Lawrence gently pushed open the door, a bell ringing as he did so.
“Welcome to Evergarden Designs, how can I help you?”
An old lady with her white hair pinned neatly back, a brown shawl covering her dark green dress that had the patterns of roses upon them. Her nose was slightly crooked, a nasty gash down the entirety of her right cheek.
However, her brown eyes stared straight at Lawrence, then moved briefly to Quenya before stopping on Craig for a few moments before moving to Lawrence again.
Lawrence Carstein, the man in heavily clad armour, seemed to feel fear for a moment, as the lady bore some resemblance to his mathematics teacher in secondary school.
“Knight, I sell nothing that you need. Be on your way.” The lady huffed, her eyes narrowing as she returned her gaze to the open book in front of her, sitting back down on her blue, cushion-backed chair.
“Don’t be like this, Eveline, the Honourable Carstein came all the way from Tears to see you!” Craig said, stepping forward, his tone cheerful and the lady by the name of Eveline sighed, closing her eyes for a moment.
“Craig. How… Lovely to see you.” Eveline said, not a trace of joy on her face. You definitely saw him earlier, was what Lawrence thought to himself.
“Lawrence, meet Eveline Evergarden, the owner of Evergarden Designs,” Craig said, after a moment of awkward silence as if he seemed to contemplate if his supposed friendship with Eveline was ever real in the first place.
“Very pleased to meet you, Miss Evergarden,” Lawrence said, bowing a little.
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“A knight with manners, how rare. And so you are the puppet master of all your little puppets in Tears, I am assuming?” Eveline said, seeming to have the faintest interest in Lawrence, eyeing Lawrence from behind her table.
“Yes, I need your help in building the world’s best city.” Lawrence started but Eveline waved him off almost instantly.
“Heard that pitch before. Next.” Eveline waved her hand airily and Lawrence suddenly received a pop-up.
Passive Perception Activated. Target: Eveline Evergarden
Hint: Perhaps Eveline will be more convinced by action than words…
What was Lawrence supposed to do, kidnap her?
“Miss Evergarden, if you do put your work to my goal of creating a prosperous city of peace and harmony, I will work with you hand in hand to build the craziest cities,” Lawrence said, taking out a Scroll of Creation.
Within this scroll, Lawrence’s mind churned, trying to squeeze out an image to project onto the scroll. In his head, the only thing he could think of was the city of Leviathan, a massive sprawling city in the game of Ever Dawn, consisting of massive towers that helped to provide accommodation, massive shops and large systems of sanitation.
It was unfortunately destroyed as a frontline city, in which its former glory was only available to the player in a cutscene.
As Eveline took the scroll, she unrolled it and as she scanned it, her mouth opened, then closed.
“You came up with this, Lawrence Carstein?” Eveline asked, her eyes scanning the man clad in heavy armour once more.
Lawrence nodded and Eveline rolled up the scroll and placed it on her table.
“Do you happen to have a space for me in that city that I have heard so much about, Lawrence Carstein?”
Eveline Evergarden, often shunned by nobility due to her gender had etched out a modest living in a shop in Ludium, patronized by small-time merchants and businesses to design their shops.
However, when Eveline Evergarden became the Chief Architect of Tears, it was said that every day, she stared at the painting in which Lawrence Carstein had given her. Even near death, she requested that the painting be buried with her. However, though she did not manage to build a city quite like it, with Lawrence’s help and innovation as well as his seemingly endless source of income which she freely admits that she uses liberally, Tears was one of the few cities that stood the test of time.