I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d done something wrong.
Regardless of the reason behind their obsession with me, Rhesh and her cronies were terrorizing everyone who came in contact with me, and all I could do was leave.
The homely feeling that struck me while I was with Halide and Aramina seemed like a distant dream, replaced by this icy chill gripping my heart.
Nubi shuffled at the back of my neck, still hidden beneath the layers of Halide’s jacket and my tunic. Even though it tickled to have them squirming across my skin, I couldn’t tell them to move.
They were just as shaken up as I was.
Hiking up the jacket as it slid from my shoulders, a few sizes too big to fit me properly, I glanced over my shoulder to check on them. Not even the top of their head peered out of the collar.
Honestly, I felt a little bad about everything earlier.
We hadn’t even known each other for more than a day but Nubi was treated like an outcast because of me. At least they were actually from here.
“Let’s go,” I whispered, wanting to keep my voice low in case anyone was listening in on us.
There was no telling what Rhesh and the others would pull and I didn’t want to give any indication to where we were off to next. A light pull against my collar told me Nubi heard me and I was only grateful they were still paying me any attention. With a backward glance at the shut door, I breathed in deep, tasting the warm humid air in hopes it would melt the frost cooling my heart.
Out the corner of my eye, a red circle floated with a white one in its center. I hesitated in trying to reach out to it or calling the command as we stepped past the fencing of Halide and Aramina’s home. The streets were busy and there were plenty of eyes. If I drew too much attention to myself, someone would ask questions and I didn't have the answers.
Deciding to leave it for now, I tucked my arms close to my chest and glanced around for any sign of the place Granny Fu told me about.
Colorful smoke wouldn’t have been that hard to find but I could hardly believe how big Sinaba was. Rows of straw-covered roofs, chickens wandering dirt paths into grassy fields, shooed away from men and women tilling crops and talking amongst themselves on stoops.
People milling about small streets visiting stalls selling everything from fruit to cloths to weapons. I turned into one of the streets and side-stepped a wagon rolling through. Eyeing a few villagers sporting bows and swords, polished to a point and catching brightly on the sun. A group of kids raced past me, two waving around tree branches fought while the others cheered them on. Heat built in my cheeks as I tugged the jacket closed around me and looked away, remembering my fight with the prickle boar.
I swear, those kids had coordination I could only dream of.
After a while of wandering around from street to street, I stopped at a bulletin board at the end of a back alley to rest. Crouching down by its front, the green and white cloth suspended over the top of its two posts provided shade from the sweltering sun beating at my neck. The number of people thinned out, mostly keeping to the open main roads and I was thankful for a lull in noise.
Glancing up to the red circle persistently kept in the corner of my eye, I scowled. What would it tell me that I didn’t already know? Looking over my shoulder to one end of the back alley then the other, there were only a few houses with their lights dimmed, and porches empty.
Why was this board so far from everywhere else?
“Notifications,” I whispered under my breath. The red circle shone as it widened into a white square window centered in front of my face. Its background was see-through and as I reached for it, my fingers passed through the black text, scrambling it into indistinguishable scribbles. Pulling away made them fall back into place and I sighed, tucking my hand in my lap. Across the white screen in a black script, three bulleted points were set beneath a bold title.
⸢ A HELPING HAND ⸥
Granny Fu, the owner of Sinaba’s one and only Inn, has given you three tasks to carry out in exchange for her aid and shelter in the room at the end of the hall on the inn’s second floor.
Objective(s)
Deliver lunches to Halide and Aramina.
Visit Uncel’s Weapon Shop.
Collect two prickle boars and deliver to Granny Fu at the Inn.
Reward(s)
A temporary place of lodging in Sinaba.
???
???
A temporary place of lodging. Although I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay with Granny Fu for long, to see it written out hurt more than I expected. I brushed my fingers over the unknown text and the symbols scrambled beneath my fingertips. Yet even as I pulled away, they still remained as question marks. I craned my neck to one side to peek at Nubi who shuffled over to my shoulder while I was reading over the window.
“Hey Nubi, why are these rewards blank?”
Their beady eyes peeked out, scanning the window before they wiggled free of the jacket’s collar. Heat radiating from their small form when they drifted toward me, brushing shy of my cheek.
“That’s strange,” they murmured, touching their small arms to their face then turning toward me, head tipping to one side. “Maybe they’re things you haven’t seen yet?”
I nodded. That seemed like the best idea. “Or I can’t have them yet… some sort of… special condition,” I suggested. The tasks Granny Fu laid out for me as casual as breathing were written out on the window like they were commands in a video game. Just a part of a script. But the way she said them was so carefree, so natural. Halide’s anger, Aramina’s discontent, the way they looked at Rhesh, Kadry, and Mike. I was certain something was happening and wondered what this person — The Goddess — had been thinking mixing together all these types.
“Does everyone have windows like this?” I asked, watching as Nubi flitted around the window then turned to me, their eyes shuttering into small slits.
“Not that I know of.”
Nubi’s knowledge was limited, we both knew that but still. “Maybe I’m an adventurer like Halide said,” I pursed my lips at the thought. “Everything I know from where I came from, it’s so faint, and there're some things that just don’t match up.”
“Maybe it’s better not to think about it, Air,” Nubi hung their head, their arms tucked close to their body. “As it is… you can’t go back.”
I opened my mouth to argue that wasn’t true but I couldn't. Nubi was right. Even with all I knew and the pieces falling into place, I was no closer to finding out how I ended up here. And thinking about it wouldn’t lend me any favors. After a moment of silence where only the noise of the main road, humming buzz of heated air, and insects chirping, I conceded to the fact.
“Good point.”
I murmured notifications under my breath and rose, looking upward to try and find the colorful smoke Granny Fu mentioned. Nubi ascending to rest on my shoulder as I turned away but their small voice drew my attention.
“Hey, look at that.”
Looking down to them, I noticed they were pointing behind us and I turned sideways to gaze up at the bulletin board I’d been resting under. Pieces of paper pinned to the board, some tattered and others only small strips, with faded script barely readable and hand-drawn pictures.
“Wanted posters?” I asked, brushing my fingers over a faded drawing of what looked like some sort of dog. If dogs had long fangs sticking from their upper lips and lashing tails tipped with fire, that is. “They’re all so faded.”
Some were drawings of people, places, then there were the ones solely text. Handwritten messages that must have gone unanswered with how faded they were, the paper soft and almost brittle against my fingertips.
“You can barely tell what they were for anymore,” Nubi muttered, sounding both in awe and sad. She floated from one end of the board to the other, reaching parts that I couldn’t. “Requests from townspeople too. So many…”
I glanced up just as the red circle reappeared in the corner of my vision. “Quests?” I muttered, muttering notifications under my breath. As the window opened, Nubi floated back to my side.
“We do have the tasks we’re supposed to do for Granny Fu,” she reminded, as I read over the window presented to me.
⸢ SIDEQUESTS ⸥
Tasks given to provide others with succor in exchange for money, items, and reputation. While optional, fulfillment may increase ones’ renown amongst the inhabitants of Gaia and unlock information previously unknown.
I hadn’t even thought about money since I’d gotten here. With all the luck I had in meeting others, it was much easier to just take what I’d been given. Renown and reputation though. That could be handy especially if I didn’t want to be on someone’s bad side, but it almost felt smarmy to do things knowing I’d get something out of it.
“Still,” I muttered out loud, and my prolonged silence must have seemed like consideration away from our original task to Nubi. Their sigh reaching my ears before they gave a little tug to my ear lobe.
“We can always come back later, Air,” they huffed, and I bobbed my head in defeat. They were right after all, and we’d been standing around long enough.
With a backward glance at the bulletin board, I walked on to leave the back alley behind, eventually agreeing. “… Yeah.”
While we searched through the quieter parts of Sinaba, rolling hillsides and farmland, I couldn’t help but wonder if we’d passed by the outskirts or wandered further than we were supposed to. Searching the sky for smoke seemed to be a lost cause with how many chimneys were coughing wispy black and grey clouds to the sky, and my mind kept wandering back to that board.
After we'd crossed a few plots, I rolled my unoccupied shoulder thinking of how to suggest to Nubi that we go back and investigate a bit more. Perhaps if I did a few side quests and built up renown, I could ask questions without seeming too suspicious.
Though before I could propose it, Nubi pointed up to the sky, their eyes wide and tiny wings fluttering.
“The smoke!”
I felt a jolt through my body, my head whipping forward. The smoke was colorful but it was blending into the sky. Wisps of grey and black faded into a bright blue, then a translucent white as it bent into the clouds and disappeared from view. Color-changing smoke, of course.
Nubi zipped ahead and I was quick to follow, bending around the winding dirt road and beneath smattering trees, racing across a landscape that might’ve been beautiful if I could look aside rather than up.
When I looked back for the town, I was somewhat surprised to see that Sinaba had sunken just a bit. The road where we ran where the farmlands were built were elevated, almost as if the town itself was built in a small valley. I almost faltered in my running, nearly tripping over a stone in my path, hopping once then twice before following after Nubi with an embarrassed smile. At least I was light on my feet, taking a tumble wouldn’t have been good for anyone’s image or self-esteem.
As we drew closer to the smoke, I slowed and huffed a breath. The building was much larger than I expected and unlike most of the buildings in town, its walls were made out of an off-white material. It seemed much smoother and there were symbols painted into the walls disappearing beneath the sloping roof. A stream ran around the side of it cutting through plotted fields, a waterwheel turning slowly, its creaking soft to my ears. As we neared closer to the building, I could see the plotted fields were some sort of plants.
“That must be Ysmur’s place?” I asked aloud, looking around for what might have been Uncel’s. “But why did Granny Fu tell us to find Uncel in the potato fields if we have to visit his shop?”
Granny Fu said that it would be right across the way, hadn’t she? Shielding my eyes with a hand, I scanned the grassy plains and saw a darkened smudge off in the distance. That might have been Uncel’s and there was plenty of land for there to be a potato field somewhere. Standing outside of the two-story building, I glanced up at the wide spacious windows and porch decorated with rocking chairs and tables, flowers greeting us with their petals opened and soaking in the sunlight.
Nubi floated over to inspect the flowers while I lingered behind. Grasslands, wheat fields often in the distance, pastures, if the potato fields were nearby then wouldn’t they be closer to somewhere near here. Before I could ask Nubi to keep going, a loud slam nearly threw me out of my skin. The peaceful scene with the farmhouse and all of its effects was promptly turned on its head at the appearance of an elderly woman wielding a wooden club, her curly bushy silver-white hair tied back in a bun, sunken grey eyes narrowed as she trudged down the steps. Nubi immediately darting back to me as she grumbled and hissed, “Damned rats!”
I swallowed as Nubi hid in the collar of my jacket. “Uhm…” Taking a half-step back as she peered around the porch, looking between the wooden posts and below. “Are you Ysmur?”
She bolted upright and turned toward me, wrinkles set in her leathery brown skin reminded me of Granny Fu, but instead of the smiling lines, her lips seemed set in a perpetual scowl. “Sadly….”
“Have you seen Uncel?” I asked weakly, hoping the smile on my face was less awkward and more endearing as she approached.
She glanced me over, then set her hand on her hip, the club she’d been bearing resting on her shoulder. “Were you the help he mentioned?”
“Well, Granny Fu was—” I started, and she raised her hand.
“Ah, say no more.” She turned to the side and nodded her head, gesturing off in the distance. “Uncel’s that way, but…” With a sidelong glance, she looked me over then sighed. “You don’t even have a…” She made a noise in the back of her throat, sounding almost like a scoff. With the smell of dried herbs on her and spice, I would’ve thought she was healer. But the way she thrust the club in my hands was with the force f someone who would’ve been just as happy to do the job themselves.
“Use that and take care of ‘em before Uncel gets overrun.”
I blinked slowly at the club in my hands, seeing the notice paint itself.
⸢ WOODEN CLUB ⸥ has been acquired.
Out the corner of my eye, the red bouncing circle returned but this time it flashed a bright gold. “Right, right…” I muttered, noticing the expectant look on Ysmur’s face. Thinking loudly for the notification to show itself, I was surprised when the window opened, trying to school my features to not give anything away.
⸢ CLEANING HOUSE ⸥
Ysmur needs your help. An infestation of rats are attacking the newest harvest of potatoes and encroaching on the farmstead. Uncel has already answered the call, and is in dire need of assistance.
For the first time, I started to wonder. With how expressive they were, what would happen to these people if they died?
I really didn't want to find out.
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