Rika hurried through the forests and plains, up and down hills and small mountains. By using her Lightweight skill and jumping, she could cast Gust to leap further, essentially launching herself through the treetops over and over like a ninja or a monkey - or both.
When she reached another tall hilltop, she stopped to catch her breath and to let her MP regenerate. Clouds hung lazily in the blue skies. The brisk wind chilled the sweat on her skin. In the distance, a thin pillar of smoke rose up from the canopy of trees. Civilization! A nearby dirt path ran alongside a creek, and I headed over.
She wasn't sure what to expect once she got there. Maybe it was a village, a town, an army camp. Natives perhaps, or Spanish conquistadors, or even other players. She needed to approach this tactically. When she topped a short rise in the path, she found them.
A woman stood there in a loose gown - white and pale blue. Black hair, tan skin - a native. She tilted her head at Rika, studying what was apparently some short, pale-skinned foreigner. A small child tugged at the hem of the woman’s skirt.
Rika approached.
"H-hello," She said as she showed them her empty palms.
They stared back, defensively at first, but Rika’s gesture seemed to calm them. The woman looked Rika up and down, her brow furrowed, then a smile. She spoke, but there were no words. Only the woman’s mouth moved with silence.
Rika cupped her ear out to her. "What?"
The woman spoke again, her voice mute save for a single word mid-sentence. “... here.”
"What?"
"... here?”
Rika realized she had made a grave mistake. Most language groups were boiled down into English for the players’ convenience, but to properly simulate the barriers that plagued colonization, handicaps like this were installed. Rika didn’t know if or how the issue was presented from nipsy to nipsy, but for players unlearned languages were essentially gibberish - or just muted. Trying to communicate anything would be a massive pain in the ass, and she was already regretting not spending points into Linguistics. Even for the woman, Rika probably sounded like a babbling weirdo.
Rika tried using some half-assed sign language to convey the message, tracing shapes of buildings and temples with her hands and fingers, but not even that got through. The woman only stared back with wide eyes, nodding along as if Rika were some passing lunatic telling a story.
Eventually, Rika dug out a small marble - a gold nugget. The gold sparkled in the light and brightened the woman’s eyes. Money was, after all, the international language. The woman nodded and pointed further up the path. "... there."
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A twinge of excitement shot through Rika when she considered how the language barrier was melting away, even if it was slow as hell. "Thank you," she said with a slight bow.
She continued on, soon passing a small village. Small huts cobbled together, villagers working with stones and their hands, cooking meals and making crafts. As Rika passed by, they would stop whatever they were doing and just stare. Some terrified, some curious, some excited. The children who were playing in the grass soon came and joined her by her side - prancing along and tugging at her cloak. Their mouths moved with silent excitement, in unison - singing!
A young boy took her hand as he hopped along, and another person took her other - it was an old lady! She smiled as she swayed side to side in their new impromptu parade. People started to join them, following the forming crowd or only out of curiosity. A young couple ran out of a nearby home and tossed handfuls of flower petals into the air.
Though the chanting was silent, laughter was never obscured by language. It was universal, and here it was wild and carefree as anyone here seemed to be.
Rika didn't know what was happening, but it didn't matter. It was cute and fun and stupid, and everyone was happy, including her. Especially her.
She continued on for some time until the village thinned past, the people branching off to go back into their lives, the parents beckoning their children home. The old became weary, and this stranger, this foreigner, this god, was headed to some faraway place where they didn't belong. Or so Rika thought.
She topped another hill, accompanied only by a single old man - a priest, certainly, with some feathered ceremonial headdress, blue and white strands sprouting out from his head as if he were cosplaying a bird. He wore a V-like poncho with staggered designs, in the Aztec style. "There… … ...temple." His voice was deep and distant as if reciting some scripture.
Rika followed his gaze to the forests beyond. The sun was hanging low in the sky, shimmering off a vast lake in the distance. In the center, a city. It looked like a place built on the water, alleys and streets and residential blocks all divided by canals, similar to Venice. In its center, pyramid-like structures brooded over the town like a shepherd. In each direction from the city, a long, bridge-like causeway stretched toward the banks.
There was peace here. A flock of canoes manned by near-naked people with paddles turned a far-off corner and headed out. City noises could be heard faintly in the distance - conversations, construction, children playing. When they reached the lake road, Rika nodded at the old priest, and he nodded back. They walked across the lake and toward the city.
The buildings eased closer into view, the sky behind was a canvas of blue, violet, and pink. The architecture here was much different than in Europe or Asia. Instead of building everything out of wood, stone seemed to be their primary resource. Houses and buildings of varying sizes, some with rooftops painted in green, white, and red. Gardens, trees, marketplace vendors with colorful awnings and empty stalls. Yet no gold.
It was part of the reason she came here. She had heard of these cities of gold in history books, passing conversations, forum posts, but even a massive city such as this seemed to lack the luster of those legends. It was a disappointment, but an acceptable one. There were always better ways to gain experience points than to swallow gold like the PvE carebears did.
Something glinted in the sun - armor. She looked over at an adjacent causeway that ran perpendicular from hers. There, a crowd of people were walking toward the city, figures in robes and ceremonial dress flanking two others in bulging metallic armor and conquistador helmets. Rika squinted her eyes at them. She had seen them before. A black guy and a white one with blond hair.
It was Mondego!