"What about Byron Krane, the immortal wizard?" suggested the Planebound, a stony-featured elemental with one glowing, crystalline eye. "They say his hand has turned history's pages for the last thousand years. Do you know any stories about him?"

For hundreds of years, the Planebound had kept watch over a vast planar rift in the world known as Indines. It was dull work, and he hardly ever turned down visitors. Two such visitors sat with him now: one was a colorfully-clad woman with a penchant for metallic apparel, and the other was a wolf-like creature with purple fur, a white mane, and a blindfold.

"Professor Krane?" asked the Radio Girl dubiously. Her voice echoed strangely, as if it came from somewhere far away. "He prefers for his doings to go unnoticed; what stories could our friend have to share?"

"Well, he must do some things that aren't worth keeping secret," the Planebound argued. "Imagine him talking to an overworked cashier at a grocery store."

"Actually," mused the Blind Wolf, "I've got one of those."

"Grocery stores?" wondered the elemental. "Or cashiers?"

"Stories," the wolf corrected, and described the scene:

A masked man in a fine suit cleared his throat softly, catching the attention of the short-haired, bright-eyed girl behind the counter. He gestured at an ancient scrap of paper he'd set beside his item and, in a silky voice, remarked: "Ah, excuse me, but you seem to have overcharged me for this syrup. I have a coupon, you see."

Sami Rekar, barely more than a girl, squinted at the aging paper, which all but disintegrated in her hands. "Sir, your coupon expired... er... is this even real? I don't think our store existed four hundred years ago."

Byron Krane offered a faint, unpleasant grimace. "It didn't. This coupon was authorized and given to me by the tradesman you bought out. When your store acquired his business, you assumed responsibility for all assets and agreements, including coupons."

"That's not really my area..." Sami started to reply slowly, then finally made out part of the faded script. "Oh, but the coupon isn't even for the same product. It says you're eligible for a 50% discount on sugar from Alamida. The product you're buying is syrup, made right here in—"

"Your syrup," Byron interrupted matter-of-factly, "is made with the exact same Alamidan sugar in which the tradesman had invested significant stock; as you must understand by now, it is indeed the same stock now held by your company. Accordingly, your company endorsed Alamidan sugar when one of its distributors was looking for a new supply of sugar, after a small-scale civil war disrupted its usual suppliers.

"And, just as I planned, that distributor henceforth began exclusively using Alamidan sugar to craft its syrup. Therefore, the discount for which I am eligible is indeed transferred from the sugar to—"

"Pardon me, sir, did you say 'just as you planned?' Are you saying you planned a civil war just so you would be able to use this coupon?"

Byron didn't miss a beat. "Technically, no, I am not saying that."

Sami shook her head and added, "But even if it is the same sugar, the syrup is a different product. There's more that goes into it than just sugar."

"But," Byron began again, "thanks to a certain decision passed down by the Alamohd, the trade council of Alamida, there are strict regulations concerning the usage of their sugar in the manufacturing and confection of foreign sweets. This syrup is required to be between sixty and sixty-five percent Alamidan sugar, ensuring that I am due a discount of between thirty and thirty-two-point-five percent off the price of this jar."

"If I was that cashier," the Radio Girl muttered, "I would have called a manager as soon as I found a four-hundred-year-old coupon."

"They're understaffed, in a sense," the storyteller explained. "There are three managers on duty, but Arec Russell Zane is also at the store."

"The infamously immature schoolboy?"

"He's more than just a schoolboy," the Blind Wolf cautioned. "He's a peerless prankster and all-around troublemaker. All three of the store managers are busy dealing with his antics."

"Okay, fine," Sami sighed. "I'll just assume it's the higher discount. Your total comes out to one dollar and forty-seven cents, sir."

"I know," Byron replied. "I have exact change."

"And now he must die," growled the Radio Girl, grating her teeth.

"Nobody in Indines uses dollars and cents," the Planebound pointed out.

"Don't interrupt," scolded the storyteller.

Byron meticulously counted out his change, quarter by quarter and penny by penny.

The cashier, taking the coins from him one at a time, handed one back. "Sir, that isn't a penny."

Byron nodded confidently, indicating the markings on the side. "Ah," he replied, "but forty-eight years ago, there was a—"

Sami threw her hands out wide in defeat. "Never mind! It's a penny!"

Triumphant, Byron gathered his syrup and began to walk away.

"You finished yet?" piped up a large fellow in a red apron. He had been waiting in line immediately behind Byron for quite some time, and he was now thoroughly disgruntled. "Was it really worth all this trouble for just a jar of syrup?"

"Who's the idiot who just put his foot in it?"

"Boris Rumaldi, hapless bystander to every kind of misfortune," the storyteller explained. "You should see his insurance premiums. Even paying out every month, they nearly break even."

The masked man in the fine suit turned quickly and coolly. He spoke under his breath, but his voice carried well enough to send a chill down the large man's spine.

"I have plans for this syrup which you could not possibly comprehend," he whispered. "It is instrumental in a decades-long masterpiece that runs deeper than the roots of your family tree, and I require only it and a brief journey to bring all to fruition."

Boris half-stumbled backward in fear as Byron finished. At the same time, a young redhead in asymmetric garb approached, having just finished checking herself out. She seemed to have a bucketful of active illusions fresh from Cosmetics.

"A brief journey?" inquired Lesandra Machan, Byron's apprentice. "Are you going somewhere, Professor?"

Byron nodded. "There's a certain trade council I desire to subvert," he explained. "When it comes to syrup, I prefer to take it..."

He held the jar up to the light, his masked eye looking at her through it like a flame eyeing a moth through an amber lens. He gave her his trademark grin, his only real smile: a shadow of malice and ambition veiled only by condescension.

"...A la mohd," he finished, turning to walk away.

A split second later, he slammed into the automatic doors, having forgotten that he wasn't quite substantial enough to cause them to open automatically.

"For the record," the wolf remarked, "I was trying to say that Lesandra was going through a self-checkout lane. But I'm not going to correct the wording to clarify it, in case you prefer an alternative interpretation."

The Planebound nodded. "I figured either meaning works. In fact, Lesandra doesn't really like her usual appearance, which lends a bit of a dark note to the second meaning."

The wolf laughed, which sounded strange. "Nah, see, she just came back from Cosmetics. So she's checking her 'new self' out, and she went through a self-checkout lane to do it."