Lady of Curses

[Right after Aella left the bandit camp]

''Good to be back.'' Aella appeared in her house in the same place she left. She looked around and found that the place was in the same state when she left it. 

After that, she went to the table where she left her bounty from hunting and hauling wolfs, and put down her new prizes. She put down the tree daggers and the coin pouch normally on the table and the wrapped-up horn she put as far as she could from her, on the other end of the table. 

Now that the horn was out of her hands she felt a little less uncomfortable, its presence still bothered her but she was happy it wasn't touching her. 

Next, she got naked she pulled off the dress from her body, leaving her naked with a choker, and threw it on the ground. The dress was totally ruined, so Aella had to figure out how to get rid of it. She was a little sad that her new dress was in tatters, but it is what it is, and she wasn't ready to go find a tailor that could fix her dress.

Thinking about clothes Aella remembered the ones she left in the bath. Leaving the dress on the ground she went to her bathroom to see what happened to the clothes she got from Cassy. She opened the door to her bathroom and went straight for the bath to see the situation. 

Walking over she saw that the water was now dirty, which didn't surprise Aella. She put her hand in the water and opened up the drain. The water in the bath slowly drained until it was almost all gone. 

When most of the water was gone she pulled out a piece of clothing from the bathtub. It was still wet and Aella had to unfold the clothing piece to fully see what she got in her hands. It was her shirt, Aella could still see some dirty spots on her shirt although it was wet. 

Fortunately, she got the choker from her last adventure, so she didn't have to think much about how to clean her clothes, but she has to wear them to get them clean, so now she has to dry them. 

She stepped outside the bathroom and looked outside one of her windows to see how's the weather today, and by the looks of it, it was sunny, so she could just lay her clothes outside near her house and let the sun do its job. But Aella wasn't too sure about this option, because she didn't want her clothes to get stolen, and although it didn't look like someone would steal her stuff in this place, she still didn't trust that no one would steal her clothes. 

So she went for the next best thing, she put her clothes around the house near the windows so that the sun could still dry them but in the safety of her house. Her house still didn't have any lock on it, but no one had broken in until now, so that meant that either people here didn't usually break inside other houses or that this house has some security system that she wasn't aware of. Either way, it was probably safer to do it this than just plop them near the house outside. 

The next step she had in mind was to go find herself a job inside the settlement because right now she didn't have an optimal way to hunt anything, but before that, she decided to have a nap, so that she could rest her brain and let her clothes dry. 

She left anything as is and went to bed, and the moment she put her head on the pillow and closed her eyes she was out.

***

''Yaaawn~'' After a while Aella woke up from her nap, and the first thing she did was yawn and stretch her body. The nap was a success and she was feeling great. 

As she got up she combed through her black hair with her fingers and got some strands out of her face. She looked outside the window to approximately see how long she had slept. 

Peaking outside the window she could see that the sun was still up, but it was close to the horizon and soon will go down. Fortunately, this settlement has a rich nightlife, so it wasn't like the jobs in the night were less than in the day. So with that in mind, Aella went to check how her clothes were doing. 

On the first touch, they felt dry, only her pants and boots were a little bit moist, but nothing detrimental and she could easily wear them without any problems. So with that, she got ready, it didn't take long before Aella was all dressed and ready to go find herself a job. She grabbed the pouch with the crystals she got from her hunt and went for the door.

Leaving the house she took a final look at her stuff inside the house before she closed the wooden door and went on her way.

After that, she started to wander around looking for a job. While walking around she found some places that interested her and kept them in her mind, as right now she didn't walk in and ask if they needed help but just observed her potential options.

She observed and weighed her options for a while, and seeing one place she almost went inside the building and asked if they had open spots for her, it was a bakery and she had some interest in working there, especially when she smelled the aroma that was coming from it. But she stopped herself and continued on her way, remembering where the bakery was located.

While still thinking about that bakery, she found an interesting shop. From the outside, it looked like a normal wooden house, with the exception of a sign and an interesting looking lamp hanging right beside the sign.

The sign looked like it was made from wood and the writing was written with ink, but the bizarre thing was that the writing was always changing, sometimes it was something Aella could read and understand, other times it was just random letters mush together, and there were even times when it was written in letters and symbols Aella couldn't understand. 

As for the lamp, it looked like a glass sphere, but inside it, there were multiple balls of light fastly flying around and illuminating the shop's front. 

Aella couldn't help but be attracted to this place, so without thinking she went for the door wanting to explore what kind of shop this was. The interesting part was there was nowhere where it said this was a shop, maybe the sign could be the indicator, but even without it for some reason, Aella instinctively knew that this was a shop, but she didn't know what this shop sold.

Opening the door, there was no sound, no bell, and even the hinges didn't squeak, it was just total silence, and when she closed the door the sound from the street faded until it was total silence in the shop. It was so quiet that almost every move Aella made could be heard, whether it was her boots hitting the floor or her cloak rustling as she turned. 

Looking around the shop, she saw that it looked kind of old. There were big wooden shelves all around her, with many different stuff in them, and it didn't look like there was any kind of order in this place, and from the looks of it, the owner put stuff wherever he pleased. While looking around she found out that this place was illuminated by multiple lamps, all over the place, that were similar to the one which was outside. 

Walking around Aelle could see some unique items on the shelves, but she couldn't find the owner or anything that would show her how to contact them. But she didn't really mind that because she was more interested in these items. 

While she was viewing everything in here, she stumbled on a little pile of scrolls that reminded her of something. Her deal with June, and that gave her an idea. Maybe she didn't need to find a job, but she could sell her curses instead. She only needed to find out how valuable her service was, and if anyone would buy from her, because she didn't know how high was demand for curses was in Safury plain. 

''Something got your interest?''