The Borough Hall of Barter and Goods never got visitors who stayed silent. But for some unknown reasons, a wanderer in a brown overcoat registered as an adventurer just a few days ago, was its most silent visitor of all.
The wanderer was vouched for as being of good nature by the testimonies of Slin, Ulrina, Mina, and the old couple of the centuries-old Regent's Palace.
It was the old couple's words that had struck a chord with people about this particular wanderer.
It wasn't about how resilient the wanderer was, but about how estranged the wanderer was feeling.
The old couple couldn't put this away from their minds, and shared it with a few people. This ended up reaching every Borough Hall staff.
But even the old couple couldn't pinpoint how estranged this particular wanderer was.
The wanderer in question meanwhile, just let his brown overcoat flutter by the wind. This time the wind did win.
The wind won. Not because the wanderer let it, it won because the wanderer was plagued beyond repercussion and his sanity was veiled behind a mask of repeated actions.
He looked as rugged as ever in every place he had been.
He had seen one grave, disturbing fact of Ashtrim the city. The people from the age of twenty to forty were missing.
As if taken away by the wind. The wanderer didn't believe so.
His mind whispered day and night one word, the more he came to this realization of Ashtrim. The word in question?
"Willfall."
The thoughts this word brings are too bizarre that even its rumours look tame compared to it. Scenery of a perfect garden, but the smell of death. A fall from great heights only to converge within yourself. The rumours of the word 'Willfall' were visceral.
And these constituted the ones he knew even before Ashtrim. He began listing people to replace his chaotic thoughts.
His list of people he cared about was long, and the people who showed any amount of emotion to the wanderer was even longer.
Litora was also just about to get added to that list of assurers.
The wanderer had approached her today, while she was on guard the rim of the gate that looks over the farms outside the Earthen wall.
The steel wall was still leagues away, visible as a distant shimmering reflection from Litora's spot.
Litora didn't look at the wanderer in a brown overcoat as he came and stood next to her. She let herself stay a bit mesmerized by the waves in the farms.
He asked after a while, "Give me one reason. Just one."
Litora was tense. 'What is he referring to?' She wondered.
Litora, who had a drawn longsword in her hand, had her umber hair braided on the left, while the other side was caressed by the winds.
She turned to him fully. "Which one?" she questioned.
The wanderer was more perplexed than her. 'WHAT!?'
"I..I..I wasn't, I didn't. Wait, was I talking out loud?"
Litora's gaze changed. If earlier the wanderer could feel she was seeing him, now he felt she was gazing at him.
"Ah, you were just lost in your own thoughts", Litora responded.
"To what did you need a reason to?" the wanderer heard her.
"It's just….hufh. I was just thinking about the request that was asked of Slin. You know the guard that calls himself 'a forest adventurer.'" The wanderer explained.
"Yeah, I know him. So what about my…? Do you know about the rumours?" Litora queried the wanderer.
The wanderer shook his head. Already a few random ideas conjuring themselves in his mind against his wishes.
"The rumours haven't become true. But someday, maybe. As for the request you were wondering about. Yeah, that's a cruel one", Litora sighed out.
"But isn't it strange? A decree to spread the word that the monarch of Kingdom of Riga is the sword of the Lady of Repentance?" The wanderer once again zoning out, staring into the farms.
"Never mind that. Who let you up here? This is guard and hired-personnel only", Litora quipped in.
The wanderer answered, "it was a weird quest in the Borough Hall of Barter and Goods. And I helped along Slin in his request so he helped me get to be a hired-personnel for a day."
Litora raised an eyebrow, about to ask.
The wanderer continued, "it was just to count all the straight roads from the outskirts steel wall to as close to the Earthen wall as possible."
"Weird and war connected. May I see a copy of the quest request?" Litora raised a hand.
Seeing that the quest copy had a well-named quest issuer's place and details, she nodded. "If you find any more weird quests, do take them and let me or Slin help you along with it. 'Forest adventurers' need to stick together, right?"
The wanderer nodded, "yeah."
The wanderer went circling back to Slin's spot, and a few other guards also eyed him. Some out of concern, others just because he was a teenager just like them, and a few because they wanted something.
None of those gazes were like the one Litora had for a few moments.
Meanwhile, Litora had figured out through brainstorming her memories.
Retracing every memory she held of Ashtrim, Mina and her influence in every web of the city. That the quest was another piece in a large game. One Mina was holding.
Maybe even losing a game of politics to someone in the outskirts. And yet Litora knew Mina wouldn't lose.
Beyond the outskirts? Unlikely. But she didn't disperse that idea away. That the quest was a direct counter to something from beyond it.
While the wanderer, rather than reaching back for the hostel after a day's work, was sitting in the Borough Hall of Adventuring registering himself as a full-fledged Adventurer.
His mind wasn't in that hall. He wondered, not of the Temple of the Repenter. Nor of the history lesson by the old couple.
But of the reason he originally was a wanderer. After all, it was the seventh day he was in Ashtrim, the city.
Grave reminder of bloodied streets reverberated in his mind over the reason of him wandering. Of him travelling.
He wondered could he still continue, on his 'quest' thinking there was something in the direction where evening's horizon lies?
"We have updated your entry in the registry. Is there something else?" Mina asked.
The wanderer asked her, not trying to sound a bit philosophical, but the question albeit was one. 'Could he continue?'
But her answer was anything but. "We have lived, and only lived. Kingdoms falling and rising just to have us live under them."
She responded as if she expected that question ages ago. And the prospective following conversation, like she had a future sight on what that conversation could have become.
The wanderer wasn't satisfied with that answer. But that shield wielder, whose face the wanderer had still never seen, was once again by his side. Protected from the wanderer's peripheral vision because of his huge mix of shield, one made of obsidian, metal and wood.
More precisely the shield-wielder, he was here to get Mina's attention. Her response was simple, "sure, let's go. You'll only be just a moving-rock anyway."
The shield wielder did grunt, but then laughed as well. "Fine, fine. Is Ulrina also free?"
Ulrina stepped down from the upper gallery on the far side, adjusting her clothing and mumbling to herself. She saw both the shield wielder and the wanderer, but she just couldn't bring herself to wave at either of them.
And both Mina and Ulrina left with the shield wielder, while the wanderer stayed in the Borough Hall through until the morning of his eighth day on his quest.