22 The Supplies - Part 2

"Well, that was awful."

"It wasn't that bad."

"Really. How can you say that with a straight face?"

Sylvia pursed her lips together stifling a laugh

"Because… it's… true."

She couldn't hold it any longer and burst out in laughter at Octavia's expense. Redness coloured Octavia's cheeks as she just watched her clutch her chest at how hard she was laughing.

While she thought it was funny, that was definitely not how Octavia saw the incident.

…

Having just entered the general store and been greeted by the maze of wooden stands holding gear and items, she saw that it stretched long and far, winding throughout the store. Obstacles in the form of gawking shoppers narrowed sections of the aisles even further.

She thought she could just wait until they all left, but with only one server at the front of the store, and it being the prime time of the day for shopping, there was no hope of having an empty store.

And so, she headed in.

As she slithered down the first aisle, the narrowness of it all meant that each curve of her tail just ended up skimming the wooden stands. Not enough to move or damage anything, but enough that she could just about feel the wood on her scales.

It hadn't occurred to Octavia to use her straight line slithering to navigate the store.

As she continued her journey, heading toward the camping equipment, she came across her first obstacle, in the form of an elven man with short dark hair, mouth agape at what he was seeing. As Octavia neared him, she went to slither around him, curling her tail the best way she could to pass him.

As she did, given the size of her tail, she ended up pushing one of the stands out of its position, into the adjacent aisle. The sound of wood scraping on the wooden floor was the first sound heard since they entered the store. This ended up shocking a few of the customers, bringing them back to reality, where they then continued with their shopping, all the while discussing with other shoppers the strange new person in the store.

The man she passed was also brought out of his stupor, but instead of continuing with his shopping, he wanted to talk to the new snake girl in town. Whether it was out of curiosity, or some misguided attempt to try and flirt with the new girl, Octavia did not know.

"Hey there,-"

"Wha-"

Hearing the man she was passing suddenly speak up made her jump. She was already nervous given she ended up bumping into one of the stands and was being watched by most of the store, that the voice to her side, shocked her.

This sudden shock involuntarily caused her whole body to jump up. Which was soon followed by her tail carrying on the same motion. Her tail, mind you, which at the point of the shock, had the tip under one of the stands, and part of it was right next to the man's feet.

The tail tip caught the edge of the stand, pushing it up and toppling it over. The stand was showing off several different waterskins made of various materials and in various sizes. It was displayed very well, having good logical order and was visually appealing. But, this was quickly ruined as the back of the stand hit the floor and the contents poured out onto the ground.

As the saying goes, what goes up must come down, which meant her whole tail which had jumped up off the ground, was about to slam back down onto the floor.

A large portion of which, was right next to the man's feet. Given she was in the process of slithering along, as it lifted off the ground her movements caused it to end up right above the man's feet, resulting in the drop being quite painful for him.

Her tail slammed straight down onto his feet, causing him to cry out in agony.

He crouched to push her tail off and pull his feet out from under it as quickly as he could, but in his haste, he moved back as he did. Right onto a stand in the store.

He fell backwards, toppling along with the stand, with its contents hitting the floor like the other.

The smashing of the wooden stand against the floor, caused a nearby couple to jump as well, where one woman ended up elbowing her friend in the face.

"Oww. What the-"

"S-sorry, so sorry, it made me jump."

While the two spoke, one apologising profusely and the other grumpily rubbing her face, Octavia turned to the man, to who she then began to apologise.

This movement also had an unintended side effect though, as the quick turn, caused her tail to flick with her, causing even more chaos.

It hit two more stands, forcing them into the nearby aisle. An aisle that another man was walking down.

These slammed into him, knocking him down, where, as he fell, he reached out to catch himself, pulling a nearby woman down with him.

You would hope this was the extent of the problems. But things just continued to get worse.

With the closeness of the stands and the people, everything continued like a chain reaction.

Creaks and cracks could be heard from the several stands that had been damaged, and they could hold out no longer, the damage causing them to collapse and splinter under their own weight.

Plates, cups and other delicate items that fell to the floor shattered into dozens upon dozens of shards.

The shock the customers experienced caused them to falter in their movements, bumping into various things, people and stands alike causing even more problems.

By this point, yelling could be heard by almost everyone in the store. Yelling at her or at each other, Octavia did not know as it was just a mass amount of noise at this point.

All the while, Octavia continued to apologise to any and everyone around her for her failure to navigate the shop.

The kicker though, was that while all of this had happened, in less than a minute you might add, Sylvia was still standing at the door to the shop, mouth open in shock.

Even though the situation was hilarious, all she could feel was worry for her friend. The amount of damage was obviously not small, and any one of the people here may retaliate physically given the extent of it.

Knowing she had to do something, she quickly called the guards that had been following them and asked them to break up the fight.

They charged into the store, pulling people away from others, who looked to be getting angrier and angrier with each other, ensuring it did not escalate into a fight. They then quickly handled the situation, calming everyone down, and dealing with the situation.

Once done, Octavia slithered out of the shop with her head down.

Thankfully, given Sylvia's position and all that Octavia had done to help save her, she wasted no time covering the damage the shop owner and customers received, quickly paying them for their troubles. This appeased many of the people in the shop, but the owner specially requested that the snake girl could not enter his store ever again.

Thankfully, the incident was put to rest, and no one was seriously injured. Aside from Octavia's dignity that is.

…

"Can we just forget about it please?"

"You can try, but I won't be forgetting any time soon. I am going to keep this memory forever."

How Octavia wished she could wipe that smug grin off her face.

…

"So where to now."

After everything that had happened, given how she was now barred from the establishment, she asked if Sylvia could buy some things from the shop, of which she was more than happy to.

Octavia was thankful that she was able to walk away from that mess as the owner of some new camping gear, which included a tent, more than large enough for her to fit, a bed roll, some rations and a few other bits and bobs.

What surprised her though, was that Sylvia also walked out with a few odds and ends, including her own bedroll. Octavia asked if she planned on going camping in the future but only received a non-committal shrug.

…

The next place they planned to go, was the apothecary.

She had held onto them for quite some time, and it was finally time to learn what mysterious potions she had were.

Would it be a simple health potion, some sort of poison, maybe even something to improve your abilities?

Well now was the time to find out.

As they reached the store, it was much smaller than that of the general store. This obviously frightened Octavia, as there was a big difference between knocking a plate or waterskin to the floor, to knocking a glass bottle filled with a handmade potion of some sort.

She thought about just passing the potion to Sylvia to deal with but thought that was unfair of her, given all she had done at the general store and helping her find a place to stay. The other option she realised, was to go with the odd straight-line slither. Why she forgot about that in the general store, she did not know. It might garner a few looks, but it was better than demolishing the store.

As they entered, relief flowed over her. While it was small, it was quite spacious. No other customers were present at this time and the floor wasn't littered with a maze of stands and items, as all of the potions were shelved on the walls of the shop.

All of this meant she could easily enter with her massive tail, and she didn't even need the weird slither.

At the far end, the shopkeeper stood, behind her counter. As far as Octavia could see, she was human and looked to be in her forties, with long black hair.

"Hello there, welc…ome…"

Like with all the other people she had met, her appearance shocked the shopkeeper.

Slithering through the store, with Sylvia at her side, she gazed at all of the potions on display as the shopkeeper was stuck frozen. They plastered the entirety of the walls, ranging in every colour of the rainbow. A dirty beige label was plastered on each of the bottles detailing what the potion was. She couldn't tell what the label was made out of, but it was likely to be some form of parchment.

It was at this point, that she realised she could actually read what was on the label.

"How can I read this, but couldn't read that old book from the village." She muttered.

A question for another day.

As she read from the bottles, she found what she was expecting, some were curatives, with a few being pain relievers, some that closed up wounds and many more varieties. There were poisons along the wall as well. These all had different names of what Octavia assumed were plants or animals, from which the poison or venom came. She decided to stay clear of these.

There were also others that she was not expecting. Some appeared to just be scents from what she gathered from Sylvia. Various names of flowers were stated on the bottles, but it seemed all they did was provide a nice smell when opened.

Given the lack of these on the shelves, these sold out pretty fast

"Wouldn't have thought a bottled smell would be so popular."

"Of course it is. Many a woman loves the smell and they leave it in their room or house to make it more fragrant. Also, men use them to impress other women, giving they fancy smells that work for the woman." Sylvia replied, somewhat shocked that Octavia did know this obvious fact.

Now that Octavia thought about it more, she realised it was a bit of a stupid question. These were practically a basic form of perfume. Just one you couldn't put on a person. And perfume was a highly sold item on Earth.

Finishing off their perusing, they had reached the counter and the woman had finally come out of her stupor.

"How can I help you?"

Being the professional that she was, she regained herself quite well and went straight back into shopkeeper mode. But it was easy to see that she was dying to ask some questions.

"Yes, I found these two potion bottles in my… travels. Would you be able to tell me what these are?

"Absolutely. Just let me run a few tests and I should be able to tell what they are."

Handing them over, both herself and Sylvia watched the woman figure out what the potions were.

The first thing she did was pour a little of it onto a piece of fruit, which ended up doing nothing to the fruit. The woman's face grew confused at that reaction but continued with her testing.

She proceeded to pour small drops of the potion on other items, including some bark and a leaf. Still, there was no reaction. The confusion only grew on her face.

She set aside all these items and then held her hands over the bottle, and began to chant.

The chant was quite a bit longer than the maids was with the water, and nothing actually happened once she finished it.

What did happen though, was that the woman remained in place for a few seconds as if she was trying to comprehend something that neither of them could see.

"Ah."

The sudden cry from the woman made both of them jump. Octavia's body and tail jumped up like before but thankfully hit nothing. Sylvia on the other hand jumped backwards and ended up tripping over Octavia's tail, causing her to fall to the floor landing on her bottom.

"Ouch."

Turning to her, Octavia could see the redness growing on her cheeks.

All she could do was laugh at the situation Sylvia was in.

"It's not funny."

"Maybe not, but given all that's happened to me today, it feels right that this happened to you."

"Wha-"

Before she could continue, Octavia held out her hand to Sylvia to pull her up, which, while grumbling, she gladly accepted.

Pulling her up, she pulled a bit too hard, causing Sylvia to practically fall into her as she got to her feet.

"Oh…Err…Sorry."

No…no…It's ok, its… my fault."

The blush on Sylvia's face grew further, and Octavia's face reddened as well.

All they did was stare at each other, unsure on what to do next.

The moment was quickly broken as the shopkeeper coughed to catch their attention, causing both to jump away from each other.

"So, I found out what it is. It's not a potion. It's oppafle juice."

"Oh, I love oppafle juice." Sylvia cried.

"Oppafle juice. What's an oppafle?"

The shopkeeper quickly turned and entered the back room. She returned shortly after holding a fruit. A fruit that looked very similar to the bunch of fruits Octavia had in her bag.

"This is an oppafle. They're commonly found in the nearby forest and make a lovely fruit juice."

And there she had it. She had got her answer.

It was not the one she was hoping for though. Here she thought she had some sort of potion but all it was, was a squeezed fruit juice.

With the mystery solved, they didn't have much else to do in the shop. She picked up a few potions that could help on her journey, mainly curative items, as even though she had regeneration in her tail, that didn't include regeneration for her body.

As they left the store, they both thanked the shop keeper, answering a few of her questions about who she was and then started to head back, with all their shopping now done.

"Can I have one of these? I love this stuff." Sylvia asked, holding onto one of the bottles of oppafle juice.

"Sure, sure."

Octavia took one out as well, and gave it a sip. It had a similar taste to the fruit in its raw form, but it lacked the sharp kick at the end. It was quite nice.

…

With that, their shopping trip came to a close and both headed back to the castle in order to have some lunch.

As they reached the castle entrance, neither of them saw the two men that had been trailing behind the guards for quite some time now, who proceeded to run off into another area of the town once they entered the castle.