Chapter Nine

  The next day it was going to be drizzly. I made sure to hide my pad away so it would be safe from the rain. Gavin had sent a rambling email that I stopped reading once I skimmed all the bold parts and figured it was just him mostly blowing wind. Cora updated me on how much more wood I would need for repairs, and I figured if I cut down two more trees that day, I’d have enough gold and wood to get my new home just that little bit more fixed.

  Anthony had sent me an email with a link to his online store, along with an email that promised the ability to haggle if I brought goods he would be interested in trading for. I sighed. I would rather have a more concrete price range for the things I brought his way, and I didn’t know how to haggle, but I suppose there was no time like the present to learn.

  Melissa had sent me some links so I could “continue to study”, and Reagan had sent a link to the clothing store in Four Seasons. You couldn’t buy anything directly off the website, but you could see weekly updates on things that came into the store and also some information on the tree pixie sisters that ran it.

  Of course, I still had my own work to do. I got my bag of tools, a little worried at the weight. I was halfway to my garden when I realized that my institution clothes had started to get holes in them. I stared at the cloth for a second. Most of the damage was to my pants, but some of the holes and rips were on my shirt as well. I didn’t think that I’d gotten any of the slime residue on me, at least not enough to eat through my clothes. Then again, the rehab clothes were for people stuck inside all day who were encouraged not to run away, so the cloth was paper thin.

  Well, I guess new clothes would be my next thing to work toward. My tools were fixed and hopefully wouldn’t need another look over for a while. I even had a shovel and rope now. I would have to save up for repairs and maybe dream about upgrades for my tools, but now I needed to get new clothes. So, my needs were to get the things in the house fixed that were big problems and save up for suitable gardening clothing.

  For the moment, I concentrated on making sure I wouldn’t go hungry the next few weeks. So, I would package and dry things. Then I’d need new clothes. Hopefully, based on the fact that a lot of the people that came here were down on their luck, that would mean that they would have some clothes in a bargain bin or something. I had a feeling that my new nymph neighbors would judge me, but at this point, I’d wear sequins and a short skirt if I just had something without holes to wear. Or not that many holes.

  It was bad enough wearing rehab clothes in public without wearing ones bordering on indecent.

  The radishes were still growing wonderfully, but I did have to work with the earth and the few weeds that had dared to try and start to put down roots in the land I’d put to the side. When I’d gathered the wayward weeds, I watered my radishes and went to check on the orphan’s potatoes. They would actually be fully grown by the next day, which was insanely fast, but everything grew really fast in Sunshine.

  The ax was amazing. Chopping the trees was almost laughably easy. I got three down before noon and was able to put it all away. One tree to sell and two trees to Cora.

  After changing my clothes, I decided to head down to the shore. They had mentioned that I could look around the ocean. Maybe I should have asked Anthony for a fishing pole, but then again, I had no idea how to fish.

  I ended up skirting the edge of the main area of the town. Unfortunately, the Charge store was in the way of being sure to avoid all people. Still, most of the people walking around didn’t seem to be interested in anything around them. A few had Charge uniforms, and they had either a look of determination or desperation. I tried not to look at them.

  There was a moment when I wondered if I should never enter the Charge store. I had more than my hatred and uncertainty of the place to ignore it. While I could buy seeds and other things from them, the fact was that they could say I was stealing from them was always a risk. Still, they would probably have the cheapest seeds. The health food store was advertised as having seeds, but I’d compared the sales prices of the two places.

  This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Lettuce seeds for 500 gold from the health food store at 100% and 250 gold at Charge at 100%. Sure, you needed a lot of gold to apparently buy anything, but still, a 50% difference wasn’t anything to scoff at. The thing to consider was that Charge used exploitive practices on their workers in order to get their low prices, but when you didn’t have much money to begin with, worrying about ethics was a bit difficult. Of course, I’d been affected by Charge personally in the past, so it should matter.

  It was just so hard when balancing the books with what I already had to consider in my finances.

  Still, it wasn’t like I could afford much of anything when I still hadn’t fixed that leaky roof. I was sure that if Louis came to check on me, he wouldn’t like to hear that I’d left his friend’s place so pathetic. Though that seemed harsh on me seeing as I hadn’t destroyed the in the first place.

  If I was thrown out of Four Seasons, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to get another job. Well, not a legal one at any rate. Charge certainly wouldn’t have anything good to say if a potential employer called them, and while ‘high beings’ were well respected, if they fell, well, people tended to think that you’d been made wrong. If I was lucky, I’d be left to die in some alley of an overdose. If I was unlucky, some unsavory group would pick me up to sell on some black market, or I’d end up on the chaos fields.

  No, I could do this. Well, right now I just needed to concentrate on what I could find at the beach. Maybe something I could eat. Though I’d have to eat it raw which wouldn’t be great. But I’d heard that a lot of people ate seafood raw, I’d just look into how to prepare it.

  There was a fish shack. A creature I didn’t recognize the race of glanced at me before giving a vague smile before going back to working on her nails. I passed by the beach. Once my feet touched the shore, I felt a shiver pass through my whole body. I’d heard of the ocean before, and I’d never really been interested in the things I heard.

  Plants didn’t grow easily in the sand. They needed to set down roots as best they could to anchor themselves to the shore. It was a weird thought. To be so desperate to cling to life even somewhere so inhospitable. There was something almost poetic in that. In reality, it left with very little to harvest.

  Mostly looking around turned out to be pointless. Nothing but a waste of time.

  There did appear to be a walkway that led across the water to a nearby island. I wondered if that’s where the fishermen lived. I pondered if the people assigned there were like me. Gathering resources in a last-ditch effort to make something of their life.

  When I went back home, I dumped the seaweed and shells that I’d found. Some of the shells I’d found were falling apart, but a few looked nice, and I hoped they were worth at least a couple of gold. Then I spent more time spent reading my books, looking up the races that lived and pulled magic from the ocean.

  There were light creatures like mermaids and sirens, and then chaos creatures like naga. It was stressed however that sea creature were generally thought of as untrustworthy because of the myths before magical creatures. It was thought that mermaids would lore sailors into the water and drown them. Those sirens would lore the sailors to rocky places and sink their ships.

  Of course, while it warned, it didn’t actually contradict any of that information. Selkies weren’t much better with them not only having their skins stolen but then known for abandoning partners and children as soon as they got their skin back.

  I sent a quick email before I could think better about it to Melissa asking for more information that wasn’t just reasons they were mistrusted for things said before we’d even come to be. I almost asked what creatures were in Four Seasons. Instead, I sent one asking if there was information on cultures and restrictions that I should keep in mind. It still felt a little strange. I remembered people getting mad when I asked questions, but I also remembered them getting mad at just pure ignorance.

  If it was completely up to me, I’d just interact with the rest of them as little as possible. After all, I’d always been known for leaving people behind. For ignoring them and not allowing them close. For being stuck up and destroying myself in the process. Louis had made sure I couldn’t just stay by myself and only interact with who I wanted. I’d even gotten an email praising me for meeting people but encouraging me to continue to introduce myself and get to know the people in the town.

  The worst was he wanted me to go to the tavern. He even said that he’d be there Wednesday night and would buy me dinner. I was guessing it was a way to get me to also know what I could and couldn’t buy there. Which, I knew I wasn’t allowed any alcohol, even though that had never been a problem with me. Not that I hadn’t had it, it just wasn’t the substance that I’d abused,

  “But I’m not getting out of this,” I sighed as I looked at the email again.

  With an annoyed sigh, I allowed myself to sink back into my thoughts until I finally fell asleep.