Chapter 65 (1 of 2) Step aside, Thaumaturgy. Dramaturgy is the best power. (Patreon)

The fire warrior hesitated for a brief moment when he saw the knife against his party member’s neck, but without wasting a second the fire mage summoned a giant fireball to shoot at Lucy in the rare moment she was standing still. The longsword warrior’s eyes widened as Lucy abandoned the man in her grasp and enhanced her AGI with wind mana to dash off to the side.

The earth warrior screamed in pain as fire consumed his body. The greatsword fell from his grip as he dropped to the ground, rolling about while trying to put out the flames.

Lucy shook her head. “What a cruel woman. Burning is one of the worst ways to d- whoops!” She jumped up high to dodge the blade slashed at her feet. Doing a frontflip as she turned to face the last warrior, she smiled wide with her two blades back in both of her hands.

With only a silent mental command, both weapons extended and the warrior quickly backed away when faced with the two snake-swords violently writhing and twisting in a large zone around her. Lucy straightened up and pointed at him with the handle of Apophis. “Are you quite finished?”

‘Lucy, the earth guy is trying to get to the exit.’

Ignore him. Maybe humanity will fare better with at least one more surviving multi-cellular brain in their midst.

With a vicious growl, the man facing her gritted his teeth and charged forward, his blade encased in a fiery aura. Instead of dodging Lucy crossed the handguards of the two weapons to catch his sword in the centre. They disengaged with the clang of metal and Lucille released Apophis as she grasped Ouroboros’s handle with both hands and swung down. Doing what she predicted, the man deflected the attack again but instead of slowing her momentum, she kicked off the ground and let go of the spirit weapon.

Recalling her final spar with the Commander, she flipped over him while pulling down the levitating Apophis’s handle with her. When she spun around to face him the weapon he clashed against wasn’t Ouroboros anymore but the malevolent demonic blade, whirring menacingly.

Unprepared for such a quick weapon change, he hastily held his longsword up but hissed through his clenched teeth as numerous minor cuts were made by the spinning half-segments. Lucy’s smile widened as their exchanges sped up, her dodging most if not all of his attacks and their clashes not lasting long enough for her to be pushed back by his higher STR.

I think I’m getting the hang of it. The autonomous movement of my weapons needed to be used more frequently. Also, the potential movement skill idea is coming together.

Actually, I’m not treating this as combat at all. I use my mental constructs to play with enemies and trick people, but I’m beginning to consider battle the same way. It’s enjoyable to perform dramatic motions in a fight and fool my attackers. This is dangerous. I’m beginning to like combat against the races far more than defeating monsters.

The sound of another roaring fireball refocused her attention on the battle and she gestured with her free right hand to defend against the spell. Having regained some mana after the earlier large spell, the fire mage had re-joined the fight.

“Look out! If you’re not careful, your fire mage over there just might incinerate you too!” she said with malicious glee, stabbing out with Apophis in his longsword form.

The warrior frowned in the mage’s direction but didn’t fall for the taunt, keeping his attention on Lucy.

The issue is…  I’m getting tired. I guess it’s time to finish this.

“Well then, it’s been fun, but…” She pulled down the handle of Apophis and then lengthened him as much as she could. Pushing her mana into the blade to enhance the damaging effects of the demonic aura, she also increased the weapon’s width. With Apophis still tightly coiled close to her body, Lucille gained a lopsided smirk as she tilted her head at him. “I think it’s time for this farce to end.”

He hastily backpedalled as Apophis uncoiled at a rapid speed, ready to shred anything in his path. With a mechanical sound, the two blades spun outward, one clockwise and the other counter-clockwise. He agitatedly tried to deflect the black and silver blades, but they continued to push him back until he was up against the wall. The fire mage woman at the back laid down on the floor and covered her head, trying to avoid the blades.

The fire warrior twisted his head, trying to avoid touching the weapons in the limited space there was left, but all it took was the end of Ouroboros to come past for the spirit weapon to flick its tip and slash his neck. He collapsed to the ground, clutching at his throat dripping with blood, and then stopped moving. He was dead.

Then Lucille’s eyes widened as the sound of rushing fire approached and she spun to cast a shield and protect herself from the fireball. With a pale face, she stared at the fire mage who was now standing, a new staff in her hand.

The woman smirked. “I can see it. You don’t have much mana left, if at all.” The woman gestured with her head in the direction of the two men near the entrance. Scytale was watching the developing events with interest, while Hargrave was looking worried. He had noticed Lucy’s mana fatigue as well. “And it’s obvious that those two aren’t going to help you, with how they’ve been standing on the sidelines this whole time.”

The fire mage pointed the staff at Lucy. It was releasing an aura stronger than the previous times. “Firebolt!”

Lucille clenched her teeth and mustered the energy to cast an arcane barrier. The spells clashed, negating each other.

The woman’s smile widened. “Firebolt! Firebolt!”

The colour drained from Lucy’s face as she tried to defend herself again. Her barriers shuddered when faced with the force of the advanced spells, wavering as if they would disappear. But they held and protected Lucille once again.

“I’d like to see you try to block this one!” the woman shouted with viciousness. “Inferno Bolt!”

The whirling spire of flames shot towards Lucy. Hastily scampering back, she held her two weapons in their longsword forms and tried to block the attack. “No! Please! I don’t have any mana left! I can’t-”

“Firebolt! Firebolt! Firebolt!”

“No! Don’t!”

No shields were formed and the spells crashed into Lucille as she screamed. “No! No, no!” She continued to say ‘no’, but slowly the fire mage realised something was off. “No, no, no, no, ….oh dear. No…”

The flames cleared to show Lucille was perfectly fine, not a hair singed. And she had a hand wrapped around her stomach as she tried to stifle her laughter with her other hand. “No, no, no, this is too funny. Way too funny. I always wanted to try something like this.” She straightened up when faced with the stares of both the fire mage and Hargrave. “You truly thought you had me there, didn’t you? How cute. Adorable, really.”

With only Apophis’s dagger form in her hand, Lucille calmly walked forward with a casual smile on her face.

The fire mage’s face paled with fear and she raised her staff again. “Firebolt! Fireball!”

Lucy swept a hand through the spells when they were close and they disappeared, fizzling out of existence. She continued forward as the mage cast more spells.

“Fireball!”

The next spell dashed itself to pieces against the air before Lucille’s arm, not a mark left behind.

Letting out a roar of frustration, the mage summoned eight fireballs, putting in all her effort.

“Fireball Bombardment!”

Lucy stopped walking forward and held her hands behind her back, a look of innocent curiosity on her face, as if she was intrigued to know what would happen if they hit her.

All eight landed on her at the same time and dissolved. Red fire mana swirled uselessly around her. Lucille looked down at her clothes and dusted herself off. “Oh, is this… ash?” She pretended to pick something off herself and then shrugged. “No, I was mistaken. It’s merely lint.”

Utterly stupefied that her most powerful attacks had been ineffective against Lucy, the red-haired mage was woken out of her shocked state by Lucy’s words and hastily ran back, looking for an exit. “No… no! I surrender! I won’t do anything else, I swear! I’m happy to leave in peace and never come here again!”

Lucille continued to walk forward with Apophis in her grip, her carefree smile still present. When the woman brandished her staff and swung it at Lucy, she caught it in her hand and then wrenched it from her grip. Before the mage could react, Lucille swiftly kicked her into the stone wall behind where she spluttered, her head hitting the back wall with a thump.

She watched Lucy fearfully as the dark-haired woman leaned down and placed Apophis under the fire mage’s chin. “I heard the other party member I killed call you ‘Ravelle’. Well then, Ravelle. I can’t make any promises that I’ll remember you, but you can die content with the knowledge that your death was justified and due to a mistake on your own part, not mine.”

But before Lucy killed her, she paused and withdrew the weapon slightly. “But I do want to ask… do you have any resurrections left?”

The woman blinked with incomprehension before her eyes widened and she smiled. “Yes… that’s right. If you kill me now, I swear to get revenge! And chase after you for the rest of my life! So just let me leave and… I… urk…” Her words trailed off as she stared at the bejewelled black dagger plunged into her heart.

“Oh, that was the wrong answer.”

As blood flowed from her wound she raised her eyes to stare at Lucille, who leaned close to her ear to whisper, “You see, I was going to let you live if you said no.”

The woman slumped sideways, her gaze going distant and unfocused as the life bled out of her. Lucille yanked the dagger free with a spurt of blood and spun around with a smile on her face.

Then she blinked when she saw Hargrave and Scytale a few steps behind, a look of bemusement on the face of the former and a mix of mild exasperation and amusement on the latter.

“Got that out of your system, Lucy?” Scytale asked.

“Hmm…” Her eyes drifted to the dissipating bodies of the two adventurers, clearly resurrecting at the last Obelisk they visited. “I suppose so, yes. It was quite different from defeating monsters.” Lucy looked at Hargrave, who was studying her silently with his arms crossed. “Is something the matter?”

“It’s just… I was thinking about why I often feel that your manner is off-putting and that you’re hiding something,” he replied. “I guess I feel relieved.”

His frankness surprised her, but his last statement surprised her even more. She tilted her head curiously. “Relieved?”

“Relieved to know that the reason why I’m wary of you isn’t for the reasons I thought,” he said with a strange expression.

She stared at him, but then her thoughts were broken by the loud laughter to her right. Lucy glared at the snickering snake she unfortunately called her and bond, then sighed as she shook her head. “Let’s finish up here so we can return to the Commission. I need to begin discussing the external debut with Vincent, and I also want to begin gaining my movement abilities.”

Scytale nodded as Hargrave silently followed her out of the room. She spared a glance for the unconscious rogue but decided he wasn’t worth dealing with, so they left, looking forward to the comforts of the Aurelian Commission Headquarters.

“Lucille…” Hargrave began, making her look back. “I recall you said something about getting my help for the movement skill?”

“Surely introducing a third member to your spars wouldn’t be difficult for future Sir Mythos Slayer,” Lucy said with amusement. “Only three of us fight in the Commission.”

“I-” He frowned at her. “Don’t call me that.”

She pointed at him. “I’ll stop calling you that if you help me gain my skill.”

Hargrave ran a hand down his face and eyed her sourly, clearly not appreciating the manipulation.

She smirked. “I’m kidding. Would Blood Patriarch be better?”

“No it would not,” he muttered. He let out a sigh. “I can help you with the skill, sure. Sparring with Scytale was mostly to stave off boredom anyway.”

Lucille glanced at him but kept moving forward. “It seems I’ll have to ask you to come with me more often.”

Hargrave gave her a confused look. Then Lucille spun around to face him, a smirk on her face as she spread her arms. “But we have something more important to address. You called me Lucille!”

Hargrave went silent as he saw her expression. Then suddenly, before she could react, he threw his spear and it barely avoided her cheek. She looked behind her to see it buried in a wall.

“There was a spider,” the ex-mercenary stated.

“A… spider…” Lucy smirked and turned back around. “I see. Sure, a spider. Sure.”

She kept her words to herself as she watched the red-haired man awkwardly rub the back of his neck. Feeling amused, she shook her head and decided to discuss something else with her group. Scytale had no problems coming up with pointless topics to talk about.

It seems he reacts very interestingly to embarrassment. I should probably stop teasing him as much.

Giving him one last look before they entered the main hall of the level, she opened the door in front of them that would take them back to the surface.

But just like with Vincent, he acts so differently from the Prismatic Dragon Ruler I met. That individual was… for lack of a better term, someone who was waiting for death.

She sighed quietly. The others didn’t notice.

It’s not up to me to tell him to change his path but… well, it’s clear the past timeline brought out the worst in most of us.

___________________________________________________________________________

“-and I’m saying it would be way more fun if Hargrave came along for all of our fights!”

“So you can dive into danger as much as you want and rely on him to save you if things go south? Don’t be daft, Scytale. Besides, you’d never level up.”

“…I’ll decline your offer, Scytale.”

“Tsk. Now you’ve made Hargrave reject my suggestion.”

A silver-haired man with half-moon glasses looked up from the table covered in documents he was working on. Vincent adjusted his glasses as he realised that Lucille, Scytale and Hargrave had returned from their trip to the Dungeon. “It seems you haven’t had any issues,” he remarked as they entered the living room.

Lucille only stopped to nod and unsheathe her two blades to place them on the table. She turned around and walked back out the door as Hargrave sat down and Scytale left for the kitchen. “It went well, even if there were complications at the end. But I have an objective to aim for with my abilities. Also…” She tilted her head back to give him another look. “Once I’ve had a shower and changed I’d like to begin discussing the external debut, Vincent.”

He gazed at her with mild despair, then sighed and nodded. “As you wish.” He watched his superior leave and then turned to the other two men in the room. “Complications?”

“Yeah, well, things will definitely become more complicated for those guys, but not her,” Scytale replied, casually dropping a magical berry into his mouth. He had returned from the kitchen with a bowl of them.

“…’those guys’?” Vincent turned to Hargrave in hopes of a better explanation.

The red-haired man hesitated for a moment before crossing his arms, grimacing. “It’s better not to ask.”

“Hmm…” Still feeling unsure, Vincent looked down at the pages sprawled in front of him and began to reshuffle them into neat piles. “Then I suppose the second level of the Dungeon is cleared. I’ll have to discuss the city planning with Alichanteu.” He shook his head. “Finding a brand new Ancient Dungeon and giving it to the Commission practically for free. Honestly, I feel like either Lucille isn’t aware of the impacts of her actions or she just doesn’t care.”

Scytale shrugged, kicking his feet onto the couch. “She doesn’t care. She has enough money to do whatever she wants so she doesn’t want to waste time that could be spent on other things.” He went to drop another berry in his mouth.

Vincent eyed the humanoid serpent. “Then I assume she doesn’t care about the consequences of parading around with her half-Caladrius bond either,” he replied wryly.

Scytale’s eyes widened and he coughed as he began to choke on his food. Hitting his chest, it was only after a few seconds that his throat was cleared and he could give Vincent a shocked look. “You knew?”

“Well, it would be unbefitting of the Commission Head’s aide to be unaware of the details surrounding her acquaintances,” the silver-haired man said offhandedly. “The fact you grew another pair of wings and called yourself a member of the ‘Truth-Seizing Serpent Clan’ clued me into your true bloodline, however. It’s not often that a hybrid purposely chooses to identify with only one clan when their bloodline is perfectly balanced.”

The snake groaned and leaned back on the couch. “Why does Lucy always keep the smart ones around her? She told me to keep it a secret but what does she expect me to do when everyone works it out for themselves?!”

Hargrave slightly raised an eyebrow. “Why would your Caladrius bloodline need to be hidden?”

Vincent glanced at the man. “The only light element Caladrius bloodline is the Sanctity Caladrius bloodline, on the level of a ducal lineage of the bird beasts. Yet Scytale was born to a serpent clan in a frontier region.”

“But…”

“It’s politics,” Scytale stated sourly for the confused spearman. “Bird and beast snakes hate each other. I’m a precious descendant of the Sanctity Caladrius but I was also born to their enemies.” He shrugged and put his hands behind his head. “If the Hydras knew I existed then they’d use me to involve my clan in their Central Battlefield wars. To hell with that.”

Hargrave gave Vincent an odd look. “Have you ‘noble bloodlines’ not learnt to stop having kids with the wrong person yet?”

“You’ll be pleased to know that yes, nobility of the Empire are usually not so stupid as to have children they’ll know are under the threat of being killed,” Vincent responded dryly. Then he rubbed his nose bridge as he glanced at Scytale. “But magical beasts are known for being… ah, freer with their seed than most races.”

“Look, our ruling subrace is the Regal Dragon bloodline, all known for being lustful arrogant jerks,” the snake retorted. “What do you expect? A big family is even a status symbol among Beast Kings.”

The other two men considered his words with strange expressions. “Scytale, when you get older, please move out of the Commission headquarters,” Vincent said. “We’re not having hundreds of snakelets grow up here.”

Scytale shuddered. “Oh no, no kids for me. Nope. Never. I want to be completely free of responsibility for my entire life.”

“Yes, well, you better leave my sitting room and get changed before I decide to make you responsible for the debut preparations,” a woman’s voice replied, dripping with sarcasm.

Scytale flinched and quickly stood up as he saw Lucy’s piercing gaze. She was standing in the doorway with her arms crossed.

“Yep, yep, I’m off, see you, goodbye!” He pushed past his bond to head to his room.

As he left she gave him a flat look but shook her head and stepped forward. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to interrupt your conversation. Please excuse me as I borrow Vincent, Hargrave,” the woman told the man.

Hargrave nodded and walked to the door. “It’s fine. I have something to do anyway.”

Lucille raised an eyebrow. “Oh?”

“I’m going to talk to Sedric.”

The dark-haired blinked, evidence that she was surprised. Vincent didn’t attach as much importance to the relationship between the fortieth-floor residents and the ex-mercenary as Lucille seemed to and only nodded as he put away the remaining documents.

Hargrave left them and Lucille took up a seat opposite Vincent. “I apologise for leaving this discussion for so long. I’m sure you must’ve been aching to get this second debut underway.”

“Ha, ha,” Vincent remarked dryly. He shook his head and sighed as the woman opposite pulled out several thick folders of paper, clearly already having worked out the details. He pulled the closest one towards him and casually flipped through it. “Any major details of note?”

“I intend on inviting a large portion of Heavenly Realm clans,” she replied, making him look up. “As the third stage of our Commission restructuring project requires more inter-realm trade, setting up the pathways for negotiation early will be profitable.”

Why does Lucille want this inter-realm trading to occur so badly?

…should I ask her?

He placed down the folder. “Lucille, is there a particular reason why you want to facilitate inter-realm trading? Being a member of the Mystical Realm, there are few resources elsewhere that you’d need.”

“When interests get tied up in specific ways, depending on the situation it can prevent the worst outcome.” She continued writing on the pages before her. “There isn’t any specific reason, no, but if I wish to develop unique technology then I’d like to use the methods of the other realms.”

He hummed as he picked up the next folder to read. “Did you spend much time in the other realms?”

Lucille glanced up at him but returned to her work. “I’ve spent roughly the equivalent of a decade in each ream at the least, but a third of my life I lived in the Mystical Realm. That’s discounting any accelerated time in pocket dimensions.”

Vincent nodded at the answer, but then something she said made him hesitate. “…pocket dimensions? Wait, Lucille, if you spent time working under a time dilation then how old would that actually make you?”

She cocked an eyebrow but smirked. “Not telling.” Lucy pointed to the table with a pen. “To return to the task at hand, I’ll need you to work with the other Counties and form an estimate for the overall budget of the event.”

He sighed and scratched his head as he scanned the folder in his hands. “If I allow the Counties to choose to invite select clans they have close ties with, we can use that as an excuse for them to finance part of the event…”

__________________________________________________________________________

“Seeeedriiiiic…”

“No.”

“But I haven’t even asked anything yet!” Scytale exclaimed.

The ponytailed crafter pushed up his goggles and slowly turned around to stare at the humanoid snake. “Does it matter? I’m not going to like what you say anyway, so why bother to listen?”

Scytale narrowed his eyes at Sedric. “What if I brought something valuable for you to study?”

Sedric raised an eyebrow. “But did you?”

The golden-eyed snake clicked his tongue and looked away.

Sedric rolled his eyes and turned back to his workbench. “There. So, if you could leave and not bother me any more… thanks.”

“Yeah right. I’m not leaving yet.” Scytale changed into his serpent form and flew onto the workbench. “I’m bored and Lucy’s talking about business stuff with Vincent, so the only way to entertain myself is to visit you.”

The crafter rubbed his temples, suppressing his irritation. “Go find that other redhead guy Lucy keeps on this floor! After spending nearly a week with him shouldn’t you be able to hang out with him?”

“Hargrave?” Scytale blinked and shook his head. “Nah, he’s probably busy cleaning his spear or armour or something like that.”

“Did someone mention me?”

Scytale and Sedric looked up to see the subject of their conversation walking down the stairs of Sedric’s workshop. Sedric cocked an eyebrow while Scytale raised himself higher and flapped his wings.

“Speaking about you, not to you! Also, why are you even in here?” He gestured to Sedric with his head. “Sedric doesn’t have anything worth stealing yet, so come back in a few hundred years.”

Hargrave gazed wearily at the winged snake. “I’m… not here to steal anything.”

Sedric turned to scowl at Scytale. “Wait, are you implying that it will take me hundreds of years to become a decent crafter?”

“You said it first, not me!”

“So that was what you meant!”

“If you’re going to argue, could you please do it after I’ve talked to Sedric,” Hargrave interrupted with his arms crossed.

Giving the man slightly sheepish looks, Scytale avoided eye contact and Sedric coughed into his fist. “Uh… sure. It was Scytale’s fault anyway.”

“Hey-”

“So what is it you want to talk to me about?” Sedric said over the snake. “I can’t help you with anything Lucille can’t, just so you know. I’m not a member of this Faction so I don’t have any power in the Commission.”

“No, it’s not related to the Aurelian Commission, but…” Hargrave gave the brown-haired man a curious look as he approached the workbench. “Not a member of the Commission?”

“Yup.” Sedric grabbed a gem glowing with runes off of the table and flipped down a lens on his goggles to inspect it. “Non-exclusive personal contract with Lucille, something something, access to anything in the vault, something something, etcetera etcetera. I’m employed by her personally but am technically allowed to create stuff for whoever I want. Not that I could be bothered finding other people to craft stuff for.”

“So she formed a personal contract with you too,” Hargrave murmured. “But based on access to the resources of the vault as well. Isn’t she worried about draining its contents?”

Scytale started snickering as he held up one of the many gadgets on the workbench with his tail, messing around with it. Sedric paused what he was doing and gained a strange expression. “Uh… well, no, not really. She said ‘I could start a Guild with the power of the top ten Guilds in the 1stranked Major Kingdom and run it for fifty years’. I have a feeling that anything regarding her comprehension of money isn’t for us normal people to try to understand.”

Hargrave seemed to consider it but shook his head, returning to his reason for being there. “I came down here to discuss crafting items for me. Lucille said that you might be open to it, as long as I provide the resources or finance.”

Sedric blinked. “Huh. Well, I mean… it’s probably an opportunity for me to develop my skills, but besides enchanting I’m not at the level of a standard crafter yet. My Legendary class isn’t all powerful. Any reason you wanted to come to me for it?”

“Your inexperience isn’t an issue. I want to spend some time working out what type of items would be useful for me,” Hargrave said with a shake of his head. “Getting items of my element can be… difficult.”

“What’s your element?” Sedric asked with an eyebrow raised.

“It’s pretty obvious. Just look at his hair and you’ll know it.” Scytale yawned as he coiled up on the bench. “He’s a blood manipulator.”

Sedric glanced between Scytale and Hargrave with an odd look on his face. “Just out of curiosity… what’s your profession?”

“Well…” Hargrave hesitated and then frowned. “I was… a mercenary. But I’ve quit.”

Sedric rolled his eyes. “Of course. I should’ve expected that. No blood element user decides to get a normal job, they must go for the ones that pay them for killing people. Why didn’t you choose to become a healer or doctor? The blood element has healing properties- wait.” He placed a hand on his chin as he considered it with a strange expression. “No, it would be much more creepy if you were a doctor. Hm, what else? A crafter? No, that wouldn’t work…”

Hargrave gazed dully at Sedric and then shook his head. “We were talking about making items for me.”

“Ah, right.” The crafter nodded. “If you’re a blood manipulator then it makes sense why you’d need something more customised. But you do know I’m only an accessory craftsman?”

“I’m aware,” Hargrave replied. “Does this mean you’re willing to craft stuff for me?”

“Sure. It gives me something to do and…” Sedric raised an eyebrow and pointed at him. “While I’m inexperienced at making the body of items, I can actually enchant stuff pretty well. My Legendary class improves my capabilities massively.” He frowned and crossed his arms. “Lucille just wants me to craft weird stuff all the time. Every single item frame has to be custom-made for her.”

Then Sedric gestured to the red-haired man again. “But as you went on that trip to the Dungeon with Lucille and Scytale here, can I take a guess that you’ll want items for combat?”

“That’s right,” Hargrave said with a nod.

“Good. Because that I can do.” Sedric walked over to a bookshelf in his workshop and took down a thick book. Flipping through its pages, he put it back on the shelf and took down a second one. When he saw its contents he nodded and walked back over to the bench, cleared some space with his hand and dropped the book down. “Ordinarily most crafters wouldn’t have access to blood runes, but Lucille allowed me to buy compilations of runes for each of the essential elements and most of the mid-level ones, minus a few like glamour and such.”

Hargrave looked at the book with interest as the crafter flipped through it. Then he blinked as Sedric flipped out multiple layers of the page, showing that there were multiple tabs that folded out. When he finished flipping out all the tabs, the page had expanded to become a massive diagram of multiple crafting blood runes and spell examples. It covered half his bench.

“Now, these are all the current runes I can use, of which I can make around fifty spells, as well as alter them slightly if you need specific effects,” Sedric explained. “Come over here to have a look and see what ones you’d like in an item…”