hands, wanting to be free of the constant pain she had been experiencing.
From there, she headed to the next shop. The tamers.
It was a rather small shop compared to others in the city. Being a tamer was niche, at least in this kingdom.
Heading inside, she was greeted by a very mixed bag…an assortment of items for tamers, all in very small amounts. There was food for tamed animals or creatures, mainly treats and small portions of expensive food, likely for the nobility who had tamed creatures. Although the dust settling on top of that rack wasn't a good sign for the shop owner's finances.
There was also clothing, tear- and cut-resistant gloves, ones for repelling acid, and even ones for fire, which would actually be good for her if her egg housed some sort of fire creature.
There were also toys and training gear to let your tamed creature have fun and teach it the necessary skills for survival and combat. Granted, tamed creatures didn't have to be combat-oriented, so there was some gear specifically for house training.
There was also something that looked like bedding but was close to the stuff you filled a sack with to create a rustic, temporary pillow.
But the last thing she saw before moving on was some other clothing items…but they were way too small for a person. They couldn't be for your tame animal…could they?
Not wanting to think too hard about people going around dressing up monsters or animals they had tamed, she headed over to the shopkeeper, who looked…asleep.
"Excuse me."
"Huh, wha-. Five more minutes l. I just need to finish up with this lovely lady, " He said in his dream-addled state.
"Ahem!"
"Oh…oh, a customer. Thank you for coming in." He reached over and actually shook her hand. "It's been so long since I had one."
Yeah, his finances can't be doing too well. Annoyingly, she felt the need to ask.
"If you hardly get any customers, why still run the place?"
"Huh…no one's ever asked me that. Well, I don't really need to run it. I've got plenty of coin. This place just keeps me busy."
She looked around for no need.
"Busy?" she said with a raised eyebrow.
"Err, anyway, what can I do for you. Need a new outfit for your tamed pet."
"Never." She strongly said with a stern look on her face. "I…I need some help with possibly getting a tamed creature of some kind. But first…do you have a surface that's very resistant to heat?"
"That's- okay, give me a second." He quickly headed to the back of the store and grabbed a couple of gloves. "These should resist heat well enough," he said as he laid them out on the counter.
"Thank you, so I managed to get a monster egg. It's in my storage ring, and it's, well, gotten very hot."
The perplexed look on the man's face did not give her hope that she would find an answer.
Realising that seeing it might help more, she pulled it out of the ring, letting it rest on the gloves.
"Huh, what's all this paint around it…looks expensive."
She was currently in a persona similar to Lady Orifake, but with a slightly less noble look. She figured it would help with the backstory she had come up with to explain the egg she had.
"It was a gift." She quickly said. "My…lover gave it to me before he passed on. I…kept it with me to remember him, but when I pulled it out again to see it, I burnt my hands quite fiercely."
Even without the illusion on her, she was still able to get into an act when she needed to.
"I see. Someone took a monster or creature egg and painted it." The man slowly reached down as if to grab it, but slowly pulled away upon feeling the heat. "Wow, that is incredibly hot."
"Yes, it gets colder after a while. Oh, and painted eggs are a recent trend. But I guess no one thought to be sure the creature inside was…gone."
The man headed to the back of his shop and returned with more gear, but what it was she could not tell at a glance.
"I'm just gonna see if I can learn anything about the egg and check if whatever is inside is growing nicely."
The man proceeded to do all sorts of odd things with the egg. He took a scraping of the eggshell, not enough to break through, more just a sliver of the crust. He also placed some sort of apparatus around the egg and the tube connected to it, which ended in a metal ball, which he inserted into his ear. He then proceeded to…listen to the egg for a good while before he pulled the apparatus off.
He then put the sliver of shell into various vials, mixing it, shaking it…he even blew into one of the vials he had added it to.
It was a good fifteen minutes before he finished and came back with some much-needed news.
"This is rather exciting. Now, I have never seen a creature like this, the egg of one, I mean. It's possible it's a creature or monster that is native to this kingdom, and I just don't know what its egg is like…or it's from another kingdom."
"So, you have no idea what it could be."
She almost said it in a way that said 'so all you have done is waste my time', which would align with the somewhat haughty rich merchant or lady, but if anything, she was much too invested and just wanted to know what he had found out.
"Well, not what it actually is, no. But I can tell that it will have some affinity with fire…but maybe also some sort of dark magic as well."
"How-"
"Well, the fire is obvious. It's practically producing its own heat inside there. But it's only doing it while it's in a place it favours. Namely, your storage space, which is a void of nothingness, makes me think it might have some affinity to some dark magic as well. I've seen it happen with eggs that like cold temperatures; they turn even colder and freeze over. At first it seems like the cold is killing it, but it's actually its way of defending itself, the cold somehow…empowering it to do so."
"That's…okay. Wow."
Oriana was actually quite excited by this. She now knew it was alive and growing, and that it probably had magical affinities. She never thought she would have an opportunity to tame a creature…well, actually, he never said if she could or not.
"So, could I actually hatch and tame it?"
"Of course. First, I would suggest putting it back in your ring."
Oriana quickly did that.
"I believe it was originally dormant when whoever it was painted it. You putting it in your ring woke it up, so to speak. Because of that, I would suggest keeping it there. You can take it out to check it and see if it hatches, but you do not want to leave it out too long. Now that its no longer dormant, if it gets too cold, it might die."
She nodded, taking this seriously, and added that as a mental note.
"But yes, if it sees you when it hatches, like most creatures and monsters, they imprint. From there you just raise it, teach it, feed it and care for it."
"That's-. Thank you. Thank you for your help."
"No problem, come back when it hatches, then we can figure out the best things for it. Oh, take these."
He handed her a bag filled with pellets of some kind.
"It's a type of feed for creatures and monsters. Should be fine for any creature to eat; even we can eat it if we need to. It's just not tasty, but it should be enough to keep it fed till you come back here."
"How much-"
"No, no," he said, shaking his head. "First customer in ages and with a creature I've never seen before. It's on the house."
"Thank you again. It was great meeting you-"
"Kalbrien." he said, giving his name.
"…Lady Leir"
They waved goodbye, and Oriana left the store, a smile on her face as she did, making sure to keep note of the name she had said for when she returned.
Now, she had something rather exciting to look forward to, but how long would it take before it hatched?
Well, no matter, she still had some other excitement to keep her going…and that was knocking the Peacekeepers down a notch or two.