From the time when men learned to sail, [Sailors] have been known to be a superstitious folk, suspicious of anyone who’s never traveled on the waves and, generally, fond of all sorts of alcohol, the more gut-destroying the better.
You think this is an exaggeration? Well, let me tell you about an old drink that was once served by the dwarves in the port of Mountainhome, in Aknos: it was a mix of, in earth terms, vodka, rum, shark blood for that extra-strong tang, algae harvested from a depth where the light of the sun doesn’t reach, hallucinogenic mushrooms cultivated near the Obsidian Valleys at the foot of the then active Burntear Volcano, better known as Old Smoker, pollen dust from Firebrand Flowers and, if you asked, a small amount of dwarven Black Dust. The end result would knock you out, bring you back, and then probably kill you if you didn’t have both [Poison Resistance] and [Fire Resistance].
As you can very well imagine, every [Sailor] and their sparrow loved it. It was considered a rite of passage to drink the damn beverage.
Of course, nowadays, it’s been classified as illegal.
Which, of course, means nothing to anyone who’s anyone at sea. What, you seriously expected sailors to respect the law? Ha! The line between sailors and pirates is so thin it might as well not be there.
Naturally, nobody will ever agree to such a statement. These are just the musings of an Old Man.
An Old Man who, by the way, has just entered a bar in the port city of Salvezza. Nobody could tell you where the name came from, mainly because the language it came from is unknown, or has been forgotten. Those not in the know like to joke saying that someone just came up with a random word that sounded good. Even the Old Man doesn’t know its origin, but that matters little to him. What matters is the name’s story.
He sits at the bar and orders a beer. Dark were the days before the Dwarves invented this incredible beverage. In those days it was either ‘alcohol strong enough to tear your liver to pieces’ or water. Which gets old after two weeks of hard work at sea, where the slightest mistake could lead to a quite horrifying death.
“Yes, we’re setting off tomorrow for Rodar. Got a hold full of dwarven weapons to sell to that rising King, Tibur Vanders. It’s the best money I’ve earned this year,” bragged a [Captain] to the Old Man’s right.
He turned and looked at the man. He was in his forties, at best late thirties. Black hair only slightly stained white from salt, a short black beard that was in need of a slight shave, he had an angular face with an aquiline nose that made him look like a [Strategist] ready to guide an army on a battlefield.
“You lucky bastard! I hear he takes a liking to suppliers who do their job well, so make sure you don’t fuck this up. There’s money to be made with him.”
“You’re right. Until the next big asshole rises to power.”
They burst out laughing.
“Anyways, what’s with that name: Tibur Vanders. It sounds so strange.”
“Bah, for all I care he can call himself Arlena Ghirighi so long as he pays. I tell you, their language is as cursed as their land. Every time someone speaks it it’s like they’re throwing insults at you.”
“Knowing you, they probably are.”
“Ha-fucking-ha. Shut the fuck up, you’re just jealous.”
“Caught red handed, have me walk the plank.”
They began laughing again.
And the Old Man decided he liked them.
He took a swig of beer, smacked his lips in appreciation, then coughed in warm up.
“Good evening young [Captain], may I know your name?” he began.
The two friends, who’d now calmed down and gone back to nursing their drinks in companionable silence, turned towards him. They eyed the old man, looking at his white hair and salt scarred skin, his bright blue eyes and jovial smile. They immediately recognized him as one of their own, relaxing.
[Among my kin I was always welcome].
An old Skill of his. Not that he had ever really needed it, at least among the surface folk. [Sailors] always recognized their own.
“Aye, name’s Amir, old fellow, and this here is Omar. We’re brothers in all but blood and games of cards. What about you?”
“The name’s Coro Assali.”
He had had many names in his long life, but this was the newest one. For a given meaning of ‘new’. He was still quite old.
“I couldn’t help but overhear that tomorrow morning you are departing for Rodar with an important cargo, am I right?”
“Aye Coro - may I call you Coro? - we are indeed.”
“Oh, call me however you like, young fellow. Would you be interested in hearing a little suggestion?”
“Always am, especially from an old man.”
As was once said before, the words ‘respect your elders’ took on a whole new meaning in this world, because an old man had had more time to Level Up and gain interesting Skills. When a grizzled man who could hardly lift his bony ass from a chair told you to listen, you did.
Among [Sailors] even more so. For they knew some of the oldest tales in this world, and they knew that, sometimes, an old man could be more than he seemed.
“Don’t leave tomorrow. Wait one more day. Flato, that big asshole in the sky, is in a foul mood. Go if you must, but be prepared for storms and high waves.”
The two men looked at the one in front of them, then nodded.
“Thank you old fellow. Let me buy you something for your help.”
“Oh, you’re too kind Amir. [You Have my Blessing].”
There, done. The boy would have an easier time reaching his destination. Not too easy, but at least his ship wouldn’t capsize if he met a storm on the way. Something people forgot about Rodar was that, indeed, the curse of misfortune touched only the people there, but there were times when someone’s misfortune could bring even greater misfortune to someone else.
He sighed with a small, half-bitter, smile. Things used to be easier.
Next morning, the sun shone on the port of Salvezza, warm and kind, accompanied only by a gentle wind. Perfect weather to sail, anyone would say.
But in the course of the hours that led to lunchtime the wind picked up, storm clouds formed on the horizon and, not long after, a storm hit the port, causing waves so high they reached the doors of the establishments and warehouses closest to the shore.
As that happened, the Old Man began walking.
He had many names. He remembered them all, unlike the rest of the world. Because of that, they called him by many titles:
The Old Man by the Sea.
The First Sailor.
The Oldest Storyteller.
And many others, some whispered only in the darkest times in places where no light shone.
The Old Man walked away from Salvezza towards Old Smoker. They had all agreed to meet there this time.
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On Earth, humanity probably started its life in the form of monkeys who took a liking to caves and, not long after, learned about fire and how hot and scary it could be.
In this world there was no slow evolution from screaming quadrupedal animals to bipedal imbeciles who shot at each other for no good reason. Here humanity, and with it all the other less human species of the world, were made to be the way they were and never changed since then.
Point is, even in this world humanity had found out about the plentiful bounties of the earth, hidden away just under the soft exterior of grass and stone.
And yes, stone is quite soft compared to some of the things found down there.
Humanity began mining not even a century after its creation, bringing forth ever used coal and iron, beautiful gold, shining silver, helpful lead, magical gems and rarer minerals still like adamantium and mithril.
They had also discovered how unforgiving the earth was, how selfish it could be, and the consequences they came in case they weren’t careful enough.
Currently, an old woman sat outside a mine at the base of the Tiurna Mountain Range in Eva. They were the ones that divided the continent in half: the north had been given to the humans by the gods upon their creation, while the south was a great jungle where the beastfolk prospered. Sometimes they fought wars, but it was a surprisingly rare occurrence.
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Anyways, the Old Woman sat by the mine’s entrance while smoking a battered pipe that may as well be made from fossilized wood. She breathed in, tasting the smoke on her tongue and in her lungs, feeling the heat and the occasional bits of tobacco hitting her tongue. Then she breathed out a cloud of black smoke.
[I Smoke the Blackness of their Lungs].
She didn’t like how black and big the cloud was. Too many miners had been touched by the coal dust underground, and not enough precautions had been taken by the [Foremen] to prevent that. The [Miners] would’ve begun to die soon if she hadn’t arrived. And, in her experience, when the hard working men turned out dead underground, not long after worse forms of death came after their fellows. Sometimes in the form of a fire that engulfed whole shafts, other times as things from the depths.
The Tiurna Mountains were young compared to many other mountains in the rest of the world. They had never been created to be excavated.
Still, she could admire the courage of these people. What she didn’t admire was their idiocy.
A man began walking towards her. He was a tall fellow with quite a bit of muscle in his arms and upper body. His legs, too, weren’t those of a chicken, although they clearly had seen less use than the rest of him. His face was serious and showed not a small amount of anger, his sharp brown eyes fixing themselves on her old pipe.
“What are you still doing up here? The shift’s already started. Do you want me to dock your pay?”
The old woman looked at him with a very nonplussed face, taking one more drag from her pipe, huffing out the smoke towards him, before smacking it against a nearby stone to get the tobacco out from the bowl. She hid it in a small bag at her side before placing a hand on an old pickaxe sitting on a rock by her side.
“You the [Foreman] here?”
“Yes. Who are you? I don’t recognize your face.”
“I’m just an Old Woman passing by. I don’t work for your company. And even if I did, I wouldn’t put a foot inside that kill zone you call a mine.”
The man’s face became slightly redder: “Who do you think you are to say such an idiocy? Our mines are completely safe!”
“Oh yes? Then tell me, what do you do to prevent your [Miners] from getting Coal’s Breath? How many [Warriors] or [Soldiers] do you have stationed down there with them in case of a Warden attack? How many [Doctors] are waiting out here, ready to go down that shaft at a moment’s notice to save a man’s life? What about the wood used to make the support beams? How long has it been since it was last checked for rot? And for the matter, what wood did you use? Once upon a time we used Ironbark, what about now? Eh?”
As she spoke she became more and more incensed, stepping closer and closer to the [Foreman] until the two of them were face to face. And yet the man felt like he was being stared down by someone much, much, much bigger than him.
He was shaking slightly.
“Woe to the [Miner] who forgets the darkness,” she hissed.
Then she began walking away.
“These mines are not safe. [There Will be Consequences]!”
Not two days later, a fire erupted in the lowest shafts, engulfing half the mine in flames and killing half the [Miners]. The survivors rioted and, not long after, the company that had started this venture failed and disappeared like many others before.
Meanwhile, the Old Woman walked towards Old Smoker, otherwise known as the Burntear Volcano.
She was an old woman, even if her Class spelled it as [The Old Man by the Mountains]. The System seemed to be too lazy to change it.
She, like [The Old Man by the Sea], had many names. She, unlike his fellow Old Man, had never told them to anyone. She, like him, had many titles.
But, truly, there was only one that people always remembered: Old Man Consequences.
She walked, and wherever there was a mine people prayed: “May Consequences never reach us.”
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An Old Man walked on the clouds.
They were fluffy and soft and he would readily fall asleep on top of them. But there was no time for that. He had to meet his brother and sister by Old Smoker.
A ship flew beside him, its giant balloon filled with hot air. Still an old model of one of the churches. These days they only trusted the skies. Fools, the lot of them.
He didn’t really care though. It wasn’t his job to control the skies. That was all in Flato’s hands.
So it was that the [Old Man by the Stars] waved hello to a stupefied [Deckhand] before going back to his little journey.
Betimes, people forgot he even existed. But that was ok, he didn’t play an important role in this world. He just looked around and gossiped with people. Sure, sometimes said gossip had caused kingdoms to fall, but he really wasn’t to blame: it wasn’t his fault if some [King] became too lascivious with the wrong [Princess].
The Oldest Observer, for that was his other title, reached Old Smoker, and waved hello at his brother and sister, plus the very expected guest.
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Her name was Mina, and she was a [Wanderer]. Oh, sure, she was a lot more than that too, but most of the time she was just that. Just a woman wearing a cloak and a tombstone hat, carrying a bag of holding and a hemp sack around, wandering across the world and witnessing its changes, sometimes slow, sometimes fast.
If she had to guess, it would soon become quite fast.
She still couldn’t believe that the old bastard had been right about that boy. He had signed that contract hundreds of years before his arrival, and yet he’d been as right as people could be. Either he had been history’s greatest [Soothsayer], or the gods had done something. She didn’t know. For the matter, she didn’t even know his name.
It doesn’t matter, said her eternal companion, we completed our side of the deal. Took us long enough.
She couldn’t agree more.
Now, where was she?
She looked around… and stopped in her tracks. Since when did Rodar have a desert?
She looked up, observing the stars, and used one of her many Skills: [Determine Location: Stars]. A low Level Skill, sure, but a useful one for a [Wanderer] like her.
She waited a second. Then cursed. She’d somehow managed to end up on another continent: she was on Aknos, by that blasted desert that hid in it the Tower Academy. At least she hadn’t appeared on the Salt Plains: that place was too cursed for her liking.
They call us, he told her.
I don’t give a fuck. We are not one of them. They have no right to call upon us.
They request a Deal. We are to listen.
…Fuck!
She didn’t like them. She didn’t like them at all. They acted like they knew better just because they were older than her. And the worst part was: they actually did know better. Every time she’d listened to their tips, however cryptic they had been, she’d always gained something from it.
But she still disliked them.
They call from Old Smoker.
Alright, alright, shut up! We’ll go there!
She wanted nothing to do with them, but she didn’t have a choice.
She used another Skill: [Giant’s Step]. And then each and every one of her steps covered ten times the ground she normally would.
That was how she reached Old Smoker. She didn’t even slow when she began ascending to the peak, where she saw two of them waiting.
[The Old Man by the Sea] and the [Old Man by the Mountains].
“I’m here,” she said instead of saying hi, “Where’s the last one?”
“He’s coming,” answered the old sailor.
“Well tell him to come faster, I don’t have an entire day to lose.”
“Calm down, he is here,” that was the old woman.
She waved up, where the third and last Old Man had finally arrived. He didn’t look old, but that was misleading: stars didn’t age, after all. And he was very close to them.
“Hello everyone!” he waved jovially.
“Welcome back, brother,” nodded the sailor.
The woman just harrumphed in greeting.
“Finally,” said Mina, “Why am I here?” she then asked immediately.
“Hmpf, right to the point. Don’t you wanna stay and chat for a while?”
“You can chat as long as you want, but I don’t want to be here longer than necessary. I feel you want to offer a deal, I am listening.”
“As I said, right to the point. Well, you wouldn’t be the First Dealmaker if you weren’t,” [The Old Man by the Stars] smiled in self-satisfaction, as if he’d revealed a great truth of the world.
Mina huffed. As was said before, she was indeed a [Wanderer]. A High Level one too. But her main class, the one she was known for, was another: [Devilbound Dealmaker of Necessities]. Level 72. And still, she wasn’t even close to reaching the Old Men in terms of Levels. But, in her defense, she had been alive for less time.
“Alright. The terms of the Deal would be quite simple: we will reveal you a Truth. In exchange, you will join our ranks ad-interim,” said the young looking Old Man.
“What?” she asked, surprised. Even her eternal companion was surprised and interested.
“In case we are killed and stripped of our titles, you will become one of us. Something like [The Old Woman by Airm’s Door], or the likes.”
Silence fell on them.
But it didn’t last long: “In the past you made similar offerings, but without the interim part. What has changed?”
“The Eras, little one. The Eras are about to change, the world will not be the same. I fear for its stability, and I fear for us. If we were to disappear, the world would lose and Anchor, and that would be catastrophic. We have chosen to change things up.”
Mina stared at the Old Man. And realized he was telling the truth. Even she could feel it, down below, in the bindings of her soul that anchored her eternal companion to her and her flesh. She had felt the world vibrate and reshape itself when she had met that boy, Liam, and she’d felt it even more when she’d given him those Contracts.
Something was afoot.
Something big. Something that scared even the Old Men. For the first time in a long while, she felt fear grip her.
And it was with that fear that she made her choice.
“[I Accept the Terms].”
She extended her hand. And all three Old Men shook her hand.
Then the [Old Man by the Stars] bowed down towards her and whispered the Truth. She listened. Then cursed.
“You old bastard, that’s what you were up to. Damn it all, I shouldn’t have made that deal so long ago.”
But it was done now. No takes-backsies, as she liked to say. Things were already in motion after all.
“Very well. I will watch and see for myself his work. Damn it all, the bastard was crafty.”
She left.
And the world kept on changing.