AVftS-22

Small Town Friendly (Collaborative)

Part of a series of archived posts in AVftS
AVftS-22
Author:	Luca, Emily
Date Posted:	November 26, 2019
Forum Post:	Linked!
Word Count:	2,136
Characters:	Kaegan, Rizali
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Kaegan sat on top of a large fence post at the edges of the town square, squinting at the various villagers passing through, doing chores, business, or some kind of social networking. These were…odd people. Not entirely strangers, he was from the same country as them after all, but rather far away at this point. Everyone's accents were a little different, the way they dressed was a little different...and people acted rather oddly in a way he couldn't describe.

"How many days have we been here?" he thought.

One of the townspeople, who noticed his rather menacing look firing into the square, wandered away from the interaction he was having at a market stall to talk to him. In his arms were three large rabbits that he was trying to contain. Had he just bought them? Was he selling them? Kaegan had many questions and was equally disinterested in all of their answers.

"So, eh...you're with the circus performer? Are you bunch doing a show?" asked the old man with unfathomable levels of lazily trimmed white beard scruff covering the majority of his face. It didn't seem like he talked to many people he hadn't talked to for twenty years beforehand.

Kaegan...slowly...turned his head to face his unwanted conversation partner's rabbits, which were wriggling around in the man's arms to no avail. "No, he just dresses like that," he said flatly.

"Oh..uh, well. That's certainly different! What sort of far away land are you all from now?" his voice had a creak or maybe a whistle that sounded like an old floor board.

"Ustendelle," said Kaegan, seeming to be satisfied with that answer. The old man was locked in a state of endless nodding. He seemed to be expecting something more specific than simply saying the country they were both in. After a few awkward moments, Kaegan sighed. "I'm from Port Erin."

"Oh, that’s very good. I bet you're going to be a fine sea faring lad like your father!" replied the man.

"No, it's completely land locked. But my father did say to me one day, "you must be the hero of legend, you're the only one in this village who is remotely attractive" so here I am."

Feeling that the conversation was concluded, or at least Kaegan's willingness to carry on the conversation being concluded, he hopped off of the fence post and wandered a safe distance away from the square.

"How many days have we been here?" he thought again.

Just ahead now was the inn, which he wandered back inside of, as night was beginning to fall anyway. The term "inn" was more than the building deserved. It was a small dinky thing, that happened to be the social gathering point for a handful of the townspeople who sat at a bar in a sunken floor platform some distance through the door. Five rooms, in various states of disarray were tucked in the landing above them.

Kaegan walked up to the bar and sat on a stool looking blankly past the counter to the wall behind. The barkeep at the opposite end of the table stared at the boy for a few seconds before getting up.

"Haven't seen you down here before. Doesn't look like you've come for the lively conversation, how can I help you?" asked the barkeep, sounding a little annoyed at the evening routine being broken up.

"What drinks are you serving tonight?" Kaegan asked plainly.

"Water. The same as it is every night," she responded tersely.

Kaegan looked down the counter at the three other patrons at the opposite end of the table. All of them, too, had glasses of water. He continued staring at the water for some time as if he had missed something in the distance between his eyes and the glasses that would cause this to make sense, but there seemed to be nothing that helped the situation mentally process. Kaegan stood up and walked away.

"How many days have we been here?" he thought. "It feels like a year..."

Next to the inn was the town hall, on the other side of the town hall, was the mayor's residence. That's where Kaegan needed to be right now.

---

Thwop-twhop-twhop

Kaegan bopped the soft side of his fist on the mayor's door, as you do. And waited like a stone, frozen in place throughout the ages of history. The cooling of the rock from a molten world, continental drift, convection, subduction, formation, emergence and weathering by the elements. A cold darkness falling as the eons saw the sun die and the world wither away to a frozen husk. Some twenty seconds after Kaegan had knocked, the door opened, revealing Eoin, the mayor of Ceadaichte Mòir.

"HelloithasbeenagesisagesisRizalihere" said Kaegan in one massive slur of words followed by a tremendous exhale.

"W-why...yes...Master Kaegan, would you like something to eat?" stammered the mayor with the puzzlement appropriate for conversing with a sixteen year old having a crisis.

Kaegan suddenly stared straight forward. "I will eat," he said in a flat voice. He blinked several times.

"Very good, I'll have Saoirse set aside some of what we had left over. Master Rizali is in the guest room, take the hall to the left and he's in the first door to your right."

Kaegan had no idea who that was, but that sound A-OK. Without waiting for or giving any additional signal, Kaegen moved with demonic speed down the hallway and into the room on the right.

---

Rizali had spent the better part of the afternoon reading the book he'd received from Síne, spending only a handful of minutes in the mayor's guest room before moving out into the main study area, where he'd wavered back and forth between focused reading and socialising with first the mayor's wife, and then both she and the mayor once he had returned from the day's duties.

It wasn't that the book was boring; the technical aspects of the writing were rigidly academic and prosaic, but the actual content was a font of interest. It was more that he couldn't get the thought out of his head that the way to get them out of here -how many days have we been here?- was through building a strong relationship with the most influential people in the village. And those people were, primarily, Eoin and Saoirse. It was only once it was nearing evening that the elf returned once more to the room- he could feel certain magical weaves growing… thin, needing to be reinforced.

With very little room for exaggeration, four minutes had passed between the door to the guest room closing and that same door suddenly, and very violently, opening again. None other than Kaegan, the demon of Port Erin himself, stood in the doorway, just in time to see a pale, thin figure turn with shock, fortunately covered by the same robes they'd been wearing before. Now that the hood was down, Kaegan would not only see a long, slender pair of ears that gave Rizali away as an elf, but also a shape and form that would throw many assumptions into contention. "Kaegan what the hell are you doing?!" they asked, before very quickly waving a hand and closing the door behind him.

"WE MUST LEAVE," declared Kaegan attempting to hold open the door as though an incomprehensible force of nature might shut it and delay this request another minute. Alas, it closed anyway, scooping him into the room.

"Oh we definitely need to leave, this place is weird and I don't like it," Rizali replied, walking quickly over to the writing desk at the far wall and flipping their journal to approximately the halfway point. They produced a small bag of spell materials from the top drawer, then dropped a pinch of salt into their right palm.

"How did you know that food was coming?" asked Kaegan, entirely unaware of anything that required both salt *and* books.

"Saoirse is bringing food?" they asked, speeding up the ritual. If Kaegan was entirely unphased by their appearance, that was a small relief, but the same could not be counted on for farmers. With very quick, precise motions, Rizali spread the salt around their palm into a star shape, clapped their left palm against it, and then slid their palms apart. In that instant, he was the same Rizali that Kaegan had met before, and pulled up his hood. It wasn't a perfect weave, but it would get him through the night. "Why would you ever have one of them come in here when we have to talk about how to get out of here right now?!"

"There's a window?" said Kaegan. It was more of an observation than a recommendation for departure.

"That's a great idea, we can escape out the window and go talk about this in the tavern over a nice, calming cup of water."

"Okay, so let me stop you right there. I think there's something up with the water that makes everyone...like they are"

"That's a grand theory, have you brought it up with Lyndh yet?" Rizali's tone probably carried his sarcasm.

Kaegan mentally steeled himself for the question at hand. Took a deep breath of air and calmed himself to answer, in the most impassioned way he was able.

"No."

Rizali's eyes narrowed. "That's probably fine, then. There are two ways this can go, and I want your help deciding. Either we can go right now in the night, make camp a few kilometres into the woods, and then have a head start before anyone notices we're gone, or else we can wait until morning and possibly be stopped or pursued by these insane people. Both have their upsides, obviously; leaving in the morning means we have sunlight for as long as it lasts, but leaving at night means we might not end up disembowelled and at the bottom of a well."

"You did hear me say 'WE MUST LEAVE' right?"

"Oh yes, it was very big and dramatic, a fantastic icebreaker."

"Well, it's not like we haven't met before."

It was in this moment that Rizali realised Kaegan hadn't noticed what he'd walked in on. That was probably for the best. "You make a good point. Still, very big and dramatic, along with the door opening. Good work. So your vote is for tonight then?"

"WE MUST LEAVE," said Kaegan, bright eyed and full of the optimism of existing in a location that was not subject to rabbit man.

At that exact moment, a soft knock came at the door. Saoirse's voice resonated through the wood, "I have your food ready, Kaegan."

Rizali glared at his travelling companion and mouthed 'WE MUST LEAVE'. He then put on a happy smile, walked to the door, and opened it. "Thank you so much, Saoirse. Kaegan will be right out to enjoy that, we were just planning out our day tomorrow. Be only a minute." He gently closed the door, then turned back. "Okay, do we nab Cathal from wherever he's staying?"

"Who? Look, the last person that I talked to was a hobo who ran at me with a knife? I don't think we can take any chances."

"Very well, then let's do this right. I can do this with two people, but no more I’m afraid." Rizali tied the bag of ritual items to his belt, slipped his journal into one of the inner pockets of his robes, threw a larger bag over one shoulder, and grabbed Kaegan by the wrist. "Are you ready to leave at this very second?"

"I have literally no possessions in this world that I am not holding," Kaegan said appearing both dressed and empty-handed.

"I hope you’re holding onto them tightly, then." Rizali said, closing their eyes for a moment before the world shifted around them both. Suddenly, they were in front of Lyndh, who was standing outside the inn. He was the only person outside, almost as if he had wanted to escape it all, which also benefited the pair that had appeared out of the shadows. "Lyndh, are you ready to leave at this exact moment?"

The barbarian grunted happily, shouldering his kora sword. The inn was close to the edge of the forest, which meant the walk wasn’t too far. Before entering the forest, where he was mildly afraid that his magic wouldn’t work properly anyway, the mage turned and wove a timed spell with the arm not holding his bag. When he was next able to appreciate it, Cathal would understand that Rizali had given him a mental map of where they were going and a heading leading him directly to them. But only if he wanted to use it.

"Alright, I have no more ties to this village, let’s go," he said, turning back to his party.