Chapter Twenty Three
Joe woke the next morning but found Garnedell still asleep. Usually, the boy would rise with or before him but the kid seemed to be exhausted and Joe left the room quietly to allow the boy his rest. He made it to the common hall where he could enjoy breakfast. However, he arrived to an empty hall and a cold kitchen, no fire in the stove and only warm embers in the communal hall fireplace. He decided to wait at his normal table for the staff to awaken and prepare the meal, but his modern sensibilities found him fidgeting after only five minutes and unable sit still after fifteen. Serious? I guess I was addicted quite a bit more to my cell phone and the internet than I thought! Joe looked back on his time here and in several of the days that he had rested, Joe remembered how easily Garnedell and others had been able to simply sit and enjoy the day, unmoving and relaxed. But Joe found that he couldn’t stay still longer than a few minutes and found that he would often be up and moving either to hunt or practice his forms. If he had been back home, Joe knew that his time would have been quickly taken up with the cellphone or internet.
After finding simply sitting at the table to be too agitating, Joe left the room and went outside. The village was dead, nobody outside nor any sounds of life from any of the homes. The remains of the party still littered the village streets and crowded the agora where the majority of the party had taken place. Joe wandered the village in boredom but soon found himself just as fidgety despite the walking and decided to turn to his now favorite pastime. He disappeared into the woods until noon taking out the slimes. When noon hit, he made it back to the village and found a few people up and cleaning the village streets and agora desolately. When he made the inn common room, it was still empty but for the busboy? Maybe? Not sure what he is, kind of the common busboy, cleaner, and all around help? Joe tried to ask him about a meal, but the boy didn’t seem to understand since he always kept trying to point him out of the inn.
Joe finally gave up and decided to head back up to the room. If the boy wasn’t awake yet, he figured sleeping to noon was enough. When he arrived at the room, he didn’t try to be loud but didn’t put any effort into being silent, either. However, the creak of the door was enough to jostle Garnedell from his sleep, and when the boy woke to find Joe standing in the doorway, he stared, bleary eyed, for a few moments before everything seemed to register. The boy’s look traveled from unawareness to confusion and arrived at a shocked surprise tinged with a hint of fear. Joe found watching the boy’s emotional agitation a bit amusing until recognized the fear at the end and he quickly stepped in to make sure the boy was OK.
“Hey. Kid. What’s wrong?”
Garnedell struggled to sit up and reply, but his confusion, tangled sheets, and early morning hangover left him unable to understand what Joe had said, “Shhh… ahh.. um…” The kid’s fear and confusion grew a bit more and Joe’s concern grew in equal amounts.
“Kid! You OK?”
Garnedell seemed to finally understand but brushed aside the question and bowed low before Joe before offering an apology in his own tongue before stopping and replying awkwardly with a single sentence, “I sorry!”
“Why sorry,” Joe felt his concern dropping a bit because the boy seemed worried about failing him, so the kid was probably fine. Although his worry for the kid resolved, a new worry crept in and he wondered what had gone wrong?
“I … I… no… I sleep… no… up!”
Joe’s relief was palpable and he quickly reached forward to lift the kid up, “Hey, kid! No problem!” Joe matched his words with an exaggerated smile and a thumbs up.
Garnedell looked to Joe for a few moments, a smile tentatively coming to his face before relief seemed to flood through him. Huh… life wasn’t easy for this kid? Or is it for all kids? Maybe it’s a class thing? Joe continued smiling and trying to portray a relaxed and unconcerned face, not wishing the boy to feel that there was any anger directed towards him. After a few moments, Joe nodded to the door and suggested the move on.
“Kid! I’m hungry. Eat?”
The boy’s smile firmed as he realized Joe wasn’t angry at him and quickly busied himself to head out with Joe. Garnedell’s worry left a bit of pain in Joe’s heart but he hid it from the kid and resolved to offer the kid as much of a better life as he could.
The two headed down the stairs back to the common room and Garnedell questioned the local busboy… I’m going to call him a busboy… As with Joe, Garnedell was directed outside the inn but Garnedell seemed almost eager with what he had learned from the boy. They went outside and Joe followed Garnedell to the village agora where he found several more people awake and stoking the fire. Are they starting the party again? There were already several groups of people sitting in circles busy eating from the leftovers of the night before.
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The two took from the food that was available to them and settled to eat, Joe allowing Garnedell to choose the place to sit. The two sat next to one of the groups of people who had risen to eat, and Garnedell began eating leisurely while enjoying a conversation with those in the circle. Joe ate quite a bit more rabidly, long hungry from the early rise and hunt. Joe returned to the groaning food tables another two times while Garnedell ate slowly. When Garnedell finished his plate, he didn’t get up to get seconds but continued his conversation with the group. After Joe finished his third plate, he waited for another ten minutes but finally interrupted Garnedell’s conversation and headed west out of the village. Time to visit the priest!
‘Alright, kid. Let’s get that curse off of you, right?”
Garnedell didn’t reply since he knew that Joe was speaking rhetorically as he often did. They made the trip relatively quickly and when Joe arrived at the broken down shrine and cabin, he was shocked at the change. The cabin had received no care, but the shrine now shone with a vibrancy that was surprising, well cared for and perfectly manicured. The shrine was encircled by an elaborate construct of cobblestone and brick that he hadn’t realized was there before, covered as it had been by shrubbery and weeds. The brick and cobblestone made an elaborate ring around the shrine and added an otherness to the whole affair. The central shrine now sported a fountain with a small pool surrounding it. What he had taken for a simple stone pillar turned out to be an elaborately carved and intricate series of whorls and loops that seemed to defy gravity in the way that they stayed up. Huh! That takes some serious carving skills! Joe found the statue of loops?... intriguing and found himself circling it, staring carefully at its construction. After circling it a few times, Joe was certain that it was a physically impossible carving defying gravity with the way it stood. Joe almost swore that there were several hoops of stone that were free floating and unconnected to any other form. How… that’s… well… woah! My status said magic but… Joe felt excitement creep in before he quickly quelled it. Hmm… a fourth dimensional carving then? That could explain it! Just advanced tech… but… Joe looked around, skeptical of advanced tech being the answer.
The whole shrine was a series of circles, triangles, squares, and other basic shapes that, for everything Joe was seeing, should have been a jumbled mess of disorder, but somehow all came together in an elaborate geometric design that just seemed to make sense. There was a feeling of rightness, of completion, about it. Joe could understand what he was looking at, but it all looked… just… It’s perfect… somehow it feels… perfect?
At the center, the elaborate loops statue… pillar? Hmm… stood and at its base, sharing the center, sat what felt like an obvious platform. Around the edges, sixteen empty small platforms sat, perfectly settled to encircle the central platform. The sixteen empty platforms all were evenly spaced around the central platform but in two rings, not one. The eight on the inner ring held the typical cardinal points and the four interstitial points as well. The outer ring perfectly halved the inner rings points, essentially slicing the circular shrine into a perfect sixteen slices. Granted, the slices were sized differently with the inner ring being closer by half compared to the outer ring, but it was still fascinating to see it all.
The outer eight platforms were empty, as well as four of the inner. The platforms on the cardinal points all had some kind of object on it that Joe wasn’t quite able to identify beyond a generic observation: a twig of some kind, a core, a bowl of … soup? Something? What is it? …, and a coin. Joe bent closer to see and recognized it as one of the higher denominations but could quite place which one it was. Currency was still rather new to him.
Joe’s fascinated exploration was interrupted by the priest, and Joe blinked in stunned surprise to find the man awake, sober, and dressed in full arraignment, looking every inch a great religious leader. He was dressed in brilliant yellow garments highlighted by white and trimmed in reflective gold. His hat was a strange flattened octagonal brim that sat firmly on his head with some form of string tightened cloth tied at forehead level. Although the hat’s tie angled from his forehead, slipped over his ears, and tied all the way down at the base of his skull where it met his neck, the octagon itself sat perfectly parallel to the ground. Floating directly above the center of the octagon hat rotated a surprisingly black stone that shimmered with a strange fluctuation that warped the air around it, causing even the light to seem to waver in its presence. OK… magic… or that’s… magnetism? Very, very, very good magnetism? What…
Joe’s fascination with the shrine was almost completely replaced by the floating black sphere at the center of the priest’s hat. As Joe came forward and looked at it carefully, the priest allowed him his curiosity for a few moments before fussing in annoyance. Right… still a grumpy priest. Joe stepped back and bowed quickly to the priest, a short nod and slight bending of his back. The priest sighed and returned to his task, seeming to be working carefully on the elaborate circular construct of stone and brick while also speaking rapidly with Garnedell. Garnedell listened carefully, nodding regularly with very attentive stance beside the priest. They continued the rapid conversation as the priest made his way around the fountain. Huh… he’s checking to make sure… of something? What… Joe saw the priest quickly squat and pull something from the pattern and toss it quite far outside it. Hmm… the ceremony needs … something perfect? The ground? What? Joe’s thoughts were soon consumed with trying to understand the priest’s actions for there was a lot he did not understand of who and what a priest did. But, the priest… or all priests? Any priest?... was vital to his growth. He needed a priest to be able to change jobs. Joe was hoping that he could unlock the priest job himself and find himself able to change his own jobs.
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