I squinted my eyes as I left the cabin to begin my journey through the Capital. Anwir, who was a step in front of me, stopped and looked toward the driver, whose name I haven’t learned yet, and said, “Ata and I are going to get some business done around town, do you mind setting up our cargo in the usual place?”
The man looked at Anwir for a moment, almost looking confused, before nodding his head.
“Yes sir.”
“Fantastic! Come, Ata, after I get some business done I’ll take you to the orphanage and see to it that you get a new home.” Anwir then started walk into the busy street. I stood for a second before following after him.
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The Capital was a big, bustling city, with many people of different sizes and shapes walking through the streets. Shouts and smells from vendor’s stands were filling my senses as we traversed through the crowds. There was a wide variety of goods in each stand we passed, from herbs and potions to clothes and sewing materials. People also stood outside of shops, advertising goods like weapons and armor. As we were walking, Anwir mentioned how the Capital was set up.
The Capital was set up with three main districts: The Market district, Residential district, and the Holy district. Each of the districts were then split into, “sub-districts”, so to speak. The Market district was split into the Vender district, where we were right now, and the Merchant district. The Vender district was basically the same as the Merchant district except for the fact that they couldn’t sell things that the Merchant district has monopolized, and they had to pay a tax to the Merchant Guild to set up shop. The Merchant district was composed of a group of merchants, like Anwir, who were part of the Merchant Guild. They could sell whatever they wanted, from swords and armor to potions and enchanted items, but had to pay a tax to the Merchant guild depending on their rank in the guild. The Residential district was split into 12 sub-districts. Districts 1-6 were peasants and common-wealth, 7-9 were low nobility, 10 and 11 were nobility and 12 was high nobles and houses for the King’s personal friends or guests. The Holy district was split into two, the Royal Palace and the Church. We were heading to the Merchant district.
As we walked, the amount of vendor stands became more sparse and the crowds slowly thinned out. I say that, but there was still a huge amount of people still crowding around, the only difference now was that they were crowded around actual shops instead of stands.
Anwir and I slowly made our way through the Merchant district heading to our destination.
“Anwir! Is that you~!?” A young woman with long blonde hair, brown eyes, and wearing a long dazzling dress began walking up to Anwir.
“Ooooh if you’re here then that means that you have more products!! You must tell me when you are setting up” She looked at Anwir with anticipation, then, her beady brown eyes drifted to me.
“Is thi-”
“Hello Silvia, In fact I was just now heading to the Merchant guild to set up my auction, if you’ll excuse us, we are in a hurry. Good day.” Anwir said, almost with venom in his words. The young woman named Silvia recoiled some, then, as if she were unfazed, smiled brightly at us.
“I look forward to the auction tomorrow.” She said as we walked away.
I stood outside a large building waiting for Anwir. This building was, in fact, the Merchants guild. It stood prominent, with a large sign hung above the door. It had marble steps leading up to a porch in front of the building. Inside was floored with marble, with at least two floors, and had attendants waiting by the door to personally abide your every will.
As I stood outside this building, I began taking notes on what kind of people walked through this city. There were old, young, bright, dull, slave, master, all sorts of people who appeared here. I watched as people greeted each other, saying things like “ Nice to see you” ,“How have you been” and “You better hope I don't see you in an alley, waste of human life”. Stuff like that.
“What is someone like you doing alone outside the merchant guild?” A voice broke me out of thought. I turned to my left and saw a beautiful girl wearing a fancy red dress, with bright blue, eyes and dark crimson hair. She smiled very bright at me.
“u...um I’m waiting for someone..” I softly spoke.
She tilted her head and said, “Are you waiting for your master?”
I shook my head.
“Your parents?”
I looked down. After a second I slowly shook my head, “I’m waiting for a friend.”
“Hmmm, I see. You know, I don’t have many friends. Would you like to be my friend?” I looked up almost stunned at her bluntness, and saw her smiling brightly.
“I-”
The sound of heavy metal clinking cut me off.
“Ooops, I have to go! I’ll see you another time! Bye, friend” She ran off before I could reply. Suddenly the sight of three or four knights appeared in the streets.
“Princess!! Come back here!!” One of the knights had yelled after the strange girl who I had apparently just became friends with.
The sound of a door opening took me away from the rather strange sight. I perked up seeing Anwir walk through it.
“Sorry for the wait...Did something happen? You look puzzled.”
“No, It’s nothing.” I shook my head.
“Okay... You hungry? I know a really good inn we could stay at that serves food.”
I nodded my head in agreement.
“Let’s go then!” Anwir said as he made his way down the marble steps. I slowly followed after him.
The Goblin Head Inn was a large place. It had wooden flooring that creaked some when you took a step. As soon as we entered, I was taken aback by the sound of cheery music and adventurers yelling. The smell of alcohol and good food filled the tavern-like place. Anwir and I made our way to the front desk.
“Anwir! Nice to see you again! Are you staying long?” A plump middle aged woman with dirty blonde hair and green eyes greeted us.
“Nice to see you too Liz. I’ll only be staying for a couple of days this time. Is the room upstairs free?”
“For you, of course! Is the little one staying in the room or shou-”
“Just the room will be fine, thank you. This should be enough to cover for the room and a couple of meals.” Anwir said while putting some coins on the table.
“Well alrighty then. I’ll bring the meals up in just a minute.” Liz swept up the coins and put a key on the table.
“Thank you.” Anwir gave a nod and picked up the key.
We made our way upstairs and were met with a small hallway with a door at the end. Anwir walked up and opened the door. We were greeted with the smell of dust and old books as we entered the room that had a antique sense to it.
There was two beds across from each other next to opposite walls. In between the two beds was a bookshelf with an odd variety of worn out books filling it. I coughed as dust entered my lungs at my first deep breath.
“Liz doesn’t really rent this room to anyone other than me, so it isn’t used much. She used to make an effort to keep it clean, but my visits to this place became more and more sparse, she decided it was better off letting it alone.” Anwir spoke softly, with a deep gaze resting on the old bookshelf.
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I looked at Anwir for a second, thinking of what to say. From what I’ve seen of him, he seems like a pretty energetic guy, so for him to look like this, something must be up.
“Ho..w … long have you known Liz?” I weakly asked him, hoping for a change of moods.
He looked up and smiled, “Let’s just say that she’s like a mother to me.”
Anwir then moved toward the old bookshelf and grabbed a tan, ripped up book. Blowing on the cover, he sat down on the bed nearest to him and began reading.
Unsure of what to do, I walked over to the opposite bed and took a seat. We sat there in silence until a knock sounded on the door.
With a swift movement, Anwir set down the book and opened the door. Liz rolled in a cart with two plates and a candle in the middle.
“Here are the meals you asked for. I also brought a candle just incase it was too dark in here.”
“Thanks Liz.” Anwir replied and took a plate from the cart. He then put the candle in a candle holder on the wall and lit it.
I grabbed the other plate and brought it on the bed with me.
Seeing that her job here was done, Liz bid her farewells and moved the cart back down stairs.
‘I wonder if she is going to have trouble getting that cart back down the stairs...’ I thought as closed the door to the room we were in.
“Eat up. After we finish here, we’re going to have to head back to the Merchant District to get some supplies for my next trip. Tomorrow i’ll take you to the orphanage.” Anwir spoke while pointing his fork at my plate.
Looking at the food that lay on my lap, I somehow felt a sense of loneliness. I brought the fork up and tried to take a bite of the meat, but was somehow reminded of my mother. Shaking the thoughts from my mind, I tried forcing myself to eat.
After finishing the meal, we made our way through the town once more. We stopped at a couple of stands selling things like food and water, horse supplies and basic necessities like that.
“How much ye having? We have food for yer horses and for yerself, if yer interested I can even sell you a couple of chickens here.” A man asked as Anwir and entered his shop.
“No thanks to the chickens, but I will want to buy some food. Would I be able to buy, say, 800 kilos of whatever food you have?”
The man perked up at Anwir’s request. “Well sher, I could sell you it, but what would you do with that much? That there is enough to feed, say, 7 people for a month er two.”
“I’m going to be traveling for quite a long distance with little to no cities to stalk up with, so if you would be so kind to tell me your selling price for that, I would be happy to pay.” Anwir gave a polite smile to the man.
After some debating and haggling, Anwir was able to set up enough supplies for his trip. He had told the man to bring it to his carriage by tomorrow, as he would be leaving in the morning.
Right now, we were walking down the Merchant District on our way back to the Goblin Head Inn. The sun was now beginning to set and the area had finally started to quiet down. The smell of freshly cooked bread and meat started to envelope the area as we walked down.
*grroulp* /author’s note: I don’t know how to express the sound of a stomach rumbling in one word :/
“Looks like someone is hungry.” Anwir chuckled at me as I looked down, embarrassed.
“Okay, one second.” Anwir said as he ran off to one of the nearby vendor stands. After exchanging a few words, Anwir came back holding two meat skewers.
“Here. We’ll eat more when we get back to the inn, but for now this should tide you over.” Anwir smiled as he handed me a skewer.
“Thank you..” I took the skewer and began nibbling on it.
‘Mmmmmm...This is good!’ I quickly devoured the thing in a matter of seconds. I heard a laugh from Anwir.
“Here, if you’re that hungry, you can have mine too. I’ll just eat at the inn.” He said as he handed me the other skewer.
“...Thanks.” I then took it and began devouring it like the last as we closed in on our destination.
As we entered our room, Liz quickly whipped up a meal for us before carefully heading back down the stairs again.
I again sat on the same bed with the same feeling of loneliness filling me as I tried to eat the meal.
“Ata are you okay? Is the food not to your liking?” Anwir questioned.
“Huh? What? It’s fine why?” I answered, almost panicked.
“You’re crying. Are you sure you’re alright?” Anwir looked at me with a remorseful gaze.
I put my hand up to my cheek to find that it was indeed wet from my tears. I don’t know when, but I had started to cry while eating. Suddenly the feeling of pain and loss was filling me again. The same feeling I felt when I first met Anwir. Anwir slowly got up from his bed and hugged me. I sobbed into his shoulder as the feeling of despair started to take over.
“Shhhhhh, It’s okay. Let it out. I’m here for you.” Anwir comforted me as I sobbed.
After I had cried til I could no more, Anwir got up and sat back on his bed. With one last look of remorse he said, “You should probably get some rest. I’ll wake you up in the morning.”
I nodded my head as I went under the covers and let sleep overtake my consciousness.
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Some forest far away:
“AHHHHHGRRR ILL KILLL HIMMM!! THAT BOY WHO DID THIS! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHGGRRRRRR” A large orc was writhing in pain as he screamed aloud.
“My king! Please calm down. Let our doctors heal you.” A tall muscular orc knelt in front of the orc king.
“I WILLL END THAT BOY!!!” The king had started to try to stand up and grab his sword, but ended up buckling under the pain. There was a large portion of his stomach scorched and a chunk missing from it. It looked to have been severely burned away.
“You will do no such thing.” Suddenly, an enchanted voice drifted through the dimly lit room.
“YOU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!” The king spewed.
“Ha that’s one way to greet a god. Do you have the right to talk to me that way after getting beaten by a mere human boy?!? You shall not try to harm that child until I deem it necessary, he will be a big part of my plan. Do you hear me!?! If I even think you are going to, I’ll make sure you spend eternity suffering much worse than some small burn.” A woman scoffed at the king.
“WHO CARES ABOUT YOUR PLAN!!! I SWEAR ILL KILL HIM!”
With a wave, the king was silenced and began to choke on the air around him. His face began to distort and turn decrepit, twisting into looks of extreme pain.
“This is a warning. Try to defy me again, and I’ll slaughter your whole race.” With another wave the king was set free from whatever spell she had cast. He began gasping for air as the woman walked away, back into the darkness she had come from.
Chapter End
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Hey! Sheep here! Sorry for a late post, been kinda busy lately. I'm planning on busting out a few chapters this week so things will finally get interesting. If you see anything you think to be a mistake, please let me know! Thanks for reading! :D
-Sheep