Description
Although Wickermoor Hollow sees little trade with the wider provinces of Druskenvald, anything of value to the village can be found here. Staple goods fill the large front area alongside more exotic wares — simple weapons, trade goods, unusual oddities. If Baltus Tolliver doesn't have it, he knows how to get it.
Baltus is a well-travelled man who returned to the village a decade ago with wealth, lavish goods, and the contacts to source almost anything. He runs the shop with a blend of charm and quiet intimidation.
✦ Interactables
Baltus Tolliver stands here with his decorative red pipe, cataloguing inventory with suspicious precision. Prices are written in chalk — they change when you're not watching.
A locked door behind the counter. Tolliver says it's storage. The lock is unusually heavy for a shop.
✒ Short Stories
A Humble Collection
Night 2
— from Baltus Tolliver's view
May 5, 2026
Baltus Tolliver sat behind his counter with his ledger open, thin fingers tracing columns of names and numbers the way a priest traces scripture. Debts owed. Deals struck. Sales made in handshakes that left the other hand tingling for days afterward. Wickermoor Village had a heartbeat, and Baltus was the one who kept the rhythm. He had crossed every corner of Druskenvald in his younger years, built a web of contacts that stretched from the furthest hollow to the coldest port, and then he had come home to Wickermoor Hollow and set it all to work. The Trading Post was the village's lifeblood. Everyone knew it. Everyone needed it. Everyone came to Baltus eventually.
That was the point.
He tapped his pipe against his palm and watched smoke curl toward the rafters.
The bell rang.
Two strangers. One with hair white as old snow, a devil-blooded with eyes that caught the light wrong. The other was built like a standing stone poured into a fine waistcoat, the kind of man who made doorframes reconsider their life choices. Baltus looked up from his ledger, plain silver rings glinting as he folded his hands, and smiled the way a marsh smiles. Welcoming. Still. Deep enough to drown in.
New blood, he thought. Lovely.
He let them browse. Let them think they were in a simple shop run by a simple man in a very clean gray suit. He fetched their requested goods without fuss, without price, without the particular clause he buried in every transaction like a seed waiting for rain. He simply watched. Measured. The way you measure a field before you buy it. He had spent a decade reading people across Druskenvald, and these two were not difficult to read at all.
Then he sent them out on an errand. A small thing, he said, tapping the pipe stem against his lip. Just a debt that needed collecting. He did not mention what Morgan owed, or why his usual men were otherwise occupied.
Complications, he called it. The strangers didn't ask.
They came back shortly after with the coin purse. Everything accounted for.
Baltus thanked them warmly. Gave them their discount on his wares. Wished them pleasant evenings in the moonlit fog. As they stepped out, the bell rang its iron ring, and he turned back to his ledger with the quiet satisfaction of a man who had never once been surprised by human nature.
Two new names. One column for what they'd been given. Another, as yet empty, for what they'd owe. He lit his pipe and worked in silence. The shop was still except for the scratch of his quill, the creak of old beams, and the muffled screaming from beneath the floorboards, which Baltus Tolliver had long since learned to think of simply as background noise.
He turned the page.
There was always more to collect.
Notable Figures
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