“Dan Baker come in earlier and tol' us bout hows he traded with a wizard for some pies. Got himself a red magic light he claimed! We were all saying hows magic light is expensive and no how would a wizard trade one for pies. Dan's good, but they're still just pies, right? But then he just whips it out!” This caught the attention of the group next to them who'd obviously been listening in. They were a mixed group and even had several youngsters with them, all looked to be from a merchant family, by the way they were dressed. Nicely, but not so well Tor felt like he was out of place. They chuckled at what she'd said, getting a slightly strained look from Jasmin.
“Whipped out the little light I mean. Hardly big as a coin, but lit up the whole room! I was afraid for a bit that it would kill us all or something, but it was just a light. No one knows why it's red like that though. Easier to make ya think?” She smiled again and looked around the table warmly. Instead of answering her Holly leaned over and, not quietly, asked why he'd done that with an odd smile.
“Well, you know, no money. So like everyone else does when their broke, I traded what I had.”
For some reason that got a big laugh from Jasmin, and one nearly as loud from the table of eavesdroppers. At least Tor understood why they weren't talking about anything important here. The second it was said it probably would have become known throughout the whole kingdom. Well, eventually at least. Still, as long as he knew that, it was a nice enough place. Not fancy by royal standards, but the nicest restaurant he'd ever eaten in. Giant bugs or not. What he'd eaten turned his stomach a little, so he tried not to think about it.
After desert Holly passed the woman two silver coins and got a hand full of copper in return.
This was the part Tor dreaded.
It was obvious that he was the one supposed to give the tip, since he was the guest at the head of the table. By doing that Holly had named him the head of the little visiting group, at least in her mind, Princess there or not. Jasmin hovered a little, and looked around, as if wondering if she had the places right, probably since he looked so young. Reaching into the little cloth bag Tor had borrowed from Kevin, he pulled out ten of the devices he'd made. Then took a deep breath.
“Um, I know they don't have sigils on them, but they activate just like a regular amulet. They're just temperature equalizers, mainly but… here, Jasmin, would you put this on?” Grinning she did it with a wink, as if he was playing with her or something.
“It's right pretty, thank you!” She said, as if she was actually admiring the disk of red colored glass. It was actually kind of pretty, he had to admit. He pointed and mimicked tapping his own chest to get her to turn it on. When she did it started to glow inside. The light shifted and moved, going from a blue color to a bright yellow which stabilized at gold. Then it just stayed that color, shifting around only a bit.
“Oh!” Trice said. “Now that's pretty! Make some up for me and Sara?” She said automatically, then remembered that they weren't engaged to be married any more it seemed. Tor just shrugged and got one out of the bag for her.
“You really are a wizard? Sir, I didn't know… laughing at you earlier, I was just…” She blushed and looked like she was going to pass out. The amulet shifted in color gold to red and then a deep, almost ugly purple. It mixed with other colors, green mostly. A bit of orange mixed in, but not nearly as much as all that.
Shrugging Tor winked at her in a big and obvious fashion, trying to put her at ease.
“You were taken in by my boyish good looks maybe? Don't worry about it. Happens all the time. One of these for each of the people that works here? They'll also keep you comfortable temperature wise. It should help in the kitchens I think.” Jasmin ran to get everyone, asking them not to leave, her amulet going nearly pure green.
Looking around, Trice put one on and activated it. When she looked around it was an almost black color which didn't match the look on her face, a sunny smile, but as she looked at Tor it changed, a pale pink shooting through it, growing stronger as she watched it, until, for a moment, it became all pink.
“Why do the colors change?” Awe in her voice she looked away from it briefly.
“They loosely follow your mood. The darker colors are darker emotions. Bright red rage, pink affection, yellow happiness, blue means you’re thinking, really the normal meanings for colors. It's just a feedback mechanism, something I'm working on for another project.” The light too. It wasn't exactly right, but if anyone bothered to look, when activated they became a half sphere of glass, in appearance, not just flat slabs. The glowing distracted from that. Now if he could just link the parts and appearance to the movements of a hand…
It was a start at least. He grinned at Trice who's amulet went back to pink and became shot with yellow just at that moment. Chuckling she looked down at it and smirked a little.
“These will sell. Even without the temperature equalizers on them. Make a few hundred of them and by this time next year the rabble will have Karina sucking you off to try and get some.” The words dropped out of her mouth so smoothly that half the table hadn't noticed what she said, but her amulet turned a dark green with a pretty blue swirl. Whatever that meant.
Tor ignored it.
At least now thanks to his recent experience and learning he knew what she meant by that. The sucking off part at least. The “rabble” meant nothing to him. Street people? Varley grinned and asked if there were any spares. He handed them out, finding it interesting who took one and who didn't. The restaurant people all took one and made happy sounds, like it was better than gold to them, which was kind. Most of them were happy about it, he saw, bright yellow being the most popular color. Some green crept in. Was that people wondering if they'd get money too? He hoped not, because this was all he had for them. Varley's was nearly pure blue, a bright color that Tor had expected to be there. She was wickedly smart, she even felt intelligent when he'd tried to sense her field. That's basically all this did, respond to a small portion of a person’s field and change colors.
Easy really once he'd thought about it.
As they walked back Holly stared at him for a long time, finally taking his arm, a little awkwardly since he was pretty short and she was taller than Petra, who was six-foot-six or so.
“I'm sorry I took your things without asking. I can tell it's made problems for you, things I hadn't thought of at all, and now you’re giving away things worth hundreds, maybe thousands of golds just to keep things flowing correctly, because of my… error. I'll make it right. I promise.” She looked down at her feet, but kept walking.
How she planned to make it right he didn't know, his head was still a little stuffed feeling and it was a little hot still, even though it was dark out. Tor wanted to hit himself in the head, but just put on one of the new amulets instead. Duh. Heat equalizing field right there, if he wasn't too stupid to use it. A wave of coolness slipped over him then. That was much better. He didn't bother looking down at the light, since it was pretty obvious to him what it would be. Petra, who had a pink and yellow glow between her breasts flowed over and pointed though.
“Um, what does black mean Tor? Death? I'm pretty sure you're still alive… Or doesn't it work on you? A little unfair if that’s the case,” she said, yellow and gold suddenly taking over the center of her piece of glass.
Looking at the large girl Trice shook her head, amulet mainly black too, but Petra didn't take the hint and kept asking. Finally it was Kolb that told her to stop, a smile on his face, his voice easy, but still firm enough that the girls eyes went wide.