Walking into Blue Lake City, Iris was stunned by the sheer number of beasts that filled the city. Most were in their human forms with the occasional beast mixed in. Almost every person Iris could see was a male beast man.
The single glance at a female Iris could get showed her surrounded by several males who looked to be guarding her carefully as she rode in the back of a lion. Many other males appeared to be cramping their necks in an attempt to get a glance at the female.
Caspian pulled Iris closer to him as he pulled her hood to cover more of her face. In a worried tone of voice, he instructed,
"Stay close to me, don't wander off. The female population here is still rather low despite the overall population being larger. Some male beasts even become desperate and try to kidnap females. You only have me to protect you so it's best you stick close to me."
Iris merely nodded her head in agreement as she wrapped her arms around one of Caspian's large muscular arms. She was still eager to take in the scenery but did not wish to be swept away by the crowd and separated from her mate.
Caspian quickly led Iris towards the business district of the city explaining its layout as they walked.
"This beast city is divided into two sections. There is an inner wall much like the outer wall that separates the two. The inner city is primarily for the nobles and religious authorities in the city. This section we are in now has the homes for the general population as well as business and entertainment areas."
As this beast city appeared rather small for a city, Iris could easily see the inner wall in the distance. Observing the buildings around her, Iris noticed that they were also made of stone. They appeared to be one floor and only as large as the main room in her home. She inferred the homes must be a single room on the inside.
None of the homes had windows on them and their doorways were covered by animal skin. As windows would only add to how cold the homes would be in the cold season, Iris supposed the lack of windows was for the best. Iris could only feel thankful that she lived inside a mountain where there was more shelter and that she knew how to utilize fire for warmth.
"The homes are largely on the outskirts of this area while the shops, inns, and an arena for duels are on the innermost section. Only residents of this beast city use the actual shop buildings. Those wishing to sell items from the surrounding tribes just place their wares on beast skins on the ground."
As they were finally done making their way through the crowd to the marketplace, Iris could now see these things with her own eyes. There were less than ten shops with goods for sale and almost double the amount of temporary shops were set up.
"Anything catching your eye? We can buy anything you want."
Caspian smiled indulgently down at Iris. He'd happily spoil her and buy her anything she wanted.
Iris, however, did not have any clue where to begin looking through the market. While she'd often been to shops and even malls in the modern world, this was different. Iris had some knowledge of history and had seen some ancient relics in a museum but she'd never been to a market selling such items!
Caspian quite enjoyed the look of wonder in his little mate's eyes. He knew that in the future he'd have to bring her out to beast cities to shop more often. After all, this was merely a smaller beast city. The medium and large beast cities would have even more amazing things for his curious little mate to be amazed by.
"Alright, it seems you're struggling to decide. Let's just head over to the Golden Tradesmen market stall first. This way we can buy your salt and then we can slowly make our way through the rest of the shops."
Iris turned to look up at Caspian with a quizzical expression on her face.
"Golden Tradesman? Do all the shops here have names like that?"
Caspian chuckled, quite enjoying all the cute expressions his little mate could make.
"The Golden Tradesmen are a group organized by the Golden Plains City. All of the beast cities are named after elemental crystals and the land they are built on. The Golden Plains City is the largest and central most built beastman city. So they have a lot more power than other cities including being capable of organizing a trade network.
The Golden Tradesman have official posts in every beast city and they travel a lot collecting goods to sell at the cities. They get a large salary for doing so and the rest of the profit is given to the king of beasts in the Golden Plains City. That's actually why they are able to sell salt to us here despite the nearest ocean being quite far away."
Hearing this last bit of information, Iris felt her heart drop. She began to worry that salt would be expensive and only available in very limited quantities. Luckily she managed to figure out how to preserve meat without salt. After all, if it was just for flavor, a pound of salt would be more than enough for a family to enjoy good food for a year.
As Iris approached the Golden Tradesman shop building she noticed that these stone buildings were slightly different from the ones used for homes. The doorway was set off to a side wall while a rather large window was carved out of the front. The frontmost wall was extra thick allowing a sort of counter to be formed where the wall was cut out.
Since most beastmen did not know how to read or write, there were no signs listing what was for sale nor what they were asking for the price. As someone who always hated buying items without a price tag in the modern world, this caused Iris quite a bit of stress.
"How can I help you today?"
The beast running the shop questioned while looking at Caspian. Caspian quite appreciated this professionalism, while Iris felt the need to snap something about equal rights and how she was the one with all their money and making the purchase decisions.
However, with Caspian rubbing her back to calm her down she just merely took a breath and reminded herself things worked differently in this world. Caspian took the initiative to speak up.
"We'd like to buy some salt. If you have any plants we'd like to view those as well."
The shop assistant was quick to get the requested items out and set them on the counter to view. He continued to resist the urge to peek at the pleasant-smelling female in front of him as he waited patiently for a decision to be made.
Iris struggled to see the whole counter from underneath her hood and began to pull it up just a bit just for Caspian to quickly tug it back down to cover her face. After a few times of this happening back and forth, Iris stomped her foot in frustration.
"Hey! I can't see anything like this!"
Caspian sighed before scooping her up into her arms. Iris could see a lot more now that she was higher up but she still felt frustrated. Other females in the city didn't have to hide themselves away, yet here she was struggling to view things due to Caspian's desire to hide her away.
Caspian sighed and pulled her hood back just the tiniest bit allowing her to fully view the items. As long as she was in his arms it was less likely anyone would be able to kidnap her anyway. Very few, if any, beastmen in this city were his level anyway.
"If you want it down any further than that you'll have to wait until you have more mates to protect you. I'm doing my best here so please just work with me."
Caspian whispered to Iris, hoping this would quell her frustration. It wasn't even that he wanted her to have a bunch of mates, he just knew it was a matter of fact that more mates meant she'd be safer.
Iris decided that it wasn't worth arguing about her own safety and that she would just take what she could get. Looking over the plants on the counter she found that most were not familiar to her. There were a few flowers and some herbs like those witch doctor Oliver had shown her. However, none of them were particularly useful to Iris so she simply decided to focus on the salt.
The shop assistant was used to customers buying in small quantities and as such had put the salt out in a small stone cup of about half a cup in size. Seeing such a small amount of salt, Iris felt bitter. She figured that salt would be expensive and rare but is this really all they had?
Seeing Iris staring at the salt looking so sad, Caspian sighed. He turned to the shopkeeper and instructed.
"Please bring out all the salt you have. We are looking to buy in bulk, not an individual portion. Don't worry, we can afford it."
The shopkeeper nodded eagerly and went into the house to pull out a large animal skin bag full of salt. It was approximately the size of a barrel and weighed over fifty pounds.
"This is all the salt we have. This is the amount an entire city of this size uses in a year so we don't have any more than this. Usually, even tribe leaders who buy for their entire tribe don't even buy a tenth of this amount."
Caspian nodded, showing he understood what the shopkeeper was saying before turning to Iris
"What do you think? We can afford to buy all of the salt but it'll take a few colored crystals."
Iris shook her head. While she wanted a large amount of salt, she didn't need nearly that large of an amount.
"Let's just buy a tenth of that bag. That should be more than enough for us."
Caspian relayed the words to the shopkeeper who immediately got to work transferring the five pounds of salt into a large animal skin bag. It was still rather rare for such a large-scale sale to occur and when they did it was his job to ensure it went smoothly. The least he could do was ensure the salt was carefully packed so as to travel safely.
"We'll need one of the blue crystals from that pouch I gave you to pay for this, Iris."
Caspian's gaze was gentle as he waited for her to pull the currency out. He wasn't sure why his female wanted as much salt as an entire tribe uses in a year but he didn't care as long as she was happy.
Iris hadn't even looked inside the pouch of crystals yet so she wasn't aware there were colored crystals inside. Pouring a few onto her palm she found that most were uncolored with only a few of various colors mixed in. Caspian quickly plucked the one they needed from her palm and handed it to the merchant.
Once she put the crystals away, Caspian grabbed the large bag of salt and went to tie it to his skirt. However, Iris opened her bag and gestured for him to place the salt inside. Caspian was a bit concerned by the possibility of the heavy bag being too much for her, but relented when she insisted.
Thus he went to place the bag in hers. However, the bag of salt was nearly too large. Iris turned away and pushed and prodded until it finally went in. When she turned back it was as if the bag of salt had simply disappeared.
Caspian felt the need to question it as Iris's bag wasn't even bulging at the sides. However, there were far too many ears around them, and he could only wait until later to ask.
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Discontinued: Ann, Argon, Austin J., Byloderus, Care, Catherine W., Cheyenne O., Chong Y., Christen F., Cindy S., Clara, CooCoo C., Courtney H., Dagoon320, David Z., Denise G., Doc., Dreamer, Emma B., Fictional F., GeminiDragon, Gracie, InjaP., Izzzy B., Jasmine H., Jenn L., Juha, Kayla N., Kelly, Killer K., Lisa C., Martina I., Merveille L., Michelle S., Michelle W., Miranda M., Myungjun R., Nick T., Nova H., Nyrobi J., Nyxie N., Parul N., Quince, Red, Reyanne B., Rochelle N., Ryanna B., Satya P., Sboss678, ScorpioPerk, Shaunna H., Shawna B., Steven B., Travis S., 9Please respect copyright.PENANADg6KVtkeR7
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