Only three in the afternoon, and the sunlight has already stopped shining on the little store. In the gloom, Ines sweeps the last of the broken glass down the steps, then heads back into the shop to sit down. The general store is located halfway up a slope. Anyone who passes by will see it and its bizarre one-and-a-half-step stairs. The place was chosen by Hoederer, who said it was prime real estate and that she'd make her money back quick, but she originally just wanted to go find a container out in the sheds that didn't leak, dump her 'goods' inside, and collect the money at the door, like back in the Scar Market days. But she didn't argue. The war was over, for now, and the people returning to Kazdel should also return to their former lives. A proper place to buy things was only the first step. 'You put the curtain away?' Hoederer had tried to lift it out of habit as he walked in. A finger extends out of the shadows, pointing at the ornamental fin bowl on the counter. Multicolored beads from the curtain line its bottom, but there is no fin there, nor any water. '...It's fine. As long as the beads are still here, I can string them back together.' The finger retracts back into the shadows. Hoederer walks to the shelves, picking up the fallen Originium bomb samples one by one and placing them back into their box, then moves on to tidying up the knives. Everything else, he reorganizes by how dangerous they are and where they were imported from. Once done, he gives it all a once-over. A damp, sticky liquid remains on the floor, the result of someone giving up trying to clean it halfway through. The man walks back to the counter and pulls out a very fortunate three-legged stool to sit on. From his pockets, he takes out a knife and a piece of wood the size of his hand. By the time Ines finally pulls herself out of her contemplation, he has carved it into an oval. 'What're you doing?' 'I call it the 'W-tato'. Doesn't it look like her?' 'Not in the slightest. And you know that's wood, right?' 'Right, because real potatoes should be for eating.' 'And real knives should be for killing.' 'Was that what you were thinking when you used that real knife of yours to carve your horns?' Ines sinks back into silence. Hoederer blows away the wood shavings. To his surprise, there is a faint glimmer accompanying them as they flutter through the air. 'Alright, change of topic. What happened earlier?' 'Some people decided this place was their safehouse and storeroom. I corrected them, that's all.' 'And that liquid on the ground...?' 'Soda.' 'Did they repay you?' The woman gives him a look that all but says 'Are you serious?'. Hoederer puts down the W-tato and gropes around in the drawer, pulling out the account book from its depths. 'Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands... That's a lot of zeros, Ines. You sure you wrote this down right?' 'Look where the decimal point is.' '...... 'I'll be honest, I don't think you should be keeping your accounts like this.' 'The numbers aren't wrong.' 'No, that's not... fine. At least the bowl didn't break, right? And no blood was shed. I think you can move the decimal point forward a spot—' 'It was just a bunch of kids who got duped into coming here. They couldn't even tell the bombs from the soda bottles. They just grab the box and ran. 'I tripped them up, but one of them knocked over a shelf, giving the other two a chance to escape.' 'You went easy on them.' 'I was busy saving the fin and its bowl.' 'You can always buy another fin... Going to open up shop tomorrow?' Ines steps out of the darkness onto the damp spot, looking all around her. 'Of course, why wouldn't I? 'The shop's already here.'