The apartment was standard: one queen bed, a living room running into a kitchen, a bathroom, a storage room at the back. Ciri went through every room, running her hands over the radio, the entertainment system, the interactive mirror that lit up when she stepped in front of it, the computer terminal on the desk. She'd seen things like this in the Pokemon world but not this far developed, and she kept touching all of it anyway while Finn dropped his bag on the couch and Avallach stood in the middle of the living room saying nothing.
"This is an adequate space for Ciri to be trained," Avallach said.
Finn raised a brow. "Training what?"
"This does not concern you." He turned to Ciri, who had stopped at the computer. "You need to train how to hide the presence of your abilities more. The Wild Hunt follows the trace of elder blood the way a hound follows a scent. If you cannot mask it, no remote world will keep you safe for long."
Ciri crossed her arms. "Will training not make the Wild Hunt able to detect me?"
"I will conjure a spell to mask the presence."
"How can you conjure magic here?" Finn said. "Is your magic multidimensional?"
Avallach turned to him. "To learn the knowledge that I have takes considerable time. Time that a human will not have."
"I was just asking," Finn scoffed.
"We need to start training as soon as possible," Avallach said, back to Ciri.
"Fine. I'll listen." said Ciri.
Meanwhile Finn cracked the case open on the table and started counting out eddies. Behind him Avallach launched into rambles of the nature of the elder blood and Ciri made a sound that suggested she was already regretting agreeing to it. Finn pocketed what he needed and got up.
"I'll get out to get some essentials. Shouldn't take a whole day."
"What?" Ciri's head came around. "You're leaving me with this bore?"
"He's right, Ciri. You need to learn how to use your abilities sooner or later. What better teacher than one of the architects of the elder blood himself?"
Avallach turned to Finn. "You and I will need to talk, crwydren, about the knowledge that you have in your head."
"You don't want to talk, I won't either." Finn pulled the door open. "What the fuck does crwydren mean, anyway?"
"It means wanderer," Ciri said. "Elder Speech."
"You do know Elder Speech," Avallach said. "That is a good start." He nodded at the open door. "Off you go, crwydren."
"Alright, enjoy yourselves. Don't do anything stupid, sage."
—
The lower floors of the megabuilding had most of what he needed: a food vendor, a clothing rack near one of the stairwells, and a small pharmacy. He worked through it floor by floor and came out on the main corridor with a full bag, still with a lot of eddies left over, and heard the gun shop before he saw it, rounds going off in the range at the back punching clearly through the wall. He found the entrance and went inside.
The man behind the counter was latino, built wide, with chrome running up both forearms.
"Sup choom, want to buy some iron?"
"You can say that." Finn took in what was behind the glass: rifles, pistols, shotguns, snipers, attachments filling the gaps between them. "What would you recommend?"
"Well what are you looking for? We got handguns, we got shotguns… What do you want to do? Home defence? Robbery?"
Finn laughed at the joke, or at least he thought it was a joke. "How about one of each type?"
"Shiieee…" The man leaned back from the counter. "You better have the eddies to pay for it then, otherwise you'll be leaving this shop with bullet holes."
"I only have physical cash, if that's okay."
"Ah… you're one of those people." The man hummed. "Alright choom, what type of guns you like?"
"Uh… I already said that—"
"No, not that. You want tech weapons? Smart weapons? You know? That type of stuff?"
"Oh." Finn thought about it. "Well… I prefer guns that don't require much maintenance or charging, if you know what I mean."
"Power it is then. Budget?"
"I have a lot of eddies to burn, that much I can tell you. It's just not on me right now, as it is physical eddies."
The man raised his brow. "All legal though, right?"
"Of course." Finn smiled.
"Alright, alright." He reached under the counter and set a handgun down between them. "Seeing you are a loaded gonk, I recommend this. The Nue, made by the Tsunami Defence Industries."
Finn picked it up while the man kept talking. "It shoots a .45 cal, ten shots per reload, it could even use custom ripper rounds made by the manufacturer. How about the grip? Feels nice ain't it?"
"The ergonomics are certainly nice." Finn turned it over and aimed at the far wall. "What's a ripper round?"
"You're buying iron but don't know what ripper rounds are?" The man scoffed. "Glorified tranq darts is the barebones of it. You can knock out an elephant with one round."
Finn whistled. "Alright… It doesn't need any electrical charge for it to run, right?"
"Well, there's an LED system to tell if there's a bullet in the chamber or not. Should be fifty years before it runs out of power, and even then you can just easily charge it." He straightened up. "I ain't gotta lie, it's not gonna be cheap for a handgun. A thousand eddies."
"Add up a couple boxes of rounds to that and we have a deal for this gun," Finn said.
"I can give you two boxes of a hundred .45. Normal ones. As a bonus. Want to add more?"
"Give me eight more."
"Goddamn, choom, you want to start a war or something? Alright, you want to stop here or…?"
"This is only a pistol," Finn said. "I want a shotgun, a sniper, and an automatic rifle."
"Brutha…" The man shook his head and moved down the counter, pulling a shotgun up. "M2038 Tactician. Holds up to eight shells, small spread on the pellets. Reliable, cheap, simple. Sometimes simple is better, especially for a shotgun. Also a thousand eddies. Pretty good price for a shotgun."
Finn took it and turned it over. "No electrical mod?"
"None at all."
"Alright, I'll take this too, along with ten boxes of shells. And the sniper and the rifle?"
The man reached further back and brought up something noticeably larger than the first two. "SPT32 Grad. Russian made bolt action. Hell of a gun. There were supposed to be only three hundred of these. Of course, people just copied it for profit."
"I'm assuming this is one of the copies and not the original?" Finn said.
"Yep. still though, performs just as good as the original. Fifteen hundred eddies. No more, no less."
"Fine, I'll take it, plus—"
"Plus ten boxes of ammo. I know, I know." The man set it aside and pulled the last one up. "M251s Ajax. Holds thirty rounds, retractable stock, low fire rate, high recoil, but good stopping power and accuracy. Doesn't need any chrome to operate either. Preferred rifle of the Militech, if you're a corpo bootlicker. A thousand eddies."
"I'll take it. Oh, add a couple of grenades as well."
"Jesucristo my man, you're really going to war, are you?" The man shook his head. "Fine, fine, ain't gonna ask nothing. Let me add up all that stuff first." He counted under his breath. "That'll be… six thousand eddies, plus the ammo and the grenades."
Finn dropped a stack of cash on the counter. "Here's two thousand. I'll be back with the rest while you pack it up."
"You can add five hundred eddies to the bill and I'll send it to your flat as soon as I can."
Finn thought about it. "Deal. I'll meet you at 3306."