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Ch 3 & 4 <--- You are Here
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Name: Narase
Time: 5:00 pm
Location: Rikon

This trip was a good idea because...I apparently have lost my sense of direction. It's been 3 days since I had first decided to go east and it's not because I intentionally walked slow. I left that day with the intention of at least reaching this fortress, called Garan, within a day but I was swept away into the heart of the dark wilderness and it took me 3 days to finally get back onto the path that I had chosen.
Because of this I have ran into many somewhat brutal creatures waiting for my fall so for my own well-being and, I might add, out of my own frustration I defeated every single one and received numerous herbs and other items they carried. While this might seem pointless, this is usually my main source of income when I am not in a mood to find a job. After all, these are the only ways to get money to buy more useful items from shops.

Well anyway, I finally stumbled onto this town called Rikon so now I'm looking for it's item shop to sell the numerous things I've picked up. I find the stores so peculiar the fact that they usually buy anything a traveler wants to sell to them. I guess shop owners just have the impression that anything a traveler carries must be rare...which is quite a strange outlook on things but I can see how this thought can be justified. Foreign people would need a lot of money to travel, that's just a fact. Although these days it seems like these "rich people" don't seem to want to travel much as they used to...

As I look for the local shop I pass by a runeshop and take a minute to check what runes they had for sale. As expected they had no Blue Gate Runes, just as I suspected, just like always. Way back there was a time I was an apprentice under a runemaster and had learned the secrets of embedding runes and how they worked. Of course I learned about the many different kinds of runes too but I always liked the Blue Gate Rune: a very hard-to-find rune that has the ability to summon creatures aka "monsters" into battle. When I was small I saw that rune as the most powerful of all the runes because to me the rune's ability was like a small chance to act like god: to create monsters from thin air and then being able to control them.
I never completed going through the procedure of becoming a runemaster but I learned enough to know how to embed runes myself. So I collect runes that I find and keep them in a small bag that I carry around, embedding them onto me when I need them, taking them off afterwards. I sometimes referred to myself as "The one and only traveling runeshop. Runemaster included" to curious travelers brave enough to ask me.
Ah, but there is one rune that I never remove. My Blue Gate Rune that lies in my forehead. I really like the Blue Gate rune so I guess it's no surprise that I have one. But see...when I had first learned about the Blue Gate rune it was so rare that no one was sure what it looked like. The Blue Gate rune at that time could only be identified by the type of spells it could cast (the summoning of monsters) and the light blue aura it gives off when it is used. So how did I search for a rune that no one was certain about it's appearance? Let's just say for now that I didn?t search for it...instead it found me.
I treasure this particular rune so much. Along with it come the memories of a past that I do not soon want to forget...

Finally after finding the rune shop and selling my surplus of not very useful items and, at the same time, buying more useful ones I ask someone for directions to Garan then Kouan, the next stop on my journey east. I've heard some great stories about that particular city and I want to see with my own eyes what it looks like.
Hmm...but maybe I should take a rest here a couple days it is somewhat late today and I won't get to Kouan by nightfall at this rate.
Instead of leaving, I head back towards the inn and pay for a room for a few days. I could stay longer if I wish. Besides, I am in no hurry, it's not like the Great Forest will disappear in a couple of days.

AH~ a nice bed, I have almost forgotten the great difference between the warm heart-warming feeling a bed gives to that of the soft and cool grass fields that reminds us of our ancestors...

Name: Narase
Time: 7:00 am (a few weeks later)
Location: Rikon

After taking a relaxing nap I wake up and finally decide to take a look around town.

Grah...sleeping is so good but if you stay asleep for so long people will mistake you as dead or diseased. Only a few "intelligent" (and I use that word cautiously) people would actually come near and try to determine if you still have a pulse or not...although sometimes their means of achieving this vary; from the traditional "finding pulse in wrist" way to the somewhat new "hitting a person really hard with something heavy or pointy and seeing if there is a response" way.

Strangely none have come to bother me this time, I find it a bit odd but as long as they don't start praying for mercy as I approach them, I do not mind. Speaking of which, I happened to be in a village that was being attacked by monsters a while back and people actually did get down on their knees and started begging for mercy as I approached them. I've wondered about that for so long...did I just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, when the people had been driven to insanity by the monsters and they begged any who passed by for mercy...or was there something special about the inhabitants of that small nearly hidden village...could they see something that others could not?

Anyways, I get my few belongings I have, trudge down the steps making sure not to trip over myself while doing so, pay the innkeeper some extra money for the extra nights I stayed, and I walk out the door.

Ouch...ok maybe I shouldn't have done it that fast. I cringe at the sunlight while asking a resident of the town what time of day it is. He looks at me rather strangely and tells me that the sunrise what not so long ago yet not a little whiles ago either and the man walks off.

............um...ok that'd be... sometime early morning then. I start to walk around town wondering if I should talk to other people to confirm my suspicion that either everyone talked in riddles or that the man really was really a traveler.

After taking a look around town I still felt that I was not fully awake and decided to admire some runes at the runeshop, instead of departing town immediately. I walk into the shop and I feel this unique sensation that I've always felt in a runeshop. I like the dim to very dark atmosphere of the shop. And the emptiness of the shop although, for some of the runeshops I've gone to, the runemaster sometimes posts up beautiful paintings of people using runes onto the walls. These are more or less used to attract children's interest in the runes, eventually springing into them an interest in becoming a runemaster therefore getting more students to pass on the trade and knowledge. This, I agree, is one of many good ways to spark a child's interest. Hmm...I do not think my interest in runes was started that way though...yet any other possible ways that I thought I might've gotten interested, sounds much less likely than this one.

So, I knock onto the door of the runeshop and a nice middle-aged lady opens the door and smiles to me. She says to me "My, aren't you early. I don't usually open this early but seeing your face as the first one at my door, it won't hurt that I open shop early" I give her a smile and let her lead me to the display case of runes. "I'll be on this side of the room doing some cleaning, call me if you need anything" she says to me and leaves me at the display case. I ponder if I should tell her she's one of the nicest runmaster's I've ever seen but my thought get interrupted by the sound of the door opening.

I take a glance back towards the door and notice a man in what appears to be a school uniform of some sort since right besides him a girl looking just like him, probably a relative, is wearing an almost identical outfit. Right behind them is an even smaller girl with a frightened look who doesn't look anything at all like them. I turn back around thinking to myself must be some organization to rescue lost children or something and continue to look into the display case...