Over at the city walls, Sarah had just finished her shift. Today she was on wall duty, which most days meant try to look somewhat intimidating while standing on top of the wall, or if something actually happened, tell the archers or get a bow if you are one.
However nothing interesting like that was able to take Sarah's mind off of what was going to happen later today. This event later on was of course the confrontation with Alex, our merchant friend whose stats are represented by numbers of a particular, massiveness. She had made her mind up, as soon as Emma was out of school, they would find Alex and- well, that was where she kept getting stuck.
What are you supposed to do when confronting someone who, if your sister is right, could tank an entire army before proceeding to stomp it effortlessly? Do you threaten them? No, that's out. After much deliberation, she just planned on being direct.
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Over with our dear Merchant Friend, aside from that one group earlier, nobody else has shown up. So he decided to close up shop, since he remembered he still had meals at that restaurant to eat. After flipping the sign over to closed, he left the shop and started walking over to the Hotel & Restaurant.
On his way he noticed something a touch eye catching, in the middle of the road was Sarah and seemingly hiding behind her, her trembling sister Emma, unknown to Alex.
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Sarah had finally found him, same black cloak, and Emma sure was acting like she had seen right twice.
"Alex!" Sarah yelled, "Hey Alex!"
Alex looked and waved while saying and walking over, "Hey Sarah, How's your day been?"
"It's been alright," Sarah said, "Alex, could we talk for a little while?"
Alex said, "Sure, I'm on my way to a restaurant in an inn already, we can talk over dinner. I'll pay, consider it my way of repaying the favor from a few days ago."
Sarah said, "Sure, sounds alright."
Alex said, "By the way, who's that behind you? She okay?"
Sarah said, "Oh, this is my sister, Emma."
Alex said, "I see." He looked at Emma and held out his hand, "Nice to meet you Emma."
Emma stepped just a touch away, still behind her sister.
Alex said, "Shy. I see, no worries."
The walk over was a quiet one after that. The kind of quiet where everyone wants to say something, but nobody knows how to say it. After arriving and having a small dispute endings in Alex deciding to just pay extra for the other two's meals, they sat down near the back of the already very sparsely populated room.
Sarah ordered a peppered steak, Emma a well seasoned pork chop, and Alex ordered a Kobold Roast. A few eyebrows went up at that, both of the sisters, as well as the waiter. After getting their meals, Alex asked, "So, what did you want to talk about?", before taking a bite of the roast.
At this the sisters looked to each other and Sarah said, "Emma, it's best if you tell him."
Emma then said to Alex, "A-Alex was it? I..." She paused and had to breathe deeply for a second, "I can see your stats, as well as the names of your skills."
A trio of reactions to that arose. Firstly, the speaker seemed to try to shrink away after saying that, Her sister seemed a mixture of proud and anxious, and Alex? Well, he was in the middle of a large cut of Kobold that any mother nearby would have demanded he cut to at least four smaller pieces. He seemed normal for a moment, then his chewing stopped, his eyes widened with realization, before closing, and then he went back to chewing again, taking some time.
Sarah, after a moment, said, "Well, aren't you going to say something?"
At this Alex calmly put a single finger up, silently asking for patience, before pointing it to his still chewing mouth.
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Chew, chew, chew. Chew, chew, chew. Chew, chew, chew.
Swallow.
Alex then said, "Sorry for taking a while, but where I'm from it's rude to talk while chewing, well I was also raised to eat smaller pieces of food, and I understand that now, my jaw feels tired somehow after that. Anyways, was there something you, maybe, wanted from me? No offense but it seems a touch odd to just tell me that."
Sarah said, "Well, since you haven't noticed, my sister is scared halfway to the grave of you! I just want to try and put my sister at ease, and show her that you aren't some big evil monster that's going to destroy the town or something like that."
Alex said, "Ahh, I see. Emma, that was your name right?"
Emma nodded.
Alex said, "Emma you can relax, I have no intentions of destroying anything or some other thing like that. I'd just like to sit the adventures and fables and stories out from now on, and just stick to being the merchant. The side character in a way."
At this Emma spoke up, "Sit them out? The side character?"
Alex said, "Yeah, don't tell anyone else, but all the men in my family up to my grandfather have been on many adventures, and fought many things, in fact the items I sell are leftover from all those quests and tales."
The sisters both gave interested looks at this, an entire family of adventurers?
Alex continued, "Look, the point is, I've been on plenty enough interesting adventures already, and if I learned one thing from them, is that the journey to hitting the peak is so much better than just being there. Because once you're there at the top of the world where nothing can beat you, it starts losing its meaning and joy. I've already been worn out after hitting that point, so I'd rather just take a backse- wait you wouldn't get that one. I'd rather just settle down into a nice little shop and live out life comfortably."
At this Sarah and Emma both relaxed, with Sarah saying to Emma, "See? He's just a nice guy after all."
Emma said back, "Yeah, you're right I suppose. Uh, Mr Alex?"
Alex said, "First of all, we are the same age, no need for the mister, but other than that, yes?"
Emma said, "Thanks for,- Thanks for the meal."
Alex said with a smile, "I'm fairly certain you changed what you were saying by that pause, but whatever. Sure, I owed your sister a favor, this is the least I could do."
The rest of the meal was eaten in silence, but yet, a much better silence. The silence of simply knowing no more words needed to be said, where no one pressures anyone into talking when there's no need. Just good food shared with good company.
Much later that night, Emma would have dreams. In those dreams, a dragon turns into a man, and sits down to talk with her. In the dream the dragon says it- he likes kobold, which gets a giggle out of Emma. They talk and talk, for hours, happy to just sit and talk in the sunny open market.
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Far Far elsewhere, above the clouds, the gods themselves spoke to each other. The most recent matter, The god of chaos, change, and randomness got himself killed, yet again. It was annoying, every time he died his luckily small number of paladins and worshippers 'threw a fit' so to say for about a week especially the ones that hadn't been through one of his deaths before. There was even a time when he died and came back so many times in quick succession that almost that entire generation of paladins didn't even react beyond a quiet 'Huh' anymore since they were just used to it. I mean, that's just how he is. Always randomly changing, one minute he's able to crush mountains on accident, next thing you know he's weaker than a kitchen mouse, then ocean splitting with a little elbow grease. The same randomness even applied to what he looked like, sounded like, how often any of these changed, and even the control over his own domain! One second he can control every outcome of every gamble in existence at the moment, next thing you know he can't even predict what side a coin will land on.
Currently the gods sat around their own table, talking,
"So, nothing's new with old, uhh, Allehella what did he change his name to this time?" Asked Fyre, god of flames and heat.
He was, of course, always on fire. Always. His clothes too, being a red toga that never burned away.
"I think it was Ar-En-Geez-Us." Responded Allehella, 'Mother' Goddess, who created the world that Emma, Sarah, and Alex live on, with close love and care, as well as the races of that world.
She herself wore a well fitting dress of colorful flowers, leaves that were of many colors and trees, and some berries growing from vines.
Yes she had the idea and did most of the work to create it and the other gods to helped look over it too. They all together made it, and they all together watched over it, not too dissimilar to a class garden or ant farm that everyone has to keep care of together. Well, not counting the scale of it obviously. It was named by the gods, and the name was then given to the mortal races, Allehaven, in honor of Allehella.
"Oh Pyre? Have you seen my sister Gaia anywhere?" Allehella asked.
"Last I heard she was looking at Allehaven, pacing nervously, then looking back and repeating the process before going back to her room like usual." Pyre said.
"I wonder what could have her looking at Allehaven all of a sudden. At least she's out a little more." Allehella thought out loud.
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In her room Gaia sat, before looking into what seemed to be a large crystal ball. It showed images of countless stars and it zoomed in on one point. Once it was there, it fixated on one blue and green little marble.
Gaia wondered out loud, "I thought I had kept you all separated from Allehaven. I thought all of you I made trying to be like my big sister, were kept separate, to keep to yourselves and live out your lives."
The little marble just kept slowly spinning, and going around a much brighter marble. She touched the edge of the ball and looked closely at that little blue and green marble.
"Then how did one of you manage to get to Allehaven from Earth?"