The Gilded Plains

5 - Cardinal - Awake and Interrogate

Morning came much sooner than Nova had hoped. He awoke from bright sunlight which shone directly from the one window located high on the east wall straight into his eyes. He turned over hoping to rest for a little longer, he needed his beauty sleep of course, but that didn't seem to be an option for him today. For today was a day of interrogation, questions, answers, and learning of this new world.

He was, as told, not awoken by Darius the innkeeper, nor was he awoke by either of his new acquaintances and or rescuers, Frey and Cliad. There was however a small note on the table in the opposite corner of the room, before reading it however Nova had to prepare for the day to come. Without a brush he ran his fingers vigorously through his hair in a way that felt it would look decent, he tidied up his clothes, pulling on threads to smaller any holes and tears, and straightening his shirt and pants before walking to the table.

The note read, gathering at juniper's bar around eight, we await you with questions galore, signed neatly Darius. Nova had no clue however as to where anything here was, it might have been hours past eight by now for all he knew, and he honestly didn't care, he was still tired, shocked, and confused by the past couple of days, and rightfully so.

He picked up the key off the corner stand and placed it in his left pocket, the one that didn't have a hole. Down the hall and waiting for him in the main entrance room was Frey, still as gorgeous as he remembered from the previous night, he of course didn't look quite so. Non the less she smiled at him, the kind of smile a relative possesses when seeing you after a long few years. It was a sort of familiar smile.

"If you're wondering where Juniper's is, it's almost directly across town, just two blocks further north when you get to the end of the of the street." She pointed west.

"Oh uh, thanks I guess, aren't you going with?" Nova asked in hopes of her saying yes.

"No," she said in the straightest face humanly possible, she clearly had other matters to attend to, matters likely in the inn.

Nova now looking slightly disappointed, walked towards the front door of the inn, "Thanks again." He said as he stepped into the early morning light outside. It still felt odd, being outside, seeing trees and grass up close, but he now realized that this, anything really was better than being trapped in a box your whole life. The walking paths, or streets as Frey had called them, were mainly made up of dirt and stone, every so often there would be a patch of concrete or black stone. There wasn't much to the village, maybe a dozen or two buildings in total, a few places to eat, an inn and bathhouse, a place labeled smithery and welding. Among these were dotted around small shops of all sorts selling, clothes, tools, and even a tiny little place that sold books, not many but some.

Apart from being a small town, it seemed very advanced, at least in comparison to the tower, wires hung from home to home providing electricity, there were a few smaller sized computers in the occasional home, and a large printer located in the back of the bookstore, no vehicles everyone walked the streets between the stone buildings.

The bar and restaurant called Juniper's was the largest eating establishment in the whole of the village, seating up to twenty or so people at a time. Today however it held almost double, anyone who was anyone in the town was here with questions and concerns, everyone except a few, Frey, to name one. Darius sat at the head of a long table already telling stories he had made up about Nova and his journey, he looked quite embarrassed and shut up as soon as Nova entered. "I'm here," Nova said aloud in his most showman-like tone, "Now before I answer any questions, I would like to ask a few myself." The room went quiet, all eyes were on him, just as he had hoped they would be.

"Right then," Nova began. "First things first, is there any way a man could get a drink around here." He said looking directly at the bar. Without saying anything a tall glass of what was apparently wine was passed through the crowd to the table in front of him. "Thank you, so, regarding this small town, how does one gain money and interest, I assume I would need something to pay for anything I do really. Then I was wondering how many are there, people that are." Still, everyone was quiet. Nova coughed, "Okay then, the really important questions. On my walk through the woods here at night, I was attacked, I would like to know what by, they were no bigger than a dog, and bore six legs each, also having four black eyes." This caught the crowd's attention.

There were whispers and murmurs among the people in the bar, finally, someone spoke. A woman hooded in a cloak rose from the middle of the crowd, "those were monsters, demons, beasts, they stop at nothing to feast and reproduce, how many were there, how many did you kill."

"I, uh." Nova began to speak astonished by her response, beasts, demons, there really are monsters, he thought to himself, "there were four of them I believe, and I killed three, Frey got the fourth." He spoke confidently, his face however was still in shock.

The woman sat back down in her seat, "Good, as long as they're dead."

The questioning and murmuring in the crowd continued on until almost nightfall, Nova told the tale of his falling, his walking, and his killing. He was told a few stories of their own theories, on how the world began, all of which were similar in concept to his own. He learned that this was the main place for meeting, the bar, he slept in an inn, but was offered a home for an amount of money he had not yet earned, easily the biggest news and surprise however was that there were more. Not more people, not more towers, not even more beasts, but more stations, more towns, one even was nearly big enough to be called a city, it had a school, and a university, a hundred homes, and places and shops for things he had yet to discover. This place was known most commonly as Asitol, the great city.

The next few days were much of the same, meeting new people, getting gifts and presents from local stores, Nova ended up washing quite a few glasses at the bar at night to cover the cost of his inn room. He was told it could be free for a week or even two if he helped out, but Nova still felt the need to pay the man, he couldn't bear it to himself to seem poor in front of others. At nights he shivered, and longed for a soft bed, his back soon ached after a couple of hours of sleep, it wasn't nice, and it definitely wasn't pretty, but it was all he had.

Exploring the city and meeting new faces was nice and all, but the notion of there still being more people, and larger cities and places to go refused to leave his mind, the thoughts caged themselves in a steel trap. This made conversing with new folk harder than he had hoped, his mind raced with stories he made on the spot, stories of new cities, and how they formed, none, however, lasted more than minutes before he was snatched away by another new face. Luckily for Nova, it wouldn't be too far now until he found a face, that could finally answer some questions, a new face that everyone in town was excited to see.

It was Nova's fifth morning in the new town, soon to be his sixth night, he awoke with a sense of familiarity, there was once again a small note placed on the corner table in his room, he hoped now that he was not being watched by Darius while he slept. Doubting that the old man would even do any more than place a note early in the morning, he stretched out the nightly cramps and straightened out his new pair of clothes, a gift from the seamstress. He wore a lovely brown pair of pants, and an almost leather-like vest atop of his new grey sweater she made just for him. These were easily the best gift he had gotten in a long time.

The small note Darius placed on top of the table read Gathering at juniper's bar eight o-clock, there is a man you might want to meet. This was probably Nova's fifteenth time at that bar so far, it seemed to be where everyone wanted to go and talk, and drink to have some fun. The small new pocket watch he was given by the tinkerer, or repairman as he called it, told that the time was ten till eight. Startled and rushed, Nova burst open his door, not even bothering to lock it, ran down the hallway, through the main room, and westward toward Juniper's bar.