“Marcelline Voss never haggles over a listed price, but she offers a small discount to customers who bring her useful magical rumors, monster reagents, or reliable information about dangerous ruins. Every item is tagged with a tiny paper label that records its last owner. The labels occasionally rearrange themselves overnight, and Marcelline insists this is normal inventory behavior. The shop's interior is larger than its narrow street-facing exterior suggests, with tall shelves, hanging brass lanterns, floating display cases, and a faint smell of rain, cedar, and ozone. A bell above the entrance rings a different note for each member of the party after their first visit. Marcelline is a careful, sharp-eyed human wizard who favors layered blue robes, fingerless gloves, and a silver measuring chain worn like a sash. She is polite but difficult to deceive, keeps a loaded wand beneath the counter, and remembers every unpaid debt. Her familiar, a one-eyed raven named Quill, watches from the rafters and mimics suspicious customers in an exaggerated voice. The shop is called The Ninth Lantern, and it occupies a converted watchmaker's storefront in a prosperous city district frequented by guild merchants, minor nobles, and adventurers preparing for expeditions.”