I watched as the male guard hurried after his female counterpart. She seemed like a total buzzkill.

‘Oh, well, I guess I’ll do some window shopping instead,’ I thought and went over to the huge display window of the store next to me.

The glare from the moonlight made it hard to make out anything from where I was sitting, but the ledge on the outside of the window was thankfully wide enough to sit comfortably on. Shelves filled most of the interior of the store, lining the walls as well as two sets along the middle, creating an aisle between them. At the back, an area was sectioned off by a desk, the wall behind it filled with more shelves as well as another - much more plain - door.

Containers of different sizes and make filled the shelves. The containers were mostly made out of ceramic and glass, but one shelf in the back held some metallic ones. I could even make out a couple of barrels in front of the desk, with what looked like a bargain bin box on top of the desk next to them.

What I found most interesting though, were the rune filled paper labels attached to the shelves, barrels, and walls. I could use these to learn a bit about the language! Due to the theme of the store, there were enough regularities in the writing that I could suss out some of the meanings of the runes.

After a good while of squinting at labels, I had recognized a general pattern that was repeated on most of the labels:

[

Either of <ᛚᛁᛏᛖᚻ>, <ᛗᛖᛚᛚᚨᚻ>, or <ᛋᛏᛟᚱ>

]

So, from the top, I will assume the first word means something like “potion”, the word on the second row seems to indicate the size of the container as they are matched with “small”, “medium”, and “large” containers respectively. I’m not sure about the runes on the last two rows, but I have a feeling they are numbers, which makes the last rune a currency symbol of some sort… probably… I have no idea what the spoken equivalents to the runes are though, so this won’t help me much in understanding what people are saying. Oh well, it’s a start.

Stolen novel; please report.

Not finding anything else interesting, I decided to move on. I headed down the street towards what should be the front of the building I was staying at. The rest of the building which housed the potion shop wasn’t very interesting. Small square windows sat high up on the wall, interrupted only by a plain door close to the middle.

‘Now, if I’m not completely turned around, this building should be the inn, or whatever it is,’ I mused as I turned the corner at the next intersection.

----------------------------------------

The street I arrived at was maybe half as short as the one I had just been on, and only had two buildings. To my left was a large three-story building, what I assumed was the inn, and to my right was a large courtyard. A small building together with a much larger L-shaped building walled the courtyard in on the other three sides.

My suspicion that the building I was living in was an inn was further confirmed by the sign hanging over the ornate door. While I couldn’t decipher the runes, the depiction of two large tankards of foaming amber liquid standing next to a steaming pie was confirmation enough for me.

I was about to jump up to the large windows to study the interior of the inn when my ears suddenly picked something up, swiveling to locate the source of the sound. High pitched squeaking was coming from inside the large L-shaped building, just across the street. The “tip” of the L-shaped building was just across the street from me and the sound was leaking through a wide gap below the two large doors that adorned it.

My instincts were tingling from the sound, and I had an idea about what was making it. I looked back towards the windows of the inn but decided I would have time later. For now, I wanted to test out some of my Skills for real.

I crossed the street and squeezed myself through the gap, my nose picking up the strong but tolerable smell of horse manure. The interior was made up of a long corridor, reaching the entire way to the back wall of the building, stalls lining both sides. Small piles of straw littered the floor adding a slight dusty smell to the otherwise pungent air. Some of the stalls held horses, some looking up from their rest to study me, losing interest as they identified me as a non-threat.

My ears twitched once again at the high pitched noise coming from the far end of the corridor. As I turned my head towards the noise I caught a glimpse of my quarry. Aha, I knew it! A number of small rodents were congregating around a small sack, its content spilling out due to a small hole in its side.

At seeing the rodents, my instincts instantly kicked into stalking mode. I was prepared for it and managed to keep conscious control over my body. Using my instincts as a guide, I pushed my body closer to the ground and started moving slowly towards the small group.

As I crept closer, pressure started building up in my being, similar to when I used Stamina in a Skill and my alarm built as the pressure increased quickly. Before I could react, however, the pressure disappeared in an almost audible “pop” and a System message appeared:

[Skill unlocked: Silent Movement(1)

Guides placement of limbs and suppresses noise made by movement.

Stamina usage: conditional, low-high]