The Shaman

 Hot. So, so hot.

The sun bore down on an adventurer, sweat coating his brow and olive skin, his breath ragged from running around the village of little wooden huts. Wearing leather did not help in the least, wet spots forming around the pale youth’s armor. The box of goods he carried didn’t help either, with his skinny arms threatening to give out at any moment from carrying it for so, so long. Waves crashed onto the shore, a siren song to the poor youth as sand piled into his boots with every step around the village.

Gods, was he glad to see the hut a native gave him directions for. “Big hut, very colors,” she had told him in broken English when he asked for the nearest shop. “Make and sell many good thing.” She was right about the hut being colorful, at least: Bright reds and yellows covered the hut from top to bottom, intricate runes in greens painted along the sides. Above the doorway, a sign swayed in the breeze, with the word “Crysyh” carved deep into the wood. Without a moment’s hesitation, the adventurer went right in, hoping for a reprieve from the sun’s beams.

For a shop that was in such a small village, he wasn’t quite expecting so many aisles of items.  He gawked at the amount of meat that hung on a clothesline, each one with a clothespin labeling what kind of meat it was and where it came from. Some of those meats sat in chests full of ice, rubbed down in salt to preserve them.  Other food items were located in the front of the hut, so that the meat section and this section would be noticed first and foremost. The adventurer strolled around and spotted the weapons rack, surprised to see iron used in most of the blades, and strange and wonderful gems dotting staves and rods. On the wall, armors of all sorts were lined up, from simple cloth to what appeared to be dragonscale armor. Another section was purely devoted to art from the locals: watercolors, oil paintings, handmade clothing and rugs, and of course, glass sculptures and pottery. If it was made by hand, it was there.

 Towards the back were two large shelves, several oddities sitting next to each other. The adventurer could spot a jar of mantid legs and live spiders, his skin crawling at the thought of someone actually BUYING them. Instead of focusing entirely on them, though, he looked towards the cups full of flowers and tea leaves, a warm, fuzzy feeling coming over him as he imagined sitting down and enjoying a pot of Earl Grey back at home. There was a cauldron sitting in front of the cabinets, as well as a small mat and a mortar and pestle, ready to be used.

 A wonderful place, for sure, but no sign of the shopkeep anywhere. This box full of goods wasn’t getting any lighter, so the adventurer set it down as he called out, “Hey, shopkeep!”

A door creaked open as a giant stepped out from a room separate from the shop. The adventuring man broke into a sweat, and not from the heat: this man was easily past seven feet tall, with a mean look that would scare anybody out of their wits. The flowing, sandy brown robes with rainbow-colored birds embroidered around it, the seashell necklace that draped his neck, and the carved staff he held in his left hand could not hide the muscle the shaman had built upon. In fact, the stranger swore that if the man flexed, the robes would simply be torn apart from that simple effort.

 “Oac, fryd ec ed?” asked the shaman in a deep, burly voice as he took a seat next to the cauldron.

 Uh oh. The adventuring man didn’t understand a word of it. Did that giant understand him, but can’t speak English? Or did he just come out because of the noise? “Sorry, I don’t understand you at all,” he said with a frown. “Do you speak English?

The shaman raised an eyebrow before he cleared his throat. “Yeah, I speak your language,” he replied. His English hardly had an accent, if there was an accent at all. “Sorry, it’s a reflex to speak in my native language first, even though I understand English perfectly well.”

A sigh of relief escaped the adventurer’s lips. “That’s fine! I’m just glad I could find anyone who spoke it well at all!” He scratched his head, running his hand through his brown hair as he tilted his head to the side. “The tour guide said the natives spoke English, but imagine my surprise when hardly anybody around here does!”
“Tch, you must have gotten lost, then.” The shaman set down his staff and rested his chin on his hand. “Those tourists were talking about the tribe closer to where your giant boat docked. Our little tribe here doesn’t bother since we see less of you tourists than our neighbors. Even then, tourists usually have the sense to bring a translator.”

“Then how come YOU speak it?”

The shaman’s expression softened a little as he let out a snort. “Well, why not? Better to cut the middleman whenever possible. Some things get lost in translation, anyway.” He sat up and looked the adventurer in the eyes. “Now, what do you want? Don’t have all day to talk, you know.”

“Oh, right! I was wondering…” The adventurer pried the top off the box, revealing several monster parts strewn within. “How much would any of this sell for? I cleared out some of the more aggressive monsters on this island, and I have a bad habit of collecting monster parts…”

 The adventurer picked up the box and set it in front of the shaman, watching as the giant of a man inspected each and every thing. He was gentle was he plucked out goblin claws and the remains of flans, dire wolf furs and bat wings. Soon enough, the box was almost empty, all the things he pulled out so far neatly organized with others of its kind.

 As he pulled out another goblin claw, the shaman said bluntly, “Most of these I can get easily on my own, so you’re not going to get much for them.” He pointed towards the dire wolf furs. “These are harder to come by, so I’ll give you a fair price for them. Bat wings, slime goo…“ - more pointing- “Can’t say I’ll give you much for those, but more than for goblin claws.” He grumbled loudly as he continued, “I have too many of those damned things from cutting down that goblin population forcefully. Some kid tried to dump a good hundred of those on me and sell ‘em for more than they’re worth. Threw that guy out like a sack of coconuts once he started threatening me, dryd yccruma.”

The adventurer sighed and collected his big pile of goblin claws one by one. “Should have figured, with how many I killed. They’re just about everywhere in the forest, and I had to fend off a whole gang of ‘em on the way to this village!”

 “And judging by how many claws you have, you did a good job at slaughtering them. But let’s see if you have anything as valuable as those dire wolf furs you got me, hm?” The shaman reached into the box again and removed the last thing within: a dragon’s tail. Its bright white scales glimmered in the light that poured in through the windows like a thousand diamonds,  the base of the tail dripping blood from where it was cut clean off. The shaman’s eyes widened for a moment before he grinned like a child who got an early Christmas gift.

“Cbenedc ypuja, that’s a mighty fine catch you brought! A Crystal Dragon’s tail, all intact!” The shaman sniffed at it. “Still fresh, too, from the smell and look of it. You killed one of them not too long ago, didn’t you?”

A grin spread across the adventurer’s face as he said, “Can’t say I killed them, but I did chop their tail right off! I heard one of them was eating some of the livestock and the people, so I wanted to scare it away!” He began to frown and scratched his head again, drooping like a weight was on his shoulders. “I tried convincing it to stop first, but it just laughed it off and went, ‘Oh sure, and then we can frolick through the forests and sing happy songs together! Ha, if you want me to leave, show it through strength instead of words!’ He didn’t make it easy for me, and I knew that it’d be hard to kill him outright. Not with my level of skill, at least. So I just settled for leaving him tailless.”

 “Otherwise, you would have brought me the entire body, huh.” One last peek into the box confirmed that there was nothing else, so the shaman placed a hand on his chin, eyes closed. “Right then, so you brought a good deal of things… a lot with no value to me whatsoever, others more valuable than you’d think, and this fantastic dragon tail. So you have a few options: One, I just give you everything’s worth in our local currency matched up to your dollar. I know for sure that there’s a currency exchange over where you’re staying, so changing it should be a piece of cake. Two.” The shaman waved his arm as if presenting a brand new car, although instead it was to show off his shop. “You get to pick things that match up to how much your stuff is worth, but only to how much it’s worth. You’re not getting, say, a full set of mythril armor for exchanging a million goblin claws with me! And the third option, which might interest you the most…”

A grin spread a cross his face as the shaman said with utter confidence, “If you have time to spare, I’ll make you things out of the stuff you brought me. Gonna have to fork up a bit of extra money since you have to pay for all the effort and extra materials we have to use up, but I guarantee you, it’s worth it. “

The adventurer’s eyes sparkled at the thought of a custom-made dragon bone blade that fit his tiny hands just fine and cuts through monster flesh like a hot knife through butter, or a snugly fitting dragonscale armor that absorbs the heat of flames and bears the brunt of axes and clubs with hardly a dent left on them. A nice coat with dire wolf furs to keep him warm through the winter months back on the mainland wouldn’t hurt, either! “I’m staying on the island for about the week,” he said, unable to hold back the excitement building up in his chest, “so we can definitely do the third option! And I should have enough money to pay for it; I do a lot of merc work at home so can we please do that third option? Please, pretty please?!”

“Ha, knew you’d be interested!” the shaman replied with a chuckle.  “A monster hunter always looks for better equipment, even if it costs them a bit. Don’t worry, though, you’ll be getting the best quality for how much you pay. A week’s plenty of time to get it all done, too."

Excitement ran through the adventurer's veins before a nasty memory popped into his mind: another merchant, friendly as could be, a sly grin on his face as he held a glowing blade with runes etched into hilt. "$5,000 is a pretty penny," echoed the honeyed words in his mind, "but a fair price for a blade that can slay dragons with ease, no? Ancient magicians of yore have worked with mighty blacksmiths to create this to defeat the dragon, Ragnarok." The merchant in his mind's eye grinned wider as he continued, "Oh, it is worth so much more than $5,000, but for you, my friend... I'm giving it to you at a discount. What do you say?"

He remembered how hastily he took the deal, and how he arrived at this island eager to test it against the Crystal Dragon. Only the best against the strongest, right?

It snapped the moment he swung it against the Crystal Dragon's hide. It was a very good thing he kept his old equipment there, but now the adventurer cast a wary look upon the giant man.

His grin gave way to a frown as he asked, "Hey, wait a minute! You sure this is going to be great stuff? I spent a lot of time getting that, and I really want something worth the effort. And durable, too! I don't want any of them breaking!"

The giant blinked at him curiously, then replied with a gentle smile, "Well, if you need a sample the good work I do, feel free to grab one of the blades in the front and test them against those armors. You'll see for yourself that I don't make these things out of tin. I prefer my equipment keep my customers alive, rather than get them killed!"

The adventurer glared at the merchant for a good minute before heeding his advice, taking a short sword off the weapon rack and taking a few swings. Light, easy to hold. The blade was quite sharp too, but what better way to test if it was great than to swing it against the dragonscale chest plate? The blade bounced off with a loud CLANG, the armor left without a scratch. This did not change with the few other swings he took at it, nor did the blade bend  or warp or, gods forbid, break in half with so much use.

As he walked back towards the giant man, the man grinned and asked, "Well? Happy with the results?"

"Definitely," the adventurer replied, excitement surging through him once more as thoughts of dragonblades and dragonscale armor flooded his mind. "So, what can you make with it? What can you do?! Can you make me everything you can?!? Like, EVERYTHING!"

The giant flinched. "Sheesh, are you trying to wake up the Elders or something? Keep your voice down, even if you’re excited about this!" After shaking his head, he examined the dragon tail from every angle, counting each and every scale. "Can’t say I can make too much out of the dragon tail: you need a lot more dragon scales than what this has to make a full set of armor, but I can make the chestpiece, at least. From the bone, I can make a sword or a spear… Didn’t hear you mention anything about potions, but I can make a quick tonic from the blood and some of the scales. Should put a good spring in your step and give you a higher pain tolerance for about… say, four hours.”

Dragon blood? The adventurer swallowed hard. “I can’t imagine anything like that tasting good, so um, I’ll pass!”

Another snort. “Can’t imagine your cold medicine tasting great either. Yet, you drink it because it’s good for you. This is something just as good for you as it tastes horrible. Hold your nose while you drink if it you think it’s gonna be that bad, and you’re good!”

“Fine, fine, I’ll try it! But I’m only trying one!”

“Heh, you won’t regret that. Now, let’s see… Wish you brought the whole damn dire wolf so I could make more than just coats out of it, but that’s what you’re getting. Bat wings are good for a cure for lightheadedness-“


The shaman slowly considered each and every thing he could make, explaining the effects of them to the excited adventurer while the adventurer told him what he wanted out of those. A few minutes later, and the shaman had a notebook and pen out, writing down the details and cost of creating each before underlining the total, ripping out the paper, and handing it over to his customer. “That’ll run you about $750. Looks expensive, but imagine how much more expensive it’d be if I had to find the materials myself, or if you wanted it rushed!” He chuckled for a moment, then grabbed his staff and stood up. The adventurer noticed that his left leg was wobbiling and wondered what happened, but his thoughts were scattered when the giant said, “Though if you’re going to stick around and hunt a few more monsters, bringing me things that are hard to find should cut the price down even further. I’m always looking for more things to sell and some herbs to use for my rituals, so don’t be too shy about bringing them in! You can wait until your armor and all are complete before you pay up. Like I said, can’t give anything that’s low quality or half assed, you know!”

A wide smile crossed the adventurer’s face as he took a deep bow and said, “Thank you, thank you so very much, sir! I really appreciate it!” He stooped down to pick up his box, then he asked, “Mind telling me your name? So I can remember to come here the next time I’m done hunting!”

The giant turned to face him, returning the smile with one of his own. “Wicasa’s the name, although don’t be shocked if someone else calls me the Rainbow Shaman.”

“Wicasa, huh? Mine’s Julian. It was a pleasure to meet you!” Julian turned to leave, but not before waving goodbye to Wicasa. “I’ll be sure to visit again, and next time, you won’t have to worry about being flooded with goblin claws!”

“Ha, I’d hope so! Ihdem haqd desa!”

As Julian left the village, he turned back and watched the villagers finish their chores, speaking in the same strange tongue Wicasa spoke. Such a strange language, yet fascinating to listen to. Why did so little people pay a visit to this small place, when he was sure there was so much to learn from these people?

Julian wasn’t sure why, but he made a promise. A promise to return, and for a day or two, truly see how life was with this tribe.