"Bye mom!" Farn yelled over his shoulder as he ran out the door of his house. His mom shook her head with a rather exasperated expression as she watched him jump over both the railing of the balcony and the hedge that surrounded their house, then tear through the front yard. Farn angled himself towards a large stone building, which looked like a huge warehouse. If Aurelie saw the village she would be surprised. It looked like a very medieval town. The importance of the ones living inside the houses could generally be found out just by looking at the exterior. The houses of some people were a mixture of packed dirt and sticks. They weren't tiny, but they couldn't be called spacious either. There were no rooms, only a single space in which a kitchen, bedroom, and anything else the household had was crammed together.

Other houses were made of wood. Some were like a teepee, with the inside a single room like in the dirt huts, but the majority were like a wooden hut. They looked as though they would fall apart once given a good shake, but were actually very sturdy. The area inside was much larger than their poorer dirt counterparts and they also had walls separating the kitchen and bedrooms.

But the highest quality material used to construct buildings was stone. There was only a single stone house in the entire village. It was also the largest house in the village. It was centrally placed, and undoubtedly had the best amenities in the township. There was a kitchen, a dining room, five bedrooms, a spacious meeting room, a study, a small library, and a dojo. This house was called the Village Hall and belonged to the mayor of the town. This was also the house that Farn had come from. Unexpectedly, Farn was the mayor's son.

Even though the houses were usually fairly small, there were many of them, and the village had a fairly average (by this world's standards) population. As such the village was a bustling place with many people hurrying around. One section of the village was a bright and loud marketplace. There, many villagers joked and gossiped with one another while they sold their wares, either homemade or acquired through travel. The village itself was self sufficient. They used the water from the river that ran from the waterfall pool at which Aurelie was currently camped out for drinking, to bathe, wash clothes, and for agriculture. For health purposes, Farn's father, the mayor, had sectioned off the river into zones for each activity.

Farn's rather short run had taken him all the way to the outskirts of his village, and to the only other stone building in the village in the vicinity of the village. It looked more like a stone warehouse than anything else. In fact it very much resembled the warehouse that Aurelie had escaped from that fateful day. The height and width were the same as that warehouse. But this one was obviously in use, and was stone instead of brick and mortar.

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Farn pushed open the door that led into the huge space. The interior was a library. It had innumerable floor to ceiling bookshelves which were full of books, and there were even piles of books that couldn't fit on the shelves lying around, to the point that despite the area of the library, which made it the largest building in the town, one felt a bit cramped when inside. Farn, obviously very familiar with the library, moved quickly and gracefully, easily maneuvering through the building and coming to another door, this one half hidden behind a stack of books. Instead of pushing these doors open as well, he instead knocked, saying, "Come on Mel, I have to take you somewhere!"

The door opened and a girl, apparently the same age as Farn and Aurelie, emerged. Her hair was tousled from sleep and it was obvious that she had haphazardly thrown on random clothes for the purpose of being able to yell at Farn sooner. But he never gave her a chance to do that. Quickly motioning her to come with him, he then turned around and called over his shoulder "Bring a change of clothes and a cloak."

Mellana turned and looked longingly at her soft bed, debating whether to ignore her childhood friend or not, then went to the mirror to straighten her clothes and comb her hair with a sigh. There were two reasons for her decision. Firstly, she knew Farn enough to know that he would just come and wake her up again if she went back to bed. Secondly, and more importantly, she was curious. For the past week, Farn had been disappearing into the forest for the entire day. Whenever someone tried to follow him he always managed to shake them off. This made people extremely curious, because Farn was usually a very open person. There were many rumors, but the only one that Mel could think was true was that he was having secret meetings with someone in the forest, especially considering that she still hadn't gotten her cauldron, which she had lent to him over a week before, right at the start of all his strange behavior, back from him.

Grabbing her clothes as she'd been instructed and running out her door, she easily threaded her way through the library and exited through the front door, waving cheerfully at a figure hidden in the shadows near the entrance at the door whom Farn had not noticed. The figure nodded in response to her, but made no other movements. Not minding this, Mellana exited the library to find Farn impatiently tapping his foot and looking towards the forest.

Noticing that she had come out, Farn frowned and said, "Took you long enough. Let's go. Come on!" Having said that, Farn once again took off, Mellana next to him this time.