[To celebrate level 3, a little moment]
At first entering the shop might seem like you had stepped somehow into the night sky, so bright it was with shining points and sweeps of glittering silver. But as your eyes adjusted to the perspective, you'd see instead a small room, every top surface layered in black velvet, and adorned with jewellery. Rings, pendants, beard beads, here a tiara, there a wrist or ankle bracelet.
Milo was well used to the sight by now, a far cry from his own shop floor, which doubled as his workspace. He stomped happily past the displays to the main desk, behind which stood a young dwarf, beard just long enough to fit into a stubby braid.
"Morning Farrik! Go get your boss for me will you?"
"Yes Mr Brightmane, sir," stuttered the assistant, in awe slightly at Milo's height, just shy of five foot, slightly at his chainmail suit which Farrik knew to be that exceedingly rare material mithral, and largely at the tales his employer had told him about the figure in front of him. He scuttled off around a corner. Milo heard hushed voices, followed by loud footsteps as his friend Gety appeared, long beard intricately tied and braided as always, strewn with silvered beads and the occassional small gem."
"My friend! It's good to see you!" burst the dwarf with the jet-black hair.
"What have you been telling that boy of yours, Gety? He's terrified of me!"
"Only the truth! Travelling to weird and wonderful places, battling with terrible monsters." Milo folded his arms and glared pointedly. Gety shrugged. "Perhaps I embellish a little. Look around you, it's what I do! And what's the harm in a good story. But that's by the by. What brings you here? You have the look of someone about their business, not just dropping in on a friend. Finally going to start taming that beard, adding a little decoration?"
"You wish. No, no point in that, I'd only end up with a beard full of melted silver from the forge heat. There is something I'm hoping you can help me with though. Do you keep many loose jewels here?"
Gety shushed Milo with a hand, and made sure the front door was closed firmly. "Do you want every thief in Daring coming in here? Come out back." Milo followed the smaller dwarf around the same corner Farrik had disappeared behind, and heard the scuffle has the young dwarf very clearly jumped away from the corner where he'd been listening and pretended to be polishing a small silver band, a work in progress.
"Well? Back out front lad!" Gety said tersely. Once the boy was gone the stern look on Gety's face disappeared and he grinned at Milo. "He's a good boy really. Excitable, but we'll make a fine jeweller out of him yet. Here we are..." He stopped at a cabinet taking up the majority of a sideboards surface. The doors met at a beautifully decorated lock, into which Gety inserted an equally detailed key. Before turning it, he placed a finger under one of the doors, pushing upwards a little, and holding it there as he unlocked the cabinet with the other hand. Opening the doors he said "Do you see it?" Milo peered carefully at the floor of the cabinet for a minute, and noticed a catch where the doors would meet, and a slight raised line which ran under all the little drawers, presumably to the back of the cabinet. Gety then nonchalantly swung down the top of the cabinet, where the complex carving had included a number of small holes, to reveal two crossbow bolts, primed and ready to loose into anyone who tried to open the cabinet without knowing the trick. "The most expensive thing I ever bought, and the only thing I brought with me from Faerun, but I'd never part with it. No one steals from Gety Ambershield and gets away with it!"
He folded the decorated panel back into place. "Well, here they are. What did you need?"
"Rubies, if you've got them."
Gety snorted. "If I've got rubies... What do you take me for, honestly." He ran his finger along the rows of little drawers, all labelled in a way that made little sense to Milo, before stopping at a drawer on the second-top level. "Now, we have here a beautiful star ruby, see the centre of it, how the mineral inclusions create a six-pointed star? Normally I'd be asking at least 1000 gold for something like this, and it's my only one, but seeing as you're a friend..."
Milo interupted, "Don't worry, I won't make you part with your star ruby. It's a little pricey for what I have in mind, and it would be a shame to grind down something so beautiful."
"Grind down?" Gety raised one bushy eyebrow at Milo. "Care to explain why you're buying my beauties just to destroy them?"
Milo pulled on his beard. "Aha, well, I think that might be more interesting to see for yourself. Just an idea I had. But all I'll really need is about 50 gold worth, ground to a fine dust."
Gety didn't seem entirely mollified, but he consented, "I suppose 50 isn't so bad. I'm expecting something good to come from this though! Rubies are tough buggers, so they'll take a while to grind down. Come back this time tomorrow."
---
The bell above the shop door rang politely. This time it was Gety himself waiting as Milo entered the shop.
"There you are! Got your ruby dust ready." Milo plonked a bag contaning 50 gold pieces on the table, which Gety tucked away, adding "I can't wait to see what this is all about."
Milo took the small box present to him, opening it up to see the glittering red powder inside. He poured it gently into one large, calloused hand, being careful not to spill any, and took his warhammer in the other. He turned to Gety, smiling. "Let's see if this works."
Gety watched, frowning but curious, as Milo closed his eyes and muttered a string of words, part entreaty to Moradin, part arcane words Gety couldn't begin to guess the meaning of. As he watched, the dust in Milo's hand began to flicker, like hot embers, and then a low but bright flame began to flicker over the small pile. At this, Milo brought his warhammer up in front of him, and blew the fiery dust in a spray over the head of the hammer. To Gety it looked as if Milo had breathed bright flame onto his weapon, but rather than dissipating the fire remained on the metal head. The dust was gone, and Milo stood holding a hammer from which flame licked smokelessly.
Gety took a breath to compose himself, before exploding "Are you mad?! You could burn the shop down! Put it out!"
"It's completely safe," Milo assured him. "At least it should be. See." At which Milo passed the hand, which until a few seconds ago had held the ruby dust, through the flame, turning it back and forth. Nothing happened. "Try it."
Warily, Gety held out his hand, expecting the heat to grow as he approached the flame, but it never did. He wiggled his fingers in the heart of the fire, and even touched the hammer head - it was cold metal.
"Well, isn't that a thing. You were right. It was better to see it myself.
"I figured," added Milo, "that I can see pretty well in the dark, but not everyone is so lucky. This way I can be a light in the darkness, one that can't be put out." He paused, admiring the flaming hammer. He grinned. "Plus it looks pretty cool."
Behind them, a clatter of tools hitting the floor, and a small "Oh...". They turned to see Farrik standing, staring at the hammer emitting fire that cast no heat and seemed to have no fuel source.
Milo winced, and turned again to Gety. "I don't think I'm helping my case."
Gety burst out laughing. "Milo, the Wielder of Holy Fire! Ha ha ha!"
Continual Flame (2nd level evocation)(V, S, M - ruby dust worth 50 gp, which the spell consumes)
A flame, equivalent in brightness to a torch, springs forth from an object that you touch. The effect looks like a regular flame, but it creates no heat and doesn't use oxygen. A continual flame can be covered or hidden but not smothered or quenched.
I won't be preparing this spell for sessions, but I thought it would be a fun thing to do in downtime.
