Part I, Section I: Meeting at the Large Rat Inn

[ElvenElder 139]

At the heart of Independence continent, rests the famous Freedom Market. For the commoner, it's the must go place and for ages it has drawn the attention of common people. To the trained eye though, Freedom Market is not the defacto destination when visiting the central Independance. Something else steals the attention of he who looks a bit more carefully. A couple of feet west of Freedom Market is the Large Rat Inn. Exit from the west, walk down the highway towards the sea, turn right on the first Oak Tree you see. Through a couple of forest tiles, you can see at the distance the small pub, packed with horses and carriages just parked outside.

 

Three years after I had graduated from siege engineering academy, I was still without a job, but most importantly, without any money. You see, a world infested by peace, is a hostile environment for us who thrive from war. I had decided to leave the past behind and redirect my engineering career towards smithery automatication. Smithing was the in thing back then. Everyone wanted to become a smith. The Mayor of Elarial Village, had arranged to meet me at theLarge Rat Inn to possibly give me a job at their smithery and if deemed worthy a house to live. I had previously contacted one of his village commoners after I saw their recruitment sign at Freedom Market.

 

The meeting was short but Xylos was honest with me. The village was not doing good. Income was stagnating and if that would not change, they'd all sail to the new land that had just been discovered at the south edge of Wurm, Exodus. I talked to him about my ideas about a modern smithery. He told me that automatication was out of the question. There was just not enough time and room to setup the machinery needed to mass produce. We'd have to handcraft and sell all merchandise to make it in this harsh world full of economic wars.

 

At the end of the day, I decided to take the offer. I didn't really have any choice. I needed food and I needed a roof.  A small house, 1x2, but big enough to fit a forge and a bed, and a smithery, old but packed with talented crafters. We'd work from sunrise to sunset with a two hours break in mid-day. We'd lack a cookery, but the kind neighbors living a hundred feet north of us, would always provide free meals. I remember it as if it was yesterday. We'd sit by the meat barrel outside their village alongside with random travelers and people from the area. We'd eat and talk for as long as our break from work would last. Numerous were the topics. To this day, I wonder what happened to that girl that wanted to hatch dragons and to that fat cook that'd always claim salt in a barrel helps maintain food fresh. I wonder if that's a myth or not ...

 

Time in Elarial went by fast. I worked hard alongside the other crafters, but it felt as if my crafts were not put to maximum use. I was an engineer, turned into a crafter. A man made to design machines to do his bidding, turned into a man following orders like a machine. And the work was not going great either. During the end of the month, while we'd have our usual talks over the food barrel at the neighbors, a fellow crafter delivered me the news. Xylos decided it was time to shut it down and sail to the new lands. Nothing officially said yet, but I know I could count on his words, he was always reliable. After all, everyone in the neighbor knew it, it was inevitable, sooner or later, it would happen. I was the last to figure it out though and they, they just wouldn't address the elephant in the room infront of me. Social conditioning you see, is a bigger infection than peace.

 

At first I took the news like a man. I didnt break down, I kept my posture. But as the reality started registering in me, I feld the world was crumbling under my feet. People all around the barrel were consoling me but only to find out that I was inconsolable. It was three whole years without work and once I managed to settle somewhere with a steady income, it was all gone, as if someone pulled the rag under my feet. 

 

And then it happened. One of the locals pat me in the back. I had seen him a couple of times before. He wasn't the talkative type of guy. He'd regularly meet us at the barrel. He'd listen, but rarelly speak. He would never open himself up only maintaining fluffy talk about random things. "Aren't you the failed siege engineer ?" He said. "I might have a job for you. It might be crossing into some shady areas and will involve you taking some risks, but it will pay good, I promise. Besides, you don't have any other alternatives, do you ?".

 

His name was Nosto and I wish I'd never met him ...

 

 

 

 

Edited January 23, 2016 by ElvenElder

[AragornII 7]

Can’t wait to read more!!