The wanderer's morning routine was beginning in the daze he was caught. He had already taken his overcoat off and was halfway through pulling off his shirt when he suddenly realized.
The place felt bigger.
He was still in the Borough Hall of Adventuring. And some were staring, some weren't.
Quite a few were enjoying the embarrassing spectacle. But something preposterous happened before the show could expand further. An awkward one at that.
The awkward part wasn't the undressing in a public place. It was of Ulrina tackling him, but also followed up by Mina picking up after him and taking the wanderer away.
Not outside through the main door. No, both took him to their shared quarters at the Borough Hall.
Ulrina smacking her own forehead, "What were you thinking?! You could have asked us! We just arrived in front of you."
Then she turned to Mina, "and why?" Baffled at Mina's attachment.
Ulrina pointed to Mina holding onto the wanderer's only wardrobe fashion-wear, his brown overcoat.
"It is soft underneath", she remarked in a soft, melodic voice. Her eyes spoke volumes of her attachment.
The wanderer was stunned at the speed. He rattled himself out of his exhaustion. Sleep can be a demon if someone trips just a bit.
Apologising to Mina and Ulrina, he asked, "Who was that last night?"
His attempt at changing the topic, he wondered 'would raising the question about the room be a good change of topic?'
He was still half naked. Ulrina pulled his shirt down on him.
Ulrina's heart clouded with the illness that comes from doing something that your soul so utterly hated. The depth of hatred knew no boundaries. For it could climb in directions people rarely realise it can.
Mina's heart had several of similar knots, yet she kept flinging them away. Trying to find an answer.
Mina answered in a hollow voice, "he is just a moving-rock who sometimes fills a few holes whether the holes want to be filled or not."
Her face was deadpan, and her eyes—if one looked closely—seemed to wish they could be removed from her body and soul, even if they appeared to be looking at the wanderer.
The wanderer didn't even feel she was even seeing anything, let alone using her eyes. A stillness began.
Ulrina's sigh unsettled the silence that followed those words. The sigh wasn't loud, but its timing it was off by half an hour.
A half-hour of utter silence had enthralled holding that room captive before this.
Ulrina and Mina were missing from their reception job. That was normal for people, sometimes the receptionists weren't there. They were humans afterall, possibly.
But for the rumour seekers it just meant someone was having fun. Except there weren't any rumour seekers anymore in Ashtrim.
Everyone already was entrapped in Mina's larger than life's webs. It was the outskirts that she needed to be brought in into her plans.
The ones who needed more for a venture had gained one. Ulrina and Mina's tackle of the wanderer hadn't traveled through Mina's webs. But the events were relayed through the tunnels in the shadows, to the ones who wanted to know of it. To know of the weaknesses in Ashtrim.
Ulrina continued her friend's words, now she actually looked like the teen adult she was. Just above 19 years for this world, the world where every week had nine days.
The wanderer knew of the nine days of the week, but not its meaning or its actual names.
Listening to Ulrina, the wanderer, a 15 year old for this world, was reminded again why he stayed awake through the night.
"By moving-rock, she does mean what she said, and he also helps in certain exterminations. He is also just another teenager left behind by the Kingdom of Riga's march. He could be considered …a partner?" Ulrina's own words were laden with her fogged mind.
The wanderer stood up, nodding to Ulrina's words. He first straightened the bed he was forced down upon, the only bed in the room. Its bed sheet already a bit scrunched up, a better word would be rumpled.
The hints behind it shadowing their concepts in the wanderer's mind.
Mina handed him his brown overcoat. But he saw in her eyes as if she wanted to, to help him wear his brown overcoat.
"May you help me with this, ma'am?" asked the wanderer. His choice of words carried hints of his reluctance to accept the reality portrayed by Mina.
Mina's mind picked up after the thoughts she had been having. She decided it is time to deliver on them.
Mina smiled politely, "of course, but sir, I am younger than Ulrina maybe even Litora you met on the rim."
Her words alluded the wanderer to realise who truly Mina could become. She continued, "You should know she's just 16, while Slin he does look older he's also 16."
Mina put on the right arm of the overcoat on the wanderer's arm. Ulrina joined in.
She then helped with the left arm, continuing her friend's words, "So sir, it is best if you call us by our names, rather than be ambiguous in your conversations." Ulrina's smile brightened, a hope may have slipped in.
The wanderer sighed, "I'll remember, but Mina, Ulrina, I have to leave. I have to. Where do you suggest?"
He looked at both of them.
Mina answered, "why not decide the route while you travel out of the outskirts to the steel wall. Maybe some of that noise tell you where your quests lies."
She knew of where the wanderer wanted to head. Mina always knew everything in Ashtrim the city.
The wanderer considered her suggestion. "What do you think of the myths of the Lady of Repentance?"
It was Ulrina's turn. "She may come, she may not. But her way of repentance is undeniable. The world may dance on the will of the Master, her father, but she will be there."
It was an honest answer at least according to Ulrina.
For the wanderer, he only learned of the temple of the Repenter, the Lady of Repentance when he did come to Ashtrim, the city.
His walk's beginning had been filled with thoughts on the conversation he held with Mina on his next destination. He wondered how and from where she got the knowledge he needed.
It wasn't even an hour when the wanderer, clad in a brown overcoat, was once again in the outskirts, travelling towards the steel wall. Except he didn't leave from the gate he entered from, or the gate he met Litora for the first time.
He left from the third gate in between those two gates, out of all the eleven gates he could have left from.
He had walked several leagues, and he intended to walk several more. His desire was ever-burning, aflame after the realization hit him, what the words 'moving rock' meant.
He abhorred that person, he was willing to kill him, chop him and feed to the beasts.
Yet, he pulled himself back, and a tinkling sound helped guide him.
This one was connected to a stream, and people were chucking in red-hot rocks in it time to time.
A reminder that people will do the decree's request not thinking of its true implications.
The wanderer travelled through the outskirts to the farms in front of the gate, one he turned back to look and wave back. He saw a wave of goodbye back from the rim.
Someone silently came and stood by him, "fancy seeing you here, oh, wanderer."
The wanderer didn't respond, he turned towards the gate and walked out.
It wasn't even a few paces away from the steel gate's massive sliced gate. The wanderer asked aloud to the world itself, it seemed, "So, what's your quest?"
A voice replied back honestly from a short distance away, "mine? You are asking about mine?"
The wanderer continued walking for hours unanswering that question. Silence was an answer for people who wanted it to be one.
A wanderer who wonders these thoughts wasn't among the masses who accepted silence as an answer.
So an answer never came. The wanderer kept walking through the night and a day, until he reached a divergence on the road.
He turned around and looked at the only man; maybe that was also a teenager, rugged into a man.
The wanderer's stare was enough. "Joy. Beginning of joy. What about you?" asked Cheal.
"Cheal, right?" The wanderer got the answer as a nod. Cheal now stood shoulder to shoulder to him.
The wanderer facing towards the morning's horizon, while Cheal faced towards the evening's horizon. "Partner?" asked Cheal.
The wanderer's many inhibitions suffocated against the simple one word question by Cheal. He became more wary of Cheal, first the word posters, and now Cheal proposes to be a partner.
"Someday, maybe." Answered the wanderer in a brown overcoat, continuing, "we are going right to the port of Kingdom of Riga, Cleaving."