Chapter 4 Khyree goes to Market

Every time the Mourntree family came to the village, the first thing they did was to go visit the local temple of the dead to pay respects to their ancestors. For Khyree it was always a sobering experience, one he would gladly do without. While everyone else was filled with a mix of emotions ranging from sadness to the joy found in fond memories of their loved ones, Khyree was filled with a sense of suspicion.

The Temple of the Dead was an all brick building made of basalt stone, and covered in essence imbued glyphs meant to confine any and all wandering spirits trapped within its walls. It was easily the biggest building in the village, it stretched a dozen meters into the sky and it was just over a kilometer in diameter.

The first level of the structure consisted of hallowed walkways and semi private chamber halls, then there were a series of shallow pools filled with pure consecrated Waters of Life. In addition to this there were simple unadorned stone benches scattered about for visitors to sit in contemplative silence. Side passages led to the priest's private quarters. Khyree could not understand why anyone would want to live in such a place. He found the whole building to be extremely off putting.

At the back of the temple upon a raised dais was a stone throne, upon which sat a sculpture of the local god that the people of the village worshipped. Khyree had tried asking about the god’s name but had been repeatedly rebuffed. Apparently the name of the god was only known to the temple priests, and they were not too keen on letting it out. Apparently, they believed that if others were to learn of the god’s name then they could summon his attention to the hallowed halls. Khyree didn’t know what to think about that.

Visitors entering the temple would approach to within just a few feet of the throne, and kneel before it to offer respect. Oftentimes they would leave offerings of fruit, grain or some coins before departing. Then the visitors would descend a set of stairs that sat on either side of the throne. From what Khyree understood, descending the stairs was symbolic of one's journey to the underworld. The lower level of the temple is where the various personal tombs of the local families were laid to rest.

The Mourntree family would descend to the bottom level to approach their family's tombs and present their offerings to the deceased loved ones. While down there they would often tell stories of the deceased, or share aspects of their lives with the departed. Personally, Khyree found all of that to be very strange. So he would refuse to join them and instead decided to wait.

During these times Khyree would stay up on the first level and avoid getting too close to the throne. For some reason the faceless statue of the god bothered him and put him on edge every time he came to the temple. There was a part of him that was convinced that the damn blighted statue was always staring at him. He found it particularly unnerving. Once he had even thrown a small rock at the statue to see if it would move, it didn’t. But he was convinced that it could. So Khyree always made sure to keep a certain amount of space between himself and the faceless statue.

Once the Mourntree family was done at the temple, they would all head over to Market Street and set up their booth for the day. Daquan along with his brother Malik and his father Rashad would stay and operate the booth, while his other brother Rakim did the shopping for the family.

After helping Daquan and the others unload the produce and set up the booth, Khyree took to wandering around the market for new flavors and experiences. The variety of food that could be found at the market always surprised him. He loved the unique flavors. He found that not only his palate, but also his vocabulary expanded as he constantly visited the numerous food vendors and sampled their wares. Words like savory, spicy, sweet and creamy would come to his mind as he tried new foods.

Khyree always found Market Street to be such an interesting place. There were always tons of people walking around. Though most of them wore white or very neutral colors, you could always spot those of higher social status. They were the ones who were always dressed in elaborate jewelry and vibrant colors. They were often accompanied by personal guards and sometimes even domesticated beasts that they treated as pets. From what Khyree understood, owning a pet was a status symbol of wealth as it was another life that the owner was responsible for feeding and tending to their needs.

Khyree loved how the area was always filled with a variety of different smells. From body oils, pungent human sweat, to the exotic cooking oils and spices. Vendors would come to market street from all of the neighboring villages to present their wares for sale.

Khyree remembered how when he first started coming to market, how he would just take things that he found to be appealing. After the guards got involved, Daquan and his family patiently took the time to explain to him that what he was doing was called stealing according to the law and that stealing was against the law, and that if he wanted something that he had to pay for it..

It took awhile, but Khyree was beginning to understand that laws were a basic necessity when it came to large groups of humans living together in peace. Though he did personally think that there were way too many laws. He got a headache every time he thought about how many of them there were. Khyree had made Daquan explain to him what all of the local laws were over the course of a few days. The more he learned about how humans governed themselves the less happy he became.

For he knew there was no way that he was not going to break some of them at some point. “Oh well, I'll deal with it when it comes,” he thought to himself. At any rate, now whenever they came to market the Mourntree family made sure to give Khyree a coin pouch full of coins of various denominations.

Stolen novel; please report.

The value of the coins was determined by the material they were made out of. Copper was apparently the most widely used and the cheapest of the coins. Next was silver. Silver coins tended to be more popular in the bigger cities. A silver coin was worth a hundred copper coins. The two other denominations were gold and platinum respectively. Though those coins were usually only used by high ranking nobles and extremely wealthy merchants for large purchases.

It was late in the afternoon when Khyree finally caught sight of what he now considered to be his eternal prey. In his mind it was extremely dumb of his prey to keep to the same area and routine when it knew it was being hunted. But alas he supposed there was no helping it. Some prey was never meant to survive. Any prey that was not adaptable to changes in its environment deserved to die. It was only by doing so that the rest of the species could continue to grow stronger over time.

Khyree had hunted many different types of creatures and beasts in his time while in the Wilds. Over the course of many failures he had developed a method that usually worked more often than not. For planning was key when it came to hunting dangerous creatures. The last thing he ever wanted to do was underestimate his prey. The first thing he would do was study the terrain, where he would look at all possible obstacles, resources and avenues of escape.

Next he would study his prey. He would take the time to learn it's habits, it's preferences, the routes it would usually take. Whether it moved in groups or if it could be found alone. The times when it would rest and when it would be active. These were all important factors to consider when it came to a successful hunt.

After marking his prey and confirming the route it was taking, Khyree rushed back to the Mourntree family booth. He was excited to see that they had managed to sell all of their produce and was in fact loading the wagons back up for the evening. He knew that they preferred to head back home right after the market closed down for the day.

“Great, well that's one promise that I managed to keep,” he thought to himself. Feeling good about himself he raced back through the crowded streets to catch up with his prey. In only a matter of minutes, he once again had his prey within sight.

Currently his prey was walking along a parallel street as it headed back to it's den. As usual this prey was accompanied by a group of similar prey. Many of whom were carrying bags stuffed with purchases made throughout the day.

Khyree hurried through groups of people on the other side of the street until he had a significant lead, and would be indistinguishable from the masses. Only then did he cross the street, and mingled into a crowd by a meat vendor that his prey would have to pass close by.

Moments later. The sound of his prey could be heard approaching. Khyree had it firm in his sights as kept a close eye on it with his peripheral vision.

"... You're sure you're going to be able to secure the alcohol for the party this weekend?" asked Varnan Covenmoon.

"Yeah it's no problem. Like I said my uncle is away out of town on a business trip," said Rion Lowsinger. "He's got a nice collection of ale, mead and wine down in his cellar. He even has some essence wine as well.

Since I'm house sitting for him, it won't be a problem for me to help myself to a few bottles of each. Trust me, he won't even notice they're gone."

"Nice. Well just make sure you grab plenty of mead. You guys can have all the wine," Varnan said with a disgusted face.

"Varnan, when are you going to get over your distaste for wine?" asked Darnell Solidthorn with a smile on his face. "All the nobles in the big cities drink wine, especially essence wine. It's good for cultivating. Plus it does not have the impurities often found in ale."

"Listen, if you guys want to drink wine then by all means go ahead. I'm just saying I'm not drinking any of it, ever," replied Varnan. "Do you all even know how they make wine? Huh, do you? Well my dad took me to a vineyard once when I was younger, and they walked us through the whole process from the picking of the grapes, to the cleaning of them, the crushing, and finally the fermentation.

The crushing is where they turn the grapes into juice, and do you know how? Well let me tell you. They fill up these huge wooden containers with grapes and then the workers who have been on their feet all day, climb into the containers and crush the grapes with their bare feet. Their bare, sweaty feet! And who knows what bunions, corns and other foot fungus they might have. So no, I am never drinking wine, ever in my life."

"Ugh," said Ardeth Swangrove. "Oh now that does sounds disgusting. A bunch of dirty, sweaty feet crushing grapes into juice. I'm good. Yeah Rion, make sure you grab plenty of mead. I agree with Varnan, I'm never drinking wine again."

It was at this point that Khyree shoved Darnell into a nearby support pole. Darnell's head made a satisfying impact on the pole. Darnell, like the rest of the people in his group, was an Immortal, so it wasn't enough to cause him any damage. The impact just dazed him for a few seconds.

Which was all that Khyree was counting on. He merely grabbed Darnell first simply because he was in the way of his true prey. Now that Darnell was temporarily out of play, Khyree pounced on Varnan.

Varnan was just turning around at the sound when Khyree hit him full force in his side. Khyree was going for anything fancy, he just wanted to deliver as much punishment as possible within a short amount of time.

While he didn't hear the sound of any ribs breaking on impact, he was pleased to see that he knocked the breath out of Varnan. He knew he only had a second or two before one of the others got involved.

So before they did, Khyree hit Varnan again but this time with a solid shot to the groin. He watched as he saw Varnan's eyes bulged out of his sockets. Then quick as a snake Khyree dove over the meat vendor's booth and ran away as fast as he could through the crowded streets.

It only took a couple of minutes before Darnell and Varnan regained their composure. "Khyree!!!" yelled Varnan at the top of his lungs. He looked around in question and Rion quickly pointed out which way Khyree had run off. Within seconds the whole crew was racing after Khyree.