《The Timebender》10. Streets
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Adrian went with high hopes to the city but then he remembered something. “What will I do with my clothes?” If he was going to go to a medieval city, he would stand out like a sore thumb. “My T-shirt is okay, I guess. But my jeans and shoes? That’s a no go.” Adrian wore a blank shirt so he thought that could go unnoticed. His trousers and shoes were another matter.
“Should I go barefoot?” Adrian asked himself once he was close to the city walls. “It’s a medieval town definitely,” Adrian said while looking at the walls. “it will surely have a lot of shit and rats on the floor. To barefoot or to enter, that is the question.” After a moment of thought, Adrian said. “Fuck it!” Took his shoes off and headed to the dirt path that led to the city’s entrance.
It seemed to be a queue at the door, and the guards (which wore standard full plate armor and longsword) were revising the papers of the merchants who wanted to enter. ‘Well, fuck.’ Adrian thought as he quickly made up a story that seemed believable.
“Papers, please.” Said the guard.
Adrian was both concerned and alleviated when he understood the guard that talked. He did understand the language at Mundompio, but he did need papers.
“Oh, right.” Adrian talked back. He started looking at his pockets with eagerness and then opened his eyes when he found nothing. All of this was a charade, of course. “Emm- It seems that I have lost my papers.
One of the two guards looked at him and said. “You are traveling a bit light, don’t you think?” The guard told both to Adrian and his partner.
“I was attacked by the mantis, even though I killed a bunch of them, I had to flee as I was overwhelmed,” Adrian answered to the guard. “I had to abandon my bag there, maybe I left the papers there… “The last part was said almost blubbering as part of Adrian’s theatrics.
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“You killed mantises?” The guard asked Adrian in doubt.
“Yes, I can defend myself.” Adrian pointed at his daggers. “I lived in the woods and I wanted to take a quest to kill some of those insects.”
“So, you want to become an adventurer?” The guard said and Adrian nodded. “You look a bit old to enter now at the world of adventuring, but your life is only yours.” The guard told him and moved out of the way. “The guild is the big-wooden building at the plaza, straight forward, there’s no way to get lost.”
“I can go in?” Adrian asked.
“Go.” Said the other guard, clearly molested that Adrian wasted his time. “Clean the queue.”
“Welcome to Czecheri.” Said the nice guard once Adrian stepped inside the walled city.
Czecheri cried fantasy medieval burg to Adrian. Houses made from wood and stone, people that didn’t look very nice or happy flowing the streets, walkways made out from rocks that ranged from pebbles to large slats… It did smell bad, but not as bad Adrian had imagined. ‘Maybe thanks to magic people can dispose of their wastes? I don’t know if Mundompio is supposed to be a high or low fantasy setting,’ If Adrian recalled correctly, the Record tutorial message when he was summoned told something about being transported to Mundompio while the Earth was being reformed by the Record. So, it wouldn’t be excessive to suppose that people at Mundompio could use the Record.
Adrian lefts those thoughts and went right to the plaza. A huge fountain, approximately ten meters in radius, marked the center of the plaza. Adrian saw a great number of merchants selling their fresh goods at their makeshift ambulant store. He did also saw a bard that was in the middle of a song.
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“Beware, oh beware, the daughter of the spring, ‘cause she poison brings…” Adrian had no interest either in music nor the bard, so he walked past him to go to his errand.
Adrian’s stomach growled as he moved in the middle of the plaza. ‘I need to become an adventure as fast as I can, or we will be forced to eat mantises for dinner.’ The plaza was massive, the city looked bigger at the center of it than outside. Adrian looked for the big wooden building that the nice guard told him about. Adrian supposed that the guild was that considerably bigger building that had a large bow and sword signboard in front of it.
‘None of the buildings have names displayed on them, could this be because of analphabetism?’ Adrian thought while he observed carefully the plaza.
Without more delay, Adrian went towards the guild building. Adrian wouldn’t lie if he said he was nervous. Adrian made a huge breath and let it out slowly. In less than a second, he was decided. He entered the building of stereotypical fantasy stories.
When Adrian entered the guild, he did notice two things. First, the fight between order and chaos that were the adventurers that were drinking at the bar-saloon-restaurant and the ones who were reading carefully the information from the quest log. Second, there was a long, very long, queue at the guild’s secretary. Adrian pondered if he did enter at rush hour when he saw twenty people distributed between two guild officers at the desk. The problem wasn’t the number of people in the queue, but the time that the officers took which each person. This was going to go for long.
After five minutes and only one person being attended, Adrian became stressed at the fact of waiting fifty minutes to begin his adventure. ‘Fuck that.’ He thought. ‘System, change my perception of time so times flows faster relative to me.’
Time perception set to Elthary Rule. Now time is measured in mana drops instead of seconds.
Now Adrian saw as time flew in front of him, literally. ‘[Celeratio] does have its advantages.’ Adrian thought as the queue started to decrease significantly faster, and then walked in this strange time as it was now his turn.
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