*knock knock knock*
"I'm coming!", a woman yelled.
"You sure this is the right house?`", asked Itaka.
"I'm 100% positive." Shizu, as the youth program leader of their guild, knew Zeiwit better than her own home city... Even though for now it looked like Zeiwit was their new Home City. And Zeiwit itself seemed to be pretty much exactly like before, which was pretty surprising to her, but at least useful. "House Number 67!"
It was a house like pretty much every other house in Zeiwit. An old fashioned half-timbered house with dark wood and white infill. Almost all houses had orange roofs, including House Number 67. That's why Zeiwit was also called Orange City.
A middle-aged woman opened the door and looked surprised as soon as she saw 5 people standing in front of her house. "Uhh, hello?", she said hesitantly. "I'm sorry, I was expecting my husband."
"It's all fine", answered Kyaga. "We come in his name."
The woman looked even more shocked. "Is he... dead?"
"Uhh, no." Kyaga realized that he maybe phrased it a bit strange. "We come to deliver berries!"
She instantly looked relieved. "Oh, thank god." She sighed. "This old man... He can't do a single thing for me and always has to hire other people to do things."
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
We all smiled in amusement at what she said.
"Well anyway", she followed up, "please come in!" She made a waving gesture towards the inside of her house.
Entering, the 5 felt a warm breeze overcoming their bodies. Until now they didn't even notice that it was kinda cool outside. Something pretty uncharacteristic for Zeiwit, as it normally was that pleasantly warm, bright, and chill beginner City. But now it was just cool, full of hectic and confused people and it felt just dark.
The inner space of the house matched the warm air inside of it perfectly. Old fashioned decoration. A lot of furniture made out of solid wood and a wooden floor.
"Could you even enter these houses before?", asked Itaka, whispering into Shizu's ear.
"Only some, but this one in particular not. I'm surprised myself."
"I hope you didn't hurt yourself when searching for these berries. It can be rather scary behind the city walls."
Shizu looked at her HP-Bar and smiled to herself at the irony.
HP: 34/237
"Yeah, we're all fine", she said, before anyone else could say anything. She didn't want her to worry and speak about it. She was alive and that's what counted to her right now.
The others just looked confused but went with it and nodded.
One mechanic in AOS is that all pain you experience in battle slowly wanes after you left combat. About 5 minutes after combat you just felt like there never was anything that happened to you ever. Of course, they were confused at why, for example, the pain was made more realistic, but that mechanic of the game was still the same, but they couldn't waste too many thoughts on that for now.
"That's really nice. But you probably were lucky. Don't let yourself get talked into situations like that by an old man like my husband! He just always wants his life as easy as possible. You are new here anyway, right?", she asked curiously.
"Yeah, we are new." Said Kyaga. We arrived with everyone else. He pointed outside a window next to him onto the streets, where there were still a lot off people walking around aimlessly.