Verde-Fuoco-Vita, also known as Verde-Fuoco to the locals, was a fairly ordinary world. Or at least, it was as ordinary as the irradiated wastelands, left behind after horrific nuclear wars, go. It was a world that likely wouldn’t have become a server in Horologia if the planet hadn’t unluckily been located on a dimensional fault-line. Thus the new-type nukes that were fired in the last great war not only brought death, radiation, earthquakes, and fall-out, but they also opened “fractures” in space-time that poisoned not only the planet, but their very universe. Requiring their world to either be sealed away or “sanitized”. Which thanks to the HOA and the Division of Cosmic Artifice, led to the birth of a new server.
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“Gngh...Tch, those bastards. One day I’ll show them...I’ll show them all! Especially that Union-Head….Double-crossing, slippery bastard... They’ll see…They’ll all see.”
A man meandered through the streets of Robin’s Nest. The man was dressed in a tattered, rank-smelling, old coat, whose ornate and fascinating inscriptions were now obscured by stains, tears, and sloppy patchwork. The man held a jug of rot-gut that he’d bought using shiny-scrap. Shiny-scrap that he’d earned by doing tricks and illusions to entertain the townsfolk. Behind the man trailed, a thin, diminutive figure, in a threadbare cloak.
This man was Dalton Kane, a once-powerful, once well-respected, psychic of the neighboring city of Owl’s Tree. The dominant settlement of the region. Dalton was a tall man at 6’2, and had a stocky build. He was a, somewhat hard-to-read man thanks to years of aesthetic living and training. However if one peeled back the layers one would find a hard-headed, harsh, man filled with an abundance of ambition. Ambitions that sometimes exceeded his capacity. Resulting in setbacks like the ones Dalton was going through now.
A little under a year ago, Dalton accepted an off-the-books job for a patron of the Owl’s Tree Psychics’ Unions. Exactly what it was he’d been tasked to do, is irrelevant, what matters is that the job ended in disaster, and in the course of the work Dalton ended up touching something that he shouldn’t have touched. This resulted in Dalton getting injured and his powers becoming greatly reduced. Half the union’s leadership weren’t too pleased to hear that he was operating behind their backs, the other half, the half that had already known about, and tacitly supported, what Dalton had been up to until then, pretended not to know anything.
The end result was a fall from grace, wherein Dalton lost everything. He lost his villa in the upper-quarters of Owl’s Tree. He lost his carriages. His horses. His wine collection. He lost his status as a first-class citizen of Owls’ Tree. He lost his membership to the Psychics' Union. Now he was reduced to performing petty tricks for the ignorant masses and wandering from place to place to avoid the enemies he’d made during his rise to his former status. He spent his days trying to make ends meet with performances, toying with the idea of doing regular labor when things got dire enough that he could push past his pride, and drinking his woes away.
Just as Dalton was stumbling towards the quarters he’d procured in one of the local boarding houses, he felt something. Something he’d recognize anywhere. Something he could still sense even with his powers dulled and weakened as they were. There was a strangeness in the air. The familiar strangeness that generalized from the fractures within earth and sky, and the strange gates that occasionally. Dalton quickly sobered as he looked around wildly. Then he saw it. A simple storefront. Far too neat, and far too put together, to match with repurposed hovels and shanty houses that lined the street.
Dalton’s eyes went wide as he felt destiny calling him. He’d heard and read of things like these but he’d never expected to ever run into one himself.
“An externalized micro-gate...A miniaturized, stabilized, instantiation of the wyrd...Truly, the heavens have not abandoned this old man,” muttered Dalton as he recklessly rushed inside the building. Refusing to let this opportunity pass by, and fearing that some other psychics might come along and chase him away if he dithered for too long.
Once inside the building, Dalton found himself inside a store. A store that was much bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. A brightly store with clean wooden floors, freshly painted walls, and an ornate tile ceiling. A store where the air didn’t stink of chemical smoke and unwashed bodies. For Dalton, it almost put the Psychics Union Headquarters to shame, or rather objectively the place rather reminded Dalton of one of the handfuls of times where he’d been invited to the Owl’s Tree Governors’ Office. The store was less a store and more like some kind of mercantile palace.
“Welcome to our shop! How can we help you today!?” said an annoying boisterous voice. The voice belonged to a blond beauty with a decadent figure that put the emaciated sows, that Dalton had patronized during the few times that he’d felt a certain itch, to shame. Dalton was almost tempted to ask if “she” was for sale but caution saved him from making that mistake, in time for him to feel the violent fluctuations of strange power that emanated off of the woman. Sharply reminded that he was no longer in his home continent of Kansas, Dalton quickly remembered his courtly airs.
“Ah, well...I’m quite happy to be here, Madame. I don’t suppose you could explain how this shop works? And what this shop can offer?” said Dalton. Giving his best smile, and suppressing his former inebriation as best as he could.
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“I’d be happy to do that, dear customer,” said a low, gentle, somewhat soothing voice. Dalton and his plus-one, turned around to find a man standing behind them. A tall man. An extraordinarily good-looking man, albeit a little too dark-skinned for Dalton’s sensibilities. Dalton sneered inwardly. Refusing to be lulled into false comfort by that man’s good looks. Dalton had heard of the so-called halo effect, and he knew he was too strong-minded to fall for such petty tricks.
Men didn’t need to be that good-looking, they just needed to be capable. And that man was almost definitely one of those shifty foreigners. However, on second thought, Dalton realized he was probably beating a dead horse. The pink hair and eerie yellow eyes made it painfully clear that the man might not even be from their world, never mind the prospect of him being part of the local regions and ethnic groups.
“My name is ****** I am the Shop-Keeper. This is my shop. That is ****** my business partner and spouse. We run this little shop as a way of watching the centuries go by. We carry a number of wares from a number of different environs...And I’ve made even more wares based on things that have inspired me, or drawn my interest. We take the local currency. We accept barter. We accept trade in services and goods. But the primary currency we use here is time...Please feel free to look around. Ask one of the staff if you need anything,” said the yellow-eyed man. Pointing towards a uniformed figure with no facial features. A figure that could easily be mistaken for the mechanized workers of the old Hegemonies.
Dalton quickly took the man up on his offer. He knew from his readings and his own explorations into the more normal type of gates, that gates tended to operate on dream logic, or fairy tale logic, with dangers, sinister, twists mixed in. Thus the best policy was to roll with the strangeness while always being on one's guard. Dalton wandered around for a bit, before he finally settled on what he wanted. As much as he loathed to do so, he ended up asking for help from the staff after all, and was then able to rapidly find many of the things he’d been longing for these past few months...and a couple of things he’d desperately wanted since long before his fall from grace.
“Alrighty then, so we have one new Adept’s Coat with top-tier defense, and mental-stat, boosting enchantments. Three pairs of self-maintaining slacks. Three self-maintaining, button-down shirts. Two packs of self-maintaining boxers. Two packs of self-maintaining undershirts. One pack of ordinary shaving razors. A comb that will never break. Fresh smelling soap that doesn’t slip out of hand or pick up odd bits. One canteen of endless water. One canteen of endless vermouth. One cane with a high-grade focusing crystal. One enchanted revolver. One spatial-ring. And finally, one low-tier age-reversing pill, and one vial of legend-grade soul-fortifying serum,” said the buxom blond shopkeep.
“Will that be all?” said the blond shopkeeper.
“Ah…No. Thank you. That’ll be fine,” said Dalton. Curious to see what all this would cost him. He’d added a bunch of junk, partially because they were things he’d wanted but also to hopefully obfuscate his true desires from the eyes of these strange beings.
“Okie-doke, in that case, if you’d like to pay in the local currency that’ll be…”
“Ah, ma’am I’m afraid I’m quite poor in shiny-scrap, bullets, or meds, so it’d be best if I pay in store’s preferred currency or trade,” said Dalton interjecting. Not really regretting spending the last bits of scrap he’d earned on liquor because he highly doubted that they’d have been enough to buy even the razors. Never mind that most important of his purchases, the so-called “soul-fortifying” potion that would not only heal his injuries but greatly increase his powers.
“Oh, er, in that case, the price will be 124 years,” said the blond shopkeep.
“Er...I….Uh, how about if I dropped the clothes and the razors?” said Dalton. Panicking as he heard the high number and imagined over 120 years of serving these eldritch beings for whatever ends they saw fit to use him for.
“Hm? Oh, in that case, that’ll be 94 years,” said the blond shopkeep.
“Er...How about now?” said Dalton. Pushing the canteens of never-ending water and wine to the side.
“In that case, that’ll be 84 years,” said the blond shopkeep.
Dalton grit his teeth and then pushed every that wasn’t the adept’s coat and soul-fortifying serum away.
“How about now?” said Dalton.
“Ah, then that will be...70 years,” said the blond shopkeep.
Dalton briefly considered just taking the serum and running. Or drinking it all now and seeing if he might be able to fight his way out with his powers returned, but the ominous energy wafting from the woman in front of him, the pink-haired fop who stood near the back watching their transaction, and even the strange faceless staff, warned Dalton that he’d likely not survive the result of such hasty actions.
In the end, Dalton looked behind him and made a hard decision. Deciding to free himself from all his burdens, while hopefully turning his luck around, in a single bound.
“You said you take trades, right?” said Dalton.
This time it was the yellow-eyed man shop-keep who spoke up.
“Yes...Indeed we do.”
“How about the girl? My daughter. My flesh and blood. What’d she be worth?” said Dalton. His tone was aggressive. Sounding almost aggrieved and put-upon. Like he was pushing the blame of what he was about to do, onto the store owners.
There were two gasps. One from the blond woman, and one from the small figure in the threadbare cloak. The yellow-eyed man glanced at the small figure and then he looked over at Dalton and then he smiled.
“That'll be exactly 124 years, dear customer,” said the yellow-eyed shopkeep. His voice was oddly flat and echoey.
“Excellent, I think I’ll take this other stuff, after all, thank you very much,” said Dalton. Smiling fiercely, as the dull pain in his heart, was replaced by visions of his bright future.