Partly Cloudy (Sprinkling). Arc 2: Confluence.
"Fuck, I'm hungry." Lucas Eklund spoke aloud to himself, his voice muffled by his helmet and drowned out by the idle roar of his motorcycle, yet still breaking his train of thought, and curbing his annoyance at the sounds of the city a bit. For a man born and raised in Los Angeles, he sure did hate the hustle and bustle of a big city, with the background drone of talking voices, the beeps, screeches, and hums of traffic, the bass of a truck driving by blaring rap music, the occasional chirp or chortle of birds, it all grated with him when he was in a bad mood. Especially when he was in a bad mood. And that he was, because, as he evidently announced himself; he was hungry. He bent down and picked up a rock, no bigger than a quarter. Then he whipped out his phone, opening up Google, and typed in 'a gram of gold' into the search bar. $41 per gram. He thought. How much is a gram? He clicked on the images tab. Oh, holy shit, that's tiny as fuck. He looked down at the rock. About the size of a quarter in diameter, but it had volume where a quarter would be flat. If he transmuted it to gold, it'd easily be over 100 grams. Maybe 150 grams of gold. Worth it. What harm can one rock do?
Twenty minutes later, after stopping by an expensive jewelery store to "try on" a 24-karat gold ring, which he used to transmute the rock in his pocket with his other, non-ring-wearing, hand in his pocket, he was riding down the street on his motorcycle towards a pawn shop. Now here's the sketchy bit, he anticipated, knowing full well that he wasn't educated on the intricacies of the economy. He doubted it'd be as easy as walking in there and walking out with $500. And he was right, after having to wait an agonizing hour as the pawn shop owner got a "professional" to come look at his golden nugget, he was offered $350 for it.
"Fuck that, I know it's worth way more than that. I want $500 for it." Lucas said, scowling at the man behind the counter.
"Look man, you understand, I have to make a profit with this store. Now you're selling this, not pawning it, the best I can offer is $375." The pawn-broker counter-offered.
Lucas is not good at negotiating, but he is stubborn, and in the end he walked out of the shop with $400 cash. He checked his phone and it was nearly 2 PM. Maybe I'll go to The Ramsay Club, He thought, recalling one of the more expensive restaurants in the city, owned by a Cape-chef with non-combat cooking powers. A Tinker, if he recalled right, with the power to make food more delicious and filling than normal, out of regular or unconventional ingredients. Nah, too expensive, and I can't do this too many times or Jasm-
Scree-eeee-eeech! His thoughts were interrupted as he turned his bike to the right, screeching sideways, almost toppling the bike, coming to a stop inches away from some idiot with a skull tattoo covering his face. "Watch where you're fucking going, esse!" Lucas yelled, his Cali accent thickening his voice, while his hands instinctively made some obscene gestures.