Something… is ringing in my ear, a loud and piercing sound of white noise, I feel completely numb, not able to move. These are the only thoughts that are crossing my mind right now, as I lay bare.
“Hey uh, Judari?”
I feel nothing.
“Judari??”
I am. nothing.
“Judari?!?”
I feel as if-
“JUDARI!!!”
A blur starts to clear as I notice a cyan figure yelling at me.
“What is it? I was just taking a quick nap.” I say with a slight frown as my vision starts to
clear up. His sea blue skin shines slightly in my eye. I look as he unbinds his hair for a second, and ties in back in a rough ponytail, yet a lot of hair still sticks out as bangs. Here he is, my best friend Rito. He grunts a bit and stomps over to me.
“Well, we've only been here for thirty minutes, and you're already tired? You know why we do this, so act a bit like you actually want to become a Sigil.”
“Well right now I would rather stay asleep, then have to deal with these kinds of ‘chores’.” I say, trying to find a new place to put my head in the grass.
“Yeah this isn’t the most exciting thing ever, and we have done a lot of these ‘chores’ lately, but you know it’s gonna be worth it.”
“Well can’t we at least for once do something exciting instead of helping some old lady with finding a locket in in some grass, like what if we traveled to Oresfall, I hear there is actual crime committed there, so couldn’t that be a good place to gain ‘reputation’ of some sort?”
“I don’t think we are experienced enough to deal with such a cesspool. Remember last time when we traveled through Sentinel, people were constantly trying to steal our money or scam us.” Rito says, walking over to me.
“Well, we could go back there, I’ve personally gotten a lil more muscle on me. And we could do some bounties, pretty sure we can catch more attention and gain more reputation for the Sigil Order-” Rito stops my rambling, and yanks me up from the ground.
“Go help the villagers, Now.” Rito says while looking me dead in the eye, and speaking with a flat voice.
“Alright alright, you convinced me, don’t gotta be an ass about it.” I walk away annoyed.
Strolling around the small village, I look at the buildings that populate the area, wooden framework and a beige sort of concrete that's used for walls. Some of the buildings seem to have obvious burn marks from the last raid, and some houses even have small cracks and holes. I keep looking around the huts, and spot some small plants sprouting out of the ground. I bow down to inspect them a bit closer.
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‘Okay so, a top covered with moss of some sorts, and under seems to be the actual plant, which is some sort of purple gourd, seems a bit hairy somehow. Seems useful for future potions though.’ I think to myself as I pluck the mossy plants up from their roots, and I place them in my pouch. I look up from the newly uncovered roots, over to a fair skinned blond woman, who is currently planting small seeds into the dirt. I walk over to her and ask if she needs any help with the planting. She replies with a sigh and answers sure. I take my knees to the ground and I grab the small bag she was taking seeds out of, rustling it a bit. I take a couple of seeds in my hand. Placing the seeds slowly into the open soil.
“So… from what I can hear, your village has been ravaged recently, do you perhaps know what kind of people did it?” I ask.
“I have no clue, all I know is they had spears of some sort, and yelled ‘For the Prince!’ over and over,” She pauses.
“But honestly I don’t think your kind should be here at the moment.”
“...Well, from what I can hear, you were attacked by a group called the Church Knights, they’re mostly an extinct cult these days, but if they raided your village recently, they must be slowly building up again. I’m sure the Sigil Order will take care of them.” I ask while my mouth goes dry.
“Well if your little order would have shown up I don't think the raid would have happened.” She says looking down at her dusty hands and clothes.
I keep quiet. We finish planting the rest of the seeds, and she thanks me for the small help.
“Now… could you and your Fischeran friend leave, your very presence invites evil…”
Before I could answer, I felt a slight tug at my clothes, a little girl was below me. She was obviously pretty shy, so I asked her.
“Hey there little lady, is something bothering you?” I ask her politely.
“M-my dad wants to t-taste a turnip, wou-uld you be able to g-get one?” She answers looking me in the eyes.
“Well the nearest place we can get turnips is a bit away. So how about this? It's going to take a while for us to come back, but when we do, I’ll make sure to bring a farm's worth of them.” She nods quietly and runs back to her dad who is sitting at a table looking disheveled. His eyes light up and he waves at me with a big smile. I wave back and I start walking back to Rito, who is currently chatting with the merchant stationed at the village.
“So they went up to Oresfall, and marched through the gateway into… the Tundra!? Hm. Thanks for the help anyway” I hear from Rito.
“Of course Rito, It’s always nice to see you again after these many years. You know, after what happened, and you went to the Southern Sanctuary, we weren’t sure you were gonna-” Rito cuts him off.
“Let’s not speak of the past huh?”
“Fine, fine, wait isn't that your friend over there?” I hear from the merchant as I was getting closer to the small hut.
“Oh, Hi Judari, good to see you did some work around here, for now we’re done.”
“From what I could gather they were attacked by-”
“Church Knights, yeah don’t worry, I’m aaall caught up.” I boast.
“Heh okay. Anyway, let's just say goodbye, and move onto the next place.” Rito says.
“Alright.” As I end my sentence, we begin to say our goodbyes to the town. Most people come out to say goodbye, mostly to Rito, a few people just glance
“Wait Rito, now that I think about it, you never told me the name of the town, you just said it would be a good place to do some simple quests.” I ask.
“It's called Alana.” Rito says.
“Oh, okay… Hey what’s up, you’ve seemed a bit tense since we got to... Alana was it?”
“It’s nothing really, just some stuff on my mind, hm I just got an idea. Before you said you wanted some action, well why don't we go to Sentinel?” Rito asks.
“Well that would honestly be great, but do you really think that is a place we can manage, last time we passed through there, we weren’t really there, just a passing point.” I say.
“We have grown enough in experience since then, and besides, we have eachothers back right.