“If you really want to know about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is…,” the shopkeeper almost seemed to hesitate. He glanced left and right as if to ensure none would overhear what he said next. Tiller followed his glances but there was nothing to see except the expansive white blankness and the lounging minotaurs.
The shopkeeper leaned forward, like a conspirator, until the beak of his mask was nearly touching Tiller’s face. Tiller tried not to recoil from the grisly visage and purported power of this being. It didn’t help that he was listening to every word narrated around him. In fact, he cast an annoyed glance skyward as he heard this, like he still couldn’t pick up on the fact that I’m not in the shit-stained sky!
The shopkeeper said, “There is something I really would like to have. I told you earlier not to tip your hand and say you’d give anything for something… but I will tell you this. You want to go home? I’d give anything, even that, if you could find the green syntra, then I would give you anything, including sending you back to your family…
“Syntra… how do I find that? The hell is it?”
The shopkeeper leaned back to his original position, waving his hands in dismissal. “That’s your job. You can’t ask me to do half of it!”
“But I don’t know anything about this fucking world!”
Tiller forgot for a moment that Maeve and Pod regarded this being as something godlike. Red light flickered in its eyes at his tone. The flicker was almost imperceptibly brief, but quite intentionally not imperceptible.
The shopkeeper said, “There’s a library in Medley. You can start there if you go down that path.”
Tiller stood in silence as the shopkeeper regarded him. He could feel the threads of some kind of direction tightening. It wasn’t comfortable but it was better than the aimless flailing he’d experienced these past hours. But this wasn’t enough. This was, in some ways, even worse than the aimless flailing. At least during the aimless flailing he’d been able to imagine waking up or stepping back into the world where his family awaited him. If he accepted the challenge laid before him it would mean accepting this reality. It would mean accepting that his task here would take him a long time, to his perception at least. Weeks, months, years. And he didn’t even know how…
“How am I supposed to start? Earning money? Finding, what did you call them, syntra?”
“Syntra, my boy. Just the one, the green one.”
“Fine. Where do I begin? I’m practically naked in a desert of white.”
“You have your sigils. You have Earth, Shovel and Farming. I’m a little disappointed you can’t see the potential there.”
Tiller looked around, making a show of the gesture. “And what do I farm in? That patch of earth? How long is this going to take? How many years would it take to make ten million gold coins?”
“Or the sigils? I’d take a bundle, pro-rated.”
Tiller shook, his face pale and trembling with restrained rage. “How?”
“Starting is usually a good way to get the ball rolling. If it took you twenty years you’d be back to your family in two months…”
“Two months!?”
“You’re focusing on the negative, young Tiller. You need a can-do attitude to make this work. Look at me, I started not better off than you and now I’m, well, how should I say it…”
The red light crackled in the shopkeeper’s eyes again. “I’m very comfortable.”
Tiller backed up a step. He was overwhelmed, hopeless, and filled with anger.
The head behind the unreadable bird mask bobbled slightly on its neck and there was a softening in the posture. “Look. If you had something worth trading I have a composter here. It would make things so much easier. But the sad reality is that you don’t possess anything worth such a treasure. I’ll be stopping at Medley. I’ll do you a favor, and I’m not one for favors, I’ll trade the composter for something there. A lot of folk will want it, but if you move fast in your enterprise then maybe you can go get it.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“A composter?”
“You have no idea what a composter can do for you. It would be the lifeblood of your new venture.”
Tiller was ghostly as the words trailed out of him, “My venture…”
With a near-electric jolt the shopkeeper snapped straight, “I nearly forgot! You’re in luck! Today I am providing free samples! Here, my boy, enjoy!”
The leather-gloved hand jabbed forth and pressed a bundle into Tiller’s hand. He looked down in confusion. He held a bundle of seed packets. What made them so weird and discordant was that they were nearly identical to what he would have purchased in his own world. Little rectangular envelopes of plastic-coated paper bearing labels and instructions.
Suddenly there was a flurry of motion. Tiller looked up to see the shopkeeper moving urgently, rapidly strapping his merchandise down with what looked like bungee cords, shoving boxes onto shelves, a storm of cloak and action. The minotaurs heaved themselves into position and the hulking wagon began to shift.
Panicked, Tiller said, “Wait, I have more questions!”
Undoing the clasps of the window, the shopkeeper said, “I’m not in the business of questions, my boy. I’m in the business of selling things. And as you know, in business, time is money!”
“Wait! Where is this place? You know about other worlds, then you know what this place is! How did I get here? Please!”
The wagon began to roll away. As the shutter of the window slammed shut, the shopkeeper uttered a farewell, “Honestly, boy! I told you, there’s a library in Medley! Give a man a fish and you feed…”
His words trailed off as the huge wagon rolled away. Tiller stood, his arms dangling wetly at his sides, the seed packets clasped loosely, and watched.
He said to himself, “How do I get started with this… I just want to go home…”
He stood a moment, then glanced skyward. His face morphing from an expression of despair to one of annoyance.
“I said, how do I get fucking started with this?”
Oh, he wasn’t talking to himself.
I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, I’m not Holy Spirit, I don’t live in the sky.
“The Holy Spirit doesn’t live in the sky either… I think”
Well, whatever. I’m not above you.
“Well, whatever, how the fuck do I get started with this!”
I’m, like the narrator, dude. I’m not supposed to be your game guide.
“But you know, don’t you?”
That’s neither here nor there.
“Tell me something.”
No, not my job.
“Tell me something or I’ll stand here until I faint from exhaustion or dehydration. Where will your precious progression be then?”
You wouldn’t do that. You want to get back to your family. You’re filled with an immense and irresistible urge to take action and seize control of your destiny.
“Try me.”
Tiller stood there. Unmoving, for what might have amounted to a whole half of a minute.
Jesus Christ. The Leprechauns are an unexhausted source of information. And the shopkeeper told you about thirty times to get to Medley.
Tiller looked at the sky, still, like a fucking idiot. He screwed up his face in an expression unreadable, but that may have been annoyance, then turned to walk back to the island of Earth.
As he took each step he thought of all the information that had been given him. As he walked, his expression hardened. That honestly tiresome mask of confusion and worry started to give way to something altogether more appealing in a main character. Determination took root and blossomed into a tree of purpose and direction.
Tiller had himself a plan. And none too fucking soon.
Maeve was waiting anxiously at the edge of the long grass. Pod sat some distance behind her sipping from a skin and looking like he was growing inebriated.
Maeve spoke, worry mingled with interest, “How did it go, love? Did he help ya?”
Tiller walked past her until he was standing between the two of them. “He didn’t help much, but he didn’t do nothing. I think it’s time I started helping myself. I don’t know where the fuck I am, or how the hell I got here. I have only the vaguest clue of how shit works here, and I cringe at how video-gamey all of this seems. But what I do know is that I need gold. And I think my best path forward is to start farming.”
Maeve watched him with interest, nodding along. “That’s not a bad idea, love. With your sigils you’d make a mighty farmer by standards ’round here.”
Tiller said, “I have some questions. I need to know more. What’s Medley?”
Pod said, “A dump is what it is.”
Maeve said, “Don’t mind him. Medley is a fine town. Finest town around for miles. He’s only sore because he just got barred from the last tavern.”
“Medley’s a funny name,” Tiller said.
Maeve nodded, “That it is. You know what a medley is, right? Well, that’s what the town is. The Barrens is in the middle of the Realms and Medley has folks from all of them. It’s a hodgepodge, but it’s a thriving place, full of shops and taverns and every kind of folk you could imagine.”
Tiller said, “I need to go there. How far is it?”
Maeve rocked her head back and forth. “Oh, ’twould be about a day’s walk.”
“A whole day?” his tone was the embodiment of disappointment.
She said, “That it is. Sorry to tell you so. We don’t take it on easily when we need to head in there.”
He thought for a moment. “I need to make money. That’s what matters. I have seeds and I’ll bet there’s some unnatural system governing how they grow. I guess it makes sense that I do my farming now and wait a while before I go there.”
Maeve said, “There’s no point at all in going to Medley unless you’ve got money.”
“Fine. I’ll get started here. Could you tell me about your skills, your sigils, if you don’t mind?”
Pod belched loudly and slurred, “Why you wanna know about our sigils?”
Tiller turned to him. A new light was burning in his eyes. A light of certainty and direction. “I told you I need to make money. Well, making money can happen with effort and dedication. But it happens a hell of a lot faster with scale.”
