Slow weeks were one of those things that people were forced to deal with, and depending on their vocations, their reactions were different. As Merchants, slow weeks, slow months, slow decades — these were all things they were used to, to loathsome degrees.
They were like hopeless addicts going through relapse from their first withdrawal, critically edged and waiting for their next fix of their register going *kaching*.
It all goes to show that even the almighty Trade and its choir of gold coins sometimes took breaks. Chaos was a fulltime paid job that also came with vacation leave and emergency time off.
Isaac could only be thankful that the slow week was gone and the new one was already halfway through. He was currently having an impromptu downtime away from the counter, sitting on one of his flamingo-feather-stuffed sofas with a blackened mesh of straws in his hands.
"Ann, are you sure this is safe?" He paused his stitching of the straw doll in his hands and looked at the inanimate red haired doll sitting beside him with a fully stitched black straw doll laying over the stuffed legs.
Isaac frowned, looking a bit offended. "I'm not being fickle-minded. You suddenly picked up a stitching hobby after reading the Book of Vile Darkness, it arouses concern."
He deadpanned at the doll who no longer had the straw doll across its legs as it was now on the table in front of her.
"Chucky ran out of the backrooms last week shouting something about you wanting to crucify his soul." He shook his head as he tied around the finishing touches on the doll. "He has been avoiding you since then, hasn't he? Any reason why he would be doing that if you were so innocent?"
He took his eyes off his doll for a second as he glanced to his left where the slumped doll was slumped against the sofa, and when he stared back at it there was a knife with black carvings stabbed straight through the chest of his stitched doll.
He turned towards Ann, the child-size red haired doll in a cute dress, with a displeased look on his face. "Why? I just finished stitching that. That's it, I'm confiscating your dark books collection. Clearly, it's making you rude and unpleasant."
At that moment the specters sang of a new customer, even before the bell was rung, which cut down whatever he wanted to say 'Ann'.
"And where did you even get the time and materials to make marked knives? Looks like I'll be doing a sweep of the backrooms very soon." Isaac told Ann as he stood up to retire to his station.
"Isaac, are you in there?"
"Lounge area, Jessica." He responded as he picked up the stitched dolls and the knife, paused for a moment and proceeded to give Ann a pat down that left him momentarily speechless as he recovered two more knives in her sleeves.
"Why? Just why?" He gave the doll a look that was half in disbelief and half exasperation. "What if you ruin your stitches or worse, cut open your seams?"
"Whoa," Jessica walked into the area with a serious look on her face but did a double take when she saw what Isaac had in his hands, "Just whoa. Tell me that's not what I think it is."
Isaac breathed out a chuckle as he flicked his hair backwards. "The knives are Ann's. She was teaching me how to make dolls out of straws but then she went and stabbed mine so I'm taking all her sharp objects and locking up her dark books collection."
"Uh huh," Jessica looked between him and the doll with hesitation strewn across her face. "And Ann is… the doll?"
"Yeah." He looked down at the doll in his hands with a crease running up his brows. "I would do introductions but she's been… prissy. Give me a minute."
"With your stabby voodoo doll? Take five." She spun on her heels and resolutely moved towards the counter in a bid to put more distance between her and the clearly possessed horror flick prop.
He opened another door to the backrooms with Ann in tow and waved over the section that was full of mannequins and lifelike figures and opened a house-frame box and locked her in it.
There was a clamor of padded feet that quickly stopped when a serially mutilated doll's head peeked from behind a rock. "Fucking finally, in the box the bitch goes. Wheew. Why did it take so long, fuckass? That cunt almost gutted me up a few times!"
"Hey there, Chucks. I was wondering where you were." Isaac commented offhandedly as he turned around to leave.
"Where else?! You let that bitch and her demonic shit loose."
Isaac finally turned to look at the mutilated doll in jumpers and pulled out the knives. "I'm guessing these were yours?"
"Gimme. Gimme." The doll jumped onto his shoulders and swiped the knives away with a wicked grin on his face. "My Soul Carvers. They were already great but I don't know what that slut did to them."
"Then keep them to yourself. If I see them lying around I will put them on resale." Isaac threatened. Chucky jumped down and gave him a daring glare.
"You wouldn't dare." He hissed.
Isaac looked at him with one raised brow and that made the living doll reassess its leverage, realize its net loss, and grumbled as he walked away.
"Have you considered that the reason why she pesters you is because she wants to be friends?"
Chucky stopped and his head turned with a cranky motion to look at Isaac with a face of disbelief. "Listen, I'm a veteran when it comes to crazy chicks and their obsessions. Hell, I dig it. That bitch ain't crazy, she's demonic. No way in storage am I putting my cotton fluff in that."
Isaac shrugged, leaving the dolls to their misunderstandings and drama and returned back to the shop where Jessica was patiently waiting while flipping through the catalog on the table. Or maybe anxiously waiting with the way her fingers and feet were tapping away.
"Sorry about that. They sometimes get ahead of themselves." Isaac sighed as he put himself in position.
"Honestly, I don't know how to feel knowing that you have cursed voodoo dolls in your storage. Does that mean this place is haunted?" She looked around in hesitant curiosity.
"The answer to that is flexible." Isaac's reply did little to alleviate Jessica's newfound fright. "What about you? You look like you're in a hurry. The violent kind."
Jessica's expression instantly became guarded, but only for a brief moment until she realized this was Isaac. "That obvious?" she snorted.
"What do you need?" Isaac asked, making her relieved as he stayed true to himself and cared more about what he could sell her that would take care of her problems than actually wanting to hear about her problems.
He masterfully navigated through interpersonal relationships with crisp professional courtesy that made it easier for people to let him into their privacy.
"The first and most important thing I need is something that can block out telepathic/psychic mind control."
"That's easy enough." Isaac reached under and brought out another book. "Any preference? A wearable item, a headset, a talisman, a potion – how do you want it?"
Jessica went for an instinctual answer but held her tongue at the last second as her eyes settled on Isaac before they widened.
"Perchance, do you have someone's anti-mental experience in a bubble somewhere?"
Isaac winced. "Not really, people hardly part with their life skills. But I can give you other alternatives to help you learn mind shielding in record time if you don't need it right this moment, otherwise you'll be better off with an item of the same ability."
Jessica looked bummed at the lack of an easy solution and couldn't help but take a dig at Isaac with it.
"So there are things you don't have."
"It's not that I don't actually have it as I can simply siphon the experience out of a few things in my shop but doing so will reduce their value." Isaac said with a twist on his face. "If you want, I can even prepare a mind ritual that'll make you naturally resistant to any and all telepathic influences."
—Ring of Mind Shielding(Lesser) (Dungeons and Dragons): A rip off of the original article but it does a good enough job for any low level use you're fortunate to need it for.
It blocks telepathy and other forms of mind reading.
Price: $3,500.
—Mind Blank(Lesser Enchantment) (Dungeons and Dragons): While the original spell is a top tier psychic immunity, this extremely watered down version gives you the budget purchase.
It grants lesser resistance to mind control, psychic damage and overall mental defense.
Price: $5,000.
—Potion of Mind Blank (Dungeons and Dragons): A cheaper, more temporary, alternative to the enchantment and spell of the same name. It grants temporary immunity to mental influence.
Price: $1,000.
—Silver Pendant of Occlumency (Harry Potter): A simple pendant that enhances mental discipline against intrusion.
It also passively boosts trained resistance.
Price: $3,000
—NZT-48 (Limitless): A wonder drug that provides the user access to 100% of their brain capacity, massively enhances cognitive function, unparalleled focus and extreme clarity to utilize every iota of acquired information.
It is highly addictive and the side effects of unsupervised use are every other side effect that happens before death.
Price: $1,500.
With the highlighted options, Isaac made the items appear in front of Jessica as she read through them.
"These are good picks for immediate use. As long as you're not going up against a master psychic, these should tide you over well."
A frown formed on Jessica's face, instantly drawing Isaac's attention to the forming query.
"None of these explicitly says it stops psychic control in its tracks."
"Because it's not the only thing they do. For an easy straightforward fix, going with potions is your best bet. The downsides are obvious down that route." Isaac picked up the Ring of Mind Shielding and the Mind Blank enchantment parchment. "You can layer these two on top of each other and boost the results. It's not exactly exponential but the effects are tangible."
He dropped the ring and picked up the silver pendant with the enchantment. "Or these two."
"The ring and the parchment." She said as she pushed back the book to Isaac. "I also need the Taser Wand. I saw it on my first vis-" Her words barely landed before the very thing plopped right in front of her.
—Taser Wand (Teen Wolf): A sadistic weapon of choice that is particularly effective against werewolves.
*Produces up to 900,000 volts.
Price: $4,000
She gave a pleased hum as she felt the weight of the highly illegal weapon in her hands as she gripped the pommel.
Isaac watched her in silence, not saying anything until she had her feel of the classy torture device.
"Anything else?"
"Yes. An invisibility potion. And a physical boost potion. Two of both."
—Potion of Strength (Heroes of Might and Magic): A simple and all round potion that boosts the attack/strength quality in battle.
Price: $500.
—Potion of Invisibility (Dungeons and Dragons): A standard invisibility potion. The duration varies from minutes to hours depending on external factors.
Price: $600.
"Anything else? I have an Invincibility Cloak if you're interested in the long term." Isaac offered but Jessica quickly declined.
"I've seen it. While I won't lie and say I'm not interested, I don't think I have the budget for that yet."
"Then what about this?" He produced a set of six knives that looked like miniature swords. "These are the resized versions."
—Black Keys (TYPE-MOON): Unnaturally sharp sacraments for hunting dark creatures. Unless you're a master weapons user, don't bother using these as weapons, they are so terribly unbalanced.
While they have quite a few unique uses, one of its more special abilities is the ability to pin a target in place by stabbing the knife into their shadow.
Price: $2,500.
"I'll take it." She decided immediately as soon as her eyes swept through that last line.
"Fantastic." Isaac clapped with an extremely pleased look on his face. "Will that be all or are you still itching to try your hands on something."
Jessica looked deeply contemplative at the simple question but ended up shaking her head after a deep sigh. "This is enough. This will be enough." She murmured, more to herself than a clarification for Isaac.
"That will be $16,700. Plus an extra thousand as service fee for merging the enchantment into the ring. $17,700." Isaac said easily while Jessica fought the reflexive flinch at the utterance of the total. At least she didn't have to pay taxes on it. "I hope to see you soon again, Jessica."
She smirked at the professional farewell/silent cheering and gave him a thumbs up as she turned around to leave, knowing her goods would be waiting for her when she got home.
"Now that that is done, where did Ann stuff those books of hers." Isaac muttered to himself as he made good on his word to effectively ground the serial doll.
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