Rolling out of the room, Valerie didn’t get a chance to drop her facade as she was quickly greeted by the sight of Mister Bloom waiting at the end of the corridor.

He was standing with his gold plated fingers steepled, his usual sleazy grin on his face as he looked over her again.

"We thank you once again for your business. If you have any more of these... unique items to sell, I would be more than happy to take them off your hands. Even if we do so in a more... private setting.

After all, no one enjoys going through the middle man, plus it means more money for us. So really, it’s a win win." He said, leaning forwards and waved his hand like a magician. A solid metal business card that was actually as thin as a sheet of paper appeared in his hands, which he held out to Valerie with that sleazy smile.

Valerie took the card and glanced over it with disinterest. It would be a while until she was needing to sell anything again with this kind of money, besides, if more people developed the ability to transfer between worlds, then these ’valuable artefacts’ would soon become defunct junk.

On second thoughts, with that in mind maybe she should sell some more before the market became saturated.

She glanced at the card again, before passing it back to Bai Yin who she knew was standing behind her even if she could not properly sense her. Mister Bloom seemed a little disappointed that she did not take the time to appreciate the off white colouring or the tasteful thickness of it.

He knew he should have added the watermark! 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"I’ll keep it in mind." She said with a nod, starting to move away before stopping and looking over her shoulder at him.

"Mister Bloom, I assume that a man like yourself would have plenty of connections or knowledge, do you know of a place that does some nice custom canes? Express order, needed within the day, with some unusual additions."

Mister Bloom’s disappointed expression melted away as his sleazy smile crept back onto his face, stretching all the way up to his ears.

"Naturally I do. You know, my connections are some of the best in the world, and if they don’t exist yet it won’t take me long to change that.

As for your request, I’ve sent a location to your assistant that I think will be perfect for your needs. Even if some of them are a little extraordinary." He said with a chuckle, putting a strange emphasis on ’extraordinary’ that gave Valerie a moment of pause.

She gave him a strange, slightly suspicious look that he simply responded to with an innocent smile, before she went back to idly petting Beans whilst Bai Yin pushed her out of the building, six million Ollie’s richer.

***

The shop she was recommended to was small and out of the way, the type that was hidden down a small and inconspicuous street and did not even have a sign to advertise itself. However while that might seem like a terrible business strategy, and almost got Valerie lost looking for it, it also showed the type of business this was.

It was not somewhere you stumbled across or wandered inside, eager to have a little look around at all the trinkets or adorable souvenirs . It was not made for window shopping or tyre kicking.

Someone that came here did so with intent and purpose, and strongly valued secrecy. Whether that meant it was because of illicit dealings, or simply because it catered to certain VIP clientele that did not need everyone watching their every move, was hard to say. Especially because she was sure that it was some mix of the two.

Bai Yin stepped forwards, rapping her knuckles against the door in the code she was given. A portion of the old brickwork surrounding the door suddenly slid open, as a camera nesting within the hidden recess stared at them unblinking and in complete silence.

It did so for a few seconds before the brick slid closed again and after a few more seconds of silence, the door opened with a series of heavy clunks and clicks of locks being undone.

The inside of the store was small and claustrophobic, consisting of a room that was only a few metres across and no more than four metres deep, most of which was taken up by the solid, black marble counter and the massive man that sat behind it.

The man manning the counter had a thick, salt and pepper beard that covered most of his gruff, irate looking face. Between his bulging muscles that strained his shirt and the rough, scarred hands he had, he seemed like the type of man who could eat a brick wall for breakfast and still be hungry at the end.

Curiously though, he seemed to be completely organic, with not even the most basic cybernetics from what Valerie could see. In this day and age, that was definitely strange.

"Mister Bloom sent us." Bai Yin stated, stepping forward again. Although she had little dealings with the general public and common society, dealing with shady dealings was definitely her routine. At least it had been before she was drained and turned into an obedient, sycophantic thrall.

"What do you want?" The man asked after a derisive scoff. His voice was gravelly and his accent was vaguely eastern European, although she couldn’t pin point the exact country. With her lack of knowledge of the region, she defaulted to calling it Russian for the moment.

"We need a cane. Specifically one with a recess in the handle, perfectly sized to fit this." Bai Yin stated coldly, holding up the refined source remnant that Valerie was going to use as a magic focus.

"We also need it to hide a blade. Something sturdy and resilient for proper defence, not just a blade for show."

The ’Russian’ man nodded his head, jotting down the ideas on a tablet, instead of recording them straight to internal memory like most would. It was honestly quite trivial seeing someone just like her, not including how buff they were. He had a slight advantage when it came to that.