"You look like a hungry one! How about a scroll of Goodberry? Or perhaps Witch Bolt? Why, I even have a scroll of Shield! Just picked it up in Beliard!"

"Hmmm," mutters Klong as he pores through the list. "No good for Klong. You have Raise Dead mebbe? Or Revivify?"

"Those aren't very common. I think I'd remember but lemme lookl" Calvin flips through all his scrolls and surprisingly pulls out a scroll of revivify.

"Well, that's a surprise! I thought I'd sold that. I do have a Revivify scroll. Would you like it? I can sell it to you for 500 gold"

Klong looks at the scroll, which is barely intelligible. He may be holding it upside down. He can make out a rune or two. It would be a gamble to use it, sure. Klong tries his best to negotiate the price down. He looks at the merchant with a crafty smile.

"Hmm, this look like good scroll, but Klong have hard time read all. I know! Klong can read only part of scroll, so pay only part of price! What say you?"

Perhaps it's the lunar phase. Perhaps it's the sight of the giant Klong. Calvin looks at Klong and thinks, then says: "You know, that makes SENSE. I could sell scrolls for a discount to folks who can't use them. It would triple, no, quadruple my market! I'll accept 250, as a thanks for this idea!" forgetting that he paid 400 gold for it

Klong happily shakes Calvin's hand to seal the deal, both of them completely enamored with the idea of selling things to people that don't need it. One could sell sets of steak knives to farmers for only 19.99 gold!

Glim, who had been busy shuffling some of the scrolls in a worn out box near the end of the table, overhears Klong discussing his purchase with the vendor. He shuffles toward the goliath, and reaches to snatch the scroll, though given the height difference he can nowhere near reach it. "You'd better let me hang on to that for you. Wouldn't want you getting yourself blown up or having that valuable intellect of yours wiped into catatonia trying to use magic you don't understand."

Turning to the vendor he says, "You said you had a shield scroll? How much? Don't suppose you have feather fall? Maybe longstrider?"

Calling over his shoulder to Kelvin, who had fallen asleep on his mount, he shouts, "Kelvin! KELVIN! Scrolls! You want anything? Maybe something you can use to help NOT get yourself killed so I can actually do something useful instead of spending all my time protecting you?"

Calvin-ish (Fionula)

She's getting bored, so she goes to stand in front of the merchant, peers at him, and then casts Disguise Self and tries to copy him. The familiar black tendrils sweep her body head to toe and there he is...

Performance, to copy his look? Performance: 22
Deception to act like him? Deception: 24

Meh. It could be him from down the road, maybe, but the face is all wrong, and the body is much fatter. But Calvin-ish acts just like him.

She lets the disguise drop a few seconds later.

Calvin exclaims "yes my little friend! Here is a Shield scroll right here. Let me look for Featherstrider...what was the other? Long fall?"

Seeing Fionula's transformation, Calvin gets uncomfortable.

"That's unnatural right there. Are you folks just about done? It's...uh...lunchtime.", although a look at the sky shows it is nowhere near that

Stares at Calvin. "Do you have a problem with people who transform into other shapes?" 

Glim snaps back at Calvin, huffily, not so much in defense of Fi as in reaction to his sense of logic having been offended. "Well of course it's unnatural! It's magic, obviously. You probably have a scroll of that very spell! Of course she comes by her abilities through a bond with some extraplanar entity or other rather than through good honest study, but the technique is much the same in the end."

Forgetting for a moment his own pending transaction, he wanders away from the table muttering to himself, "Unnatural... (inaudible grumbles)" before remembering what he was doing and circling back to Calvin. "Ah, yes... 'long fall'. Just what I'm looking for in a spell; something that will cause me to fall a long way. And 'feather strider'. I have no idea what that would do, but by all means let's give it a try!"

Kelvin strolls by and peruses Calvin's wares. The thought of a few new scrolls seemed appealing. Potions were also nice to have. After tumbling the thought around for a few minutes, he decided on the scroll. "A Witch Bolt, you say? Hmm, seems intriguing. I've heard it's a nasty bit of magic for a beginner's skill. I tell you what..." He fishes out the vial of viscous liquid he and Glim had argued over the other night, "I have in my hand a vial of genuine, freshly-harvested, preserved, and sealed dragon blood. The stuff is potent to put it mildly. Have some sniffles? Have a whiff and it'll invigorate your nose so much you'll feel thirteen again! Want a few more years on your life? Take a drink and get ready for a few more gray hairs and celebrations without any of those unsightly issues of getting older - you know the ones..." Kelvin's smile is devoid of any signs that he'd spent too many hours at the bottom of too many drinks the night before, "If we can arrange a trade, this wonder-vial of miracle blood for that novice-level scroll, I will consider it my good deed of the day in trying to make this world just a little better for someone else."

Sorry to have offended the gentle looking Druid, Calvin stumbles out "No!  No no! It was just seeing a facsimile of myself took me off guard.  "

Hearing Glims critique of his wares he frowns "Do you still wish to buy them? Half-price?"

Calvin's breath catches at Kelvin's proposal but he quickly recovers. "Well, it's pretty valuable, but I suppose I could do that. Just for you of course"

Glim grumbles performatively. "Half-price sounds fair."

Then, turning aside to Kelvin, "Are you really going to give away our precious dragon's blood in exchange for such a pittance as a scroll of witch bolt? I worked hard purifying that for you! I mean, witch bolt? Really? He should be paying you to take that off his hands so future buyers don't think less of him for carrying such a worthless piece of garbage. I'm starting to think you're just doing this to get back at me for telling that barmaid about your venereal diseases last week. I thought you'd accepted my apology!"

Fionula

She's sighing impatiently and generally being annoying. "At this rate that angry—and now possibly diseased—mob is going to catch up with us."

OOC > I'm not impatient, I love seeing Glim and Kelvin interact!

Fil proceeds to ride forward to scout ahead, just enough distance to still be seen. "People are silly sometimes," he whispers to the horse. On his path, he moves close to any trees and animals along the way. 

After completing your business and getting back on the road, you eventually come across a large bog with an old but ornately decorated stone bridge. Many half-buried wagons lie in the bog. It looks fetid but you can see at the edges it merges almost seamlessly with the grass. Vegetation is thick, especially around the edges of the bridge.

The bridge is about 200 feet long and 20 feet wide.

As you approach, Gargosh speaks out. "Black Maw Bog. Nasty business, and foul with old magic. Cross fast, don't stop, and let's be done with it'

Fil glances at this horse before turning to Gargosh. "Are you sure the bridge is study enough? Can we all cross at once, or do we have to go 1-2 at a time?"