Help Text: There are many races in the world. While Humans are the most dominant of them, with over six-hundred million worldwide, there are many others. Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, and Halflings are the 4 other major races, while hundreds of other races populate the world in small numbers.
At daybreak the next morning, Setsuo woke me up, and we began tearing down our camp.
Using the inventory of my rod made this process quite a bit easier. Once that was done, we continued down the road.
We walked for a few more hours, and then we reached a bridge crossing over into the village. This time there were no walls, but there were still guards posted at the end of the bridge. After identifying ourselves, we made our way into the village. At first the village seemed quite peaceful, but as we made our way towards the center I could hear the sounds of people shouting. Then, in the middle of a courtyard, I saw a large black stone.
"So, is that the Warrior Stone, Setsuo?"
"Yes, it's quite off putting, isn't it?"
"You could say that..."
"We need to go to the Chief's Manor across the way there, he'll be able to give us lodging for the day."
We walked past the stone, and it gave off a strange feeling. Then we stood in front of the lord's manor, which once again looked more like a town hall than a living area.
Once we entered we were greeted by several servants who asked us to wait patiently for the Chief. We sat down on a bench that was off to the side, and I asked if there was anything for me to see while I was there.
“Well, we could watch any of the bouts between the different schools, or we could wait for the shops to open, and get ourselves some souvenirs."
"Hmm... I'd really like to do both."
"We'll have plenty of time to relax here, we won't leave until tomorrow."
Once we finished an extremely short man with a long gray beard descended the stairs, and greeted us.
"Hello again my old friend Setsuo! I thought your trip was going to keep you longer than that, especially after the Emperor hurried through here with his troops."
"It is good to see you again as well, Chief Toro. This is the new hero Mark Harris. We have come to relax before continuing to the Holy Citadel."
"Hmm.... He doesn't look like much! Either way, you two enjoy yourselves! There's going to be several good matches at the White Stone Inn tonight, so you may want to head there now to get your rooms."
After that we left, and made our way down a fairly busy street, there I noticed that something was odd about the people here. Some had long pointy ears, while others had green skin and tusks. The thought hadn't occurred to me before since the Blue Tree Village only had Humans in it, but there were fantasy races in this world as well. When I asked Setsuo about it, he explained that humans were the largest population in the world, but mostly resided on the Octian continent. Most of the continents had a dominant race, and each race had several ethnicities. Originating from the Octian continent were two ethnicities of humans. East Octian Humans were those like himself and the Chief Sho. West Octian Humans were dark skinned people that lived west of the mountain in the center of the continent. Apparently, Chief Toro was a North Octian Dwarf that had made a name for himself here in the village over 150 years ago, and was elected after making a name for himself as a powerful fighter.
Finally, we arrived at the White Stone Inn, and when we entered we were greeted by a rather beefy looking elf woman. Apparently, it cost 10,000 Round per night to stay there, but Setsuo was more than happy to pay for both of us. It did present an opportunity for me to ask about the money I found at the Heroes' Tree, so when we went to drop off his stuff in his room, I asked him if we could look at some of it. I started dropping one of each of the currencies I had found, and he started examining them one by one. When it was all said and done, there were over one-hundred different sets of currency neatly laid out on the table.
"Unfortunately, as currency, none of these are in use today."
"But that implies that they may still have some value though right?"
"Well, yes, to collectors, or to the treasury. Collectors would pay more, but if what you told me is accurate, you would crash the market. The treasury would decommission them, and still pay you for the inflation since the period."
As it turned out, only two sets of the currencies had ever been used in the Two Tomes Empire, while the rest were foreign currencies. The first was from before the Heroes arrival, while the second was one that they proposed based on materials available at the time. Through the years, the Empire's government had changed the designs and decommissioned older versions of the currency as the Heroes had advised, in order to prevent counterfitters from being able to harm the economy. In the last hundred years they had taken to adding paper currency for larger denominations. I wouldn't be surprised if that was more knowledge granted by the heroes, but Setsuo wasn't aware of it if that was the case.
After putting it all away, we went out to the market and looked around at some of the items that were for sale. Unfortunately, rods weren't something you could find anywhere, but I managed to pick up a book on wildlife in the Empire. While passing by an alley, I could hear the sounds of a creature and someone fighting. When I mentioned it to Setsuo, he said we could go observe the fight.
Apparently it wasn't uncommon for people to take on captured animals here, so I used this opportunity to test out my Identify skill. After placing two ranks into it, I used it on both the animal and the fighter. The animal was identified as a Bearlish, while the fighter was identified as a human.
Earlier, when I looked at the book, I gained the "Read (Two Tomes)" skill, and decided to wait until I needed to invest into it. I put two ranks into it as we sat down, then started to read the book. Just like what happened with the spoken language the book started to transform into English, however several parts remained unchanged. My only guess was that I hadn't put enough ranks into the skill. Though, it did make me wonder what words I was missing from the spoken language as well.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
As the fight continued I flipped through the pages searching for the Bearlish, until I found its entry.
When I found it there was no mention of stats, levels, or otherwise. This led me to the conclusion that no one besides myself was aware of stats or anything of the sort. As the match wound down, the human had subdued the Bearlish, and the hosts of the event had gotten it back into its cage.
Once we could make our way out of the alley, we decided to have lunch. Setsuo took me to a small stall on the edge of town, where the sign read "Noodles." We sat down, and Setsuo ordered us two bowls of "igasa soup." When it was served, it was a strange sight for me. The noodles were a reddish orange, and there was some sort of thinly sliced meat with scales on it. The presentation reminded me of ramen, but the look of it was just strange.
Setsuo assured me that it was safe, while he sat there eating his own. I took a bite, and surprisingly it tasted exactly like chicken noodle soup. Once we were finished, we walked around town and saw some of the more notable sights. Most of the people were quite friendly, although there were some people who wanted to challenge me to matches. The rumors of there being a new hero were outpacing us, which was both a good and bad thing.
We visited several martial arts schools, many of which offered to teach me, which I had to turn down in order to go to the North Tome Temple. Other schools had thrown out imposters trying to impersonate me though, if it hadn't been for Setsuo I probably would've met a similar fate. I did keep note of a few of the schools that seemed interesting for when I finished at the temple. Martial Arts could certainly help me survive in this world, so I definitely wanted to keep my options open.
Once the sun started to set, we made our way back to the inn. The elf woman welcomed us back, and told us that the match was going to start shortly, then motioned to a stairway that went underground. As we descended, we started to hear the cheering and booing of a fairly large crowd. Then we made our way through to a large arena surrounded by an enormous number of seats. In the center stood a large circular fighting ring. On opposite sides of the ring sat two large men. Identify told me that one was a Monoian Orc, while the other was a Septian Elf.
Both of them were huge, musclebound, and had skin that was almost pitch black. When the fight began, they wasted no time in furiously landing blows on one another. Each time one of them would land a solid blow it would reverberate through the entire arena. Eventually, the elf went down, but to my surprise the match hadn't ended. The orc grabbed him by the ankles and started dragging him to the edge of the ring. But before anyone knew what was going on, the elf had broken free, then kicked the orc out of the ring. The crowd erupted into a roar of boos, and the elf woman entered the arena and announced Bacquan the elf as the winner.
Apparently the ultimate goal is to get your opponent out of the ring, by any means necessary, short of killing them anyway. The matches continued late into the night, some quick and technical, others slow and physical. Eventually a bunch of people started to stand up, but were interrupted when the elf woman stood at the center of the ring.
"Before you all go! We have a special match tonight!"
The sounds of confusion filled the arena, and people started returning to their seats.
"For one night only! Making their return to the ring! On the north side of the ring is Chief Toro the killer Dwarf!"
The crowd erupted into cheers, and chants of Toro flooded the arena. Beside me I could hear some people speculating about who he could possibly face. Then, to everyone’s surprise, their question was answered.
"And on the south side of the ring will be me, Lady Ray the undefeated Elf!"
The crowd erupted into cheers again, chants of Toro and Lady Ray filled the arena. Even Setsuo was shocked to see this.
"Watch carefully, this is going to be the type of fight that makes history, Mark!"
As the two took their sides, the crowd that was near the ring started filling the rows. I wondered what was going to happen, then a small hairy man made his way to the side. In a voice that didn't quite seem to fit him, he started the match.
The two of them rushed towards the center of the ring at an incredible speed. They grappled one another, and I could faintly make out a sinister smile on Ray's face. Toro seemed to be enjoying himself, then he let go of her left arm, and grabbed the other with both hands. I was expecting him to put her arm behind her back and force her out of the ring at this point, but I saw him start flinging her and slamming her to the ground. I thought that this was excessive until she managed to land on her feet, then squarely kicked him in the balls. Toro quickly went down, and she picked him up by his beard and started walking towards the edge of the ring, but Toro quickly stopped her by punching her in the face. Shocked by it, Ray let go, and Toro moved back to the center of the ring and then made a charge toward her. She stepped out of the way before he could connect, and he landed flat on his face, then she started stomping on his back furiously. She was swiftly interrupted by Toro when he rolled over and caught her by the leg. Once he had a hold of her, he stood up and started to turn around, that's when her expression changed. Her twisted smile quickly became one of shock. As Toro started turning faster, she took to punching his head repeatedly, her screams of "LET GO!" echoed through the whole arena. Toro just kept turning faster and faster until he was in a full spin whipping her around wildly. Then, before any of us could react, the unconscious Ray was flying directly towards Setsuo and myself. She landed on us, knocking us out of our seats, then the crowd erupted into cheers once again. The small man came out and declared Toro the winner, while we attempted to get Ray sitting up. Then Toro shouted loudly from the ring.
"You two boys make sure she gets upstairs safely! Ya 'ere!!!"
The crowd started to leave from various places around the edge of the arena. We exited the way we came, and arrived back in the Inn. Once we were there, we sat Ray down in a nearby chair, and Setsuo said we should wait since Toro was definitely going to show up.
Surprisingly a few more people exited behind us, talking about how amazing it was to see two legends fight in the ring again. Eventually, Chief Toro sprung up from the staircase covered in bruises and sweat.
"Ah, there we go, I'm glad you two kept her safe. I'd never hear the end of it if some of the spectators went to feelin’ up on her, or begging for an autograph."
A short while later she woke up while the three of us were discussing the match.
"Ugh, I think you broke my nose kid."
"Well my balls are the size of the warrior stone right now, so let's call it even ya old hag."
The two of them started laughing and Ray went to the kitchen and brought back a bottle of wine. Apparently, Toro wanted to put on a show, and settle a bet at the same time. Ray had been fighting in the village almost a century longer than Toro had been here, and lost the election to him. Since then people who knew of them always speculated about who could win, and what kindof fight it would be. Tonight just happened to be an opportune moment since Setsuo and I were here.
Eventually as the night went on, Ray had become quite inebriated, and the three of us carried her upstairs to her room. Once we had gotten her there safely, Toro headed back to his manor, and Setsuo and I made our way to our rooms. That night had been particularly exciting, but it was time for me to sleep. After briefly looking over my stats and wondering if there was a way for me to see other people’s, I went to sleep.