Long story short: Imogyeran was shooed away from the stand for not having any money to pay with and had to keep on moving through the crowds. Eventually however, the secluded young boy got a sense of nausea from being inside this crowded place for too long and he decided to take a breather by deviating from the main pathway and deserting into the nearest alleyway he saw.
<
Even within the Central part of Carcera, there are differences in the status of the people living here. The alley, he was currently in, was the merchant’s district, where many well-off merchants love to compete for a home at due to strategic reasons.
Of course, the alleys were relatively empty during this time of the day.
Out of the people living in this district, the working ones were mostly out competing in selling their wares at the marketplace while the rest stayed home to do the chores and look after the rest of their family.
Needless to say, at this late time of the day the streets were very empty.
[“I have never had an experience quite like this one. Imagine this: Just before I was a fish riding along a stream of people trying to deviate to a branching patch of water and after following that path I ended up landing inside a drought without any human in sight! It was almost magical this feeling, I tell you! ”]
No sounds except his own feet and breath. No movements were reflected within these crimson eyes of his. The drastic change of scenery filled the inexperienced boy with a sense of fright as he started walking faster, breathing quicker and frantically looking around his surroundings.
How was this different from his previous walk through the trail from the Blueseva mansion to here?
At that road he had at least been able to listen to the animals of the night crying out. On top of that he had a much easier time connecting with the surrounding spirits of the greenery of this place making him appreciate the new acquaintances.
But this place seemed different. It seemed to reject the existence of spirits itself making it hard to hear any of them in the air. It wasn’t as if they weren’t there, no.
Imogyeran was perfectly able to command them to do smaller things and he could summon
forth ‘Donmir’ at any time.
The difference to usual laid within the sensation of communication. Every command he gave to the spirits, every word he uttered in their language, everything felt as if it was going through a thick white-noise when ushered out of his mouth.
[“To be honest, I don’t remember most of the things that happened after that, so it was probably my imagination or something.”]
[“Anyways, next thing I remember, there is this ugly looking guy, who just randomly starts beating me up! After that he just leaves. Then afterwards I decided to...”]
Imogyeran suddenly seized his running when finally coming across another human.
The one looking at him wore a black jacket of an unknown material, that had the image of a blue canine being biting down its claws embroidered on top. The artistry was marvelous to the person, that had observed the artistry of nobility for his entire life.
The mysterious man wore a pair of blue-colored pants and black-toned leather shoes making the boy slightly jealous. This person’s height was around twice as high as himself, which didn’t mean that much considering Imogyeran’s young age.
While moving his gaze upward, the boy felt both an emotion of disgust as well as one of bewilderment.
The man’s face was ordinary at best; he was looking at a oval-shaped wide face with a decently shaped chin. He wore a thick unkempt beard and finger-long curly and unkempt black hair on top of his head. The lack of moisture of His skin showed that He was not the type to care about appearances. Honestly, Imogyeran’s first impression of the guy was ‘Homeless Bum’ at best. There was only one redeeming quality that He possessed.
A pair of Amethyst purple eyes was staring him down with a force he had no word to compare them to.
Imogyeran was speechless.
“What’s up little boy? Did ya already fall in love with me? Didn’t take you to be the type of guy to swing that way.”
He was wearing a wide provocative smile as He said those words with a voice, that constantly shifted its tone. The guy was slightly shuffling from side to side and cocking His head in different directions, making Imogyeran’s repulsion reach a new high.
“What’s wrong? Cat got your Tongue?”
From everything He had showed him, Imogyeran suspected the Man to be an especially unfortunate variant of the Yetenbu, maybe a crossbreed between Yetenbu and a literal animal.
<
Imogyeran blurted out these words without much thought, giving this man the hardest line of disrespect he would ever give out to any person of Gaia for the next decade or so.
This child was not one to mess with when it came to using your words to hurt.
“…”
He simply froze up, mouth hanging down and everything, before erupting in a crazed laugh.
“Haha… HAAAAHAA! HAHAHA!”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Next thing he knew, Imogyeran felt the feeling of an iron Bar being rammed into his sternum multiple times before his entire view of the world turned upside down and he got beat up for the next 5 minutes or so. All accompanied by the sound of crazed laughter.
After 5 minutes of this brutal onslaught, He stopped. His entire body shivered from seeming excitement as He let out a long-winded sigh.
“ahhhh. revenge”
He turned around and walked away, merrily skipping on his toes while doing so. Before finally leaving, the ugly man(both in mind and body) left these words for the boy, who was slowly losing consciousness.
“I just wanted to greet my bro for the first time in all time. Don’t worry Bro, you won’t see me for about another 3187 years plus-minus infinity. See ya later!”
With his blurring consciousness at its limit, Imogyeran lay there inside a puddle of blood within this empty alley. His last words before falling unconsciousness slowly fading out into the open
<
Imogyeran was livid.
After waking up, he found himself leaning against the wall of an adjacent house, the time still night. He immediately stood back up and noticed something: The blood was gone. His wounds were also closed. Was all this a dream? He didn’t know.
With every passing second Imogyeran lost his memories of what had just transpired. There was only a shred of memory left that he held onto.
<>
As if nothing happened, Imogyeran sat back down, leaning against the cold stone wall he had been leaning against when waking up and thought about his next move of action.
[“There were three main priorities in my mind at that point.
Number one: Food and Water
Number two: Money
Number three: Power”]
With a quick discussion session together with the most trusted of the spirits friends, he had come to know through the rite of knowledge, Imogyeran organized ordered his list of priority by order of immediate importance.
After doing so, he came to the conclusion that the most immediate problem to tackle was going to be the acquisition of food.
Simply using the spirits to collect the residue dew on the plants and environment he could solve the problem of water but the field of food would be a more complicated issue.
Using the spirit’s expertise in the area of herbology and hunting, Imogyeran would be able to forage the forest for usable resources. This method would work as a temporary solution but the physical strain on Imog’s body might be too high for the long run.
[“The obvious question was always going to be this:
‘How do the other people get the food on the table?’
That question can only have so many answers.”]
How did people get food on the table in Estica? The answer differs greatly depending on the individuals’ social status and social affiliation. Since the Estican economy is very focused around agriculture, the most obvious answer is going to be either growing the food for yourself or buying it off those, who possess the food. Imogyeran’s next course of action should have been obvious:
Imogyeran lunged back into the main pathway for the marketplace, which had already begun to settle down, since the night was steadily deepening. It seemed like the time he had spent walking through the alleyways had not happened since the night had not progressed as far as it should have considering its passage during his time of unconsciousness but Imogyeran was unable to notice this fact. Instead he began to crawl:
Imogyeran got down on his arms and legs and surveyed the stands selling seeds for crops. In particular the ‘clever’ boy observed the ground directly in front of those stands.
What was he looking for?
After a couple of minutes of making a fool out of himself he was successful in finding what the boy had searched for: A seed used to plant crops.
Imogyeran snatched the seed off the ground and ran through the crowd of people, some of them having their bodies and faces turned to look at the boy behaving weirdly on the middle of the road, straight to the nearest unclaimed patch of greenery.
<<’Donmir’!>>
A blue ball of fluff materialized itself and consolidated into the image of a dark-Grey rain-cloud in the form of a whelp and started to change colors into a fair shade of blue.
With a bark, the guardian angel and best friend of this boy sprang up and threw the boy down to the ground, covering the latter’s face with drool.
After playing around for a couple of minutes with ‘Donmir’ Imogyeran decided to get back to work.
With the help of ‘Donmir’ as well as borrowing the strength of the earthen spirits slumbering within the ground, Imogyeran prepared the minimum space needed to grow crops: A tilled tile of field watered and ready to be the birthplace for a new crop.
Imogyeran placed the seed he had stolen found on the ground inside the dug up dirt. According to the instructions he received close to in real time, he then dug up the surrounding dirt and buried the seed with it, until it was slightly underground. Then he placed his hands on top of the wet soil and focused his senses on the spirits of the land providing fertility and growth. It took a long time to finish actualizing the order as this task was rather high-level in terms of utilization of the spirits via spirit-channeling. But eventually the seed started showing signs of growth. At first it was a slow growth, only ever growing a couple of millimeters each minute. After around 6 minutes the millimeters became centimeters and after another 3 minutes the plant had reached its fully grown state. It was a fruit-plant. Imogyeran didn’t know which fruit it was but he didn’t really care as he saw a pair of brown, oval shaped fruits hanging down from the tall plant, begging to be eaten.
He broke off the stem connecting one of the fruits with the plant and broke the fruit itself into two halves. The inside of the fruit seemed relatively lush and fresh, so it didn’t look like he could get any disease by eating it.
Imogyeran decided to take a single cautious bite off on the side of the fruit.
[*Chew**Chew* “And that’s where I realized it!”]
<
While the smell and consistency as well as the freshness and juice seemed to indicate edibility, the taste suggested otherwise.
[“Artificially accelerating the natural growth of your crops will inevitably result in the drastic decline of taste from anything taken from it! In other words: Magic makes Crops taste disgusting!”]
<
[“As expected, I already had a secondary plan in mind.”]
During his conversation with the spirits, one of the spirits came from the village of Medalia, a small but influential village, which was famous for its various events held, which many people even from outside Estica would come to spectate.
There was one particular event coming up in a few months already:
Every year on December 23rd there is a fighting tournament held in Medalia village, the so called Insigniae Magnae.
The tournament divides the participants according to their age and lets them compete against each other in a battle of skills and technique to achieve the ultimate honor for them and their family. The tournament is a well-appreciated tourist attraction by many people, so the small village profits immensely from holding it every year. Recently, the village chiefs have decided to award the top 3 winners of each category with a hefty sum of money for their achievements.
That’s right.
<
[“The thing that I unfortunately had overlooked in my smart plan was that the tournament was not to be held for at least five months, so I had to earn some money by doing some circus tricks as a street performer. Well, I still went to Medalia to participate, just not for the money but rather for some fun!”]